AI Visibility for Small Business: The 7-Day Playbook

Get Recommended by ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity in One Week

A customer needs a dentist in your city. A homeowner needs a plumber. A bride needs a venue. In 2024 they typed it into Google. In 2026 they ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or Perplexity, and they take the answer.

The AI gives them three names. If your business is one of those three, you got the call. If not, you are invisible. There is no scroll to page two anymore. There is one answer, and the assistant decides who is in it.

Most small business websites were built for Google in 2018. They have no structured data, no llms.txt file, no FAQ schema, and no clear author signals. To an AI assistant, your site looks like a blank business card. The good news is that fixing this is not a six-month SEO project. It is a seven-day checklist, and you can do every step yourself with copy-paste code.

The 8 Signals AI Search Reads

1. JSON-LD Structured Data. Machine-readable code that tells the AI exactly what your business is. 2. FAQ Markup (FAQPage schema). When your page answers questions in a structured Q&A format, AI assistants pull those answers verbatim into responses. 3. Organization or LocalBusiness Schema. Your AI business card. Name, address, phone, hours, services, founder. 4. llms.txt. A plain text file at yourdomain.com/llms.txt. The new robots.txt for AI crawlers. 5. Meta Description. AI assistants read your meta description as a summary signal. 6. Single H1 Hierarchy. One H1 per page, then H2 and H3 in order. 7. Content Depth. Thin pages do not rank in AI. Aim for 800-1500 words on service pages. 8. Author and Entity Signals. Real human, photo, credentials.