Using AI for Local SEO with Tyler Henn

I have been thinking a lot lately about how AI is changing search, especially for local businesses. After my recent conversation with local SEO expert Tyler Henn of Henn House, I think there is a pretty simple way to explain where things are headed.

Local search is starting to look a lot more like word of mouth.

Think about how you recommend a business to a friend. If someone asks you for a roofer, accountant, IT company, attorney, or HVAC contractor, you probably don’t pull out a spreadsheet and rank all the businesses in town according to 37 criteria. You think about what your friend actually needs, then recommend someone you trust who seems like a good fit.

AI-powered search is getting much better at doing something similar. People can give ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google much more context about what they need, and these systems can gather more context about the businesses that might help them.

For small and mid-sized businesses, I think that creates a huge opportunity. You have probably spent years building expertise, serving customers, developing specialized processes, and earning a reputation in your community. Now you need to make sure your online presence accurately reflects the reputation you have earned offline.

Search Is Becoming More Like a Conversation

Tyler made an interesting point during our conversation about how much more specific people can be when searching with AI.

For years, someone might have typed “roofing company near me” into Google. That gave Google a few clues. It knew the person wanted a roofing company, it knew their location, and then it had to figure out which results deserved to show up.

Now imagine that same person asking an AI assistant, “I have a 100-year-old house with the original slate roof. I need someone nearby who has experience working on historic homes and can repair it without trying to sell me an entirely new roof.”

There is a lot more context in that conversation.

This is where things get interesting for SMBs. The largest or most aggressive marketer in town doesn’t automatically have all the advantages when the buyer gets more specific. A smaller company may have exactly the right expertise for that particular customer, provided the internet contains enough information to make that connection.

If you specialize in historic roofs, say so. If your accounting firm understands family-owned manufacturers, explain how. If your IT company has unusual expertise with dental practices, make that clear. If customers choose your HVAC company because your technicians explain repairs before recommending replacements, capture those stories.

Specificity helps customers understand why you are relevant to them, and it gives search engines and AI systems more context for understanding when you belong in the conversation.

Your Reputation Needs a Digital Paper Trail

One of my favorite parts of the conversation with Tyler was his emphasis on third-party validation.

Of course your website says you are great. You wrote it.

Your mother probably thinks you are great, too, but unfortunately I don’t think she is a Google ranking factor yet.

Other people talking about you carries different weight. Customer reviews, business directories, professional associations, local media, industry websites, podcasts, community organizations, social conversations, and other third-party sources all contribute information about your business.

Tyler even brought up Yelp, which is funny because plenty of business owners probably haven’t thought seriously about Yelp in years. His point was that we have to expand our thinking about why these platforms matter. A directory or third-party site may have value beyond the referral traffic it sends directly to your website. It can become another piece of evidence that helps an AI system understand your business and reputation.

This fits closely with what we have been calling the Trust Tree at Avenue9. A healthy online reputation grows from your actual expertise, values, customer experiences, stories, relationships, and proof. Your website, reviews, content, listings, and mentions become the visible parts of that reputation online.

That means some of the best AEO and local SEO work starts with something remarkably old-fashioned: build a business people are happy to recommend.

Then make the evidence easy to find.

Get Your Google Business Profile Right

For all the talk about AI, Tyler reminded me that some of the highest-value work is still pretty basic. Your Google Business Profile remains a critical foundation for local SEO, and a surprising number of businesses leave theirs incomplete, inaccurate, or neglected.

Make sure your categories accurately describe what you do. List your services. Keep your hours and contact information current. Add good photos. Respond to reviews. Fill out the information Google gives you an opportunity to provide.

I think about this like putting a sign in front of your business. If the sign only says “Mike’s Company,” people have to do a lot of work to figure out whether Mike can help them. If the sign tells them what Mike does, who he serves, where he works, and what he specializes in, the right customers can identify a fit much faster.

Your online presence works the same way. Every accurate piece of information gives search engines another clue about where your business belongs.

AI doesn’t eliminate the fundamentals of local marketing. It makes clear, accurate context even more valuable.

Your Important Services Probably Deserve Their Own Pages

Another practical recommendation from Tyler was to create dedicated website pages for important services instead of squeezing everything into one generic services page.

This sounds simple, and it is. It also solves a problem I see on SMB websites all the time.

A company lists six or eight services with a paragraph about each one. The copy usually says something like, “Our experienced team provides customized solutions designed to meet your unique needs.” You could swap the logo with 5,000 other businesses and nobody would notice.

If a service is important enough for you to sell, give yourself enough room to explain it.

Describe the problems that lead customers to need the service, who it is designed for, how your process works, the expertise involved, questions customers usually ask, mistakes they should avoid, related services they may need, and examples of successful outcomes. If geography matters, clearly explain where you provide the service.

This creates much richer context around your business. It also happens to make the website more useful for humans, which is usually a pretty good clue that you are heading in the right direction.

A prospective customer should be able to land on a page and understand, “These people solve my kind of problem.”

The machines need enough information to reach that conclusion, too.

Give People Something Specific to Talk About

One of the bigger lessons I took from Tyler’s comments is that differentiation matters more as search becomes conversational.

Generic claims give everyone, including AI, very little to work with. “Quality service,” “experienced professionals,” “customer-focused solutions,” and “we go above and beyond” are the beige wallpaper of business marketing.

