● MANILA — SYDNEY
ABOUT LOKAL · 2017
THE PHILIPPINES TOTAL VISIBILITY AGENCY
Built for the way buyers decide now.
Search. AI. Hospitality. Commerce. One system.
LOKAL is the Manila-Sydney agency we needed when we started, and could not find. Traditional SEO runs alongside AI SEO and GEO. Hospitality and ecommerce run on the same stack. Every engagement is staffed by seniors — no junior-first layer, no body shop.
THE FOUNDING THESIS
We started LOKAL because
"SEO agency" no longer described the work.
In 2017 we were running search work inside a larger agency and watching the same pattern repeat: the SEO retainer drove rankings, the social team drove impressions, the ads team drove clicks — and none of them, alone, moved revenue. The work that moved revenue was the work that interlocked them.
By 2024, the pattern broke again. ChatGPT crossed the threshold from novelty to buying channel. Clients started arriving at sales calls with shortlists assembled inside AI chat. Brands that were invisible to ChatGPT were progressively invisible to buyers — regardless of where they ranked on Google. We saw it first in hospitality, where the booking journey was already spread across metasearch, OTAs, Google, Instagram, and now AI. We ran our first citation engineering project in early 2024, before "AI SEO" had a name.
LOKAL exists to run that full stack as one practice. Not SEO plus AI bolted on. Not AI plus SEO as a separate quote. One Total Visibility system — Awareness, Discover, Direct — that treats every surface a buyer sees as part of one decision journey.
HOW WE OPERATE
Six principles the team runs on.
01
Outcome over channel
We do not run channel-shaped engagements. We run outcome-shaped ones — bookings, revenue, pipeline, citation share. The channels are tools, not deliverables.
02
Proof over promise
Every claim we make is evidenced. Case studies with real numbers. Citations in real AI engines. Rankings in real SERPs. If we cannot show it, we do not say it.
03
NDA by default
Most of our best work is confidential. We ship under NDA as the default, not the exception. Agency partners and enterprise clients rely on this posture.
04
One team, one report
Clients get one account lead, one report, one strategy doc — not a stack of siloed channel reports. The integration is the product.
05
Stay on the frontier
We commit to working at the frontier of the craft — running AEO and GEO before most agencies knew the disciplines existed, and the technical AI engineering layer most agencies still don't run.
06
Build the practice
Every engagement feeds the playbook. Internal training, published methodologies, the AI Training practice — the work gets sharper because the craft is documented.
PRACTICE AREAS
Five practices.
One integrated system.
Hospitality
One of LOKAL's deepest specialisations, led by Hospitality Lead Chip Lopez. Hotel marketing, OTA optimisation, direct-booking recovery via AI search citation, marketplace visibility, and metasearch. End-to-end from Booking and Agoda listings to AI-cited recommendation shortlists.
Hotel Marketing Philippines · Hotel AI SEO · Hotel SEO · OTA Optimisation
Ecommerce
Shopify, Lazada, Shopee, TikTok Shop. Product SEO, marketplace optimisation, category authority content, and the AI SEO layer that gets branded ecommerce cited in ChatGPT and Perplexity. Beauty, fashion, FMCG, and DTC.
AI Search
SEO + AEO + GEO under one practice — including the technical AI engineering layer (Bing indexation, server-side rendering for AI crawlers, schema as architecture, LLM sitemap) most agencies don't even know to run. Citation programmes for ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews. Led by Joshua Pielago (OpenAI Champions Network).
AI SEO Philippines · Enterprise SEO, AEO & GEO · AI SEO Australia
Agency partner
White-label Total Visibility for agencies in Australia, the US, and APAC. NDA-default delivery. Senior-staffed accounts, no junior-first layer. Full SEO + AEO + GEO stack delivered under partner brands.
Training
AI training for corporate, agency, and SME teams across the Philippines and Australia — AI at work, AI SEO, and generative content workflows. Practical, hands-on, led by an OpenAI Champions Network member.
9+ yrs
Operating history
SEO+AEO+GEO
Three disciplines, one practice
AI Certified
OpenAI Champions Network
Anthropic Parter (on-going)
Multinational
Enterprise client roster
SOURCE: LOKAL OPERATING MODEL.
The brief was narrow when we started — one channel, one goal. Inside six months LOKAL was running our entire visibility stack because the work they shipped kept raising the ceiling on what we thought was possible.
ENTERPRISE CLIENT · LOKAL PORTFOLIO
THE CLIENT ROSTER
Brands running Total Visibility with us.
THE OPERATORS
Senior people on every account.
LOKAL does not run a junior-first model. The senior team you meet on the first call is the same team shipping the monthly work.
