AI Search for Local Business: How to Get Found and Recommended by ChatGPT, Google AI, and Other AI Assistants

Description

AI search for local business is changing how customers find the companies they hire. More people are asking ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews, Gemini, and Perplexity who they should call, instead of scrolling through a page of links. Those tools can only recommend a business they can find, understand, and trust.

In this class, Mark Cantrell, Founder & CEO of Upward Bound Media, shows business owners how AI assistants decide which businesses to recommend and what you can do about it starting this week. This class isn't about using AI tools to run your business. It's about making sure AI is sending customers your way.

What you'll learn:

• Where AI search gets its information about your business: your Google Business Profile, website, reviews, and online listings
• Why your Google Business Profile is still the foundation of local visibility in AI search
• How to set up your website so Google and AI assistants both understand what you do and where you do it
• How reviews and consistent business information across the web build the trust AI looks for
• The shortcuts and "hacks" to stay away from, and why they backfire

You don't need a tech background. You'll leave with a checklist you can work through yourself or hand to whoever runs your marketing.

SPEAKER MARK CANTRELL, FOUNDER & CEO OF UPWARD BOUND MEDIA:

Mark Cantrell is the Founder & CEO of Upward Bound Media, a local SEO and digital marketing agency based in Cushing, Oklahoma. The agency helps HVAC and home service contractors get found on Google and recommended in AI search tools like ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews.

Before he started the agency in 2023, Mark spent 15 years in the HVAC trade, all at one shop in Perkins, Oklahoma. He went from install apprentice to journeyman, then moved to the service side and worked up to service manager, running the office and the day-to-day. He's been the guy in the office wondering whether the phones would ring and whether the marketing was doing anything at all. That's why he works with business owners contractor to contractor instead of like a typical agency.

Mark created the Mirror Strategy, Upward Bound Media's method for building a business's website to match its Google Business Profile. That gives Google and AI assistants one clear, consistent picture of what a company does and where it does it. He is also the co-founder of HVAC IS LIFE, a media brand and community for HVAC contractors, and holds a Bachelor of University Studies from Oklahoma State University.