The "near me" question has moved
People still search maps and listings, but more of them also ask an assistant: "who is a reliable electrician near me who does evening call-outs?" The reply is a short paragraph naming a few businesses, often with a reason for each.
For a local business, being one of those names, and being described correctly, matters more than any abstract score.
Local answers lean heavily on facts:
- Where you are.
- Which areas you cover.
- What you do.
- When you are open.
- What other people say about you.
When those facts are clear and consistent, an assistant can describe you with confidence. When they disagree, it may leave you out or get you wrong.
The facts that must match everywhere
- Name, address and phone number, written the same way on your site, your listings and the directories that mention you.
- The area you serve, stated in plain words on your site, not only implied by a map.
- Services and opening hours, current, including what you have stopped doing.
- Prices or how pricing works, if you publish them at all, kept up to date.
If an assistant already says something wrong about the business, start with our page on correcting wrong facts in AI answers.
Pages that help a local business
- A clear home page that says what you do and where.
- One page per main service that answers the questions customers ask before they ring.
- An honest FAQ.
If you cover several towns, a page for a town only earns its place when it says something specific: travel times, typical jobs there, parking or access notes. Swapping the town name into the same text helps nobody.
Reviews and mentions
What other people write about a local business carries weight: reviews, local news, trade association listings, suppliers who mention you. You cannot buy your way into an AI answer, but you can:
- Make it easy for happy customers to leave a review.
- Make sure the directories that list you have the right details.
- Reply to reviews in plain language that restates what you do and where; it helps people reading them too.
Checking it without guesswork
- Write down ten questions customers ask, including the area. The free question set builder gives you a starting list.
- Ask each question several times in a clean session and record who is named.
- Score the pages that should answer them. On the free plan, 3 credits a month cover three page analyses with no card.
Pro, at £29 a month with VAT included, adds site audits, answer simulation and PDF reports.
For agencies with local clients
Local clients often have one site and a small budget. What keeps the work affordable:
- A fixed question set per client.
- A monthly re-check.
- A one-page white-label report.
The Agency plan (£129 a month, VAT included, 500 credits) adds a shared team workspace for several staff and several clients.
Honest limits
- The tools run on Google Gemini, so scores and simulations are estimates, not a record of what any assistant told a local customer.
- We do not manage listings or reviews, and we do not promise rankings or a place in AI answers.
If a business is simply not being mentioned, our page on why ChatGPT doesn't recommend a business lists the usual causes in order.
Common questions
Do AI assistants use my Google Business Profile?
Some assistants look things up on the web at the time of asking, and business listings can be among the sources. Exactly which sources each assistant uses is not published in full, so keep every listing accurate rather than relying on one.
Should I make a page for every town near me?
Only for places you genuinely serve and can say something useful about. Near-identical town pages with the name swapped help nobody and can look like spam.
How do I check what assistants say for local questions?
Ask the questions customers ask, including the area, in a clean session, several times each, and note who is named. Our step-by-step guide has a record sheet.
Is GEO Agency a local marketing agency?
No. GEO Agency is a set of self-serve tools for checking and improving pages, with a done-for-you service quoted per job. We do not manage listings or reviews.