How To Get AI To Notice Your Business

Are you abandoning proven digital marketing strategies in favor of AI optimization? You might be shooting yourself in the foot. In this revealing episode of Inspector Toolbelt Talk, we unpack the dangerous trend of home inspectors throwing away their Google visibility while chasing AI search results.

We break down the crucial distinction between transactional and informational searches - a difference that could make or break your online visibility strategy. While AI excels at answering informational queries, Google still dominates the transactional searches that actually bring you paying clients. The episode walks through specific examples of how abandoning traditional SEO for AI-only approaches has devastated businesses, potentially setting them back years in their digital marketing efforts.

The most surprising revelation? Reddit has emerged as the unexpected powerhouse for AI visibility. Our own testing showed remarkable improvements in AI recognition after just two months of genuine Reddit engagement. We provide a practical, 30-minute weekly strategy for leveraging this platform effectively, along with insights into how Internachi forums and even Better Business Bureau profiles have regained importance in the AI era. Plus, we explain why structured data and schema markup should be your priority before pouring resources into blogging.

Whether you're tech-savvy or just beginning to navigate the digital landscape, this episode offers concrete, actionable strategies that balance both traditional and AI search optimization. Stop following the marketing equivalent of fad diets and build a sustainable digital presence that works across all platforms. Check out inspectortoolbelt.com to discover how our all-in-one app can streamline your home inspection business while you implement these powerful visibility strategies.

Check out our home inspection app at www.inspectortoolbelt.com
Need a home inspection website? See samples of our website at www.inspectortoolbelt.com/home-inspection-websites

*The views and opinions expressed in this podcast, and the guests on it, do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Inspector Toolbelt and its associates.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and AI Marketing Context
• 2:19 Transactional vs Informational Searches
• 5:14 Advanced SEO Techniques for AI
• 8:45 Reddit: The AI Training Ground
• 14:40 Community Forums and Unexpected Platforms
• 17:48 YouTube and Creating Local Content

Transcript

Ian Robertson 
Hey, there IT crowd. Welcome back to Inspector Toolbelt Talk. So before we start this episode, which is going to be talking about, basically AI searches and marketing, but something a little bit more precise. I wanted to apologize for a couple of weeks of missing episodes. I'd gotten sick, and obviously, if you have no voice, can't talk on the podcast, but we are back and in full swing. And I wanted to start with something that's kind of important I feel.

So we've had a couple of podcasts last year, at the end of season four, we talked about how to optimize a website for AI searches. Earlier, we had talked about some AI stuff this season a couple months ago, but I'm starting to notice a little bit of a trend, like everybody is throwing everything to the wind about their online presence and saying, AI is changing everything. Let's do this, or let's do that. It's kind of like the same thing as, like a fad diet, like, for the past 6000, 7000 years of known human civilization, you eat less calories, you lose weight. You know, you eat more calories, you gain weight, and then people throw it away all of a sudden, when there's a diet where you can drink hot sauce and lemonade and lose 30 pounds in 30 days, and then it goes away. That's kind of what I see happening now. And I see a lot of guys shooting themselves in the foot.

So for instance, I had a client recently that he dropped a bunch of stuff, and he's like, all I'm going to do is blog, because that's what ChatGPT told me was the best thing that I could do. So he took out all his structured data and different files that you present to AI and all this other stuff, and basically he abandoned Google searches, went all AI and only did one thing for AI, because that's what ChatGPT told him to do one time, or he heard it in a forum too, to kind of back it up, and it hurt him. It hurt him bad already, and it's going to take months or years, probably more likely, years, to build things back up. So because of that, I want to talk about that a little bit today, how we can actually get AI to notice us.

