Show up when a homeowner asks ChatGPT who to call

AI search optimization is the work of getting your company named when a homeowner asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Google AI Mode who to call. Below is what Contractor Lead Partners (CLP) does each month, what each plan costs and what you own when it’s done. Every plan and its price is on our pricing page.

What AI search optimization is, in plain words

AI search optimization gets your company into the short answer an AI tool gives when a homeowner asks who to hire. Instead of ten blue links, ChatGPT or Google AI Mode names a few companies. Our job is to make your business one of the names those tools trust, and to check every month whether they do.

You’ll see two acronyms for AI search engine optimization. AEO, answer engine optimization, means shaping your information so AI tools can quote it as an answer. GEO, generative engine optimization, is the same idea aimed at tools that write their own replies, like ChatGPT. We just call it AI search.

The lists are short. A SOCi study of big chains found ChatGPT recommended just 1.2% of brand locations, while the average location showed up in Google’s local 3-pack 35.9% of the time.

Google’s own tools work off the same base as regular search. Google’s guide to its AI features says AI Overviews and AI Mode are “rooted in our core Search ranking and quality systems.” They pull pages from the normal Google index, and Google names the Business Profile as one way to show up in AI answers.

Why it matters to a contractor now

Homeowners now use AI to build a shortlist, then check you on Google. In BrightLocal’s 2026 consumer survey, 45% of US consumers used ChatGPT or similar tools for local business recommendations in the past year, up from 6% the year before. That makes AI the third most-used source for recommendations.

Keep that in proportion. In BrightLocal’s July 2026 search behavior survey, as reported by BCC Interactive, only 8% said AI is where they start a local search. Of those, 43% went back to Google for more, and just 2% used AI alone.

Darren Shaw of Whitespark says the same thing from the expert side. Finding local businesses “is still predominantly done through Google’s local results.”

So AI names the shortlist. Then the homeowner reads your reviews and opens your website.

When an AI answer shows up, fewer people click past it. Pew Research Center found Google users clicked a regular result in 8% of visits with an AI summary, versus 15% without one. If you’re not named in the summary, fewer people scroll down to find you.

Most owners haven’t even looked. Vendor surveys reported by BCC Interactive found only 13% of small business owners are optimizing for AI, and more than two-thirds have never checked what AI says about them.

One thing hasn’t changed. I sold exclusive phone leads to contractors for years (here is what each lead source costs) and listened to thousands of the recorded calls. The roofers who made money on those leads called back first, within minutes. Getting named by AI can make the phone ring. Answering it fast still tends to win the job.

How ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Mode pick who to name

Each AI engine reads from different places, so no single trick works. Google’s tools lean on your Business Profile. ChatGPT leans hard on Yelp. Gemini cites business websites most. Across all of them, the sources are your site, your listings, your reviews and other sites that mention you.

BrightLocal studied 1.9 million AI citations across 1,355 business locations. (A citation here is a source the AI shows or uses for its answer.) Their verdict: “There isn’t one source you can optimize for and call it done.” Here’s what each engine leaned on in the studies we trust:

• Google AI Overviews and AI Mode use the regular Google index and your Business Profile, per Google’s own guide.
• ChatGPT used Yelp as a source in 80% of its local answers in BrightLocal’s study of local AI sources.
• Gemini drew 55% of its sources from single business websites in a Peekl study of 1,926 local Gemini answers.

Your website matters to all of them. About 93% of the domains AI cited in BrightLocal’s study were individual business websites.

In the trades, the Google profile is the biggest single source, as our SEO page for roofing companies also shows. For service businesses in that study, the Business Profile made up 45% of citations. For plumbing companies in the same study, it was 54%.

Reviews count, for the AI and for the homeowner. Locations ChatGPT recommended averaged 4.3 stars in SOCi’s chain study. And 47% of consumers in BrightLocal’s survey won’t use a business with fewer than 20 reviews.

Mentions on other sites count too. In Whitespark’s 2026 survey of local SEO experts, three of the top five AI visibility factors were citation factors. Ahrefs found that brand mentions across the web tracked with AI visibility far more than the number of pages on a site.

And the answers move. Agency studies reported by BCC Interactive found AI answers change far more from run to run than the map pack does. Nobody can promise you a spot. Anyone who does is guessing.

What entity and citation work covers

An entity is how an AI tool knows your company is one real, specific business. It checks whether your name, address, phone and services match everywhere it looks. Entity and citation work makes those details match and gets you mentioned on the sites AI reads for your trade. It’s part of the Growth and Market Owner plans.

Here’s the work:

1. The same name, address, phone and services on your website, Google Business Profile and directories.
2. An About page that says who runs the company, what you do and where you work.
3. Structured data (code that labels your business details for search engines), with sameAs links that point to your real profiles. Google says it isn’t required for AI features. It helps machines connect the dots, and it’s cheap to do right.
4. Citations on the sources AI reads for your trade: BBB, Angi, Yelp, Houzz, trade directories and local press.
5. An llms.txt file.