Your real practices are much more interesting.

Maybe your technicians send customers a photo and short introduction before arriving at their home. Maybe your accounting firm has developed a specialized process for transitioning family businesses from one generation to the next. Maybe your manufacturing company regularly takes on engineering challenges larger competitors reject. Maybe your founder still personally calls every new client after 30 days.

Those details tell me something about you.

They also remind me of my conversation with David Levine about combining old-school service with new-school tools. Technology gives us more ways to capture, organize, and amplify the human things that already make a business worth choosing.

That is a much healthier use of AI than asking ChatGPT to invent 50 reasons why your company is “innovative.”

Go find the reasons that already exist.

Better Reviews Tell Better Stories

Reviews become especially interesting when you look at them through this lens.

“Great service. Five stars.”

We’ll take it. Thank you very much.

But compare that with a customer who says, “Our house was built in the 1920s, and their team knew exactly how to work around the original slate and copper gutters. They explained the repair options clearly, never pressured us into replacing the whole roof, and finished two days ahead of schedule.”

That review contains a small mountain of useful context. We learn about the type of customer, the type of property, the technical expertise involved, the communication style, the sales approach, and the customer experience.

A potential customer can recognize themselves in that story. An AI system also has much more information available for understanding what makes this business relevant to a particular search.

Businesses should never write reviews for customers or put words in their mouths. You can make it easier for people to tell a useful story by asking better questions.

Ask what problem they were trying to solve. Ask why they chose you. Ask what stood out during the experience. Ask what they would tell another person considering your company.

Those questions tend to produce richer stories than “Would you mind leaving us a review?”

AI can help with the next step. With permission, you can transcribe customer interviews, organize feedback, identify recurring themes, and find stories that could become testimonials, case studies, social content, or sales materials. The experience and words come from the customer; AI helps you capture and make better use of them.

That is exactly the kind of Human-First AI Marketing® application I get excited about.

Your Local SEO Strategy Is Bigger Than Your Website

Tyler also made the point that all of your marketing activities can influence your online presence in some way. I think this becomes increasingly important as AI systems get better at connecting information from different sources.

The chamber event you sponsor may lead to a mention on another website. A podcast interview can demonstrate your expertise. Your LinkedIn activity can reinforce the topics you are known for. A professional association can validate your credentials. A great customer experience can become a detailed review. A salesperson answering the same question for the hundredth time can give you the raw material for an excellent article.

Suddenly, SEO feels less like an isolated marketing tactic and more like the digital residue of everything your business does.

That idea also connects with something I wrote about in Climbing the Marketing Mountain After the AI Avalanche. AI is changing the terrain quickly, and businesses can waste a lot of energy chasing every new path, tool, acronym, and supposed shortcut.

You still need to know where you are going. Your reputation, audience, expertise, and customer experience give you that direction.

AI Can Help Turn Your Expertise Into Searchable Evidence

Here is where I think AI gives SMBs an advantage they haven’t really had before.

Most businesses have far more expertise than their marketing reflects. The good stuff is trapped inside people’s heads and scattered across sales calls, customer conversations, emails, meetings, proposals, presentations, and years of experience.

Your service manager probably knows 50 things customers should understand before hiring someone in your industry. Your best salesperson knows the questions prospects ask right before they buy. Your founder can explain why the company does things differently. Your customers can describe the little details that made them trust you.

Historically, extracting all of that information and turning it into marketing required a lot of interviewing, writing, editing, and production. Most SMBs simply didn’t have the time or budget to do it consistently.

AI changes the economics of that process.

Record a 30-minute conversation with your service manager and have AI identify the most common customer problems. Interview a longtime customer and turn the transcript into the raw material for a case study. Analyze sales-call transcripts for recurring questions and use those insights to improve your service pages. Ask employees to explain specialized processes and turn their expertise into articles, videos, FAQs, and educational content.

I sometimes call this Degenerative AI because we start with the human conversation and break it down into useful marketing assets. The raw material comes from your people, customers, and expertise. AI gives us the leverage to use more of it.

For SMBs, that can be incredibly powerful because you probably already have the stories and knowledge you need. You just haven’t had an efficient way to capture them.

Build the Online Reputation Your Business Has Earned

After talking with Tyler, I keep coming back to this idea.

Your digital reputation should eventually catch up with your real-world reputation.

If customers love you, the internet should contain evidence of why.

If your employees have specialized expertise, your website should demonstrate it.

If you solve unusual problems, explain them.

If you have a great process, document it.

If customers keep complimenting the same part of their experience, capture those stories.

If you are deeply involved in your community or industry, create the digital connections that make those relationships visible.

There is something reassuringly human about this direction for search. Great local businesses have always grown through reputation, expertise, relationships, and word of mouth. AI gives us new tools for capturing those signals and helping the right people discover them.

So before you spend the next six months trying to figure out how to “hack” ChatGPT, start closer to home. Look at the reputation your business has already earned and ask whether your online presence tells the same story.

Build a business worth recommending. Capture the evidence. Make the connections clear. Then use AI to help amplify what makes you worth choosing in the first place.

If your real-world reputation is stronger than your digital presence, that gap is exactly where Avenue9 can help. Our Human-First AI Marketing® services help SMBs capture their expertise, customer stories, brand voice, and trust signals, then use AI to turn those assets into scalable content and marketing systems that help the right people find, understand, and recommend them.