Ezra McCarthy
Hello and welcome back to another exciting episode of the Lawn Care Blueprint podcast where we give lawn and landscape businesses the tools to grow their business. Today we’re diving into a new frontier, something I’ve been using a lot lately and hopefully you have been too. This thought of optimizing your website for AI search engines like ChatGPT, could be Gemini, or even Google’s AI overviews in the Google search.
These are things that more and more Google itself and then people are using these AI platforms to search. This is something that I wouldn’t say should be necessarily top of mind right now, but you should keep in the back of your mind just so you know. So today we’re going to be exploring how to optimize for AI things like ChatGPT, Gemini, and other search engines like this. Wena is here with us today and we’re going to dive into it.
Wena
Hi, Ezra. This is a very interesting topic. Let’s start at the foundation. What are these tools? What is AI and how are they different from the search we’re all used to?
Ezra McCarthy
This is something that personally I use every day. It’s definitely drastically cut into my Google searches and I find myself going to it more and more rather than Google. Perhaps you’re listening in and you’ve never used something like ChatGPT or Gemini. There’s lots out there. Here probably I’m just going to be using ChatGPT because that’s what I use most of and I like but there’s lots and they’re very similar. When you go and you use them the main difference between say Google search and ChatGPT is when you go to Google search, you get a bunch of links. They don’t give you the answers.
Now, one correction here is Google has really been starting to push. They haven’t phased it in completely, but it’s called AI overviews. It’s going to depend on what the search is and what the topic is and how you phrase it. But you’ve probably seen it when you search on Google and then there’s basically an overview saying, hey, sometimes they’ll give you an answer and sometimes with links. Now, something really neat. One of our customers we’ve been working with, I was just on a call with him the other day. We were doing some search for fertilization and weed control in his area. He was literally one of the first ones there in the AI overview.
So I think as Google tries to keep up with a lot of these search engines, they’re going to start pushing the AI search even more. And now Google’s added an AI mode to the Google search bar. So they’re going to be pushing more and more. And then ask consumer customer behavior. Right now, I don’t think most people are using that to find service based businesses because for one, it just isn’t as good as search right now but it is trending towards that. And so it is something that we want to think about because the way that these platforms work, instead of just recommending a bunch of websites, they’ll literally list out, like for an example, think of Lawn Care, Greenville, Texas, you say, hey, I’d recommend Maple Leaf Mowing from Greenville, Texas. And here’s a couple other options as well, rather than just listing the websites.
Google’s AI overviews instant snippets, they differ from the traditional search engines because they literally put the answer right there. So for business owners, this is a big difference and it’s a shift in mindset because instead of just being linked to your website, your content literally or your reviews are going to be quoted itself. So it’s a little bit different and it’s something that I think we need to be aware of.
Wena
Apart from that, also if you’ve noticed recently that Google has this AI feature even in their email.
Ezra McCarthy
Yeah, it’s everywhere.
Wena
It’s summarized, so, that’s pretty helpful. That’s a good background. Now let’s talk about urgency. Why should business owners care today and not later?
Ezra McCarthy
I think search is heading this direction you see even mentioned that Google’s putting it in we use Google workspace Which is basically Gmail they’re putting it into all of their products because they rise unless they pivot they’re gonna get left behind because if you look at obviously Google makes their money off of search But these chat bots AI all these things are gaining traction and they’re trying to kind of pivot towards that. So right now yes, the main platform is still Google search, but as more and more people migrate towards, in all reality, I would say it’s a better product. Things like ChatGPT, Gemini, as I mentioned, I won’t go through all the lists.
And right now I’d say it’s really, if you’ve ever seen a product curve where there’s a surge that goes up and it’s kind of the early adopters and there’s a big hump and in the middle is kind of just everyone else. And then there’s kind of the laggards. It goes down on the other end of the curve.
For AI, I feel like we’re really just on the upward tick of the adoption curve. And right now, it’s really the early adopters who are, I would say, we might call them power users. But once we get to that middle, the middle hump, where just about everyone and their grandma starts using it, proverbially, we want to be ahead of the curve and prepared for that. So right now, it’s just the early adopters, I would say, who are really using it. But as AI and a lot of these tools become more prominent, people are gonna begin to trust these a lot more because they use them. And we don’t want our businesses to be invisible, missing leads before they even hit Google. We wanna try to be thinking ahead and saying, how can we build trust so that our businesses will get found on these AI tool chatbots?
Wena
It’s interesting because before we would say like Google. Search it on Google or just Google it. That’s the phrase. And now it’s like ChatGPTs coming into the conversation. Just ask ChatGPT. The question is, where does this information come from? So where is ChatGPT pulling content from for those of you who don’t know it?
