AI search tools like ChatGPT and Google AI are changing how patients discover local wellness providers, but what does that actually mean for your acupuncture practice?
In this episode, I’m joined again by website designer Samantha Mabe of Lemon & The Sea to talk about what’s really working right now when it comes to showing up in AI-powered search results. We break down why strong SEO fundamentals still matter, how niche messaging helps both humans and AI understand your expertise, and what you can do right now to strengthen your local online presence without trying to “hack” the algorithm.
We also discuss how AI evaluates trust, expertise, reviews, credentials, and consistency across your website and social platforms, plus why clear messaging matters more than ever.
In this episode:
- Why SEO is still the foundation for showing up in AI search results
- How blog posts and conditions pages work together strategically
- What AI tools are actually looking for when recommending local practitioners
Find It Quickly
02:57 – Meet Samantha Mabe
05:06 – SEO Still Matters
10:34 – Blogging for AI Queries
13:18 – Niche Messaging Wins
17:13 – Conditions Pages vs Blogs
21:06 – Trust Signals and Links
24:57 – Local Listings Consistency
27:47 – Test Your AI Presence
33:25 – Social Proof and Video
Connect with Samantha Mabe
Website: lemonandthesea.com
Instagram: instagram.com/lemonandthesea
🎙️ Listen to Episode #127: How to Optimize Your Acupuncture Practice Show Up in AI Search Results with Samantha Mabe
💚 This episode is sponsored by Faire Wholesale.
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Even better? You get free returns for 60 days on the first order you place with any brand, so you can feel confident trying out new products online. Try new items in your clinic, and if something doesn’t sell, just send it back for a refund.
Plus, you can filter by your values—like AAPI-owned, Black-owned, organic, handmade, or not sold on Amazon.
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Transcript:
Michelle: Welcome back. Today, I’m joined again by website designer Samantha Mabe of Lemon and the Sea, and we are diving into a topic that I know is on a lot of people’s minds right now, which is how AI search tools like ChatGPT and Google AI are changing the way patients find local wellness providers online.
And in this episode, we talk about what’s actually working right now when it comes to helping our website show up in AI search results and why strong SEO fundamentals still matter more than ever. We also discuss why niche messaging and clear specialties help both humans and AI understand your practice, the difference between conditions pages and blog posts, and how to use both strategically, how AI evaluates trust, expertise, reviews, and online consistency across your website and profiles, and simple ways to strengthen your local online presence without trying to hack the algorithm.
This conversation is practical and hopefully feels reassuring, full of ideas you can start applying to your website and your digital content right away. So let’s get into it.
Samantha: Welcome to the Acupuncture Marketing School podcast. I’m your host,
Michelle: Michelle Grasek, and I’m here to help you get visible in your community, take marketing action with confidence, and get more patients in your practice and more money in your pocket every week. We both know you’re a talented, passionate acupuncturist and that acupuncture has the power to change lives.
So let’s dive right into this episode and talk about how you can reach more patients.
Today’s episode is sponsored by Faire Wholesale. Increase your average per-patient income with beautiful retail products that are aligned with your values and your business without the upfront risk. Faire makes it easy to get started with over 100,000 independent brands and low or no order minimums.
Even better, you get free returns for 60 days on the first order you place with any brand, so you can feel confident trying out new products online. Try new items in your clinic, and if something doesn’t sell, just send it back for a refund. Plus, you can filter brands by your values, like minority-owned, organic, handmade, or not sold on Amazon.
Increase your income with curated retail offerings today. The link is in the show notes to learn more about Faire, and you can use my code AMS10 to save an extra 10% on your first order if it happens to be over $400. And I do wanna add, that is optional. Your first order does not have to be over $400. In fact, most people’s first orders are under 100 as they get started and learn about retail.
I’ll put the link to learn more about Faire and that discount code in the show notes to make it easy for you. All right, let’s get into this episode with Samantha. Hello, Samantha. Welcome back. How are you?
Samantha: I’m good, Michelle. Thanks for having me back.
Michelle: Absolutely. Do you wanna introduce yourself before we get started?
Samantha: Sure. I am a website designer at Lemon & The Sea, and I work mostly with holistic health practitioners, um, to make sure that they are showing up on Google, that they’re proud to share their website- Mm … and converting visitors into clients and patients.
Michelle: Mm. I love all three of those parts. I love all of that, right?
