AI Search Visibility for Sonoma County contractors.

Get found when customers ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini for a contractor in Santa Rosa, Petaluma, or anywhere in the North Bay. It’s called Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) — the new SEO layer that almost no local agency is selling yet, and the one we run for every contractor we work with.

The shift you’re missing

Gartner forecasts that 25% of organic search traffic will shift to AI chatbots by the end of 2026. ChatGPT alone handles 2 billion queries a day. Perplexity’s referral traffic is up 527% year-over-year. When a homeowner asks ChatGPT “best plumber in Santa Rosa” or “who installs tankless water heaters in Petaluma,” they get a short answer with three named businesses — not ten blue links.

If you’re not one of those three businesses, you don’t get the lead. And unlike Google, you don’t get an impression, a ranking report, or any signal that the search happened. You just never hear the phone ring.

Answer Engine Optimization — also called AI search optimization or ChatGPT SEO — is the work of making sure your business is one of the three names ChatGPT picks. It’s a new layer on top of regular SEO with different signals and a different distribution model.

What ChatGPT sees right now

Before we do anything, I run an AI visibility audit. I ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews the five queries your customers actually type — “best [your trade] in [your city],” “who does [your service] in Sonoma County,” and so on — and screenshot the answer. Then I show you who’s listed, who isn’t, and why.

Mockup — illustrative of the AI visibility audit we run before starting the work.

That screenshot is also the single most effective piece of cold outreach you can send. It’s why we run the same audit on ourselves and show it to every contractor we talk to.

What’s included

How it works

FAQs

What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?

Answer Engine Optimization is the practice of structuring a website so AI search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews can extract and cite your business when users ask questions. Unlike traditional SEO, which optimizes for Google’s ten blue links, AEO optimizes for direct AI answers. The ranking signals overlap with SEO but emphasize schema markup, clear FAQ structure, definitions early in content, citation presence across directories, and verifiable authority signals.

How is ChatGPT SEO different from regular SEO?

ChatGPT SEO (also called AEO) optimizes for how AI models choose which businesses to recommend in a generated answer, not how Google ranks ten blue links. AI models weigh schema markup, clean FAQ blocks, citation consistency across directories, and authority signals more heavily than keyword density or backlink volume. Regular SEO is still necessary as a foundation — AI engines often pull from the same index — but AEO adds structure and citation work that SEO alone does not cover.

How do I show up on ChatGPT for my service area?

To show up on ChatGPT for a service area, your business needs: consistent Name / Address / Phone (NAP) citations across directories AI engines pull from (Google Business Profile, Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing Places, BBB), LocalBusiness and Service schema markup on your site, FAQ blocks that directly answer the queries customers ask, and authority signals like reviews and industry citations. AI Search Visibility handles all four in the setup phase and maintains them monthly.

Can you guarantee I’ll appear in ChatGPT results?

No. No agency can guarantee AI citation, just like no agency can guarantee Google ranking. We do the work that drives results — audit, schema, FAQ, citations, monitoring — and report on visibility changes monthly. AI models also rewrite their training and retrieval layers frequently, so rankings shift. What we guarantee is the work, not the outcome.

Do I need this if I already rank on Google?

Yes. Google ranking and AI citation are different algorithms with different signals and different distribution. A contractor can dominate the Google map pack and still be invisible when a customer asks ChatGPT “best plumber in Santa Rosa.” Gartner forecasts 25% of organic search traffic will shift to AI chatbots. If your business does not appear in those answers, you lose those leads without ever knowing they existed.