Let’s face it, the world of AI/answer engine search is still rapidly evolving, and fellow marketing and SEO experts and I will still need to keep an extremely close eye on it, and test various tactics related to organizations (we work with or for) appearing on AI engines. But, in the meantime, if I had to suggest four steps/tactics to take now while we continue to monitor how businesses and organizations are impacted by the growing use of AI search/answer engines like ChatGPT (and I do regularly suggest the following to clients), the steps and tactics to support your organization mentioned or being cited in ChatGPT and other AI engines, would include the below. As you’ll see, we’ve already shared and explained these tactics/steps in distinct blog posts dedicated specifically to the step/tactic.
I’ve attended a decent number of webinars about AI search and how to get your organization’s name or a link back to your website (citation) to be shared by an answer engine in response to a topic-relevant user’s prompt. To-date I’ve heard the following list of key tactics mentioned related to how to get your organization’s name or page served up by answer engines like ChatGPT:
What Types Of Organizations Benefit The Most From Appearing In Answer Engines/AI Search Engines?
For bigger brands who offer services and products throughout the whole U.S., or even the world, it makes great sense to want your organization’s name and links back to your website to appear in answer engine results related to relevant-topic searches. But for organizations who only offer services or products locally, i.e., in one city or town, in one state, or in one region (such as New England), there will likely be far less value to your organization to your organization from being found on answer engines than there would be for a national or international organization. Why? Because many individuals entering prompts into an answer engine just want their question answered. They aren’t looking to buy a product or pay for a service. And, the answer engines are more concerned about serving up content that easily/readily answers the question, regardless of the geography of the content producer or of the individual who is looking to get their question asked or answered. Unless, of course, the searcher/prompter includes their geography in the prompt, such as a prompt like “who’s the best digital marketing agency in Braintree MA.”
The Big Mistake That Organizations Who Need To Rank Locally Are Making Related To AI Search
Let’s face it, smaller, local organizations have far smaller budgets than a national brand like Progressive Insurance. They also have far smaller marketing teams. When they put the majority of their marketing dollars and energy into producing content that will be found in AI tools like Perplexity, Claude, and ChatGPT, they are missing out on other opportunities which might better help them be found locally, since, as we shared above, many individuals to whom their website content or name will be served up by answer engines won’t be in their geography.
What Are Some Marketing Tactics That Help Organizations Be Found Locally?
Google Search Ads – where you’ve selected a geography appropriate for your business
Display Advertising – Google, Meta (Facebook/Instagram), other social media advertising – again, where you’ve selected a geography appropriate for your business
Community Event Participation and Sponsorships – in communities your organization serves
Social Media Strategy and Posting – like with AI/answer engine search – you can reach local individuals and businesses who follow you this way, but there’s always some “waste,” where you are reaching individuals who can/will never become a client or customer because of geography or for other reasons
Optimizing Your Google My Business Profile — this is your best opportunity to be found locally and have your organization served up for “near me” terms
Writing a guest blog post for another local organization who serves your geography and/or requesting a backlink from their website to your website
We’ll keep this blog post short & sweet, since we just wanted to share the great news that a key wish of every digital marketer and social media expert came true in November 2025 when Google implemented the capability of being able to schedule updates/posts to your Google My Business vs. solely post them in real time.
Google also now lets you post to more than one Google My Business Profile that you own or manage. So, if your organization has several Profiles, based on various locations out of which you operate, and you want to share the same post/update to more than one profile you can do this all at once while being logged into one Profile and using the multi-location scheduling functionality.
But, Do I Need To Post To My Google My Business Profile?
Yes, you very much do. As we called out in our blog post about whether or not social media is worth the time & energy, organizations need to think of their Google My Business Profile as another form of social media and keep content shared on their fresh/current — this not only helps from an SEO perspective, since search tools reward for fresh content, but also helps from a marketing standpoint, as prospective clients and clients will see you are attending well to your shop.
