Visibility in AI models for trade businesses
Anyone who wants a solar system, a heat pump or a wallbox today increasingly asks an AI system instead of a search engine: "Which electrical contractor in my area installs solar with storage?" The answer is not a list of ten links but two or three businesses with a reason. If you are not among them, the enquiry never reaches you.
For trade questions, AI answers usually name the businesses whose websites clearly state what they do and where: services in the words customers use, a named service area, qualifications. Directories and portals appear alongside them because they have exactly this structure. The business with the best local reputation is often missing because its website never spells it out.
Trade websites are often a business card: a photo, a sentence about tradition, a phone number. For an AI system that is too little to match the business to a concrete question. The list of services, the service area and descriptions of typical projects are missing. All of that can be added, and whether it works can be measured.
How customers actually ask
Question types from our own measurement series, reworded generically – company, place and product names removed.
- „Which electrical contractor in my area installs solar systems with battery storage?"
- „Who installs a wallbox and handles the registration with the grid operator?"
- „Which company maintains solar systems and checks the yield?"
- „Who installs energy-efficient heating systems and heat pumps near me?"
- „Which providers of air conditioning and refrigeration systems serve commercial clients?"
- „Which construction company offers turnkey commercial buildings?"
- „Who builds prefabricated timber houses with a full service?"
- „Which specialist firms build hall facades and building envelopes nationwide?"
- „Which business installs alarm systems and video surveillance for a family home?"
- „Which specialists set up smart home systems?"
- „Who offers building and civil engineering from a single source?"
- „What alternatives are there to the well-known manufacturers of sandwich panels for halls?"
What is usually missing
- A list of services in customer language
Customers ask for "wallbox", "heat pump" or "roof renovation", not for "e-mobility solutions". Every service needs its own section with the word the customer uses and two sentences on what the business actually does.
- A named service area
The most common question contains "near me". An AI system can only answer it if the website names towns, districts or a radius. "We are there for you" is not enough.
- References without names
Typical projects can be described without naming the client: type of building, scope, special feature, period. Three such descriptions tell an AI system more than twenty logos.
- Qualifications as facts
Master craftsman, registration in the trade register, certified specialist, manufacturer training: such facts are citable when they are written as text and not only shown as a seal graphic.
- Availability and emergency service
Opening hours, emergency arrangements and the way to send an enquiry belong on the page as text. An AI system prefers to recommend a business it can explain how to reach.
How we work with you
- GEO analysis for your business
We ask the questions your customers ask in four AI systems and show which businesses are named when yours is missing.
- GEO building blocks
Service list, service area and qualifications as structured data on the existing website, plus an llms.txt.
- Make the existing website AI-readable
We restructure your website so that every service, place and qualification is unambiguous for an AI system, without losing the look.
- New website
If the old site is only a business card, we build a new one that answers the questions your customers ask from the start.
- Ongoing support
Hosting, continuous measurement and new project descriptions so that visibility does not fade after the season.
Questions
- Why does the AI name my competitor and not my business?
- Usually not because the competitor does better work, but because its website states more clearly what it does and where. AI systems match a question to the providers whose services and service area are readable as text. We measure which questions fail to find your business and fix the causes.
- Is a Google listing not enough?
- The business profile helps on Google, but ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok mainly read your website and sources that write about you. If the list of services is missing there, the business stays invisible in AI answers even with a good Google profile.
- We only work within a radius of 50 kilometres. Is it worth it?
- Especially then. Most trade questions to AI systems contain a place or "near me". A business whose website names its service area has an advantage over nationwide portals for exactly these questions.
- How quickly can a change be seen?
- AI systems re-read websites at different intervals. We measure weekly in four systems and show the development over time. We do not promise a fixed deadline because we do not control it.
- Do we have to name customers as references?
- No. An AI system needs the type of project, not the name of the client: building type, scope, special feature. Such descriptions are citable and do not breach confidentiality.
- What does it cost?
- Scope and starting point differ a lot between businesses, so we discuss the price in a first call. The GEO check beforehand is free and shows within seconds whether AI systems are allowed to read your website at all.
Where do you stand in the skilled trades?
The GEO check takes seconds and costs nothing. For the full picture we measure four AI systems against the questions above.