For years, "getting found on Google" meant one thing: rank higher (#1, as per our SEO bros), get more clicks, sell your shit. Simple.

Now your future clients aren't just Googling you and stalking your Instagram…

Your customers are asking AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude and Google's AI Overviews to do the deep thinking and just tell them who to hire.

Bye bye, ten blue links and page 1 results. We’re going straight to the in-depth answer, with (maybe) your name on it.

If you're a designer, photographer, florist, copywriter or any kind of creative service business owner, this isn't a "someday" problem. It's happening in searches right now. In fact, Semrush predicts Al-driven search traffic is projected to overtake traditional organic search by early 2028.

But before we crack into the data, let’s take a step back and get real. For creative services, we've always sat pretty low on the traditional search success rates, with most conversions actually coming through marketing channels like word-of-mouth and referrals. A massive 85% of photography clients come from referrals alone (ShootProof, State of the Photography Industry, 2026).

So let's break down what's actually changed, what still matters, and what you need to be doing today to stay visible (PLUS get real about the fact that visibility alone won't pay your bills. Conversion will.)

How AI Search is different from traditional SEO

How data is extracted

Unlike traditional search, AI engines like ChatGPT and Claude don't have their own ranking system. Companies like OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity run their own crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot — they even got cute names) that periodically sweep the web to train their models.

Separately, when someone asks a live question, a different set of retrieval bots fetches pages in real time to build the actual answer. Some of that live retrieval leans on existing search infrastructure (ChatGPT and Copilot both pull from Bing's index, for example).

There's no single "AI algorithm" to reverse-engineer. It's a patchwork of training crawls, live fetches and borrowed search indexes, and showing up across that patchwork is the aim of the game now.

Ranking + The Aim of The Game

While traditional SEO encourages websites to build their ranking to make it higher up the list (i.e. "make it to page one"), AI Search focuses more on being the source that AI cites — using your website's data and structure as source material for the answer it generates.

Semrush found that AI systems will often cite pages ranking outside the traditional top 20 results almost 90% of the time, which sounds wild.

But it's because AI is pulling in specific, useful "chunks" of content from your site, rather than judging and ranking your whole page the way Google traditionally does.

This is a big win for small businesses who have struggled to compete with page 1 business giants.

Meanwhile, half of all links referenced in ChatGPT responses point straight to business or service websites, not just directories or forums. That's your website earning its spot, if you’ve set it up well.

Conversion Differences

Semrush's own research on AI search backs up how big this shift already is. Their data shows AI search visitors are converting at 4.4 times the rate of the average visitor from traditional organic search, largely because by the time someone lands on your site via an AI response, they've usually already compared their options and understood what you offer. That's a warmer lead walking through your digital door.

Click-through-rate and the era of zero-click searches

In Google, zero-click searches now make up an estimated 60–80% of all searches, which has been climbing for years from things like sponsored results, ‘people always ask’ knowledge panel, and featured snippets. This has accelerated recently because of Google’s AI Overview.

AI search compresses the funnel further, doing much of the comparison shopping before a visit ever happens. This makes website visits attribution look like a tornado just flew through the room: someone might discover you via AI, then Google your brand name directly to verify, showing up as "direct" traffic with no trace back to the AI mention.

Personally, I’m hoping for some more advanced analytics to be able to fix this attribution problem asap!

Search Intent

Not all searches are created equal, and Google (biggest share of traditional search) and ChatGPT (biggest share of AI search), aren't in the same game. First Page Sage's breakdown by user intent shows Google still dominates navigational searches (93%) and transactional ones (90%)... the "take me there" and "I'm ready to buy" queries.

ChatGPT, meanwhile, is eating Google's lunch on generative and creative queries (64% share) and picking up real ground on informational research (23%).

In plain terms: people are increasingly asking AI search to help them think and shortlist, then heading to Google to actually pull the trigger and convert.

Traditional SEO vs AI Search at a glance

We're comparing...	Traditional Organic Search (Google, Google Maps + Bing)	AI Search (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude)
How data is extracted	Crawls and ranks pages to store like a library catalogue of the billions of pages on the internet.	Periodic training crawls bake a static snapshot of your site into the model, while separate live bots browse your pages in real time whenever someone asks a relevant question
Can you submit for inclusion?	Businesses can submit sitemaps and request (re)crawling via Google Search Console to speed up discovery	No submission mechanism exists. AI relies on existing indexed data and live search. There's no "add me" button
Digital query market share (as of June 2026)	Google still dominates, with approximately 77% of global digital queries.	ChatGPT commands approximately 17.9% of total digital queries. Still a fraction of Google's, but the fastest-growing platform.
Digital query market share: transactional searches only. (as of June 2026)	Google has a market share of 90% for transactional queries.	ChatGPT only has a market share of 5% for transactional queries.
Visibility for local searches (includes location keyword)	In Google's local 3-pack (the Google Maps box at the top of search results): businesses tracked in the study appeared in it roughly 36% of the time they were eligible to.	Visibility in AI local recommendations is 3x–30x harder to achieve than the local 3-pack: the same businesses were recommended by ChatGPT just 1.2% of the time.
The website optmisation goal	How do we rank?	How do we become the trusted source for AI to cite?

