For the last few years, almost all my time went into Fluss, the IoT access control company I co-founded. Chase Growth, my sales and business growth consultancy in Stellenbosch, kept running, but its website didn’t get much love. I only realised how little when I started building a new service around AI search.
The question that started it
More and more people don’t scroll through Google results any more. They ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude or Google’s own AI answer: “Who’s a good sales trainer in Stellenbosch?” “Which plumber should I call in Paarl?” In the US, Google now shows an AI-written answer on roughly four in ten searches, about three times as many as a year ago. And those answers name a handful of businesses and ignore the rest.
So in September I checked five local businesses across trades, property, freight, software and consulting. I searched the way a customer would and looked at who came up. None of the five appeared for their own category.
One of them was mine.
What I found on my own website
It wasn’t anything technical. It was basics:
- The homepage title just said “Home”. Nothing about who we are, what we do or where.
- The new AI service I was about to sell wasn’t on the website at all.
- The footer linked to Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, channels I don’t use. There was no link to LinkedIn, which is the one I actually use, and one of the sources AI engines cite most for business questions.
- The phone number on the site no longer existed.
- No prices, no client testimonials, no articles.
A potential client checking us out would have phoned a dead number. An AI trying to work out what Chase Growth does would have had almost nothing to go on.
I wasn’t going to tell a plumber in Paarl to fix his website while mine said “Home”.
What we changed
I sent the list to Biographix, who look after the site, and within two weeks:
- Every page now says clearly what it is and where we are.
- The AI Search Visibility Audit has its own page with the price on it (R10,000 once-off), what you get (a score out of 100 tested on ChatGPT, Google, Perplexity and Claude, a walkthrough session and a step-by-step action sheet), and the areas we cover: Stellenbosch, Paarl, Somerset West, Constantia and Tokai, or online anywhere in South Africa.
- There’s a free AI visibility check: you send your website and services, and we email you a score within two working days.
- The social links point to my LinkedIn only, the phone number works (082 925 2720), and my name is on the content.
The result so far
On the website part of the checklist I use for clients, Chase Growth went from about 10 out of 30 to about 23. The missing points are client testimonials and regular articles like this one, so this is the next step.
Whether ChatGPT and Google’s AI actually start naming Chase Growth is the real test. I’ll run the same check in a few weeks and share the result here, good or bad.
Three things I learnt
- Most of it is basic. A dead phone number, links to the wrong places, a page title that says nothing. You don’t need a developer to spot these; you need someone to look.
- Be specific. AI engines repeat specific facts: what you do, where, for whom, and what it costs. “We help businesses grow” gives them nothing to quote.
- Your website is not “done”. It’s the first place a customer, and now an AI, checks before deciding whether to call you. Mine had quietly gone out of date while I was busy elsewhere. I suspect many owners are in the same position.
Want to know how your business shows up?
Chase Growth is a sales training and business growth consultancy in Stellenbosch. We help business owners and their teams sell better, and now also show them how visible they are in AI search. If you’d like to see where you stand, request a free AI visibility check at chasegrowth.co.za/ai-search-visibility-audit.