The Search Landscape Just Changed
For the last two decades, getting found online meant one thing: ranking on Google. Get to the top of the search results page, get the clicks, get the customers. The rules were well understood even if the execution was complex.
That's still true. But something significant has shifted in the last 12 months and local businesses that don't pay attention to it will find themselves increasingly invisible to a growing segment of their potential customers.
People are changing how they search.
Instead of typing "dentist Cardiff" into Google and scanning a list of results, a growing number of people are opening ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI Overview and asking a question. "What's the best dentist in Cardiff for nervous patients?" "Can you recommend a reliable plumber in Swansea who does emergency callouts?" "Which accountant in Newport is good for small limited companies?"
The answer they get back isn't a list of blue links. It's a direct recommendation — one or two businesses, named and described, sometimes with reasons why.
If your business is one of those recommendations, you win. If it isn't, you don't even know you lost.
How AI Search Actually Works
To understand how to appear in AI search results, it helps to understand how these systems work.
Traditional Google search crawls web pages, indexes them, and ranks them based on hundreds of signals — backlinks, content relevance, page speed, mobile optimisation, and increasingly, local signals like reviews and GBP completeness.
AI search tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity do something different. They synthesise information from across the web — including Google reviews, business directories, your website content, news articles, and social mentions — and generate a response that attempts to answer the question directly.
Google's AI Overview works slightly differently — it pulls from Google's own index and tends to surface businesses that already rank well in traditional search, with an emphasis on those with strong review profiles and well-structured website content. The practical implication is the same: build a strong, consistent, positive presence across the web and you're more likely to be cited.
What GEO Means and Why It Matters
Traditional SEO — Search Engine Optimisation — is the practice of improving your visibility in search engine results. You've probably heard the term.
GEO — Generative Engine Optimisation — is the emerging practice of improving your visibility in AI-generated answers. It's newer, less well understood, and currently significantly less competitive than traditional SEO. Which means the businesses that act on it now will have a meaningful advantage over those that wait.
The good news is that the foundations of GEO are largely the same as good local SEO. A well-optimised Google Business Profile, a strong review count, a website with clear and accurate content about your services and location — all of these contribute to both traditional ranking and AI citation.
But there are specific additional steps that improve your chances of being named in an AI response — and they're worth understanding.
Seven Things That Help You Appear in AI Search Results
1. Build Your Google Review Count
This is the single most impactful thing a local business can do for both traditional and AI search visibility. AI tools treat Google reviews as a primary trust signal. A business with 80 positive reviews is far more likely to be recommended by an AI than a business with 12 — regardless of how good the website is.
The AI is, in effect, doing the same thing a human would do if asked to recommend a local business: looking at what other people say about them. More positive reviews, more consistent quality signals, more likely to be recommended.
2. Get Listed on Multiple Authoritative Directories
AI search tools pull from a wide range of sources. The more places your business is accurately listed, the more data points the AI has to work with when deciding whether to recommend you.
Make sure your business is listed — with consistent name, address, and phone number — on Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Maps, Yell, Trustpilot, Checkatrade (for trades), and any industry-specific directories relevant to your sector. Each listing is another data point that builds the AI's confidence in your business.
3. Create Clear, Specific Website Content
AI systems read your website and use its content to understand what you do, where you do it, and who you serve. Vague, generic content makes it harder for an AI to confidently recommend you for a specific query.
Be specific. Name the services you offer. Name the areas you serve. Include real detail about what makes your approach different. A dental practice that has a page specifically about nervous patient care — with detailed content explaining how they handle anxious patients — is far more likely to appear when someone asks ChatGPT to recommend a dentist for nervous patients than a practice whose website just says "we provide a wide range of dental services."
4. Use Structured Data Markup
Structured data — also called schema markup — is code added to your website that explicitly tells search engines and AI systems what type of business you are, where you're located, what your opening hours are, and what services you offer.
Most local business websites don't have it. Adding it gives AI systems a clean, machine-readable summary of your business that reduces ambiguity and increases the likelihood of accurate citation.
5. Get Mentioned on Other Websites
AI systems weight businesses more heavily when they're mentioned positively on third-party websites — local news sites, industry blogs, community forums, and business associations. A Cardiff plumber mentioned in a Cardiff Online article about local tradespeople is more likely to appear in an AI recommendation than one who only exists on their own website and Google listing.
This doesn't require a PR campaign. It might mean joining your local Chamber of Commerce, contributing a quote to a local business article, getting listed in a trade association directory, or asking satisfied customers to mention you in relevant online communities.
6. Maintain Consistent NAP Across the Web
NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone number. Consistency of these three details across every online platform — your website, GBP, directories, social profiles, and any press mentions — is a fundamental trust signal for both traditional SEO and AI search.
If your business is listed as "John Smith Plumbing" on Google, "J Smith Plumbing Services" on Yell, and "John Smith Plumbing & Heating Ltd" on your website, the AI can't be certain these are the same business. That uncertainty reduces your likelihood of being cited.
Audit your NAP across every platform and standardise it. Use exactly the same name, address format, and phone number everywhere.
7. Answer the Questions Your Customers Are Asking
AI search is fundamentally question-based. People ask questions in natural language and get answers back. The businesses that appear in those answers tend to be the ones whose online content directly addresses those questions.
Add a proper FAQ section to your website. Not a generic "how long have you been trading" FAQ — specific, useful questions that your actual customers ask. How much does an emergency callout cost? What areas do you cover? How long does the treatment take? Do you offer payment plans?
The Local SEO Foundation Still Matters Most
It's worth being clear about something before this article leaves you thinking you need to overhaul everything.
The fundamentals of local SEO — strong Google Business Profile, high review count, well-structured website, consistent directory listings — remain the foundation of both traditional and AI search visibility. GEO is not a replacement for SEO. It's an evolution of it.
The businesses that are best positioned for AI search in 2026 are the ones that got their local SEO foundations right in 2024 and 2025. The businesses starting from scratch today need to build those foundations first before worrying about the nuances of AI citation.
Google Maps ranking is still where the majority of local search traffic comes from. That won't change overnight. What's changing is the layer above it — the AI-generated answers that increasingly filter and summarise what Google knows about local businesses.
Get your Maps ranking right. Build your reviews. Optimise your GBP. Create specific, useful website content. Do those things consistently and you'll be well positioned for both the search landscape of today and the one that's emerging.
What We're Doing About It
At Invincible Media we've been tracking the shift toward AI search closely and building it into how we approach local visibility for our clients.
Every website we build includes structured data markup as standard. Our content strategy now explicitly targets the question-based queries that AI systems respond to. Our review automation builds the review count that both Google and AI systems treat as the primary trust signal for local businesses.
The businesses in our portfolio that have strong GBP profiles, high review counts, and well-structured website content are already appearing in AI-generated local recommendations. The ones who haven't built those foundations yet are not.
Want to start building the kind of online presence that gets your business recommended — by Google and by AI? Start your free 14-day trial and we'll show you what's possible.