Ezra McCarthy
Yeah, so ChatGPT pulls from many different sources. One, your website and this is one thing I hear all the time and hopefully if you’re listening to this you have a website but you have to have a website because you need content for the search engines to pull from then your blogs your service description your service pages and it’s going to have to be laid out correctly it’s going to have to be clear you’re going to have to have there’s something called domain authority so basically how valuable Google views your website and your reviews one thing I’ve been noticing in the AI reviews is Google will literally put in there that this company is highly reviewed sometimes, I believe I may have even saw that it listed the review count. So all these things kind of go together.
Your website, your online reputation, your domain authority, your reviews, your relevance. If your site is terrible, doesn’t have good content, it has a low text to page ratio. All these things kind of come into play and AI search needs somewhere to get their information. If we don’t have that website that’s optimized for it, then we’re not going to get business when people search on it.
Wena
You’ve mentioned that there are people who’ve early adopted AI with their business. What about those who are starting fresh? What should they do first? What’s the first step any lawn care company should take if in case they want a website to show up in, like ChatGPT or Google AI overviews?
Ezra McCarthy
You’re gonna wanna make sure that your pages structure correctly. I know a lot of people, they just start and I know if you’re just getting started a one page website’s fine but once you’re really I would say past $50,000 you’re trying to grow your business you need a multi-page website with your service pages broken out because this is going to help not only these AI overviews whether that be Google or whether this be ChatGPT or other AI tools but also for Google, just search engine optimization and then you’re going to make sure those pages are structured correctly because AI tools often prioritize the services that you have listed, but also local relevance. Your locations, the area where your service listed clearly in there. And then you want to make sure as well these AI tools also use your Google business profile. So you want to make sure that’s optimized and listed with all the correct services as well as your service area.
Wena
What about for those who’ve been asking, does the website still matter in this new AI world? Or does having a strong website still matter as it did with traditional SEO? Or is AI changing that?
Ezra McCarthy
So I would say it is changing that, but I would say it actually matters more than ever because as much as people will begin to over time use ChatGPT and these other tools to find services that they need, we’re still gonna wanna learn more about them. Even in AI tools also they have links. So people will go there because they wanna know more about you. So they wanna see your pictures, your team, all of these things. So a website is really the very foundation.
If you don’t have that solid foundation, you’re not even going to be in the race. It’s not, well, am I on page two anymore? Page three. If you don’t have that solid foundation, you’re not even going to be in the race. And so a weak or outdated website, no matter how good we think it is, is not going to rank well. And where we are right now, AI search isn’t replacing SEO, but it’s really just another layer and so search engine optimization and they’re actually coming out with some new phrases So you’ll probably be hearing some others flowing around these days talking about answer Optimization and you’re gonna be hearing more and more about them. So a stronger website is going to help not only with Google You’re gonna get a stronger presence on Google as well as these AI tools like ChatGPT.
Wena
That makes sense. And since you’ve mentioned pages, the specific pages, what role do clear service pages like lawn mowing, landscaping, or fertilization play in AI search visibility?
Ezra McCarthy
These things play an important role because one, for search engine optimization for, we might consider normal search.
But this also affects AI search visibility as well, because these AI tools like the structured focus content. So when you get on the page, everything on that page, and if you get into the technical terms like your meta description, SEO title, your H1, and you could continue down the list here, every single thing is focused on one thing. And I see one person and they’ve got fertilization and weed control, they got mulch, they got bush trimming all on one page. And I’m like, okay, this is not going to rank near as effectively as a single service page for one of the main services.
So having these specific service pages is going to help AI recognize, okay, this is what they do. But it also helps with conversions as well. Basically when people land, they realize, okay, this is exactly what this business does. And then they can reach out and get some help with it.
Wena
Let’s talk about language and what kind of keywords actually help with AI. Are there specific keywords or phrases businesses should use to make their content more AI-friendly?
Ezra McCarthy
There’s one way to write your content which would be to write it in how customers ask and this actually goes back to an interview I did with Marcus Sheridan. He wrote a book and they asked you to answer. He literally dominated his online presence. He had a pool cleaning business. He just started with the thought of what are my customers asking? And so the phrase they ask, you answer.
Now this was several years ago when he did it, but in all reality it’s becoming more and more important today. What are my customers asking for? Maybe something as simple as how much does landscaping cost in your city, Greenville, Texas, or whatever yours is, Charleston, South Carolina. Maybe it’s how much does fertilization and weed control cost? I don’t know what this weed is in my lawn, or you would know the exact phraseology to use, and use clear, specific, everyday language using your location, then service keywords to answer the questions that customer has. ChatGPT, you may say, okay, what are some of the best ways to write it so that it can index it and understand? Answer direct questions clearly.
We might describe it as just in plain English. Sometimes we can start to use our technical terms and our business slang that no one else understands, but try to break it down into clear, specific sections with headings. Write it in an authoritative tone but also interesting for the customers. You remember people may read a snippet and then come for more. And so companies should focus more on short form Q&A, but also long and detailed articles as well, because they use both. And this is one business that we’ve been helping. We encourage them to write blogs. Then they’ve been linking that as well with Q&As. And all of these things are really helpful. Short form, long form, Q&A, and mixing it up with quick answers, as well as deep content.
