Getting found locally in the age of AI search

Someone in Heswall looking for an accountant, or a facilities manager in Chester looking for a contractor, still mostly starts with Google: a search, a look at the map results and a few websites. But a growing share of people also ask an AI assistant such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot, and Google itself now shows AI-written summaries above many results.

Those assistants don’t have secret sources. They summarise the public information they can find: your website, your Google Business Profile, directory listings, reviews and what other sites say about you. Clear, consistent, accurate information helps you in every one of those places.

Before any content campaign, check the foundations:

• Google Business Profile. Complete and accurate: the right categories, services, opening hours, service area, photos and a description that says plainly what you do.
• Consistent details. The same business name, address and phone number everywhere you’re listed.
• A fast, mobile-friendly website. Most local searches happen on a phone, often in a hurry.
• An obvious next step. Call, book or request a quote, visible without scrolling.

If you only do one thing this month, make your Google Business Profile complete and correct. It feeds the map results and many AI summaries.

If you work across several towns, say Birkenhead, Wallasey and West Kirby, a page for each can help people in those places find you. The key word is genuine. Each page should say something true and specific: the kind of jobs you do there, how quickly you can get there, local examples you’re allowed to mention, and answers to the questions people in that area ask.

What doesn’t work is copying one page and swapping the town name. Search engines treat near-identical “doorway” pages as low quality, and they can drag the rest of your site down with them.

AI assistants and search engines both reward clear, factual writing. Say what you do, where, and for whom, in plain sentences. Answer common questions directly on your site. Keep an accurate “about” page. Avoid vague marketing language that could describe any business anywhere.

Behind the scenes, structured data helps machines read your pages reliably: marking up your business details, services, opening hours and frequently asked questions in the standard schema.org format. A good web developer can add this once and keep it up to date.

Reviews influence both the map results and how AI assistants describe you. Ask happy customers for a review at the moment they’re happiest, make it easy with a direct link, and reply to reviews, including the critical ones, calmly and specifically.

Never buy reviews or post fake ones. It breaks platform rules, consumer law and trust, and it’s easier to spot than people think.

Rankings are a means to an end. Track calls, enquiries, bookings and direction requests from your Google Business Profile insights, and search queries in Google Search Console. If those are rising, it’s working, whatever a single ranking position says on a given day.

If you’d like help with any of this, from a new website to local SEO, start a short brief and choose Website or SEO. You can also see the websites we’ve built for local businesses.