Local business AEO is the practice of structuring the online presence of a brick-and-mortar or local service business so that AI answer engines - ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, and Claude - cite that business by name when users ask location-aware queries. When someone types "best physiotherapist near me" or "which plumber in Edinburgh is most reliable" into an AI assistant, local AEO determines whether your business appears in the answer.
The shift matters because AI assistants are now the first stop for local discovery queries that used to go to Google Maps or Yelp. A 2026 consumer survey found that 41% of adults aged 18 to 34 use an AI assistant as their first step when looking for a local service provider. For restaurants, the figure reaches 53%. These queries bypass the maps pack entirely, and traditional local SEO signals - proximity, review quantity, category matching - do not fully transfer to how AI engines select citations.
How AI engines answer local queries
Traditional local SEO targets the local pack - the map with three listings - and organic results. AI engines work differently. When a user asks ChatGPT or Perplexity a location-based question, the AI retrieves web pages, extracts information about businesses, and synthesises a recommendation. It is not constrained to the nearest three businesses in a radius. It is looking for the most credible, clearly described, and structured answer to "who is the best option for this need in this place."
This creates both a risk and an opportunity. A business that ranks in the maps pack but has poor structured data and an unoptimised website may be invisible to AI. A business with excellent schema markup, a clear service description, and strong review signals across multiple platforms may get cited even if it does not appear in the local pack for that query. Local business AEO closes the gap between your real-world reputation and how AI engines can understand and represent you.
LocalBusiness schema - the non-negotiable foundation
Core LocalBusiness markup
JSON-LD LocalBusiness schema is the single most impactful change a local business can make for AI citation. It gives AI engines a machine-readable description of what you do, where you operate, and when you are open - without requiring the AI to parse raw HTML. A complete LocalBusiness block should include: name, description, address with streetAddress, addressLocality, addressRegion, postalCode, and addressCountry, telephone, openingHoursSpecification, geo with latitude and longitude, and url. The description field is critical: write it as a one to two sentence direct answer to "what does this business do?" - the AI may quote it verbatim in its response.
Service schema and review markup
Beyond the base LocalBusiness type, Service schema added as a hasOfferCatalog block lets you describe each individual service with its own name, description, and price where applicable. This is critical for service businesses: a plumbing company that marks up its LocalBusiness type but does not schema-mark its individual services - drain unblocking, boiler installation, emergency call-out - loses AI citation opportunities for service-specific queries. AggregateRating added to the LocalBusiness block exposes your review score as structured data, giving AI engines a credibility proxy without needing to parse your review pages.
Write your LocalBusiness description field as a direct answer to "what does [business name] do?" - for example, "Oakfield Dental is a family dental practice in Bristol offering NHS and private dentistry, including orthodontics and teeth whitening." This is the format AI engines quote when recommending a business by name.
Google Business Profile and its role in AI citations
Google AI Mode and AI Overviews draw heavily on the Knowledge Graph, which is populated by Google Business Profile data. A complete and verified GBP profile - with full categories, a structured business description, photos, services listed, and customer questions answered - feeds machine-readable information about your business into the Knowledge Graph. When the Google AI synthesises a local recommendation, it queries this structured knowledge directly. An incomplete GBP profile leaves blank fields that reduce your entity clarity score and suppress citation likelihood.
The most neglected GBP field for AI citation purposes is the Business description - a 750-character field that most businesses leave empty or fill with a generic tagline. Write it as a structured paragraph: lead with what you do, who you serve, where you operate, and what differentiates you. Include your primary service category as a noun phrase in the first sentence. This is the text most likely to be pulled into a Google AI answer when your business is recommended.
Citation consistency across directories
AI engines resolve entity identity by matching signals across multiple sources. When your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) are consistent across Google Business Profile, Yelp, Trustpilot, Facebook, Apple Maps, and industry directories, the AI is more confident these all refer to the same entity - and that confidence translates into a higher probability of citation. Inconsistencies such as different phone numbers, misspelt street names, or different trading names create entity ambiguity that suppresses AI citation.
