How to Get AI to Recommend Your Solo Business: Spell Out Who You Are, What You Do, Where You Work, Who It's For and What Proves It

To get AI to recommend your solo business, first make five things easy to find: who you are, what you do, where you work (or that you work online only), what kind of client you're right for, and what proves you're good. Write them down as text, on your website and on the platforms your field uses. Ideally, other people's pages mention you too. No one can guarantee that AI will recommend anyone. But if your information is scattered or only lives in photos, AI has very little to work with.

This guide is for solo designers, photographers, consultants, personal trainers, tutors and freelance developers. Every step costs time, not money. All the sample sentences below are made up. Swap in your real details.

Before AI recommends a person, it needs to know who you are, what you do and where you work

Say someone asks an AI, “Is there a photographer in Denver who's good for small weddings?” (Denver is just an example.) You can think of that as a string of smaller questions. Who is this person? What do they shoot? Are they in Denver? Do they do small weddings? Has anyone said they're good? Whatever your website and profiles answer is the material AI can use. The table below matches each question to the place where you should answer it:

Being mentioned by AI and being cited by AI are two different things. You're mentioned when the AI says your name. You're cited when it links to your page as a source. Filling in this table gives your pages something that can be cited. No one can promise that they will be.

A service page that says it all in one place is the base for everything else

Many solo websites have portfolio photos and a one-line tagline. People can see the style, but there's very little text. On its page about AI Overviews and AI Mode, Google lists “making sure that important content is available in textual form” as one of the basic practices (Google: AI features and your website). At a minimum, your service page should cover:

• An opening of two or three sentences: who you are, what you do, where, and for whom. It should make sense even when read on its own.
• A list of services, with one sentence each on what it is and what's included.
• Where you work, or that you work online only. Name the cities or areas you actually travel to.
• A price range. If you don't want to publish every price, at least give a starting price or a typical range.
• Who you're right for. Name the clients you serve best, and the situations where you're not a good fit.
• How to book, and how soon you reply.

“Who this isn't for” is the part people skip most. It helps clients decide faster whether you're the right person. It also gives your page one more sentence that matches a specific question.

Every portfolio piece needs words because a photo can't explain what the client needed

Google says it uses alt text (the description that shows when an image can't load) together with computer vision and the content of the page to understand an image. It also recommends placing images near relevant text (Google image SEO best practices). A photo shows that this was a wedding or a website. Only words can say who the client was, what problem they had and how you solved it. In its guide to generative AI search, Google also says its AI systems look at a variety of sources, so a unique point of view helps, such as a first-hand review based on personal experience (Google's guide to optimizing for generative AI features). The story behind your work is your first-hand experience. Write 3 to 5 sentences for each piece:

• Type of client: for example, “a coffee shop that had just opened.” Don't use the client's name unless they've agreed.
• What the client needed: the problem they wanted to solve.
• What you did: your approach, and which part you were responsible for.
• The result: the client's feedback, or how the work was used afterward. Only write what actually happened.
• Alt text: one sentence describing the image, not just the file name.

Fill out the profiles your field really uses and keep them consistent

Clients don't always start at your website. For example, designers often use Behance, consultants use LinkedIn, freelance developers use GitHub, and tutors and coaches often find clients on marketplace sites. These are only examples. The platforms haven't said which ones AI reads more, and we don't know either. Pick the one or two your clients actually look at, and make sure each profile does three things:

• Uses the same name as your website. Don't go by your full name in one place and a nickname in another.
• Describes who you are, what you do and where you work in the same words.
• Links to your service page, so anyone who finds the profile can get the full details.

A Google Business Profile may also be an option, but check whether you qualify first. Google's guidelines say you can create one if your business “either has a physical location that customers can visit, or travels to customers where they are.” If you run the business from home and travel to clients, Google says to hide your address and set a service area instead (Google Business Profile guidelines). Tutors who teach in students' homes, trainers who train clients at home and photographers who shoot on location are more likely to qualify. If you only work online and never meet clients in person, you don't fit either case.

Testimonials should be real and specific and posted with the client's permission

Testimonials are the easiest proof a solo business can get. Ask past clients for two or three sentences, ideally about the problem they hired you to solve. Ask before you post anything, and use their real name or a name they agree to.

