When someone asks ChatGPT or Google’s AI for “the best pressure washing company near me”, the answer is built from what the web already says about local businesses: their websites, their reviews and their mentions on other sites. There is no way to pay for a spot. You get recommended by being easy to understand and widely, consistently described.
Key takeaways
- AI assistants summarise what they can find and trust. Clear, specific pages beat vague marketing copy.
- Your name, address, phone and services should read the same everywhere: your site, Google, Yelp and directories.
- Reviews and mentions on other sites matter as much as your own website.
- Answer real customer questions on your pages, in plain words, near the top.
How AI assistants choose which businesses to mention
Tools like ChatGPT search, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews pull from web pages they can read and summarise. When they recommend a local company, they lean on a few kinds of signals:
- Clear facts on your own site: what you do, where you work, your prices or price ranges, how to book.
- Consistency: the same business name, phone and service area across your site, Google Business Profile and directories.
- Reviews: how many, how recent and what people say about you.
- Mentions elsewhere: local news, supplier pages, community sites, industry lists.
Nobody outside these companies knows the exact rules, and they change. Anyone promising guaranteed AI rankings is guessing. The steps below are the same ones that help in normal Google search, which is why they are worth doing anyway.
Step 1: Make your website easy to summarise
- Start each service page with a 2 to 3 sentence answer: what the service is, who it is for, the area you cover and how to get a price.
- Give every main service and town its own page, with a specific title such as “Roof Cleaning in Huntsville, AL”.
- Add an FAQ section with the questions customers actually ask you on the phone.
- Use schema markup so your business details and FAQs are machine-readable.
This is how we build every site. Our service business websites start each page with a short, direct answer for exactly this reason.
Step 2: Get your business details consistent everywhere
Pick one version of your business name, address and phone number and use it everywhere: your website footer, Google Business Profile, Yelp, Facebook, Bing Places, Apple Maps and any trade directories. Mismatches make it harder for any system, AI or not, to be sure which business it is looking at.
Step 3: Earn reviews and mentions
- Ask every happy customer for a Google review, with a direct link.
- Reply to reviews, including the bad ones, calmly and specifically.
- Get listed by suppliers, local business associations and community sites.
- Share real before-and-after jobs on social media with your town name in the caption.
Step 4: Check what AI says about you
Ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity questions like “best [your service] in [your town]” and “what does [your business name] do?”. If the answers are wrong or missing, look at which sources they cite, then fix or add information there. Repeat every few months.
Frequently asked questions
Can I pay to be recommended by ChatGPT?
No. There is no paid placement in ChatGPT’s answers about local businesses. Recommendations come from what the assistant can find and trust on the web.
Does SEO still matter if people use AI search?
Yes. AI assistants rely on the same pages and signals search engines use: clear content, consistent business details, reviews and links from other sites.
What is AEO?
Answer engine optimisation: structuring your pages so search engines and AI assistants can pull a clear, correct answer from them, for example a short direct answer at the top of each service page plus an FAQ.
How long does it take to show up in AI answers?
It varies. Fixing your website and business listings can show results within weeks; reviews and mentions build up over months.
Want to know what AI sees when it reads your site?
Send us your website. We will check it for clear answers, consistent business details and schema, and send back what to fix. Free, no sales call needed.
