Recent research checking 100 UK small business websites found that 97 of them had no AI discovery signals at all, and when ChatGPT was asked to recommend businesses in ten different UK towns, most local businesses were never mentioned once. If you rank well on Google but have never checked how you show up when a customer asks ChatGPT or Perplexity the same question, there's a good chance you're invisible there.
This guide explains why that's happening, and exactly what to do about it.
Why AI Search Is Different From Google
Google gives searchers a list of ten links and lets them choose. AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews work differently: they read multiple sources, then write a single answer and cite a small handful of them. There's no scrolling to page two. Either your business is part of that answer, or it doesn't exist as far as that search is concerned.
This also means AI search rewards different things than traditional SEO. Independent studies have found only around 50% overlap between what appears in AI answers and what ranks in Google's top 10 — a strong Google ranking is useful, but on its own it doesn't guarantee AI visibility.
What AI Assistants Actually Look For
AI search is closer to entity recognition than keyword matching. When someone asks for "a reliable web designer in Leeds", the AI isn't scanning for pages containing those words, it's trying to identify a real, verifiable business it can confidently recommend. That comes down to a few things:
- Clear, specific answers — concrete facts (services, pricing, location, how you work) rather than generic marketing language like "passionate about delivering results".
- Structured data — schema markup that tells AI systems, in a machine-readable format, exactly who you are, what you do, and where you're based.
- Third-party mentions — directories, reviews, and other sites talking about your business. AI tools weight signals outside your own website heavily, since they're harder to fake than your own copy.
- A clean, crawlable website — fast, properly structured HTML that AI crawlers can actually read, rather than content locked behind heavy JavaScript.
Six Practical Steps You Can Take This Month
1. Add an llms.txt File
This is a simple text file at the root of your website (yoursite.com/llms.txt) that summarises your business in plain language — what you do, who you serve, and what you charge — written specifically for AI systems to read. It removes the guesswork for AI tools trying to understand your business from marketing copy.
2. Add Schema Markup
Schema is behind-the-scenes code (not visible to visitors) that labels your business information unambiguously: your name, address, services, opening hours, and reviews. Businesses with proper schema markup are significantly more likely to appear in AI-generated answers than those without it.
3. Write Content That Answers Real Questions Directly
AI assistants favour content that answers a specific question plainly. A page or FAQ section that says "we fit replacement boilers in Leeds, usually within 48 hours, from £2,400 including parts and labour" is far more useful to an AI system than a paragraph about your company values. Write for the question someone would actually type.
4. Optimise Your Google Business Profile and Reviews
Your Google Business Profile is one of the strongest, most trusted signals AI tools can pull from. Keep it fully filled out, collect genuine reviews, and respond to them. If you haven't set this up properly yet, see our Google Business Profile guide.
5. Build Third-Party Mentions
Get listed on relevant directories, ask happy clients for reviews on Google and industry-specific platforms, and keep your LinkedIn or Facebook business profile active and consistent. AI visibility is built across your whole online footprint, not just your website.
6. Make Sure Your Site Is Technically Sound
AI crawlers need to be able to read your site easily. Fast loading times, clean HTML structure, and a sitemap all help. If your site relies entirely on JavaScript to render its content with nothing readable in the raw HTML, AI crawlers may struggle to see it at all.
How to Test Whether You're Visible Right Now
Open ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI mode and ask the kind of question a customer would actually ask — "who's a good [your service] in [your town]?" — without mentioning your business by name. If you don't appear, that's your starting point. Try a few variations to see where the gaps are.
How Long Does It Take?
The technical basics — schema, an llms.txt file, clearer FAQ content — can be live within days, and AI crawlers typically pick up new signals within 48 to 72 hours. The wider trust signals, reviews, directory listings, and mentions elsewhere, build up over weeks and months. It's the same pattern as SEO: quick technical wins first, then compounding effort over time.
The Opportunity for Small Businesses
With the vast majority of UK small businesses currently invisible to AI search, this is one of the rare situations where doing even the basics properly puts you ahead of almost everyone in your local area. It won't stay this way for long.
Every website we build at Marketing Handled includes schema markup, an llms.txt file, and clean, crawlable technical foundations as standard — not just for Google, but for the AI tools more and more customers are starting their search with. If you'd like us to check how your business currently shows up in AI search, get in touch.