Experts Share Strategies to Boost Local Brand Presence in Conversational Search

AI is driving more qualified local traffic for brands. While classic SEO remains effective, experts say a strong local presence is essential to succeed in this evolving channel.

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As AI-generated answers are shaking up local search rankings just as they are elsewhere, the question of local branding is becoming crucial. The challenge is to capture the opportunities offered by local AI responses. A brand can now show up in comparison and decision searches where it might not have ranked first in traditional SEO. AI answers may also drive fewer visits, but those visits are potentially more qualified. Adobe data shows that, in U.S. retail, visits from AI services in February 2025 had a 23% lower bounce rate and a 41% longer visit duration than those from the usual organic channel. They also generated 12% more page views compared to non-AI traffic.

Top SEO Strategies

To get results, the SEO professionals interviewed are using strategies similar to traditional SEO. This includes auditing the relevant SERP, smart link building, and maintaining a multichannel presence.

“I recently worked on boosting the visibility of my wife’s business—she’s a self-employed nurse near Lille,” says David Groult, head of SEO at Noiise. “I started from scratch on April 1, with no website, no Google Business Profile, and no online presence. The challenge was simple: make her the go-to nurse in her field and service area within a few weeks, despite about twenty other nurses in the area. I identified every site listing local professionals or facilities, then figured out how to get her listed—and, more importantly, how to climb to the top of those lists. At the same time, she benefited from announcements on the city hall’s website and social media, highlighting her recent launch. Today, she gets about twenty contacts a month thanks to her online presence and almost always appears in AI-generated answers.”

François Vuillemin, an SEO consultant at Noiise, recently worked with a pizza maker in a city near Lyon. “We started with a blank slate in June 2026 and no website. We built his story, shared his passion, highlighted what set him apart from competitors, and reached out to key local partners to amplify the message. After creating the digital channels mentioned earlier, we ran a campaign to turn that story into customer feedback. And it worked. The results: in two months, about 1,000 interactions with his Google profile, a 260% increase in Facebook clicks from the Google listing, and 75% more appearances in conversational search engines. He’s consistently in the top 3 mentions on ChatGPT and Gemini when people search for pizza within a 20 km radius. One key takeaway: customer reviews that reinforce his story are often what make the difference.”

Jamey Lee, co-founder of LocalRanker, optimized clients’ store locators with LocalRanker. “The result: 20% more mentions on ChatGPT, a 30% increase on Gemini, and three times more traffic compared to 2025. Locally, the local page is often cited as a source in AI answers. Most of the optimizations we did were classic SEO.”

Consistent Data, Authentic Content, and Local Link Building

Overall, to benefit from AI answers, the first priority is having consistent information across the web. The well-known NAP—Name, Address, Phone. “Your name, address, business hours, and phone number must be exactly the same everywhere online, with zero errors,” says François Vuillemin. Jamey Lee agrees: “At LocalRanker, we focus above all on consistency between directories, the website, and the Google profile.”

Next, telling your story and sharing your passion is essential, according to the experts surveyed. This is how you give Google what it calls authentic, unique, and specific content. “It’s the absolute foundation for building your content universe,” says François Vuillemin. This should lead to “real customer reviews that describe their experience in detail. And clear, useful explanations of your work that directly answer people’s questions, so AI naturally recommends you.” Link building can help. François Vuillemin points out: “For local SEO, we focus on creating business listings in directories, getting featured on the city hall website, Facebook and Instagram pages, and mentions from partners or suppliers.” “Customer reviews, local press, and specialized directories are what turn a claim into a verifiable fact for ChatGPT or Gemini,” adds Jamey Lee.

Local Tracking Is Shifting Toward Auditing AI Recommendations for a Business

On top of that, tracking needs to adapt. “Maps already has on-device signals tied to frequent locations, home, work, commutes, and even preferences for certain brands,” explains Olivier de Segonzac, founder of Resoneo. “We haven’t proven that all these signals feed into Ask Maps, but the infrastructure for user-specific answers is already there. Local position tracking won’t disappear, but it won’t be enough anymore. You’ll also need to audit the answers Google gives about a business: check the facts, understand why a place is recommended, and make sure Google links it to the right concepts.”

He believes “the link between traditional SEO and local SEO is much stronger than we thought. Google connects web pages to geographic entities through the Knowledge Graph. It can measure how much a document discusses an entity, how confidently, and compare several documents about the same entity. So a store page isn’t just trying to rank for a keyword—it can also become a reference page for the corresponding entity.”

AI Search Remains Unpredictable

But beware—even with these actions, AI search remains volatile, according to the experts interviewed. For David Groult, “the main limitation is that you can’t control everything. Part of how your brand is perceived depends on third-party sources: reviews, directories, local media, partners, and so on. And just creating dozens of local pages isn’t enough to become legitimate. You need to provide real proof of presence and activity in the area.” Jamey Lee adds: “We launched AI visibility tracking, and the big issue was reliability. In SEO, rankings are generally stable. But the answers you get from ChatGPT can vary from one user to another, even with the same prompt. Ask the same question five times, you’ll get five different answers. No ranking is stable, no result is guaranteed. With LocalRanker, we can only look at averages and trends.”

This article was automatically translated from French. Read the original version: https://www.journaldunet.com/seo/1555159-comment-creer-une-marque-locale-efficace-a-l-ere-de-la-recherche-par-ia/