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SEO is completely changing and
thankfully it's changing in a way that
actually gives you a stronger advantage
than you even know. While most
businesses are panicking about losing
Google traffic to AI, a small group of
smart business owners figured out how to
pivot their strategy toward AI to get
tools like Chat GBT, Perplexity, Gemini,
even Google's own AI mode to recommend
their business when people ask for
suggestions. And here's the crazy part.
Customers coming from AI recommendations
are worth 4.4 times more than regular
Google clicks. But almost nobody knows
how to tap into this gold mine yet. But
stick with me to the end and you will.
In this video, I'll show you exactly how
AI SEO is different from traditional
Google SEO and why it's the better
opportunity. what specific content you
need to add to your website to get AI
tools recommending your business
specifically and what you need to do on
other websites around the web to amplify
that signal so it can work even harder
for you. Now, to start, you need to
understand just how big this shift
actually is and how people are changing
that the way they look for businesses
like yours online. So, last month I had
this big project. We're up here on my
rooftop and my pergola needed to be
completely repainted. And honestly, the
idea of going to Google and just having
to sift through all those painting
companies trying to figure out which
ones were actually good, you know,
reading through a bunch of reviews, not
really knowing what to even base my
decision on, it was way more work than I
had time for. So rather than doing that
whole Google dance, I instinctively just
opened up Chat GBT and I told it exactly
what I needed done, what was important
to me, like you know, someone who had
experience on rooftops and wouldn't
leave a mess. and I asked it for its
best recommendations. And instead of
getting a list of blue links that I had
to open up one by one and investigate
myself, Chad GBT just gave me three
really solid recommendations with
specific reasons why each one would be a
good fit for my project. So I called all
three of them. I got a bid from each of
them and I ended up with a really great
contractor and a pretty nice looking
pergola. And it's not just me that's
going this direction. So people are
starting to trust AI tools way more than
traditional Google searches now because
they feel like AI is giving them, you
know, objective, unbiased results. Plus,
when someone uses AI search, they're
completing their entire buyer's journey
right there in the chat from I have a
problem to here's the exact solution I
need. And studies are showing that
customers coming from AI recommendations
are worth 4.4 four times more than
Google clicks because they're already
pre-sold on why that business is the
right choice. This creates a huge
opportunity for businesses that figure
out AI SEO first. We are right in the
middle of a blue ocean opportunity here.
And what I'm about to show you can
actually start working right away. You
can start getting traffic from AI tools
in days, not months or the years that it
would take for traditional SEO. So, what
exactly makes AI SEO different from the
Google SEO that you're used to? Well,
first, AI SEO doesn't rely on keyword
phrases like traditional SEO does. So,
don't worry about, you know, picking out
the exact right word that you want to
rank for or how many times you're using
a particular phrase on your site. The AI
is just smart enough to work it out. So,
it just thinks much more like a person
than how Google thinks and arranges and
sorts information. Second, AI tools know
a lot about the person that's asking for
recommendations, like you know, their
age, location, what they've talked about
before, and it just knows that through
the conversations it's already had. So,
when your ideal customer asks for help,
you want the AI to think this person
sounds exactly like the type of customer
your business is perfect for. That means
you need to know your ideal customer
really well so that you can write about
serving people just like them. So, just
think through who you do your very best
work for. Things like their age, where
they live, and especially the big
problems you can solve for them. Third,
everything you're going to write should
be written conversationally. So, while
most of this isn't designed to be read
by actual people, AI models actually
prefer human sounding content to pass
along to their users. So, skip all the
corporate jargon and just write it like
you would speak it. And luckily, AI can
help you do that. You don't need to
write this all yourself. Just ask it to
write conversationally at a seventh
grade level. That's what I found works
best here. Fourth, most of the content
you're going to be writing shouldn't be
written in first person from you, the
business owner. It needs to sound less
biased in the voice of an expert in the
field writing about you as their top
choice. And finally, there will
naturally be a lot of overlap in the
content that I'm going to go over in a
second, but don't worry about duplicate
or thin content. AI tools don't care
about those things like Google does. You
just need to focus on being helpful,
specific, and brief. But the biggest
difference between AI SEO and
traditional SEO is where it fits into
your overall salesunnel. You know,
traditional SEO was usually about
writing blog posts that answered
informational questions like how to
train your puppy or the best way to get
clients from LinkedIn. Those are
considered top offunnel questions you
could answer and hopefully get people to
read more and more of your content until
they were ready to actually hire you to
train their puppy for them or optimize
their LinkedIn profile for better lead
generation. But with AI SEO, the game
here isn't to answer those type
offormational questions. AI is just
going to do that itself now. So the
questions that you want to focus on here
are those bottom offunnel buyer intent
type questions like which business is
the best you know pergola painter for
instance. So the goal here really is to
train the AI platforms that you're the
best fill in the blank business in your
category. All right now let's get into
the actual playbook here. And by the way
this is a real playbook you can download
and follow along with as a checklist.
