Local SEO in the Age of AI Search: What ChatGPT and Perplexity Look For

When customers ask ChatGPT or Perplexity "who's a good plumber in Burnaby," the AI doesn't search the open web the way Google did in 2015. It picks from a much smaller set of sources it has already learned to trust, and it picks fast. If your business isn't in that trusted set, you don't get mentioned — no second-page rankings to fall back to.

The good news: the way you get in isn't mysterious. It's a tighter version of the same things Local SEO has always rewarded.

Two things changed

First, the algorithms now read your pages for *understanding*, not just keyword matching. A page that says "we fix dishwashers in 14 Metro Vancouver cities" in one sentence outperforms a page that lists "dishwasher repair Vancouver dishwasher repair Burnaby dishwasher repair Richmond" twenty times.

Second, the result is one answer, not ten blue links. Either you're cited or you're not. There's no consolation prize.

What AI search engines actually look for

A few patterns hold across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google's AI Overviews:

• Named expertise. A real owner with a real bio, named on the page. Anonymous brand voice gets discounted.
• Specificity. Concrete services, concrete areas, concrete prices or price ranges, concrete hours.
• Structured data. Schema.org markup for LocalBusiness, Service, FAQPage, and Person. This is what tells the AI what kind of page it's reading.
• Citations. Other sites mentioning your business with consistent name, address, and phone. Google Business Profile is the single most important one.
• Recent activity. Pages updated in the last 6 months. AI engines prefer fresh signals over stale-but-thorough.

The four pages every trade pro should ship

Most local websites have one page that tries to do everything. AI search wants the opposite: many narrow pages that each answer one question completely.

The minimum set:

1. A home page that names the owner, the service area, the trades you cover, and how to reach you. Above the fold.

2. A service page per service. "Drain unclogging" gets its own URL. "Dishwasher install" gets its own URL. Each one explains what's included, what's not, typical price, and typical timeline.

3. A service-area page per city/neighborhood you actually work in. "Plumber in Burnaby" gets a real page with local landmarks, recent jobs in that area, and the specific phone or form for that area if you have one.

4. An owner/about page with a real photo, real career history, real credentials. This is the page AI engines use to decide whether to trust the rest.

That's the floor. Twelve to fifteen pages, not one.

Common mistakes that knock you out of the running

• Service-area pages that are obvious copy-paste with the city name swapped in.
• Stock photos of someone else's truck or work site.
• A contact form that asks for fifteen fields.
• Hours and phone numbers that disagree across your site, Google Business, and Yelp.
• Zero new content for the last year.

A 30-day plan

Week 1: Audit. List every service you sell and every area you serve. Pull your Google Business Profile and check for consistency with your site.

Week 2: Ship the four-page foundation if it's missing. Write in plain English. Name the owner.

Week 3: Add schema markup (LocalBusiness on every page, Service on service pages, Person on about). If this is unfamiliar, this is exactly where most owners get a partner.

Week 4: Pick three real photos from real jobs. Replace the stock ones. Update your Google Business Profile with the same photos.

If this list reads like a part-time job, that's because it is. The reason most local businesses pay a partner to run this is the same reason most people pay a plumber instead of watching YouTube — the work is doable, and it's still worth not doing it yourself. The BookedUp platform was built specifically to run this playbook for trade businesses on a monthly basis, with the SEO/AEO work, the landing pages, and the Google Business management handled by humans on our side.