Happy September, everyone! In most places (including at Endicott College where I teach), classes have started and the school year is underway. Temps have cooled and summer is wrapping up. I love summer! Its warm weather and outdoor activities with friends and family: my faves are paddling, biking, woodsy walks and hikes. And of course this is the time for dining outdoors! Do you love that as much as I do? Some of these activities can transition with us into fall. But the Autumnal Equinox (September 22 this year) usually signals change. It brings change in our weather, in our personal lives, and in our working lives (especially for educators!).
And speaking of change in our working lives, artificial intelligence (AI) continues to bring shifts to our fields of marketing, communications and teaching. It’s time to address how this tech is changing things. The thought leaders I follow are recommending we harness AI to make our organizations’ online content and presence more powerful. So let’s begin with a health check.
The five point health check
In my last post, I walked you through a five point health check for your online reputation. I cited a stat from my Marketing Analytics textbook on consumer buying behavior. Zahay et al. (2024) tell us that over 75% of all customer journeys begin with search. And a recent episode of Mark Schaefer’s The Marketing Companion podcast provided more information to consider.
Mark’s guest, Andy Crestadina, had an interesting take on AI. He basically said that we should be putting it to work for our organizations. Marketers should be intentionally feeding AI succinct messages about who we are, what we do, and who we do it for. This podcast interview, and a number of other sources I will cite here, have informed my recommendations for taking control of your online reputation. Let’s go through the five points of our health check. For each one, I’ll recommend a step you can take to influence your search engine results page.
1. The “AI Overview”
The “AI Overview” appears on a growing number of Google search engine results pages (SERPs) and is point number one of the online reputation health check. Introduced in 2024, these AI generated summaries provide a text-based “answer” to the question prospects ask Google with their keywords. According to this article on a 2025 survey by Pew Research, six out of ten people surveyed (58%) received an AI Summary as part of a search on Google in March 2025. And when they did, they were “less likely to click on results links” and also “very rarely clicked on sources cited” for such a summary. Search Engine Land reports that in January of 2025, ChatGPT became the world’s eighth most visited site on the internet.
So clearly, generative AI is changing the way people search the internet. So we marketers need to move to where the search-o-sphere is headed. The aforementioned Search Engine Land article, and The Marketing Companion podcast both mention online PR as having a major influence on generative AI results. Brand mentions in trusted, authoritative sources are super valuable! And earned and owned media are both fantastic for search engine optimization (SEO) as well, of course. Publishing content on large public platforms like LinkedIn and YouTube is another solid strategy recommended for training the AI platforms to represent your organization effectively. Just keep in mind that some generative AI models pull from static, as opposed to live, data sets. Because of this, your optimization work may take time to show up and have a greater impact in the long, rather than short, term.
2. The first linked result
Here we shift back to SEO basics. You should be using the SEO tools built into your website’s content management system to create keyword-friendly urls (aka “slugs”) and meta descriptions. Meta descriptions are keyword-rich, one sentence summaries of a page’s content. For your homepage, they should briefly explain who your organization is and the problem(s) you solve for your target audience. This way, when your prospects search for your organization and your domain shows up, they get a consumable “who we are and what we do” statement.
3. The tabs
When prospects click across the tabs at the top of your SERP, they have the opportunity to see images and videos of your organization. That is, if you have populated the internet with content in these media types and tagged them appropriately with branded keywords! I help my clients create testimonial content, which makes for great social media graphics and YouTube videos, both of which can be embedded onto a web site. As with AI Overview, think about both earned and owned content for the tabs. These are more powerful when used together!
4. The “Knowledge Panel”, which includes reviews
Google references this page for more information on Knowledge Panel facts. You can claim a business profile and populate it as well. In terms of reviews, I suggest reaching out to your organization’s board or other advocates, and requesting reviews. I’ve also seen postcards with QR codes sent out to customers encouraging them to write reviews to boost an organization’s ratings.
5. The “Socials”
The Search Engine Land article cited above mentions organic social media as platforms where you should be investing your time. Organic posts can provide text, image and video results for your organization, populating the tabs across your organization’s SERP.
So now you have tips for boosting your online reputation based upon the five point health check. Now, kind reader, you optimize! This is the way to take hold of your AI and search engine results and shape how your prospects see your organization. Whew! That was a hefty one. Check out the references in this post for more details and regularly tune into your favorite professional development platforms as this is a quickly moving space.
Until next time,
Hester