Ecommerce SEO agency for your brand's word of mouth, wherever shoppers look
A shopper tells ChatGPT what they want, what it's for and what it has to do. Today it's a backpack that fits under an airline seat, at a price they've already picked, and next they'll describe it again in Google's AI Mode.
One shopper's sentence, and the backpack that fits both needs never gets named
Behind the scenes, the AI assistant turned one sentence into four searches. Here's what decided which backpack got named.
- Guides and roundups answered the questions about the kind of backpack and the airline size.
- The price and the under-seat fit decided it, and the shopper said both in one breath.
- The brand that fits both never came up, because neither fact is written on its product page.
I need a travel backpack under 150 dollars that has a laptop sleeve and fits as a personal item on most airlines, what are the best options
best travel backpack with laptop sleeve personal item size
Backpack category guideTravel gear rounduptravel backpack under 150 dollars
Price comparison pageBudget gear roundupbackpack fits as personal item on airlines dimensions
Airline sizing guideCarry-on dimensions list[your brand] travel backpack reviews
Brand ABrand BYour brand
Simulated example with fictional businesses, shown to illustrate how one question is answered.
Shoppers ask AI what to buy
More product searches now run through ChatGPT and Google's AI as well as through Google and Amazon. The two numbers on the right show how far that's reached. The answers lean on product facts like sizes, materials and what each product is for. Facts that live only in an image or a size chart are hard for anyone to quote.
- 44%
- of US online shoppers mostly start their product search in an LLM or split their search between AI tools and traditional search engines.
- 35%
- of shoppers say they have already used generative AI guidance while shopping.
Bain and Company, "Your Next Customer Will Find You Using AI. Now What?", published April 7, 2026. Bain Generative AI US Consumer Survey, n=1,500, fielded September 2025. Vendor research: Bain sells consulting. Coveo with Arlington Research, "Shoppers Say Yes to GenAI This Holiday Season," released September 11, 2025. n=6,000 adult consumers in the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand, fielded June 2025. Vendor research: Coveo sells commerce search software.
Three reasons AI doesn't name your product
AI recommends products it can compare. It can't compare yours.
A shopper asks for the best option with three must-haves. The AI assistant reads product pages, picks the ones where the specs, the ingredients, the use and the price are written out plainly, and hands those back. If your product page shows that in an image, a pop-up or a mood instead of a sentence, AI can't compare you and doesn't try.
What makes you different reads like a feeling, not a fact.
Best-selling. Award-winning. Loved by thousands. AI can't check any of those. It can check what you're made of, what you do that the next closest product doesn't, and what you're best for. The brand whose difference is a fact gets named. The one whose difference is an adjective doesn't.
You sell on a marketplace, and the marketplace gets the credit.
When the AI assistant pulls from a marketplace listing, the credit goes to the marketplace. You show up as stock inside someone else's answer, same as a hotel on a booking site. Brands that also have their own clear product pages show up as themselves, which is the difference between being recommended and being resold.
We put your product facts where Google and ChatGPT can compare them: what each product is made of, what it's for and what sets it apart, on your own product pages first. A brand shoppers recognize is easier to choose, to our minds, so we go after answers that name your brand, rather than the marketplace that resells it.
SEO and AI search services for online and DTC brands
Plate Lunch Collective is an AI SEO agency that gets brands named when buyers ask, in search, on social, and in AI. We run ecommerce SEO on the product and category pages where shoppers decide and buy, built around the sizes, materials, uses and prices they ask about. Beyond your store, we line up your Google Shopping listings and videos with those pages, and reach out to the retailers, reviewers and creators in your category.
AI SEO / GEO
A shopper gives the AI assistant three must-haves, and we make sure your specs, ingredients and uses are there for it to compare.
AI SEO / GEOEntity SEO
Sold through a marketplace, you show up as stock inside someone else's listing, and the AI assistant gives the marketplace the credit.
Entity SEOAnswer Engine Optimization
Best-selling and loved by thousands cannot be checked. What it is made of and what it does that the next option doesn't can.
