Your Google Business Profile has always mattered for local SEO. With AI-powered search and GEO, it matters even more.
In our recent webinar titled “How to Maximize GBP Traffic in the Age of AI,” Alchemer’s Anna Rindels and Brad Schaeffer from Google’s Search and Gemini Partnerships team walk through optimizing Google Business Profiles in the era of AI-powered search. Here’s a summary of the key takeaways.
Good SEO is good GEO
You’ve heard of SEO. Now meet Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), the practice of making your business visible not just to search crawlers, but to the AI systems that increasingly write the answers users see in tools like Gemini ChatGPT, and Claude.
The good news: the fundamentals haven’t vanished. Content quality, site structure, crawlability — these all still matter. What’s changed is the focus. Traditional SEO is website-centric and built around ranking pages. GEO is about context, intent, and being the direct answer to a user’s question. Brad put it simply: “good GEO is good SEO”. The difference is that the bar for completeness is now set by AI, not just algorithms.
Your GBP is AI’s primary source of truth
When Gemini or Google’s AI Overview answers a local search query, your Google Business Profile (GBP) is the primary source it trusts. Not your website. Not your Instagram. Your GBP.
Brad described it as the “grounding source” — the foundation AI uses to determine whether your business is open, what it offers, what the atmosphere is like, and whether it’s worth surfacing to someone asking a rich, intent-filled question. Think of it like a first date, as Brad framed it: “It’s how you are displaying yourself on that first date — it’s really that first impression that a user gets about your business.” Every missing service, piece of outdated information, or broken link is a gap in the story you’re telling AI — and by extension, every potential customer it’s talking to.
5 ways to optimize your Google Business Profile for AI search
The webinar covered a clear, actionable framework for showing up in AI-driven search.
- Be the primary information source for your business. Complete your profile like it’s your storefront — because it is. Menus, photos, hours, attributes, descriptions, all of it. Brad shared a story about a large enterprise client with a serious SEO budget whose GBP was still missing structured menus and basic photos. As Anna noted, it’s easy to want to jump ahead: “People like to jump ahead and start optimizing and getting into the nitty gritty — but you really need to make sure your phone number is live.” The flashy stuff doesn’t matter if the foundation isn’t there.
- Make sure Google can actually access your content. A surprising number of businesses are creating great content that Google simply can’t crawl. Use Google’s indexing tools to verify your pages are accessible, and make sure any structured data is backed up by visible content on the page. Brad was direct about this: “I’ve seen it before where a lot of folks are creating some awesome content and we just can’t access it.”
- Showcase what makes you different. Attributes aren’t just checkboxes — they’re how AI matches your business to intent-specific queries. Outdoor seating, dog-friendly, happy hour, live music: if you have it and it’s not on your profile, you’re invisible to the users actively searching for it. As Brad put it, without those details, “you might be just another restaurant on the street and you’re selling yourself short.”
- Stay consistent across platforms. AI synthesizes information from multiple sources — Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, and your GBP. When those sources contradict each other, it creates noise that can affect what AI surfaces about you. Brad was clear on this: “If there’s any information out there that is not consistent across the trusted sources, then it can affect the answers that we’re giving to queries.”
- Cultivate and respond to reviews. That “what customers are saying” snippet at the top of an AI Overview? It’s pulled from your reviews. Anna’s advice: respond to all of them, not just the positives. “Responding across the spectrum of all reviews will show that your business is active and engaged — and that engagement can go a really long way.” It’s also a major SEO opportunity: name your location, reference your products, and reinforce your brand’s voice.
What’s new for verification
The webinar also covered some practical updates worth knowing. Video verification is now the standard — postcards are out. Google has also rolled out a preview feature so you can review your verification video before submitting, which should cut down on rejections significantly.
On reverification: Google has made backend updates that should reduce unwanted reverification triggers by around 40%. The main culprit is still adding categories or attributes that don’t align with your business, so keep additions relevant and intentional.
Two other newer features worth attention: Google Posts are back in a meaningful way, with a “what’s happening” module that pulls from both your posts and linked social accounts to surface current deals, events, and specials directly on your profile. And the GBP dashboard is getting smarter — Gemini-powered insights and recommendations are starting to appear there, giving you a health-check view of what’s working and what to fix.
Watch the full conversation
Your GBP is the primary source AI relies on to represent your business in search. Getting it right means covering the basics, staying consistent across platforms, and treating it as something that needs regular attention, not a one-time setup. Anna and Brad go deeper on all of these insights in “How to Maximize GBP Traffic in the Age of AI”. Watch the full webinar recording here.
And if you want to see how Alchemer can help you manage all of your listings, including your Google Business Profile, reach out to our team.