AI search optimisation in Warrington.
Nearly half of customers now ask AI for local recommendations. ChatGPT names about one local business in a hundred. This is the work that gets you into that one.
The shift
Will ChatGPT recommend your business?
Go and try it. Open ChatGPT and ask it to recommend your type of business in Warrington. Most owners doing that for the first time find a competitor named instead, or nobody local at all.
- 45% of consumers used an AI tool to find a local business in the last year, up from 6% the year before BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey, 2026 (US panel)
- 1.2% of local business locations ever get recommended by ChatGPT SOCi Local Visibility Index, 2026, 350,000 locations analysed
- 1 in 3 Google UK searches now triggers an AI Overview, up from roughly 1 in 5 SearchScore UK AI search data, 2026
- Under 5% of UK small businesses have done anything at all about AI search SearchScore audit dataset, May 2026
Figures above are the most recent published research at the time of writing. Where a study used a US consumer panel it is labelled, because UK behaviour tends to follow a few months behind.
Being first on Google is no longer the same as being found
This is the bit worth understanding, because it is genuinely new. SOCi analysed 350,000 business locations in 2026 and found only about 45% overlap between who ranks well on Google and who gets recommended by AI.
The reason is simple enough. ChatGPT cannot see inside Google’s reviews. So if your entire reputation lives on your Google Business Profile and nowhere else, you can sit at the top of the map pack and still be completely invisible to somebody asking ChatGPT the exact same question.
AI systems look for different things: consistent business details across every platform, structured data that spells out what you do and where, reviews in more than one place, and pages that answer a question directly instead of burying it. None of that is exotic. Almost nobody local has done it.
The acronyms
GEO, AEO, AISO: what they all mean
The industry has not settled on a name for this yet, so you will see several. They describe the same work.
- GEO, generative engine optimisationThe most widely recognised term. Getting cited inside long AI-generated answers from tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity. Coined in a 2023 academic paper.
- AEO, answer engine optimisationThe older term, from 2017. Originally about featured snippets, voice search, and direct answer boxes. Now largely used interchangeably with GEO.
- AI SEO or AI search optimisationThe plain-English versions, and the ones actual business owners tend to type into Google.
- AISO and LLMONewer variants. AISO (AI search optimisation) is climbing fast in job adverts. LLMO refers specifically to large language model optimisation.
- What mattersIgnore the label. Ask whoever you hire what they will actually change on your site and profile, and how they will measure whether an AI names you afterwards.
The work
What I actually do about it
This runs alongside your local SEO, not instead of it. Google still sends far more traffic than every AI tool put together, so the fundamentals stay the priority.
- Structured data that spells it outSchema markup for your business, services, service area, opening hours, and FAQs, so an AI model does not have to guess what you do or where you do it.
- Consistent details everywhereIdentical name, address, phone number, and categories across your website, Google Business Profile, Apple Maps, Bing Places, and the directories that matter for your sector. Inconsistency is the most common reason AI skips a business.
- Answer-first contentPages and FAQ sections that answer a real customer question in the first couple of sentences, in under fifty words, which is the format these systems lift most readily.
- Reviews beyond GoogleA steady flow of reviews on more than one platform, because the AI tools that cannot read Google reviews can read the others.
- Crawlable to AI, on purposeA robots file that welcomes the AI crawlers instead of blocking them, and a machine-readable site summary at /llms.txt so the tools get your details straight from you.
- Monthly visibility checksI query ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity for your service and area, log whether you are named, and report what moved. Same plain English as the rest of the reporting.
This is included in the one package alongside local SEO and the website build, at no extra cost. See pricing. Areas covered: Warrington, Lymm, Stockton Heath, Great Sankey, Grappenhall, Appleton, Penketh, Padgate, Culcheth, Birchwood, Latchford, Woolston, Winwick, Bury, Radcliffe, Whitefield, Prestwich, Ramsbottom, Tottington, Heywood, Middleton and Unsworth.
Why now is the cheap moment
Fewer than 5% of UK small businesses have done anything deliberate about AI search, and over 60% have no structured data on their website at all.
That is unusual. Normally by the time a channel has 45% consumer adoption it is expensive and crowded. Here the customers have already moved and the businesses have not, which means the pool of well-structured local sources these AI tools can pull from is still small.
I am not going to pretend this replaces ranking on Google, because it does not, and anybody telling you otherwise is selling a story. It is a second front that costs almost nothing extra to cover while you are having the SEO done properly anyway.
AI search FAQ
AI search, answered plainly.
What is AI search optimisation?
AI search optimisation is the work of getting your business named and recommended inside AI answers, such as ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini, and Perplexity. It is also called GEO (generative engine optimisation) or AEO (answer engine optimisation). For a local business it means clean structured data, consistent details everywhere, reviews on more than one platform, and pages that answer real questions directly.
What is the difference between GEO, AEO and AI SEO?
Very little in practice. AEO (answer engine optimisation) is the older term, aimed at featured snippets and direct answers. GEO (generative engine optimisation) came later and covers longer AI-generated answers. AI SEO and AI search optimisation are the plain-English versions. The tactics are the same: structured data, answer-first content, consistent business information, and third-party reputation.
Does ranking on Google mean AI will recommend me too?
No, and that is the part that catches people out. SOCi found only about 45% overlap between traditional Google rankings and AI visibility in 2026. AI tools like ChatGPT cannot see inside Google’s review ecosystem, so a business whose entire reputation sits on Google reviews can be strong on Google and invisible in ChatGPT.
Is AI search worth bothering with for a local service business in Warrington?
Yes, as a layer on top of local SEO rather than instead of it. Google still sends far more traffic than every AI tool combined, so local SEO stays the priority. But AI is now the third most used way people look for local businesses, and fewer than 5% of UK small businesses have prepared for it, so it is unusually cheap to get ahead right now.
How do I check if AI recommends my business?
Open ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity, and ask each one to recommend what you do in your town, for example "best physio in Warrington" or "console repair near me". If your business is not named, you are in the 98.8% that AI currently skips. That check is part of the free audit.
Do you guarantee I will appear in ChatGPT?
No. Nobody controls what an AI model says, and anybody promising a guaranteed ChatGPT placement is selling you something they cannot deliver. What I can do is fix the signals these systems actually read, then check your visibility across the main AI tools every month and show you whether it is moving.
Want to know if AI mentions you?
The free audit now includes an AI visibility check: I ask ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity for your service and area and show you exactly what they say.