5 New Rules for Getting Found Online in the Age of AI
SEO Is Changing: Your Business Now Needs to Be Found by Google, ChatGPT, Gemini and Other AI Platforms
For years, getting found online meant one thing: ranking on Google.
A business would build a website, optimize it for keywords, publish content and hope to appear on the first page of search results.
That model is changing.
Consumers increasingly use AI-powered search experiences and assistants to ask complete questions:
- “Who is the best tax professional near me?”
- “Find a Spanish-speaking accountant who works with small businesses.”
- “Who can help me form an LLC?”
- “Find a real estate agent who understands first-time Latino homebuyers.”
- “What payroll company should a small construction company use?”
Instead of scrolling through dozens of websites, consumers increasingly expect technology to identify, compare and recommend businesses for them.
That creates a new challenge for small businesses.
You don’t just need to rank. You need to become a business that search engines and AI systems can confidently understand and surface.
Traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is therefore increasingly complemented by Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and optimization for AI-driven discovery.
The objective is simple:
Make your business easy for machines to understand, verify and recommend.
Here are five rules businesses should focus on.
Rule #1: Get Listed Everywhere Your Business Matters
Your Google Business Profile (GBP) has become one of the most important pieces of digital real estate for a local business.
Google itself describes Business Profile as a business’s “local storefront” across Google Search and Maps. A profile can contain your location, contact information, website, hours, photos and reviews.
For many local searches, customers can get most of what they need without visiting the company’s homepage.
But Google Business Profile shouldn’t exist in isolation.
Your business should also appear across reputable directories and platforms where customers—and search systems—can verify information about you.
Google says it compiles business information from several sources, including publicly available web content, third-party licensed data, user contributions and information supplied by business owners.
That makes consistency increasingly important.
Keep Your Business Information Consistent
Your core business information should match wherever possible:
Business Name
Address
Phone Number
Website
Hours
Business Category
Services
Business Description
If one directory has an old phone number, another has a previous address and another describes your company differently, you create conflicting signals.
The goal is to build a consistent digital identity.
Think about it this way:
One listing is a claim.
Dozens of consistent listings become corroboration.
Google specifically recommends keeping Business Profile information complete and accurate and says that detailed information helps it understand a business and match it with relevant searches.
Use AI to Improve Your Business Description
AI can also help you develop a stronger Google Business Profile description.
Give an AI assistant information such as:
- What your company does
- Who you serve
- Your geographic market
- Languages spoken
- Your specialties
- Your primary services
- The problems customers hire you to solve
Then ask it to develop a concise description that clearly explains your business in natural language.
Don’t stuff it with keywords. The objective should be to make your business unambiguous.
Rule #2: Get a Website—Even If Fewer People Visit It
This sounds contradictory.
If customers increasingly get answers directly from Google and AI platforms, why invest in a website?
Because your website isn’t only for humans anymore.
Your website is also a structured source of information about your business.
Google confirms that publicly available web content—including a business’s official website—is among the sources it can use to compile business information.
Your website therefore becomes something like your company’s digital source of truth.
It should clearly explain:
- Who you are
- What you do
- Where you operate
- Who you serve
- What services you provide
- What makes those services different
- How customers contact you
Use Schema Markup
One increasingly useful technical component is schema markup, a form of structured data.
Schema can help search engines interpret specific information on a webpage, such as your organization, services, location, articles and other entities.
For a local business, the objective isn’t merely making a website attractive.
You want the underlying information to be machine-readable and clearly organized.
Build FAQ Pages Around Real Questions
This is particularly important in the AI-search era.
People don’t always search:
“CPA San Antonio.”
They may ask:
“Who is a Spanish-speaking CPA in San Antonio who can help me convert my LLC to an S corporation?”
That means businesses need content designed around questions, not only keywords.
Ask AI:
“What are the 50 most common questions someone might ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Google when looking for a business like mine?”
Review the results and identify questions your real customers actually ask.
Then create FAQ sections answering them.
For example, a tax firm might answer:
Can I file taxes with an ITIN?
Should my LLC elect S corporation status?
Can a tax professional help me respond to an IRS notice?
What happens if I haven’t filed taxes in three years?
Do I need bookkeeping if I own a construction company?
Those questions create useful content for customers while helping search systems better understand your expertise.
Rule #3: Get Social—Even If You Don’t Have Many Followers
Many small business owners make a mistake with social media.
They assume:
“I only have 300 followers. Why bother posting?”
Because follower count isn’t the only reason to maintain an active social presence.
Your social accounts form part of your broader digital footprint.
An active business looks very different online from one whose last post was three years ago.
The objective should be consistent evidence that:
You’re active.
You’re knowledgeable.
You’re involved in your industry.
You answer relevant customer questions.
Your business is still operating.
Social media can therefore reinforce your broader brand presence while also creating additional opportunities for prospective customers to discover you.
Don’t Post the Same Way Everywhere
Each platform has a different content culture.
TikTok and short-form video environments generally reward a high volume of fresh content, while other platforms may benefit from a more selective cadence.
One article might become:
Website: 1,500-word SEO article
LinkedIn: professional insight
Instagram: five-slide carousel
Facebook: educational post
TikTok/Reels: 30-second video
YouTube Shorts: quick answer
Email: client newsletter
AI makes this repurposing dramatically easier.
Thryv, for example, offers social-media management with AI-generated customizable content and AI-generated imagery, along with publishing and scheduling capabilities.
The key isn’t simply creating more content.
It is creating a consistent stream of useful signals about what your business knows and does.
