A customer looking for a bookkeeper, an electrician, or a bakery in Dartmouth used to type a few words into Google and click through a page of blue links. A growing number of them now ask ChatGPT, or just read the AI-written summary Google puts above those links, and never click through at all. If you are wondering what that means for how customers find you, here is the direct answer: Google itself says there is no special trick to showing up in AI search. What matters is the same as it always was, done properly: an accurate business listing, a website Google can actually read, and plain answers instead of a “contact us for pricing” wall.

What’s Changed About How Halifax Customers Search

Search has not gone away, but a chunk of it now happens inside an answer instead of a results page. Ask a question on Google and you will often see an AI-written summary sitting above the usual list of websites. Ask the same question in ChatGPT or Perplexity and you get a written answer with a couple of sources named, not ten links to sort through. For a Halifax business, that can mean a customer gets an answer about who does furnace repair near Bedford before ever landing on a website. Whether your business is the one named depends on some pretty ordinary things, not a secret formula.

Google Says There’s No Special Trick to AI Search

I went looking for what actually determines whether a business shows up in these AI answers, expecting a list of new technical requirements. Google’s own guidance says the opposite. Pages that already meet the standard requirements for appearing in Google Search, indexed, readable, without a noindex tag, are eligible to appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode. There is no separate checklist, no special file to add, no schema markup you need that you did not already need. If someone offers to sell you “AI SEO” as a brand-new service with its own toolkit, ask what specifically it does that good, ordinary search practice does not already cover.

Do You Need to Add Anything to Your Website?

No, not technically. What Google does ask for is the same as its long-standing advice for regular search: content that is helpful and reliable, written for the person reading it rather than for a search algorithm, with the important facts in plain text rather than buried in an image. If your site already does that, you do not need to change your code. If it does not, that is the real gap to close, not a missing plugin.

Your Google Business Profile Carries More Weight Now

Google Business Profile is the free listing that controls how your business shows up on Google Maps and in local search results: your hours, phone number, photos, category, and reviews. It has always mattered for local search. It matters just as much for AI answers, since Google tells site owners directly to keep their Business Profile current if they want it reflected accurately. A profile that still lists your old hours, or was never claimed at all, is telling both a human and an AI summary the wrong thing about your business.

What Should Actually Be Filled Out?

At minimum: your current hours, including holiday hours if you close for them, the category that actually describes what you do (you can add up to nine more beyond your main one), your service area if you travel to customers instead of the other way around, and real photos of your shop, your team, or your work. None of it costs anything. Creating, verifying, or claiming a Business Profile is free directly through Google, whether you are setting one up for the first time or taking over a listing someone else started without you.

Make Sure Your Basic Information Matches Everywhere

Your business name, address, and phone number should read exactly the same on your website, your Google Business Profile, and anywhere else you are listed: a Facebook page, a directory, a chamber listing. “123 Portland St.” and “123 Portland Street” might look identical to you. The systems weighing whether to trust a listing do not always read it that generously. This is a half-hour job for most small businesses: pull up your website, your Google listing, and whatever directories you can find yourself on, and make them match.

Write Your Website Like You’re Answering the Question

Most small business websites are written to sound professional, not to answer anything. A page that opens with a paragraph about a “commitment to excellence” before ever saying what you charge or how long a job takes is exactly what Google’s own guidance advises against. Say the plain thing first: what the service is, roughly what it costs, how long it takes, where you work. Save the rest of the pitch for after.

What Counts as Writing for the Reader, Not the Algorithm?

A page that says “eavestrough cleaning starts at $150 for a standard bungalow and takes about an hour” gives an AI summary, and a person, something concrete to repeat. A page that says “contact us for a personalized quote” gives it nothing to work with. You do not have to publish an exact rate card if pricing genuinely varies, but a realistic range beats silence.

The Steps, In Order

1. Search your own business name on Google. If a Business Profile already exists and you have not claimed it, claim it at business.google.com. If none exists, create one there for free.
2. Update your hours, category, service area, and photos on that profile, and check it again after any change to your hours or location.
3. Check your business name, address, and phone number on your website against your Google listing and fix any mismatch.
4. Open your website’s homepage and your main service pages, and rewrite the first paragraph of each to state plainly what you do, roughly what it costs, and where you work.
5. Search site:yourdomain.com on Google to confirm your site is actually indexed. If nothing turns up, that is worth sorting out before anything else on this list.
6. Ask two or three recent customers for a Google review, since reviews sit on the same profile that Google and AI tools are already reading.

What This Actually Costs

In dollars, close to nothing. Creating or claiming a Google Business Profile is free. Rewriting a few paragraphs on your own website costs time, not money, unless you are paying someone else to write them. Budget an hour for the Business Profile cleanup and a few hours to rewrite your key pages properly, more if your site has not been touched in years. None of this needs a monthly subscription to a new tool. As of September 2026, keeping your existing free listings accurate is still doing most of the work.

Show Up by Being Accurate, Not Clever

None of this is complicated, and that is sort of the point. The businesses that show up when someone asks an AI tool for a recommendation are not running a secret playbook. They kept their Google listing current, they wrote their website like they were talking to an actual customer, and their name, address, and phone number match wherever someone looks. If you would rather have a second pair of eyes on any of this, Halifax Partnership’s free SmartBusiness consulting covers marketing and productivity, not just funding. For more on running and growing a business in the Halifax area, you can browse the rest of the Halifax Business Blog.

One more thing, unrelated to search rankings: the same habit of keeping information accurate is worth aiming at your insurance policy now and then, since coverage that fit two years ago does not always fit today. If you want a plain answer on whether yours still does, I will read it and tell you straight, no pitch attached, and you can find more about how I work on my services page.

About the author. Rayanur Rahman writes about running and growing a business in Halifax. He is a commercial insurance broker with Western Financial Group in Bedford, Nova Scotia, and works with businesses of every kind across the Halifax Regional Municipality. Reach him at 902-321-1712 or book a 30 minute call.

Sources: Google Search Central: AI features and your website. Google Business Profile: Get started. Google Business Profile: Add or claim your listing. Photo by Chen Liu on Unsplash. Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels. Photo by Skylar Kang on Pexels. Prices and program details checked September 2026 and can change. General information only.