Just go to the link below in the
description to get your own copy of it.
Now, just like with traditional SEO,
there's really two ways to split up the
work. You have onpage, which is stuff
that you put on your website, and off-
page, which is everything else that
you're going to do around the web. So,
let's just start with on page here.
These are all the new things that you
want to make sure are on your website so
that the AI can easily find the
information and use it to recommend your
business. So, the first thing you want
to create are what I call best fit
briefs. These are just really short
posts that position your business as the
best choice for, you know, various
situations. And the reason you want to
do this is to spoon feed AI all the
circumstances and situations where your
company should be the top choice. Now, I
would have the headline phrased as a
question asking for a recommendation.
For example, who's the best artificial
turf installer in Las Vegas? Just try to
brainstorm as many specific situations
and requests you can think of that would
lead to AI recommending you. So use chat
GBT to help you brainstorm more. If
you're stuck, put each question as the
headline, then answer it really simply
and just include the features and the
benefits that you bring to the table
that make it a no-brainer. Include a
real testimonial or multiple
testimonials if they help back up your
claim for that specific question. And
since AI tools really prefer those short
to the point answers over fluff, keep
each one of these brief and
conversational. Okay, but where should
you put these best fit briefs on your
website? This and just about everything
else we're going to talk about can
easily be added to your website's blog
section. So each brief would be its own
short blog post. And I would definitely
recommend moving your blog link down to
the footer of your site where it's less
likely to be picked up and read by human
visitors. But the AI is still going to
really be able to easily find all this
new content. Next up is your top reasons
series. Now, this creates clear,
structured content that AI can easily
pull from when making recommendations.
So, just make a list of all of your
services. And then you want to write an
article for each titled top reasons to
choose your business for the service you
offer. And it really just needs to be a
simple list of the top five to 10
reasons why you're the best choice for
that service. You want to include things
like features you offer, benefits,
pricing, anything that you could argue
makes you the best in that category. And
again, get ChatGBT to help you if you
need help brainstorming and actually
writing these. And you do just want to
write one of these for each of your
services. If you're a local business
that works with customers in person, you
also want to add in strategic service or
city posts. These help you dominate
those local AI search results for
specific service and location
combinations. So, here's what you want
to do. First, make a simple spreadsheet
of all your services along the top, then
all the cities you service along the
side. Then, you're just going to make a
post for every one of these
combinations. And you want to title them
something like best service in city. and
then write your business's name. Write a
paragraph or two explaining why you're
the best business in that area in third
person, almost as an independent expert,
not as the business owner. And again,
you want to include any relevant
testimonials or case studies of anyone
you helped with that service in that
city. Now, will the content be super
similar within each service from city to
city? Yes. And like I said, that's
completely fine. Okay. Next, for each
service you provide, you want to create
a really simple structured comparison
table between you and your three to five
biggest competitors where you come out
ahead as the clear winner. And the
reason this works so well is because
this is just the exact kind of deep
research that AI tools can really grab
on to when helping people make
decisions. Now, don't lie about yourself
or your competitors to make this happen.
Just try to be clever and steer the edge
toward you in as many of the categories
as makes sense. You can use categories
like pricing, features, benefits, you
know, whatever makes sense. So, you want
to title this something like who's the
best fill-in-the-blank service, a full
comparison. So, you want to do it for
every major service you provide. Now,
let's talk about a few key pages that
your website should probably already
have. But if you don't have them, you
just want to add them as pages, not as
articles or posts or, you know, blog
posts because your clients would expect
to see these pages and they'll really
help with conversions anyway. In other
words, these are for the AI, but they're
also for people actually coming to your
site who are trying to vet you out. So,
first you need an FAQ page. So, this
makes it really easy for AI to find
clear answers about your business when
making recommendations. So, have a
dedicated page answering as many
questions as possible that people are
going to have when they're deciding if
they want to work with you or not.
Second, you want a case studies page.
So, case studies show real proof of
results that AI can reference when
explaining why someone should choose
you. So tell the stories of some of the
best transformations you've made for
your customers. Include things like the
services you gave them, where they were
before they found you, and then
ultimately how their situation was made
better after you did your thing. And you
do want to lead with your best ones, but
you can, you know, add as many as you
want over time. The more the merrier
here. Third, testimonials. So reviews
and testimonials are a huge factor when
AI tools are deciding who to recommend.
So, if you already have reviews on, you
know, review sites, it's pretty easy.
