Google Told Us How AI Picks Local Businesses
- Colleen Brabender
- 9 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Google doesn’t usually just hand over the playbook, but this week… they kind of did.
In a recent SMB newsletter, Google openly explained what its AI looks at when deciding which businesses show up in AI-powered search results. That’s a big deal, because AI results are quickly becoming the first thing people see in local searches. We’ve already been talking about AI summaries and AI mode searches for months now. If you care about getting found locally, understanding how AI ranks businesses is no longer optional.
Top 5 Ways to Stand Out to Google’s AI:
Upload Images & Videos Regularly: Photos and videos give Google’s AI context for what your business is really like. They help turn basic facts into something real, which builds trust with both Google and potential customers.
Fully Optimize Your Profile: List all your services, prices, specialties, and unique attributes (like “emergency weekend service” or “payment plans”). If the information isn’t on your profile, Google’s AI can’t recommend you when someone searches for it.
Get Tons of Reviews: Google’s AI pays close attention to customer feedback. Encourage happy customers to leave reviews as often as possible and always respond professionally.
Make Sure Google Can See Your Content: If Google can’t crawl or understand your website content, AI can’t use it. Focus on content-rich pages, make sure important info is visible (not hidden), and use structured data only when it matches what people can actually see on the page.
Keep Business Info Consistent: Google’s AI pulls data from lots of trusted sources. If your business info doesn’t match across your website, Google Business Profile, and other business directory listings, it can confuse the AI and hurt your visibility. Consistency helps Google trust you.
AI isn’t some future trend anymore; it’s already deciding which local businesses get shown and which ones get skipped. Google is leaning hard into AI results, and those results pull directly from your Google Business Profile and online presence. If your profile isn’t fully built out, kept fresh, and consistent, you’re quietly losing ground to competitors who are doing it better. The good news is you don’t have to manage all of this manually when you use Madison Web Works, our fully automated Google Business Profile optimization AI.