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Answers
Forty questions small business owners ask about AI search, Google Business Profile, reviews and local content. Each one answered properly, with numbers, by people who do this work every day.
AI visibility
8 questions
Why isn't my business showing up in ChatGPT?
Almost always one of six things: the assistant has no location to work from, your Google profile is thin, your facts...
How do you get your business mentioned in ChatGPT?
Be the easiest business in your category to verify. Complete your Google Business Profile, make your name, phone, hours...
How do AI assistants decide which business to recommend?
Roughly five steps: the assistant rewrites your question into structured needs, pulls candidate businesses from search...
Does GEO replace SEO?
No. They share a foundation and target different moments. SEO works to win a click on a results page. GEO works to be...
How long does GEO take to work?
Map pack movement usually appears in six to ten weeks after a profile is rebuilt. AI citations are slower and lumpier -...
How do you measure AI visibility?
Four numbers: how many of your target questions name you across assistants, your position at multiple points on a map...
Why do AI answers name a different business each time?
Because these systems are probabilistic, not lookup tables. The same question can retrieve slightly different sources,...
How do you get into Google AI Overviews?
AI Overviews mostly summarize pages already ranking well for the query, plus local business data from Maps. So the...
Google profile
8 questions
How do you fix a suspended Google Business Profile?
Work out what changed in the 30 days before the suspension, undo it if it broke a rule, then file a reinstatement...
How do you choose your primary Google Business Profile category?
Pick the category that names what you most want to be called for, then verify it by checking what the businesses...
How many Google Business Profile categories should you use?
One primary, and only the secondary categories describing services you genuinely provide and want calls for. Google...
How do you rank in the Google map pack?
Google weighs relevance, distance and prominence. You cannot move your customers closer, so the work is relevance -...
What is a geo-grid rank report?
A geo-grid checks your map ranking from many simulated locations across your service area - typically 25 or 49 points -...
Should you hide your address on Google?
If customers do not come to you, you must hide it. That is a rule, not a preference, and a visible home address is one...
How often should you post on your Google Business Profile?
Weekly is a sensible cadence. Posts do not directly move rankings in any measurable way, but they keep your profile...
Why did Google change my business hours?
Google applies edits automatically from other sources, user suggestions and its own inference. Hours are the most...
Reviews
6 questions
How do you get more Google reviews?
Ask every customer, by text, within an hour of finishing the job. Timing matters more than wording. A same-day text...
How should you respond to a bad Google review?
Reply within a day, in public, briefly. Acknowledge the specific thing that went wrong, say what you changed, and offer...
Can you offer a discount for reviews?
No. Offering anything of value for a review - discounts, entries into a draw, free work - violates Google's policy, and...
How many Google reviews do you need to rank?
There is no threshold. What matters is being competitive with the businesses already ranking in your area, and having...
How do you remove a fake Google review?
Report it for policy violation, be specific about which policy it breaks, and reply publicly in the meantime. Google...
Do reviews affect AI recommendations?
Heavily. Reviews are the main evidence a model has that a business is any good, and it reads the text, not just the...
Entity and data
7 questions
How many local citations do you need to rank on Google Maps?
There is no number. Citations stopped being a volume game years ago - what counts is that the dozen or so sources...
What is NAP consistency and does it still matter?
NAP is your name, address and phone number, and consistency means they are identical everywhere they appear. It always...
How do you find and remove duplicate business listings?
Search your business name, your phone number and your old addresses in Google Maps, then check the major directories....
Does schema markup help with AI search?
It helps, indirectly but genuinely. Schema states your facts in a form that cannot be misread - name, hours, services,...
What is llms.txt and do you need one?
It is a plain-text file at the root of your site that summarizes what your business does and points to your key pages,...
Should you block AI crawlers?
If you are a local business trying to be recommended, no - blocking them removes you from the answers you are trying to...
What is an entity in search, and why does it matter?
An entity is a thing a system has decided exists - your business, held as a record with attributes and connections,...
Content
6 questions
How do you write a page an AI will quote?
Answer the question in the first sentence, then explain. Use headings phrased the way people ask. Include at least one...
Should you publish your prices on your website?
Publish ranges with the conditions attached. It filters out calls you would have lost anyway, it is the detail AI...
Do location pages still work?
Yes, when each page contains something genuinely local. No, when it is one template with the suburb name swapped. The...
How many service pages does a small business need?
One page for each service you actively want to sell, and none for the rest. A single page listing twelve services ranks...
Does AI-written content hurt your rankings?
Google judges quality, not authorship. AI-written content is not penalized for being AI-written. It usually fails...
What questions should your website answer?
The ones customers ask on the phone before they book. Cost, timing, whether you handle their specific situation, what...
Buying
5 questions
How much does GEO cost?
For a single-location small business, expect $400 to $1,500 a month. Below about $400 you are buying automated...
How do you choose a GEO agency?
Ask nine questions: do you work with my competitors, who owns my profile, what exactly ships each month, how do you...
Is GEO worth it for a small business?
It depends on what a customer is worth to you and how long you can wait. If one retained customer covers a month or two...
What should a monthly SEO or GEO report include?
Four things: which customer questions now name you, where you rank across a map grid, actions taken from your Google...
What access does a GEO agency actually need?
Manager access to your Google Business Profile, editor access to your website, and read access to Search Console and...
