The Four Things AI Checks Before It Recommends Your Business

Last week I asked you to open ChatGPT or Gemini and search the way one of your customers would, just to see whether your business turned up in the answer. If you tried it, you'll already have a rough idea of where you stand. This week I want to get into why that happens, because once you understand what AI tools are actually checking, it means you can start to do something about it!

AI doesn't read your website the way a person does

When someone searches on Google, your website gets a chance to make its own case. Someone lands on the page, reads a bit, and decides whether they trust you, they might like the look for your face or your branding for example.. AI search doesn't really work like that. Instead of reading your whole site and forming an impression, it's pulling together small, specific pieces of information from wherever it can find them, your website, your Google Business Profile, directories, reviews, mentions on other sites, and trying to answer four questions: who you are, what you do, who you help, and where you're based.

If those four things are clear and they agree with each other everywhere your business appears online, you're in a strong position. If they're vague, inconsistent, or scattered across different sites saying slightly different things, the AI tends not to guess on your behalf. It just leaves you out, or worse, gets something about you wrong.

In plain English:

AI tools like ChatGPT don't only look at your website. They pull together information from wherever your business is mentioned online, your Google Business Profile, directories, review sites, and anywhere else you're listed, and check whether it all agrees with itself before deciding what to tell someone about you.

The numbers...

This isn't a fringe behaviour anymore. Nearly half of people now ask an AI tool for a local recommendation rather than searching for one themselves. 

There's also a real gap between what businesses think they've said about themselves online and what's actually out there. A meaningful share of the business information AI tools surface doesn't match what's on the business's own Google listing, an old phone number here, the wrong opening hours there, a description that doesn't mention what the business actually does day to day. People are busy and things you set up a year or two ago area easily missed when doing your day to day updates on your business - you might not have looked at your Google Business profile since you set it up! But if your details don't line up across the places people can find you, you're making the AI's job harder, and it tends to solve that problem by leaving you out - you're too confusing!

Four things AI is looking for...

Who you are. Your business name, used exactly the same way everywhere, on your website, your Google Business Profile, your social profiles, any directories. If you're "Smith & Co" on one and "Smith and Company Ltd" on another, that's the kind of small inconsistency that adds up.

What you do. It wants you to be specific, not just a category. "We sell handmade candles" tells an AI a lot less than "we make small-batch soy candles from our workshop in Edinburgh, sold online and at local markets." The more specific and accurate the description, the easier it is for AI to match you to the right search.

Who you help. The kind of customer, job, or situation you're best suited to. This is the one businesses skip most often, because it can feel like narrowing your audience rather than describing it. In practice, being specific about who you're for makes it easier for the right people to find you, not harder.

Where you're based. Especially important if location matters to what you offer, whether that's a shop, a service area, or a business built around a particular place.

A checklist

If you've already got a website:

• Open your homepage and time yourself. Could a stranger tell within a few seconds who you are, what you do, who it's for, and where you're based?
• Check your Google Business Profile against your website. Same name, same opening hours, same phone number, same description of what you actually do?
• Check any directories you're listed on for the same thing. 
• Try two or three different phrasings of what a customer might search, not just the obvious one, and see who else comes up alongside you.

If you're still planning your website, build those four things into your homepage from the start rather than trying to fit them in later. A clear line near the top of the page, covering who you are, what you do, who you help, and where you're based is really going to help.  It helps the person reading it and it helps the AI tools trying to decide whether to recommend you.

I'll be back next week with the next part of this series, looking at what actually makes AI trust a site enough to cite it.