How to be found on Google and in AI search

Visibility is not a switch you flip. It comes from three parts that work together: a technically clean website, content that answers real questions, and well-kept business details in the places where people and machines look. Since Google in Austria also shows AI summaries and a separate AI mode, a fourth point comes in. Some answers are produced without anyone opening a website.

This post explains what you can influence, what you cannot, and how you recognize progress.

Visibility consists of three parts

The first part is the technical foundation. It includes loading time, clean addresses, a sensible page structure and structured data, meaning machine-readable details about your business, your services and your opening hours.

The second part is content. Search engines and AI systems prefer pages that answer a question directly instead of circling around it. In the trade this work is called SEO, but most of it consists of writing down your own services clearly.

The third part is local visibility. For a business with an address, the Google Business Profile is often the most frequently seen page of all, ahead of the website.

Example

Why nobody can guarantee you a position

Which results someone sees depends on location, device, past behaviour and the search engine's constantly changing methods. Nobody outside Google controls those methods. Anyone who promises you a position is selling something they cannot deliver.

bown therefore guarantees no ranking. We improve technology and content and show you the development based on the results. That is less spectacular, and it has the advantage that you can check what actually happened.

What is different in AI search

In AI search, a language model combines several sources into one answer and names some of them. At Google these summaries are called AI Overviews. There is also a separate AI mode, which Google's country list includes for Austria.¹ The summaries themselves reached Austria in March 2025.²

For your business this means two things. First, some people get the answer without opening your website. Second, whether you appear in such an answer is decided by the system, not by you. What the data says about this loss of clicks is covered in AI search and fewer clicks.

What AI optimization really means

AI optimization means structuring content and business details so that AI systems can pick them up more easily. A mention is not guaranteed by this, and it cannot be bought either.

In practice the work consists of things that make sense anyway:

1. A clear answer sits at the top of the page, not in the last paragraph.
2. Details on name, address and services are the same everywhere.
3. Structured data describes the business in machine-readable form.
4. The website allows the AI providers' programs in, instead of blocking them across the board.

This often does not require a new website. We check which improvements are possible on your existing website.

How you recognize progress

Do not rely on a single number. A combination of several observations is useful: search queries you are found for, views and calls via the business profile, enquiries via the form and what your customers say on the phone.

Record the starting point in writing before anything is changed. Without a baseline, every later number is only a claim.

What you can do this week

Check your business profile for opening hours, phone number and services. Then, for your most important service, write down the five questions customers ask you most often, and answer each of them on the matching page in two to three sentences.

That takes a morning and works in both directions. People find the answer, and machines can quote it.

Notes

1. Google Search Help, "Get AI-powered responses with AI Mode in Google Search", accessed 16 October 2026. Austria is on the country list for AI Mode.

2. thekeyword.co, "Google rolls out AI Overviews to nine more EU countries", 26 March 2025, accessed 16 October 2026. The report names Austria among the nine countries. The source does not give an exact start date for Austria.