Quick question for you.

If someone went online right now and searched for whatever you sell — cookies, salsa, tamales, smoked brisket, kolaches, whatever your thing is — in your local area… would you come up?

Would they find you easily? Would they find you AT ALL?

Sit with that for a second.

If your answer is “honestly, I have no idea” — that’s actually why we’re here today. Because this is one of those things that feels kind of optional until you really understand what’s at stake. And then it starts to feel a little urgent.

The good news is it’s way more fixable than you think. And most of it is free!

People Are Searching For You. Are You There?

Here’s something kind of wild: something like 97% of consumers search online before doing business with a local business.

Not some of them. Basically all of them.

And it’s not just Google anymore. People are typing their questions straight into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini — and those AI tools are giving them answers based on what they can find about you online.

If there’s nothing to find? You don’t exist. I’m sorry! But you just don’t.

Think about it from a customer’s perspective. Your friend says “oh you have to try this lady’s kolaches, they’re incredible.” What’s the first thing you do? You Google it. You want to see if other people agree. You want to know where to find them and when. You want some kind of proof that this is worth your Saturday morning.

If nothing comes up, the trail goes cold. And you just… don’t go.

That is happening to local food businesses every single day. Not because their food isn’t good. Because they’re invisible online.

Let Me Tell You About a Food Truck

I work with a food truck here in town. Amazing food. Really excellent, dedicated people. They have a good following.

But one day I went into ChatGPT and searched for the type of cuisine they serve near our town, just to see what would come up.

ChatGPT told me there was nobody serving that food locally. That I’d have to drive two hours away to find it.

WRONG. So wrong! But ChatGPT had no idea, because this business had no online presence beyond Facebook. No website. No Google Business Profile. Nothing for AI to grab onto. As far as the internet was concerned, they didn’t exist.

So we set up a Google Business Profile. It took maybe 20 minutes. I created a Gmail address for the business, filled out the profile, and that was it.

A couple weeks later I checked again. Not only were they showing up — they were showing up with a review someone had left literally 30 minutes earlier. A brand new customer who’d heard about them from a friend, went and tried the food, loved it, and left a review.

And within 30 minutes of that review going up, ChatGPT had already found it and was quoting it back to people who searched.

Thirty minutes. That’s the gap between invisible and found.

And I’ll be honest — I sat there thinking about all the people who had probably searched for that cuisine in our area over the years and been told it didn’t exist. All those potential customers who just… went elsewhere. Because there was nowhere to find them.

That one still gets me a little.

Why Right Now Is Actually a Really Good Time to Care About This

There are two reasons this matters even more in 2026 specifically, and one of them is actually kind of exciting.

The first is something that’s being called a “trust recession.” People are burned out from being scammed and misled online, and they just don’t extend trust the way they used to. 84% of consumers say they trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation from a friend.

Which means even when someone DOES hear about you through word of mouth, they’re still going to look you up first. They want backup. They want to see that other people back it up.

Businesses with five or more Google reviews get four times as many clicks as businesses with none. Not because reviews are magic — because they tell a stranger that you’re the real deal and other people have already taken the leap.

The second reason is where it gets exciting.

AI search is still in transition. The playing field is still relatively level right now. Research firm Gartner estimated that by 2026, AI would influence 50% of local business discovery decisions — and that’s not a future thing, that’s a NOW thing.

And here’s the part that matters for you: most local food businesses are not thinking about this yet. They’re thinking about signage and farmers markets and word of mouth, which are all great! But they are not thinking about whether ChatGPT can find them.

That is YOUR advantage if you move on it before everyone else does.

The businesses that get those top spots before the dust settles on all this AI transition stuff are going to be really hard to unseat later. I genuinely believe that.

So Where Do You Need To Exist Online?

Okay so here’s where I want to be clear about something: I am not about to hand you a twenty-seven step checklist. That is not what this is.

But I do want to walk through the main places that matter and why, because understanding the “why” is what makes you actually want to do the thing.

A Google Business Profile is the big one and honestly the only truly non-negotiable item on this list. It powers Google Maps. It powers “near me” searches. It gives people a place to leave reviews. And it’s what AI tools use to figure out who to recommend locally. It’s free, it takes about 20 minutes to set up, and as you just saw from the food truck story — it works embarrassingly fast. If you do nothing else on this list, do this one.

Yelp is worth your time because it powers Apple Maps and Siri and a whole bunch of apps you’ve probably never even thought about. But more importantly — every consistent listing you have somewhere is another vote of confidence. Someone finds your Google profile, then your Yelp, then your Facebook, all saying the same things? Their trust in you just quietly stacks up. It’s kind of lovely actually.

TripAdvisor is one people seriously sleep on. When I was doing research on how different AI tools pull information, I kept noticing that Claude specifically was constantly citing TripAdvisor. Different AI tools pull from different places, and TripAdvisor has a ton of “best of” and “top bakeries near me” style pages that are really well indexed. If your business can be on there, go be on there.

Local directories are mostly for the machines at this point, not for human eyeballs — but that’s exactly why they matter. AI tools are actively crawling them. When I was running my own bakery, getting listed in a local directory was one of the things that got me to the top of AI results. The AI basically quoted my directory description back to people almost word for word. I thought that was wild. And those listings are usually completely free.

A website is still the most powerful thing you can have, because it’s the one place where you get to write about yourself entirely in your own words — and whatever you write there is what AI is going to use when it describes you to potential customers.

Side note on that: be a little evocative. If you make brownies with four kinds of chocolate and a fudgy center that makes grown adults emotional, SAY that. Because AI will pick that up and repeat it, and whoever hears it is going to want your brownies immediately. You’re basically writing your own AI sales pitch. Use it.

A one-page site with your story, your menu, some photos, and your contact info is genuinely enough to start. It does not have to be fancy.

Social media is a touch point and a personality showcase — not a foundation. Facebook and Instagram are great for connection and showing off your food, and I still use them. But they are not a substitute for the stuff above, and relying on them as your only online presence is exactly what got that food truck into trouble. (If you want more on that particular rabbit hole, I have a whole episode about the algorithm and why it is not your friend. Just saying.)

And your local newspaper. I know, I know, hear me out. Local papers have a long, well-established history online, and AI treats them as highly credible sources. Getting featured in a local article — or even just sending a press release — can do more for your findability than months of social media posts. Plus actual humans still read them! Bonus.

The thing that ties all of this together is consistency. The more places you show up saying similar things about yourself, the more solid your online presence looks to the AI tools that are increasingly deciding who gets recommended. They’re looking for the most consistently present, most talked-about business. And that is very achievable.

You Don’t Have to Do This All At Once

Seriously. Please don’t try. You have food to make and orders to fill and a whole actual life over here.

The point of this whole post is really just to light a small fire under you about WHY this matters — because once you really get it, the motivation to do something about it tends to take care of itself.

But before you do anything else, I want you to do one thing.

Open an incognito browser window — or a fresh ChatGPT session — and search for what you sell in your area.

“Best home bakery near [your town].” “Where can I buy homemade jam in [your city].”

Do you come up? Who does?

That’s your starting line. And it’s honestly kind of fascinating to see, either way.

I built out a full online visibility audit and tracker inside my free starter pack at bethanyarcher.com/start that walks you through exactly how to do this search, what to look for, and how to document it so you can actually track what moves the needle as you start building your presence.

Go find out where you are. Then we’ll go from there.

Ready to find out if you’re actually findable? Grab the free online visibility audit at bethanyarcher.com/start and go see what’s out there.