In Addition To Sharing Updates, What Are Some Other Google My Business Profile Best Practices?
Check out these blog posts we’ve written about optimizing your Google My Business Profile that provide information on other tactics you can implement to make sure your Google My Business Profile has the best possible chance of being served up in relevant Google “near me” searches!
As we explained in this previous blog post about the mistake most people make when they manually conduct an SEO audit, your organization is better off hiring an SEO expert to conduct an audit, so that the results you get are unbiased. For most businesses/organizations, i.e., ones that have both a website and a Google My Business Profile, an SEO audit will provide information related to both your website and your Google My Business Profile, since Google may serve up either in search results (and as of the date of this post, the traditional Google search engine is still the one most used by search tool users, followed by YouTube, and ChatGPT.)
Peeling Back An Onion Skin To See What Lies Beneath
Listed below is the information you can glean from having an SEO company or digital marketing agency, like ours, conduct an SEO audit for you:
what external websites and certain other digital properties (not owned by your organization/business) have links on them to your website, and therefore, are providing “referral” traffic via backlinks to your site — these may include other websites or discussion-forums like Reddit
does your website and/or Google My Business Profile rank differently in Google in a particular geography for a particular keyword (search term), based on the device used by the searcher, i.e., mobile phone vs. desktop/laptop
what keywords your website and Google My Business Profile are ranking best for on Google and in what geographies
whether your Google My Business Profile or your website is being served up higher in search results in certain geographies for certain search terms — this will help you determine whether or not you should be putting more energy into getting your Google My Business Profile ranking better (you always want that to be served up for “near me” searches) and/or your website ranking better (ideally this would rank better for non-near-me terms)
missed SEO opportunities — these include best practices which haven’t been implemented by your organization, such as writing and entering SEO page title and meta description tags on your website platform/CMS for every page and post on your website, and writing an entering image alt-tags
mistakes/issues/challenges with your website that are likely causing it to be served up less than it could/should be in relevant geographies for relevant search terms, such as slow site load speed or broken links on your website
what are the top 10-20 search keywords that Google is serving your website up most for
how many individuals are clicking on a link in your Google My Business Profile to arrive at your website
what are the most-viewed pages of your website
what pages of your website are being served up the highest in search results by Google
what marketing activities/vehicles are driving website traffic and what percentage of your overall website traffic is coming from AI or traditional search tools
what geographies/locations are your website visitors coming from
what devices do people use most to access your website, i.e., laptop/desktop vs. mobile
If my memory serves me correctly, I’ve written about the second “new beginning” that September offers each of us each year on my own blog or that of a client. I love the fact that September provides a second start to any year and a chance to begin any kind of project you’d been hoping to get to earlier in the year, and to revisit goals — whether they be personal- or work-related ones. There’s still four full months to accomplish something you’ve always wanted to, or at least make a lot of headway toward achieving that accomplishment, so let’s agree to not start thinking another year is already behind us!
Since I own and run a digital marketing agency, the fall and early winter work goals I’m going to discuss below are marketing-related, but obviously, your work goals could pertain to any area of your organization, such as employee satisfaction and retention, new technology implementation, or expense reduction.
Marketing Goals For Q3 & Q4
Here’s some marketing goals you might want to complete in September, October, November, or December:
Dip your toes in the Reddit (or other discussion-forum waters) since search engines are serving up discussion threads more & more because of their Q & A format. If you’re not ready to start a discussion, weigh in on appropriate discussions without being too self-promoting!
Start collecting content for an Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), or an enhanced FAQ on your website if you already have an FAQ, by creating a shared document that your team can add to as they continue to be asked the same questions from customers or prospective customers.
Once you have sufficient content, create an FAQ page on your site and load the FAQ content.
Run, or hire a marketing consultant to run, website diagnostics reports, so you can identify and address both website features and factors that might be causing search engines to not want to serve up your website in target-audience’s search results, as well as missed SEO opportunities.
