If and when asking AI completely replaces Googling as the near-universal go-to method of finding local businesses, it will probably be because AI did a better job of telling you exactly why you should check out this or that business. Turns out that most people want to make buying decisions based on a little more than “Trust me bro.”
Your AI tool of choice – Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, etc. – doesn’t just show you 10 of the “best” (or luckiest) local businesses and then stick you with the rest of the due diligence. Rather, it tries to give you enough info that you can quickly identify the ONE business that sounds most like what you want.
The value of the quick deep dig may be obvious to both of us and to the architect of the AI tools, but it’s not obvious to most of your competitors. Most of them assume would-be customers just click reflexively on whomever’s “#1” (a tricky thing to pin down, but I digress), rather than assume that most people weigh a few good-looking options.
That’s one of three points your competitors (and their SEO people) probably don’t realize. The other two critical points are these:
(2) For the AI chatbots to dig deep – and accurately and quickly – it helps tremendously for them to find what they’re looking for on your business’s website.
(3) Focusing on a niche doesn’t stop you from showing up for broader search terms. Almost never are they mutually exclusive. Usually you can rank in the local results (Maps, organic, and AI) for “furnace repair company open on weekend” AND for “furnace repair.”
My advice is simple: pick one quality of your business that is unique, unusual, or underplayed by your competitors, and hang your hat on it. For now, let’s say that it can be basically anything, as long as it’s true, you think customers care about it, and it doesn’t require a lot of explanation.
Then, whatever your qualifier or niche is, do at least a few things with it on your site:
- Throw it into the title tag of your homepage
- Describe it in detail on your homepage (let’s say at least a paragraph)
- Explain it on your “Why Choose Us?” page
If you’re feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, also do the following:
- Create a dedicated page on it
- Create a video on that selling point, put it on YouTube and optimize it there, and embed it on your site
- Cram that selling point into the title tags and/or main content of other pages, too
- Encourage reviewers to address that point, if appropriate
- Add it to the “description” of your Google Business page (just so people will see it)
Time for some examples. These are the kinds of specific selling points, qualifiers / disqualifiers, and distinctions that you might latch onto. My clients have had especially good results with the top 10 selling points on this list, but any of the others (listed in no particular order) might be your ticket.
-
- Specialist in [situation or customer]
- Same-day service
- Best-reviewed in [area]
- Emergency service or emergencies welcome
- Open 7 days a week
- 24-hour
- Open year-round
- Languages spoken (e.g. English and Spanish)
- Free estimates
- Certified or licensed
- Only [type of business] in [neighborhood or town]
- Most-reviewed [type of business] in [area]
- Voted Best _____ in _____ by _____
- Oldest _____ in _____
- Since [year]
- Family-owned
- Authorized _____ dealer or servicer
- In-person or online
- In-home
- Money-back-guaranteed
- Discounts for [type of customer]
- On-site estimates
- Online quotes
- Price or price range
- __-year warranty offered
- Serving all of [state, county, or region]
- No trip charges
- Affordable or fast alternative to _____
- Child-friendly, pet-friendly, etc.
- Walk-ins welcome
- No job too big or too small
- Woman-owned
- Same-day or next-day shipping
- __ locations in [area]
- Insurance providers accepted
- Free [service] included
- Free [thing or service] for [type of person]
Do not try to think of what will appeal to everyone, but rather to the one type of person who’s most likely to pay you for something. Think of it as a Google Ads headline, a YouTube video title, or even a Craigslist posting. It’s got to be a rare selling point, a superlative, or a shibboleth.
Please read that list only as a series of ideas, though most of those I’ve seen earn their keep in the local search results and even in the pay-per-click space over and over again. What works for one business may not work for another. What works for your business might not even be on the list. You get the idea, though.
If you’re not sure what’s a standout quality of your business, see what your customers repeatedly praise in their reviews of you. If that isn’t helpful, then (a) dig through what the AI bots say about why they chose specific competitors of yours, and (b) dig through those competitors’ reviews. See how many of those selling points also are true of your business. Then feature them on your site in the way I’ve described.
If you pick a solid qualifier or niche, you should see two important developments in the local AI results: (1) you’ll start showing up in the local AI results for more-specific, longer-tail terms that people type in when they need to drill down, and (2) you’ll start getting more clicks (and probably leads and customers) for broad search terms that you may already rank for in dribs and drabs. So you’re likely to show up at more stops along the customer’s journey. Your visibility in Google (maps and organic) probably will develop in the same way, too.
If you want to sum up the idea with an initialism so horrific that people might actually use it, you can call it AIUSPSEO.
Just remember that you attract to the degree that you repel, and that your site is the best place both to attract and to repel customers. Base all of your decisions on that and you’ll gain some altitude in the local AI results. Who knows what you’ll find up there?
What qualifier or niche have you planted your flag in? How did you decide on it, and what kind of visibility does it seem to have driven? Any decisions you’re stuck on? Leave a comment!
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