I Thought My Website Was Fine. AI Search Told Me Otherwise.

When is the last time you looked at your own website like a stranger would?

I thought I did that consistently, but during my latest update, I realized my website wasn’t fine at all. I thought I was doing everything right, but my traffic wasn’t moving. I checked my SEO, my content, and constantly received social media referrals, but I couldn’t manage to move the needle.

Then I found Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO. GEO is the way AI-powered search tools decide who’s an expert, what you know, and whether you’re worth surfacing at all. As I learned more about how GEO worked, I realized that althought my site looked professional, it was built for people who already knew enough to come looking for me. What it failed at, however, was attracting the person who just needed an answer: how to publish a first book, what to do after finishing a manuscript, how to get more visible.

I eventually. created GEO Discovery as a service for authors like me who needed visibility, but before I could audit others’ websites, I had to audit myself myself. Here’s what I found:

• My proclamation from the City of New Orleans was on my site only as an image. Although I was displaying the honor to visitors, it meant nothing to the AI searchbots that scanned my site. Since it was only as an image, I wasn’t giving search systems clear text they could easily interpret and connect to my name:

• I was also missing structured data that clearly identified me as the person behind the site. My profile page markup connecting my name, work, and professional identity wasn’t readable.

• I was even missing an FAQ section, so I was basically leaving the few visitors I got to fend for themselves.

In this AI age, most people are searching by asking full questions instead of typing two or three key words. This is especially true with AI search. Pew Research Center studied nearly 69,000 Google searches in 2025 and found only 8% of one- or two-word searches triggered an AI summary, compared with 53% of searches ten words or longer.

Pew also found that 60% of U.S. adults now read AI-generated summaries at the top of search results, clicking through to a traditional result about 8% of the time, versus 15% when there’s no summary. This means people are learning about you before they ever visit your site. And Microsoft’s new AI Performance reporting in Bing Webmaster Tools lets you see exactly when your pages get pulled into its AI answers. All of this said, it was time to stop treating my website like a résumé with a few pretty pictures, and start treating it like a product that teaches, not just introduces.

Now, let’s be real. There’s no magic paragraph that gets an AI to recommend you in a search. Google’s own guidance still recommends useful content, sound fundamentals, no tricks. But now more than ever, current information, articles, and backlinks.

Learning GEO forced me to make my website a living document. Before, I had awards I’d posted on IG or Facebook, but not on my website. I had expertise that was never reflected on my site. I would forget to update my bio. And then when potential clients or partners visited my site, they would find a version of me that no longer exists. This made me virtually invisible to AI.

As I went through this latest round of updates, I shifted and concentrated on ensuring my site could be a place where people could learn from me. I made my digital products easier to find. I decluttered my home page. I dedicated sections of the site to my newest services, and linked my Skool community and Substack. In short, I turned my site. into a hub where visitors could sit and stay awhile. And so far, it’s working.

So this week, go look at your site like a stranger. Replace the outdated information, fill in the gaps,and update your bio. If you want better AI visibility, the little things will become even more important. In the end, you’ll up with a better business as a result.

If you’re wondering what AI search currently understands about you, your expertise, and your digital presence, my GEO Discovery service is built to find those gaps and help you close them. Download a free scorecard to see where you stand.

Leave a comment