Set up the Google accounts discussed in our previous blog post, If you don’t already have them, to position yourself both to be able to better understand what marketing activities are and aren’t working for you, but also to support your target audiences finding you when they complete a “near me”/local Google search.
Since everything one does in life ends up positively or negatively impacting their mental and/or physical health, every personal goal ultimately is a wellbeing/wellness/health goal. For example, if you enroll in a class this fall or winter, it may cause you to gain knowledge to support a professional goal, but it also will likely make you feel more optimistic and improve your emotional wellbeing.
As I shared in this blog post about why I’ll always feel like a cancer (sarcoma) patient, I deal with chronic digestive issues on a daily basis because of past cancer treatment. I also have had chronic neck muscle mobility and pain issues since my late 20’s. Unfortunately, the neck trouble all started when I was working as a research associate at Fidelity Investments and going to graduate school at Boston University at night. I used to regularly carry a heavy bookbag of notebooks and books on the T (subway) to and from the University for many years. Post graduation, and ever since then, I’ve suffered from neck troubles.
I’ve already taken steps this summer, and plan to continue them thru the rest of Q3 & Q4, to improve the above two situations by:
Working with a nutritionist who has personal experience with the digestive issues from which I suffer. By working with me to introduce new foods and to keep a food diary, we’ve been able to identify which foods do and don’t improve my unpleasant digestive symptoms, and I’m feeling so much better. Hooray! Shout out to Dear Nutrition!
Starting PT for my neck and being very focused on my posture as I work at my computer — keeping an eye out for “forward head” and taking computer breaks once in a while to loosen myself up. I’ve got my trusted companion, Truly (see image below), who sits on my desk, to remind me to sit properly while typing or reading on my computer! Thank you, Truly! And, thanks to the physical therapists at South Shore Health Physical Therapy for your great advice & support!
Degas Ballerina Statue That Provides Reminder About The Need to Maintain Good Posture While On Computer!
In addition to the above, I’m using the hashtag #SeptemberStrong with friends and family to encourage them to stay well and for us to cheer each other on, and I’m identifying situations and people that are unnecessarily and excessively anxiety-producing (in some cases, toxic) and steering clear of them!
As part of our organization’s organic SEO (search engine optimization) services, we ask to have access to a client’s Google My Business Profile, or at least have a chance to review the behind-the-scenes information/set-up with our SEO clients via a Zoom call where they access and share their Google My Business Profile dashboard.
Whether you want to think of it as a mistake or a missed opportunity, here’s three Google My Business capabilities you may be missing out on to get your organization ranking better locally on Google (remember, Google is more likely to serve up your Google My Business Profile vs. your website) for “near me” or “city/town” terms) :
Providing Google with 20 services areas. Make sure you capitalize on these. And, remember, the further out your business is physically from the geography in which a searcher is searching on relevant terms, the less likely Google is to serve up your Profile, so keep any service areas you add to your Profile within a two-hour drive of your physical office, and ideally far less than two-hours.
Identifying up to 10 business categories. You need to pick a primary category — a category of business that best describes your products and services, but you can pick 9 additional “secondary” categories. Right now, there are over 4,000 business categories in Google My Business from which you can select. And, Google keeps adding to the list, so even if you don’t see a category that fits a particular product or service you offer now, you should revisit your Profile information every 3 months or so to see if there are any new categories you can select that are appropriate to your business.
Providing specific product or service lists underneath your various business categories that employ keywords (search terms) on which your target audience(s) may be searching. See example below where we listed our SEM (paid SEO/Google and Bing Ads) and organic SEO services under our primary business category.
We Can Help You Optimize Your Google My Business Profile
As we’ve explained in numerous spots throughout our website, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the practice of ensuring your organization is found online for relevant search-engines searches in relevant geographies. But a huge mistake in 2025, and beyond, would be to only focus on your website and Google My Business Profile being optimized to be found by appropriate searchers/target audiences, as shown in the image below.
