Three Months Ago, AI Called Us the Best. Then We Vanished.
Here's a little story that scared me straight, and it might do the same for you.
About three months ago I asked Skippy (that's my ChatGPT, I'll tell you that story another day) a simple question: "Who is the best horse website design company?" Big Sky came up first or second, with some awfully nice things said about us. I felt pretty good about myself.
Last month I asked the exact same question. We weren't mentioned at all. Not first, not tenth. Just... gone. And here's the scary part: we hadn't changed a single thing on our website.
Standing still is the same as falling behind
Turns out AI doesn't work like Google used to. It builds a brand-new answer every single time somebody asks. So while our gorgeous site sat there not moving, two things happened. Other folks fixed up their websites, and the AI itself got rebuilt right under us. We didn't get worse. We just stopped moving, and in AI's world that's the same thing.
So we got serious and rebuilt BigSkyInternetDesign.com from the ground up, with all the stuff AI actually uses to find and understand a business. Go ahead, ask ChatGPT "who is the best horse website design company?" right now. We're back in the answer.
Now go ask it about YOUR business
Seriously, try it. Type in "Tell me about [your ranch, your association, your business]," or ask a question the way one of your customers might.
I'll bet one of three things happens. It nails it. It mangles a detail. Or it flat out makes something up, like handing out a phone number you haven't used since 2007.
Here's why that matters. For twenty-plus years, people Googled something and picked from a list of ten blue links. Now they ask ChatGPT, or Perplexity, or that AI box sitting at the top of Google, and they just believe the one answer they get. One answer. No scrolling. No ten blue links.
So the question stopped being "where do I rank on Google." It's now "when somebody asks AI about me, what does it say?" And AI builds that answer mostly out of what YOU have on your own website.
If your site is all pretty pictures and no words, or it reads like everybody else's generic mush ("committed to quality service and exceptional customer satisfaction," blah blah), the AI has nothing real to work with. So it skips you, or it makes something up.
The fix is simpler than you'd think
Step one isn't even technical. It's just having content on your site that:
- Sounds like you
- Is clear about what you actually do
- Is honest, with no BS
- Comes from a real person who knows the business
And here's the bonus. That same plain talk that makes a customer trust you before they've even met you is the exact thing AI reads and recommends you for. People and AI want the same thing from you. Be real, and say it plain. But say it.
There's a fancy name for this now, AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), but don't let the acronym scare you. It just means making your website sound like you and say what you do, so both people and AI can find it, trust it, and repeat it.
That's the whole reason we built Tell Your Business Story, and it's turned out to be exactly how we get our clients (and ourselves) ready to be found and quoted by the AIs of the world. It starts with your real story, in your own voice. Not AI's. Yours.
Go poke around the new site, and while you're at it, go ask ChatGPT about your own business. Then reach out and tell us the dumbest thing it said. We collect those.
Useless Horse Fact: a horse's eyes are the largest of any land mammal. (Courtesy of Skippy.)