The Roberts Group
Brand Authority & AI Search Visibility Audit — November 2026
What The Roberts Group does
The Roberts Group, P.S.C. (TRG) is a full-service architecture and engineering firm in Lexington, KY, operating since 1989. It specializes in commercial projects for hospitality (restaurant chains) and financial (bank branch) clients. Architects, engineers, landscape architects and project managers work in-house, from due diligence through opening, and TRG works across many US jurisdictions, so multi-site clients don't need to rehire local consultants in each market. Notable work includes Olive Garden, Yard House in Times Square, Pollo Campero and Regions Bank retail development.
| Offer | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Due Diligence | Feasibility, challenges and cost assessment before a site is committed |
| Architecture | Commercial design for hospitality and financial projects |
| Engineering | Mechanical, electrical, plumbing (MEP) and civil |
| Site Planning & Landscape Architecture | Licensed in-house landscape architects |
| Construction Administration | Oversight that keeps projects on time and on budget |
| Who TRG sells to | What they need |
|---|---|
| Director of Construction or Development at a multi-unit restaurant brand | One A&E team to adapt prototypes and roll out locations across many jurisdictions |
| VP of Facilities or Real Estate at a regional or national bank | Branch design and engineering for new and remodeled branches |
| Real estate or acquisitions lead at a commercial developer or investor | Due diligence on feasibility, challenges and cost before committing to a site |
Where The Roberts Group stands today
13 → 8 monthly visits (Nov 2025 → Nov 2026), Ahrefs estimate, all branded
Competitor median 17 — a 14-point gap
Target keywords in the top 100
Ahrefs Site Audit, Nov 2, 2026 — 0 errors
Appears in 3 of 429 AI conversations (branded prompt excluded)
Homepage criteria passed
The Roberts Group scores 1.7 out of 10. The site is technically clean, but it ranks for none of its target keywords, its Google traffic comes only from people searching its name, and AI engines name it in under 1% of buyer questions while Interplan appears in 14.7%.
| Dimension | Score | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Messaging | 1 / 10 | Passes 0 of 3 homepage tests |
| Organic rankings | 1 / 10 | 0 of 10 target keywords in the top 100 |
| Traffic YoY | 1 / 10 | 13 → 8 monthly visits (−38%), Ahrefs estimate, all branded |
| DR vs competitors | 5 / 10 | DR 3 vs competitor median 17 (−14) |
| Local SEO | 1 / 10 | Not in the Lexington map pack; Google profile unclaimed, outdated address, no reviews |
| Onsite conversion | 1 / 10 | Generic contact form only; no mid-funnel offer; no blog |
Messaging needs work
| Criterion | Verdict | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Why beyond what (Sinek) | FAIL | The H1, “Full-Service Architecture & Engineering Firm,” says what TRG is. Neither the hero nor the subhead names an outcome for the client, or what a multi-site rollout costs when it goes wrong. |
| Differentiation | FAIL | “Full-service A&E firm” and “vast experience in every phase” are the terms most A&E firms use. The one-team, many-jurisdictions model that sets TRG apart sits further down the page. |
| Customer at centre (StoryBrand) | FAIL | The hero leads with the firm's own experience, and a President's note sits on the homepage. The buyer isn't the subject of the opening copy. |
Messaging score: 0 / 3.
The differentiator is buried
TRG's strongest claim is that one in-house team handles everything from due diligence to opening, across many jurisdictions, so a chain doesn't rehire local consultants in each market. That is exactly what multi-unit restaurant and bank buyers ask AI about (section 09), but the homepage opens with generic category language instead.
No segment pages
The navigation lists five services and no customer segments; the restaurant and bank focus appears only in body copy, so a restaurant chain or bank buyer has no page written for them.
The Roberts Group ranks for 0/10 in the top 100 for the analyzed keywords
Ahrefs, US search volume. Rank is TRG's best position for each keyword.
| Keyword | Volume | KD | AI Overview | Map Pack | TRG Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| commercial architect | 2,000 | 0 | No | Yes | Not in top 100 |
| property condition assessment | 900 | 19 | Yes | No | Not in top 100 |
| mep engineering firm | 250 | 0 | Yes | Yes | Not in top 100 |
| restaurant architect | 200 | 0 | Yes | Yes | Not in top 100 |
| restaurant architecture firm | 150 | 1 | No | Yes | Not in top 100 |
| retail architecture firm | 150 | 0 | No | Yes | Not in top 100 |
| architecture and engineering firm | 150 | 64 | No | Yes | Not in top 100 |
| restaurant design firm | 100 | 0 | No | Yes | Not in top 100 |
| bank branch design | 100 | 0 | No | No | Not in top 100 |
| bank architect | 40 | 5 | No | No | Not in top 100 |
keywords trigger AI Overviews
Seven of the ten keywords show a map pack above the organic results, so local presence is a prerequisite for competing on most of this set. Section 04 shows where TRG stands there.