Now first of all, I want to make a distinction between two different types of searches, a transactional search and an informational search. An informational search is typically what we use AI for. So we're going to talk about ChatGPT, because that's the typical one that most people use. So an informational search is how many liters in a gallon? If I stood on my foot for, you know, 30 minutes of time every day, what would happen? You know, we're looking for information, either serious or ridiculous. Informational searches, by and large, happen now with AI. So informational searches are happening all the time and every day, but they kind of skew the results for us, because a transactional search is really the high value search for us, and there are some informational searches that are important. So somebody might say, you know, are home inspectors in Tennessee required to go into a crawl space? Or, if you're an InterNACHI member in Colorado, what would you charge? So sometimes we want to show up for those things, so it does have value. And there is value to blogging. Matter of fact, blogging has become more important than ever, but with a very specific twist to it. But what we really care about at the end of the day is not necessarily providing information. That's part of what we do to get to what we call a transactional search.

So transactional searches, I'm looking for a restaurant in the area. Matter of fact, not long ago, I was visiting Portland Maine, if you ever go, oh my goodness, best food scene in the US. I've been all over and a matter of fact, it was named the number two or number one food city in the US. And the thing is, it feels like it's only a few miles wide, either way, I wanted to get the best food in the area while I was there. ChatGPT was near useless for a transactional search. It was giving me all sorts of information. And again, if you've ever used ChatGPT for any length of time, started making stuff up and giving false information. And then when I call it out, it was like, oh, sorry, you're right. It was near useless. Same thing as if you want to buy the right flashlight, it'll give you links to flashlights on Amazon, and you could end up with garbage. It doesn't care, because it's not great for transactional stuff. Best plumber in the area, you shouldn't be going to ChatGPT typically, it is many years away, in my opinion, from being good at a transactional search. So transactional searches, I need something, not information. It's an informational search. Transactional searches, I need something. I am going to create a transaction. I'm going to buy a lamp, I'm going to go to a restaurant. I'm going to hire a plumber. I'm going to hire a home inspector. Google, by and large, still owns that market and will for many years. A matter of fact, even though ChatGPT is a big deal, look at the statistics of how much search actually happens on ChatGPT compared to Google. So number one thing, do not be throwing away Google right now. Not the thing to do, shooting ourselves in the foot.

Number two, SEO or AEO or GEO, depending on which one lands, is search engine optimization. So basically, for Google and AEO or GEO is going to be for AI generative searches. You need both. So we're not going to talk about SEO today. We're going to talk about AI and what actually gets it to notice us. So we mentioned blogging, and I'll tell you probably, man, sometimes it feels like once or twice a week, I don't know the exact number, I have clients contacting me and saying, hey, I was doing research, ie., they were asking ChatGPT, what I can do, and ChatGPT is going to assess their knowledge level. So whether we realize this or not, ChatGPT will actually talk to us at our level of knowledge on something. And so it's going to give us information that we want, not necessarily the best information. And invariably they say, it says, I should blog more. Okay, so blogging is a piece of things, but that's like saying a football player needs to run. Yeah, they run, but they also need to juke. They need to catch the ball. They need to know the plays, they need to train. They need to know a lot of things. Running is just one small part of what they do. So there's actually things that are more important than blogging. Again, blogging is important, but a fraction of an importance as some of these other things that we're going to mention to you. And the nice thing is, they are free, they are easy. And there are a couple things that will be a little bit more advanced.

I'll get the advanced stuff out of the way—schema markups and structured data. If you are not doing them on your website, you need to be doing them right now. Google looks for it. AI looks for it. It's extremely important. So view schema markups and structured data. Look it up. It's a little bit advanced, but there are depending on what platform you use, I really encourage you to use WordPress, because it allows you to do this more advanced stuff, a little bit easier and in a better way. But basically, your website's like a restaurant, and structured data is like the menu out front, tells you what the day specials are, what the items on the menu are, what are the entrees. Here's the dessert. And so when people walk by, they're like, oh, hey, cool. This is what the restaurant offers, go in or don't. Our structured data is basically information on the back end that Google and AI looks at. There's also a type of file that you can provide AI that it's like a flyer. So it's like a pre-menu, and I forget the term right at the top of my head. It's a new file format, so forgive me if I don't remember it off the top of my head, but we're using it for our clients now, and basically it's a flyer that you hand AI. Here's what you need to know before you even look at the menu. We're a home inspection company. We offer home inspections in this area, and here's some basic info on us. AI loves it. If you're not doing that advanced stuff, you should be doing that right now. Way more important than blogging. Blogging is still important. If you're not blogging, you should be doing that. But if you're blogging without structured data, it's like spitting into a pond. You're not going to be filling anything up, anything anytime quickly. So those are the more advanced things that you can do. But let's get into some real nitty gritty, high value, easy hits.

