Get Your Trade Business Found in AI Search

It's 9pm on a Sunday and someone's hot water system has just died. Ten years ago they'd have grabbed the Yellow Pages. A few years ago they'd have typed “emergency plumber near me” into Google. Increasingly, they're doing neither — they're opening ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI Overview and asking something like “who can fix a burst pipe near me tonight”. If your business isn't set up to answer that question, there's a good chance the AI tool just recommends someone else instead.

GEO: the industry term for getting picked by AI, not just found on Google

The proper name for this is generative engine optimisation, or GEO — the practice of getting your business named in the answers AI tools generate, rather than just ranked in a list of blue links. We broke down how SEO, AEO and GEO fit together in our full explainer on the three (see also what AEO specifically means), but the short version for trade businesses is this: the enquiry that used to start with a Google search now often starts with a conversation with an AI assistant, and that assistant either knows who you are or it doesn't.

The calls this actually costs you

For a plumber, electrician or builder, this isn't an abstract ranking problem. It's the after-hours callout that goes to whoever the AI names first, the customer in a suburb three streets outside your usual patch who wants to know if you actually cover them, and the first-time enquiry from someone who's never heard of your business before tonight. AI tools are increasingly the layer sitting between “I have a problem” and “I found a tradie” — and they only recommend businesses they can confidently describe.

Where ChatGPT and Google's AI actually pull your details from

AI tools don't do original research on your business — they lean on a handful of sources, the same ones Google's own local results use. Getting these right is the actual work behind GEO:

Google Business Profile (GBP) — your listed suburbs, services, hours and category. This is also the backbone of ordinary local Google rankings; see how Melbourne tradies get more job calls from Google for the fundamentals.
Reviews — not just the star rating, but what customers actually say about the suburbs you service and the jobs you do.
NAP consistency — your Name, Address and Phone number matching exactly across your website, GBP, directories and socials. A mismatch is a small thing that makes AI tools less confident you're real and current.
Schema markup — code on your website that spells out, in a format machines can read, what you do, where, and when you're open.

AI tools don't guess. If they can't confirm you cover a suburb or answer after hours, they'll recommend the tradie whose website already says so in plain English.

Reviews matter more than ever

One 2026 study — SOCi's Local Visibility Index — found that the businesses AI assistants actually recommend average around a 4.3-star rating. That's not a hard cut-off, but it's a fair sense of the company you need to be in. A steady stream of recent, specific reviews — mentioning the suburb, the job, the callout time — does more for you here than a big pile of old five-star ratings ever will.

Write your site like it's answering a question, not selling a service

This is the part most trade websites get backwards. A page that says “Quality Workmanship You Can Trust” tells an AI tool nothing useful; a page that says “we cover emergency callouts across the eastern suburbs, seven days, including after hours” gives it an actual answer to hand back. Structuring your site this way — plus the schema markup underneath it — is exactly what we build into our web design for tradies service, alongside a 24/7 enquiry line that answers after-hours calls and messages for you today, so a burst pipe at 9pm on a Sunday doesn't just go to voicemail.

Try this test tonight

Open ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google, and ask it the way a real customer would — “who's a good emergency electrician in [your suburb]” or “which plumber covers after-hours callouts near me”. See whether you come up, and if you do, check whether what it says about you is actually correct. It costs nothing and takes two minutes, and it's the fastest way to see where you actually stand today.

Questions we get asked

Does Whale guarantee my business will be recommended by ChatGPT or Google's AI?

No — nobody can guarantee what an AI tool decides to say, including us. What we do is get the groundwork right: your Google Business Profile, reviews, consistent business details and website content, so you've got a real shot instead of being invisible to it.

What's the difference between SEO, AEO and GEO?

SEO is about ranking in Google's list of blue links. AEO and GEO (answer engine optimisation and generative engine optimisation) are about being the business an AI tool actually names in its answer. The groundwork — accurate business details, reviews, clear website content — overlaps a lot between the two.

Does this apply if I'm a builder or plumber rather than an electrician?

Yes — the mechanics are the same across every trade. What changes is the detail: which suburbs you cover, what counts as an emergency callout for your trade, and what questions your customers actually type into an AI tool before they ring you.

How long does it take before I show up in AI answers?

There's no fixed timeline we can promise — AI tools change how they pull information without warning, and reviews and Google Business Profile signals build up over weeks and months, not overnight. Getting the groundwork right now is what puts you in the running as things shift.

Can I check where I stand right now, for free?

Yes — open ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google and ask it the way a real customer would, like “who's a good emergency plumber near [your suburb]”. It takes two minutes and shows you exactly what these tools currently know, or don't know, about your business.

If you'd rather see how this plays out for a completely different kind of local business, the same GEO approach applies to getting a restaurant recommended by ChatGPT — the platforms are identical, only the questions customers type in change.

None of this comes with a guarantee — nobody, including us, controls what an AI tool decides to say back. What we can control is the groundwork: a complete Google Business Profile, reviews that keep coming in, consistent details everywhere, and a website built to answer real questions instead of just selling a service. That's exactly what's built into our web design for tradies, alongside the after-hours enquiry cover mentioned above.