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Being Found On AI Search Engines And Do You Need To Be?

Since the “AI search engine” questions outlined below come up regularly with existing and prospective clients, it made sense to address them in a blog post that can be shared as needed, and that can be found by searchers looking for answers to them.

Common Questions SEO Experts Get Asked About AI Search Engines, Like ChatGPT (Owned by OpenAI)

  1. How will my organization benefit from appearing in search results served up by ChatGPT or other AI search engines in response to relevant searches?
  2. What can I do to ensure my organization’s name and/or link to website appears in ChatGPT or in other AI search engine results?

Benefits To Appearing In ChatGPT Or Other AI Search Engines

Let’s start with question #1 above. Jumping on the latest marketing “toy” can, often, be a huge waste of time and energy. And, because of my organization’s tagline, “Maximizing Results Thru Research-Supported Marketing,” I’m the first one to speak out if data doesn’t support using that “toy” just because everyone else is jumping on the bandwagon. As you’ll see, I’ve done so related to social media – for many organizations it just doesn’t move the awareness, inquiry, or sales needle, even though there are certainly organizations for whom it does – and related to paid search/Google Ads (in this latter case, this is often an effective marketing tool for organizations, but it’s not effective for ALL organizations).

Sure, AI search engines that search the internet for you to provide answers to your question sound cool, fun, and interesting, but per this March 2025 article by Search Engine Land about search engine use in 2025, the majority of searchers are still using the traditional Google search engine to conduct internet-wide searches, and even if they weren’t, SEO best practices that apply to being found on traditional search engines, like Google and Bing, still make great sense related to being found in AI search engine results. Ultimately, it’s all about putting up helpful, consumable content that’s valued by your target audiences. And, that holds true for both traditional and AI search engine success, as we outlined in these two previous blog posts:

What Content Served Up In Google Generative AI Has In Common: 8 Practices To Implement Now
Understanding Google’s New Emphasis On “Helpful Content” Related To SEO

As you’ll see from reading the linked Search Engine Land article above, only about 1% of searchers use ChatGPT! Let’s move beyond the far-smaller-than-Google number of users who use ChatGPT, even though that will obviously impact your organization’s chances of being found by relevant searchers in relevant geographies, and tackle the question “would your organization benefit if someone conducted a relevant search in ChatGPT?” Your organization would likely only benefit and/or benefit most from appearing in AI search results if:

  • The mention of your organization in the results spit back included a link to your website.
  • The searcher originally included some kind of geographic mention when they conducted the search, so that your organization is appearing in search results in a geography you serve.

As you’ll see from the below print screen, our digital marketing agency and SEO company appears at the top of ChatGPT’s list when someone enters the relevant search shown in a relevant geography. Did we do anything beyond adhering to long-standing SEO best practices to ensure we appeared there? Nope.

This image shows results that appear in ChatGPT when the "ask anything" command is used and we asked "who are the best SEO experts on Boston's South Shore?" At the top of the results is our SEO company, Results Communications & Research.

For a geographic-neutral search, i.e., one where the searcher didn’t enter a specific location as part of their search, we don’t appear. But, we wouldn’t expect to, as our organization is literally competing with 1000s and 1000s of other SEO companies and digital marketing agencies across the entire country, and maybe the world. We’re not even slightly upset or disappointed by this, as we find many people still want to hire an SEO company or digital marketing agency that’s in the same state or at least same region (in our case, New England) as them. So, we aren’t concerned that our organization’s name and/or a link to our website isn’t being served up to someone who may be searching from as far away as California.

This image shows the results generated by ChatGPT when we used the "ask anything" command to answer the question "who are the best SEO experts. The list includes Neil Patel and other well-know national and international SEO experts.

And, as you’ll see from the below image, when people search more broadly/generally about SEO services, the names of organizations who offer such services aren’t even mentioned, and links to such organizations websites, therefore, don’t appear. So, it doesn’t seem there is a lost/missed opportunity there…

This image shows the results generated by ChatGPT when we used the "ask anything" command and searched on "what types of companies offer SEO services?" It spit back a list tht includes, but is not limited to SEO Agencies, and Digital Marketing Agencies.