Rule #4: Get Reviews—and Reply to Them
Reviews are one of the most powerful—and often underutilized—assets in local search.
Google explicitly says that review count and positive ratings can help a business’s local ranking. Google also encourages businesses to respond to reviews because replies demonstrate that the business values customer feedback.
Reviews accomplish something advertising cannot easily manufacture:
third-party validation.
Your website tells the internet what you say about your company.
Reviews tell the internet what customers say about your company.
That distinction matters.
Don’t Just Collect Reviews. Respond to Them.
Create an internal standard of responding promptly—ideally within a day or two.
A good response doesn’t need to be long.
If a customer writes:
“Maria helped us set up our LLC and explained everything in Spanish.”
Don’t simply respond:
“Thanks!”
Instead, reinforce the useful context naturally:
“Thank you for trusting our team with your LLC formation. We’re glad Maria was able to explain the process clearly in Spanish and make starting your business easier.”
That response is more useful to future customers because it provides context about the actual service delivered.
Don’t Panic Over an Imperfect Rating
Businesses should strive for excellent customer experiences, but an occasional negative or neutral review is not necessarily catastrophic.
Customers generally understand that no business satisfies every person every time.
More important is how the company responds.
A professional response demonstrates that the business listens, communicates and attempts to resolve problems.
Never manufacture reviews or have AI fabricate customer testimonials. AI is much better used to draft responses to genuine reviews, which a business owner can review and personalize before publishing.
Rule #5: Get Blogs and Backlinks
This is where SEO and AEO start working together.
Your website shouldn’t be a digital brochure that you create once and forget.
It should become a library of expertise.
One of the simplest ways to build that library is through articles.
Blogging Has a New Purpose
The traditional concept of blogging was:
“Build an audience that comes back every week to read my blog.”
That can still be valuable, but local businesses can think differently.
The purpose of an article is often to create the best answer to a question your prospective customer is already asking.
A tax professional, for example, might publish:
- “LLC vs. S Corporation: Which Is Better for a Small Business?”
- “Can an ITIN Holder Start a Business in the United States?”
- “What Should I Do If I Receive an IRS CP2000 Notice?”
- “How Much Should a Small Business Save for Taxes?”
- “Can Undocumented Immigrants Buy a Home?”
- “How Does a 1031 Exchange Work?”
- “What Records Should a Construction Company Keep for a Workers’ Compensation Audit?”
Each article creates another opportunity for a search engine or AI-powered discovery system to understand the firm’s expertise.
Backlinks Are Digital References
Think of backlinks like references on a résumé.
Anybody can say:
“I’m an expert.”
It becomes more credible when other reputable organizations reference that person.
The same principle applies online.
Google says prominence can include information such as how many websites link to a business, while articles, directories and other web references can contribute to Google’s understanding of how prominent a business is.
Potential backlink sources include:
- Industry associations
- Business directories
- Chambers of commerce
- Local news organizations
- Professional organizations
- Conference websites
- Partner websites
- Podcasts
- Guest articles
- Sponsorship pages
- Community organizations
Quality matters more than simply accumulating random links.
The strongest backlinks provide legitimate context connecting your business to your industry, location or expertise.
The New SEO Formula: Build Confidence Across the Internet
The old model of SEO often focused heavily on:
Keywords → Rankings → Website Traffic
The emerging model is broader:
Identity → Consistency → Authority → Trust → Recommendation
Google says its local results are primarily influenced by relevance, distance and prominence.
Businesses cannot control every factor—especially distance.
But they can influence many of the signals surrounding relevance and prominence.
That means creating an online ecosystem where your:
Google Business Profile says what you do.
Website explains what you do.
Directories confirm who and where you are.
Social media demonstrates that you’re active.
Reviews show that customers trust you.
Articles demonstrate expertise.
Backlinks show that other organizations recognize you.
When those signals reinforce one another, your digital presence becomes substantially stronger.
Where Thryv Marketing Center Fits In
Doing all of this manually can quickly become another full-time job for a small business owner.
That’s the problem platforms such as Thryv Marketing Center are designed to address.
Thryv currently combines several of these functions into one marketing platform, including local listings, reputation management, social-media management, website tools, analytics and AI-powered capabilities.
For example, Thryv’s tools can help businesses manage listings from a centralized location rather than updating directories individually. Depending on the Thryv product or service configuration, its current materials describe managing 30+, 40+ or, in its broader software offering, 60+ online sites/listings.
Its social tools can help create AI-assisted posts and images and schedule content, while reputation-management capabilities can help businesses monitor and respond to customer reviews.
Some strategies—such as professionally built websites, ongoing article creation or backlink campaigns—may still require additional professional services.
The advantage is that a business doesn’t have to approach listings, reviews, social media, websites and content as five completely separate marketing projects.
They become pieces of the same objective:
Make your business easy to find, easy to understand and easy to trust.
SEO Isn’t Dead. It’s Expanding.
The rise of AI doesn’t mean businesses should stop caring about Google or traditional SEO.
It means SEO is becoming bigger than Google rankings alone.
A prospective customer might discover you through Google Maps today, Instagram tomorrow and an AI-generated answer the next day.
You don’t necessarily know where the next customer will begin their search.
So don’t build your entire strategy around one channel.
Build a digital presence that consistently answers three questions everywhere:
Who are you?
What are you an expert at?
Why should someone trust you?
If search engines, AI systems and prospective customers can repeatedly find clear and consistent answers to those questions, you’re building the kind of online authority that matters in the next generation of search.
The new rule of online marketing isn’t simply “rank higher.”
It’s:
Responses