The answer to the above is “no way!” In fact, just the opposite, although some digital marketing experts are saying it is, or are reluctant to use/expand the SEO acronym or search engine optimization phrase to describe maximizing your opportunities for all and any digital assets, presences, or properties to be served up in search-engine results vs. just an organization’s website, Google My Business Profile, and paid search/search-engine ads (think Google and Bing ads).
Hey, right now in this time of constant change on the SEO front, no-one really is the one true expert or SEO guru, so we’re going to take our stand vs. following the crowd or one expert, and say that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is about making sure all your digital assets, presences (think social media posts and presences and discussion forum presences) and properties serve you well related to being found online for the right search terms, questions, and topics in relevant geographies.
Let’s Chat About What SEO Means In This New Era And How Your Organization Can Plan and Respond To It!
My blog title is a quote I plan to use this year to inspire myself as well as others — on both the work and personal fronts. You can see I’m already adhering to it on the personal front related to keeping a daily exercise routine going. But, what does it mean related to the SEO work I do for clients and for the SEO clients themselves?
Like Many Other Marketing Activities, SEO Should Be An Ongoing One
Many organizations get the ball rolling on their SEO — often in conjunction with launching a brand new website or in conjunction with revamping an existing one — but then, don’t keep the momentum going. I refer to the SEO work that gets done at the time of a new or revised website launch as “initial SEO” work. But, for-profit and non-profit organizations often lose site of the fact that they are going to need to continue to implement the following SEO tactics, on an ongoing basis, in order to ensure they make steady, positive progress as far as how their website ranks in search engines for relevant terms used by desired target audiences:
Ensuring that SEO page and post title tags are completed/filled in in their website content management system (CMS)/website platform, and structured properly each time a new page or post is added to their website.
Employing appropriate-to-page and/or appropriate-to-post high-volume keywords in their page or post headers/sub-headers (H1, H2, H3, etc.)
In addition to the above ongoing website-related tactics, as part of an ongoing SEO strategy, organizations should execute the following:
Post updates to their Google My Business Profile, regularly review Profile information to make sure it is still accurate, and be proactive about soliciting Google Reviews.
Bing continues to develop a number of AI search tools, so why not test the Bing and Microsoft waters?
How To Dip Your Toes In the Bing Pool
So, what are some easy, first steps you can take to start building a presence for your organization on Bing?
Maintain a business profile on Bing the way your organization does on Google with your Google My Business Profile.
You’ll be psyched to learn that when you go to Bing Places For Business to set up your Bing Places Profile, you’ll be able to import your Google My Business Profile information and integrate the two Profiles. That means any updates you make to your Google My Business Profile will automatically appear on your Bing Places Profile.
The way you use your Google Search Console account to submit new or revised website content (posts or pages) on your site for crawling and indexing on Google, you can set up a Bing Webmaster account to submit a request for Bing to crawl and index a page or post on your site.
The timing just felt right for another “dance to what is” blog post (we’ve linked to part I and part II of this series at the bottom of this post) because, now more than ever, marketing professionals have to be comfortable “dancing to what is.”
Why do I say that? Because last time I checked there were about 30 different AI search engines vying for adoption by searchers who welcome being able to get summaries of content that comes from a variety of websites, and particularly summaries/overviews that answer the specific question they, as searchers, entered in a search engine. In addition, these searchers want content to be accessible all in one spot/the same place that is helpful and understandable, i.e., content that can easily be absorbed by the searcher and that allows the searcher to take action, if necessary.
We’ve talked about the above in a number of blog posts, so we aren’t going to recreate the wheel. You can learn more about AI search engines, and the future of search in these previous posts, but continue to scroll down past them to learn more about Reddit and Quora and why you should consider developing a plan to incorporate them, or other discussion forums, in your organization’s marketing strategy:
Don’t Ignore The Role That Discussion Forums Like Quora and Reddit Play Related To Ranking Well In Search Engines For Relevant Terms
One thing that I and fellow marketing consultants are noticing related to AI Search is this. Google is starting to serve up more and more Reddit, Quora and other discussion-forum threads/conversations/discussions in search-engine results and serve them up higher in results. Why? Because Reddit and Quora and similar online discussion boards are community platforms/forums that already serve the purpose that AI search engines want to serve — providing answers to a extremely large and diverse number of questions that users of their tool have.