A more indirect SEO benefit to appearing in AI search engine results is related to this longstanding SEO basic tenet: unless you’re getting a lot of website traffic from spammy referral sites, the more traffic your website gets, the more creditable/reputable search engines will view your site to be, and the more likely they will serve it up in search results. That said, most of our clients are only getting 1-5 visitors, at most, a month to their websites, so focusing heavily on trying to appear in AI search results, just to get additional traffic, doesn’t seem worth an organization’s efforts.

What makes appearing on ChatGPT even more complicated is that individuals who have signed up to use the tool at https://chatgpt.com, can either “ask anything,” and automatically put the type of “search” statement/question into it that they would put into Google or Bing, or they can click on the “search” (world) icon underneath the “ask anything” command/feature.

In full disclosure, we used the “ask anything” command vs. the “search” command to generate the search results we’ve shared in this post, but we don’t think the average person knows or thinks about when to use one command or feature vs. the other. We did see that when we used the “search” command/feature that different results than what were generated for “ask anything” were spit back. Regardless, our thinking is the same regarding time and energy spent to be found on ChatGPT. Unless someone completes a search (using either of the two commands/features that includes a geography, there’s probably neither a large chance that your organization will be served up nor a large chance that the person searching is going to engage you for your services or buy your products.

How To Appear In AI Search Results, Including Those Generated By ChatGPT

Moving on to question #2 above — which we’ve already addressed to a decent degree as part of answering question #1 – if you want to appear in AI search engine results, including ones generated by ChatGPT, continue to put out fresh, and easy-to-understand content that is of importance to your target audiences. The content may or may not be directly related to your products or services. The important thing is to be helpful and to try to drive appropriate traffic to your website thru content that is either directly related to the products and services you offer, or only very tangentially related. An example would be a roofing company. You don’t always want or need to put up content about roofing. Since your clients would tend to be local, you could post content about community events going on in your area/the towns you serve and/or share information about non-roof home improvements. And, be sure the content provides enough detail that if the reader wants to take a next step/action, they know what that step or action is.

Our Conclusions About Appearing on ChatGPT and AI Search Engines, In General

To quote Shakespeare, right now all the frenzy and energy spent around AI search engines that search the internet feels like “much ado about nothing.” At least for now/the immediate future. But, of course, as SEO experts, we will continue to keep our eyes on things, test and use AI search engines, attend relevant courses, and read relevant information.

Need Help Understanding The Pros and Cons Of Putting Time & Energy Into Being Found On AI Search Engines

Reach out today to schedule a complimentary consultation with an SEO Expert.

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Continuing Last Year’s Quest To Get To Know Our Neighboring State Of Rhode Island

Last spring and summer, my husband, Jay, and I made a number of day trips to various parts of Rhode Island in our quest to get to know the “Ocean State” that borders MA. Since our focus was on some of the less-well-known and less-touristy parts of RI, we didn’t focus on, nor visit, Providence (even though we have visited RI’s capital city countless times for a variety of reasons and did drive by it or thru it on some of the day trips we blogged about last year). You can read these blog posts by visiting the first of our blog posts about RI and scrolling to the bottom of the post to access the second.

But, since Jay and I visited Providence last Saturday, and had a great time — as we always do in the capital city of Rhode Island — I’d be remiss, when singing the praises of this state that borders our home state of MA, if I didn’t share some of our favorite things about and places in Providence.

Fortunately, we were blessed with a nearly-80-degree day the day we visited, which made it a fabulous day to be walking around the City and enjoying all the sites, smells, and sounds, and those who follow this blog, know we love to walk!

