How a local business shows up in Google's AI answers.

What Google says, in plain words

In May 2026 Google published a guide to the generative AI features in its search: the AI Overviews at the top of some results, and the conversational AI Mode. Its main points, in our words:

• There are no extra requirements and no special tricks. A page that can appear in ordinary results can be used in an AI answer.
• You do not need new files, AI text files, special markup or Markdown copies of your pages. Google Search does not use them, and adding one neither helps nor harms.
• There is no special schema.org markup to add.
• You do not need to cut content into small chunks, or write in a special way for AI.
• Optimising for these features is optimising for search, so it is still SEO.

The guide also explains how the answers are built. Google's core ranking systems fetch relevant pages from its index, and the feature runs several related searches at once, which Google calls query fan-out, to gather sources for one question. To be used, a page has to be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet.

So "how do I get into AI Overviews" has the same answer as "how do I get found on Google". The rest of this guide is what that means for a local business.

What feeds answers about local businesses

Ask Google who can fix a leaking radiator in Didsbury on a Saturday, and the results lean on local information: map results built from Business Profiles, and pages from the businesses' own sites. Google's guide names the Business Profile, along with Merchant Center for products, as a way for your services to be visible in AI responses as well as in other results.

Google ranks local results on relevance, distance and prominence, which takes in your reviews and the links to you, and it says nobody can pay for a better local ranking. So for a heating engineer or any other trade, the profile work is the AI work:

• The right primary category, and your services listed with a line on each.
• Hours, including holiday hours, that match your website.
• Service areas, if you travel to customers.
• Photos of real work and premises.
• The website linked, to the page for your main service.

If the profile is not set up properly yet, start there. Google Business Profile for a business without a storefront covers businesses that travel to their customers.

Pages that answer the questions people ask

Because one AI answer is built from several related searches, a page that answers the follow-up questions in plain text gives Google more to work with. Take the questions customers already ask you, on the phone, by email or in your website chat, and answer them on the page for that service.

For a physiotherapy clinic, the page on back pain might answer:

• Do I need a referral from my GP?
• How long is the first appointment, and what happens in it?
• Do you treat running injuries as well as back pain?
• Is there parking, and is the entrance step-free?
• Can I claim the cost on my health insurance?

Google's guide is blunt about what makes a page worth using: content with a first-hand view that goes beyond common knowledge, rather than a recycling of what other sites say or what any AI tool could write. A local business has plenty of that. Your prices or what decides them, the areas you cover, how a first visit works, photos of your own jobs and the questions you hear every week are all things nobody else can write for you.

One question, followed through

Take a question a real customer might type: "physio near me open Saturday for a running injury". Each part of it needs something from the clinic:

• "Near me": a verified Business Profile with the right address or service area.
• "Open Saturday": Saturday hours on the profile and on the website, the same in both places.
• "Physio": the right primary category, and the word the clinic's own patients use on its pages.
• "Running injury": a page, or a section of one, about running injuries, written by the people who treat them, with what a first appointment involves.
• Behind all of it: reviews that describe real visits, and a site Google can index.

None of that is special to AI answers. It is what a person standing at the clinic's door would want to know, written down where Google can read it.

Old pages that feed wrong answers

AI answers repeat what they find, including what you forgot you published. Before you add anything new, fix or remove what is out of date:

• An old price list, as a page or a PDF, still linked from somewhere.
• A page for a service you stopped offering, or a location you closed.
• A team page with people who left.
• Last year's holiday hours, still on the website or the profile.
• A second, older website or profile for the same business.

Update a page if it is still useful. If not, remove it and redirect its address to the closest current page, so old links still lead somewhere.

Reviews, and what other sites say about you

Google's local ranking help says more reviews and positive ratings can help a business's local ranking. Ask every customer the same way, as the review request rules describe, and reply to what they write.

Mentions elsewhere matter less than the sellers claim. Google's guide warns that chasing inauthentic mentions across the web is not as helpful as it might seem. Real listings help people find you: your trade association, the local chamber, suppliers who list approved fitters. A paid spot on a list of "best plumbers" written for search engines is the kind of mention Google tells you not to chase.

