AEO for local service businesses

More people now ask an assistant instead of searching. “Who is a good electrician near me.” “Can anyone fix a water heater this week in Oakland.” The answer comes back as a few sentences naming two or three businesses.

For a local service business, getting into those sentences comes down to a short list of jobs. None of them is exotic.

1. Get the Google Business Profile right

It is the most important source for local questions. Choose the most specific primary category, list every service you actually offer, set your service area accurately, keep the hours current, and add real photos. If you are not sure what the profile is, this explains it.

2. Make every listing agree

Search your business name and look at what comes up: Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing, Facebook, industry directories. Check the name, address, phone number and website on each. Where they differ, fix them to match the profile. A model deciding whether to name you is comparing these sources against each other, and disagreement makes you a risky choice.

3. Write a page for each service you want to be asked about

If you do drain cleaning, water heater replacement and repiping, each deserves its own page. State in the first few lines what the service is, which towns you do it in, and what a customer can expect. Plain wording beats clever wording, because the model lifts sentences, and a clear sentence is the one that gets lifted.

Add a short list of the questions customers actually ask, with direct answers. Things like how long the job takes, whether you charge for the visit, and whether you need access to the property. These are the questions people put to assistants.

4. Ask for reviews that describe the job

A star rating puts you on the shortlist. The text of the reviews gives the assistant something to say about you. Ask soon after the work is done and mention what you did, and the review will tend to name the service and the town. Do not script it or offer anything in exchange, which breaks the platforms’ rules and shows in the writing.

5. Be mentioned somewhere other than your own site

Local press, the chamber of commerce, supplier and manufacturer directories, community sponsorships. Each is another independent source saying you exist and what you do in a specific place.

6. Check what the assistants say

Pick five to ten questions your customers would ask. Put them to ChatGPT, Google’s AI Mode and Perplexity once a month, and write down who is named and what is said. It is manual and imprecise, but it is the only direct measurement there is. Note also any new customer who says an assistant sent them, and ask new callers how they found you.

What to expect

Slower and less certain than a ranking. The answers vary from one asking to the next, and the systems change, so I would not promise a result on any date. The work is the same foundation as ordinary local SEO, which is why it is worth doing even if the assistants change shape again.

For how the two approaches relate, see the difference between SEO and AEO.