People are starting to search differently.
Instead of typing something like:
luxury wedding cake designer Bristol
into Google, they might ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity:
I’m getting married near Bristol, and I’m looking for a luxury wedding cake designer. I want something elegant and bespoke rather than a traditional wedding cake. Can you recommend five wedding cake designers in the area and explain why you recommend each one?
That is quite a different search.
The person isn’t necessarily looking for ten blue links to investigate themselves. They’re asking AI to do some of the research and recommend suitable businesses.
So a new question is becoming increasingly important:
What can you do to increase the chances of AI recommending your business?
Start by seeing what AI already recommends
This is one of the simplest exercises you can do.
Open ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity and search as though you were one of your own customers.
Don’t just enter your usual SEO keyword.
Ask a proper question.
For example:
I’m getting married near Bristol, and I’m looking for a luxury wedding cake designer. I want something elegant and bespoke rather than a traditional wedding cake. Can you recommend five wedding cake designers in the area and explain why you recommend each one?
Then try variations.
You could ask:
- Who are the best luxury wedding cake designers near Bristol?
- I’m looking for a high-end bespoke wedding cake designer in Leicestershire. Who would you recommend?
- Can you recommend wedding cake designers near Bristol who specialise in elegant floral wedding cakes?
- Who makes luxury buttercream wedding cakes in the Midlands and delivers to wedding venues around Bristol?
You can do the same for almost any business.
A garage conversion company could ask:
“Can you recommend a garage conversion company near Edinburgh with experience converting garages into bedrooms?”
An accountant could ask:
“Who are the best accountants in Fife for a small limited company?”
A wedding photographer could ask:
“Can you recommend documentary-style wedding photographers who regularly work at venues in Perthshire?”
The trick is to search the way a real customer might talk.
Don’t panic if your business isn’t mentioned
This exercise isn’t about getting a gold star because ChatGPT already knows who you are.
It’s research.
Look at the businesses AI does recommend.
Then ask the much more useful question:
Why those businesses?
You can get AI to help you investigate.
Use this prompt:
You have recommended these businesses for someone looking for a luxury wedding cake designer near Bristol.
I run a wedding cake business in the same area and want to understand why these businesses are more likely to be recommended than mine.
Please analyse the businesses you recommended and reverse engineer the signals that may have contributed to their inclusion.
For each of the businesses it found and displayed, investigate:
- How clearly its website explains what it specialises in
- How strongly it is associated with Bristol and the surrounding area
- Whether it has dedicated pages for wedding cakes and relevant locations
- How much useful wedding cake content exists on its website
- Whether prices or price guidance are available
- Whether it answers common questions couples ask before choosing a cake designer
- Google reviews and other independent reviews
- Wedding directories, venue websites and other third-party websites that mention or recommend the business
- Awards, press coverage, features and professional associations
- Wedding venues, photographers, planners or other suppliers that mention the business online
- Whether the business has clear evidence of expertise and experience
- Whether its business name, location and services are described consistently across the web
- Any other signals that could help an AI system understand what the business does and when it should recommend it
Then compare these businesses with:
[INSERT YOUR WEBSITE ADDRESS]
Create a gap analysis showing:
- What the competitors have that my website does not
- What my business already does better
- What information AI systems may currently struggle to understand about my business
- Which external websites or sources appear particularly important
- The 10 highest-priority improvements that could increase the chances of my business being mentioned when someone asks AI for a business like mine
Do not give me generic SEO advice. Base your recommendations on evidence you can actually find about these businesses and their online presence.
Your website still matters
There’s been plenty of speculation about AI making websites less important.
The opposite is more likely.
AI needs information.
Your website is one of the places where you can clearly establish who you are, what you do, where you work, what you specialise in and why someone might choose you.
If your website says:
“Beautiful cakes for your special day”
there isn’t much useful information there.
Compare that with a website that makes it clear the business creates:
Bespoke luxury buttercream wedding cakes from a studio in Bristol, delivering to wedding venues nearby.
Suddenly there is far more context.
The same applies to your individual pages.
Your website should make it easy to understand your services, locations, expertise, experience and the types of customers you help.
But you can’t tell AI everything yourself
This is where AI visibility gets particularly interesting.
Your website is essentially you talking about yourself.
Naturally, you’re going to say you’re good.
Other websites can provide independent evidence.
For our wedding cake designer, that might include:
- Google reviews from couples
- Wedding venue supplier pages
- Wedding directories
- Photographer blogs featuring weddings where she supplied the cake
- Wedding planner websites
- Local press
- Awards
- Industry organisations
- Features on wedding websites
- Social profiles
If the cake designer’s website says she creates luxury wedding cakes in Bristol, that’s useful.
If wedding venues, photographers, customers, directories and other independent sources also associate that business with wedding cakes and the same geographical area, there is much more evidence connecting those things.
Think of it as corroboration.
You’re not relying on one website making a claim.
Multiple sources support the same information.
Make your expertise obvious
This doesn’t mean producing hundreds of AI-written blog posts.
In fact, filling your website with generic articles that say essentially the same thing as everyone else’s is unlikely to distinguish your business.
Concentrate on information you genuinely know.
A wedding cake designer might write about the following topics:
- Cake costs
- Cake tastings
- How far in advance couples should book
- Choosing cake sizes for different numbers of guests
- Buttercream versus fondant
- Delivering and setting up cakes at wedding venues
- What happens to wedding cakes during hot weather
- Real cakes created for particular wedding venues
- How can fresh flowers be safely used on wedding cakes?
This is knowledge she has because she actually does the job.
The same principle applies whether you install kitchens, design gardens, provide business insurance or convert garages.
Answer the questions you hear from real customers.
Look beyond traditional keywords
SEO isn’t disappearing because people are using AI. In fact, good SEO is the foundation for being found by LLMs (large language models).
But the way people discover businesses is expanding.
Someone might search Google for:
wedding cake designer Bristol
Another person might ask:
Who makes really elegant floral wedding cakes around Bristol?
Someone else might ask:
I’m getting married at [venue]. Which cake designers have worked there before?
Those searches reveal something useful.
Your website needs enough depth and specificity for search engines and AI systems to understand when your business is relevant.
That’s much more useful than repeating the phrase “wedding cake designer Bristol” fifteen times on a page.
Try the exercise yourself
Choose five questions a potential customer might ask before hiring someone like you.
Then ask those questions in your preferred AI software, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity.
Make a list of the businesses that are recommended.
Then investigate why.
Look for patterns.
Are the same companies repeatedly recommended?
Do they have stronger reviews?
Do authoritative local or industry websites mention them?
Do they have detailed service pages?
Do they publish genuinely useful information?
Are they strongly associated with a particular location or speciality?
Are other businesses recommending them?
You’ll probably learn far more from this than you will from asking AI:
“How do I optimise my website for AI?”
Because instead of receiving a generic checklist, you’re looking at the actual businesses competing for the same customers as you and identifying what they are doing differently.
And that gives you something concrete to work on.