Joshua Pielago
FOUNDER
Ramon King
CO-FOUNDER, MANAGING DIRECTOR
CJ Masungsong
MARKETING DIRECTOR
RESEARCH PAPER · 01
Why the Philippine market was ready for Total Visibility in 2024.
Filipino internet users adopt AI chat faster than almost any ASEAN market. By 2024–2025, B2B buyers were routinely arriving at sales calls with AI-generated shortlists. Traditional SEO was still essential — Google still drove the majority of discovery clicks — but the decision surface had widened to multiple AI engines, metasearch, marketplaces, and Google all at once. Single-channel agencies could not answer the brief. Total Visibility was the only practice model that fit the way buyers had already changed.
LOKAL ran its first AI citation engineering project in early 2024, before "AI SEO" had a category name. The thesis was simple: every surface a buyer consults during a decision is part of one visibility system, and agencies built around isolated channels cannot compete with agencies that treat the decision journey as a whole.
4+ engines
ChatGPT · Gemini · Perplexity · AI Overviews
2024
First citation engineering work shipped
3
pillars
Awareness · Discover · Direct
1
-of-1
Full Total Visibility stack in the Philippines
HOW WE COMPARE
LOKAL vs a typical Philippine agency.
| Dimension | Typical PH agency | LOKAL |
|---|---|---|
| Operating model | Siloed channel teams — SEO, ads, social, content report separately | One Total Visibility system with one account lead and one integrated report |
| AI search capability | Not offered, or "AI-written content" repackaged as AI SEO | SEO + AEO + GEO under one practice; OCN-member lead; technical AI engineering depth |
| Staffing | Senior on pitch, junior on delivery | Senior team on every account, from first call through monthly delivery |
| Hospitality depth | Generalist digital; occasional hotel client | Hospitality-operator-led practice; OTA, marketplace, AI direct-booking, metasearch end-to-end |
| Agency partner model | Body-shop capacity at USD headcount pricing | NDA-default white-label, priced on scope — full SEO + AEO + GEO stack |
| Training practice | No formal training offering | AI training across corporates, agencies, SMEs — led by an OCN member |
COMMON QUESTIONS
About LOKAL — answered.
What is LOKAL?
LOKAL is a Manila-Sydney digital marketing agency specialising in Total Visibility — SEO, AEO, and GEO under one integrated practice, plus hospitality and ecommerce specialisms. Registered as LKL Global Technologies Inc.
Who owns LOKAL?
LOKAL is founded and co-owned by Joshua Pielago (Founder, AI SEO lead, OpenAI Champions Network member) and Ramon King (Co-Founder, Creative Director). The agency is registered as LKL Global Technologies Inc. and operates from Manila with a Sydney satellite office.
Where is LOKAL based?
LOKAL is headquartered in Manila, Philippines, with a Sydney office serving Australian clients and agency partners. The team works across both time zones to cover APAC, AU, and US West Coast windows.
What industries does LOKAL specialise in?
LOKAL's deepest specialisations are hospitality (hotel and resort marketing across the Philippines and Southeast Asia, led by Hospitality Lead Chip Lopez), ecommerce (beauty, fashion, FMCG on Shopify, Lazada, Shopee, TikTok Shop), and enterprise visibility. Across every industry, AI SEO and GEO run as a horizontal capability.
Is LOKAL a real agency or a freelancer collective?
LOKAL is a registered agency — LKL Global Technologies Inc. — with a full-time senior team in Manila and Sydney. It is not a freelancer marketplace. Every engagement is staffed by employed senior practitioners.
What makes LOKAL different from other Philippine agencies?
Three things. First, LOKAL runs SEO, AEO, and GEO as one integrated practice — including the technical AI engineering layer (Bing indexation, server-side rendering for AI crawlers, schema as architecture) most agencies don't even know to run. Second, the AI search work is led by an OpenAI Champions Network member. Third, hospitality, ecommerce, enterprise, and agency-partner work is delivered by the same senior bench — no junior-first layer.
Does LOKAL train teams in AI?
Yes. LOKAL trains corporate, agency, and SME teams on AI at work, AI SEO, and generative content workflows across the Philippines and Australia. The AI training practice is led by Joshua Pielago, an OpenAI Champions Network member.
Who are LOKAL's clients?
LOKAL's client roster includes enterprise brands (Coca-Cola, Great Deals E-commerce, among others on the logo wall), hospitality operators across the Philippines and ASEAN, Shopify and marketplace-scale ecommerce brands, and agency partners in Australia, the US, the UK, and Southeast Asia that white-label LOKAL's delivery.
Let's make you visible.
Tell us about your business and we'll scope how Total Visibility applies — which pillar is leaking, which is underbuilt, which is the fastest win.
Or email [email protected] · +63 917 529 5464 · +61 02 9145 8605
