Quick Summary
AI search is real for designers and builders, but it is still tiny compared with Google. This post walks you through what is actually happening in AI search, why Google still drives the bulk of inquiries, and what to focus on so you are covered in both places. The takeaway is simple: keep your online presence consistent, get visible in the right spots, and stay clear about your niche. That is what helps AI and humans find you.
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My mom is YouTube’s biggest fan. This year, she discovered TikTok. But AI? It hasn’t entered her world yet.
In my world, and probably yours, it’s everywhere.
Yet, most of the “AI SEO” advice floating around is tailored for tech SaaS or media companies. Not service-based firms, like yours.
So, below are my three opinions on AI SEO for designers and builders.
And if you want to go deeper, I’m teaching two workshops specifically about SEO. One in-person and one virtual.
- SEO for Creatives — Dec 9, Toronto
- Google & AI SEO — Jan 30, Virtual
Let’s get into it …
1. AI search is real… but tiny.
This year, most of our clients have received at least one (but at most five) inquiries from AI search.
That’s less than 1%. Most leads still come from Google, social, and relationships.
Which means that the AI hype doesn’t match reality. For now.
The people using AI today are early on the adoption curve. Here are the stats:
- ChatGPT processes 2.5B prompts/day, while Google 16B searches/day. (Source: Exploding Topics and The Verge)
- 95% of Americans regularly use traditional search engines, while only 20% use AI tools 10+ times a month. (Source: SparkToro)
If you’re seeing AI leads today, I’m predicting it to triple or even quadruple next year, while your Google leads might only double. You’ll ride the wave as adoption grows. But it will still take a long time before most of your leads come from AI.
2. AI search = “search everywhere optimization”
Anyone selling you “AI SEO” or “LLM optimization” as a new shiny marketing technique is full of baloney.
AI doesn’t crawl the web like Google. It uses a semantic fingerprint – the pattern an AI associates with you based on everything it sees about you online.
In other words, “optimizing for AI” is about showing up everywhere consistently. That looks like ranking on traditional search engines, gathering reviews, listing on directories, getting featured in the press and awards and being active on social media.
If you’ve had an active and consistent online footprint over the last 5-plus years, you’re already doing AI SEO.
3. AI works best with a niche.
Callaway Childcare Construction is an example of a client getting leads from ChatGPT.
Not because they have a long digital footprint, but because every time they show up online, their positioning is super-duper clear.
Here’s the backstory:
The parent company has been around for 12 years, but they only launched a website for the childcare division in the spring. Before that, they had zero digital footprint. Yet from day one, everything stated their niche: construction for childcare centers. Every webpage, blog post, portfolio piece, Google review, and social post reinforced their niche. By July, they got their first Google inquiry. By September, their first ChatGPT inquiry.
AI and niches work well together because they create a strong semantic fingerprint.
I could go on! Those are three of my most pressing thoughts. I have a few others … like the scary part of AI (I’ve seen it merge identities or pull wrong information about you). Or the changing role of blog posts now that AI has absorbed so much top-of-funnel traffic and pretty much steals content.
But I’ll dive into that in the workshops.
Daniela
