Learn How to Get Found In AI Search

Hello and welcome to Designer Discussions. Today we're going to talk about how to get found in AI and what design and remodeling businesses need to know. Welcome to the Designer Discussions Podcast with Jason and Miriam. Tune in each week where we talk about marketing PR and business advice for design professionals.

This is one of the questions we get asked a lot by clients is Are we also being found in AI search along with SEO search? Because oftentimes a lot of SEO companies may talk about this, but may not actually explain. Some of what you do on the SEO side will help you get found in AI, but there are some other things you have to make sure your website does to enhance it. Huge aspect of that is PR.

So I'm going to let Miriam talk about that. But I'm going to first answer on the marketing side what needs to happen. And you need to start with your website and ensure that it's answering the type of questions that AI would ask. So when your prospects head to search, normally they'll type in best kitchen remodelers near me, best designers near me.

That's still I propose, but you also need to ask: is it answering these actual questions about what do you do? What the services are, what type of kitchen you design, bath do you design, home remodeling, what actually is it that you do, and do you answer that effectively in your site? Or are you just explaining about who you are and telling a story? That's helpful, but you also need to be able to answer the type of questions that will be asked.

One good place is answerethepublic.com. That's actually used for normal SEO, but you can also use to find out what are the questions that are being asked around your industry in AI. And oftentimes you'll hear is how much does you know XYZ cost?

Whether it be a bathroom, how much does a kitchen cost? That's one of the most asked questions that you can normally answer in like a FAQ section of your website. And what I hear from a lot of remote lers is that they don't want to have the actual price. One of the reasons they don't want to say that is because they could get pigeonholed into what the number is without context.

But what you can do is give examples. For if you are to do a modern kitchen, a Mediterranean, whatever it is, it will generally cost XYZ. So you can have a range. So you don't pigeonhole yourself into an actual price.

Another question that's normally asked is what are the services that are typically done in a kitchen remodel, bathroom model, or whatever it is? That's something else that you can answer either on your homepage or you can have an FAQ section that will answer that. And that will get cataloged by AI so it can pull an answer up from your site. And so you could get referenced in that.

Another question that is asked is how long does XYZ take, whether it be a kitchen remodel, bath remodel, whole home remodel, that also you can have a general answer. You don't have to get pigeon-poled into an actual time frame. So making sure that you A, know what are the frequently asked questions for your industry in terms of what is asked in AI, and then making sure that you've answered all of these questions on your site. Also, what you want to ensure is that on your site that it's well organized, that everything has its place.

So when you go to the homepage, everything is laid out because what you'll often see on some sites is you'll see a whole lot of text. It's not really defined that it's in one section or not, or if it just all jumbled into one. And this often happens on the homepage where you may have the uh about us, you may uh talk about that aspect, you may talk about a little bit of the history, you may talk about a little bit of the services you offer. And if that's not actually organized and it seems all in one, it'll be harder for AI to understand what the site is about and what you're trying to answer in that.

And by actually organizing it that way, it's easier for AI to find exactly what it's looking for and to actually reference your site if anybody asks about the topic that you have answered on your site. I'm gonna hand it over to Mira so she can talk about a little bit of the PR, because that's also vital in terms of AI search. Yes, Jason, it's like PR is having a moment, you know, because um people used to think PR is kind of a nice to have, but it's developing into a must-have if you want to be visible in AI.

And the reason why that is, is really what the the superpower of PR is that it provides third-party credibility, right? It's I always say it's like word of mouth, but it comes from a reputable source. It's not just anybody who says it, but it's a media outlet. And that is really what makes um earned media placements um like just inherently valuable.

And it's always been this way, but it's even more important now because of the way that um AI search has changed um how people look and and f look for things and and find answers, right? So third-party validation matters more than ever. And a lot of that or the highest value signals really come from um articles that you are mentioned in, from interviews, um, just from media mentions in general, because it it does provide that that credibility from uh a reputable outlet. Um that makes it really, really valuable in in the eyes of the LLMs that are um scraping the content.

And this is true for whether you use Chat GBT or Claude or Perplexity. This is true for all of them. Real quick, Miriam, can you explain what LLM means for anybody out there that does not know what it is? Yes, it's a large language model, which really all the um AI um search platforms like chat or Gemini or Claude, they're all LLMs.

Yes. Thank you, Jason. Too much jargon. But basically, um it means now if you are not quoted um in the media, you are not part of the conversation and it's really gonna harm your brand.

And that may sound intimidating, but you don't need any big placements. And especially as a design and remodeling company, it's it's enough, or it's really good, even if you get quoted in a local article that talks about remodeling trends in your area, or if you get a mention in a trade publication, that's excellent too. Um, you can also just get picked up for commentary in various different um media platforms online. So these smaller placements are really exactly what um AI pulls from when it answers a question that's that somebody um asks online.

And it's this is actually a lot of what we teach um in our academy program. Um, as we've been teaching this for years, and it just turns out that it's actually just becoming more and more valuable. So I think we've been on the right track. Um, another thing that's really helpful um and is becoming more valuable is press releases.

And I talk a lot about press releases too. It's it's a it's the PR um tactic that has been used for forever, you know. It's really what people often traditionally think of when they think PR is like it's like, ooh, let's issue a press release. And whereas that used to not be a great idea if you were not like a larger company with big news, that has completely changed because what you can do now is you can um you every every company, every um, everybody has news that uh that are actually kind of newsworthy.

So you could do something like um XYZ remodeling design or see rising demand for warm wood tones in kitchen remodels. It could be something that you you make up a trend or you identify a trend. Don't make it up, okay? Identify it.

