Out of the Box Advisors spent real money on ChatGPT ads, then discovered the clicks they paid for were hiding in their own analytics.
5 min read
Blog · how AI search works
The Blog.
Dated, sourced, no-hype articles on AI search visibility and GEO — the strategy behind getting your brand cited by ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini.
When ChatGPT sent a family to Kessler Family Orchard on a day it was closed for rain, the mix-up traced back to a stale blog post, not bad luck, and it shows what AI engines actually trust for local facts.
5 min readA Bozeman small-engine repair shop got named by ChatGPT, then nearly lost the customer anyway, a lesson in what AI search traffic actually needs from your page.
5 min readA Leeds plumbing firm's brush with AI search explains, in plain terms, how generative engines decide which small businesses get named and which get skipped.
6 min readWhen a regular customer found a small Bristol bakery through ChatGPT instead of Google, its owner learned that AI search engines choose who to name using very different rules.
5 min readA Bristol bakery owner discovers she's invisible to ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews, and fixes it with plain facts, specific reviews and consistent listings rather than a website redesign.
6 min readA small ceramics seller's brush with ChatGPT's shopping feature shows why generative engines, not just search engines, now decide which businesses customers hear about.
6 min readOpenAI's new ad format skips the banner and starts a conversation: an AI agent built from the advertiser's own website. Rosa the butcher shows why the same reading already decides who gets named, ad or no ad.
3 min readA new survey of 45 GEO studies says the famous 40% visibility boost measures prominence after retrieval, not whether AI discovers you at all. Here is what that changes about your strategy.
4 min readNearly half of shoppers now start their search inside an AI tool, not Google. It names two or three businesses, not ten links. Here are the three places it looks, and how to show up in each.
4 min readSEO got you ranked. GEO gets you named. What changed, why it matters for small businesses, and what actually moves the needle — without the hype.
9 min read"Find me a good plumber near here" used to mean a map and ten links. Now it means three names. If you run a local business, that shift is already costing you leads you'll never see.
8 min readAI recommendations feel like magic. They're not. Two mechanisms — training and retrieval — decide who gets named, and understanding them tells you exactly where to spend your effort.
9 min readIf you want to be quoted by AI, it helps to know where AI looks. The answer is surprisingly concentrated — and most of it isn't your website.
8 min readReviews were always good for conversion. In 2026 they do something else: they help decide whether an AI recommends you at all.
7 min readSchema markup is the unglamorous, high-leverage GEO move most small businesses skip. It's how you tell an AI exactly what you are, what you offer, and why it can trust the answer.
8 min readYou can't improve what you don't measure — and "I asked ChatGPT once and it mentioned us" isn't measurement. Here's how to build a real AI-visibility baseline.
8 min readAI answers questions without sending a click — which sounds like a disaster for businesses. The data is more interesting (and more hopeful) than the panic suggests.
8 min readGEO didn't kill SEO — it built a second floor on top of it. An honest map of what overlaps, what's genuinely new, and how a small business should split its effort.
8 min readNo agency, no big budget, an hour or two a week. A concrete four-week plan to go from invisible in AI answers to showing up — and knowing it.
9 min readA research-backed guide to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) — what it is, why it matters for small businesses, and how consistent social media posting builds the content base AI systems can find and cite.
13 min readMost small businesses don't have a social media consistency problem. They have a starting problem. Here's why typical fixes fail — and what actually works.
6 min read