Break Room / Launch
Getting found when people ask AI instead of Google
Frank's take
A lot of people now get their answer from an AI summary and never click anything. For a small business, ranking first matters less than being the name the answer mentions. Write plain answers to the exact questions your buyers ask, and put them where the AI tools are reading.
What changed
Pew Research Center looked at the Google searches of 900 U.S. adults in March 2025. When Google showed an AI summary, people clicked a regular search result in 8% of visits. Without a summary, they clicked in 15%. They clicked a source inside the summary in 1% of visits.
Questions and longer searches got AI summaries far more often: 60% of searches that started with who, what, when or why produced one. These numbers are from March 2025, and AI answers have spread since, so treat them as a snapshot.
What it means for a side hustle
General questions (“how often should I feed a turtle”) send fewer people to websites now, because the answer appears right there. Searches from people ready to buy (“turtle food subscription”) still send clicks, and those are the visitors you want anyway. The goal is to be named in the answer for the first kind and clicked for the second.
Answer the questions yourself
Take the questions from Is anyone searching for this? (the “People also ask” box is the list) and answer each one on your site in two or three plain sentences. Say who it's for, what it costs and where you are. Put each question in its own heading. SideFrog's “Answer the questions” prompt drafts these for you.
Be where the answers come from
In Pew's data, the sites cited most often in AI summaries and in regular results were Wikipedia, YouTube and Reddit. For a side hustle, that points to two things you can do: a short YouTube video that answers one question well, and honest, helpful posts in the subreddits your buyers read. If you're local, keep your Google Business Profile complete and ask happy customers for reviews.
Nobody reads the deck after the all-hands. They remember who got mentioned.
Make your site easy for machines to read
- A page title that says what you do and for whom.
- One sentence near the top that says the same thing in plain words.
- Your FAQ marked up as FAQ structured data, matching the visible text.
- An llms.txt file that lists your pages with a one-line description each. It's a young convention, not something Google has said it uses, but it's cheap to add.
Check yourself once a month
Ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity the question a buyer would ask, like “who delivers turtle food near Sacramento” or “best turtle food subscription.” Write down whether you show up, and who does. The ones who show up are doing something you can learn from.
Got an idea? SideFrog gives you a straight verdict, who'd pay, a first test to run and names with an open .com, in about ten seconds.
Check your ideaWant help building it? Mark helps people vibe code their first site with AI. Pick a time with Mark or message him on LinkedIn.
Questions people ask
Is SEO still worth doing for a side hustle?
Yes. The basics that help Google (clear titles, plain answers, pages people find useful) are the same things that get you mentioned in AI answers.
Should I pay for an “AEO” service?
Not while you're testing an idea. Answering your buyers' questions clearly on your own site and showing up where they ask is most of the work, and you can do it yourself.
Should I block AI crawlers?
If you want AI tools to mention you, they need to be able to read your site. Blocking them is a choice some publishers make, but it works against a small business trying to get found.
Does this matter if I only sell on Etsy?
Less, because buyers search inside Etsy. A simple site with your FAQ still helps people who ask an AI tool before they shop.
Sources
Last checked October 3, 2026.