How to Get Your Business Found in Google and AI Search

Search is becoming a collection of experiences rather than a single results page. Customers may discover a business through Google, maps, an AI-generated answer, a marketplace, a social platform, or a recommendation assembled from several sources.

The fundamentals remain recognizable: be understandable, useful, trustworthy, and technically accessible. Brynton Durant's approach is to build one strong body of evidence that can be interpreted by both people and machines.

Establish one clear identity

Use the same business name, description, location, services, contact details, and primary website across authoritative profiles. Conflicting information makes the entity harder to understand.

For an individual expert, connect the person's byline, biography, professional profiles, organization, and body of work. For a company, connect the official site, business listings, social profiles, products, policies, and independent references.

Structured data can clarify those relationships, but it cannot manufacture credibility. It should accurately describe what is already visible on the page.

Build pages around real questions

Start with the questions customers ask before they buy:

What problem does this solve?
Who is it for—and not for?
How much does it cost?
What alternatives exist?
What are the risks or limitations?
What does implementation require?
What result should someone realistically expect?

Create one strong page for each distinct intent. A service page should explain the offer. A guide should teach. A comparison should establish criteria and tradeoffs. A case study should show the starting point, work performed, evidence, and result.

Demonstrate experience and judgment

Generic summaries are easy to produce and difficult to trust. Strong content includes original examples, screenshots, measurements, decision frameworks, failures, constraints, and a clear point of view.

When reviewing a product, explain how it was evaluated. When teaching a process, show the sequence and likely mistakes. When making a claim, identify the evidence. If something is an opinion or inference, label it honestly.

Make the site technically legible

Every important page should have a unique title, a concise description, one canonical URL, a descriptive heading, and internal links from relevant pages. Use readable URLs and return the correct HTTP status.

Maintain a sitemap containing public, canonical pages. Keep private, duplicate, filtered, and administrative URLs out of the index. Make pages fast, mobile-friendly, and usable without unnecessary scripts.

Images need accurate alternative text when they communicate information. Do not stuff keywords into every image description. Describe what the image actually shows and include a name or topic only when it is genuinely part of the image.

Become a source worth citing

AI answers often synthesize information from multiple sources. Increase the chance of being understood and referenced by publishing clear definitions, concise answers, original data, transparent methods, and well-structured explanations.

Use headings that state the question being answered. Put the direct answer near the beginning, then provide detail and evidence. Update pages when facts, prices, regulations, or products change.

External authority still matters. Earn relevant mentions through useful work, partnerships, interviews, directories, community participation, and resources other publishers genuinely want to reference.

Build topic depth instead of isolated posts

Choose a subject the business can credibly own. Create a central guide, then support it with narrower articles answering adjacent questions. Link the pieces together according to the reader's next decision.

For example, a small-business technology hub might connect guides about domains, hosting, automation, analytics, security, ecommerce, and software selection. The collection is more useful—and easier to understand—than eight unrelated articles.

Measure qualified discovery

Rankings alone are incomplete. Track which pages attract relevant visitors, which queries create impressions, how many readers become subscribers or inquiries, and which sources influence revenue.

Visibility compounds when the site consistently answers real questions, proves its claims, and maintains a coherent identity. The goal is not to trick an algorithm. It is to become the clearest credible answer available.