My Client Found Me on ChatGPT. Here's Why.

Imagine a potential client in your city asking an AI assistant, "Who's a great branding photographer near me?" About 2 weeks ago, this happened to me. He's just chatting through AI. In today's world, search is not just about being in Google's top 10 links anymore. It's about being the answer that tools like ChatGpt, Microsoft, Claude, or Perplexity give to a potential client. Where was I recommended?

How high up? Um, probably number one.

Now, the good news is for you, you don't need to be an SEO wizard or pay for expensive tools to get there. By focusing on plain English content and local flavor, you can boost your discoverability in AIdriven search experiences. AI search is totally different from traditional SEO. Generative AI tools like ChatGpt and Microsoft Copilot are becoming new digital gatekeepers to information. Unlike a traditional Google search that returns a list of blue links, an AI powered search often responds with a single conversational answer or summary.

When someone uses chat GPT or Google Gemini, they might see an AI generated snapshot that summarizes options or even recommends businesses outright instead of just a long list of websites that leave you having to do the research on your own. So, think of it this way. Traditional SEO, search engine optimization is like putting up a big sign and hoping people walk in. Whereas AI search is like having a friendly expert who gives recommendations in the conversation.

And now if that expert, the AI, hasn't heard of your business or doesn't trust it, it won't mention you.

Okay, so first things first, my cardinal rule of SEO, people can't hire you if you can't be found. What's true for Google search is true for ChatGpt, Microsoft Copilot, Claude, Perplexity, and other AI assistants. They need to be able to access and read your content. Now, if you've blocked AI crawlers because you think they're going to steal your writing, I've got two things to say to you. First, you're no Kurt Vonagget.

And even if you were, your professional photography business website should definitely not read like Slaughterhouse 5. And secondly, you're way too late. That ship has sailed. It sailed long before we even knew ChatGpt existed. So, here's what you need to do. Ensure your website allows crawlers to index and extract information. On Squarespace, which is what I use, this involves just simply making sure a couple of boxes are not checked in your settings.

So, in Squarespace, we're going to open the settings panel by clicking on the cog wheel icon. Click on crawlers and then make sure the box next to block known artificial intelligence crawlers is not checked. So, think of this as the welcome sign on your digital storefront, leaving the door unlocked invites everyone, including those AI assistants, to come in, browse, and learn about your business and services.

If the AI assistants know about your business and services, then they can recommend your business and services. Now, while you're there, also make sure that you're not blocking search engines from indexing your website. That would be catastrophic to your business. Trust me. All right. We want to inform using natural language. So, consider your website content like a friendly chat or a storytelling session that you're having with a good friend.

If traditional SEO was like writing a formal essay, optimizing for AI is more like having an engaging conversation. The more your content sounds like something a person would naturally say or ask, the more AI will favor it in a conversational search result. Experts have noted that AI tends to select pages that explain, clarify, or guide users through a topic in plain terms over generic or jargon fil.

AI search bots are trained on how real people write and ask questions. So, they love content that reads in a human, approachable tone. And look, my neurode divergent tribe, I see you. I'm what psychologists refer to as twice exceptional. And if you look it up on Wikipedia and see the list of strengths and deficits, I check every single one of those boxes. So, here's a trick I use. I even did it when writing this script.

Imagine you're explaining your service to a friend at a coffee shop. That's the tone to aim for. For example, instead of just saying professional photography services offered in Brighton, you might say, "Hi, I'm Jessica, a branding photographer based in Brighton. I help local businesses tell their stories through images." Now, this kind of plain English description feels more genuine and directly answers what someone might want to know.

And that's the key. AI search tools are answer engines. They're not search engines. All right. So, if you struggle writing in this way, there are a couple things that you can try. You can try recording yourself on your phone while talking about your services to a friend. Transcribe it and use the language you actually used. You can also take your writing and drop it into a chat GPT or claude query and ask it to rewrite it for you using natural language in a clear human and approachable tone.

Now, I do this a lot before sending emails so I don't sound like my robot brain. So, why does this matter for AI? This is the most important thing that you can take away from this video. Generative AI looks for content that directly answers people's questions in clear terms. If your site has an FAQ section or a blog post that sounds like you're chatting with the reader, it's more likely to get picked up.

Be conversational and specific. Think about common questions your clients ask. What should I bring to my budois session? Or how do we prepare for our engagement session? And answer them in a friendly, helpful way on your website. This not only supports traditional SEO and will help you rank, but it lets AI crawlers know that yours is a website with expert level information.

Okay, so now let's talk about structure. One of the most important and easiest to implement SEO practices is to make sure the information on your website is structured in a clear and easy to understand manner. Now, this is where my robot brain actually comes in handy. But you don't need my robot brain or any fancy plugins to make your website AI friendly. just good old-fashioned structured information.

