Optimizing Your Google Business Profile for AI Search

If someone asks AI right now to recommend an insurance agency near them, would your agency show up?

For years, being on the first page of Google was the goal. Now, with AI, we’re seeing a shift toward showing up as the cited answer. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is quickly becoming as important as Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

And while I’ve already covered what AEO is and how it compares to SEO, I wanted to take a more in-depth look at the local side of AI search.

But AEO isn’t just a website strategy. It’s about showing up as the recommended agency in your local area.

The question is whether your Google Business Profile is feeding AI the right information about your agency, or leaving it to fill in the gaps on its own.

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What is your Google Business Profile telling AI?

Your Google Business Profile is no longer just a directory listing for people to learn more about your business and how to connect with you. Though that’s still important, your listing is also directly giving AI search engines information about your business.

From your business description to your office hours, services, and even your reviews and how you respond to them are all used to influence how AI talks about your agency.

Your website plays a major role in this, too. For your Google Business Profile, make sure the information listed is accurate and up-to-date. Otherwise, you could be passing up valuable opportunities to be recommended to people for insurance in the communities you serve.

So, here’s a quick checklist to run through to make sure that your listing is accurate so AI has all the right information:

• Are your business name, office hours, address, and phone number accurate and consistent with what’s on your website?
• Does your website link go to the right page, and do you have an appointments link set up to your agency’s contact page?
• Does your business description include what insurance coverages your agency offers, and does it mention the specific areas you serve?
• Is your primary category set to Insurance Agency or Insurance Broker, with secondary categories that highlight your specialties?
• Do you have reviews, and have you responded to them?
• Does your listing include recent photos of your team and office?

Getting these basics right gives AI a solid, accurate foundation to work from, and that’s where everything else builds.

Is your business description written for AI?

What you say about your agency is what AI is going to repeat when someone asks about your agency. So, if you are missing a few key ingredients in your business description, AI might not be telling the full story of your agency, simply because it doesn’t have all the information it needs.

The best approach is to write a description that proactively answers the questions people are already asking AI, like:

• Does this agency offer this type of insurance coverage?
• What areas does this agency serve?
• What sets this agency apart from other insurance providers?

These are just a few examples, but you get the idea. My suggestion would be to create a business description that highlights what makes your agency unique, what solutions you provide, where your office is located, and the areas you serve.

As a best practice for AEO, focus on writing this in a conversational style that captures those key elements I mentioned above, but not keyword stuffing the copy. Remember, you only get 750 characters to write this description, so keep it clear and to the point.

And once you have it written, here’s a good way to see if the description works and to help you fine tune it. If AI only provided this description to tell someone about your agency, is it doing your business justice? Is it accurate and compelling enough for someone to take the next step to learn more about your business and reach out?

The description tells the AI what your agency does, and you have full control over it. As with anything, put your initial efforts into what you can control and be proactive with the things you can’t.

AI uses reviews to describe what it’s like to work with your agency.

People aren’t the only ones reading your reviews, AI is too. When someone asks AI what others think about a business, it will often cite specific reviews and factor in how the agency has responded to them.

While you can’t fully control what people say about your agency, you can control how you ask for reviews and how you respond to them.

I’ve already talked at length about how you can ask for reviews and how to respond to them, but in this case, I want to go over how AI uses all of this information as context to highlight your agency, and if it recommends you in the first place.

You and I might look at a review and see it as social proof, a bridge to building trust with someone who doesn’t know your business yet.

However, AI uses these reviews as actual content to base its answers on and to help describe to others what your agency does and what the overall experience is like, pulling from what your clients have said about you.

Here’s what AI is looking for in a review to be able to use it as positive reinforcement of your agency:

• Reviews that specifically mention a coverage type and provide a positive experience.
• Responses from your agency to reviews that naturally reference coverage that the client has with you, the community they are in, and how your agency has been able to help them.
• Negative reviews being responded to professionally and with accountability and actionable steps toward a resolution.

At the end of the day, this comes down to having a solid review strategy in place.

Getting more reviews, responding to them thoughtfully, and keeping in mind what AI is looking for will go a long way toward making sure AI is saying positive things about your agency.

So the question worth asking is: if AI read only your reviews to describe what it’s like to work with your agency, would you be happy with what it found?

Use your Google Business Profile in your AEO content strategy.

Your Google Business Profile is a source of truth for AI search engines. And like your website, it’s something that needs to be addressed and updated more often than before.

AI is being asked questions about your agency and is asked to recommend agencies to prospective clients in your area. In addition to having accurate information, your listing needs to show that your agency is active and that what AI is sharing about your business is complete.

It’s also looking at the last time you touched up your listing, and the more recent that was, the more it can trust that what’s listed is accurate. And while AI is not always going to get everything right, you have to remember that it is pulling what it knows about your business, so if you have outdated information out there, whether it’s your website or any of the top directory listings out there, it’s important to address that quickly.

For every addition and update you make to your listing over time, even as simple as adding a new photo or updating your holiday hours, each update signals to AI that your listing is being actively maintained and can be trusted.

With that, making consistent updates and creating a process to check in on a regular basis is going to go a long way to helping your agency show up in AI search and overall toward building a strong AEO foundation.

If you’re looking to make sure your business information is accurate, up-to-date, and maintained for you across 50+ directory listings, including Google Business Profile, our Local Listings Add-On, which is part of our Forge Insurance website platform, can help you stand out online with AEO best practices taken care of for you.

Most agencies assume a lot of what AI says about them is out of their control. The reality is that your Google Business Profile gives you more influence over that narrative than almost anything else in your marketing suite, outside of your website. The agencies that treat it that way now will be the ones AI is recommending when it matters most.

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