Today, more than ever, we are in the middle of a digital transition that is making us question everything we do. Many of the things we used to do have become obsolete in just the past few years. How people think, how people learn, how people work, and how people get discovered online are just some of the shifts we see around us.
We get to live through this time, and that can be stressful, because there is so much uncertainty ahead. At the same time, all these changes, the small ones and the big ones, create endless problems for individuals, for brands, and for huge organizations. And those problems open the door to new opportunities.
The opportunity we will talk about today is getting other people's attention by becoming discoverable in the AI era.
Why should anyone care about being findable by AI, understood by AI, and then endorsed by AI? That is a question every one of our customers at EverybodyKnowsYou asks themselves at some point.
The answer is this. If you have a business, or you want to be discovered, maybe to grow your career or to land that next job, you need to tell more people that you exist. You need to tell them about the problems you solve, why you are different, and why they should consider you. In short, you need to show up more.
If you think about it, to grow in this world you need more surface area and more speed. Surface area means showing up in more places. Speed means improving faster than others, so you keep finding better, more efficient, and more effective ways to solve the problems you solve, and you deliver more value to your customers.
The thing is, to get discovered, most of us can only turn to the same options as everyone else:
- You can reach out to the contacts you already have and talk to each of them directly. That is direct, warm outreach.
- You can post for the network of people who already know you, creating content that tells everyone what problems you solve, the value of solving them with you, why you are different, and so on. That is indirect, warm outreach.
If we go beyond the network you already have, to people who do not know you yet, we are talking about cold outreach. There, too, you can be direct or indirect:
- You can get lists of people and professionals, then email them, call them, or message them, depending on the information you have and what each jurisdiction allows.
- You can create content and, if you target it well, hope these people find you.
Sending emails and creating content are active processes. They are activities you have to keep doing, and they help you develop your business.
But more and more people today search for things with AI, or ask questions and make decisions with the help of AI. They go to ChatGPT and ask, “Hey, who could help me figure this out? Who could help me solve this problem in this region?”
When someone asks AI, there is always going to be an answer. Sometimes the answer is, “I don't know anyone, but you could check this generic company that does this everywhere in the world.” Other times, the AI does not know, so it hallucinates and makes something up.
And other times, which is exactly what we aim for, the AI does a quick search, online or in the data it was trained on. If it finds very relevant information about the topic it was asked about, it answers using that information and that source. Often, if you do it right, it will even recommend that specific source to the user.
What I am trying to say is this: if you create a website once, with relevant information that is timeless, meaning not only up to date but unlikely to change soon, and you explain your process, AI will consider you a trustworthy source.
If you explain the questions that anyone looking to hire for a service should ask themselves and the suppliers they are considering, and you describe what people should look for to tell the good from the bad, AI will consider you a trustworthy source.
If you add evidence of the work you have done, like use cases, clients, testimonials, and reviews, AI becomes far more likely to use your website as a source to endorse you, your brand, and your services to others.
We live in a world where people put more and more trust in AI and let it make decisions for them, from writing their shopping list to checking their email. Keep this in mind when you build your strategy: the moment AI confidently endorses you, the person who reaches out to you is more likely to buy.
This is especially true if you describe your service so well that AI knows who it is for and who it is not for. If AI can place you in the right segment, and it knows the user belongs to the niche you serve, it will recommend you.
That is the difference between being a result online and being the answer. When you are the answer AI gives to the user, that user is way more likely to become your customer.
Think about it this way. For every person you meet and every brand you come across, you hold an unconscious level of trust. It starts low if you have heard bad things about them. It starts high if someone recommended them to you. When AI recommends you, people meet you with that trust already high.
And when AI recommends you, part of that work happens on its own, every single day. A website like this passively helps you become more discoverable, and it takes away the pressure of having to publish content every week or keep getting new lists of people. When your website gives real value to someone who wants to learn about a specific service, the active work becomes much lighter.
Being discovered becomes more passive work. This is especially true in markets where the digital world has not caught up yet. In those markets, if you do what I am describing here, you will stand out. You will be more discoverable than everyone else, simply because most people are not even thinking about being discoverable. We saw this firsthand in El Salvador: we audited the 100 biggest websites in the country, and not one of them was prepared for the AI era.
Here is our read of how crowded this space is today:
| Market | How hard it is to stand out |
|---|---|
| El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Belize, Costa Rica, Panama, and the rest of South America | Wide open. Very few businesses are doing this yet. |
| Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, and Brazil | Moderate. More competition, but still plenty of room. |
| United States and Canada | Very competitive. Standing out here takes much more work. |
While everyone is fighting for attention on Instagram and TikTok, putting a lot of effort into content that every AI model will consider outdated after a few weeks and that will no longer show up in search, you can do this once, and do it properly.
If you need help with this, get in touch with us at everybodyknowsyou.com. We will guide you through explaining your business so clearly that everyone who comes to your website knows what to expect, and knows instantly whether they want to be your customer or not.
At the same time, we will structure all the relevant data so that every AI can do the same. That way, you stop actively fighting for diminishing returns and start passively enjoying the benefits of being a source of evidence and trust that AI uses and recommends to others.
If you would rather do this yourself, without outside help, I suggest you read our other articles here at everybodyknowsyou.com. I hope you succeed in whatever business you are building. Thank you very much for your attention.