Recognition launches in Manchester to help expert-led businesses become easier to find, trust and choose.

Manchester-based digital strategist Paul Culshaw has launched Recognition, a new SEO consultancy helping established experts and professional services businesses strengthen how they are found, understood and trusted online and in AI search.

The launch marks the next stage in Paul Culshaw’s move from operating primarily under his personal brand to building Recognition as a consultancy in its own right.

Recognition has been created around a problem that Paul has seen repeatedly during almost 30 years working across digital marketing, SEO, websites and strategy: businesses can possess considerable expertise while still being surprisingly difficult for potential clients to understand, recommend or choose.

“Some businesses know far more than the market gives them credit for,” said Paul.

“They may have decades of experience, excellent client work and strong commercial capability, but that expertise is not always represented clearly enough online.

“SEO can help a business become more visible, but visibility alone is not enough. The business still needs to be understood, trusted and associated with the right things when somebody finds it.”

Recognition therefore takes a broader, authority-led approach to SEO.

Rather than treating rankings, keywords, content, websites and brand positioning as unrelated activities, the consultancy considers how they work together to establish what a business should become recognised for and the evidence that supports it.

Its work can span strategic SEO and AI search, positioning and messaging, website strategy, content and authority-building, alongside business strategy and practical AI adoption.

The consultancy’s methodology, The Authority Engine, brings this thinking together across five areas: Position, Proof, Presence, Process and Profit.

Paul explained:

“The starting point is often a deceptively simple question: what do you want to be known for?

“Once that’s clear, SEO, content, proof, websites and wider visibility have something meaningful to reinforce. Recognition is about making valuable expertise easier for both people and search systems to understand and trust.”

The changing nature of search is also central to the new consultancy.

Google remains an important route to discovery, but businesses are increasingly encountered through AI Overviews, AI Mode and conversational tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini.

Recognition’s approach is designed around that wider search environment while retaining the established foundations of good SEO.

Paul Culshaw brings almost 30 years of digital marketing experience across corporate, agency and independent environments, including senior roles in SEO and search strategy. His experience has included work with major organisations across e-commerce, pharmaceuticals, higher education, hospitality and professional services.

He is also a CPD Certified Business Strategist and Certified AI Innovator with Distinction.

Recognition is based in Greater Manchester and works with expert-led businesses across the UK.

Find out more about Recognition at thisisrecognition.com or start a conversation with Paul via the Recognition website.