Guides

Getting found,
and getting hired.

19 plain-language guides for local businesses — AI search, websites, advertising, reviews and the follow-up that actually wins the job. Written for owners, not marketers. Nothing to buy.

Start here · AI search How AI actually decides who to recommend There is no ranking to buy. Here's what the engines read before they name a business. 4 min read

AI search

7 guides

How ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude decide who to recommend.

How AI actually decides who to recommend There is no ranking to buy. Here's what the engines read before they name a business. Start here4 min Test your own visibility in ten minutes Ask the engines yourself, the way a customer would. What you find tells you where to push. 10 minutes3 min Why AI names your competitor instead of you Usually it isn't that they're better. It's that they're easier to be sure about. Diagnosis5 min When AI gets your business wrong Old hours, a dead phone number, or another company's details attached to your name. Fix4 min Where AI actually learns about local businesses Your website is one source of several, and it isn't always the loudest. Sources4 min AI search and Google SEO: what actually changes Much of the old work still counts. What changes is what winning looks like. Foundations4 min How long it takes to show up in AI answers What moves in days, what takes a season, and what nobody can promise. Expectations3 min

Your website

5 guides

The pages, structure and speed that decide whether anyone stays.

How to write a page AI will quote The structure that gets lifted into answers, and the phrases that get skipped. Content5 min Schema and llms.txt, explained without jargon Two small files that tell an engine what you are instead of making it guess. Technical3 min One city, one service, one page The simplest page structure there is, and the one most sites get wrong. Content4 min What your homepage actually needs Five things, in order. Most sites have the last one first. Design5 min Slow websites lose customers quietly You never see the ones who left. Here's what makes a site slow and what to do. Performance4 min

Advertising

3 guides

Meta ads without the mythology — what the money buys and what it doesn't.

Facebook ads for local businesses, plainly What the money actually buys, and the three settings that decide whether it works. Meta ads6 min Why your ads aren't working Work through it in order. The answer is rarely the part everyone blames. Diagnosis5 min What a lead is actually worth to you Two numbers you already have turn advertising from a gamble into arithmetic. Numbers4 min

Reviews & listings

2 guides

Your profile, your reviews, and the details everyone checks.

The reviews that AI repeats back Why recency and detail beat volume, and how to ask without feeling pushy. Reviews4 min Your Google Business Profile, done properly The first place every engine looks, and the five fields most owners leave half-filled. Listings4 min

Winning the work

2 guides

Replying, quoting and closing once the enquiry finally arrives.

The first hour decides who gets the job Most quote requests go to whoever answers first, not whoever is best. Follow-up4 min Quotes that get accepted Same price, same work — the quote itself changes whether you get the job. Sales4 min