Here's a small experiment worth trying: open ChatGPT or Google and ask it to recommend a business like yours in your area — "best web designer in Nova Scotia," "reliable renovation company near Moncton," whatever fits. Read what comes back.
If your business isn't mentioned, you've just seen the problem. A growing share of people — especially younger customers — now ask AI assistants for recommendations instead of scrolling through search results. The AI reads the web, picks a handful of businesses it can confidently describe, and presents them as the answer. Everyone else is invisible.
The good news for Maritime small businesses: almost nobody around here is optimizing for this yet. Getting there early is a real advantage, and it's called answer engine optimization, or AEO.
How AI decides which businesses to recommend
AI tools don't rank pages the way Google traditionally did. They look for businesses they can understand and trust. Three things drive that:
- Structured data. Invisible code on your website that tells machines exactly what your business is, where it operates, and what it offers. Without it, an AI has to guess — and it usually doesn't bother guessing.
- Answer-shaped content. AI pulls from pages that answer specific questions directly and plainly. A page that says "we deliver innovative solutions" gives an AI nothing to work with. A page that says "we build websites for small businesses in Nova Scotia, typically in three to six weeks" is quotable.
- Consistency. Your business name, services, and location worded the same way on your website, your Google Business Profile, and your social accounts. Matching signals build machine confidence; contradictions erode it.
The five-step starting checklist
- Claim and completely fill out your Google Business Profile — every field, real photos, your actual service descriptions.
- Add an FAQ section to your website answering the questions customers actually ask, in plain language.
- Add structured data (schema markup) identifying your business type, location, and services.
- Audit your name, address, and service wording across every place you appear online, and make them match.
- Publish content that answers one specific question per page — not everything at once.
Why this matters more in smaller markets
In Toronto, an AI has hundreds of plausible businesses to choose from. In most Maritime markets it has a handful — and often only one or two with websites structured well enough to cite. When the pool is that small, being the business the AI can actually read isn't a marginal advantage. It's the whole game.
Search has changed like this before. The businesses that took Google seriously in 2005, or Google Maps seriously in 2015, ate their competitors' lunch for a decade. This is the same moment, replaying.
Where Plan-It fits
AEO is built into how we approach SEO — structured data, answer-ready content, and consistency signals are part of every engagement, not an add-on. If you'd like an honest read on where your business stands today, start a conversation. The audit tells you exactly what's missing; what to do about it is always your call.