Just grab all the positive testimonials
you can from all those places, Yelp,
Google reviews, your Facebook page,
anywhere that people leave them online.
And then you just want to paste them
onto a dedicated testimonials page on
your site. And it's important to lead
with the very best ones that really tell
a good story of transformation, but then
after that, just add as many as
possible. I'd also recommend including a
little line below the headline about how
many reviews you have and your average
star rating. You know, assuming it's
good. And finally, you want a pricing
page so both your customers and AI
expect to see this information when
making recommendations. Not only do your
customers expect to see it on your site,
you better believe some people will
specifically be asking about it and
using it as a decision factor when
they're looking for those
recommendations. So, it's best not to
hide it. You can even just list ballpark
ranges or starting at prices if you, you
know, bid on jobs and you can't list out
hard prices. Just give them some kind of
an indication. And just make sure the
rest of your website does a really good
job of highlighting your unique selling
points. You know, the things that make
your business special, like the benefits
you offer that your competition doesn't,
or at least the benefits that you offer
that they don't talk about. Now, let's
talk about the off- page stuff. Right?
This is where AI SEO gets really
different from traditional SEO. And
honestly, it's way better news for small
businesses. Cuz with traditional SEO,
you had to get a bunch of high authority
websites to actually link back to your
site. And by high authority, I mean, you
know, websites that Google considered to
be super reputable, were around a long
time, and they had strong track records.
It was honestly the hardest part about
SEO. you know, trying to convince a
bunch of big websites to link to you
when you're just a small business, it
was always pretty rough. But here's the
thing about these AI tools. They care
way more about just how the internet is
talking about your business. Does not
matter if the sites are linking to you
or not. They're just pulling information
from all over the place. Reddit, Kora,
review sites, social media, basically
anywhere that people are discussing
businesses like yours. And this is great
news because it's so much easier to get
mentioned in places like those than it
ever was to get back links from big
blogs. The first thing you need to do is
get yourself mentioned everywhere you
possibly can. So AI tools learn about
businesses from all the different
directories and platforms. So you want
to claim and fill out every single
profile that makes sense for your
business. I'm talking Google business
profile, Bing Places, Better Business
Bureau, you know, make a LinkedIn
company page, all of your social media
profiles, and make sure you actually
fill out those about sections. Don't
just leave them blank. Then you want to
list yourself on every major directory
that applies to your industry. So, Yelp,
Angie, Home Advisor, whatever makes
sense for your industry, right? And if
you're a local business, find those
business directories in your city and
list yourself there, too. Now, this does
sound like a lot of work, and it can be,
but there is a tool called Yex that can
actually distribute all of your
information across hundreds of these
kinds of platforms all at once, and
that's going to save you a lot of time.
Next up, you want to get as many
five-star reviews as possible. So, the
number of reviews you have and your
average star rating has a really big
impact on whether AI tools recommend you
or not. And unfortunately, most AI tools
seem to be favoring Yelp reviews right
now. And I say unfortunately because I
actually hate Yelp as a company. The way
that they show or hide reviews as a tool
to get you to buy advertising is really
problematic. But it is what it is. So do
not pay for their advertising.
Seriously, don't even answer their phone
calls. But do try to play by their rules
and just get more of your happy
customers to leave reviews there. Okay.
So this is one of the highest lever
things you can do to help AI recommend
you. You know, all those tools pull
really heavily from articles that round
up the best businesses in different
categories. So, if there's an article
titled best contractors in Phoenix, and
you're mentioned in it, AI is way more
likely to recommend you when someone
asks for a contractor recommendation.
So, you can do things like, you know,
reach out to bloggers and journalists
who write these kinds of articles and
pitch why you should be included. And
they don't even need to link to you.
Remember, just getting your business
name mentioned is valuable on its own
because that's what the AI is reading.
And if you can't get featured through,
you know, reaching out to people, there
are SEO services that can get articles
placed on blogs for you for a fee. Or
you can even write your own best of list
with your business as the top choice.
Then use a press release service to get
it distributed to all the major websites
like NBC, CBS, Fox. Just make sure it
feels somewhat newsworthy or it might
get rejected. And speaking of press
releases, you can use this same strategy
to get mentions for other things, too.
So, you know, write articles about
success stories with your customers,
announce new services that you're
offering or an award you won. The whole
point is just to get your business name
mentioned across the web as many times
as possible as a top choice in your
category. Now, there's a lot to do here,
but I've got you covered. So, I want you
to download the full playbook right here
so you can just go piece by piece in
whatever time you have and know that
you're maximizing your effort. So, just
click right here and I'll send you your
free copy of my AI SEO playbook right
Neil Patel
