ADVISOR MARKETING

Susan Theder

Some advisors show up more than others in artificial intelligence searches. Here’ s why.

’ M GUESSING YOU’ VE ALREADY HAD A CLIENT SHOW UP TO A MEETING with a list of questions, or a retirement projection, or a portfolio critique that was suspiciously sophisticated, perhaps too much so for them to have come up with it on their own.

That’ s because nowadays clients and prospects are using artificial intelligence to research advisors, compare options, and prepare for conversations before they ever pick up the phone.

You shouldn’ t take this development as a threat to your relationships. But it does raise a more immediate question: When someone asks ChatGPT about retirement planning( or Social Security timing or how to handle a sudden inheritance), are you and your firm coming up in the AI query results in the first place? I’ m not talking about your mere appearance in an advisor search. I’ m talking about how you pop up when people are actually searching for answers to financial questions.

In the past, you might have thought to stick out among your competitors on the internet by having a great website design or by competing on great content. But now you’ re competing on a different set of signals entirely, something you and other advisors likely haven’ t heard of, much less optimized your site for.

That’ s the gap“ answer engine optimization” is designed to close.“ AEO” is the practice of making your website and digital presence findable by AI search tools so they surface and cite you when someone asks a relevant question. Previously, you hoped to merely come up directly in Google searches( which you achieved through search engine optimization, or SEO). Answer engine optimization, by contrast, determines whether you show up in artificial intelligence queries.

That means auditing your internet presence to see which factors AI tools are actually giving weight to, whether it’ s reviews of your services or mentions by third parties.

I’ ve created a score card that you can use to give weight to each factor and determine how much it influences whether you get cited in a query. I’ m using a point system, and a perfect score is 100.

Reviews And Social Proof( 25 points)

This is the heaviest-weighted category, and the one where most advisors are losing points even if they don’ t realize it. According to TrustPilot, a company that operates a review website, businesses with active review profiles on third-party platforms are cited in AI answers 75 % of the time, while those companies with no presence come up in only 1 % of searches. Separate research by Passionfruit, a company that helps firms with their AI marketing, found that having profiles on platforms like Google gives a brand three times higher citation probability in AI results.

Here are some practical ways to start building your presence:

• Claim and actively maintain your Google Business Profile if you haven’ t already.

• You can then use tools that automatically collect and platform customer feedback and reviews, tools like FMG Testimonials, Birdeye, or Grade. us.

• You should prioritize your most recent, substantive reviews. A handful of current ones carry more weight than a large volume of old ones.

Earned Media And Third-Party Mentions( 25 points)

This category gets equal weight because media exposure is just as important as client testimonials. Also, these resources demonstrate the fundamental shift in the ways AI tools assess your credibility: You get far more traction online from what others say about you than from what you say about yourself. When a publication, podcast, industry directory, or association mentions your name and links back to your site, AI systems use those signals to verify that you are who you say you are. Advisors thus benefit from media ex-

18 | FINANCIAL ADVISOR MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2026 WWW. FA-MAG. COM