There is no secret trick for AI search. Clear, trustworthy, well-structured information that people find useful is what gets understood and cited.
A family planning a weekend in Jebel Akhdar no longer types three words into a search box. They ask a full question: “Which hotels in Jebel Akhdar are good for children and have a heated pool in winter?” An AI assistant reads the web, summarises options and links to a few sources. For businesses, this raises a new question. When someone asks about your category, does the answer mention you, and does it describe you correctly?
What has actually changed.
People are asking longer, more specific questions and expecting a summarised answer. Google shows AI Overviews for some searches, ChatGPT can search the web and cite pages, and other assistants work in similar ways. The source of the information is still, largely, the open web: websites, profiles, reviews, articles and directories.
This is good news for businesses that already explain themselves well. It is less good for businesses whose websites say very little beyond a logo and a phone number. An assistant cannot recommend what it cannot understand.
Good SEO is still the foundation.
Google states that the same SEO best practices apply to its AI features, and that there are no additional requirements to appear in them. Pages need to be indexable, useful and eligible to show a snippet in Search. Google Search Central: AI features and your website
OpenAI publishes the names of its crawlers. It explains that sites which block OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, although they may still appear as navigational links. Check that your website, hosting or security settings are not blocking crawlers you want to reach you. OpenAI’s crawler documentation
Be wary of anyone who promises guaranteed placement inside AI answers. No one can sell that.
Answer the real questions your customers ask.
Collect the questions people actually ask your team: on WhatsApp, on the phone, in direct messages and at the counter. “Do you deliver to Barka?” “Can you design a logo and packaging together?” “Is the clinic open on Friday?” These are the questions people now bring to AI assistants.
Answer them clearly on your website, in both Arabic and English. Use a heading that states the question and a direct first sentence that answers it, followed by the useful detail. A well-written FAQ, a detailed service page and a practical guide are far more useful to people and machines than vague marketing lines.
- Say who you serve, where and how, in plain words.
- Include specifics: service areas, opening hours, what is included and how to book.
- Keep the Arabic and English versions factually identical, even if the wording differs.
- Update pages when things change. An outdated answer is repeated with confidence.
Make your business easy to understand and verify.
AI systems combine what your site says with what others say about you. Keep your name, address, phone number and services consistent across your website, Google Business Profile, social accounts and directories. Structured data, such as Organization or LocalBusiness markup, can help search engines interpret key facts, although it does not guarantee any particular display.
Credibility also comes from evidence. Show real projects, name your team, explain your process and publish reviews or case studies you have permission to share. Pages written by people who clearly know the subject are more useful to readers. That usefulness is what search systems are designed to reward.
Publish content worth citing.
AI answers often link to sources that add something distinctive: original advice, local knowledge, clear comparisons and practical steps. Generic articles rewritten from other websites rarely stand out, whether they were written by a person or a tool.
Think about what only your business can say. A car workshop in Muscat can explain how summer heat affects batteries and tyres. A wedding planner can describe how to plan a guest list around family traditions. A bilingual guide that genuinely helps people in Oman is more likely to be read, shared, linked to and cited.
Measure what you can, honestly.
Measurement in AI search is still developing. Clicks from AI features in Google are included in Search Console’s overall web search data. Visits from ChatGPT and other assistants may appear as referral traffic in your analytics. None of these tools will show you every time your business is mentioned.
A practical approach is to review a fixed set of important questions every month, in both languages, and note whether your business appears and whether the description is accurate. Combine that with your analytics and the enquiries you receive. Ask new customers how they found you. The pattern over several months is more reliable than any single answer.
FROM THINKING TO DOING
Let’s make your business easy to recommend.
We connect SEO, bilingual content and AI search visibility so people and AI assistants understand exactly what you offer.