Your Best Customers Can Now Boost You in AI Search

Google quietly flipped a switch last week that matters more for your shop than it sounds. It’s called Preferred Sources — and now, when someone gets one of those AI answers at the top of a search, the sites they’ve personally marked as favorites show up first, with a little badge. Google says people are about twice as likely to click a source they’ve chosen.

Here’s why that matters for a small store. You are never going to out-SEO Pottery Barn — and you don’t have to win that race. In AI search, your loyal regulars can each tap one button that tells Google “show me more from her,” and suddenly, for them, you’re the badged answer sitting above the big chains. Loyalty just became a ranking signal.

And it’s not just for news sites anymore — any shop counts. The ask takes your customer about ten seconds: go to google.com/preferences/source, search your shop’s name, and tap to add it. So tell them. Put it in your next email, post it once, say it at the register: “If you love us, here’s how to make Google show you more of us.”

This is the kind of small, do-it-once move I keep hunting for you — the change that quietly pays off all year. It’s the same reason I’m building my stores their own pages right now: so when a shopper asks AI where to buy, it finds you.

The big chains are spending millions to win the AI answer. You can win it with the people who already love you — one tap at a time.

xoxo,
❤️ AmyFay

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