Why AI Recommends Your Competitor (and What Your Website Can Do About It)

A bot bought that.

It sounds a little wild right now, but we may not be so far from our customers becoming robotic.

This was the thinking that made me curious enough to wonder if AI would find me? If AI would recommend me?

I gasped. The rabbit hole began. awedity had gaps in services; a business owner might not find me for website design or marketing even if I was their neighbor. I realized we’re all using AI, and my fellow local business owners and I couldn't be sure we would be found.

And this is the challenge with referral sources: no one is likely to say, ‘I asked ChatGPT, and you didn’t come up ’; they just assume you are not an expert or that it's not something you do. That’s a problem and a huge opportunity.

So what does it mean to be AI-Visible?

We spent so much time building our website for Google is it any different with AI? The long and short answer is yes.  Google gave you credibility based on factors they changed over time (mostly because of issues with how they were being deployed), including keywords, website size, domain history, time on page etc. Google’s Helpful Content Update from 2022 and EEAT  (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) focused grading helped to provide clear guidelines for ranking on quality, but even with that, AI has taken it further. AI loves clarity, consistency and quotable content (not AI content reused).

My site failed the first test. My rebrand had split my history between two names, SpareCMO and Awedity, and a model treats that as two weak businesses instead of one strong one. My homepage line, "plan it, design it, build it. one person.", works well on a human. It never says website redesign, AI search, fractional CMO or Calgary, so a machine has nowhere to file me.

I needed to get clear, focused, and, for a moment, skip being clever for providing content worthy of being cited.

The AI Website Search Fixes:

1.     Pick your main sentence, tagline or reference. Who you are and use that one everywhere. It builds consistency. Put this on your website, LinkedIn, Google Profile and any directories like Bing. It may feel boring, but AI loves the consistency.

2.     Let the crawlers in. We’ve avoided letting crawlers in because we wanted more accurate website results. If the robot.txt is blocking GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot or PerplexityBot, then you could be missing AI access.

3.     Answer the query. Your website is designed to answer questions that people have, AI is looking for you to do the same thing, but getting to the point much quicker. AI reads what you say and the answer so write in a way that answers the questions. Not sure what people are asking, try Answer the Public or seeing the questions asked on a Google Search

4.     If you have proof, share it. Citations, quotes, stats, and real numbers, with client quotes, and recency have been proven to lift visibility.

5.     Spread your knowledge around. Visibility helps; getting access to directories, podcasts, and credible sources helps AI grow confident in referring you. This also means keeping up your Google reviews; if you can’t showcase your expertise in other locations, it’s a great reference.

The psychology behind it.

AI is your cautious buyer. The husband who searches everything before pulling the trigger, but AI has a memory like a wife – so consistency is key. We don’t like what we are not certain about; neither does AI, so take the time to think through your branding and keep it consistent everywhere.

AI is also picky; it knows humans cannot make decisions well with too many options, so it shows only a few at a time. The more consistently you show up in AI results, the more confident consumers are to click on your result.

Work on nudges; adding pricing typically makes AI feel confident, typically. Answers the query much better than ambiguous answers. It also builds customer confidence, and clarity goes a long way with humans and AI.

What can you do this week?

"Who can [your service] for a [your kind of customer] in [your city]?"

First, find out where you stand. Open your favorite and least favorite AI platforms, and type into ChatGPT services you think you should show up for. Are you there? If not, you know there is some work to do.

Curious about what I can do to help? Let's chat; just like you, I found myself missing from AI, but now I am playing with the big boys.