Your next client may ask ChatGPT before they ask Google

Two years ago, almost every new client an advisor won online started with a Google search. That’s still the biggest channel, but it’s no longer the only one. In our clients’ analytics we now see referrals from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot arriving every week, and the people who arrive that way behave differently: they have already asked their question, read an answer, and clicked through to the one or two practices the AI named.

If your practice isn’t one of those names, you were never in the running.

How AI tools decide who to recommend

Large language models don’t keep a ranked list of advisors. When someone asks “who’s a good financial planner for physicians in Calgary?”, the tool looks for sources it trusts that answer that question clearly, then summarizes them. Three things make a practice likely to be cited:

• Clear, specific content. A page titled “Financial planning for physicians in Calgary” that explains the problems you solve is far more useful to an AI than a homepage that says “we help you reach your goals.”
• Consistent presence across the web. Press coverage, directory listings, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn and your own site should all describe you the same way. Inconsistency reads as uncertainty.
• Third-party mentions. Being quoted in news coverage, listed in reputable directories or discussed in community forums tells the model other people vouch for you.

The one change that moves the needle fastest

Write the answer. Take the ten questions your ideal clients actually ask and publish a page for each one, in plain language, with your city and your niche in the title and first paragraph. Structure each page so the answer is obvious in the first hundred words, then go deeper.

This sounds simple because it’s. Most advisor websites are built to describe the advisor. AI tools reward websites built to answer the client. The practices we work with that made this shift started appearing in AI answers within a few months, usually before their traditional rankings moved.

What we see in the numbers

Across the advisor websites we manage, AI referrals are still a small share of total visits, typically low single digits. Two things make them worth more than their share. First, they convert at a much higher rate than Google traffic: someone who arrives from an AI answer has already narrowed the field to one or two names, so the visit is closer to a phone call than a browse. Second, they’re growing every quarter, while the volume of generic Google searches for “financial advisor” has been roughly flat.

We also see a clear pattern in which pages get cited. It’s almost never the homepage. It’s the specific page: the article on CPP timing, the page for business owners planning an exit, the local page for a particular city. Practices with more of those pages appear in more answers.

Five questions to ask about your own website

1. If a stranger read only your homepage, could they say in one sentence who you help and where?
2. Do you’ve a page for each client type you want more of, with that client type in the title?
3. Does your Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, dealer profile and website all describe your practice the same way?
4. Have you been quoted, listed or covered anywhere other than your own site in the past year?
5. If you ask ChatGPT who it recommends in your city for your niche, are you in the answer?

Most advisors answer no to at least three of these. Each no is a fixable gap, and none of them requires anything a compliance department will object to. This is educational content about who you serve and how you work, published in the places people and machines look for it.

A realistic timeline

AI answer engines refresh their view of the web more often than most people assume, but they’re cautious about who they cite. In our experience, a practice that publishes clear niche pages, tidies its listings and earns a few third-party mentions starts appearing in answers for specific local prompts within two to four months. Broader prompts, such as “best financial advisor in Toronto,” take longer and depend more on press coverage and reviews than on your own site. We track the prompts that matter for each client every month, so you can see the change rather than guess at it.

The practices that move fastest are the ones that already had a clear niche. If you serve everyone, the first job is deciding who you most want, because that decision is what every page, listing and mention should express.

What not to do

Don’t stuff pages with keywords, publish dozens of thin articles, or buy listings on low-quality directories in the hope of being noticed. AI systems are at least as good as Google at recognizing content produced to game a system, and being cited for the wrong reasons is worse than not being cited. Don’t put anything on the web you wouldn’t say to a client in a meeting. The goal is to be the clearest, most consistent, most credible answer, not the loudest.

What this means for SEO

Nothing you do for AI visibility hurts your Google rankings. The same clear pages, the same consistent listings and the same press coverage help both. That’s why our search plans cover SEO and AEO/GEO together rather than as separate products. Search is search; the box people type into is changing.

Search is search. The box people type into is changing.

If you want to know what ChatGPT says about your practice today, ask it. Then ask it who it would recommend in your city for the clients you want. If you aren’t there, that’s the gap we close.

Related: See our SEO & AEO/GEO plans · Google Business Profile: the 30-minute fix most advisors skip

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