B- because I think a lot of people are n- not that proud to share their website if … You know, like, things get outdated over time if you just haven’t thought about it, and then I think that can really impact your marketing, right? If you … It’s almost like if you have a business card that you don’t like, you feel really reluctant to share it with someone if it doesn’t represent you anymore.
So I think that is a really great angle.
Samantha: Yeah. And a lot of my clients started out that they, like, DIY’d their website, which is a great- Mm … place to start. Yep. And now they’re like, “This just doesn’t reflect the level of expertise and professionalism that I bring.” And so we’re helping them just make it look like working with you feels, so people- Mm
kind of get a really consistent experience.
Michelle: Yeah. Ooh, I love that. That’s a nice way of thinking about that. And sometimes I think about, like, what is the cost of trying to do it yourself, like, especially if you haven’t been inside the backend of your website in a long time, like relearning the platform, figuring out how to move the widgets around.
Why can’t I make this photo look right on mobile? And sometimes the best option really is just paying someone who does this every day to do it for you. Yes.
Samantha: I mean-
Michelle: Let it be done.
Samantha: Some- The other day I was in Squarespace, and it was like the platform was being weird, and I spent- Mm … like 10 or 15 minutes just trying to, like, move spacing.
And I’m like, “My clients would take hours getting frustrated with this,” and I know that it’s, like, a platform thing. If we wait a day- Right … it’ll fix itself.
Michelle: Yes. Maddening. So, uh, we had the best Instagram Live chat recently about how to help AI actually bring your website and your business up i- in search queries, and I am sure that a lot of podcast listeners did not happen to be online while we were live.
So I would love to cover some of those same concepts, because these are questions that I am getting all the time. I think the, the number one question is, you know, what is working right now for getting AI to show our clinic as a search result when we are, like, a relevant result locally?
Samantha: Yeah. I’ve had this question a lot and-
Michelle: I bet.
Samantha: I think there are a lot of people online talking about it, saying like, “You have to do this, you have to do that.” You, they claim to be experts and I don’t think anybody- Mm … is an expert in this space. It’s new and it’s changing so quickly.
Michelle: Yeah.
Samantha: Um, but there, it’s definitely kind of front of mind for a lot of people because we are going to AI to ask questions, so we know- Yeah
that people are, and then we’re also seeing so much about it, like in marketing, in news, and like it’s all over the place.
Michelle: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Is there anything that is definitely effective? I mean, I’m sure there are lots of things. Yeah. What, what comes up first?
Samantha: I think the biggest thing that I find important for people is to make sure that you are focusing on your SEO.
Michelle: Mm.
Samantha: Um, because like we talked about on that Instagram Live, SEO is gonna be the foundation for, like, just how you get robots to read and understand your website.
Michelle: Mm-hmm.
Samantha: And so they’re starting with the same basis of information of, like, who do you work with? Where are you located? What services do you offer?
So if you can make sure you’ve got that set up really well on your site, that’s a good starting place, and- Mm … you know that it’s gonna be accurate when AI starts to pull that information.
Michelle: And I know you have mentioned in the past that sometimes people online will say that SEO is dead. And, and then we’re talking about…
I can’t even remember all of them, like- … GEO, and all the, all the things that they’re saying are replacing SEO. But that is kinda misleading because at its core, like, like you just said, the AI robots, they need strong SEO fundamentals on your website to be able to understand what it is that you do. So we can’t suddenly pretend that that doesn’t matter.
Samantha: Yeah. I think SEO, like, best practices are s- going to be best practices for AI- Mm … as well. And then there are- Yeah … some additional things that you can do.
Michelle: Mm.
Samantha: But you don’t want to say, “Oh, this doesn’t matter anymore. I’m not gonna work on it anymore,” or, “I’m just gonna, like, change everything and not think about what these- Mm
keywords are and how to integrate them into my site.” Because w- when you think about keywords, whether it’s AI or Google or whatever, those are still, like, the terms people are typing in. And so we want- Right … to make sure that our business is associated with the terms people are actually searching for.
Michelle: And I know that, like, the way people are searching is a little different. I always think about, like, the, the way we used to search, it wasn’t that long ago, but it feels like a long time ago, where you would just put in, like, “acupuncture Rochester.” Mm-hmm. And now people are a- talking to ChatGPT and asking super long-form, detailed questions.
