This is the sequence we run for trades clients, ordered by impact per hour of effort. Most of the first half costs nothing but consistency.
1. Verify and complete your Google Business Profile
The gateway. Unverified means invisible to AI answers, full stop. Complete every field: categories, service areas, hours, description, and photos from real jobs. In every measurement we run, businesses with complete active profiles dominate AI recommendations.
2. Build a weekly review habit
Reviews are the most-quoted reason AI engines give for recommending a trade business, sometimes verbatim ("70+ 5-star reviews"). Text every customer a direct review link at job completion. One a week, sustained, beats a yearly begging round, recency matters as much as count. Our review request templates make this a 30-second habit.
3. Publish real answers to cost and timeframe questions
When we tested cost questions across seven AI engines, they could barely name anyone, because almost no tradie publishes numbers. "How much does X cost in [your city]" content with honest ranges is the emptiest, highest-value space in AI search. Write the answer the way you'd say it on the phone.
4. Put your suburbs in plain text
Engines lift suburb lists verbatim when answering location prompts. A sentence like "We service Howick, Botany, Pakuranga and Flat Bush" on your site is machine-usable evidence; a map graphic is not.
5. Add FAQ and LocalBusiness schema
Schema is how machines know which text is the answer and which business it belongs to. FAQ schema on your question content, LocalBusiness schema with your exact NAP everywhere. If your website platform makes this hard, that's worth knowing: see our guide to AEO-ready website builders.
6. Claim the platforms the engines already trust
In our trades measurement, Builderscrack and NoCowboys were cited more often than any builder's own website, and the LBP register appeared across four engines. Claim and complete your profiles; keep your details identical to your site and GBP.
7. Add an llms.txt file
An hour of work: a plain-text summary of who you are, your key facts, and your important pages. Cheap insurance that hands AI crawlers your business summary instead of leaving them to guess. Full how-to in our llms.txt guide.
8. Check your website is AI-readable at all
View your page source and search for your phone number. If it's not in the raw HTML, most AI crawlers can't see it, and steps 3 to 5 are wasted until it's fixed.
9. Measure monthly
Ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity the questions your customers ask: "best [trade] in [suburb]", "how much does [job] cost in [city]". Record who gets named. Do it monthly, answers move. This is exactly what we automate with Citable across seven engines as part of our AEO service.
The honest timeline
Steps 1 and 2 can influence answers within weeks. Content and schema compound over two to four months. The trades that start now are building a lead most of their competitors don't know exists yet.
