Somebody in Waterford needs a contractor. A few years ago they searched Google and scrolled. Increasingly, they open ChatGPT or use the AI summary at the top of a search page and ask a question in plain language: who does good roof work near me and what should I expect to pay?
Then they get an answer. Sometimes with businesses named in it.
I want to be careful here, because this topic attracts a lot of confident nonsense. Nobody outside those companies knows exactly how the recommendations get made, and anybody selling you “AI SEO” with a guaranteed outcome is guessing. But the general shape of what these systems read is not a mystery, and most of it is stuff you should be doing anyway.
What these tools are working from
Broadly, three things.
Your website, read as text. These systems consume the words on your pages. Not your design, not your photography — the text. If your homepage is a large hero image with a slogan over it and the specifics live inside a PDF or a graphic, there is very little for them to work with.
Your business listings. Google Business Profile, directories, anywhere your name, address, phone number, and services are published. Consistency across those matters, because contradictory information is a reason to leave you out of an answer rather than risk being wrong.
What other people have written about you. Reviews, mentions, local coverage. The same signals that have always suggested a real business with a track record.
The practical version
None of the following is exotic. It is mostly the discipline of writing things down plainly.
- Put your service area in text, by name. Not “serving the greater metro area.” List them: Clarkston, Waterford, Davisburg, Rochester Hills. If a tool is answering a question about Waterford, it needs to find the word Waterford.
- State what you do and do not do. “Residential roof replacement and repair; we do not do commercial flat roofs.” That sentence helps you get recommended for the right jobs and skipped for the wrong ones, which is a win both ways.
- Answer real questions in real sentences. What does a typical job cost, how long does it take, how soon can you come out, do you offer emergency service. If your site answers the question somebody is asking, it is a candidate for the answer.
- Keep your listings identical. Same business name, same phone format, same address everywhere. Mismatches make you look like two half-businesses.
- Get reviews and let them be specific. A review that mentions the job and the town is worth several that say “great service.”
There is an emerging convention called llms.txt — a plain text file at the root of your site that summarises what the business is and points at your most useful pages. It is cheap to add and it is a clean, unambiguous description of your business sitting where an automated reader will look. I have one on this site. It is not a magic trick, but it costs an hour.
What I would not spend money on
Be sceptical of anyone selling guaranteed placement in AI answers. There is no submission form and no ranking dashboard. The mechanisms change frequently, and a product built around gaming this month's behaviour is a product with a short shelf life.
Be equally sceptical of the advice to generate large volumes of pages to “feed the AI.” That has been tried against search engines for two decades and it now actively hurts sites. Thin, repetitive pages built for machines rather than people are a liability.
The reassuring part
Almost everything that helps here is the same work that helps a human customer. A clear website that says what you do, where you do it, and what it costs. Accurate listings. Real reviews from real jobs.
If you have been putting off getting your Google Business Profile properly verified and filling in your service area, this is one more reason to do it — and I wrote a full walkthrough of how to get verified when you have no storefront, which is the situation most trades are in.
Do the plain, unglamorous version well and you will be legible to whatever is reading. Get in touch if you want a look at how your business currently reads.