00:00 – Introduction: Why AI search is changing fast
00:00
Jack Jostes
There is a lot changing fast with how people are using AI to find local businesses like landscape companies. I'm going to share with you three things that I'm seeing right now in summer 2025 that you're going to want to pay attention to so you get found.
00:18 – Bing’s surprising role in ChatGPT search results
00:18
Jack Jostes
The first one is something I never thought I'd be talking about on my podcast, which is Bing, right? So for years, people have been focusing on SEO primarily for Google because it's been the predominant search engine. ChatGPT is growing very rapidly, and people are using ChatGPT more and more to find local businesses. They continually roll out new things.
00:38
Jack Jostes
How do you show up in searches and queries and prompts from ChatGPT when people are looking for things like “help me plan my outdoor living space in Boulder, Colorado and help me find, you know, three companies that can work with me on it?” People are searching very long things like that. Bing is one of the things that impacts how you show up in ChatGPT. ChatGPT uses Bing's index, so you're going to want to pay attention to your presence in there. Typically, the things that impact your Bing results are similar to what impacts your Google results. But one of the things that we've known for a long time is that social media impacts your Bing results and until recently didn't have much influence on Google. But I'm noticing something like in the last couple weeks right now that's changing even on Google with social media.
01:33
Jack Jostes
So if you haven't already, you're going to want to set up Bing Webmaster Tools. Now this is something we're already doing for all Ramblin Jackson clients and it's going to give you some valuable insights. First of all, what is a web master? Right? This is like, I haven't heard anybody mention a webmaster in like 20 years. So when you go and log into Bing Webmaster Tools, it looks really dated, but you can sync your Bing Places with your Google Business profile. So when you make updates to your Google Business profile and you add photos, things like that, it automatically updates your Bing places. So make sure that you've claimed your Bing Places. Set up Bing Webmaster Tools. There's a whole lot more that you can do to show up in Bing.
02:19 – Using FAQ schema to boost Bing & ChatGPT visibility
02:19
Jack Jostes
But doing the basics that I've just talked about and fixing the things that you see in Bing Webmaster Tools is going to make a big difference. One thing that I'm seeing working really well for a lot of my clients is FAQ pages. We're seeing that when we mark up FAQ pages on the website with schema, that it gets pulled right into that Bing Places thing. Often that FAQ gets pulled right into the Bing Places listing and it cites the website as the source of it. So your website is really like a source of information from which ChatGPT, Bing, all the large language models are going to extract information and serve it up to people. So a lot of this is just basic, good SEO.
03:06
Jack Jostes
Long form content is really important more than ever because you want to have descriptive natural content on your website and mark up that FAQ content with schema so it gets pulled into your Bing places. And from Bing you Show up in ChatGPT for a variety of different things.
03:25 – Why first-party reviews matter for AI search rankings
03:25
Jack Jostes
I've been saying for years is that reviews is part of the foundational four and I believe that reviews have only become more important. They impact how you rank on Google. We've been talking about that for, for a long time. But also reviews and first party reviews impact how you show up in ChatGPT. A lot of people are doing prompts, queries, looking for the best companies or the best contractors or the best whatever. And so not only do you need Google reviews, but you need reviews on a variety of sites including your own.
04:03
Jack Jostes
And when you have those reviews on your own website, that's called a first party review. So a first party review is when you're collecting that feedback directly on your website. Ramblinjackson.com/reviews as an example. You know we have this on here where we use Ramblin reviews where you can give us feedback here not only is having a quantity of reviews that are good, but also the context of those reviews, what are people reviewing you about? Is also being looked at. So reviews are really powerful. And one of the things that we've noticed this year on Google Reviews is this new box. So here's one of my clients, they got a review three weeks ago and a review from only a month ago, which was only a month ago, does not have the new. So review recency is important.
05:00
Jack Jostes
So you want to always be requesting reviews. And I wanted to share with you a quick story. I took my kids to City park in Denver and we rented paddle boats and we rented those like four person bicycles. It was extremely fun. And one of the things that they did while were there was a guy named Richard said hey, would you do me a favor and write a review and mention my name in it? I'm trying to beat Rebecca on my team and I don't know Richard I don't know Rebecca, but now I'm on Team Richard because I want to help him. I would have forgotten about Wheel Fun Rentals. That's the company. But check out this cool card that he gave me. And look, it has his name, it has a QR code. He personally asked me. He made it a personal thing.
05:50 – Short-form videos now showing in Google search
05:50
Jack Jostes
So the way to win a lot of this stuff hasn't changed. It's really about doing a great job for customers. It's not about AI, it's about serving customers and asking them in a highly relational way that also is easy for them to write a review for you. So having that QR code, making it fun, making it competition, is a great idea. And then the last thing I want to share with you today is something that I'm seeing in the last few weeks on Google, which is short form videos showing up on Google from other social networks including TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and Pinterest. So here are the search results. And by the way, I'm seeing these even on different devices look different for the same search query. So I feel like it's something new that will it stick around? We'll see.