Wena
Now let’s bring in the customer voice. How do reviews impact AI results? How does having customer reviews and testimonials influence AI generated responses like in Google reviews, Facebook reviews?
Ezra McCarthy
So these reviews act as social proof that AI as well as Google overviews factor in directly. I’ve seen this with customers. It’ll literally specify this one has great reviews and it directly affects your ranking. So as much as I harp on it all the time, it affects your search engine optimization for regular search. It affects AI overviews and it also affects things like ChatGPT. So we cannot afford not to begin getting these because they will pull in rankings, customer language, and it encourages the customer to trust your brand as well.
Wena
What are the biggest mistakes you see business owners making when it comes to optimizing for AI search?
Ezra McCarthy
One I think is just falling for buzzwords. I get the irony that we’re making a podcast about AI, but they hear AI and they think, uh, they just get all excited and they, someone calls and says, Hey, I can optimize your website for AI. And they got all excited to break it down somewhat simply, a lot of this goes back to some of the old tried and true search engine optimization SEO methods that have worked. Now it’s going to be somewhat tweet as things change. Some new things are going to come along, but we can’t ignore AI. And as well, we can’t ignore search engine optimization as well, both of these things are really important. We can’t just think, well, I’ve got a one page website with no depth. hardly any content. Maybe I’m trying to keyword stuff that this old kind of ways of doing things are not going to work.
And maybe you say, I haven’t updated my website. I haven’t updated content in a long time. And I say these are a lot of the biggest mistakes that I see: an old updated website, keyword stuffing, generic one page website, or really just ignoring it. All of these things just don’t work well. And some of these, we might call it black hat SEO things just aren’t helpful as well. You don’t want to just go and just put a bunch of AI unhelpful content on your website because literally you’re gonna get penalized for spam and that is not something that you want. AI has been trained to prefer natural human-like language. You wanna focus on quality rather than quantity. So high quality things placed there rather than just putting bulk junk on there is gonna help your website as well as when customers get on there and read it. If it sounds terrible, they’re gonna leave real quick and that’s not gonna help us get any more customers.
Wena
It’s both interesting and funny that AI prefers human, organic, natural language, so that’s something that you should take note of. So how can companies know if AI engines are actually seeing or using their content?
Ezra McCarthy
This is something that’s going to develop as of now. I don’t know of any sort of reporting software that you can use to track your progress. And even with AI overviews, when I’ve been testing this out, it’s not consistently rolled out all the time every time you search the same phrase. So some of this, this is developing, but I think as it goes along, we’re going to start to see more and more customers use it. And as that demand curve kind of goes up there to the middle, we’re going to see more people finding us through that. But just something that we should keep on top of mind how to consistently do our best to put content on there, increase our SEO, which is going to drastically affect our AI.
So you may say, okay, what are some action steps that I can take to help my business this week? Well, some things that you can do is be sure your service pages and you do have them for your services, I hope to have clear descriptions with specific city names in it. And this is something I see people do if they go too broad. I’ll give you an example. They work in St. Louis and they say, we serve St. Louis. Well, if you know anything about St. Louis, it’s probably hundreds of cities all in one. They’ve just kind of grown together. We want to get, Google likes specificity.
You want to pick out, like to start with three of your main service areas and sprinkle that throughout the website and consistently in appropriate places so Google can see, okay, these places they work. Another thing you can do is add a simple frequently asked questions, answering common customer questions to your website. This helps with what they ask, you answer the paradigm and it helps get some fresh content on your website. And then optimize, refresh Google business profile, add some more pictures, answer some questions, ask some customers for reviews. These simple things that most people aren’t doing are gonna really help over time, help your business grow into the future.
Wena
Now wrapping up, where do you see AI search going in the next 1-2 years and how should businesses prepare in the present?
Ezra McCarthy
So where I see it going is AI I think will really be the front door for customer search. Most people today, we mentioned the phrase a little while ago, just Google it. But really I think probably in the next five to 10 years, it’s gonna shift away from that. Even we see Google itself kind of shifting away from that model to a more AI-centric approach. I think it’s gonna go more towards that. And the good thing is if you and I can get ahead of the curve, start to put our service businesses out there, have great quality content that’s clear, trustworthy, we’re going to be able to get ahead of the curve to get the best customers for our business so we can serve them and help our business grow.
So, that wraps up today’s episode of the Lawn Care Blueprint. Hopefully this has given you some information on how ChatGPT and some of these AI overviews are shaping the future of online visibility. And hopefully we’ve given you some action steps and some things you can do to help your business grow. If you need help with any of these things we talked about or just have questions, feel free to give us an email or check out our website at greenfrogwebdesign.com and we’ll look forward to catching you on the next one.