Keep the facts the same everywhere. When your website says you close at 6pm and your Google profile says 5.30pm, an AI answer can repeat either one. The same goes for your Apple Maps place card.

The technical checks are the same as for search

A page that is not in Google's index cannot appear in an AI answer. Check these, in this order:

• The page is indexed. Inspect it in Search Console, as our guide to sites missing from Google explains.
• Snippets are allowed. A nosnippet tag, or a max-snippet setting of zero, keeps the page's text out of ordinary results and out of AI answers.
• robots.txt lets Googlebot in, and so does your hosting or any firewall in front of the site.
• The important content is on the page as text, and your main pages are linked from the menu.
• The page works well on a phone and loads quickly.
• Any structured data matches what the page shows. Google says it is not required for AI features, though it still helps pages qualify for some special result types.

These are part of every site we build: titles, descriptions, structured data, a sitemap and Search Console in your account, as listed under websites.

The Search Console setting you should know about

Search Console now has a setting for Search generative AI features, and it is on by default. Switching it to exclude takes your site's links and content out of AI Overviews, AI Mode and the AI features in Google Discover, usually within a few days, and you then get no traffic or impressions from them. Google says the setting is not a ranking signal for the rest of Search.

For a local business there is little reason to switch it off. Leave it on, and check that nobody switched it off while setting up the property.

To keep a single page's text out of these features while it stays in search, Google points to its nosnippet, data-nosnippet and max-snippet controls. They limit ordinary snippets too, so use them sparingly.

How to see whether you appear

Search Console has a Generative AI performance report. It shows impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode, how they change over time, which pages get them, and the countries and devices they come from. If your site has had too few impressions in these features, the report may not appear at all.

Then check by hand, on a phone. Search the questions your customers ask, note whether an AI Overview appears, and look at which sites it links to. Answers change between people and from day to day, so treat what you see as a rough sample.

Treat third-party "AI visibility" scores with care. Google says no third-party tool has access to its internal ranking or AI systems.

Count enquiries as well as visits. If an AI answer gives your hours and phone number, a customer can call without ever opening your site, so visits can fall while the phone rings as often as before. Judge the work by calls, bookings and enquiries, and ask new customers how they found you.

What to make of "GEO" offers

Google's guide lists things to ignore, which in our words are:

• llms.txt files and other special markup.
• Cutting content into chunks.
• Rewriting pages just for AI.
• Chasing mentions that are not genuine.
• Too much focus on structured data.

It also warns that making pages for every variation of a question, mainly to steer rankings or AI answers, breaks its policy on scaled content abuse, and that a high number of pages does not make a site better.

Before you pay for a GEO package, ask the seller what exactly will change on your site and your profile, which Google guidance supports each change, and where the numbers in the monthly report come from. If the answers are vague, so is the work. More on checking these offers in our guide to SEO spam emails, and on mass-produced pages in does Google penalise AI content.

About llms.txt

llms.txt is a proposed plain text file that lists a site's main pages for AI tools to read. Google's guide is clear: Google Search does not use it, and having one will neither help nor harm your visibility in Google Search.

This site has one, built with the rest of the pages, and it costs nothing to keep. We do not expect it to change anything on Google. If someone sells you one as a way into AI Overviews, they are selling something Google says it does not use.

When to leave it alone

If most customers find you by name, through word of mouth or through a booking marketplace, AI answers change little for you. Search the five questions your customers ask most, on a phone. If no AI Overview appears for any of them, spend the time on your map results and your profile instead.

And if your profile and main pages are already right, there is nothing extra to buy. Google's guide says there is no special optimisation to do, so a monthly fee for "AI optimisation" on top of a sound site pays for very little.

A checklist for a local business

• Business Profile complete, with the right category, services, hours and photos.
• The same name, phone number and hours on the profile, the website and Apple Maps.
• A page for each main service that answers the questions customers ask, in plain text.
• Reviews asked of every customer, and replies to them.
• Main pages indexed in Search Console, with snippets allowed.
• The Search generative AI setting left on.
• A monthly look at the Generative AI and Performance reports.

Our Growth plan includes a monthly look at your Google results, reviews and enquiries, in plain words. The prices page has the details.