So, imagine your website is like an art gallery. Each section or page should be clearly labeled and easy to navigate so even a first-time visitor can find what they need. Now, this means having distinct sections and pages for your key services, architecture, interior design, short-term rentals, instead of burying everything on one generic page called services. On the pages themselves, use headings and subheadings that plainly state what's on that page, like chapter titles in a book.

So, for instance, if an an H1 heading might say industrial photography services, and subheadings might include details, portfolio, rates, and frequently asked questions. A clear site hierarchy helps human visitors help search engines and AI crawlers easily scan and read your structured information to understand your content better. And tools like ChatGpt and Copilot favor well organized, informative websites.

And you don't have to know code to do this. Simply ensure that each page has a clear topic and descriptive title. Pages are broken up into distinct sections with clear subheadings and that your menu and links make it obvious how to get around. One of the easiest ways to do this is when you're creating content for your website, do it in a Google Docs document. Right? So you have your title at the top.

You have a header one and then your your subsequent sections could be header two, header three, header four in a way that keeps the information organized. Then you can take that content and transplant it onto your website. By tidying up your site structure, you make it easy for search engines and AI crawlers to navigate and trust your content, boosting your chance of being featured in its answers. So here's a few quick and easy steps that you can take.

First, make sure to give each service its own distinct section and pages. Right? So example, a page for wedding photography should be separate from branding photography. And if you do portraits, that should be separate. Maternity should be separate from newborn, should be separate from babies. Each one of those should have its own section and clear page that answers everything about that one specific service that you offer.

Next, you need to include your name, address, and phone number on your site. ideally in the footer or on the contact page, preferably both, so that it's crystal clear where you are located and how to reach you. This helps with local nearme queries and ensures consistency. And don't just write the city, write the city, the the province, the country, the city, the state, the country. Have your postal code there as well.

All the detail to give the machines as much information that will help them produce a better result for people who are searching. Then make sure you have a frequently asked questions section addressing common questions in a simple uh question and answer format. Not only will real clients appreciate this, but AI models love FAQs because they match the question and answer structure. I have an FAQ on every service page of my website and you should too.

And finally, grab a copy of the ultimate SEO guide for photographers. It's more than 120 pages of very clear, easy to understand, easy to implement best practices for search engine optimization that you do not need to be a technical wizard to implement. And that is going to help you with structuring your website and setting it up properly so that the AI engines can read it better. I'm going to link to it in the description below or you can simply scan the QR code on the screen to quickly grab your copy right now.

I'd really appreciate it. It helps support this channel and helps me to make more videos.

The next thing you want to do is focus on being the local expert. For a service business, local relevance is your superpower. You want the AI to know where you are and what community you serve. So, don't be shy about sprinkling local context into your content. And this can be as simple as naturally mentioning your city, your neighborhood, or your region in your copy, not in a spammy way, but where it makes sense.

For example, for me, I might say, "As a branding photographer in Hamilton, I worked with McMaster University, local shops on King William Street, and startups coming out of Innovation Factory." A sentence like that not only signals your location, it also shows you're familiar with local landmarks. So, think of local info as like seasoning uh in a recipe. Without it, the dish is probably going to be bland to an AI looking for local flavor.

You don't want generic information. And you want specific local nuggets, right? Something that that that helps indicate that you know the area and and you are definitely a local that they can recommend to someone searching for someone local. So when someone asks an AI like Chat GBT or Microsoft Copilot for recommendations on a Hamilton wedding photographer, the AI will scan for content that shows a strong tie to Hamilton.

It's looking for locally relevant signals. If your website explicitly states your city and services, you're already ahead of the game. If it shows that you photographed at Dunder Castle and Ancaster Mill, then that that's a plus. It's also one of the reasons I tell photographers that they need to be blogging every session. Also, consider writing blog posts like five great Hamilton locations for engagement sessions or how to plan a wedding in Hamilton, Ontario.

This positions you as the local expert and gives the AI more context. And finally, you want to make sure that your Google business profile and your Microsoft Bing places listing. Yes, your Microsoft Bing places listing have up-to-date information and your address, your category of business, your hours. These free listings plan a flag on the map for you and reinforce to any AI that you are a real local business.

Now, just a quick note about Bing places is that once you set that up, you can sync that with your Google business listing and it will keep it synced pretty regularly. So, as long as you're updating your Google Business profile, your Bing Places listing will be updated as well. I just wanted to pop in here for a quick second while I'm editing this video. You'll notice on the example that I don't have my phone number in my map listings, which is a detriment to my business.

