Last week I suggested something simple on Facebook and LinkedIn: ask ChatGPT to recommend a business like yours in your suburb, and see whether it says your name. It drew more interest than anything else I posted that week. The obvious next question is the one this post answers: how do you test it properly, and what do you do if you’re not there?
The short answer: what an AI tool says about your business reflects what’s published about you across the web. You can check it in fifteen minutes, and most of what shapes it is within your control.
What AI Search Visibility Actually Means
AI search visibility is whether tools like ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews and Perplexity mention your business, and describe it accurately, when someone asks a question your business could answer.
It isn’t a separate system you have to learn from scratch. These tools build their answers from what’s already out there – your website, your Google Business Profile, your reviews, directory listings, and anywhere else your business is described. If that information is clear and consistent, you’re easier to recommend. If it’s thin or contradictory, you’re easy to skip.
How to Run the Test in 15 Minutes
Grab a notepad. You’re going to ask the way a client would, not the way a marketer would.
- Start a fresh conversation. In ChatGPT, use a temporary chat so your own history doesn’t colour the answer.
- Ask by service and place. “Who’s a good [your service] in [your suburb]?” Use the words a client would use, not your job title.
- Ask by problem. “I need help with [the problem you solve]. Who should I talk to in [your area]?”
- Ask about you by name. “What do you know about [your business name] in [your suburb]?”
- Try a second tool. Run the same questions in Perplexity, or search them on Google and read the AI Overview if one appears.
- Write down what you find. Who gets named, what gets said about you, and anything that’s wrong.
That’s the whole test. It won’t tell you everything, but it will tell you where to start.
What Your Results Are Telling You
Your answers will usually land in one of four places.
- You’re named and described correctly. Your information is clear and consistent. Keep it that way, and re-test monthly.
- You’re named, but the details are wrong. Old or conflicting information is out there. Start with your Google Business Profile and any old directory listings.
- Competitors are named and you’re not. They’re described more clearly, or more often, for that search. Start with the wording on your homepage and services page.
- It says it doesn’t know you. Not enough is published about you in places it can read. Start with your profile, your reviews, and one or two listings beyond your own site.
Don’t panic if you land in the last one. It just means there’s work to do, and most of it is free.
Why AI Tools Recommend Some Businesses and Not Others
Nobody outside these companies knows exactly how each tool weighs things, and they change often. But what they reward looks a lot like what Google has rewarded for years – businesses that are easy to understand and easy to confirm.
Easy to understand means your website says plainly what you do, who it’s for and where you are. Easy to confirm means other places say the same thing. Your Google Business Profile, your reviews, a local directory, an industry association, an article that mentions you. One clear source is good. Several that agree with each other is better.
Google’s own guidance on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content makes a similar point about trust, and it’s worth a read if you write your own website copy.
What to Fix First
If the test didn’t go your way, start here, in this order.
- Your homepage’s first line. It should say what you do, who it’s for and where, in plain words. If a stranger couldn’t answer those three from it, an AI tool will struggle too.
- Your services page wording. Name each service the way a client would describe it, not the way you’d describe it to a colleague.
- Your Google Business Profile. Complete, verified, and set to the most specific category that’s true. If you’re not showing on the map either, my post on why your business doesn’t show up on Google Maps walks through the six usual causes.
- Your reviews. Ask recent clients for a review, and let them know it helps when they mention what you did for them.
- One place beyond your own site. A local business directory, your industry association, or a piece for a community newsletter. Somewhere that describes you in the same terms your website does.
None of these need a developer, and none of them cost anything.
Run It Again in a Month
AI answers aren’t fixed. They shift as the tools update and as more is published about you, so treat this as a check-up rather than a verdict. Keep your notes from today, make one or two of the fixes above, and run the same questions again in four weeks.
If you’d like to go further on the profile side, my free guide walks you through it step by step: How to drive more traffic to your website using your Google Business profile.For the bigger picture on AI search, my earlier post on how AI search is changing the way clients find your business covers the groundwork.
And if you’d rather someone ran the test with you and told you what to fix, that’s what I do. Get in touch and we’ll look at yours together.
