AI Search for Local Business – Part 1

0:00 AI Search for Local Business Intro
Hey, I’m Jeremy Ashurn with Push Leads. Hope you’re having a good day. And in this training, we’re going to learn about AI search for local business owners. We’re going to learn the fundamentals of AI search. And this is part one of a four-part series. So, as you can imagine, Chat GDP is exploding. Gemini is exploding. Everybody’s using AI. And this really is all about how to make some tweaks into your business so you can show up higher for AI searches. So let’s get into it here. So what

0:31 Traditional Google vs AI Search Explained
you’re going to learn here in session number one is how exactly AI search works. You’ll learn the fundamentals between traditional Google and AI search and how it works and why that matters for your business. And then secondly, you’ll learn about where your customers are searching for. You’ll discover the AI specific platforms that they‘re using and then why this impacts your business. Now, you’ll learn about some current statistics showing how AI search is already changing, how people are finding you as a local business owner. And then lastly, you’ll learn about what makes AI search different. So, let’s get into it. Um, so as you can imagine, AI search is

This is part of our AI search visibility guide.

1:07 Smart Librarian Analogy for AI Search
a lot different from regular Google search. In the with the old school search, you would essentially get a list of websites to click on, right? and you’d have to visit multiple sites, look through and sort of do all the manual work to find information. Now, with the new AI search, you get the answers right away. Essentially, the AI is reading websites for you, summarizing them, and then answering it in a chat session, right? So, anyone who’s used Chat GDP knows how easy it is, and Chat GDP generally provides a much better experience. But think of it kind of like going, you know, getting a library card, um, pointing you to books. And essentially in the old days, you know, in the old days, um, you used to have to hunt through the index and find the cards yourself and then, you know, you could find the cards, find the book, and do that whole thing. I’m not that old,

2:02 AI Platforms Your Customers Are Using
but in these days, imagine having like AI search is essentially like a smart librarian that without even having to go to the index already knows the answer and boom, you just say you have a question about this or that and then boom, you get an answer. So AI search is kind of like you’re a super smart librarian who instantly has the answers or can find them super fast. So AI is pretty awesome because of that and it’s definitely saved a lot of people time and people are learning how fast and easy AI is. So let’s look here at what what are people using what kind of AIs people are using to find you as a local business owner. So Google AI is really showing up about in about half the searches. a lot of people are still using Google and so Google AI is super important and of course you’ve seen Google AI Google’s AI when you see AI overviews right and then you have chat GDP you’ve got about 700 million people using this daily and the growth has gone from around 400 million to 800 million

3:03 Why AI Search Matters for Local Business
users in the last 10 months from February to present to October November and so people are a lot of times asking what’s the best you know handyman near me who’s the best plumber in Asheville, North Carolina, where I’m based out of, etc. Uh, Perplexity is also a new one that people are using. It’s got a growing user base. People love asking for local recommendations on and comparisons with Perplexity. And of course, don’t forget Chat GDP local discovery. So, beyond questions, people are asking Chat DP about travel planning. They’re discovering hidden gems and they’re also and this is also means that they’re finding local businesses that way as well. So, why this matters for your local business? Well, about 30% of people are now using AI when they’re using when they’re looking for local services. And 50% of pe of Google searches are now showing AI overviews, AI answers first. And whenever people search for you, these customers convert three times more if they found you through AI than Google. And it kind of makes sense because as humans, we’re real social, right? And so if you have sort of an entity so to speak that you’re interacting with an AI and it’s like hey I recommend this plumber in the Asheville North Carolina area or I recommend this HVAC company in New Orlando Florida. You’re like well tell me more. Tell me why. What are the

4:28 What AI Looks for Instead of Backlinks
reviews? You’re having a conversation. It’s much more social than just going to Google and saying HVAC Orlando Florida. Sorry that sounded ridiculous, but like that’s kind of how robotic the Google search is combined to compared to, hey, I need an HRA company in, you know, Central Florida. Tell me about the, you know, best three companies out there you can recommend, blah, blah, blah. And of course, we do have 1 million teens and young adults using AI daily as well. So, what makes AI different search? What makes AI search different for local businesses is that regular Google search looks at things like many other, you know, they look at things like how many other websites link to you, right? Well, instead of how many websites are connecting to you or linking to you, AI search more cares about what your what whether your information is helping customers find their answers and whether real people are trusting you. And so having detailed customer reviews even for your Google business listing actually increases your chance of being recommended by an AI because guess what AIs look at your Google business listing. Having clear information, not salesy kind of things, but clear information. So clear prices, hours, service descriptions, these help your AI help AIs uh understand your business better. Um and then uh local um local value. So being mentioned in Facebook

5:50 Social Media and Content Signals for AI
groups, on community sites, and on local blogs, other places besides your website really helps. Why? Because AIs look at everything. I always say too that if you’re not doing social media, AIs will ignore you, right? So you need to be doing some kind of social media, you need to have your website have a lot of unique content on it, but you need to have other websites, other places online talking about your brand. And the more that happens, the more you grow. And of course, AI prefers businesses that regularly update their information and post new content. So if you post new content, then that’s part of the equation as well. So let’s moving on here.

6:31 Session Recap and What Is Coming Next
So session recap what we covered. We covered about the AI search revolution. AI giving you the direct answers. We discovered where your customers are. They’re on Google. They’re on Chat TDP. They’re on Bing. Um occasionally, but mostly perplexity. And then it’s actually the numbers the figures change here, but I’ve heard up to 37% of US users are actually now using Chat TBT. That is up from like 8% um a couple years ago. So in session two, we’re going to dive into the technical steps that make your business AI business AI ready. So we’ll cover website optimization and information structure. All right, so pay attention. We’ll go from there. I’m Jeremy Ashmer with Push Leads. See you then.