What should you actually be doing to get discovered on AI Search?

AI Search is not totally different from traditional search. We’re still working with most of the best-practice essentials that have always been factors in visibility.

Here's the achievable to-do list for creative service businesses doing their own marketing:

1. Structure your user journey like you mean it.

Having individual service pages, as well as internal links through to other parts of your site was always important for Google rankings and to get your user experience flowing like a dream. Now AI search is just doubling-down on this importance.

Don’t have individual service pages? Add those now.
Already got them? Audit and improve by targeting specific, niche keywords.
Include relevant internal links and CTAs

2. Structure your page content like you mean it.

Clear headings (H1 through H6), well-organised copy, and content that answers a specific question in plain, confident language. AI engines are essentially skimming for the most relevant, quotable chunk of information. Bury the gold in vague paragraphs and you'll get skipped.

Inspect your current heading structure: make sure headings are skimmable and scannable, with 1x H1 per page, and a healthy mix of H2–H6

3.Don’t be generic: get specific about your niche

Broad, "best of everything" content doesn't cut through anymore. AI tends to favour content tailored to niche, specific use cases. Think "wedding branding for elopement photographers" rather than "branding services." You can achieve this through niching down and targeting exactly who you want to work with, or by building out specific service pages (available in your main navigation) or SEO landing pages (not shown in navigation) to supplement a more general homepage.

Get as specific as you can about who you serve, and how! Now is not the time to be a generalist on your individual pages.

4. Build your off-site presence, too.

Backlinks and mentions are word-of-mouth for the internet. A mention from a respected publication, directory or industry feature tells both Google and AI engines you're legit. BrightLocal's research into ChatGPT Search sources found that business mentions across sites like Wikipedia and industry publications made up over a quarter of ChatGPT's local search sources. That’s significantly more than what shows up in a standard Google search. Directories matter too, but the notable finds and features carry serious weight.

Do blog-swaps with other industry experts (i.e. your business friends!!!)

Get a profile on a local directory

Ask for reviews on those profiles, if available

5. Keep your info consistent everywhere.

Same business name, same service language, same unique selling point: on your website, your socials, your directory listings, your Google Business Profile, all of it. AI engines are essentially pattern-matching your brand across the web. Mixed messaging = mixed (or missed) results.

This one is pretty self-explanatory! It doesn’t have to be copy-paste, but all aspects like your location, business hours, and services need to be consistent.

6. Don't skip the technical basics.

Boring stuff, but valid. Fast-loading site, valid SSL certificate, and no broken links. If AI crawlers can't read your site cleanly, they simply won't use it — no matter how gorgeous your work is.

Compress and alt-tag those images!

Use a site-audit checker like Ubersuggest to give you a report on broken links.

If you’re using a website builder like Squarespace, Wix, or Rocketspark, you should be good to go with most technical aspects like SSL.

If you’ve custom-built your website, ensure that it’s not a Javascript-only build (terrible for crawlers)

What most creative services miss

Getting found is only one part of the job. I see so many badass creatives nail their visibility, get the traffic, get the website visit… and then lose the client anyway.

A website visitor landing from a search results page or AI doesn't mean they’ll convert once they arrive.

This is where design and personality earn their place at the strategy table. An AI-referred visitor is already warmed up. They've done their research, they know roughly what you offer, and they're primed to say yes.

What they need next is a website that confirms their decision fast: drool-worthy design that signals "this creative service is legit," copy that sounds like an actual human (you), and a clear next step to take.

Visibility gets them to the door. Design and personality get them through it.

Traditional SEO isn't dead… it's still the foundation AI engines are quietly leaning on.

But AI search adds a new, faster, higher-intent layer on top of it. If you want to show up in both, you need: structured, specific content; a genuine off-site presence; consistent brand info everywhere; and a website designed to convert the second someone lands on it.

If you want the full nerd-level breakdown, this is just one module of what we're covering inside Visible As Heck: my new course built for creatives and women in business who are ready to get seen by Google and AI, and actually convert once they land.

Go forth and get visible. 🖤

Traditional SEO vs AI Search: Getting Your Creative Business Visible in AI Engines

Your customers are asking AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude and Google's AI Overviews to do the deep thinking and just tell them who to hire.