If AI Isn’t Finding Your Business, This May Be Why

As a business owner, bringing in new clients is always top of mind. Keeping up with the newest developments in modern marketing is the only way to make sure you’re reaching your target audience when and where they’re looking. Right now, that latest digital marketing development is the AI chatbots, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, etc., everyone (and we mean everyone!) is talking about and using.

If you’ve been testing any of these AI tools, you may have discovered that your business isn’t included in the results. And, especially if your competitors are showing up in AI answers, you might feel more than a little concerned. As you’re trying to decipher how these platforms choose which businesses to feature, why you’re not currently included, and what to do about it, KKom Marketing can help.

Why is connecting with AI chatbots important?

Considering your website, social media, LinkedIn, Yelp, and any other digital platforms where you publicized your business, you’ve probably established a strong digital presence. Connecting with AI chatbots means understanding what matters to them and how to communicate your value in a way they can understand. In this day and age, you need to know how to speak to both humans and AI.

You don’t need to become an AI expert to do this, but you do need to adjust your digital marketing strategy so your business profile is easier to recognize, understand, and recommend.

How does AI find businesses?

Customer search behavior is always evolving, but the speed and impact of the changes around AI chatbots have caught many businesses off guard. Seemingly almost overnight, search has changed from a focus on long-tail keyword phrases to conversational questions. 

Rather than typing vague keywords and descriptors into Google, potential customers can ask an AI chatbot complex questions. They receive an answer immediately, written in plain language, which doesn’t require further research on their part. They can also ask follow-up questions to refine that answer and not have to investigate a long list of suggested links.

When asked a question about a product or service, AI chatbots find businesses by analyzing web results, drawing conclusions from what they find, and using that information to determine which businesses to recommend. Unlike a traditional search engine that might cast a wide net, an AI tool will only show the companies that best fit the parameters the user set in their query. The results are usually limited to three or four businesses. 

If your business isn’t included in that short list, a potential customer may never know you exist. Unlike a traditional search engine, you won’t be shown further down the page of results or even on the second page. Your business isn’t visible at all.

What information does an AI chatbot consider?

AI chatbots can only do what they’re programmed to do. Right now, they evaluate a number of data points across the internet. Many, if not all, of these data points overlap with search engines. The difference is in the way the information is interpreted. Again, the key to connecting with AI is that your content presents a cohesive and consistent picture of your business. AI looks at:

Gaps, contradictions, and inaccuracies mean that AI will skip over your company and focus on businesses with a stronger digital identity.

Why would AI ignore a specific business?

An AI tool can find unclear signals on your business in a few different areas. Your website copy may sound generic or too similar to competitors. You may be using broad or vague service descriptions that aren’t specific enough about your products. Complex, outdated, and poorly structured content is also problematic. 

AI can’t interpret the information it analyzes. It can only identify patterns, which depend on clarity and consistency. So if your website, social media profiles, and business listings aren’t unified, AI can’t confirm which version of your business is the right one. In the end, it will disregard your business and choose a business that is consistent.

To better communicate with AI chatbots, review the language you use across your digital identity. Using the same simple, direct language that explains exactly what your business is and what it does will help you stay relevant to AI.

How do you clarify your business purpose for AI?

Stating that you need to have clarity around your business is easier than actually doing it. If you have an established branding guide or marketing strategy, you can refer to your mission or vision statements for a reminder of what you want your business to be known for. You’re looking for language that is specific, repeatable, and easily understood.

Nuance and inference are lost on AI. Traditional slogans mean nothing because artificial intelligence doesn’t process information like real intelligence. Take this example of a typical tagline: We provide innovative, comprehensive equipment solutions for modern industry. Impressive, right? Sounds like a tagline that a marketing company worked hard to develop for a business! Except it means nothing to AI.

As a human, you can interpret that tagline and understand whether or not it’s relevant to the product you’re looking for. AI reads it as vague word salad. An improved tagline might be, “We manufacture precision metal components for OEMs for automotive and agricultural equipment.” The narrower the messaging, the easier it is for an AI chatbot to understand what you sell, identify your expertise, and include you in answers.

How can you optimize for AI?

Starting with clarifying your tagline can be a great way to understand how to update the rest of your content. You’re returning to your core expertise, which can guide you in revising your overall messaging wherever your business information appears digitally. Here are a few tips for optimizing your content specifically for AI.

1. Clear meaning, not just keywords

While SEO is still relevant, AI doesn’t interact with digital content exactly the same way search engines do. Although optimizing for AI can bolster your SEO, only optimizing for SEO won’t raise your visibility with AI chatbots. The primary difference is that AI chatbots aren’t identifying keywords. They’re looking for content that’s easy for them to interpret, well structured, and grounded in real expertise. 

2. Publish valuable, well-researched content

The impact of high-quality content has been growing in importance throughout the last decade. Product descriptions and marketing copy aren’t enough to attract the attention of search engines or AI. You also need to publish how-to guides, a FAQ page, and resources that match the questions your customers are asking. This is the information AI is looking to reference when it builds answers.

3. Logical content flow helps readability

Design your content to flow naturally down the page so readers can follow along easily. Headings should be clear, paragraphs short and to the point, and the layout logical. When your copy is dense, meandering, or disorganized, neither humans nor AI will understand your meaning.

4. Maintain accurate and up-to-date content

Technology and best practices in every field change regularly. One of the most important ways to reflect this is the regular posting of new content and maintenance of old content. If you’re not publishing new articles every week and double-checking your older articles for freshness, your content will be viewed as out of date and less trustworthy. And if your competitors are updating their content regularly, you’ll quickly fall behind.

5. Structured data supports understandable content

Structured data, or schema, is basically a label system for your website. It lives in the background of your site and users can’t see it. Rather, schema is used by both search engines and AI as a guide to interpreting your content. Schema is the difference between content that’s discoverable and content that is overlooked.

Your experience with improving your search engine rankings applies in this situation as well. It can take some time to increase your visibility with AI chatbots. With search engines and social media, paid advertising can be a quick fix to get new leads into your sales pipeline. That’s not the case with AI. So the sooner you implement these changes, the better!

Don’t get left behind!

AI can only find your business if it can understand what you’re selling. Even the most established or popular business will be left out of AI answers if the available information is unclear.

Define what you do. Communicate it clearly and consistently. Publish high-quality content that answers the questions potential customers are asking AI. And if you need help, ask. Talk with one of our marketing experts today!