First of all, Reddit. So all social media that is publicly available is a trigger for AI. So Facebook, your business page, still highly important. Google uses it as an indicator, wants to see regular content, relevant content, YouTube, huge one. We'll get to that in a second, but Reddit is one that we often forget about. So if you don't know what Reddit is, it's basically a forum, and for lack of a better term, it's like social media and the InterNACHI forum had a baby, and people leave their opinions on there, and they upvote and downvote people's comments, things like that. Reddit has become a major training ground for AI models, which is kind of freaky, though. Let's be honest, anybody who's spent more than 10 minutes on Reddit goes, oh man, this is just unhindered garbage, half of it, but conversations there are raw, diverse and often very niche. So AI likes to look at that because it helps it to understand how people think and their real, true opinions on things. And remember, a lot of the internet is starting to block AI models for training, so Google doesn't let other AI models in, letting it see what it's doing. So it has to find it somewhere. So Reddit is probably the best thing that you can do for getting noticed by AI.

So for instance, one of our brands, we were not getting noticed as much on AI as we wanted to. So we did all this research. We asked AI, we asked different AI models and Reddit kept coming up. So for a two month period, all we did was post on Reddit, and we did it genuinely. Again, you can't just sit there and post a backlink to your website 8 million times across Reddit and think that's going to do you any good. It'll probably hurt you more than help you. At that point, you might as well not do anything. Instead, genuinely be engaged. Take a half an hour at the beginning of your week, Monday evening, I don't know whenever and genuinely engage on Reddit, go to the home inspector forums. Comment, leave information about your company. When you comment in a nice way, say, listen, I own a home inspection company in Tennessee called Tennessee Home Inspections, or ABC Home Inspections, and here's my opinion on what you just sent, and you'll see all sorts of things in there. I just saw one the other day of what's this black substance in my attic? And you know, what would you do if this was in your home? So other people besides home inspectors will post in there. So when we post and we make known who we are, AI is going to look at that and start to see us as an authority. So AI scrapes those insights as trusted real world dialog. In fact, oftentimes when we ask AI questions, I don't know the exact percentage, but for me, it's a good like 10, 20, 30% of the time, it'll even say, here's what some people said on Reddit, which actually kind of put me onto the case, a little bit, onto those clues. So spend some time on Reddit. Easy to join. And then not just home inspector stuff, but local stuff. So find out your local real estate communities, or see if there's a subreddit, they call it. So a forum within the forum about, you know, your local community, maybe you're from, you know, San Diego. There's probably a San Diego group out there, and even our smaller towns, you know, there's probably a smaller group of people in there. Join that group, make comments, be genuine, and do not just throw out garbage saying you should all hear us. And we're having a discount on this or that. Just engage. And then you'll find that over time, we saw, over just a two month period, a marked increase in AI attention on us, to the point where I kind of sat back and said, that's just crazy. So Reddit, if I have to say it 30, 40, 50 times this podcast, I will Reddit, Reddit, Reddit, Reddit, R-E-D-D-I-T. We should be on there every week. The more you're on there, the better. So create a community, be part of a community, but that's where it's going to be.

