How to optimise a local business for AI search (UK edition)

Local is where AI search is changing behaviour fastest. Google's AI Overviews now appear above the map pack for a large share of local service queries, AI Mode answers "who should I call" questions with names, and ChatGPT will recommend a specific dentist in Bexhill if asked. Each of those answers names a handful of businesses. Everyone else is invisible.

The businesses that get named share a pattern: their facts are complete and identical everywhere a machine can check, they have recent detailed reviews, and their websites state plainly what they do and where. None of this is expensive. Most of it is discipline.

Step 1: Complete your Google Business Profile properly

Not just claimed: complete. Primary and secondary categories chosen carefully (they drive most impressions). Every service listed with a description and, where you can, a price or "from" price. Accurate hours including holidays. Twenty or more real photos of your work, your premises and your team, refreshed monthly. Answer the Q&A section yourself with the questions customers actually ask. Post an update every week or two; a finished job with three sentences is enough.

Step 2: Set up Bing Places and Apple Business Connect

ChatGPT's live search leans on Bing, and Copilot is Bing. Bing Places lets you import your Google profile in minutes; do it, then check the categories and hours match. Apple Business Connect feeds Apple Maps and Siri. Both are free and mostly ignored by competitors.

Step 3: Make your name, address and phone identical everywhere

Pick one format for each: "Ltd" or not, "Road" or "Rd", the phone number with or without spaces. Then apply it to every listing from the FAQ above and your own site footer and contact page. Log each listing in a spreadsheet with the date checked. AI engines cross-reference these to decide whether to trust you; mismatches lower confidence.

Step 4: Earn reviews that say something

Volume matters, but recency and specifics matter more for AI. A review that says "Dan fitted a new consumer unit in Hailsham on a Saturday, arrived when he said, £X all in" gives the engine an attribute it can match to a question. Ask every customer, make it easy (a QR code on the invoice), and reply to every review including the bad ones. Spread them across Google and one other platform your sector uses. Never buy reviews; the engines and Google's guidance both treat inauthentic signals as a risk.

Step 5: Write service pages with real detail

One page per service, each stating: what it is, who it is for, the towns and postcodes you cover, a price or price range, how quickly you respond, what is included and excluded, accreditations, and two or three named examples with photos. Then a short FAQ of the questions you get on the phone. Make sure all of this is in the HTML, not in a widget. This is the page an engine quotes when it recommends you.

Step 6: Add a location page per main area you serve

If you serve Eastbourne, Bexhill and Hastings, a page for each with the services offered there, local proof (jobs done, reviews from that town), travel time and any local specifics. Keep them substantive; ten near-identical pages with the town name swapped do more harm than good.

Step 7: Add LocalBusiness schema

On the homepage, a LocalBusiness subtype block with name, address, phone, geo coordinates, opening hours, areaServed, price range and sameAs links to your profiles; on service pages, a Service block naming the provider and area. It removes ambiguity and it is a ten-minute job with our structured data guide.

Step 8: Get mentioned locally

Chamber of Commerce membership pages, sponsoring a junior football team, a quote in the local paper, a listing on the town's business association site, a partner page on a supplier's website. Each is an independent source saying you exist, where you are and what you do. AI engines weight these heavily for local queries because they are hard to fake.

Step 9: Check the engines monthly

Write ten prompts your customers would use: "emergency plumber Bexhill", "best family dentist in Eastbourne that takes NHS patients", "accountant for a small limited company near Hastings". Run them in Google AI Mode, ChatGPT (search on), Perplexity and Gemini, from a logged-out browser. Note who is named and why (the engine usually says). Fix the attribute you are missing.

How to know it worked

You are named in the engines' answers for your core services in your core towns. The facts they state about you are correct. Your GA4 shows AI referral sessions landing on service pages. Enquiries mention "ChatGPT said" or "Google's AI suggested".

Common mistakes

• Treating GBP as a set-and-forget listing.
• Ignoring Bing Places because "nobody uses Bing".
• Service pages that say "we offer a range of services" and no prices.
• Hiding the address because you work from home. State the towns you serve instead; engines need a location.