An unclaimed Google profile at an old address
Google Business Profile
One profile found on Google Maps (Nov 6, 2026), listed as “Roberts Group” in the category “Engineering consultant.” No second listing exists at the current address.
| Profile | Location | # Reviews | Avg Rating | Latest 3 reviews | Claimed? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View on Google Maps | Listed: 239 Southland Dr Unit C, Lexington, KY 40503 (outdated) Correct: 771 Corporate Dr, Ste 100, Lexington, KY 40503 | 0 | None | n/a (no reviews) | Unclaimed |
The phone number and website on the profile are correct, but the address is the firm's old one, and Google's AI Overview repeats it. Because the profile is unclaimed, nobody at TRG can fix the address, change the category from “Engineering consultant” to “Architect,” or respond to reviews.
Map pack check
The three highest-volume local keywords, searched nationally (Ahrefs) and again with “lexington ky” added (live Google search).
| Keyword | Volume | Map pack on national results | TRG in Lexington map pack? | Who holds the Lexington map pack |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| commercial architect | 2,000 | Yes | Not in map pack | Gibson Taylor Thompson (5.0, 48 reviews), integrity ARCHITECTURE (5.0, 8), OH Design Lab (4.6, 28) |
| mep engineering firm | 250 | Yes | Not in map pack | Technical Horizons (5.0, 2 reviews), Paladin (5.0, 7) |
| restaurant architect | 200 | Yes | Not in map pack | Gibson Taylor Thompson (5.0, 48 reviews), OH Design Lab (4.6, 28), The Art of Design (5.0, 19) |
TRG's Google Business Profile doesn't appear in the map pack for any of the three keywords, even with the firm's home city in the search. One bright spot: trgpsc.com ranks #3 in the organic results for “restaurant architect lexington ky,” just below the map pack.
Who owns these searches
Aggregated across the five highest-volume keywords, which cover 87% of the set's search volume. Traffic is each ranking page's total monthly organic traffic (Ahrefs estimate). Ahrefs localizes the local-intent searches to Wichita, KS, which is why two Wichita firms appear.
| Rank | Domain | Traffic (share) | SERPs Present | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | lk-architecture.com | 927 (21.6%) | 1 | Local architecture firm (Wichita) |
| 2 | clutch.co | 376 (8.8%) | 1 | Directory |
| 3 | intertek.com | 358 (8.4%) | 1 | Inspection and assessment firm |
| 4 | partneresi.com | 315 (7.3%) | 1 | Due diligence / PCA firm |
| 5 | intdesignaward.com | 295 (6.9%) | 1 | Listicle publisher |
| 6 | indeed.com | 272 (6.3%) | 1 | Careers site |
| 7 | studiumwichita.com | 237 (5.5%) | 1 | Local design-build firm (Wichita) |
| 8 | thumbtack.com | 180 (4.2%) | 1 | Directory |
| 9 | wikipedia.org | 165 (3.8%) | 1 | Reference |
| 10 | careerexplorer.com | 162 (3.8%) | 1 | Careers site |
| — | trgpsc.comYOU | 0 (0%) | 0 | Absent |
No single firm owns this category in Google. Directories, careers sites and assessment firms take most of the clicks, and the architecture firms that do appear are local players. That fragmentation is an opening: a firm with dedicated restaurant, bank and property condition assessment pages has room to break in.