And the reason that I don't have my phone number in my maps listing is because people who watch my videos call me. Please don't do that. Don't do that to any YouTuber. I'm trying to run an actual business. cuz I'm an actual working full-time photographer and I cannot take calls from viewers. If you want to book a one- on-one with me, let me know in the comments. Uh, that's something I'll add. I'll add a service to the Studio Builder website and we can do a one-on-one.

I no longer answer calls from numbers that I don't recognize. And because I have a Google Pixel, I will screen calls that I don't recognize. Please don't call. Please don't show up at my studio. Next thing you want to be incorporating are reviews and testimonials. Customer reviews act as five-star signals in the eyes of AI models. High ratings and detailed testimonials across platforms like Google, Yelp, or Facebook can strongly influence AI generated recommendations.

So, in many ways, reviews are the new word of mouth. They're the voices vouching for you in the town square. And AI is picking up on all of that chatter. The louder and more positive those voices are, the more likely AI will say, "You should check out this business. Everyone's raving about them." If many people online praise you as the best photographer in town, the AI will take note and may phrase its answers accordingly.

Let your clients voices be heard and your online reputation will shine. So encourage happy clients to leave reviews on public reputable sites, especially Google and Microsoft Bing and industry specific platforms like House. Public reviews are critical. AI tools won't trust what they can't verify. You may have heard about AIs having hallucinations, but a lot of that has been taken care of in in recent models.

AIs are checking their results before they deliver them to people. So, aim for a steady stream of recent positive reviews. Detailed feedback with keywords like captured our brand provides rich content for AI. On your own website, you want to showcase client testimonials on your homepage and in dedicated testimonial sections on relevant genre pages. So when clearly formatted, both humans and AI associate your business with credibility.

AI systems often pull in data from reviewer platforms to answer queries such as best or most trusted locally. Now, if you're just starting out in business and you lack reviews, publish case studies or success stories. Hell, even if you're not just starting and have a thousand reviews, you should also publish case studies and success stories. I have a number of case studies on my website. Write blog posts about projects with local clients and include their quotes.

It's narrative style social proof that adds credibility and provides more conversational language for AI to digest. Once you've done all this, you want to test it, tweak it, and repeat it. One of the most impactful and free actions that you can take is to observe and experiment with the AI tools yourself. Put on your pretend customer hat and search the way they would. Ask Chat Gyt or Claude or Perplexity something like, "Who is the best branding photographer in Hamilton?" or "Where can I find a newborn photographer in Grimby?" So, what comes up?

Does the AI mention anyone by name and is it you? And if not, what can you do to make your site better for search engines and AIdriven search experiences? I'll give you a hint. It's a little over 120 pages and has a handsome face on the cover. QR code here and link in the doobly-doo. As John Green would say, all of this is about understanding what information the AI relies on. If Microsoft Copilot pulls from a competitor's well optimized site, review their site structure or FAQs for ideas on how to improve your site.

Essentially, check what the AI is seeing by testing your key queries. Now, speaking of accuracy and ethics, AI can sometimes be confidently wrong, known as hallucinations. So, although this is happening less and less with advances in reasoning models, you still want to make sure that you're being as clear as possible for our robot overlords. To counter this, make sure you provide accurate, up-to-date info across all of your profiles.

Also, keep your information consistent everywhere. If your business name, address, or hours vary between your website, Google listing, Facebook page, etc., the AIS might get confused. They may not link them together. Consistency acts like a truth signal, ensuring accurate answers when somebody asks, "Is this studio open on Sundays?" If you spot the AI offering wrong details about you, such as being open on Sundays when you're not, make sure to be explicit about that on your website and your Google business profile.

AI powered search is a new stage where your business can shine. It's a stage that talks back to the audience. It's different from the old SEO, but it embraces the same core principles of clarity in expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. At its heart, AI optimization is really human optimization. You're tailoring your online presence to answer real people's questions in the ways AI delivers answers.

Do that well and the AIs will pick up what you're putting down. And look, it's a learning process for everyone. Business owners like us and customers like us and even the AI platforms. Search is evolving and changing. However, by staying authentic, ethical, and proactive, we won't just keep up with the future. We'll help shape a community where quality creative work gets the recognition that it deserves.

So, to recap, focus on clear, conversational content. Organize your site neatly, infuse it with local charm, leverage client reviews, let the crawlers do their thing, and pick up a copy of the SEO guide for photographers. None of this requires coding, just consistency and creativity, which you already excel at. Your next local client might just hear about you from Microsoft. In the meantime, check out this video which examines common mistakes that self-employed people make in their search engine optimization on your website.

Implementing those strategies will help your business show up not only on search engines but in AI driven search as well. Thanks for watching.