06:43
Jack Jostes
I have a sense that it will. So we're looking at landscape design and I've got ads up here. So I'm in Lyons, Colorado, so I'm seeing ads from people in niwalk, Colorado. I'm scrolling through yet another ad, then an AI overview. I'm only seeing two map results at this time. Earlier I did this and there were two organic map results plus a Google Ad. So it looked like three. I saw three organic the other day. So a lot of fluctuation right now. And then of course image results and you can see that many of these are from local companies who have optimized their images. So optimizing your images hasn't changed. It's still important when you're doing your on page SEO, we're scrolling through, we see organic website results, we see Reddit forums, we see long form video content.
07:36 – Long-form content and marketing to the affluent
07:36
Jack Jostes
So some of these videos are 10, 12, 21 minutes. So I often hear people say, well, people don't have attention spans anymore today because they're too busy you on TikTok and that's nonsense. When people are going to invest 10, 20, 30, 40, 100, $200,000 in their landscape, they're doing a lot of research and we recently did a whole webinar and a lot of research on marketing to the affluent. And they are often consuming more content before they make a Purchase, especially female buyers. So you should be producing long form video content, long form written content, because again, that long form content is going to help you show up in these various AI search results because they're going to parse out that natural language from your website.
08:26
Jack Jostes
And the thing that I wanted to highlight in today's video podcast is what I'm seeing here with short videos. So there's a new section here. It's primarily in the past been just YouTube shorts, but now I'm seeing, look, I'm seeing Pinterest, I'm seeing YouTube. I'm seeing this coincidentally is our client. I never use this phone though. This phone I don't think is based on my search behavior because this is just a marketing iPhone that we use to take pictures and record content. But this is our client Scott Parker and Parker Landscape. And you can see that right here.
09:01
Jack Jostes
You can click onto it and we've edited this in a way that Scott is showing up and you can just watch this video with the sound off, which is a way many people watch and consume social media videos, vertical videos, Instagram reels, Facebook reels, YouTube shorts. So it's edited to be vertical. And when you do this, you want to have captions on there, you want to have a lot of great imagery and this can help you show up in the search results on Google. So this is just an interesting opportunity. And then look, you know, here is a Instagram video. So this is interesting because in the past it was primarily just YouTube shorts. Now I'm seeing, you know, other social networks and things.
09:53 – Why social video is now critical for Google visibility
09:53
Jack Jostes
So in some ways that's kind of like how Bing optimization has worked where, you know, like we said, social media impacts Bing. Now I'm seeing it. Is it a ranking factor for the organic results on Google? Well, I don't know how much it impacts how much you show up in the map results or in the organic webpage results. But now there's a whole new section of organic results which is short videos. And it's absolutely required if you want to show up in here. And I see this as an opportunity for landscape companies. We've been helping people with this for a while and what I'm seeing is the value of the video that we're doing is now even greater because it is showing up in all these different places.
10:41 – Human connection in the AI era
10:41
Jack Jostes
You're already getting that social benefit, you're then getting the search engine benefit and it impacts how you show up in AI. These are just some fun things that I'm seeing. I'm excited right now by all the things that are changing and I think it creates a lot of opportunities. And as we see more AI generated content, as we see more AI generated images and AI videos, I think that real human connection is going to be craved. And that's why the last thing I want to share with you is to Be Human & Pick Up the Damn Phone. Whether you're generating leads from AI search, ChatGPT, from Google Ads are working really well for our clients right now. Whatever it is, be human and pick up the damn phone. So many landscape companies don't even call people back at all.
11:34
Jack Jostes
So if you can thrive at doing what you say you're gonna do, getting proposals out to people on time, following up and calling people, One of our clients generated over $50,000 of revenue during their slow season and their primary source of that was from phone calls to existing customers in their database. So get out there, make some short form video content, keep getting reviews, keep getting first party reviews. This is what makes it challenging is we need reviews in multiple places and start making short form video content about questions that people are asking you.
12:12
Jack Jostes
I think this is such a leverage for landscape companies because once you make the video, you can put it on all these different places and you're going to speak in a natural way that AI search engines that most importantly humans, when they watch the video, they're going to enjoy.
12:25 – Final takeaways & where to focus
12:25
Jack Jostes
All right, I hope you enjoyed this video podcast. If you did and you're curious about where to focus, it is changing. It can feel overwhelming. We'd love to have a 15-Minute Marketing Brainstorm Call with you. So go ahead and book yours at landscapersguide.com/brainstorm. My name is Jack Jostes, and I'll look forward to talking with you in the next episode of The Landscaper’s Guide Podcast, which you can check out on YouTube, you can watch it there, you can listen to it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you're listening.
13:05
Jack Jostes
If you are listening… Hey, would you help me out and write a review? You, you see what I did there? I'm competing against all the other podcasts, and I'm not. I am kind of. Your review would help if you got value. Leave a review and I'll talk to you next week.
Show Notes:
Watch the full episode + see the transcript at: https://landscapersguide.com/podcast/
Tell us where to send your beef jerky: https://landscapersguide.com/toolbox
Book your 15-minute marketing brainstorm: https://landscapersguide.com/brainstorm
See upcoming live + virtual events: https://landscapersguide.com/events