And maybe not even asking about acupuncture in particular. Like, “Oh, I have these migraines, and I always get them before my period, and they’re interrupting my life, and I, I’m tired of taking medication,” or, “The rescue medication’s not working. Like, can you help me figure out what I can do?” Right? So these are much more complex questions, but we can still think about our website content and how we can make sure that the, those keywords and that content is answered on our website if that’s, you know, what we want to help with specifically.
Samantha: Yeah. And AI, like if you are using something like ChatGPT or Claude, it remembers, like it’s building its memory about you. Mm-hmm. And so when it is giving recommendations for whether it be like, “Oh, acupuncture might be a great thing to try to help with your migraines,” or, “This would be a good person to go and see,” you don’t e- like I don’t even have to type in my location.
It knows where I am. It knows that I have a son and that I have ADHD, and like it knows so much information that it can give very accurate results to like… or very relevant results, um But you’re right in that people are not typing in, like, acupuncturist near me nearly as much as they are… They’re just having a conversation that just goes, “You already kinda know all of this stuff about me.
What might I be interested in?” And it probably knows, oh, I like holistic wellness, and I don’t wanna… Like, I now have all these things already, and it’s taking all of that in order to give recommendations.
Michelle: Right. So do you feel like it is useful for us to think about writing blog posts that answer some of those long-form questions, like maybe in this context, a blog post about migraines that occur before your period, and specifically how acupuncture helps and how it’s a natural remedy where you might not have to take as much medication, or hopefully any at all.
But, like, thinking about what is this question and how can I put that info on my website so that I could be indexed as an answer to that question in AI.
Samantha: Yeah. I think blogging is still really relevant, and answering very specific questions like that, that your ideal clients are coming to you and asking, is gonna be much more helpful than- Mm-hmm
just kind of, “Here’s an introduction to acupuncture. Here’s how it works. Here’s all of the things that it might help with.” Uh- Yeah … because search engines know that information already. There’s so much out there, and you are probably not gonna be, like, the trusted source of the history of acupuncture-
because there, there are much more important, highly rated sources for that. But if you can answer very specific questions and relate it back to, like, I work with this specific group of people, um, then you are more likely to show up in, like, the answer to those questions. Mm-hmm. And at least ChatGPT, I don’t, I haven’t used Claude a ton, will cite, like, where, where they pulled this information from.
Yeah. Um, Google Search results now always have that AI summary at the top, and they are also citing, like, we pulled this information from this website, and it will quote it. So that can help you be seen as trustworthy by people who are like, “Okay. Here’s the information. That makes sense. Now I can see where this is coming from.”
Michelle: Yeah. And I think it’s helpful to be reminded, like, when we’re thinking about writing these blog posts and answering these questions, we are not hoping to be like the Mayo Clinic, the end-all- Yeah … be-all answer for this question. We are hoping- for local search results, right? So if someone within a certain radius, I don’t even know, we, we’ll just use an example of 15 miles, is asking this question about PMS and migraines, and that is something that we specifically want to work with, then having that question and answer clearly on our website can help AI choose to include us in the search results.
Samantha: Yes. ‘
Michelle: Cause something that I see, and I’m sure you see this all the time, is people will say, “Oh, I have a specialty,” but then nowhere on their website is it ever explicitly stated or im- even implied really, like, “These are the people and the symptoms and the things I wanna work with.” Instead, they’re trying to reach everybody with a really broad message.
And then the… how is AI supposed to know, like, yes, I wanna help people with their PMS migraines, if you’ve never said that on your website? Why would it choose to show you in a search result, right? Mm-hmm. Unless, unless maybe, um, you are the only acupuncturist nearby, right? And then the default might be, like, “Well, here’s an acupuncturist
Samantha: Yes.
And I did a search, like just thinking about, okay, if I were to go on AI and I were to ask questions about this to find somebody. Mm-hmm. It does list, it will say like, “Here is this acupuncturist. They are this far away from you.” Mm-hmm. “This is what they specialize in. Here’s why they might be a good fit.
Um, maybe they talk about kids, or they’ve talked about this specific condition on their website.” So it is looking at all of that. And I always think as a designer, when you are willing to say like, “This is my specialty,” it makes all of the design and messaging easier because- So much
Michelle: easier. …
Samantha: you can speak to those people when they land on your website.
It actually like resonates. You can choose images of the types of people that you want to work with. You can choose a color palette, and it doesn’t mean that you can’t work with anybody else. If people wanna work- Right … with you, they’re gonna find you. But there are so many choices now, and it’s so easy to find them, that I think having a specialty is helpful for the people that are looking at your website, but it’s also helpful for all of our robot friends.
