While more people are starting to say, "I asked ChatGPT" for recommendations on food, services and shops, business owners may be struggling to figure out how to get their names out there in the AI Age. One Lubbock marketing agency recently created a free tool to help.
Caleb Monroe, partner at Lubbock marketing agency Monsoon, was one of those business owners trying to learn how to navigate it. The company opened in 2016 and offers web design, branding, marketing, printed products and search engine optimization, but some AI chatbots weren't recognizing them as an option. In particular, Monsoon wasn't showing up in Perplexity, which sources more from proprietary research.
"Me and my business partner co-founded Monsoon back in 2016 with the entire
goal of only selling businesses what they need and what would actually solve problems that they have with visibility," Monroe said. "We like helping clients, including ourselves. Monsoon was not showing up well inside of Perplexity, so how do we solve that?"
That spurred Monsoon to create the Texas AI Search Visibility Index this month. Through testing topics, like "best plumber Lubbock," on Google Gemini, ChatGPT, Microsoft CoPilot, Perplexity, Claude and Grok. The findings revealed that even businesses with good search engine optimization and Google reviews did not show up with the same consistency, or at all, on certain platforms. That is due partly to how these chatbots source their recommendations.
Monsoon found the more common citations for these platforms:
- Gemini cites owned websites more than others reviewed, and is backed by Google.
- Google AI Overviews focuses on search ranked and newer information.
- Google AI Mode pulls from subqueries.
- ChatGPT Search pulls from original web sources, publishers and consensuses. For example, "15 Best Plumbers in Lubbock."
- Microsoft CoPilot cites Bing sources.
- Perplexity mainly uses source-specific, niche evidence backed pieces. For example, if an organization publishes a study.
- Claude is similar to Perplexity, also supporting primary and research sources over SEO ranking.
- Grok pulls from X, formerly known as Twitter, with more going into hot topics and trends.
The consensus Monsoon reached is that each reward an owned website and independent sources, though the two are weighed differently by each.
While it is not super common yet in Lubbock's users, according to Monroe, it is growing and already changing how people search.
"Somebody who searches you up on Google, they're usually going to compare three or four options and they're going to have that," Monroe said. "If I have developed a deep relationship with ChatGPT and it helped me with my meal plan this week, it gave me like a fitness plan., it helped me understand my dad's health problems, then I'm asking it for a service provider."
Along with that, the more information a person feeds to the platform, the more those results change to what it thinks the user would prefer.
"If I say I'm looking for a gym or fitness place for me, it's probably going to find things that include my children and something for my wife," Monroe said. "While somebody who may be single that's searching for a gym, it's going to look for options that may be available 24/7, because it knows you work from here to here."
Knowing how it works allows businesses to find their way into the AI Age game. The AI Visibility Search Tool on Monsoon's website lets businesses type in their name to see how they rank in different searches, creates a report and interprets the data.
"It doesn't just show them where they're falling, it actually says, 'Here's some things that you could be working on' um'," Monroe said. "We offer free consultations if somebody is interested in getting the data more parsed through and having bigger conversations about it."
Once they know where they do and do not appear, they can do a query fan out.
Owners can also open ChatGPT and search "best" type of their business and scroll down to where it lists sources. If the person already has a ChatGPT account, log out first and open in a private browser so it does not count prior data. The sources and reviews play into the recommendations.
From there, businesses can reach out to those sources, such as ranking sites, the Better Business Bureau, local chambers of commerce, or Yelp and ask how to get listed.
At the same time, Search Engine Optimization is still important, Monroe said, as it does play a role in chatbot searches.
"You still need to do the SEO side to get recommended by the AI SEO," Monroe said. "The majority of what the research showed was that there was a direct correlation between being highly ranked on Google and being highly ranked in AI. SEO is incredibly relevant until these AIs invest the money to create their own search engines."
The growth of AI chatbot usage by willing participants is small, in comparison to classic searches, but Monroe predicted it will continue to grow. Even so, it's too soon to go all-in on AI alone and abandon SEO and marketing, as it doesn't reflect consumer behavior in Lubbock, Monroe said.
Monroe also warned businesses to be wary of people taking advantage.
"There's this tendency for businesses to not want to feel left behind and to be an early adopter, but with that comes a lot of snake oil that can happen," Monroe said. "That's why we're offering that visibility tool for free. I just want businesses to be protected from a lot of people that are just taking advantage of this fear. More than anything, I just want people to understand where they're actually at."
Monsoon plans to expand the visibility tool to other cities and run reports at least every quarter.
Monroe is also a Texas Tech graduate student and operates a nonprofit, Gethsemane Foster Initiative, with his wife. Their nonprofit recruits, educates, and retains foster care families.
Alana Edgin writes about business for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Got a news tip? Contact her via email at aedgin@lubbockonline.com.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Why your Lubbock business might be invisible to AI chatbots