This image shows a plaza like the ones you might see in Italy -- beautiful brick buildings that house various cafes and restaurants surround the plaza and there is a foundation in the middle it and the blog post's author's husband is sitting on the edge of the fountain.
The author’s husband Jay sitting at a fountain found in the middle of a large plaza (Depasquale Square) accessed via Atwells Avenue and Spruce Streets, Federal Hill, Providence

Providence: Our Favorite Places and Things

  • Federal Hill – what’s not to love about yummy Italian snacks, entrees and desserts and the friendly store owners who sell them? This past weekend we visited a couple of favorite “deli” type places on Atwells Avenue (the main drag in this Italian section of Providence where many businesses, particularly restaurants, are housed) which serve a large collection of Italian prepared and packaged food, including Constantino’s Venda Ravioli, and Tony’s Colonial Food. But, we also discovered Roma. The people at Roma were so friendly and happy, and the meatballs and roasted vegetables were so delicious, we’ll be back for both of these yummy food items!
  • Benefit Street/South Main Street/Brown University and RISD Area – if you want to get some great “hill work” in, walk up one of the many streets in the downtown area of Providence that lead to beautiful, historic Benefit Street (like we did on Saturday) to check out the wonderful old homes and buildings, plus properties owned by Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)
  • Providence Bruins Arena/Amica Mutual Center – we enjoyed the lively, fast-paced, last-regular-season hockey game at this home of the Providence Bruins and the home team’s WIN against the Bridgeport Islanders. And, before the game, we ate dinner at Blake’s Tavern (great Irish pub feel and food was delicious – I got a grilled chicken and hummus wrap – and the waitstaff and hostess were very friendly and nice)
  • 195 Distinct Park – as explained on this new Providence park’s website, “195 District Park is a seven-acre waterfront park located on the east and west sides of the Providence River, connected by the iconic Michael S. Van Leesten Memorial Pedestrian Bridge.” We so enjoyed walking over the Bridge at night after the Providence Bruins game. Since the evening was one of the first warm ones of the spring season, numerous groups of people and individuals were hanging out on the Bridge, and we loved all the blue lighting and seeing some kind of musical group setting up their equipment — we don’t know if they planned to perform and/or to record a video on the Bridge. 
This image shows the hockey/sports arena where the Providence Bruins play and was taken from the stands so that you see hockey players playing on the ice as well as the jumbotron with someone flexing their muscles shown on it, plus the back of a shirt of a fan sitting in the stands that says "McAvoy," the name of a Boston Bruins player.
Cheering The Providence Bruins On To A Victory!

Earlier in the day, we also checked out two other landmark places on Federal Hill that we’ve visited a number of times — Pastishe (fabulous home-made desserts) and Caserta Pizzeria (wonderful Sicilian pizza). But, because we knew we’d be eating Easter treats the next day, we did not buy any of our favorites at either place. Next time!

This is an image of Gail Snow Moraski, the blog post author and owner of our Boston digital marketing agency and SEO company standing on a bridge and beautiful wooden walkway that goes over a river in Providence, and it is nighttime, so you can see all the lights in the City buildings in the background and reflecting on the river's water
The author, and Results C & R’s Principal, Gail Snow Moraski, on Michael S. Van Leesten Memorial Pedestrian Bridge

We’re sure this first spring trip to RI will be like last year’s first spring trip — the first of many trips to come later in the year. So, check back for information on more fun day trips to the Ocean State from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts!

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You Won’t Know Unless You Try: Why Sometimes The Only Way To Know If A Particular Marketing Activity Will Be An Effective One Is To Test It

As we mentioned in our blog post about our digital marketing agency and SEO company celebrating our 11-year anniversary, recently we’ve been testing more print advertising and Google Display advertising for clients. Sometimes, your organization and/or your marketing consultant or agency either doesn’t have enough experience employing certain types of advertising or marketing, or they don’t have enough experience employing certain types of advertising or marketing related to your organization’s particular industry, challenges, and opportunities.

The above-mentioned scenario means the only way to know for sure whether or not a particular marketing vehicle or marketing activity might generate great awareness, leads, sales, or engagement for services for your organization is to test that vehicle — run a pilot campaign using that particular vehicle and see what results reveal.

Recently, we’ve been working with a client in the food space that offers a food-related service vs. offering a food product that you can buy at the grocery store. They were already running Google Search ads that were served up to individuals specifically looking for their particular service. We suggested they also:

  • run search ads (search engine marketing (SEM) ads/paid search/paid SEO) for people looking for a solution to a problem, challenge, or opportunity who weren’t aware of, or necessarily thinking about, the client’s service as an option for addressing their need.
  • employ Google Display advertising and have image/display ads served up to people reading about relevant topics as well as people to people who had researched relevant topics in the past and/or had bought products/services similar to theirs in the past.