Michelle: Yeah. It’s funny to me how at this point, like what’s helpful for humans and what’s helpful for robots is kind of the same thing, maybe for different reasons. But, and sometimes it is the same reason, right? Like, uh, but it, it’s, it’s really fascinating to me. Maybe the robots are becoming too human.
Samantha: That’s a whole other discussion.
Michelle: It really
Samantha: is. Um, but you have to remember like the goal of Google, the goal of ChatGPT, the goal of Claude when you ask it a question is to give you an answer that you, that’s going to be relevant, that’s going to answer your question- Mm … so that you come back and ask them more questions. Right. The more you come back, the more ads they can show you.
I s- I have started seeing ads on ChatGPT now. It is here.
Michelle: Interesting. I have
Samantha: not- Um … seen
Michelle: that yet.
Samantha: Yes. I, well, I was not signed into my like paid account, so it might just be on the free searches. Okay. Yeah. Um, but like they make their money- By showing you ads. Mm-hmm. And so they want you to come back and be a trustworthy source for finding information.
Michelle: Yes.
Samantha: So their goal is to answer those questions the best way that they can based on what it knows about you.
Michelle: Mm. I always ask my marketing students if they remember Ask Jeeves. And everyone, I, I mean, a lot of people are like, “Oh, yeah, I was around when Ask Jeeves…” Like, “Whatever happened to Ask Jeeves?” Well, it still exists.
How wild is that? It’s just jeeves.com now, I think. But it was not able to provide high quality answers at the same s- rate that Google was, and so Google, I mean, Google alga- algorithm was just better. Mm-hmm. And so it really overtook Ask Jeeves. And, like, if people aren’t using it, how is it gonna be funded?
Like, it needs maintenance. So it’s like Google is afraid of, of what happened to Ask Jeeves. And it cannot afford to let that happen.
Samantha: Yes.
Michelle: Yeah. I think one c- question that people ask me is about the benefit of having conditions pages versus blog pages. And we talked about this a little bit on our Instagram Live, because some people do not have a blog set up yet on their website.
And, um, in most websites, I think it is relatively easy to turn on that feature or to add that feature. But sometimes people are like, “Well, why c- can I just write, like, conditions pages?” So I think those conditions pages are very important, but can you talk about, like, the difference between conditions pages and blog posts, and how we might use them, that kinda thing?
Samantha: Yeah. I see a conditions page as, like, this is kind of a list of the ways that I can help you. At most, I’m gonna give you, like, a two to three paragraph max explanation of, like, what that might look like, how it can help. Um, and so it’s kind of a, it’s a summary. It’s a landing page. A blog is where you can get into details.
You can cite sources. You can give examples. You can tie it back to the types of clients that you really want to work with. And so I think if we think about the blog po- the blog post to me is, like, that’s where you write all of that information that you have in your head and you wanna get out to people.
Yeah. But they’re not gonna read that on, like, the main landing page of your website before they decide to click on a consultation button.
Michelle: Mm.
Samantha: Uh, blogs are going to be the way that people get, get introduced to you and realize that you have an expertise in this. And then something like a conditions page is, they’re just checking to make sure that, like, you have worked with people who have this same thing.
What is nice and what I do try to do more and more is link between the two. So if you have a conditions page that listed, lists migraines, infertility, and then you have blog posts about the same things, you can link those things. Um, like link the condition name to the blog post so that people are, can go and explore it, but also all of the kind of back end Google robots can say, “Oh, these are connected.”
Like, they say they do this, now I have a blog post to prove that they do this, and maybe I s- also can find a testimonial that says that they work with this specific condition.
Michelle: Hmm.
Samantha: And so it’s trying to gather, like, all of the information it can to see whether you are actually an expert in something or if you have just put up a website and you’re saying, “Oh, I can do this,” but there’s no proof of that anywhere.
Michelle: Gotcha. That kind of sounds like the expertise and authority piece. What is it? E-E- Mm-hmm … A-T, uh- Yeah … experience, expertise, authority, and trust. And Google really is looking for those things to determine i- if, if your website is a good answer to a search query, like should it show you at the top. Taking a quick break to remind you of today’s sponsor, Faire Wholesale.
If you’ve been thinking about adding retail to your clinic, Faire makes it easy to get started without the upfront risk. You can shop over 100,000 independent brands with low or no minimums, and you’ll get free returns for 60 days on your first order with any brand. That means you can try products in your clinic, and if they don’t sell, you can send them back for a refund.
