I’m Elliot, and I’m really excited to have joined The Word Agency this week as a Senior SEO Executive.
My specialism lies in technical SEO, ensuring websites are built on strong foundations so search engines (and now AI-driven tools) can easily understand, index, and serve them to users.
After two years helping businesses across industries improve their online visibility, one question I’m being asked more and more is: ‘What are we doing to optimise for AI search?’
So, what better way to kick off my time at The Word Agency than with a practical look at what AI search means for local businesses, and how they can adapt and prepare to stay visible in this new search landscape.
What is Local AI Search?
Local AI search is when tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overview provide business information based on your location.
Unlike regular search that just shows links or maps, AI search is conversational and context-aware, meaning it can understand follow-up questions, remember what you’ve already asked, and tailor answers to your specific situation.
For example, instead of typing “Dog Vaccinations in Leeds”, an AI user might ask “Which is the best vet for puppy vaccinations within a half an hour drive?
AI will analyse information from your website, Google Business Profile, reviews, and structured data (code that helps search engines and AI understand content such as products, business details, or FAQs) to deliver an instant, trusted recommendation.
Why Local AI Search Matters
AI search is already changing how people discover products and businesses online and how they make buying decisions.
This creates new challenges for businesses, such as:
- AI assistants controlling visibility
Unlike Google, which shows a long list of links that users can browse, AI search tools often provide just a few summarised answers. For example, if someone asks, “What’s the best mountain bike of 2025?”, the AI may select only a handful of options from many possible choices.
This happens because AI prioritises sources it considers trustworthy, consistent, and relevant. It looks at factors such as your business’s reputation, the accuracy of your online information, and how well your content matches the user’s query.
The result is that your business could either stand out prominently if it meets these criteria, or be completely left out if your information is inconsistent, outdated, or difficult for the AI to interpret.
Unlike traditional search, where being on page two or three still gives you a chance to be seen, in AI search, being excluded from the summarised answer can mean your business is essentially invisible to the user.
- Critical accuracy and consistency
AI depends on information it considers trustworthy and reliable. If your website provides one set of details but your Google Business profile shows something different, the AI may overlook your business and instead highlight a competitor whose information is clear, consistent, and easy to verify.
This means keeping all your business information (address, opening hours, product details, and contact info) accurate and identical across every online platform. In AI-driven search, even small inconsistencies can reduce your chances of being recommended to potential customers.
By focusing on AI-friendly SEO now, businesses can get ahead of competitors and secure visibility before AI-driven search becomes the standard.
5 Core Elements to Optimise for Local AI Search
1. Structured Data and Schema Markup
AI relies on structured data, also known as schema markup, to better understand your site.
Having accurate and relevant schema markup in place is key to improving visibility in AI-driven search.
- Implement LocalBusiness schema, including key fields such as address, opening hours and contact details.
- Add Product, Menu, Service, or FAQ schema where relevant.
- AI rewards accuracy, so ensuring schema markup is consistent not only with what’s visible on the page, but also with other online listings, such as your Google Business Profile, is absolutely essential.
2. Content Optimisation for Conversational Queries
AI’s primary focus is on natural language. Ensuring your site’s content is properly optimised for conversational queries, such as “How can I optimise my website for AI search?” rather than “Optimising for AI search” is key.
- Create FAQ pages that answer customer questions directly.
- Optimise content for long-tail, conversational keywords (e.g. “Where can I get vegan pizza in Hull?”).
- Ensure your site covers hyper-local topics within content, such as neighbourhood guides, local events, or service areas.
3. Local Listings and Consistency
AI cross-checks data from multiple sources, including Google Business Profile, social media, and online directory listings.
- Ensure your Google Business Profile is fully optimised and up to date with photos, service listings, and reviews.
- Ensure name, address, contact details, and, if relevant, opening times are consistent and accurate across local and online directories and citations.
4. Reviews and Reputation Management
AI summarises customer feedback and experiences to inform its decision to recommend a business, product or service.
- Encourage reviews that mention specific services or locations where possible.
- Respond promptly and professionally to both positive and negative feedback.
- Highlight reviews and testimonials on your website with correctly optimised structured data where possible.
- Ensure you’re including up-to-date and accurate review schema markup across product and company pages where possible.
5. Technical SEO Foundations
Even the best SEO foundations are wasted if your site isn’t visible to AI and search engines in the first place.
- Make sure your website loads quickly on mobile devices and meets Google’s Core Web Vitals standards. These are Google’s key measurements of how user-friendly your site is, covering things like speed, responsiveness, and overall experience on both mobile and desktop.
- Make sure search engines can properly read your website. This means:
- All important pages should be easy for Google and other AI tools to find and include in search results.
- Your site should have an updated XML sitemap (a file that lists all your key pages) and it should be submitted to Google Search Console.
- Your robots.txt file (which tells search engines what they can and can’t access) should be set up correctly so it doesn’t block important tools like Googlebot or GPTBot from seeing the content that matters.
Optimising for the Future of AI Search
AI search is no longer limited to text. Big companies like Apple, Samsung, Amazon, and Google are adding new features that let people search using voice, images, and even video. This means more users are finding local businesses and products in different, more visual ways, not just by typing into a search bar.
- Optimise for voice queries by using natural, and particularly important for local optimisation, regional phrasing within your content.
- Use descriptive alt text and captions for images, as AI models often pull these into results.
- Create short, useful informational videos, such as “take a tour of our store” or “how to book an appointment”, to support multimodal answers.
Tracking Success in Local AI Search
Tracking how visible your business is in AI search is still tricky because there’s no official Search Console integration or dedicated AI tracking tools.
You can still measure progress by:
- Referral traffic: Check Google Analytics (GA4) to see if visitors are coming from AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini.
- Local rank tracking tools: Tools like SEMrush can show how you rank for “near me” searches. Strong rankings here usually mean good AI visibility too.
- Customer feedback: Ask new customers how they found you and you’ll find AI search is becoming a common answer.
Preparing for the Next Wave of Search
AI is rapidly changing how people find and interact with businesses online. To stay visible in search, brands need to keep up with these AI-driven changes and adapt their strategies.
Businesses that provide accurate, reliable, and genuinely helpful content on a well-designed, easy-to-use website will succeed. Those that don’t adapt risk falling behind.
I’m looking forward to seeing how AI search evolves and how new developments continue to influence SEO and Organic Search in the coming year.
If you’d like to discuss how a bespoke SEO strategy from our team of experts can help your business adapt to the future of search, feel free to get in touch.