Get named by AI
Your customer asked an AI, and your website was never opened
A growing share of buying decisions now start and finish inside an AI answer. Here is what that means for a small business, and the one thing to do about it.
Try this today. Open an AI assistant and type the question your customers ask before they buy from you. "Best accountant for a small cafe in Melbourne." "Which CRM suits a team of five."
Read the answer. Is your business in it?
For most small businesses the answer is no, and that is the quiet problem of 2026.
For twenty years the game was simple. A person searched, saw ten blue links, clicked one. Marketing meant getting into those ten links. Then getting the click. Then convincing the person on your page.
Now a large share of those searches end inside the answer. The AI reads several websites, writes a summary, names two or three businesses, and the person acts on that. They never open a page. Your beautiful website, with the video and the testimonials, is skipped.
So the question has changed. It used to be "how do I rank". Now it is "how do I get named".
Here is how AI engines decide who to name, in plain terms. They look for pages that answer the real question directly, in clear language, with specifics. They trust websites that other trusted websites mention. They favour businesses that are described the same way everywhere. Same name, same service, same location. On your site, on your LinkedIn, on directories, in articles.
Most small business websites fail the first test. The home page says "we deliver solutions that empower growth". No AI can tell what you do from that. A human has the same trouble.
So here is the one thing to do this month. Write one page on your site that answers the exact question your customer asks, in the exact words they use. "We are an accounting firm for cafes and restaurants in Melbourne's inner north. Here is what we do, here is what it costs, here is who we have worked with." Plain. Specific. Boring, even.
Then make sure the rest of the internet agrees with that page. Same description on LinkedIn. Same on Google Business. Same in the footer of every email.
I tested this with one client over three months. Same website, same budget. We rewrote four pages into direct answers and tidied up the directory listings. The client now appears in the AI answer for their main question. Before, a larger competitor had that spot alone.
Being named in the answer is the new first page of Google. Go check whether you are there.