You can also filter by values like organic, handmade, or not sold on Amazon. Head to Faire to start curating your retail offerings. I’ll put the link in the show notes. And don’t forget to use code AMS10 to save an extra 10% if your first order happens to be over $400, and I’ll put the code in the show notes for you as well.
All right. Let’s get back to this conversation with Samantha.
Samantha: And AI is doing the same thing.
Michelle: Hmm.
Samantha: We, I mean, we live in a world where we can create so much with AI now, and that people have lost a lot of trust in things like just a testimonial you have on your website.
Michelle: Sure.
Samantha: Or, you know, vide- I mean, everything can be done with AI right now.
Yeah. And so what it is trying to do is go through and see, okay, this person says that they have a degree from here and a certification from here. I would like to check to make sure that that’s actually true, and they’re not just making this stuff up. I want to see that their testimonials are from real people.
So if I can verify that it’s a real name or a real business, maybe they have- Hmm … something similar over on Google Reviews. It’s kind of connecting all of the pieces in a way that Google isn’t, where it is gonna pull information from your website, your social media, your profile on this website and pulled all of that together to say, “Yes, this is a trustworthy person who has credentials that could help with the concern somebody is bringing me.”
Michelle: Mm. Yeah. And in the Instagram Live, you even mentioned, like, when you are talking about your credentials on your About page, for example, that, that we should, like, spell it out instead of using our abbreviations to give AI the opportunity to actually read, like, licensed acupuncturist instead of LAC. Um, and then link to the universities that we went to or the, like, the, the national board from where you got your, your certification, those kinds of things, so that AI can actually, like, follow that thread and say- Mm-hmm
like, “Okay, they say they went to this school, and here it is. Here’s a school.” Caveat, my school doesn’t exist anymore. Actually, many acupuncture schools- … don’t exist anymore. But still, doing as much as you can to, like, link back to the source of your authority to just help it make those connections. And we had also talked about how the World Wide Web is a web.
Mm-hmm. And, like, all of those links really do connect and they help. They’re… W- we really wanna help Google and AI understand our business and who we can help, and we do that by creating this web of links that is, like, supporting everything that we are saying.
Samantha: Yeah. When we can link to other sites that are trustworthy, that tells them, “Okay,” like, “this is legitimate information.”
Like, if you are citing a source in a blog post that you wrote, and you can link back to, like, the actual article that- Mm … that came from, that’s really helpful. Um, and then if you can also get links back to your website from trustworthy sources. So sometimes that is, like, a profile directory. This is why a lot of therapists who are on Psychology Today will link to their, that profile.
Mm. And they want the profile to link back to the website. Because it’s such a trusted resource- Yeah … they want to say, “Yes. Look, here I am. I am here.” Like, these people actually verify things, um, or at least that’s what people assume. Right. If you can get links from other trusted sources, that’s also really helpful because- Mm-hmm
it’s just building that whole kind of big foundational piece of this person is trustworthy, they know what they’re doing, other people trust them, um, and I can really get to understand their expertise and their audience and make sure that when somebody is asking a question, I’m giving the m- most relevant result that’s gonna get them what they need.
Michelle: Mm. Yeah, and I think people are always asking me, uh, you know, like is it worth it to be a member of the local chamber of commerce? And they’re thinking about it from a networking perspective because not too many people are, like, thrilled about the idea of networking or, like- … classical networking. And one of the things I mention is I can almost guarantee if you are a paying chamber of commerce member, they have a directory on their website which is a, a local authority.
You know, it’s not like Yelp or Psychology Today, but it’s a big list of local businesses- Mm-hmm … and they are gonna include your website, right? So that is giving you a pretty strong local link, which is helpful. So, you know, that’s just one thing that you are paying for for a chamber of commerce. And there are other, you know, um, authoritative websites that you could get links to.
One reason that I love to do AcuYoga classes is because every time I host a class with the local yoga studio, they will create a blog post about it, and they will link to my website, right? The- Mm-hmm … they’ll explain, like, “So-and-so is gonna be the yoga teacher for the yoga portion of this class, and then the acupuncture portion will be done by Michelle Grasek of Seneca Falls Acupuncture,” and then they link to my website.