Two things to avoid. First, don't trade discounts or freebies for reviews. Google Maps policy bans businesses from offering incentives “such as payment, discounts, free goods and/or services” in exchange for reviews, and reviews that were paid for get removed (Google Maps user-generated content policy). Second, don't use structured data to mark up testimonials on your own site as star ratings. Google says that when the business being reviewed controls the reviews about itself, its pages that use LocalBusiness or other Organization markup aren't eligible for star ratings (Google review snippet documentation). Just put testimonials on the page as plain text.

What others say about you can end up in AI answers, so earn real third-party mentions

Google says its generative AI features can show what's being said about products and services across the web, including in blogs, videos and forum discussions. The same guide warns that seeking inauthentic “mentions” “isn't as helpful as it might seem” (Google's guide to optimizing for generative AI features). We saw something similar in our own test. In our first scan, AI answers cited 39 URLs, and not one was on our own domain (case study). That's a single case, but it's a reminder that your own website isn't enough. Start with the people around you:

• Partner pages: ask the bridal shops, venues, print shops or coworking spaces you work with whether they'd list your name, a one-line description and a link on their partners page.
• Interviews and talks: say yes to industry groups, podcasts, schools or local media, and talk about the topic you know best.
• Communities: give real answers in the groups and forums in your field, always under the same name.
• Client posts: when a client mentions you on their blog or social media, politely ask if they'd add a link to your website.

Structured data helps machines identify you but doesn't guarantee a recommendation

Structured data is markup in your page's code that tells machines, in a fixed format, who the page is about. Google says it “uses structured data that it finds on the web to understand the content of the page” (Google's intro to structured data). But Google also says structured data isn't required for generative AI search, and there's no special schema.org markup you need to add. It's still worth using because it helps you qualify for rich results (Google's guide to optimizing for generative AI features). So it saves search engines some guessing. It isn't a ticket to being recommended. We haven't found official statements on how other AI platforms use structured data.

For a solo business, the best fit is usually ProfilePage markup on your About page, with a Person as the main subject. Google lists an “About Me” page on a blog as a valid example, as long as the main focus of the page is a single person or organization connected to the site (Google ProfilePage documentation). Common properties:

• name: the name you use in public. Google lists it as required.
• description: a short bio. It should match the text people can see on the page.
• image: the URL of your photo.
• sameAs: the URLs of your profiles on other platforms. schema.org defines it as the “URL of a reference Web page that unambiguously indicates the item's identity” (schema.org Person).
• jobTitle and knowsAbout: your title and the topics you know well. These are schema.org Person properties, but Google's ProfilePage documentation doesn't list them.

You may have seen the ProfessionalService type in other tutorials. The schema.org page now says that “the general ProfessionalService type for local businesses was deprecated due to confusion with Service” (schema.org ProfessionalService). If clients visit your studio, use Google's local business structured data instead and pick the subtype closest to your business. Google lists the address as required (Google local business structured data).

Whichever type you use, the markup has to match what people can see on the page. Google says “your structured data must be a true representation of the page content” (Google's general structured data guidelines). When you're done, check for mistakes with Google's Rich Results Test. It supports both profile page and local business markup.

Follow this order and one person can get it all done

1. Write the two or three opening sentences of your service page. Read them to a friend and ask if they get it the first time.
2. On the same page, add your list of services, a price range, where you work (or that you work online only) and how to book.
3. Pick 5 to 10 of your best pieces. Write 3 to 5 sentences about each one, and add alt text to the images.
4. Update the name, bio and website link on one or two main profiles so they match your service page.
5. If you qualify, create a Google Business Profile. If you work from home, hide your address.
6. Ask 3 past clients for a testimonial, and post them on your service page once they say yes.
7. List 5 people or organizations that might mention you, and reach out to them one at a time.
8. Add ProfilePage and Person structured data to your About page and test it. If you don't write code, skip this for now. None of the first seven steps need code.
9. In a private browser window, ask AI a few questions that don't include your name. Write down the results, then ask the same questions again later (see how to track AI answers by hand).

Common questions

Once you've done the first few steps, see whether AI can read your website today. Our free quick scan checks ChatGPT only, needs no sign-up and takes about 1 to 2 minutes. It checks your website, then runs 2 live ChatGPT questions. After that, if you want to track how things change, ask the same set of questions yourself once a month and write down the results.