A small, branded-only base that's shrinking
Source: Ahrefs organic traffic estimate, US, monthly, October 2025 to November 2026 (November 2026 is a partial month). We don't have Search Console access for trgpsc.com, so these are modeled figures, not measured clicks.
| Page | Page type | Nov 2025 | Nov 2026 | Change | % change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| https://trgpsc.com/ | Homepage | 18 | 4 | −14 | −78% |
| https://www.trgpsc.com/bio/leslie-collins | Team bio (new) | 0 | 4 | +4 | New |
| All other pages (reconciliation) | — | — | — | +5 | — |
This isn't a collapse in the usual sense: TRG has almost no non-branded search traffic to lose. The homepage's visits come from people searching “roberts group,” and it slipped from #3 to #6 for that name. The reconciliation row covers the gap between Ahrefs' page-level and site-level snapshots. Four of five Google competitors also lost traffic year over year (section 07), so part of the decline is category-wide.
Domain Rating vs. organic traffic
Each firm appears twice: a circle for November 2025 and a triangle for November 2026, joined by a line. Domain Rating runs along the bottom; organic traffic (log scale) runs up the side. All figures are Ahrefs estimates.
Hover any point for absolute DR & organic traffic in both years plus year-over-year change.
Ramaker is the one gaining ground
Ramaker is the only competitor building real authority, up from DR 27 to DR 33, and it still draws about 400 organic visits a month to TRG's 8. TRG's 14-point gap to the competitor median shrank this year only because Stokes lost authority; TRG's own DR slipped from 3.8 to 3.
Read 3rd story's +200% with care
3rd story grew from 11 to 33 monthly visits. The percentage is large because the base is tiny. These are the firms TRG competes with in Google; the firms that win in AI answers (Interplan and ms consultants) are covered in section 09.
Technical site health: 100 / 100
The crawl found no errors. 38 URLs carry warnings and 35 carry notices, which are lower-priority. The technical foundation isn't what's holding TRG back; content and authority are.
0 of 232 pages have errors
You appear in 3 of 429 AI conversations
Peec AI, US · 15 non-branded prompts · 429 AI conversations · Nov 2–6, 2026 (early snapshot). The prompt that names The Roberts Group is excluded.
| Brand | Visibility | Avg Position |
|---|---|---|
| Interplan | 14.7% | 5.3 |
| ms consultants | 12.1% | 5.0 |
| Ramaker | 0.9% | 4.4 |
| The Roberts GroupYOU | 0.7% | 2.3 |
| Stokes Architecture & Design | 0% | — |
| Glen & Company | 0% | — |
| 3rd story | 0% | — |
| Vickers Design Group | 0% | — |
Average position counts only answers that rank firms in a list, so it rests on a handful of answers per brand. Read visibility first.
AI engines almost never name The Roberts Group. Across 429 answers to buyer questions, TRG appears 3 times, all on one prompt about restaurant site due diligence. Interplan and ms consultants each appear in roughly one of every seven or eight answers. When TRG does appear it lands near the top, so this is a frequency problem, not a reputation one: the engines aren't describing TRG badly, they aren't describing it at all.
The Roberts Group's visibility, prompt by prompt
15 tracked non-branded prompts · Nov 2–6, 2026
| Prompt | Visibility | Position |
|---|---|---|
| I am a VP of Real Estate at a multi-unit restaurant franchise. What are the best firms for site feasibility and due diligence before we sign a lease or buy a pad site? | 10.0% | 2.3 |
| I am a Director of Construction at a multi-unit restaurant brand. What are the best restaurant architecture firms for chains like mine that are rolling out new locations? | 0% | — |
| I am a VP of Development at a casual dining restaurant group. What are the best architecture and engineering firms for companies like mine that need prototype adaptations across multiple states? | 0% | — |
| I am a Director of Construction at a national restaurant chain. What are the best firms to handle construction administration for multi-site restaurant rollouts? | 0% | — |
| I am a Director of Real Estate at a national retail chain. What are the best retail architecture firms for companies like mine? | 0% | — |
The only prompt that returns TRG is the restaurant-franchise due diligence question. TRG doesn't appear on any restaurant rollout, bank branch or MEP engineering prompt, which are the buyers its project list is built on.