AEOCitation-Ready Content
Product facts written out on your own pages, so the comparison has something of yours to work from.
Citation-ready contentSocial Search Optimization
Shoppers search TikTok and YouTube for the product in use. A clip shows it. It doesn't say what it's made of.
Social searchAI Search Game Plan
Which product questions name your brand and which hand the shopper to a marketplace, so you know what to fix first.
AI Search Game Plan
What do the AI assistants say about you?
Tell us about the business, and the first conversation starts from the answer. We'll come back within one business day.
The cart ships anywhere. Your brand still needs one clear home
Online and DTC brands based in Hawaii, across the mainland United States and Canada, and in the Caribbean and Central America, each with one clear address AI can point shoppers to.
Questions ecommerce brands ask
We get most of our sales from Amazon and our own site already works fine. Why does this matter?
Amazon works, and it works for Amazon. When a shopper asks an AI assistant for the best product in your category, it works from what it finds across the web. If the richest description of your product lives on Amazon, the recommendation names Amazon and your brand appears as inventory inside their answer. Your own site is where you show up as yourself, with your name on the recommendation instead of the marketplace's. Both channels work. Only one of them builds your brand.
We have a marketing team running ads and content. They don't know anything about AI search. Do you work with existing teams?
Paid, email and content keep a marketing team busy, so it makes sense AI search hasn't made anyone's list yet. We take on the specialist work: ecommerce SEO on your product and category pages, comparison pages built on what shoppers ask, outreach to the reviewers and roundup writers in your category, and measuring what moves. Along the way we explain the reasons, so your team knows what to keep doing. Your people keep the day-to-day, and we keep checking the searches and AI answers that matter to you.
Our product pages already have all the details. Why isn't that enough?
It depends on where the details are and what form they take. Ingredients in an image. Specs in a dropdown that loads after the page. Differences between versions explained nowhere. The details exist, but Google and ChatGPT can miss them where they sit. We rebuild those pages so every detail a shopper compares sits on the page itself, with comparison and FAQ sections built on what shoppers ask, so Google and ChatGPT can put you next to a competitor.
How will we know if this is helping orders?
You judge the work by your own orders. Before the work starts, we make sure those numbers can be counted and record where they stand, then look at what ChatGPT and Google's AI are saying about you each month and set your numbers beside those starting figures each quarter, whether they've moved or not.
How we measure the workWe have hundreds of SKUs. Does every product page need to be optimized?
No. Start with the products that matter, the ones you want to be known for, the ones where you have a differentiator, and the ones where a shopper is most likely to ask an AI assistant for a recommendation. A brand with five clear hero products beats a brand with five hundred pages AI can't read. Depth on the products that matter is worth more than breadth across a catalog.
We're a small DTC brand nobody has heard of. Is this only for big brands?
Small brands can do well here. AI matches a product to a question instead of ranking by market share, and a specific brand that clearly fits one use case is easier to recommend than a large brand that claims to fit every use case. If you are the obvious answer to "best X for Y under Z," being easy to read decides it before name recognition does.
How should an online store think about the cost?
At $1,500 a month for ongoing work, the math uses two numbers you already have: what a first order is worth, and what that shopper spends each time they reorder. Your orders, compared with the month we started, show what it's doing. The AI Search Game Plan, from $1,500, starts with your products: which ones come up when a shopper describes what they need.
AI Search Game PlanHow long before an AI assistant starts recommending our products?
We can't put a date on it. Product answers draw on reviews, retailer listings and roundups as well as your own pages, and those other sites change on their own schedules. We start with your best-documented products, the ones whose size, materials and use are spelled out on the product page, then work through the rest of your line, which also depends on reviews and retailer listings saying what your pages say.
Find out where your store stands
Our first conversation looks at what a shopper finds on Google and in AI answers when they describe what you sell. Prefer something to read first? The AI Search Game Plan shows how Google and AI describe your products next to the ones shoppers compare them with.