The next one is going back to our community discussion. So listen, these are two important ones. But if there's little community discussions and forums that are publicly facing, join all of them. Post on all of them. But these two are critical. So when it comes to community discussion, we noticed that AI would particularly look at niche discussions and ones that allowed them in. And the next most prominent one was InterNACHI's forum. So a lot of us are like, I haven't been on there for years, and I hear guys talk about, oh, nobody's on there. It doesn't matter who's on there. AI is on there, and there's still a lot of discussions going on there. I'm on the forums. I make comments. So a couple of things, make sure your profile is filled out. It's not going to help you if nobody knows who you are. There's no backlink to your website in your signature. There's no name, name of your company, none of that stuff. Completely fill out your profile. So many guys post on there, and they're just like, this doesn't give me anything. It's like, I can't even see who you are. Fill it out. Fill it out accurately. Engage and be prepared to be hazed. That's just how it goes. We're a group of guys that, you know, we're a little rough with each other, so don't argue with anybody, because it's going to be completely visible. Post in the public facing part of the forum. There's only a couple of parts of the forum that are publicly facing and visible to all, and it'll say it typically under the title. Post in those, that's where you want to be. Otherwise, AI is not getting into the other sections, and it's not going to present it, but especially Google Gemini appears to use InterNACHI's forum as an important signal, mostly because, first of all, NACHI has the best reputation with search engines for our field, there's not anybody else that's going to have the reputation. Number two, it's a treasure trove of information for them. So it can read every InterNACHI article about kick out flashing. But it's not going to get that real world flavor until it gets into a forum with 300 inspectors arguing about kick out flashing. So have the name of our company in our signature. You know, drop the name of our company in some of our comments in a nice, casual, not forced way, and be an authority.

Now, here's where rubber meets the road. If we are not an authority, that's going to show up pretty quickly. So that means we just need to step back and maybe take a couple of lumps and become an authority on it. But always check our information. Don't argue with guys online. Be respectful. Be able to laugh at ourselves a little bit, but work hard at posting on the InterNACHI forum. That's going to get you a lot of headway. And it's funny because 20 years ago, InterNACHI forum was super important, and then it became not important. Then, all sudden it becomes important again.

Same thing with Better Business Bureau. Nobody cared about it for the past 15 years. Before that, it was important. Now all of a sudden, it's important again. This one's easy. Go create a Better Business Bureau profile for your company. Don't pay for it. Oh, my goodness, don't pay for it, in my opinion. I don't think anybody should ever pay for it, in my opinion. But for some weird reason, AI especially ChatGPT is kind of like, hey, that's an important indicator for us. Who knew. So everything kind of comes in waves and modes, but those are the things that we can do to get noticed by AI right now. It is community discussions, user engagement, data, public web content. So blogging—important. Structured data and schema markup—way more important. We should be doing that. Probably the most important right now is community discussion, so Reddit, InterNACHI, and just about anything else that you can find that's public facing. So be visible in multiple ecosystems, write like you're teaching AI, and connect your digital footprint by making sure that people know who we are. Our signature in the forums lead back to our company, have our company name, and we're not just some ghostwriter. So want to get noticed by AI? It's not as complicated as the marketing industry makes it out to be. Actually, right now has never been easier or not easier, never been simpler. So spend some time. If we've been working on our social media, great. We have a lot of great TikToks out there and YouTube, which we didn't talk about, which we will in a second, those are all still important.

YouTube is the one social media platform that tends to bridge the gap in all areas, though. If there were ever a time for you to make videos every day and put them on YouTube, right now is the time. I can't tell you how many times our own videos will come up, these podcasts, if you listen on, you know, Spotify or Apple podcast, or whatever, we also have a YouTube channel, and the videos will pop up in searches all the time. I have inspectors send me pictures like, Ian, you're on this query that I gave ChatGPT. So make lots of videos, explain things, be very, very local, and when I say answer questions, try to be as local as possible. Because answering the question, what's included on a home inspection, nobody cares. Again, that's like peeing into a an ocean, there are a million people out there answering it. Now, answering the question, what to look for in a crawl space in Brattleboro, Vermont? Oh, now that's very local. That's going to get us a lot more attention and a lot more authority.

So it's all about the content right now. Reddit, if you were to take away anything from this podcast, just get on Reddit, YouTube, InterNACHI's forum, and those are really going to be the biggest things to help you right now, to get noticed by AI. So, glad to be back, glad I'm not sick anymore, and thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time on Inspector Toolbelt Talk.

Outro: On behalf of myself, Ian, and the entire ITB team, thank you for listening to this episode of Inspector Toolbelt Talk. We also love hearing your feedback, so please drop us a line at info@inspectortoolbelt.com.

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*The views and opinions expressed in this podcast, and the guests on it, do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Inspector Toolbelt and its associates.