Try this before your next coffee.
Open a private browser window and type: “Who is a good [your industry] company in [your town]?” Then ask the same question in ChatGPT or your preferred AI platform.
Did your business come up?
If it did, great, keep reading anyway, because one lucky result isn’t a strategy. If it didn’t, you’re in good company. Most businesses we test for the first time are surprised by what they find.
Why this matters now
More and more people ask an AI tool a question and take the first few names it gives them, rather than scrolling through Google. If your business isn’t in that short list, you’re not in the running, and you’ll never know you were skipped.
Five tests you can run in 10 minutes
You don’t need any software. Use a private or incognito window so your search history doesn’t flatter you.
1. The “who is good” test.
Search: “Who is a good [surveying company / physiotherapist / fabricator] in [Brisbane / Noosa / your town]?” Is your name there? Who is instead?
2. The “what do you do” test.
Ask: “What does [your business name] do?” Look for wrong services, old information, the wrong location, or nothing at all.
3. The key sentence test.
Take the sentence you’d use to describe your best service, such as “boundary surveys for commercial developments in South East Queensland”, and search it word for word. Do you appear?
4. The problem test.
Search the way a client would when they’re stuck: “Who can do [a specific job] for [a type of client] in [town]?” Clients search for problems, not business names or jargon.
5. The competitor test.
Look at who shows up in your place. What do their websites say that yours doesn’t? More reviews? Clearer service pages? A more complete Google listing?
Do it properly
- Run each test at least three times, on different days if you can. Results change.
- Try Google, ChatGPT and Gemini. They don’t always agree.
- Screenshot everything. It’s a useful record, and it’s also a bit of a shock.
- Change the wording slightly. People don’t all search the same way.
What if you’re not showing up?
Don’t panic. It’s rarely because your business is worse than the ones listed. It’s usually because Google and AI tools can’t clearly work out who you are, what you do and where you do it, or can’t find enough evidence to trust you.
The usual culprits:
Vague service pages
“We provide tailored solutions” tells a machine nothing. “Cadastral and engineering surveys in Brisbane” does.
Inconsistent details
Your name, address and services differ across your website, Google listing and directories.
Thin proof
Few reviews, no case studies, nothing that shows you’ve done the work.
Missing behind-the-scenes labelling
There’s a technical layer on your website that tells search engines and AI tools exactly what your business is. Most sites skip it or get it wrong, and it’s something we can fix for you.
A slow or unreliable website
If your site is slow or goes down, it’s harder to trust and harder to rank.
Content that doesn’t answer real questions
If your site doesn’t answer what clients actually ask, an AI tool has nothing to quote from you.
None of this guarantees you’ll be named, and nobody can honestly promise that. But businesses that get these right give search engines and AI tools far better reasons to include them.
Want us to check for you?
If you’d rather not do the digging, we’ll run these tests on your business, show you exactly what comes up (and what doesn’t), and tell you what we’d fix first. No jargon, no obligation. Book a free visibility check. Know someone who should run this test? Forward this on. We’ll happily check theirs too.