The Robots Are Recommending Your Competitor

Questions like this used to go to Google’s ten blue links:

“Best tacos near me that aren’t a chain.” 

“Who’s a good roofer in Ferndale?” 

“Dog groomer open Sunday, not too expensive.”

‍

Now they go to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, or whichever AI Overlord Google has parked on top of its results, like the know-it-all cousin at Thanksgiving.

And that cousin gives one answer. Maybe three. 

If you’re not part of the answer, you’re not in the conversation at all.

This is called GEO: generative engine optimization. And for once, the loudest topic on the internet is also one of the most useful, especially if you run a local business.
‍

1. Your Listings Get You Mentioned. Your Website Closes the Deal

When AI tools recommend a local business, they lean hard on your Google Business Profile, Yelp, and Apple Maps data. Which means the listing you set up in 2019 and forgot the password to might still be doing a lot of talking.

It makes sense. Those platforms are very structured. Hours, address, categories, reviews, photos. Neat little boxes a machine can read without guessing.

But listings only hold so much. When someone asks what you actually do, what it costs, or whether you handle their specific problem, the AI goes looking for depth, and the best source of that is your website. It’s also where people end up once the robot sends them your way. Being recommended doesn’t help much if the site they land on doesn’t convince them.

So your website has to work for both audiences. If your hero section just says “Passion Meets Excellence,” it gives the bots nothing to work with, and it doesn’t do much for the humans either.

‍

Start with the quick wins:

• Claim and fully fill out your Google Business Profile. Every field and every category that’s true.
• Check Yelp and Apple Business Connect. Same name, same address, same phone, same hours everywhere. 
• Keep photos current and answer your reviews like a real person.

Boring? Yes. Effective? Also yes. 

Then make sure your website backs it all up.

‍

2. Don’t Panic About the Stat

Just how many searches show an AI answer? Depends who you ask. 

Ahrefs puts AI Overviews at about 16% of all US searches. Whitespark found them on more than half of local searches, though mostly informational ones like “how much does a roof replacement cost,” not “roofer near me.”

16% or 50%: not a contradiction, just different questions.

Here’s our take: the exact number matters less than the direction, and it’s going up. Your customers are already asking robots for recommendations, and the robots are already answering. If it’s one in six or one in two, you’d rather be in the answer than not.

So don’t worry too much about the number. Act on the trend instead. 

‍

3. SEO Isn’t Dead

Every few months someone on LinkedIn declares SEO dead. But it never is.

AI tools don’t invent their answers out of thin air. They pull from pages that are crawlable, fast, clearly organized, and trusted by other sites. That’s just SEO with a new audience.

We saw this firsthand with P. La Salon in Royal Oak. They had loyal clients and glowing reviews, but their website was slow, dated, and hard to use on a phone. Online, they looked like just another salon. We rebuilt the site mobile-first and SEO-optimized, with fast load times, human-focused imagery, and a profile page for every stylist. Today they rank #2 on Google for “salon royal oak mi,” up from not appearing on page one at all. That’s the foundation AI search builds on. See how we did it. [https://www.nephew.co/project/p-la-salon]

So if anyone tries to sell you a shiny “GEO package” that skips the basics, walk away. Maybe even run. GEO isn’t a replacement. It’s a second floor. And nobody builds a second floor on a sinkhole.

‍

4. Learn to Speak Robot (sorry)

Structured data (also called schema markup) is code on your site that tells machines exactly what they’re looking at. Not “this page seems to be about a bakery.” More like “this is definitely a bakery, here’s the address, here are the hours, here’s what it sells.”

‍

Your customers never see it, but it gives search engines and AI tools a cleaner read.

Three types do most of the heavy lifting:

• Local Business: who you are, where you are, when you’re open, how to reach you.
• Service: what you actually do, spelled out one service at a time.
• FAQ: the real questions customers ask, with real answers. Conveniently, those are the same questions people type into ChatGPT.

If your site is on Webflow, Shopify, or a decent CMS, this isn’t a huge lift. If your site is held together with plugins and prayer, well. We’ve written about that, too. [https://www.nephew.co/post/break-up-with-wordpress]

5. Say Something a Machine Can Check

AI doesn’t get excited by adjectives, unless it’s writing them. It can’t verify “world-class service” or “Detroit’s best-kept secret.” So it ignores them.

‍

What it can use are facts. Specific, checkable, boring-on-purpose facts.

Not “experienced team.” 
Try “licensed in Michigan since 2009, 1,200+ roofs replaced.”‍

Not “fast turnaround.” 
Try “same-day appointments, Monday through Saturday.”

Not “we serve the area.” 
Try “we serve Ferndale, Pleasant Ridge, Berkley, and Hazel Park.”

‍

Here’s the plot twist: this also makes you better at talking to humans. And humans are the ones paying you. 

Vague marketing language has always sucked. The robots just stopped pretending it didn’t. If a claim can’t be checked, cut it. If it can, make it louder.

6. Test It Yourself 

You don’t need a fancy dashboard to see where you stand (but we can make you one). You need a spreadsheet and some patience. Here’s what we recommend:

• Write down 15 to 25 questions your customers would actually ask. Mix it up: “best [service] in [your city],” “[service] open on weekends,” “affordable [service] near [neighborhood].”
• Ask every one of them in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google.
• Log out or use a private window first. AI answers change based on who’s asking and where they are, and you want to see what a stranger sees, not what the robot thinks you want to hear.
• Note where you searched from. A search in Ferndale, MI and one in Royal Oak, MI can give different answers.
• Ask each question more than once. AI answers can change from one try to the next, so one mention doesn’t make you the answer, and one miss doesn’t mean you’re invisible.
• Track it. Did you get mentioned? Did a competitor? Was the info about you correct?
• Do it again every month or two.

That’s all. No black box. No mystery metric.

The first round is usually pretty humbling. But that’s the point. Now you have a baseline, and you’ll know if the work is working.

‍

If You Read Nothing Else, Read This: Be the Obvious Answer

AI search sounds new and scary. All it’s really asking you to do is the stuff good marketing always requires in the first place.

Be findable.

Be consistent.

Be specific.

The businesses that win here won’t be the ones chasing every new acronym. They’ll be the ones that made it easy for a person, or a robot, to say “yeah, go there.”

Not sure where you stand? Let’s talk. We’ll run the test with you, and go from there.