Getting recommended by AI assistants: what's known and what I won't do

More people are asking AI assistants things like "who's a good electrician near me?" or "how much should a panel upgrade cost?". Business owners naturally ask how to show up in those answers.

I'll be straight about the limits first. The companies that build these tools do not publish their recommendation rules, and the tools change often. Anyone claiming a proven formula is guessing. What follows is a reasonable working view, not a promise.

What these tools tend to draw on

AI assistants answer from a mix of what they learned in training and, in many cases, live web results. When they recommend a local business, the sources behind it are usually the same ones people use:

• your own website
• your Google Business Profile and its reviews
• other listings and directories
• articles, local news and other sites that mention you

So the useful work is the same as good local marketing in general.

What helps

• Clear facts about you in plain text. Business name, what you do, where you work, how to contact you, your license if required. Put it on your site in readable text, not only in images.
• Consistency. The same details everywhere. When your listings disagree, tools and people both get confused.
• Specific pages for specific services. "Tankless water heater installation" is easier to match to a question than "plumbing solutions".
• Real reviews and real mentions. Other people saying you are good is the strongest signal there is, for humans and machines.
• Helpful answers to real questions. Pages that explain what a job involves and roughly what affects the price give assistants something accurate to quote.

What I'd ignore for now

New file formats and tricks that claim to speak to AI directly. Some may turn out useful, but nobody has shown they change what gets recommended. Spend the time on the basics first.

The tactic I won't use, and why I'm telling you

You may have seen advice to build a second website that looks like an independent industry resource and quietly recommends your own business. The idea is that a "neutral" source carries more weight than your own site.

I am not going to do that. If a site recommends a business and hides that the business runs the site, that is misleading to readers, and in the United States the FTC's endorsement rules call for disclosing a material connection. Search engines also take action against sites made mainly to manipulate rankings. It is a bad bet even if the ethics don't bother you.

A second site can still be a good idea if it is useful and honest about who runs it. That is why this site is under my own name, says what I do for a living on every page, and marks links to my company.

What to do this month

1. Fix any mismatched business details across your listings.
2. Make sure your site says plainly what you do and where.
3. Ask happy customers for reviews.
4. Write one helpful page that answers a question customers actually ask you.

Then check back every few months, because this area is changing quickly.