I moved to St. George about a year ago. I didn’t know a single person here. No local network, no referral pipeline, no friend who owns a contracting company and sends work my way. I don’t post on Instagram. My LinkedIn is basically a placeholder.

I also have no Google reviews. Zero. The domain is about five months old. I have maybe 15 referring domains, and most of them are directory listings I set up myself.

By every traditional SEO metric, I should be invisible. And right now, mostly, I am.

But I sell AI search optimization for a living. I tell my clients that if we do the right work — structured data, entity signals, programmatic content, answer-based architecture — their customers will find them through ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews.

So I’m going to prove it on myself. In public. With a specific claim I can either hit or miss.

The claim

Within 90 days (by June 28, 2026), Tech Ridge SEO will be recommended by ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews when someone asks about SEO, web design, or AI search optimization in St. George, Utah or Southern Utah.

Not “we’ll improve our rankings.” Not “we’ll see some impressions.” We will be named as an answer by an AI search engine. Verifiable by anyone reading this, right now, for free.

That’s the bet. Here’s why I think it’s possible, and why I know it’s hard.

What I’m working against

Let me be honest about the starting position, because most agencies won’t tell you this stuff:

Domain age: ~5 months. Google treats young domains with suspicion. There’s a sandbox effect where new sites struggle to rank regardless of content quality. AI search engines may be less sensitive to this, but it still matters.

Zero Google reviews. Reviews are a massive local ranking signal. Every competitor in St. George has them. I don’t. This is the biggest gap.

No backlink profile. I haven’t done any link building. No guest posts, no PR, no partnerships. A handful of directory links, and that’s it.

No local network. I’m not a St. George native. I don’t have relationships with other business owners who would naturally link to me or recommend me. The chamber of commerce doesn’t know I exist.

Low brand awareness. Nobody searches for “Tech Ridge SEO” yet. Google has no query data to associate with my brand. ChatGPT has probably never seen my business name in any context.

These are real disadvantages. Anyone who tells you SEO is easy in 2026 isn’t being straight with you. It’s harder than it’s ever been, especially for a new business with no social proof.

What I have going for me

200 programmatic pages. I built pages for 40 industries across 10 Southern Utah cities. “Plumber AI search St. George,” “dentist AI search Hurricane,” “realtor AI search Ivins.” Each page has industry-specific FAQs, schema markup, and content about why that type of business isn’t showing up in AI search. This is a lot of content pointing back at my services.

Structured data on every page. LocalBusiness schema with full NAP information, geo coordinates, service descriptions, and areaServed definitions. The kind of machine-readable information that AI search engines actually parse and cite.

39 blog posts about AI search, local SEO, and GEO. Written by a person, not generated by an algorithm.

llms.txt — a file that tells AI crawlers who we are and what we do. Takes 10 minutes to create, most businesses still don’t have one.

Fast site. Astro framework, static HTML, no JavaScript bloat. Core Web Vitals are solid.

The content matches the service. My site is literally about AI search optimization. Every page reinforces that signal. If AI search engines are going to recommend someone for this service in Southern Utah, the data points in my direction.

The baseline — March 28, 2026

Here’s where we stand today. No spin. No selective reporting.

Google Search Console:

[Screenshot placeholder: GSC dashboard — impressions, clicks, indexed pages, average position for past 28 days]

Google Analytics:

[Screenshot placeholder: GA4 — sessions, traffic sources, past 30 days]

Google SERP for “SEO company St. George Utah”:

[Screenshot placeholder: Who shows up — note whether Tech Ridge appears anywhere]

ChatGPT when asked “who does SEO in St. George Utah?”:

[Screenshot placeholder: Full response — note whether Tech Ridge is mentioned]

ChatGPT when asked “who does web design near Zion National Park?”:

[Screenshot placeholder: Full response]

Perplexity when asked “AI search optimization Southern Utah”:

[Screenshot placeholder: Full response]

Google AI Overview for “SEO company St. George Utah”:

[Screenshot placeholder: If AI Overview appears, capture it]

My expectation: none of these will recommend Tech Ridge SEO today. That’s the point. We start at zero and document the climb.

The plan — what happens next

Weeks 1-2: The 200 programmatic pages I just pushed need to be crawled and indexed. I’ll watch GSC for indexation progress. I’ll also make sure Google My Business is fully set up and start asking my existing clients (I have 3) for reviews.

Weeks 3-6: Monitor for early signals. Impression growth in GSC. Pages moving from “discovered, not indexed” to “indexed.” Any movement on target keywords. I’ll start some light link building — local directories, maybe a guest post or two.

Weeks 7-10: This is where I expect to see real movement. The programmatic pages should be indexed and starting to rank for long-tail queries. The entity signals should be getting picked up by AI crawlers.

Week 12 (June 28): The verdict. I’ll screenshot everything again. GSC growth, AI search responses, Google SERP position. Either Tech Ridge SEO is recommended by an AI search engine, or it isn’t. I’ll publish the results either way.

Update schedule

I’ll add a timestamped section to this post every 2-4 weeks:

GSC data — impressions, clicks, indexed pages, position changes
AI search screenshots — fresh captures from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI
What worked — specific actions that produced results
What didn’t — things I tried that made no difference
What I’m doing next — upcoming changes between updates

Why I’m doing this publicly

Because you’re here. You found this page somehow — through search, through AI, maybe through a link someone shared.

If my methods work, you found me the same way your customers will find you after we work together. That’s not a pitch. It’s a prediction you can verify yourself by checking back on this page.

If you’re a Southern Utah business owner wondering whether AI search optimization is real or just another buzzword — I’m testing it on my own business right now, in public, with no safety net. A five-month-old domain, zero reviews, no local connections. If I can make this work under those conditions, imagine what we can do for a business that already has customers, reviews, and local reputation.

Want to see how it goes? Bookmark this page. I’ll update it whether the news is good or bad.

Want to stop waiting? Let’s talk. 15 minutes, no pitch deck. I’ll look at your site and tell you what I’d do first. Because the fact that you’re reading this means the method is already working.

Mike is the founder of Tech Ridge SEO, a one-person web design and AI search optimization shop in St. George, Utah. No team, no sales reps, no account managers. Just Mike, a laptop, and a bet that doing the right technical work produces real results.