Case Treppenmeister: Market leadership in the age of AI search (LLM optimization)

In the digital age, visibility often determines success. As the market leader in staircase construction, Treppenmeister stands for the highest quality, state-of-the-art technology and precision craftsmanship. That market leadership also has to be defended in the digital world, especially in an environment where the growing dominance of AI-powered search systems is fundamentally changing the rules of online visibility. To respond to this strategically, we rely on systematic monitoring of large language models (LLMs). The aim is to continuously analyze how the company is represented in AI-based search systems, which content language models prefer to pick up and how algorithmic changes affect its digital presence. This case study shows how a structured LLM monitoring setup was built, which metrics it focuses on and what we, as Treppenmeister’s GEO agency, learned from it about securing digital market leadership in the long term.

The challenge: rescuing visibility and getting ready for the future

In mid-2025, Treppenmeister faced a challenge. The key issue was a visible loss of traffic on its glossary pages. With the rise of AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and other LLMs, users increasingly get their answers right there without clicking through to the website.

For years, this content had been a stable foundation for visibility, brand presence and continuous lead generation. Then the rules suddenly shifted: the content lost reach because AI systems delivered the answers directly, shortening the classic click path.

For Treppenmeister, this meant that the existing content strategy was no longer enough to stay visible in the long term. What was needed was an approach that stabilizes the current situation and prepares the brand for a search landscape in which AI answers, structured data and machine-readable content play an ever greater role.

The solution: next-gen entity optimization & technical excellence

Instead of classic keyword stuffing, we rely on a strategy that anchors Treppenmeister as a trusted source of knowledge for AI models. The action plan focused on technical structure and authority:

• Structured data (schema markup): implemented to make the content of the page understandable to machines.
• Building authority: to raise the domain’s “trust score”, targeted wiki entries were created and awards and distinctions were featured.
• Synergy between the main domain & partners: canonical tags were set for partner pages and the “partners on treppenmeister.com” integration was optimized. This prevents cannibalization and strengthens both the brand and the local partners.
• Content push: optimization for long-tail keywords to give precise answers to specific user questions (typical of AI chats).
• Optimization of the city pages: all city pages were rebuilt from scratch, including meta title, meta description and the correct partner address. In addition, the central overview page of all partners was revised to rank as well as possible for searches such as “Treppenbauer + Land” (stair builder + country).

The result: dominance across all channels

The measures took effect immediately. As early as December 2025, there were massive gains that went far beyond a mere “recovery”. The key performance indicators show the impact in concrete terms:

1. AI & LLM dominance

Instead of a gradual stabilization, there was a clear shift in visibility: Treppenmeister not only expanded its presence but also pulled clearly ahead of the competition across channels. Treppenmeister has left its competitors behind in AI search and now holds an AI share of voice of 81.6%, number 1 in its competitive set.

(Source: Ahrefs - Brand Overview - TRE vs. competitors)

Google AI Overviews (AIO) and AI Mode show a clear trend too: for the key queries “Treppenbauer für Holztreppen” (stair builders for wooden stairs) and “Treppenhersteller in Deutschland” (stair manufacturers in Germany), visibility rose from 56.4% to 87.1%. This is particularly relevant because these formats are increasingly the first stop for users and supplement or partly replace classic organic results. The strong increase in visibility underlines that AI systems preferentially recognize, classify and surface the optimized content.

(Source: Rankscale)

Visibility in ChatGPT, one of the most important AI-based access points for information, also plays a central role here. For relevant queries about staircase construction, visibility almost doubled, from 26.5% to 52.5%. Treppenmeister is now the third most cited domain for the main term “Treppenbau” (staircase construction). This shows that the content is not only picked up more often but is also treated as a trusted source in a competitive environment.

(Source: Rankscale)

(Source: Ahrefs)

On the search platform DeepSeek, Treppenmeister achieves full coverage at 100% for the queries “Treppenbauer für Holztreppen” and “Treppenhersteller in Deutschland”. Treppenmeister therefore appears in all relevant results for these queries.

(Source: Rankscale)

The halo effect brings massive benefits for the local partners. Deliberately strengthening the main domain (the “parent”) has positive effects on the local partner pages (the “children”), a classic halo effect. As the authority of the Treppenmeister brand grows, the visibility and reach of the regional partners increase significantly as well.

• Berlin example: while the Treppenmeister brand itself rose to 5% visibility, the local partner Rimpel Treppenbau jumped from 15.8% to 34% and now dominates the Berlin market.

(Source: Rankscale)

• Hamburg example: a similar picture emerges in the north, where the partner Stöver increased its visibility from 1.6% to 10%.

(Source: Rankscale)

2. Classic search performance (Google Search Console & GA4)

The combination of technical clean-up and a targeted content strategy triggered a clear traffic boom. Compared with the previous period (February to August 2025), organic sessions for the city pages rose by 41% over the last six months, while the number of conversions rose by an impressive 39.8%. This increase shows that the optimizations not only raised visibility in AI and search systems but also brought measurably more users to the website.

(Source: GA4)

At the same time, performance improved for high-intent keywords. For one of the most important keywords, “Treppenbau”, clicks rose by 176% over the last six months compared with the previous period. In parallel, the average position in the search results improved to 9.7, which shows that the content is not only clicked more often but is also strategically better positioned.

(Source: GSC)

General city pages: the city pages improved their positions by 27.9% year on year.

(Source: GSC)

Conclusion: from searching to finding

The Treppenmeister case proves that those who prepare their data for LLMs win twice. Treppenmeister initially faced the challenge of securing its digital market leadership in the age of AI-powered search. Technical excellence has not only secured the brand’s competitive advantage but also propelled it into a new league. SEO is no longer just about Google. Through targeted “LLM optimization”, Treppenmeister was established as a primary answer source for AI models and, through the halo effect, pulled its local partner businesses to the top with it.

Strategic AI visibility determines reach, authority and market dominance. Treppenmeister is ready for the future of search.