AI Search Checklist
For HVAC, roofing, plumbing, garage door, window and door, landscaping, auto repair and electrical businesses
The AI Search Optimization Checklist
Fifteen checks, grouped in five parts: crawler access, pages that answer buyer questions, business data, listings and reviews, and measurement. Each one is a line of what to check and a line of how to verify it yourself, no product required.
Crawler access
If the crawler cannot get in, nothing past this point matters. Start here.
- OpenAI's crawlers are not blocked.
What: robots.txt does not disallow GPTBot or OAI-SearchBot. Blocking them removes your page from what ChatGPT can read.
How to verify: open yoursite.com/robots.txt in a browser and look for GPTBot or OAI-SearchBot on a Disallow line. - Anthropic, Perplexity and Google's AI crawlers are not blocked.
What: robots.txt does not disallow ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot or Google-Extended.
How to verify: same robots.txt file, check for those three names on a Disallow line. - llms.txt exists at your root.
What: some assistants and crawlers fetch llms.txt when it exists.
How to verify: open yoursite.com/llms.txt directly. A 404 means it is missing. Our llms.txt guide covers what to put in one.
Our free check reads your robots.txt, looks for llms.txt, and asks six buyer questions on ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity with live web search, all automatically, at /ai-check/. No email gate, no sign-in.
Pages, business data and listings
Once the crawler is in, what it finds has to actually name you.
Pages that answer buyer questions
The pages that get cited are the ones that answer the exact question with the town named.
- A page exists for each buyer question in your trade and area.
What: a page that answers a question a local buyer would type, with your trade and town in it.
How to verify: search your own site for that exact question. If nothing comes up, the page is missing. Our how-to guide covers writing one. - Each page names your town or service area in the text.
What: the town has to be in the sentences, not only in a footer or a map embed.
How to verify: read the first paragraph of the page and check for the town name. - The question is answered in the first few sentences.
What: the answer sits at the top, not behind a form or another click.
How to verify: read the page the way a stranger would and notice how far down the answer sits.
Business data
- LocalBusiness or Service schema is on the site, with areaServed.
What: machine-readable markup stating your business type and service area.
How to verify: view your page source (view-source: in the address bar) and search for "LocalBusiness" or "areaServed". - The contact page states the same hours, services and area as the rest of the site.
What: one set of facts, repeated the same way everywhere.
How to verify: open the contact page next to the home page and compare hours and services line by line. - Your business name, address and phone are written the same way on every page of your own site.
What: one spelling of the name, one format of the address, one phone number.
How to verify: check the header, footer and contact page side by side.
Listings and reviews
- Your Yelp listing is claimed and current.
What: OpenAI has licensed Yelp reviews, ratings and business details into ChatGPT answers since July 23, 2026 (Search Engine Land), so what is on Yelp can end up in a ChatGPT answer.
How to verify: search your business name on yelp.com and confirm the listing is claimed, with current hours and services. - Your directory listings show the same services and area as your website.
What: a directory listing that disagrees with your site is inconsistent information about your business.
How to verify: pull up your directory listings next to your site and compare service lists and area. - Your name, address and phone match across directories, not just on your own site.
What: the same consistency check, extended past your own domain.
How to verify: check name, address and phone on each directory profile against your site.
Measurement
Everything above is what you can check by hand. This is how you find out what the assistants actually say.
- You know whether ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity name your business today.
What: a live answer, not a guess based on robots.txt and schema.
How to verify: run the free check at /ai-check/. It asks six buyer questions for your trade and area with live web search and reports whether you are named. - You know who gets named instead of you, and which directories get quoted.
What: the names and sources an assistant reached for when it did not reach for you.
How to verify: read the result page from the free check. It lists both, and the page can be shared. - You re-check on a schedule, not once.
What: answers change over time, so a good result today is not a permanent one.
How to verify: put a repeat date on the calendar. The AI visibility pilot includes a day 14 re-run of the same six questions as proof of what changed.
Paid dashboards track this for marketing teams. If you want to see how those compare to free checkers like ours, we lined up both in free AI visibility checkers compared and the full tool list.
Questions
A few things that come up when we walk someone through this list.
What is AI search optimization?
It is the work of making a site readable and citable when ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity answer a local buyer's question with live web search. Some people call it llm seo or generative engine optimization. Same list, different name.
Does finishing this checklist guarantee ChatGPT names my business?
No. No one can promise what an AI assistant will say, and answers change over time. This list removes the reasons an assistant could not read or use your site. It does not guarantee a mention.
How is this different from ranking in Google?
They are different games. An assistant reads a page live and cites what answers the exact question with the town named, so a page can be readable to an assistant and unranked in Google, or ranked and hard for a crawler to read.
Do I need llms.txt?
It is not required, but some assistants and crawlers fetch it when it exists. Our llms.txt guide covers what to put in one.
What does the free check actually check?
It reads your home page, robots.txt and llms.txt, writes six buyer questions for your trade and area, asks them on ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity with live web search, and reports whether you are named, who was named instead, and which directories were quoted.
Questions owners ask
Short answers, no promises.
What is AI search optimization?
It is the work of making a site readable and citable when ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity answer a local buyer's question with live web search. Some people call it llm seo or generative engine optimization. Same list, different name.
Does finishing this checklist guarantee ChatGPT names my business?
No. No one can promise what an AI assistant will say, and answers change over time. This list removes the reasons an assistant could not read or use your site. It does not guarantee a mention.
How is this different from ranking in Google?
They are different games. An assistant reads a page live and cites what answers the exact question with the town named, so a page can be readable to an assistant and unranked in Google, or ranked and hard for a crawler to read.
Do I need llms.txt?
It is not required, but some assistants and crawlers fetch it when it exists. See our llms.txt guide for what to put in one.
What does the free check actually check?
It reads your home page, robots.txt and llms.txt, writes six buyer questions for your trade and area, asks them on ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity with live web search, and reports whether you are named, who was named instead, and which directories were quoted.
Run the free check next
Reading robots.txt and counting schema tags only gets you halfway. The other half is what ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity actually say when someone in your town asks.
This checklist is one page in our AI SEO hub, alongside the how-to guide and the llms.txt guide. The most direct way to see where your own site stands is to run the check itself.
No email gate, no sign-in, and the result page can be shared. If it turns up missed buyer questions, the AI visibility pilot, $397 once as of September 2026, fixes them over 14 days with a before and after re-run of the same six questions. See pricing. It runs in English or Spanish; visit the Spanish site if that is easier to share.