“What's the best snorkelling tour out of Cairns?” “Who's a good tattoo artist for fine line in Brisbane?” More people are typing questions like these into ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google, and getting a short AI-written answer instead of ten blue links. If your business isn't in that answer, you're invisible to that customer.
The good news: you don't need a special trick. AI search tools lean on the same signals that have always made a business easy to find and easy to trust. Here's what matters.
How AI tools decide who to mention
Most AI search tools look things up on the web before they answer. They pull from search results, your website, your Google Business Profile, review sites, directories and articles that mention you, then summarise what they find. If that information is thin, inconsistent or hard to read, you're less likely to be mentioned.
1. Make your business details match everywhere
Your business name, service area, phone number, hours and services should be identical on your website, Google Business Profile, Facebook, Instagram and any directories you're listed in. Conflicting details make it harder for machines to be confident you're the right answer.
2. Answer the questions customers actually ask
Write clear, direct answers on your site to the questions you hear every week: what you do, who it's for, where you work, how long it takes and roughly what it costs. Service pages with a short FAQ are ideal. Plain, specific sentences are far easier for AI tools to quote than vague marketing copy.
3. Add structured data
Structured data (schema markup) is code that labels your information for machines: this is a business, these are its services, this is the area it serves, these are common questions. It's invisible to visitors but helps search engines and AI tools read your site correctly.
4. Earn mentions on other trusted sites
AI answers often draw on what others say about you: reviews, local news, industry directories, partner websites and articles. A steady flow of genuine Google reviews and a few quality mentions elsewhere go a long way.
5. Don't accidentally block the crawlers
Some website settings, security plugins and firewalls block bots by default. Google's AI Overviews rely on Google's normal search crawler, and ChatGPT's search uses OpenAI's own crawler. If your site blocks them, you can't be found. It's worth checking your robots.txt file and any bot-blocking settings.
6. Track it
Once a month, ask the main AI tools the questions your customers would ask and note whether you're mentioned. In Google Analytics, you can also watch for referral traffic from sites like chatgpt.com and perplexity.ai.
Where to start
If you only do two things this month, make them these: tidy up your Google Business Profile, and add a clear FAQ to your main service pages. Both help with Google and AI search at the same time.
Want a hand? Our AI search optimisation service starts with a check of what AI tools currently say about your business, and our Google Business Profile Refresh is a quick, low-cost first step.