Showing Up in the RIGHT AI Searches

When a user asks Chat­G­PT (or any AI) Who is the best paint­ing, HVAC, or land­scap­ing com­pa­ny in my area? Most home ser­vices con­trac­tors want to show up in their niche every time. 

But is that what you real­ly want? You don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly need to show up in more search­es; instead, focus on show­ing up in the right ones. 

If you are an elec­tri­cian ser­vic­ing high-end homes, do you want to show up for a cost-con­scious shop­per? If you paint cab­i­nets, do you want to show up for some­one who needs exte­ri­or work done? If you do water­wise land­scap­ing, would you want to show up for a cus­tomer search­ing for trop­i­cal plants? Prob­a­bly not. 

The dif­fi­cult news about the new world of AI Search is that it’s not as sim­ple as using a hand­ful of key­words to rank well. The good news is that if you under­stand how AI match­es search results with searchers, you could improve the qual­i­ty of leads that you bring in. 

Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, a local search for paint­ing con­trac­tors has his­tor­i­cal­ly pulled up a con­sis­tent list of local con­trac­tors. How­ev­er, AI adds anoth­er lay­er to search. Its super­pow­er is the abil­i­ty to tai­lor the list to the searcher based on per­ceived user intent and con­tex­tu­al sig­nals. That means two dif­fer­ent peo­ple could enter the same broad prompt and AI would come back with two dif­fer­ent answers. 

To illus­trate, I asked my Chat­G­PT for the best painter in my area, and this is what it said. 

“Giv­en what I know about your loca­tion, and since you work in the paint­ing indus­try, I’m going to answer this from a qual­i­ty and rep­u­ta­tion stand­point rather than ​‘who has the biggest mar­ket­ing budget.’”

That’s true. I write a lot of arti­cles for the paint­ing indus­try, and it knows I talk a lot about pro­fes­sion­al­ism, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, sys­tems, qual­i­ty, etc. What I liked about this chat was that it not only served up con­trac­tors, it told me how it chose them. 

The top cri­te­ria for my search, accord­ing to the AI, were: 

• review qual­i­ty and volume
• con­sis­ten­cy across busi­ness listings
• longevi­ty
• rep­u­ta­tion
• com­plete­ness of online information 

But this is where AI gets pret­ty inter­est­ing. I asked Chat­G­PT how the answer would change if I were a real estate pro­fes­sion­al who likes to turn homes quick­ly and pro­tect profits.

The answer changed com­plete­ly. Not one con­trac­tor from the first list was on the sec­ond. Why? Because dif­fer­ent cus­tomers need dif­fer­ent things. 

Every con­trac­tor on the new list men­tioned real estate agents or investors, had reviews from real estate agents or investors, or specif­i­cal­ly dis­cussed ​“fresh­en­ing up a home before sale” on their website.

This illus­trates a very impor­tant point about AI search: some­one can search for the same ser­vice in the same loca­tion, but the list varies based on their def­i­n­i­tion of ​“best”.

Aaron Cote, founder and pres­i­dent of A Visu­al Glitch, agrees that rank­ing on AI search has made very real changes to the SEO land­scape. ​“A lot of home ser­vice busi­ness­es ask me, ​‘How do I show up on AI search­es?’” He says a bet­ter ques­tion to ask is: How do I ensure I show up in search­es from my best customers?

Luck­i­ly, he has some pret­ty con­crete ideas on how to shift your strat­e­gy from more to better.

Be Spe­cif­ic

“Be as unam­bigu­ous as you pos­si­bly can at every junc­tion,” says Cote. You want to call out all the ser­vices you offer and how you offer them. If you offer eco-friend­ly prod­ucts, make sure you talk about that on your site. If you spe­cial­ize in coat­ings that stand up to kids and pets, talk about that too! 

This is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to get spe­cif­ic about your offer­ings. But it’s not just about talk­ing about what you do. It’s also impor­tant to avoid words for search­es that will lead the wrong cus­tomer to you. 

Cote says, ​“If you’re a high-end land­scap­ing com­pa­ny, be care­ful about using words like bud­get or val­ue or any words that may con­fuse AI.”

That doesn’t mean you need to avoid these words com­plete­ly. The point is to ensure you aren’t offer­ing high-end ser­vices at high-end prices while posi­tion­ing your­self as the bud­get-friend­ly option.

Your tar­get cus­tomer and what they need and val­ue should guide all of your content. 

Keep It Consistent

Your web­site isn’t the only place AI (or prospects) can find infor­ma­tion about your busi­ness. Busi­ness pro­files, trade asso­ci­a­tions, social media, and news are just a few exam­ples of what AI may use when gen­er­at­ing recommendations. 

Ensur­ing that your infor­ma­tion is con­sis­tent across plat­forms, dis­clos­ing how long you’ve been in busi­ness, stay­ing on top of reviews, and par­tic­i­pat­ing in an inter­view with a local news out­let don’t take a lot of man-hours, but all of them can help you show up in AI search.

Essen­tial­ly, you are doing good work, doc­u­ment­ing that good work, and main­tain­ing a con­sis­tent presence. 

Pub­lish­ing Con­tent and Prices

Many cus­tomers research their project before they start ask­ing about a con­trac­tor to do the work. The week­end war­riors who want to know if they can DIY, the curi­ous home­own­er who wants to know what paint col­or might look best, or the informed con­sumer who wants to know a cost ball­park before they com­mit to search­ing are all exam­ples of prospects who can ben­e­fit from learn­ing some­thing from you. 

A how-to blog, project pro­files, and an FAQ sec­tion are all exam­ples of con­tent that, done well, can help get you in front of prospects before they’ve decid­ed that they are going to pur­chase. This not only proves your exper­tise to prospects, but it shows AI what prob­lems you solve. 

And this brings us to pub­lished pric­ing. Cote says, ​“Being trans­par­ent with pric­ing — that’s one of the eas­i­est things that you can do in this AI era to help increase the num­ber of qual­i­fied leads.”

Pub­lish­ing pric­ing can pro­vide anoth­er search sig­nal for AI and help prospects under­stand who you are for. Whether it’s in an FAQ sec­tion or on your ser­vice pages, adding price ranges with the appro­pri­ate dis­claimers is cer­tain­ly worth considering. 

In the end, this new age of AI search can act as a match­mak­er con­nect­ing you with cus­tomers who are look­ing for your ser­vices, the way you pro­vide them, and at the price you pro­vide them. 

Even though this might mean show­ing up in few­er search­es — that’s ok. The goal is not to be in the mix for every shop­per but to be the right answer when the right prospect starts ask­ing questions. 

Feel­ing over­whelmed? At DC Mar­ket­ing Group, we spe­cial­ize in the art, sci­ence, and dis­ci­pline of mar­ket­ing for home ser­vice busi­ness­es. Need help with all of it? We do that. Lack­ing in just one area? We do that too. Our vast expe­ri­ence and insights can stream­line your mar­ket­ing process­es and help you get more prospects and close more jobs. Sched­ule Your Free Con­sul­ta­tion Call Today!