How to Get Your Michigan Business Recommended by ChatGPT and Google AI

A year ago, a customer looking for a roofer typed "roofer near me" and scrolled a list. Today a growing share of them ask ChatGPT, Google's AI Overview, or Copilot a full question: "Who is a reliable roofer in Jackson, Michigan that does metal roofs?" and get three names back. If you are not one of those names, the customer never sees you.

Getting mentioned in those answers is called GEO, for generative engine optimization. It sounds technical. It is mostly about being clear, specific, and consistent everywhere your business appears online. Here is what the AI is actually reading.

Where do AI answers get their information?

AI assistants do not know your business. They read what is public and summarize it. For a local business, that means three sources matter most:

• Your website. The pages, headings, and plain sentences that describe what you do and where.
• Your Google Business Profile. Categories, services, hours, service area, and reviews.
• What other sites say about you. Reviews, local news, directories, and the websites of organizations you work with.

When all three say the same thing in the same words, the AI is confident. When they contradict each other or say nothing specific, the AI picks a competitor it is more sure about.

What makes a website easy for AI to recommend?

Say exactly what you do and where, in a sentence

AI models pull short, direct statements. "We are a family-owned HVAC company in Jackson, Michigan, serving Jackson, Hillsdale, and Lenawee counties since 1998" is a sentence an AI can quote. "Your comfort is our passion" is not.

Put that sentence near the top of your homepage and your About page. Use your city name. Use the actual service names people search for.

Give each service its own page

If someone asks for "furnace repair in Jackson" and your only page says "heating and cooling," you are a weak match. A page titled "Furnace Repair in Jackson, MI" that explains what you do, what it includes, and how to book is a strong match. One page per service, each one written for a real question.

Answer questions in a question-and-answer format

AI assistants are built on questions and answers. A section on your site that asks "How long does a furnace repair take?" and answers it in two sentences is nearly tailor-made for them. This is why a good FAQ page matters more now than it did two years ago.

Keep your facts identical everywhere

Your business name, address, phone number, and hours should be character-for-character the same on your website, your Google Business Profile, Facebook, and every directory. "Suite 1" on one and "Ste. 1" on another is a small thing to you and a confusion signal to a machine.

Why reviews matter more for AI than for Google search

When an AI explains why it recommended a business, it often cites reviews directly: "customers mention fast response times and clean work." It is reading the words people wrote, not just the star count. A steady flow of detailed reviews that name the service and the town gives the AI material to work with.

Ask happy customers to mention what you did and where. "Great job on our kitchen remodel in Brooklyn" is worth more than "Great job."

What is on-page structure, and does it matter?

Behind the scenes, a well-built site includes a small block of code called schema that labels your business for machines: your type of business, address, hours, services, and reviews. Visitors never see it. AI and Google read it first. If your site was built without it, you are making the AI guess.

The same goes for a file called llms.txt, a plain-text summary of your business written specifically for AI crawlers. It is new, it is simple, and almost no local business has one yet.

A five-minute check you can do today

• Open ChatGPT or Google and ask: "Who is a good [your service] in [your town], Michigan?"
• If you are not mentioned, look at who is. Open their website. Notice how specific their first sentence is.
• Open your own homepage. Can you find your city name and your main service in the first screen without scrolling?
• Check your Google Business Profile hours and services. Are they current and specific?

Most businesses fail the third check. Fixing it is usually a matter of rewriting a few sentences, not rebuilding the site.

How Mevo builds for AI search

Every site we launch ships with service pages written around real questions, a question-and-answer FAQ, business schema, and an llms.txt file. We also clean up the Google Business Profile so it matches the site word for word. None of it is visible to your customers. All of it is visible to the systems deciding whether to recommend you.

Common questions