So it’s, like, kind of creative thinking. Like, where can I get those links from other local sources to help support the proof that- Yeah … that we’re real, and this is something that we do, and this is a trusted source in the community who also trusts me, right? They’re extending that trust.
Samantha: Yeah. Yeah. And for people who don’t feel like they’re ready to join that, maybe they don’t have connections or whatever- Mm
you can still do something similar by making sure your Google business profile is set up and is filled out and links to your website.
Michelle: Mm.
Samantha: You can make sure- Yeah … you’ve got your social media profiles that also say that you do the same things are in, and are in the same location with a link to your website.
Um, so it’s, it’s looking at all of those places to see, is this all consistent? Like, are, is everything up to date? We wanna make sure that kind of- We are in charge of our online presence everywhere we can be, and that everything is as up-to-date as possible.
Michelle: Yeah, and all of these things are really just standard SEO practices.
They’ve always been good practice for a long time. So I hope that’s reassuring for people, that even though AI is new and it is always changing, it is still relying on the SEO structures that are considered pretty standard. So that is not new, and it’s still, you know, if it’s work you’re spending time doing, it is still meaningful and effective.
Samantha: Yeah. And I think what I like to tell people is you can go to ChatGPT or Claude or whoever you wanna use in a signed-out window, so you are- Mm-hmm … not in your account. It doesn’t know anything about you. Yeah. And you can say like, “What can you tell me about my business?” And see if the information is accurate.
Yeah. Um, you can see where it’s pulling information from. It’ll say like, “Oh, I got this from Facebook and this from Instagram and this from their website.” That’s a good place to start because if you find anything that isn’t accurate, you know where to go and fix that. Um, that could be really helpful. And then you can start to say, “Okay, I know that all this stuff is up to date.
Maybe I look for like, can you help me find an acupuncturist in this area?” And does your name come up as one of the recommendations? Or if you ask it like, “Oh, would you recommend this person?” Sometimes ChatGPT will be like, “Yeah, that would be a great option because of this, this, and this.” Or it might say something like, “Well, I think they’re okay, but these other ones might be more trustworthy because I’ve seen these things.”
And it can tell you kind of like, what could I do to be- Mm … more trustworthy. I think that’s a lot more effective than what I’ve seen a lot of my clients do, is they go to chat and they say, “I wanna show up for acupuncture in this area. How can I do that?” And chat will be like, “Well, you should just write that you’re the best acupuncturist all over your website.”
“And you should do the…” And I’m like, “That’s, that’s not good advice.” It’s just trying to give you something. I don’t know. But like, you know.
Michelle: It’s trying to hack the system, whether that’s-
Samantha: Right … effective or not. Which does not work. Yeah. We’re not keyword stuffing. We’re not doing- Right … any of those things.
So I think it’s more effective k- to kind of back into it and see what does it know, who is it recommending, and why is it recommending them- Mm … and how can I kind of recreate that on my own site, as opposed to like, what can I do to make my site show up? A lot of times that advice is just not gonna be as effective.
Michelle: Yeah. I, I really love the idea of asking it to show you, like pull it up, like who would, who do you recommend in my area? And if you are not in that list, figure out what it, what are those people doing that you’re not doing, and then seeing how can you engineer that for yourself. Um, I did recently, um, take your advice and ask…
I was signed out of my ChatGPT account, and I was asking it questions about my business. I think I asked it to do like a summary, like you just said. Mm-hmm. Like, “What can you tell me about blah, blah, blah?” And I, it was really odd. So we have, like, I think we have 109 reviews on Google. And it came back and said, a- among other things that were mostly accurate, it said we had 80 reviews on Google.
And I was like, “Wait, what?” Rude. I’m like, “What is, where is that coming from?” But I was actually able to click through ’cause it showed me the source, and there was one page on my website where it said that we had 80 reviews. Right. It hadn’t been updated in, like, a year and a half, and I thought it was strange because w- I, I do try to mention, like, over 100 reviews on Google, over 100 five-star blah, blah, blah on different pages on my website.
It’s maybe on three different pages. So, like, why did it choose to ignore the information on those other pages, and it just pulled this one page that said 80, right? But it was like, uh, sometimes I c- it’s, like, unfathomable- … how it’s making these decisions, and that’s okay because if you’re asking it enough of the right questions, you can see what’s not correct, and then you can click through to the source and say, “Oh, wow, on this page it does say 80.
