How to Make Your Small Business Show Up in AI Search
If you have ever felt invisible online, here is the new version of that problem.
It is no longer just “can people find my website”. It is “can an AI understand what I sell, trust it, then recommend it with confidence”.
Customers are already using AI to shortlist products, compare options, and even complete purchases without hopping between ten tabs. Google is rebuilding parts of Shopping around AI, including AI-generated guidance for shoppers. Amazon has put a generative AI shopping assistant, Rufus, into the shopping journey - look for the icon on the bottom right of the Shopping app. OpenAI is pushing merchant connectivity, including Instant Checkout inside ChatGPT. Similarly, Microsoft has just announced Checkout for Copilot with fully fledged shopping features including in-app purchases
What this means in plain English
AI tools do three things very well:
Translate messy human questions into structured intent - “Best accountant for a small charity in Cardiff”, “running shoes for flat feet under £200”, “emergency plumber who can come today”.
Pull together signals from lots of places - Your website; particularly product pages and pricing, reviews, business listings, photos, plus as much as possible from third-party sources eg. Truspilot for reviews.
Recommend the option that looks the best and easiest to trust. Clear structured info, consistent details, strong consumer or client proof plus low friction to buy an item or book a service.
So the mission is simple. Make your business easy to understand, easy to verify, and easy to action.
Five steps to get ready
1) Make your offer legible to AI
If an AI cannot confidently describe what you do and who you do it for, it will default to someone else.
Do this on your website first:
Create one page per core offer. Each page should answer: who it is for, what problem it solves, what is included, what it costs (or how pricing works), typical timelines, and what happens next.
Use straightforward wording that matches how customers ask questions. Avoid industry terms and jargon. Use the phrases customers actually type and say.
Add structured data where relevant. Product schema for ecommerce, LocalBusiness for local services, FAQ schema for common questions. Schema is important for product discovery.
Online retailer add-ons:
Keep product titles, descriptions, pricing, availability, and images consistently accurate across your site and feeds.
Use identifiers where you have them (GTIN, MPN) and include key attributes customers filter by.
Service business add-ons:
Put your service area, hours, response times, and booking options in obvious places.
Add a pricing guide if you can. If you cannot, explain the factors that change the price.
2) Build trust signals that AI can repeat
Humans trust proof. AI systems also lean heavily on proof because it is easier to justify in a recommendation.
Good quality reviews, case studies and testimonials are important for every business type.
What to do:
Collect reviews regularly, not in a frantic burst once a year.
Encourage specifics in reviews. What was bought, what problem was solved, what the outcome was.
Publish testimonials and case studies on your site. Short is fine, but make them concrete.
Make policies easy to find. Returns, refunds, delivery, guarantees, privacy, complaint handling.
Online retailers:
Display delivery costs, timescales, and returns clearly, ideally on product pages as well as a policy page. Trust drops fast when the “surprise” delivery or admin charge appears at checkout.
Local and professional services:
Show credentials, memberships, accreditations, insurance, and safeguarding where relevant.
Add a simple “What to expect” section so people know the process.
3) Be present where AI assistants pull data
Think of this as distribution, not “yet another platform”.
Key point for websites:
AI tools need to be able to access your content. OpenAI publishes guidance on its crawlers and how site owners can allow or block them via robots.txt, including OAI-SearchBot.
Practical checklist:
Check your robots.txt is not blocking the AI crawlers you want visibility from.
Make sure key pages are indexable (not hidden behind logins or heavy scripts).
Ensure your business information is consistent across the web. Name, address, phone number, website, opening hours
Retailer distribution:
Look seriously at merchant integrations. Microsoft’s Copilot Merchant Program is designed for catalogue integration and visibility. OpenAI is positioning ChatGPT for merchant connections, including Instant Checkout.
Wider small business distribution:
Keep your Google Business Profile accurate (services, categories, photos, updates)
Make sure you are listed correctly on key industry directories customers actually use.
Publish FAQs and service pages that answer “comparison” questions. These are the questions AI assistants love.
A quick reality check
Not every platform will happily share its data with every AI. For example, reporting suggests Amazon has blocked some OpenAI crawling, which limits what ChatGPT can pull directly from Amazon pages. So small businesses that keep their own sites and listings in line with the advice given here can win.
4) Turn customer questions into content that gets cited
AI assistants often respond by citing and summarising. Your content should be written to be summarised well.
Create a small library of “answer pages” including:
FAQs that reflect real wording from customers
“Which should I choose” comparisons
Use cases, case studies and buying guides
Troubleshooting and aftercare advice
Clear contact and next-step instructions
Retail examples:
“Which trail shoe is best for muddy paths”
“What size should I buy for this fit”
“Is this compatible with” style posts
Service examples
“How much does it cost to” with ranges and factors
“How long does it take to”
“What happens if” questions
Google is explicitly leaning into AI-guided shopping research experiences, so helpful guidance content is not just nice, it is part of the shopping journey now.
5) Track what AI-driven customers do, then tighten the loop
The final step of measurement and tracking is the difference between guessing and knowing.
What to track in tools like Google Analytics:
Referral traffic from AI tools. Look for parameters like utm_source=chatgpt.com.
Conversion rate by source.
Assisted conversions, especially for services where the sale happens later.
Customer questions that appear as search terms. These can provide great content and FAQ ideas as well as help with sales objections.
Simple testing routine:
Write 10 prompts your customers would ask an AI.
Run them in ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini.
Note who gets recommended and why.
Fix the gaps on your site and listings. Missing pricing, unclear service area, weak proof, confusing product data.
What’s coming next
Two developments matter a lot for small businesses.
In-chat shopping
The direction of travel is that AI conversations will turn into actions, not just recommendations. As mentioned earlier OpenAI, Google and Microsoft are all pushing shopping experiences inside ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot respectively.
More sponsored placements will shortly be displayed inside AI shopping experiences. Google is starting to integrate personalised shopping ads into AI experiences, which means “organic only” visibility may get harder over time. The sensible response is to get your foundations right now, so you are not forced into paying just to be seen.
Quick action plan for this week
Audit your top 5 pages. Are they clear, current, and written in customer language?
Add or improve one trust asset. A case study, testimonials page, or review collection process.
Check crawl access. Make sure you are not blocking the bots you want visibility from.
Build your “AI prompt pack”. 10 prompts, three tools, one document.
Measure traffic from AI sources. Then decide what to fix first based on impact.
If you want help prioritising, Pollinger AI can run a practical AI readiness review and then map the work into a short, realistic plan you can actually deliver.
Book a FREE 15 minutes chat with Jonathan to learn more.