Evaluating A New Marketing Activity: What Does A Conversion Cost You?

While both of the new campaigns had strong click-thru rates, and the Google Display ads had an extremely low cost-per-click, when we did a really deep dive to determine which, if either, of the two new campaigns were generating conversions, i.e., calls, submitted inquiry forms, etc., we determined that the Display ads were NOT generating conversions — ultimately, making the cost-per-conversion crazy high for the Display ads, even though they had a very favorable cost-per-click.

Are we glad we tested both of the new types of campaigns? Certainly. The client is still somewhat in start-up mode, and is still testing and trying a number of marketing vehicles and activities to determine what will work best for them as far as lead- and sales-generation goes. And, we wouldn’t have learned the Display ads wouldn’t be effective if we haven’t tried. We spent short money and only ran the campaign for about six weeks. Our money and time investment wasn’t huge, and we learned this type of ad doesn’t make sense from an ROI standpoint — too many people clicking on ads because of the “curiosity factor,” likely, because the ads were food-related and images included in them were enticing and inviting.

We’ll continue to run the other new Google campaign — the Search one — because it is generating conversions, and we’ll keep an eye on the cost-per-conversion to determine if we should continue to run it, but the ads have only been running for 2 months and we need more time to get a sense of the advertising ROI.

This image is a gray rectangular that runs portrait vs. landscape and reads "you won't know unless you try: why sometimes the only way to know if a particular marketing activity is an effective one is to test it. It contains an image with it that says "test" in a font that looks like some kind of programming code and also contains the image of our Boston SEO Company, Results Communications and Research."

Need Help Testing A Particular Marketing Vehicle Or Activity?

Reach out today to schedule a complimentary discussion of your particular marketing challenges and opportunities!

walking

The Benefits Of Both Walking and Having A Sunny Corner

Because my love of walking began when I was a child and has continued into my 60’s, I think you can appreciate why, the older I get, the more I wish New England winters were both shorter and warmer. Walking outdoors provides me with so many benefits, including the abilities to…

  • Manage stressful situations (and that comes from getting my heart pumping and seeing the beauty of nature)
  • Fall asleep more quickly and sleep more soundly
  • Stay in the best possible mental and physical health
  • See and chat with neighbors
  • Be in a better mood (from getting a dose of sunshine which we all need to stay upbeat)
  • Take a work break during the day (even it’s not until late afternoon)

On any day of the year, particularly cold winter days, I love walking to a spot in my neighborhood that I refer to as the “sunny corner.” One can stand on the corner where two very quiet, low-traffic streets in my neighborhood intersect and point one’s face at the sun that always seems to beat down hard on that corner. Of course, the sun does not shine there on a rainy day, but on a day when the sun is out, I seek out the sunny corner and pretend I’m Timothy in the “The Odd Life Of Timothy Green.” I raise my face and arms to the sun and soak up all the warmth, energy, and beauty of the sun to feed my body and my soul!

Whether it’s a literal “sunny corner” or a figurative one, I hope all my readers have a sunny corner. A special place, hobby, interest, person, song, poem, book, movie, sports team, sport activity, etc. that rejuvenates them, and provides nurturing and hope. Something, someone or someplace that provides the necessary nutrients to keep their body and spirit functioning optimally!

This image shows a couple of houses on a quite street in a quiet neighborhood -- a white house and a yellow house -- plus image shows sun in sky and lots of trees.
The view I see when I stand on the sunny corner!
This image shows a street in a quiet neighborhood plus a sidewalk outlined by a concrete curb where the author of this post stands to face the sun, plus the image shows a red and yellow modern-looking house that is across the street from the corner where the author stands.
The sidewalk and concrete curb on the right are where I stand to soak in the sun on the “sunny corner.”

Want to author a blog post for our website related to walking? Reach out to our Boston SEO Company’s Principal today! And, yeah, we’re glad to talk about search engine (SEO) too, but sometimes, we hijack our digital marketing agency’s blog to talk about one of our passions, i.e. walking!

Need more walking inspiration? Check out our numerous blog posts about the joys and benefits of walking!

