How to Get Your Business Recommended by AI Search: A Guide for Cushing Business Owners 

By Mark Cantrell, Founder & CEO of Upward Bound Media, Cushing

There's a lot of talk right now about what AI means for small business, and most of it is either doom or hype. I want to skip both and talk about something practical: when somebody asks ChatGPT or Google's AI which plumber, restaurant, or insurance agent to call in Cushing, how does the AI decide who to recommend, and what can you do about it?

I run a marketing agency here in town, and before that I spent fifteen years in the HVAC trade, so I come at this from the contractor side more than the tech side. Here's what I've learned watching how these tools actually pick businesses, and the good news is that most of what works is stuff a Cushing business can do this month for very little money.

AI doesn't know your business. It knows what the internet says about your business.

Hear me out on this, because it's the whole thing. An AI search doesn't go visit your shop. It reads the internet, finds every place your business name shows up, and puts it all together. If your name appears in a hundred places and they all say the same thing, the AI treats you as a real, established, trustworthy business. If your name shows up in three places and two of them have your old phone number, it doesn't.

So the question isn't "how do I get listed in AI." It's "how do I get my business name in as many trustworthy places as possible, all saying the same thing." Once you see it that way, the to-do list writes itself, and a lot of it is stuff that's good for the community anyway.

Local involvement is a ranking signal now

This is the part I wish more business owners understood. Joining the Chamber of Commerce puts your business on the Chamber's website, in its directory, and in its communications. That's a link and a mention from a trusted local organization. Sponsoring a Chamber event does it again: your name on the event page, in the social posts, in the newsletter, maybe in the paper. Every one of those is another place on the internet where your business name shows up next to the word "Cushing."

Same with sponsoring a Tigers team or a youth league. You end up on their website, in their social media, on a banner somebody photographs and posts. It feels like goodwill, and it is, but it's also exactly what AI is looking for when it tries to figure out which businesses are actually part of this town.

Think about it from the AI's side. Two businesses offer the same service. One has a website and a Google listing. The other has a website, a Google listing, a Chamber membership, two event sponsorships, and a booster club shout-out. Which one looks more like the real deal? That's not a trick. That's how it works.

If your website and your Google listing are already in decent shape, these local signals are what push you over the edge. If they're not, get those fixed first, then come back to this.

Reviews, and not just Google reviews

Everybody already knows Google reviews matter. They've mattered since Amazon taught the whole country to check reviews before buying anything, and now nobody calls a business without looking first. Your Google Business Profile is the single most important thing the AI reads about you, so keep it complete and keep the reviews coming.

Here's what fewer people know: AI also looks at reviews on other platforms, and it weighs them.

Yelp is a big one. ChatGPT works directly with Yelp data, so if you don't have a Yelp listing, you're invisible to a large share of AI searches. Set one up, make sure it's yours, and get some reviews on it.

Trustpilot is another one that shows up heavily in AI recommendations, and almost nobody in Cushing has a profile. That's an opportunity. It's free to claim, and a handful of honest reviews there goes a long way because you'll be one of the few local businesses that has any.

If you're in home services, you need to be on Angi too. I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of the company. But the AI pulls their reviews whether I like them or not, so you need a listing and a few reviews there.

Facebook Recommendations still count where they show up, and LinkedIn matters for anything business-to-business.

How many reviews do you need? Look at your real competitors. Not the one paying for ads on Yelp with 400 reviews that no local business can catch. Scroll past that one and look at the businesses actually competing with you in town. If they have 15, aim for 20. A restaurant needs more than a bookkeeper does. Just get in the same range, then keep going.

When the AI sees that you have Google reviews, Yelp reviews, Trustpilot reviews, and reviews on the platforms specific to your trade, and they all say roughly the same thing, that's a business it's willing to recommend. Everything points the same direction.

The one rule that makes all of this work

Your business name, address, and phone number need to be identical everywhere. Not close. Identical. Same spelling, same "LLC" or no "LLC," same suite number, same phone.

The reason is that the AI, and Google, are matching all these listings together to build one picture of your business. If your Yelp says "Smith Plumbing," your Chamber listing says "Smith Plumbing & Drain LLC," and your Facebook has the number you stopped using in 2021, the computer can't be sure those are all the same business. It might treat them as two or three separate, smaller businesses. Now all the work you did to get listed everywhere is split three ways.

Start with your Google Business Profile as the master copy, and make everything else match it exactly. It's tedious. It's not hard. It's one afternoon.

Then tie it all together on your website. There's a bit of code called schema that tells search engines and AI what your business is and where else it exists online. In that code, you list your Google profile, your Yelp, your Trustpilot, your Facebook, your LinkedIn, your Angi if you have one. That's you telling the internet, in a language it reads directly, "these are all me." It's the last piece that locks the whole picture together.

Where to start

If all of this is new, do it in this order.

Get your Google Business Profile completely filled out. 

Claim your Yelp and Trustpilot profiles and match them to your Google listing exactly.

Ask every customer for a review, on Google first, then spread a few to the other platforms.

Join the Chamber if you haven't, and pick one event or one team to sponsor this year. Make sure they spell your business name the same way your Google listing does.

Get the schema on your website. If you don't have someone who can do that, I've written out how we build websites for exactly this at themirrorstrategy.com, and you're welcome to follow it yourself.

None of this requires an agency and none of it requires understanding how AI works under the hood. It requires being a visible, consistent, involved part of Cushing, and then making sure the internet can see that you are. The businesses that do it will be the ones the AI names when somebody asks. The ones that don't will be wondering why the phone got quiet.

Mark Cantrell is the founder of Upward Bound Media, a local SEO agency based in Cushing, and spent fifteen years in the HVAC trade before starting it.