AI Marketing & Visibility
Ask ChatGPT About Your Business: A 10-Minute AI Visibility Self-Test
Most owners have never asked ChatGPT who it recommends in their own town. Here's a simple test you can run today, and what the answers tell you.
Authority AINovember 12, 20263 min read
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Most business owners have Googled themselves at least once.
Very few have asked ChatGPT about themselves.
That's a blind spot, because your next customer may not search the old way. They'll open ChatGPT, Gemini, or the AI answer at the top of Google and ask a plain question: "Who's the best water damage company near me?" or "Which business attorney in Fort Lauderdale should I call?"
The answer they get is a short list, sometimes just one name. If you're not on it, you never get the call, and you never find out you lost it.
Here's a simple test you can run today in about ten minutes.
Step 1: Ask the Way Your Customers Ask (3 minutes)
Open ChatGPT (and Gemini or Google if you have time). Don't type your company name yet. Ask three questions a real customer would ask:
- "Who is the best [your service] in [your city]?"
- "I need [your service] today in [your city]. Who should I call?"
- "Which [your service] company in [your area] has the best reviews?"
Write down every business named, in order.
What it tells you: whether AI recommends you when someone doesn't already know your name. This is the question that decides new business.
Step 2: Ask About You by Name (2 minutes)
Now ask:
- "What do you know about [your business name] in [your city]?"
- "What services does [your business name] offer?"
What it tells you: whether AI understands who you are. Look for wrong services, an old address, a closed location, a former business name, or a flat "I don't have information on that business."
Step 3: Ask Why the Winners Won (2 minutes)
Pick the competitor that showed up most and ask:
- "Why did you recommend [competitor]?"
AI will often explain itself: strong reviews, clear service pages, years in business, a specific specialty, mentions in local sources.
What it tells you: the signals AI is weighing in your market right now. That's your gap list.
Step 4: Score Yourself (3 minutes)
Give yourself one point for each "yes":
- 01You appeared in at least one answer in Step 1.
- 02You appeared in two or more answers.
- 03AI described your services correctly in Step 2.
- 04AI had your correct location and service area.
- 05Nothing in the description was outdated or wrong.
- 06You can match or beat the reasons the top competitor won in Step 3.
5 to 6: You're in the conversation. Protect it and keep feeding it fresh signals.
3 to 4: AI knows you exist but isn't choosing you yet. This is usually fixable in weeks, not months.
0 to 2: You're invisible where a growing share of buying decisions start.
What Usually Causes a Low Score
In our work with service businesses, the same few issues come up again and again:
- Vague website copy. "Quality service you can trust" tells AI nothing. Name your services, your cities, and the problems you solve.
- An incomplete or inconsistent Google Business Profile. Wrong categories, missing services, or a different phone number than your website.
- Thin or old reviews. A few generic five-star reviews from two years ago give AI little to work with.
- No answers to real questions. If your site never answers what customers actually ask, AI has nothing to quote.
- Few mentions anywhere else. Directories, local news, associations, and partner sites all help confirm you're real and active.
None of this requires reinventing your business. It requires making your business easier to understand and safer to recommend. That's what Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) means in plain English.
Run It Again Every Month
AI answers change. Competitors update their profiles, new reviews come in, and the systems themselves keep learning.
Put a monthly reminder on your calendar, ask the same questions, and track whether your name shows up more often. What gets measured gets fixed.
Final Thoughts: You Can't Fix What You Haven't Checked
For years, the question was "Do we rank on Google?"
The new question is "When a customer asks AI who to call, does it say our name?"
Ten minutes will tell you. If you don't like the answer, that's good news. It means you found the problem before your competitors did.
Want the full picture? Get your free AI Visibility Score and see exactly how Google and AI assistants see your business today, and what to fix first.
Author
Authority AI
Authority AI helps restoration and established service businesses strengthen how they appear in Google search and AI recommendations.
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