- Google Business Profile: keep all fields complete, verified, and regularly updated
- Apple Business Register: Apple Intelligence queries Apple Maps data directly - claim and complete your listing
- Yelp: strong citation weight in Perplexity and ChatGPT for hospitality and service queries
- Trustpilot: third-party review aggregation used as an authority signal across all major AI engines
- LinkedIn Company Page: entity confirmation signal for B2B and professional service businesses
- Industry-specific directories: trade body listings, medical registers, bar associations, and real estate licensing boards carry high authority weight with AI engines
NAP consistency does not mean identical copy-paste text on every directory. It means your legal name, primary address, and main telephone number are the same across all listings. Operating name variations - "The Coffee Corner" versus "Coffee Corner Ltd" - are acceptable if the primary listing and your schema markup both use the same preferred form.
Content strategy for local AEO
Location-specific FAQ pages
A dedicated FAQ page for each service area - or, for multi-location businesses, for each location - significantly improves AI citation for hyper-local queries. Structure each FAQ page around the questions your customers actually ask: "How much does a kitchen refit cost in Manchester?", "Do you offer same-day emergency plumbing in Leeds?", "Is your dental practice accepting new NHS patients?" Mark up each Q&A pair with FAQPage schema. AI engines treat FAQPage-marked content as pre-labelled answers and cite it at a substantially higher rate than equivalent unmarked content.
Conversational service descriptions
Each service page should open with a definition-first paragraph that names the service, describes what it includes, states who it is for, and mentions the location. A boiler installation service page that opens with "Our boiler installation service covers supply and fitting of gas and oil combi boilers for homes across Yorkshire, completed by Gas Safe registered engineers in four to six hours" gives an AI engine a self-contained, citable passage. A page that opens with a welcome message or brand story does not provide the structured information AI engines need to cite you for specific service queries.
Review volume and AI citation
Review signals influence AI citation in two distinct ways. First, AggregateRating schema exposes review count and average score as structured data that AI engines read directly. Second, the text content of reviews is indexed by search engines and can surface as passages in AI-generated answers when the AI is synthesising a credibility picture of a local business. A business with 200 reviews that include specific mentions of staff, services, and location is more citable than a business with 20 perfect-score reviews containing only generic praise.
Actively collecting reviews across multiple platforms - not just Google - matters for AI citation because different engines weight different sources. Perplexity cites Yelp and Trustpilot heavily for local service queries. ChatGPT draws from a range of indexed review aggregators. Apple Intelligence uses Apple Maps reviews. A local business that concentrates all review collection on Google alone is well-optimised for the local pack but significantly underserving its AI citation potential.
For Perplexity citation specifically, Yelp and TripAdvisor reviews are among the most frequently cited sources for local service queries. If your business is eligible for a Yelp listing, claiming and completing it is a higher-priority action for AI citation than most on-site optimisations.
The local AEO audit checklist
- LocalBusiness JSON-LD schema present on the homepage with complete address, telephone, opening hours, and a direct-answer description
- Google Business Profile fully claimed, verified, and updated with services, photos, and a structured business description
- Apple Business Register listing claimed to feed Apple Intelligence and Apple Maps AI directly
- FAQPage schema on at least one location or service page, with locally relevant Q&A pairs
- NAP consistent across GBP, Yelp, Trustpilot, Facebook, Apple Maps, and any relevant industry directories
- AI crawler access confirmed: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot are not blocked in robots.txt
- Each service page has a definition-first opening paragraph naming the service, location, and key differentiator
- Review collection strategy active across at least Google, Yelp where eligible, and one industry-specific platform
- Speakable schema and a single quotable answer sentence ready for voice assistants and voice-mode ChatGPT, see voice search optimisation for AEO