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11 Years and Close To 150 Customers Later…

We can’t believe it either, but today (April 1, 2025) marks 11 years of Results Communications & Research (Results C & R) being in the marketing agency and SEO company business.

As we always have been, we are very grateful to the many talented marketing consultants, marketing agencies and their staff, and other marketing professionals we’ve had the pleasure to collaborate with, and to learn from. We mention a few of those marketing collaborators on our Our Team page, but the list is so long, it’s hard to give a shout-out to everyone we’ve enjoyed meeting, knowing and working with the last 11 years!

And, we are incredibly grateful to the close to 150 client organizations — both for-profit and non-profit — with whom we’ve brainstormed and strategized to achieve the best possible level of awareness, sales leads, and actual sales (both product and service sales). Many of our current clients have been with us a number of years. You can access a list of our past and current clients to see examples of industries we’ve served by visiting the Clients page of our website.

Lastly, we’d be very remiss if we didn’t give a huge shout-out to the various students or recent-college- or recent-graduate-school graduates who worked for us over the years, and to our Principal’s late sister-in-law who greatly supported our mission, contributed to our success, and believed in us. All of the aforementioned individuals will always be a part of Results C & R’s rich history!

What’s Next For Our SEO Company and Marketing Agency?

In general, it’s full speed ahead with serving the same type of customers we’ve always loved serving — small to mid-sized for-profit and non-profit organizations. But, right now, we are enjoying spending more time getting up-to-speed on anything new and different going on in the Google Ads space. We love helping clients create awareness, sales, and leads with Google Ads and always have, so we are refreshing our Google Ads skillsets (even though we’ve taken and passed a number of Google certification exams in the past), particularly, Google Performance Max ones, so that we are not missing out on any opportunities to maximize our clients’ Google Search, Google Display, and Google Performance Max campaigns. Think of this latter campaign type as of a hybrid of the two former Google Ads types of campaign, and one with an AI component, like Google Display.

AI Is Not New To Google Ads/Google Ads Is Not New To AI

Related to our above desire to continue to grow our Google Ads skills, we want to remind our readers that AI is not new to Google Ads and Google Ads is not new to AI. For years, Google Ads has been able to offer “display” ad campaigns that are targeted to individuals who show affinity to certain products or services because of past buying or researching of them, having interests related to them, visiting websites focused on them, or reading about them on a variety of diverse websites.

AI and Writing Website Content, Particularly Blog Posts

And, speaking of AI, another area in which we hope to do more client work in the coming year is blog writing for clients. We’ve offered blog-writing services for years — and a number of clients have taken us up on it — but because we really enjoy writing, we hope to do more of this work for clients.

We don’t think AI search-engine/tools like ChatGPT will, or should ever, replace humans when it comes to website content and blog post writing. There’s great evidence that, at least some of what is spit back by AI search engines is not accurate. Plus, we don’t think an AI tool can ever bring the behinds-the-scenes knowledge or heart ‘n soul of an organization to website content writing or blogging. Only the organizations, themselves, truly understand what challenges their target audiences face — what their pain points are — and what they most need help with and how the organization’s products and services make a difference in their client’s/customer’s lives.

Traditional Marketing Opportunities Are Often Missed Ones

And, we always enjoy — and hope to do more of this in the coming year — helping our clients out with traditional marketing opportunities like print, radio, and TV/cable/streaming advertising, transit advertising, outdoors (billboard advertising) and more. We’ve got years and years of experience related to it and can help you gather information on possible traditional marketing opportunities and evaluate them! By dismissing traditional opportunities because they aren’t online/digital ones, organizations can also miss out on reaching target audiences who don’t spend a lot of time on the internet!

An image of our digital marketing agency's Founder and Principal, Gail Snow Moraski who is wearing glasses and who has shoulder-length blonde hair and who is weraing a red dress, a black cardigan and a sliver necklace.
Our Principal, Gail Snow Moraski, in a photo from around 2014, the year she founded Results C & R

Many Thanks and Let’s Catch Up!

Many thanks to the clients and marketing professionals we continue to collaborate with!

If you’re a past client, a prospective client we spoke with, or a fellow marketing professional with whom we collaborated in the past, or if you’ve interned with us in the past, let’s catch up. Schedule a time to do so today!