ai-presence-auditor

AI Presence Auditor

Customers increasingly ask an AI assistant "who should I call for a plumber in Austin?" instead of scrolling Google. AI names only a handful of businesses — you're either in the answer or you're invisible. This skill audits where a local business stands across the surfaces AI actually reads, and returns a prioritized list of fixes.

What you need (inputs)

• Business name
• Primary service(s)
• City / service area
• Website URL
• 2–3 competitors (optional but useful)

How AI actually picks local businesses (the model the fixes follow from)

There is no single "AI" — different assistants read different sources, so "get found by AI" is a multi-surface job, not one listing:

• ChatGPT leans on the Bing index + your website + Yelp/Foursquare structured data — not primarily Google Business Profile.
• Google AI Overviews / AI Mode / Gemini lean on your Google Business Profile + the local pack.
• Microsoft Copilot ← the Bing ecosystem. Siri / Apple Maps ← Apple Business Connect.

A few ground rules that shape every recommendation:

• AI recommends a small set (~3–5) of businesses, and often not the Google #1. Being cited is not the same as being recommended.
• Reviews act as a trust filter — roughly 4+ stars is table stakes; thin or below-average review profiles get left out. (There's no proven exact numeric cutoff — don't invent one.)
• Multi-source consistency beats any single listing: consistent name/address/phone (NAP) across Google, Bing, Apple, Foursquare, Yelp, and directories is what lets the AI trust the entity.
• Reality check: AI-sourced recommendations are still a small share of local demand today versus the Google local pack and the phone. Treat this as a growing edge, not the whole game — and say so.

The audit

1. Run representative buyer prompts. Across ChatGPT + Perplexity + Google AI (and Gemini/Copilot if available), use real customer phrasing: "best emergency plumber in {city}", "who should I call for {problem} in {city}", "top-rated {service} near {neighborhood}". For each prompt record: Is the business named? Which competitors are named? What reason or source does the AI give?
2. Diagnose the surfaces. Check presence + completeness on Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, Foursquare, and Yelp. Flag any that are missing or unclaimed.
3. Check NAP consistency (name, address, phone) across those registries — mismatches confuse the entity and suppress recommendations.
4. Check reviews — volume, recency, average rating, and response rate. Below-average or thin → likely filtered out regardless of everything else.
5. Check the website. Does it state, in plain text, exactly what you do and where ("24/7 emergency plumbing in {city}")? Are there service and service-area pages, and an FAQ that matches how people ask AI? Vague "quality solutions for all your needs" copy is effectively invisible to AI.
6. Check third-party mentions/citations — is the business named in local "best-of" round-ups, directories, and review sites the AI pulls from?