That needs to be fixed,” right? And then over time, hopefully, when people are asking that question, it will realize, like, “Oh, okay, that page has been updated,” right? It’s been indexed. Now it says 100. But you can’t know those things unless you’re playing around with it and asking- Yeah … those questions.
Samantha: Yeah, absolutely.
And AI does seem to be a little bit faster in getting updated information than Google- Mm-hmm … is. Google can sometimes take a couple of months to, like-
Michelle: Yeah …
Samantha: really start showing results to people. AI does seem to be more responsive to changes, which is good news, and it is really helpful to kind of trace it back and see, like, “Okay, what might not be accurate?
How can I fix that?” Sometimes it’s just being more specific, going back to, like, your niche. If you can be very cl- if it doesn’t know, maybe you need to be clearer on who you work with and, like- Hmm … the types of conditions you see. And I like to do it in a way, if I’m like, “Okay, I’m gonna update my website,” I wanna make sure that, yes, it helps out ChatGPT, and robots, and all of that, but I also wanna make sure that when somebody lands on my site, they are seeing themselves in- Hmm
okay, yes, these are the concerns that I have, and these are like, they are calling out the things that I’m experiencing, so that when the actual person gets there who’s gonna make the decision, they, it’s resonating with them. Um, because generally we’re not at the point where we’re just blindly trusting it and saying, “Okay, call that person from my chat, GPT chat.”
Um, they’re still gonna go to your website. They’re still going to look through it, and that’s gonna help them make a decision. They’re just starting with more information and less people that they have to look through.
Michelle: Right. Yeah. And something interesting that I think is developing is people will, like, they’ll ask ChatGPT a question.
They’ll see that your website is a potential option, so they’ll read the summary, but then they’ll say, “Okay, I wanna investigate more,” like you’re saying. They’ll click through. But then they also seem to be visiting, like, Instagram and TikTok f- because they want to see video. Because, like, w- when we’re thinking about, like, oh, there’s lots of AI-generated stuff everywhere, what is still, like, probably the most accurate picture of what it is like to be in your office, to work with you, to meet you and talk with you?
That would be, in many cases, video on social media, right? ‘Cause most of us are not releasing AI-generated video- … of our businesses or, like, talking head videos of ourselves that are actually created by ChatGPT. It c- I think people would know and be totally turned off by that, so-
Samantha: Oh, yeah …
Michelle: popping over to social media can be a really nice way to do this, like, extra step of confirmation of, like, you know, your website is professional and it says you can help me.
Now what would it actually be like to work with you or chat with you? So it is, it’s just, like, so many layers of research that people are doing to confirm, because the trust that we have on what’s available on the internet has become so low.
Samantha: Yeah, definitely recommend. And it’s hard to, like, trace that map without lots of tracking that we don’t wanna get involved with.
Um, but, like, people are probably encountering your business in multiple places before they ever decide to reach out because- Mm-hmm … they want to see not only, like, are you credentialed, but do you feel like a personality fit? Yeah. Does this feel like a place that I wanna go? Mm-hmm. Do you seem like a real person?
Yeah. Um, and so being on social media, as annoying as it is sometimes, is important, especially the talking head videos that people don’t like to do because- Yeah … people want to kind of get an idea of who you are and, like, what your personality is, what it’s gonna be like to work with you, and just kind of verify, like, yes, this is a real person.
Mm-hmm. They actually know what they’re talking about. And I think all of those pieces are gonna work more and more together as people really feel like, “Okay, I’ve got to verify this information before I reach out.” I think that’s another reason that, like, free consultations can be so helpful, is you’re getting- Mm-hmm
somebody on the phone or you’re talking to them over video, and they’re seeing an actual person who’s answering questions. I have– I do a free website review for people, and I had somebody jump on a sales call afterwards, and she was like, “Did you… Like, was the review AI?” And I was like, “No, the review was me.”
She hadn’t watched the video yet, so, ’cause she would’ve known.
Michelle: I was gonna say, you did a review for me. Yes. Was it last year? Mm-hmm. I’m like, your, your little talking head is there- Yes … in the corner, so it definitely was you. She, she didn’t
Samantha: watch the video. Okay. But, like, I was like, “No, I actually do this.”
But people are really trying to verify that, like-
Michelle: Yes …
Samantha: you are doing the things, you’re gonna be the one that I’m working with. Um, I think that’s another thing when you have a group practice- Yeah … is they wanna know information about all of the people that they might be encountering and working with. So they, they want to see those people on your website and on your social media as well.