Hey, if there’s already a post on Reddit, Quora, or some other community-discussion platform addressing the question a searcher has and the post has a number of helpful answers associated with it, why not serve that thread/discussion up in search results? It’s a no-brainer for search engines, at least for ones who want to be successful in playing the role that AI search engines are supposed to be playing — answering searchers’ questions. Of course, with AI search, there’s always the concern that what’s being shared up in the form of answers to questions on Reddit, Quora, or similar platforms is not accurate or current, and often, it may just be a matter of someone sharing their opinion without a lot of research or data behind the opinion to support the opinion. But, these are the times we live in and the challenges that come with limitless ways for anybody, anywhere able to share information or thoughts on anything.
So, Where Does Dancing To What Is Come Into Play Related to Reddit, Quora or Other Similar Platforms?
Whether or not the answers to posts are accurate, current, backed by data, etc., Google and other AI search engines are likely to continue to serve Reddit, Quora, and other discussion-community-site conversations in search-engine results. In fact, we expect that the number of listings spit back in search-engine results that are related to a Quora, Reddit, or another platform discussion thread to continue to grow.
The other day I was investigating what organizations came up in search-engine results related to a question along the lines of “What’s The Best Place To Have Brunch In The Greater Boston Area?”
You’ll see below, that the listings that Google served up in response to the above question, included the following:
Fairly high-up in the above-mentioned search-results listings (Google responding to my brunch question) — just under several Google My Business Profiles/Google Search & Maps listings, and the two “organic” website listings — Google served up “Discussions and Forums” and included links to Tripadvisor and Reddit discussion-forum conversations.
Dancing To Discussion-Forum Conversations
So, as we alluded to above, you can’t beat ’em, so why not join ’em? So, how do you capitalize on discussion forums to support your organization and the services you offer?
Dance to the new search-engine environment we all live and work in now, and start your own post or question related to the products and services your organization offers. It shouldn’t be too salesy or too self-serving and you should really only be providing a link to your organization’s website along with your post if the information that the link takes one to is particularly beneficial or helpful and highly related to the question at-hand, and therefore, allows the reader to understand what next steps they can take related to their question.
In addition to, or in lieu of starting a new question/discussion/thread where you start the conversation by posting a question or sharing information, you could simply respond to posts of others that are related to the services you offer. Again, you don’t want to be too salesy or too self-promoting, but there are ways you can weigh in and offer advice without doing so. For example, I’ve answered countless questions related to SEO in the past on Quora. Doing so may cause someone to look me and my business up and reach out to me for help, and certainly if someone is asking for names of the best provider of xyz products in xyz town/city, and you believe your organization offers the best product or service, you can weigh in in a tasteful way.
Note: you can be Banned from discussion forums for too much self-promotion, particularly sharing links to your website that aren’t appropriate, or simply sharing them too frequently, so take it slowly and carefully consider when and how frequently you share links back to your organization’s website.
Example Of Post On Quora That Supports An Organization Being Found On Search Engines
As part of composing this blog post, I posted the question below on Quora today, so that I could provide an example of a non-salesy post that could still be effective in establishing your organization as an expert on a particular topic and/or cause someone to check out your profile and reach out to you.
My Quora Post:
My Quora Profile That Could Cause Someone To Look Me Up And Reach Out:
Reach Out For Help Capitalizing On Quora, Reddit and Other Discussion Forums
We think you get the picture, but our team of Boston SEO experts is always here to help regardless of where in the U.S. your organization is located or where you offer your products or services. So, please reach out to our Boston SEO services team, to schedule a complimentary discussion of your marketing challenges and opportunities!
Check Out Our Other Blog Posts About Dancing To What Is!
