Getting found in ChatGPT and AI search.

An AI isn't magic. It's a computer that reads text and connects the dots. If you say you're a garage in East Fife, it looks for proof. It checks your contact page, the footer on your website, and your Google Business Profile. If they all say the same thing, it starts to trust you. If your address is different on three different websites, it gets confused. A confused AI is not going to recommend your business to its users.

We see this all the time. A business moves premises and only updates their website's contact page. Their old address is still lingering on a dozen online directories. That's a red flag for an AI. Your job is to make sure your Name, Address, and Phone number (we call it NAP) are identical everywhere. Every single place. Start with your own website, then Google, then the big directories. It's a tedious job, but it's the foundation for getting found locally in AI search. It's like making sure all your wheel nuts are tight before a long journey; you do it because it matters.

In the past, many 'About Us' pages were a bit of an afterthought. A quick paragraph about being a family business and a blurry photo from ten years ago. For an AI, that page is now a vital source of information. It wants to know who you are, what makes you qualified, and why you're in business. It reads this page to understand your expertise and trustworthiness. This is your chance to tell it why you're the right choice, using facts, not fluff.

Our founder, Robert, trained as a motor mechanic at college in Fife before spending 15+ years working in hands-on SEO. We put that on our site. An AI can read that and connect the dots: here is a company that understands both hands-on trades and digital marketing. It's a fact that demonstrates real-world experience. What's your story? Are you a third-generation builder? A graphic designer who started out designing leaflets for local bands? Put it on your website. AI is looking for these signals of genuine expertise. Don't just say you're an expert; show the AI how you became one.

Imagine handing a computer a user manual for your business. That's basically what structured data, or Schema markup, is. It's a bit of code that you add to your website's backend, so it's not for humans to see. It's a set of invisible labels. You can label your business name, your address, your opening hours, the specific services you offer, and even the price. It removes all the guesswork for the AI.

Instead of the AI having to read a sentence like 'We are open from 9 am to 5 pm on weekdays,' you can use a specific `openingHours` tag. This tells it precisely, in a language it understands perfectly, when you're open. You can use a `Service` tag to define what 'advert design' or 'ethical reputation management' actually entails. It’s the difference between an AI guessing what you do and knowing what you do. For a local business, this is a massive advantage. It’s the most direct way to feed an AI the facts you want it to know.

We all have them. Blog posts from five years ago that were written just to target a specific keyword. Maybe they're a bit thin, only 300 words long, and don't really answer the customer's question properly. In the past, this might have worked to get a click. Now, it can actively harm your chances in AI search. AI assistants need to provide comprehensive, genuinely helpful answers. They do this by summarising the best information they can find across the web.

If your article titled 'How to Fix a Leaky Tap' is just three short paragraphs of vague advice, the AI will just ignore it. It will find a competitor's detailed, 2000-word guide with diagrams and a video, and it will summarise that instead. Suddenly, your old, thin content is a liability. You need to go back through it. Either update those old posts to make them the best answer on the internet for that question, or delete them. Every page on your site should have a clear purpose and provide real value. It's quality over quantity, every time.

Having one 'Services' page with a bullet-point list is a common mistake. It might say 'Website Design, SEO, App Development.' For a human, that's okay. For an AI, it’s not enough information. It doesn’t know what your 'SEO' service includes. Does it cover technical audits? Does it include AI search optimisation? What makes it different from anyone else's? The AI can't recommend you if it doesn't understand what you actually do.

The solution is to have a dedicated page for each of your main services. A page for 'Website Design,' a page for 'SEO Services,' and so on. On that page, you explain exactly what the service involves, who it's for, and the process. This gives the AI plenty of clear, factual text to read and understand. When someone then asks an AI for 'a company that offers monthly SEO packages in the UK,' it can connect the query to your detailed SEO page. We do this ourselves, breaking down our SEO packages, which start at £199 per month, so the AI has all the details it needs. It’s about being specific and leaving no room for doubt.