Michelle: Hmm. Yeah. And I think when there’s not enough information in any sense, human, the human brain kind of, like, fills it in. Right? And so what we wanna do is if they’re gonna be imagining things about our practice regardless, we wanna fill it in with the most accurate information that we can. Because it’s really hard, and I, again, I see this a lot if I am, if I’m doing, like, an audit of people’s digital marketing, like, you know, big bird’s-eye view, is they will have one pretty old photo of themselves on their About page, and then absolutely no images or video of themselves on their social media.
And so that just creates this weird vacuum where-
Samantha: Mm-hmm …
Michelle: it’s clear that the picture is, like, 10 years old, and the, it’s, it, it’s just really hard to relate and build a connection. There’s that vacuum where they just begin to fill in, like, “I don’t know if I will connect with this person.” So it’s, I think it’s so simple.
Even if someone is not that interested in, like, committing to Instagram video, still creating some video with you in it and then pinning it at the top-
Samantha: Yeah …
Michelle: so that it’s easy for people to access, and they just at least get a little taste so they are not filling that vacuum with doubts and worries.
Instead, they’re like, “Oh, actually, this person really seems to know what they’re talking about, and they seem, I don’t know, kind and compassionate, and I could tell them my health journey.”
Samantha: Yeah. And I think we need to remember, like, this younger generation, I, I don’t know what it is. I can’t keep up with what the generations are called.
But like- Oh,
Michelle: me either.
Samantha: Yeah. But they are now in a place where they can make health decisions. They’re 18 and over. Yeah. They are looking for people, and they’ve been online their entire lives. Wow. And so it is very different than what we experience, like the professional headshot that we took 10 years ago.
Yeah. And you might kind of still look like that. That’s not gonna fly with those- Mm-hmm … types of, uh, clients. And so we’re, we are gonna have to start to kind of adjust how we do our marketing.
Michelle: Yeah. Uh, this is a small tangent before I ask you my last question for today, but I learned recently that I’m considered an elder millennial, because I was born in ’85, so at the beginning of what is considered millennial apparently.
And all that makes me think about is, like, I, it, it literally makes me feel like I’m several millennia old. Like I’m a vampire or something who’s existed since, like, the Roman times. I’m like, oh my goodness. What a, what a comical name.
Samantha: Yep. Yeah. I, I mean, we were born in the 1900s,
Michelle: so. My goodness. Yes, every once in a while we will get a patient who was born in like 2005, and I’m like, “That was, I’m, that was like yesterday.”
I’m like, “No, no, that person is a grownup.”
Samantha: Yeah.
Michelle: Wild.
Samantha: Yeah.
Michelle: Anyway, my last question for you is, uh, the same question that I always ask, ’cause you have been on the podcast several times now, and that is, what is your definition of success?
Samantha: I think mine has shifted, uh, so I don’t remember- … the answer I gave last time, but- That’s okay
I have a now first grader, almost second grader. Mm-hmm.
Michelle: Yeah.
Samantha: Um, and so for me, success is like I get to work on my business and do what I love while he is at school, and then when he gets home, I get to hang out with him. And I don’t have to worry about getting stuck on my computer trying to answer emails and chase things down.
Michelle: Mm-hmm.
Samantha: Um, and really kind of be present when that comes up. But I also get to feed myself with doing work that I love.
Michelle: Mm, I love that. That’s so nice. It’s a good balance.
Samantha: We, I try.
Michelle: So if people would like to work with you, where can they find you online? How do they reach out to you?
Samantha: Yeah, my website is lemonandthesea.com, and my Instagram is lemonandthesea.
Those are the places that I’m usually, like, most active in posting. Um, and I do have that free website review- Mm … at lemonandthesea.com/review, where I just go in and make some suggestions on how you might improve the design and conversions in SEO.
Michelle: Awesome, and it is a, um, it is a very, really pretty thorough and helpful, uh, review.
Awesome. So we’ll make sure we’ll include that link in the show notes as well. Well, thank you so much for coming on here, and on Instagram earlier this week. I really appreciate it.
Samantha: All right. It was so fun.
Michelle: All right, before we wrap up, one more thank you to today’s sponsor, Faire Wholesale. If you’d like to explore adding retail to your clinic, you can browse over 100,000 independent brands with low order minimums and low risk.
Check out the link in the show notes, and use my code AMS10 to save 10% if your first order happens to be over $400. As always, thank you for being here, and I’ll talk to you soon.