Instead of searching on Google, many people now ask an AI assistant: “Which business near me does …?” Whether and how your business appears in the answer can’t be controlled, but it can be well prepared.
Where the answers come from
Assistants with web search draw on search indexes and read the pages they find. On top of that comes what they learned about the web during training. Businesses that rank well on the major search engines and are mentioned in several places online therefore have better chances.
What you can do
- Clear facts on your website: who you are, what you offer, where and for whom. Short and phrased the same way everywhere.
- Your customers’ common questions with honest answers, right on your website.
- Structured data, so machines can reliably read details like services, location and contact.
- Keep your website accessible to search engines and AI crawlers, and register it with the webmaster tools of the major search engines.
- Mentions on other sites: directories, associations, partners and reviews.
How to check what AI assistants say about you
- Ask different assistants about your business, with name and location.
- Also ask the way customers would, for example for a recommendation for your service in your city.
- Note which details are wrong or missing, and which sources are cited.
- Repeat this every few months. The answers change over time.
What doesn’t help
- Hidden text or long lists of search terms.
- Fake reviews or exaggerated promises.
- Many near-identical pages that only differ in the place name.
AI assistants rely on the same foundations as search engines: clear content, reliable details and a good reputation. Getting these right makes both more likely to describe you correctly.
There are no guarantees: what an assistant answers is up to the assistant. But with good foundations, the chance increases that it knows your business and describes it correctly.
