In February, SEOM Interactive hosted “Relationship Status [With AI]: It’s Complicated” — a seminar for members of the Greater BucksMont Chambers of Commerce.
Robert Spinrad, Associate Director of SEO, and Lauren Zumpano, Vice President, spoke to local business owners about how improving trust signals can increase their AI search visibility.
Why it’s important
In today’s digital landscape, users have more options for search than ever before. Prior to the explosion of AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Gemini, most people used Google for search. While Google still dominates the market, it’s not the only platform to choose from.
The good news, however, is that businesses don’t need to adopt an entirely new digital marketing strategy.
What business owners should know
Gaining visibility in AI-powered search can feel intimidating, so we wanted attendees to leave this seminar feeling confident about two things:
- The first step in building trust is to provide exceptional customer service and offer high-quality products or services. Optimization efforts such as meta tags, backlinks, rich content, and impressive employee bios mean nothing if the customer service and product fall short.
- Fundamentals still work. Visually, search looks different today than it did 1-2 years ago, but that doesn’t render traditional SEO ineffective. In fact, many local SEO and PR tactics still have an enormous impact on AI-powered search results.
After the presentation, we held an interactive Q&A session, which gave us the opportunity to offer attendees specific, tangible advice they could implement in their businesses.
When the session ended, the energy in our office was buzzing! With business owners from industries like wellness, counseling, legal, insurance, education, and more, we made human connections while discussing the future of AI.
Do you have questions about improving trust signals and AI-powered search visibility? Contact us today!
February 19, 2026