I'm taking that back. Or like if you have any kind of company news, you um you write a quick press release, um, you can hire somebody to do it, or you can just ask um one, you can ask Chat GPT to write one for you. And then you need to distribute it. The value really comes in when you distribute it, and there's um news wires out there, there's many different platforms where for a very um small amount of money, I'd say anywhere between $100 and $400, you can distribute um your news to a lot of different um websites and they will pick it up and publish it.

And when um ChatGPT goes and looks for um mentions in that area, you are gonna pop up. So press releases, if they're uh done the right way and distributed the right way, really can be helpful nowadays. So what the releases do and what they create um clear structured content that's great searchable information. And that's like Jason, you said before, it is really important that you structure whatever you write clearly because then it sends consistent signals.

And what it is about, it's about your expertise. You know, when somebody asks a question about who's the best um kitchen remodeler in this area, it's like you want to float to the top with your expertise, and these types of um mentions and um and and pickups can really, really help with that. So you are not waiting to be featured, but you are creating your own content and you distribute it that way. It's a really um surefire way um to do this.

The um the other option is uh the other thing to think about is you really it's critical that you are perceived as an expert in your field, because that's what um AI values. If somebody asks a question, AI goes out and it says, well, who's most qualified to answer this question? So the more content about that topic that you can have that's linked with your name, the the the higher you will show up in in that search. Um so instead of saying something like, and this is true in whatever you write, it's also true on the website or or or on your blog or in any kind of communication that's um accessible online.

But you don't just say, we offer custom cabinetry. Everybody says that. You're not gonna stand out. So you're gonna you're gonna wanna be quoted saying something like, we're seeing more homeowners choose painted finishes over stained wood because they want flexibility over time, you know.

Just like be as specific um as you can be. So if somebody um go if some Googles, you know, you don't Google anymore, but you can still Google. It'll also give you um AI search results in the meantime. But if it's specific, if somebody asks a specific question, you will show up as um as the expert.

And that's that's true um across the board, um, I would say. Then and I know Jason, you are gonna talk about this more, but it's like if you think about how marketing and PR work together for this, it's like if you issue a press release about a project and and it gets picked up or you distribute it on a wire. And it's really important that you have content that supports that on your own platforms, like Jason said in your Q ⁇ As or um in a well-structured um article on on your website.

It's really important that that you show up in different places with the same kind of message. That's what AI rewards more than um anything. Jason, would you um would you second that? I would agree.

I would agree. Yeah. So for example, um, if you say, okay, what does a modern kitchen remodel include? Um like you could have references to that um in a media placement that you've earned um through one of the ways that I just explained.

You can have it on your your website, um, or you can have it in a in a blog post, um, like just so you always like the the message that you put out there needs to be consistent, and that's what's rewarded. Yeah. So Jason, what's should we say, what if people are asking, well, what should we do now? Um, what should we do next um to position us to be found in AI search?

I would say what you need to do is do an audit on your site. So there's a site that's called audit sky, so a u d I t s-a y. And I'll I'll put that in the show notes, but it can show you where your site is in terms of how the LLMs and how, like the chat GPTs, the clause of the world, how they view your site. And you can use that to understand where you are, and also hand you some gestures or how you can enhance from there.

One of the things I hear about from a lot of clients or remoulers is if they can use AI content on their site. And that's a no-no if you want to be found by AI. Because I often, when I'm asked that, I say, if you have a question about something you don't know, would you ask yourself that same question? And they said no.

I'm like, well, that's how AI feels. Because if you have AI content, if anybody asks that question, AI already knows that answer because that's an AI answer. So you need to create content that is unique and that can add value, and that's how the AI will find you. So I always say AI content is great, but not on your website.

Because if you want to be found by AI, they will ignore you because they already know all that information because that's where you got it from. Make sure you actually have authoritative, unique content that can add value to the industry and to that topic, and then that's how you can get found. I think that's a great point. And that is also true for anything you provide the media.

You have to be really careful to not just have AI generate your press release completely, or if you want to contribute a quote to an article, the media will actually punish you if you send them AI generated content for this very reason because they rely on original authentic input from their sources. So definitely have to be. You can use a little help, but you have to be um really creative and authentic in how you create your content. No, I would say on the PR side, if you really want to amp up your AI visibility, it's like you have to start generating some of these expert mentions, which is pretty easy to do.

We have a lot of content that talks about it, and we um teach it in our academy. Press releases are the next possible option. Um, and any kind of media relations, any kind of any way you get published is a good thing. So if definitely if um you know how to do that, great.

If you don't listen to some of our podcasts or check out our academy program where we teach all of that on a regular basis. I'll just say, like what Miriam said about how the media will actually hurt you or they will punish you for that. AI won't hurt you, but they just will ignore you, which is actually worse. So they'll just ignore you if you have the information.

So we've been talking today about how you get found. And then honestly, what I'll say, all this that we talked about is great, but oftentimes when I do presentations and I see the same people six months, a year later, they haven't implemented anything. They said it was great information at the time, but then they just cataloged it and forgot. So make sure that you take some of what you've heard today and you actually implement and you actually take action on it so you can be found.

So the next time you hear us in the future, you can say, okay, that information actually helped. What else do you have for us? So that's why we have this, and we hope you start to implement all of this. And like Miriam said, also we have the academy, which we teach all of this in.

So if you want to find out more information on that, the link is in the show notes, and we'll be happy to help you out there. So that's all we wanted to talk about today. So we hope to hear and see you here in two weeks on Design Discussions. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Designer Discussions and all of the helpful information.

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