That last one needs a straight answer. An llms.txt file is a small text file that tells AI tools what your site is about. Google says plainly that Search doesn’t use it. We add it because it costs little. We don’t count on it to get you named, and you shouldn’t either.

Here’s my view. I do AI search visibility work for national brands, and the pattern holds there too. The places AI reads are the places local SEO already builds: your site, your Google profile, review and trade sites, local mentions. So AI search is local SEO plus a measurement layer. There’s no secret trick to sell you. What’s new is that answers change by engine and by run, so you track them on a fixed list and judge by the trend.

Reviews and the Google profile itself are part of the local SEO work in both plans. That side is covered in our Google Business Profile and review work.

What you get each month, on each plan

Both plans include AI search optimization services, at different depths. Growth includes monthly tracking of 25 prompts and entity work. Market Owner tracks 50 prompts across your metros and adds a quarterly report. Prices are published and the same for everyone.

Plan	Price	AI search work	Also includes	Built for
Growth	$3,000 a month	AI search tracking every month, 25 prompts, entity work	Google Business Profile setup, then 4 posts a month, for each location. Top 40 citations fixed, checked quarterly. Review request system and monthly velocity report. 4 new pieces of content a month, 4 existing pages optimized. Technical fix sprint, then monthly crawl and Core Web Vitals. 2 to 3 earned links a month. Call tracking with monthly call review. Monthly rank grid and report, quarterly strategy call.	Up to 3 locations or service areas, multi-crew shops
Market Owner	$5,000 a month	AI search tracking, 50 prompts across your metros, quarterly report	Everything in Growth, for each location, with weekly posts. 8 new pieces of content a month, 8 existing pages optimized. 5 or more earned links a month. One data study or PR campaign a quarter. Call tracking, lead scoring, CRM sync. A call every two weeks. Exclusivity across your region.	Up to 8 locations, regional operators

Month one is onboarding on both plans. That means an audit, a keyword and prompt map, accounts set up in your name, baseline measurements and a 90-day plan you sign. The monthly work starts in month two.

A one-time AI visibility audit is available as a paid add-on. The rest of the local SEO work in each plan is listed in full on the plans and pricing page.

How we track and report your AI visibility

We track a fixed list of prompts every month: 25 on Growth, 50 on Market Owner. Each one is written the way a homeowner talks, with your city or metro in it, never “near me.” We run the same list on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Mode and record what each one says.

We write them that way for a reason. Long, full-sentence searches are the ones that trigger AI answers. Pew found 53% of Google searches with 10 or more words produced an AI summary, against 8% of one- or two-word searches. “Near me” depends on where the tool thinks you’re standing, so it tells you little. BrightLocal’s citation study ran each prompt from 9 set map points per location.

For every prompt, we record three things: whether you were named, who was named instead, and which pages and sites the tool cited. That last part tells us where to work next.

One run proves little. The value is in the same list, run the same way, month after month. Where it applies, we also use the Generative AI performance report in Google Search Console, which shows how your site does in Google’s AI features.

Market Owner clients get a quarterly report: where you stand, what changed, and what we do next. Growth includes a quarterly strategy call.

What we report is real. What we don’t do is promise. Rankings, mentions and leads can move up or down, and we do not guarantee any of them.

What you own at the end

You own all of it. That’s the website and its content, the Google Business Profile, the review base, the tracking accounts and the data in them, and every link earned. We hold manager access only. If you leave, you get a handover document and keep everything we built.

We used to sell contractors leads. Now we build the machine, and you keep it.

We also work with one contractor per trade per market. On Market Owner, that exclusivity extends to your region.

Who this is for, and who it is not for

This fits an owner who already has a working website and a Google Business Profile, already gets calls from Google, and wants to be named when homeowners ask AI. It fits multi-crew shops and operators in more than one metro best, which is what Growth and Market Owner are built for. The HVAC and remodeling pages show where AI search fits for each trade, and the contractor leads guide covers what happens to bought leads as more homeowners ask AI first.

It’s not for everyone. Skip it for now if any of these sound like you:

• You have no website, or your homepage has no main heading and under 200 words. In our study of 9,700 contractor Google profiles, 14% of contractors already ranking listed no website, 17% had no H1 heading and 13% had a homepage under 200 words. AI cites business websites at scale, so a thin site leaves it nothing to quote. Fix the site first, through our SEO service for contractor websites or on your own.
• Your rating is under 4.0. In BrightLocal’s survey, 31% of consumers will only use a business rated 4.5 stars or higher. Start with reviews, which are part of the local SEO work in both plans.
• You want a guaranteed spot or a set number of leads. We don’t offer that, and nobody honest can.
• You want a quick hack. Google’s guide says you don’t need special files, rewritten content or “inauthentic mentions” to show up. We agree.

Here’s something you can do today. Ask ChatGPT and Google AI Mode three questions a homeowner would type, with your city in them. Something like “Who should I call for a leaking water heater in Tulsa?” Write down who gets named. Then compare the two monthly plans, and check whether your trade and market are open.