United States
AI search optimization for US businesses.
Plate Lunch Collective works with businesses across the United States. The deliverables are entity data, structured content, and schema, built for remote delivery and scoped to how buyers in each market actually search.
357%
growth in AI platform referrals to the web's top 1,000 sites, June 2024 to June 2025
1.13 billion visits in June 2025. Google Search over the same month: 191 billion.
Similarweb, 2025
Why here
In 2004 I was doing SEO for a skincare company in Sacramento. The work was links and keywords, get enough of both pointed the right way and Google would rank you, and that was most of the job.
Then it was people-search at national scale, millions of pages, and the lesson there was structure: how a search engine reads a site, what it can parse, what it ignores.
For years after that the funnel held its shape. A buyer asked a question, got ten blue links, and chose from the list. The work changed in tactics but not in kind. You were always trying to be one of the ten.
That is the part that broke. The buyer now asks an assistant, and the assistant answers instead of listing. There is no page of ten to be one of. There is an answer, and either it knows your business or it does not.
Twenty years in, working with companies across the country, that is the shift I am building for. Not a new tactic on the old funnel. A different funnel.
Hayden Bond, Founder
Full service
The US market where AI search adoption is moving fastest.
By March 2026, shoppers arriving at US retail sites from AI assistants were converting 42% better than those from other channels. A year earlier the same traffic converted 38% worse, a reversal in twelve months.
42%
higher conversion for AI-referred shoppers at US retail sites in March 2026, up from 38% worse a year earlier
Adobe Analytics, 2026
What we do here
AI search optimization services Plate Lunch Collective offers in the United States.
Your business is not showing up when someone asks an AI assistant for a recommendation in your category. AI SEO / GEO →
Your name, your hours, your location say different things on different platforms, and none of them match what you actually are. Entity SEO →
You want to know how AI search treats your business right now, before committing to anything. Context Map →
Google is answering questions about your industry and your content is not the source it pulls from. Answer Engine Optimization →
You have the expertise but nothing on your site is structured for an AI to extract and cite. Citation-Ready Content →
Buyers are finding your competitors on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube before they ever open a search engine. Social Search Optimization →
Industries
Industries Plate Lunch Collective serves in the United States.
Every industry below gets the full stack, weighted to how its buyers actually search.
Hospitality
Hotels in Scottsdale, boutique properties in Charleston, resorts in Park City.
Tourism
Adventure outfitters in Moab, whale watching in Monterey, guided tours in Savannah.
Agritourism
Wineries in Napa and Willamette Valley, farm stays in Vermont, u-pick in the Central Valley.
Aviation
Regional carriers, flight schools in Phoenix and Daytona Beach, charter operators.
Transportation
Shuttle services, luxury ground transport, rental agencies in airport markets.
Agribusiness
Specialty produce in the Central Valley, ranches in Montana, organic operations in the Pacific Northwest.
SaaS
Software companies in Austin, San Francisco, New York, and distributed teams nationwide.
Skincare
DTC skincare brands in Los Angeles, clean beauty in Portland, clinical lines in New Jersey.
Manufacturing
Law firms in Chicago, accountants in Dallas, consultants in Denver and Atlanta.
Creators
Content creators in Los Angeles, food creators in New York, lifestyle creators in Nashville.
Local Business
Restaurants, retail, trades, services in every metro and mid-market city.
E-Commerce
DTC brands shipping nationwide from fulfillment hubs in Ohio, Texas, and Nevada.
Surf, Fitness & Lifestyle
Surf brands in Southern California, fitness studios in Miami, outdoor brands in Colorado.
Next step
If your US business is missing from AI recommendations, the Context Map will show you where the gaps are.
FAQ
Do I need to be in Hawaii to work with Plate Lunch Collective?
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No. Plate Lunch Collective is headquartered in Hawaii and works with US businesses nationwide. The deliverables are entity data, structured content, and schema, all built for remote delivery. The founder spent seven years working in Canada before Hawaii and has delivered for clients across time zones throughout.
How does AI search differ for a business in a competitive US metro versus a smaller market?
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In a competitive metro the candidate pool for any query is large, and the AI assistant has more options to choose from. A business in a smaller market faces a thinner pool, which means the bar for appearing is lower but the consequence of being absent is higher: there are fewer names for the assistant to recommend, and if yours is not one of them the gap is more visible.
Can you work with a business that has locations in multiple states?
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Each location needs its own entity treatment. A restaurant group operating in Austin, Nashville, and Denver needs separate entity records, location-specific content, and reviews anchored to each city. Consolidating everything under one headquarters location means the business appears for that city and goes unmentioned for the others.
What is the difference between regular SEO and what Plate Lunch Collective does?
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Most of the work is the same: technical health, content structure, entity consistency. Where it diverges is the optimization target. Traditional SEO targets Google's organic index. This work also targets the AI platforms that synthesize answers from multiple sources: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews. Both layers need to work.
How can I use my existing reputation and reviews to improve my AI search visibility?
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A reputation that lives in conversation is invisible to anything that reads text. What is visible is where that reputation got written down: reviews on Google and Yelp, a mention in a local publication, a listing in a directory buyers actually use, a post by another business that names yours. The work is getting an existing reputation into a form that can be read.
How does Plate Lunch Collective handle the difference between national and local search intent?
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National queries and local queries pull from different signal sets. A SaaS company competing for a category term needs entity authority at the brand level. A restaurant competing for a neighborhood query needs entity authority at the location level. The entity data, content, and schema need to serve both when a business operates across both contexts.
Start with a read on where your business stands.
Plate Lunch Collective's Context Map is a fixed-scope diagnostic that shows how AI search treats your business in your market.