A few years ago, someone looking for a local electrician typed it into Google and scrolled. Now a decent share of those people open ChatGPT, or read the AI summary at the top of Google, and ask a question in plain English: "who's a reliable electrician in Perth for a switchboard upgrade?" They get a short answer with two or three names in it. If your business isn't one of the names, you never existed as far as that person is concerned.
There's a lot of noise about this right now, and a lot of people selling "AI SEO" packages. The honest position is that nobody outside those companies knows exactly how the models pick who to mention, and the systems change often. But the mechanics are not a total mystery, and most of what helps is work you should be doing anyway.
The short answer
AI answers are assembled from things that already exist on the open web — your website, your Google Business Profile, directories, news articles, forums and review sites. You cannot submit your business to ChatGPT. What you can do is make sure the facts about your business are clear, consistent and easy to quote wherever they already appear. If a model has to guess what you do, where you do it, and whether anyone rates you, it will name a competitor it feels more certain about.
Write pages that answer questions, not pages that describe you
Most small business websites are written as brochures: who we are, our values, our commitment to quality. Language models are not looking for brochures. They are looking for a clear, extractable answer to the question the person actually asked.
That means service pages that say what the job involves, roughly what it costs, how long it takes, what the common problems are, and which suburbs you cover. It means putting the answer near the top of the page rather than burying it under three paragraphs of warm-up. A useful test: if you deleted your logo and brand colours, would the page still answer a stranger's question? If not, it isn't much use to a model either.
Be consistent about the boring facts
Your business name, address, phone number, opening hours and service area should be identical everywhere — your website footer, your Google Business Profile, your Facebook page, industry directories, old listings you forgot about. Conflicting details are the easiest way to make an AI system unsure about you, and an unsure system stays quiet.
This is unglamorous work. Set aside an hour, search your own business name, and fix or claim every listing you find. Kill the dead ones — an old address on a directory from years ago is actively working against you.
Your Google Business Profile is doing more work than your homepage
For anything local, the profile is often the strongest signal available. Fill in every field, choose the most specific primary category you can, list your actual services, and post occasionally so it doesn't look abandoned.
Reviews matter here in a way that goes beyond the star rating. The words inside your reviews are readable text about what you do. A review that says "replaced our hot water system in Joondalup the same day" tells a model something a five-star rating with no comment never will. You can't script reviews, but you can ask at the right moment — right after the job is finished and the customer is happy — and you can ask in a way that prompts specifics rather than a bare rating.
Get mentioned somewhere other than your own website
A business that only talks about itself on its own site is hard to verify. Mentions elsewhere — a local news piece, an industry association listing, a supplier's "where to buy" page, a community sponsorship, a podcast, a genuinely useful answer you posted in a local forum — give the models corroboration from a source that isn't you.
You don't need a PR agency for this. Sponsor the junior footy club and make sure they list you properly. Join the industry body you're eligible for. Ask suppliers whose products you install to add you to their installer directory. Three real mentions beat thirty paid directory links.
Make sure the machines can actually read your site
Some sites are effectively invisible to automated readers. Text baked into images, key information locked behind a slider or a tab that only loads on click, contact details that only appear in a graphic, a site that takes many seconds to load — all of it reduces what can be understood and reused.
Structured data (schema markup) helps too. It's a small block of code that spells out, in a format machines read directly, that you're a local business, here's the address, here's the phone, here are the services, here's the FAQ. It isn't magic and it won't rescue a thin site, but it removes ambiguity. Any competent developer can add it in an afternoon.
How to tell whether it's working
Track it manually, because the reporting tools for this are still immature. Once a month, ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Google the five questions your best customers actually ask, and write down who gets named. That's your baseline. Also watch for enquiries where someone says they found you through an AI tool, or arrived already knowing your pricing — that's a strong hint the summaries are quoting you.
Be patient, and be sceptical of anyone promising guaranteed placement in AI answers. Nobody can guarantee that. What you can control is being the clearest, best-documented, most credible option in your patch — which is the same advice that worked before any of this existed.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to do something different from normal SEO?
Mostly no. The overlap is large: clear content, a fast site, accurate listings, real reviews, mentions on other sites. The main shift is writing to answer specific questions directly rather than writing to rank for a keyword phrase.
Should I block AI crawlers from my website?
If you want to be mentioned in AI answers, blocking the crawlers that gather that content is counterproductive. Some publishers block them to protect paid content — that's a different situation to a local service business that wants to be found.
Is it worth paying for an "AI SEO" package?
Ask exactly what they will do. If the answer is content, listings, reviews, technical clean-up and genuine mentions, that's legitimate work — just make sure you're not paying a premium for standard SEO with a new label. If the answer involves guaranteed placement, or submitting you to the AI platforms, walk away.
How long before I see anything?
Longer than you'd like. The models refresh their view of the web on their own schedule, and some rely on a live search at the moment of the question while others lean on older training data. Treat it as a few months of consistent work, not a fortnight.
My competitors get named and I don't. Why?
Usually one of three things: they have more and better-worded reviews, they have clearer service pages that state prices and specifics, or they're mentioned on sites you're not. Look at their Google profile and their two best service pages side by side with yours — the gap is normally obvious.
Does having a blog help?
Only if the posts answer real questions properly. A page that genuinely explains what a switchboard upgrade costs and involves is quotable. Ten posts of thin filler written for the algorithm are not, and increasingly get treated as noise.