Is AI SEO a Real Thing?
Can you really get your site to show up in AI results for "roofing business near me" or "HVAC company in Dallas"? Here's the honest answer.
What Is AI SEO? Is AI SEO Even a Real Thing?
Can you really get your site to show up in AI results for roofing, HVAC, tutoring — insert your business type here — "business near me"?
I'm not gonna feed you some bullshit hack answer about 5 tips that can get you to show up in AI results within the next month. No one can do that unless you're already number 1 through 5 in search results on Google for your industry, and in that case you're probably already showing up. There's no magic hack you can do to get AI to spit out your business name, and anyone who says so is definitely lying to you.
SEO and AI SEO are exactly the same thing — because all the AI is doing is searching Google for keywords related to what you told it to search.
Example: Local Business Search
Above, I asked Claude for web design agencies near me. Essentially all the AI did was run this query to the Google Places API — which is like you typing "affordable digital marketing web design agency Dallas Texas small business" into Google Maps and then looking at the top 6 businesses.
This exact same thing happens in Google Search whenever you search for any business "near me" or use some other location-based keyword.
Example: General Information Search
For more generic questions, the AI will also just search the web using a search engine the same way a human does. For this example, let's use ChatGPT.
In this example I searched for the cost of an AC unit for a 2,000 sq ft home in DFW. Once again, all it did was essentially use a search engine to find articles and relevant websites for the query provided.
There is no such thing as AI SEO. It is all still just the same old SEO principles. If you want to show up, you need to have content on your site relevant to the most probable keywords.
So Should You Ignore AI Search Entirely?
No. These LLMs like ChatGPT are important to monitor because they represent a new way people are searching — and you should optimize your content for them as well. But it's not so different that it's a paradigm shift like some digital marketers out there make it sound.
The fundamentals haven't changed: build a fast site, write content that answers the questions your customers are actually asking, and make sure Google can find and index all of it. If you do that, the AI tools will find you too — because they're using the same search infrastructure under the hood.