How to Show Up in AI Search | Hunter Marketing Co.

In June this year, Cloudflare's CEO confirmed something most business owners haven't caught up to yet: for the first time in the internet's history, bots now generate more web traffic than humans do. Cloudflare's own data shows bot traffic has overtaken human traffic online, and the shift arrived faster than even Cloudflare expected.

A large share of that bot traffic is AI. ChatGPT, Google’s AI Mode, Perplexity and Copilot are all sending automated tools out to read and summarise businesses, long before a human customer ever sees a result. When someone asks “who’s the best fractional CMO in Brisbane” or “how do I fix inconsistent marketing,” AI is quietly building a shortlist behind the scenes. It recommends the brands that look clear, credible and consistent everywhere it looks. It skips the ones that don’t.

That’s the shift I wrote about in Marketing Strategy for AI Search. This post is the practical follow-up: a straightforward checklist, so AI finds you, understands you and puts you on the list.

What Should a Marketing Team Do to Show Up in AI Search?

Here’s the good news: it doesn’t matter if that’s a full marketing team, one marketing coordinator, or just you wearing the marketing hat while you run everything else. The work is the same.

In short: get your brand message clear and identical everywhere it appears, then publish content that answers the real questions your customers are typing into AI tools. AI rewards clarity and consistency, and it quietly overlooks brands that say one thing on their website and something else on LinkedIn.

In practice, that means:

Sitting down with your website, your social bios and your Google Business Profile side by side, and fixing anywhere they contradict each other.
Writing website and blog content in plain, direct language that answers a real question, rather than vague brand-speak that sounds nice but says nothing.
Making sure your website is easy for AI to read. Ask your web developer to check that nothing is accidentally blocking search engines or AI tools from seeing your pages.
Making sure everyone on your team describes the business the same way. If your team says one thing on a sales call and your website says another, AI (and your customers) will notice the gap.

Should You Add AI Search as a Marketing Channel?

Yes. Treat AI search as its own channel with its own goals, the same way you already treat SEO, email and social.

It behaves differently from traditional search, so it deserves its own attention. Google still sends you someone who clicks through and browses. AI search often sends you someone who has already decided, based on what the AI told them about you, before they land on your site. That means your job shifts from “get found” to “get recommended,” which takes deliberate work on how AI reads your brand, on top of how Google ranks your pages.

What AI Search Channels Should Brands Focus On?

Focus on the handful of places AI pulls from to build its answers: your website and blog, your Google Business Profile, your social bios, and reviews or directories that mention you.

These are the sources AI tools already trust and cross-reference. If your website is thin, your Google profile is out of date, your LinkedIn bio hasn’t been touched in two years, or you have no reviews to point to, AI has nothing solid to work with and will recommend a competitor instead.

Get Your Brand Message Right, Everywhere

Here’s the part most businesses skip, and it’s the one that matters most. Work out your unique brand message: what you do, who you do it for and why you’re different, in a handful of sentences you could say out loud without a script.

Then put that same message, in close to the same words, everywhere AI (and your customers) will look: your website homepage, your LinkedIn About section, your Instagram or Facebook bio, your Google Business Profile description, even your email signature. Consistency is what turns a scattered set of pages into a brand AI can confidently describe to someone else. If your homepage says one thing and your LinkedIn bio says another, AI reads that as uncertainty, and uncertain brands don’t get recommended.

Decide the One Thing You Want to Be Known For

AI search rewards specificity. Vague positioning gets skipped over in favour of a competitor who was precise about what they do and who they do it for.

Work out the one thing you most want to be known for and be as specific as you can. Here at Hunter Marketing Co., that’s “Marketing Strategy for Brisbane Small Businesses,” not “Marketing Services.” It tells you exactly who I help and what I help with, so there’s no guessing involved for a customer or an AI tool.

The same principle holds outside marketing. A Brisbane accountant is better known for “Cash Flow Advisory for Manufacturing Businesses” than “Accounting Services.” One tells a manufacturing business owner exactly who to call when margins get tight. The other sounds like every accounting firm in the phone book.

Once you’ve landed on your version, use it deliberately: in your website’s main heading, in your service page titles, and in the headline of every blog post you publish. That repetition is exactly what teaches AI what to associate with your name.

A Brisbane Example: Packaged IT’s Website Relaunch

I worked with Andrew Rooke, Managing Director of Packaged IT, a Brisbane IT services business, on a full marketing strategy and website relaunch: sharper positioning, a clearer value proposition, and messaging that stayed consistent across the new site, service pages and case studies.

The results speak for themselves. Monthly website visits are up 300%, and blog views are up 1,000%. As Andrew puts it: “Kristy developed our strategy, then stayed alongside me to implement it, working through our priorities and pivots, and keeping me accountable every step of the way.”

That’s the pattern worth noticing: a site built around one clear, specific message, said the same way everywhere, gives AI (and Google, and customers) something solid to point to. A site full of generic language gives them nothing to work with.

What Google and OpenAI Tell You to Do

You don’t need to guess at this one. Both Google and OpenAI publish their own guidance, and it’s simpler than most “AI SEO” advice makes it sound.

Google’s own AI features and your website guidance says there are no special tricks needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. You need the same fundamentals that have always mattered: a website that’s easy to find and read, clear links between your pages, real written content and accurate business information.

OpenAI’s Publishers and Developers FAQ says much the same thing for ChatGPT: make sure your website allows AI tools to read it, and check your website analytics to see whether ChatGPT is already sending you visitors. If it isn’t yet, that’s a useful sign of where you stand.

Your AI Search Optimisation Checklist

Work through this list this month. Most of it costs time, not money, and your web developer can help with the technical items.

Brand message: one clear, specific statement of what you do and who you do it for, written down and agreed.
Consistency check: that same message live on your homepage, About page, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile and social bios, in close to the same words.
Positioning: the one thing you want to be known for, decided and specific, not generic.
Website headings: your website’s main heading and service page titles reflect that positioning, not a vague tagline.
Accessibility: ask your web developer to confirm AI tools and search engines can read your website properly.
Content depth: blog posts and service pages that directly answer the questions your customers ask, not just describe your services.
Google Business Profile: complete, accurate and updated in the last quarter.
Reviews: a steady flow of recent reviews on Google and the directories relevant to your industry.
Analytics: a quick check of your website stats to see whether ChatGPT or Google AI Mode are already sending you visitors.
Internal links: your related blog posts and service pages linked to each other, so AI (and Google) can see how your content connects.

Need Help Getting Found by AI?

Getting all of this right, and keeping it right as your business grows, is exactly what a proper marketing strategy is built for. This isn’t a one-off fix. It’s ongoing brand and marketing strategy work, which is where a Fractional CMO or Fractional Marketing Officer earns their keep: keeping your message consistent, your content working and your positioning sharp while you run the business.

If you want a clear plan to work through, explore our 6-12 Month Marketing Strategy & Implementation Plan, built for growth-focused businesses that want a marketing strategy partner, not just another to-do list. Or book a discovery call and we’ll work out where you’re strongest and where AI currently can’t find you.