Which domains influence AI
The three sources the engines retrieve most when answering these prompts.
| Domain | Type | What gets retrieved |
|---|---|---|
| bdcnetwork.com | Publisher | Building Design + Construction's “Giants 400” ranking lists, such as “Top 90 Restaurant Architecture Firms for 2025,” “Top 130 Retail Architecture Firms for 2025” and “Top 50 Restaurant Engineering Firms.” Retrieved in 36.6% of conversations. ms consultants is named on them; TRG is not. |
| interplanllc.com | Competitor | Multi-site case studies (Popeyes QSR, and Regions Bank, a TRG client), a services page, and the guide “What to Look for in a Retail Architecture Firm.” Retrieved in 13.7% of conversations. |
| msconsultants.com | Competitor | Vertical market pages for restaurants and banks, and a “Prototype Rollout Process” page. Retrieved in 12.9% of conversations. |
BD+C's Giants 400 lists are the most realistic near-term opening: they're the single most retrieved source, and firms get on them by taking part in BD+C's annual survey rather than by outranking anyone. Interplan and ms consultants show the longer play: dedicated restaurant and bank pages plus multi-site case studies, including one for Regions Bank, a TRG client.
Nobody is answering these questions on video
YouTube on Google page one.
No YouTube video ranks in Google's top 10 for any of the five highest-volume keywords, and none of the ten target keywords show video results.
YouTube in AI answers.
YouTube isn't a top-10 source for AI answers here. It ranks about 20th among retrieved domains, pulled into 24 of 459 conversations (5.2%).
Does the video exist?
Top YouTube result for each of the five highest-volume keywords (default relevance sort, Nov 3, 2026).
| Keyword | Volume | Top video | Channel | Views | Uploaded | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| commercial architect | 2,000 | What Is It Like To Work At An Architecture Firm? | J Martelo | 86K | 6 years ago | Thin: career content, not for buyers |
| property condition assessment | 900 | What Are Property Condition Assessments and Reports? | Partner Engineering and Science | 1.7K | 3 years ago | Thin: on-topic, but low views and aging |
| mep engineering firm | 250 | What Is MEP In Construction? | Jason Schroeder | 43K | 2 years ago | Thin: general explainer, nothing on choosing a firm |
| restaurant architect | 200 | NYC Restaurant by Bates Masi + Architects | Architecture Hunter | 43K | 3 years ago | Thin: fine-dining showcase, not chain buyers |
| restaurant architecture firm | 150 | Restaurant Levi: Behind the design | DONNA media | 70K | 4 years ago | Thin: design showcase, not chain buyers |
Video isn't a visibility lever in this category today: neither Google nor the AI engines surface it for these searches, and the videos that exist are career content and design showcases rather than anything a chain or bank buyer would use to choose a firm. If TRG ever invests in video, the gap is buyer-intent content, such as how to choose a multi-site A&E partner, how a rollout works, or a property condition assessment walkthrough. TRG has no YouTube channel linked from its site.
Reddit isn't a factor in this category
Reddit on Google page one
No Reddit thread ranks on Google's first page for the five highest-volume keywords, and no thread names The Roberts Group.
Reddit in AI answers
Reddit appears in 9 of 459 AI conversations (2.0%), so it isn't a factor. These are the threads the engines do pull.
| Thread | Prompt it surfaces for | Retrievals |
|---|---|---|
| "Architect Here - We are consistently finding MEP firms that appear to rush through work, miss scope…" — r/mepengineering https://reddit.com/r/mepengineering/comments/1qh93c1/architect_here_we_are_consistently_finding_mep | What are the best MEP engineering firms? | 4 |
| "Architectural Firms" — r/architecture https://reddit.com/r/architecture/comments/18s0ksq/architectural_firms | What are the best commercial architecture firms? | 1 |
Neither thread ranks on Google page one, and neither mentions TRG. The r/mepengineering thread is worth knowing about: an architect asking where to find MEP firms that don't rush the work is close to TRG's case for keeping engineering in-house.
Conversion needs improvement
The site has one lead path: a generic contact form. There's no offer for a buyer who isn't ready to call, and no blog to carry one.
| Element | Status | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Lead capture | Weak | A generic contact form whose subject options are “General Business Inquiries,” “Careers” and “Privacy Policy.” The page copy invites visitors to request a bid, but there is no bid option. |
| Mid-funnel offer | Missing | No assessment, guide, checklist or calculator anywhere on the site, so a buyer who isn't ready to call has nothing to take. |
| Blog CTAs | No blog | The site has no blog, so there are no posts to carry a call to action. |
Navigation breadth
| Count | Listed in the navigation | |
|---|---|---|
| Solutions | 5 | Due Diligence, Architecture, Engineering, Site Planning & Landscape Architecture, Construction Administration |
| Segments | 0 | None in the navigation |
Ready to fix it?
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