Service 03
Two search engines matter now. Most businesses only show up in one.
Your customers still open Google Maps. They also open ChatGPT and ask who's good. Being invisible in the second one is the quiet problem of 2026.
What changed
The map pack still runs on the old rules. AI answers don't.
Figures from 2026 local search research. The point isn't the exact number — it's that one channel is now two, and almost nobody local has adapted.
The work
Half of it is unglamorous. That's why it works.
Google Business Profile, done properly
Primary category chosen deliberately — it's the single biggest lever. Services, attributes, hours including public holidays, at least ten real photos, weekly posts. No keyword stuffing in the business name; that risks suspension.
Reviews as a system
A steady monthly flow beats a big old pile. Automated requests at the right moment, every review answered within 24 hours, and a nudge toward the detail that actually carries weight.
Consistency everywhere
Name, address and phone identical across Google, Bing Places, Apple Maps, Facebook and the directories your trade actually uses. "St" versus "Street" is not a small thing.
On-page and technical
Service pages that answer one question each, suburb pages only where they're genuinely different, schema markup, clean indexation, fast loads.
Readable by machines
AI crawlers allowed rather than accidentally blocked, content structured as direct answers, and a consistent description of your business so the models resolve you as one entity.
Measured across both
Map pack positions and calls, plus share of voice across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and AI Overviews. You see where you're named and where a competitor is named instead.
Try this yourself, right now
Open ChatGPT and ask it who's the best in your suburb.
Use the words a customer would use — "best emergency plumber in Mascot", "good physio near Kingsford". Then look at whether you're in the answer.
Most local businesses aren't, and a competitor is. That gap is closeable, and right now it's closeable cheaply, because almost nobody is working on it yet.
Have me check it properlyPricing
Two ways in.
| Engagement | What happens | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility audit | One-off. Where you stand in Maps and in AI answers, against two named competitors, with a prioritised fix list. | Free with a build · $500–900 standalone |
| Ongoing | Profile, reviews, content and technical work each month, reported against both channels. | $800–2,500 / month |
No ranking guarantees, ever. Under Australian Consumer Law promising a position is misleading conduct, and anyone who promises you one is telling you something about themselves. I commit to the work and the measurement.
Find out where you stand — free.
I'll check your Google presence and run your trade's real questions through the AI search tools, then send you a short video of what came back.