Transform Your Approach To AI Search With Dan M. Jones
For years, businesses have approached online visibility with a relatively simple goal: rank higher in Google.
The logic made sense because if your website appeared near the top of Google, more people would discover your website. And more visitors often meant more enquiries, which leads to more customers.
But according to SEO and AI optimisation specialist Dan M. Jones, many businesses are carrying that same way of thinking into the AI era, and it’s causing them to miss one of the biggest opportunities in modern marketing.
Jones, who founded On Top Marketing in 2020, believes that instead of only focusing on rankings, you need to be paying attention to how well AI systems understand your business.
“AI has completely changed the way people research businesses and products. But it can only recommend what it knows” says Jones. “That’s the part a lot of businesses haven’t fully understood yet.”
Rather than spending hours searching through pages of results, many users have already adapted to asking AI platforms for recommendations.
That shift may appear subtle, but Jones believes it changes everything.
“When someone searches Google, they’re given a list of options and they make the decision themselves” he explains. “When someone asks an AI, they’re often asking it to help make the decision for them. And that’s a completely different dynamic.”
In Jones’ view, this means businesses need to stop thinking purely in terms of rankings and start thinking in terms of visibility and reputation.
A company might provide exceptional service, deliver fantastic results and genuinely be the best option in its market. But if very little information exists online about that company, AI has limited information to work with.
“It’s the same as Google, the best company doesn’t automatically get recommended” says Jones. “The company AI understands best often does.”
He believes this is where many businesses are unknowingly putting themselves at a disadvantage.
Business owners often invest heavily in improving their core offering and customer experience, but fail to document those successes online.
Positive customer feedback remains buried in private conversations. Successful projects go unreported. Valuable expertise never gets published. Awards, achievements and customer stories receive little attention.
As far as AI systems are concerned, much of that value effectively doesn’t exist.
“If a customer tells you that you’ve done a brilliant job, that’s great,” says Jones. “But if that information never makes its way online, AI can’t use it. It can’t reference it. It can’t factor it into recommendations.”
According to Jones, this is why businesses need to think more broadly about their online presence.
Reviews, articles, videos, press coverage, social media activity, customer success stories and other forms of digital visibility all contribute towards the information ecosystem AI systems rely upon when generating responses.
The specific tactics will continue to evolve as technology changes, but Jones believes the underlying principle will remain the same.
“If AI doesn’t know why you’re great, it can’t tell anyone else” he says.
Jones believes many organisations still underestimate the significance of this shift.
“AI is about good communication. The businesses that clearly communicate who they are, what they do and why customers trust them are in a much stronger position than the businesses that don’t.”
For Jones, the future of AI search isn’t about gaming algorithms or chasing shortcuts. It’s about ensuring that the story of your business exists online.
Because in an AI driven world, being great is not enough. You need AI to know you’re great too.
