SERVICES → AI SEARCH OPTIMIZATION
AI Search Optimization
Your customers are starting to ask AI instead of scrolling through Google. I make sure your business is the answer it gives them.
Your rankings are fine. Your phone is quieter.
For twenty years the deal was simple. You ranked, people clicked, they landed on your site. That deal is being renegotiated without your input.
Google now answers a lot of questions directly, inside the results page. ChatGPT, Perplexity and Copilot answer them without a results page at all. Your customer gets what they needed and never arrives.
You can be doing everything right and still watch this happen. You are still showing up. You are just showing up as a sentence in somebody else's answer, with or without your name attached.
What AI search optimization actually is
AI search optimization is the work of making your business visible inside AI-generated answers, rather than only in a list of blue links. It combines traditional SEO, which decides whether a source is credible enough to be used at all, with content structure that makes your specific answers easy for an AI system to find, understand and quote.
It is not a replacement for SEO. It is a layer on top of it. If anyone tells you AI search means abandoning your SEO and buying their proprietary AI package, they are selling you something. Google's own guidance says its AI features are built on its existing search ranking systems. The foundation did not move. The surface did.
You probably need this if
• Your impressions are up and your clicks are down
• You rank well and the phone still got quieter
• A competitor keeps showing up in AI answers and you do not
• Someone asked ChatGPT about your industry and your name was not in the response
• You have no idea whether any of the above is true, which is most people
Worth citing
The AI has to consider you a credible source before anything else matters. That comes from the unglamorous work: real topical depth, a complete Business Profile, legitimate links and mentions, and enough existing visibility that the system already connects your business to the subject.
Easy to quote
Credible is not the same as usable. If the answer is buried in the fourth paragraph of a page called "Our Approach," a machine has to work to find it, and often it will not bother. Clear questions, direct answers, honest headings, and structured data that matches the page.
Backed up elsewhere
One page cannot carry a whole business. AI systems pull from everywhere, and different ones favor different places. Your reviews, directory listings, local memberships and video all count. The goal is being hard to avoid when a machine researches your subject.
What's included
What you actually get
01
Question research
What your customers are really asking, including the questions that never show up in a keyword tool.
02
Gap audit
A gap audit of which of those questions your site answers today and which it does not.
03
Page restructuring
Page restructuring so your answers are findable instead of buried.
04
Topical depth
Content built to add the topical depth that makes your site a credible source rather than a single page hoping for the best.
05
Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile optimization, which for a local business is the highest-leverage thing you own.
06
Local links and listings
Chambers, directories, organizations you are genuinely part of.
07
Structured data
Structured data that accurately reflects what is on your pages.
08
Citation tracking
Citation tracking, so you can see where you are actually being used as a source.
09
Reporting
Reporting that separates citations from clicks from conversions, because they are not the same thing.
Most of that list is good SEO done properly. That is the point, and it is why I do not sell this as a separate product. You can read more about my SEO services.
The process
How it works
Find out where you stand
Map the questions
Fix what exists before building what does not
Build the depth
Reinforce it off-site
Measure and adjust
Why Whatcom County is different
Almost everything written about AI search is written for national brands with national budgets. Local is a different game, and the differences work in your favor.
Search volume here is small. A term might get a few dozen searches a month. That sounds discouraging until you remember what those searches are: someone in your service area, with the problem you solve, looking right now. There is very little tire-kicking in a small market.
It also means the bar is lower than you think. Most of your local competitors have done none of this. And there is one thing a language model cannot do, which is tell someone what you know. It does not know that permits here take six weeks in summer and two in February, or what a job like this actually costs in this county. You know all of that. Almost nobody has written it down.
What it costs
AI search work is included in every SEO retainer. There is no separate AI package, because there is no separate AI foundation.
All tiers are month to month, no minimum term, 30 days notice to cancel.
Google Business Profile Optimization
Local SEO, standalone
For local businesses that want to show up in the Google Map Pack.
Answer structure and AI citation tracking included.
SEO Foundation
For new websites or businesses in less competitive local markets.
Answer structure and AI citation tracking included.
Most Popular
SEO Entrepreneur
For established local businesses ready to own their market.
Answer structure and AI citation tracking included.
SEO Executive
For ecommerce, highly competitive markets and nationwide reach.
Answer structure and AI citation tracking included.
Common questions
Is this separate from your SEO service?
No. AI search work is built into every SEO retainer rather than sold as a separate package. The foundation is the same, and splitting them would mean charging twice for one piece of work.
Do I need SEO first, or can I just do the AI part?
You need both, and they are the same engagement. AI systems decide whether a source is credible before they decide whether to quote it, and that credibility comes from traditional SEO. Optimizing answers on a site with no authority underneath it is polish on a car with no engine.
Can you guarantee my business will appear in ChatGPT or Google AI Overviews?
No, and be cautious of anyone who says otherwise. AI answers vary by query, by user, by platform and by system update. What I can do is improve the conditions that make citation likely, then show you what actually happened.
How long before I see results?
There is no universal timeline. It depends on your existing authority, how competitive your subject is, how quickly your pages get indexed, and how often each AI platform refreshes what it has retrieved. I would rather show you measured change over time than promise a number of days.
Will publishing a lot of AI-generated articles get me cited?
Generally the opposite. Producing large volumes of pages to capture every possible query variation can cross into what Google classifies as scaled content abuse. Depth on subjects you genuinely know beats volume on subjects you do not.
Do I need an llms.txt file?
Not for Google. Google has stated it does not use llms.txt for its generative AI features, and that having one neither helps nor hurts your visibility in Google Search.
Does my Google Business Profile matter for this?
For a local business it is one of the highest-leverage things you own. It is a structured, verified description of who you are, where you are and what you do, which is exactly what these systems lean on for local questions. A neglected profile is the most common and most fixable problem I find.
Do you work with businesses outside Whatcom County?
Yes. Most of my clients are local, which is where the local-market knowledge pays off, but the work itself is not geographically limited.
Office
1200 Harris Ave
#309a
Bellingham, WA 98225
Phone Number
360-821-4047
casey@fairhavenwebdesign.com
Not sure where you currently stand?
Most people land somewhere between "better than I expected" and "oh no," and it is usually worth finding out which.
I am in the Sycamore Building in Fairhaven, and I would rather have a straight conversation about what your site actually needs than sell you something you do not. If AI search is on your mind, or your traffic has done something strange lately and you want to know why, get in touch.
