Where local business gets cited.
A weekly read on AI visibility for local business owners. From Anna Curry at Top of Search. Every Thursday at 11 a.m.
The searcher names you.
Google AI Overviews now show on 82 percent of tracked brand searches, up from 26 percent in September. You don’t write the opinion about your business, but an engine will. Here’s the background check prompt that shows you what it says, plus the Wilmington builder ChatGPT crowned best reputation and Gemini left out entirely.
A weekly read written for owners.
Cited is a weekly newsletter on AI visibility for local business owners, written by Anna Curry at Top of Search. Every Thursday at 11 a.m. it covers one development in AI search, explains what it means for a business with a service area, and gives one thing to do about it. It’s free.
Customers now ask ChatGPT, Google, and Perplexity who to hire, and most local businesses have no idea what those engines say about them. Every issue is drawn from work in progress with real businesses, tested against real prompts, and written for owners, just like you.
Five things you can use, every Thursday.
The game changed
One verified story about how AI search actually shifted this week. Sources linked.
The window is now
What that shift is costing you right now, and how long you have before it’s standard advice and something everyone is doing.
Your competitors are asleep
One thing you can do in under 30 minutes. Most businesses in your category haven’t done it.
What’s the prompt
A prompt built for your business, ready to run. One click and an output written about you.
Cited
A local prompt run through ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. See exactly who gets named and why.
Three minutes, one thing to do.
Here’s issue 12, Goody goody, walked through the five sections.
Google wired Gemini into Google Business Profiles, and AI Overviews now appear on an estimated 30 to 40 percent of searches.
Your Google Business Profile is no longer just a map listing. It’s a direct input into what AI tells a customer about your business, and most owners haven’t touched the new fields.
The free setup checklist for those fields, in the order that matters, doable in under thirty minutes.
One link that runs the question your customers are asking, so you can see today what AI says about your business.
A Wilmington omelet house that’s been open 50 years, run through the engines, and what it’s doing right without a marketing budget.
Is this you?
You own the business, and marketing is one of the many things you’re responsible for.
You serve a defined area, and most of your work comes from that area.
You already market and it works, but you have no idea what AI says about you.
You have no in-house marketing team, or one person wearing several hats.
You’d rather read one useful thing a week than subscribe to a firehose.
You want to understand the work well enough to judge whether someone is doing it right.
If that’s you, Cited is written for you.
Every issue, in one place.
Each card opens the full issue on Beehiiv. Click in.
Who owns the bad day?
About 61 million Americans now start their shopping research with AI, and the top reason they pick where to buy is easier returns, at 37 percent. AI picks the shortlist, but trust goes to whoever owns the bad day. Here’s the one question to add to your contact form that finally shows which leads AI sent you, plus the Wilmington roofer that beat higher rated competitors by writing its warranty down.
It crossed the country for a price.
User generated content’s share of ChatGPT citations fell 71 percent in six weeks, and third-party listicles dropped 38 percent right along with it. The engine stopped polling the room and started reading your price sheet. Here’s the prompt that shows exactly which page you’re missing, plus the Wilmington vet that lost the price citation to a clinic three time zones away because nobody local published one.
Same court, different game.
Conductor studied 167 million AI Overview citations and found the page ranking first gets cited 24.9 percent of the time. First place is a one in four shot, not a result. Here’s what the 57 percent of citations coming from outside the top 10 are rewarding instead, plus the Wilmington roofer Perplexity put first for no reason but the letter A.
Where’s the lesson?
Ahrefs tracked 1,885 pages that added schema this year and found zero citation lift after thirty days, even though 53 percent of the pages AI actually cites carry it. Getting noticed and being readable turned out to be two different jobs, and schema only does the second one. Here’s why five AI engines couldn’t find a price that lived only in code, plus the Wilmington HVAC company with 1,001 reviews averaging 4.9 stars that vanished the moment a customer asked a real question instead of its name.
What’s the spaghetti model say?
New research across 14,472 local AI citations found Gemini names the same top business only about 7 percent of the time, against 90 percent for Google’s local pack. One screenshot is one strand of spaghetti, not the forecast. Here’s the five run prompt that gives you your real number, plus the Wilmington builder who vanished from the answer entirely.
The one nobody listed.
Reddit lost 86 percent of its ChatGPT citations in a single week. Visibility is a probability, not a position, and a couple naming their venue sent it straight to the top of the answer.
The 4.0 that beat the 4.9.
ChatGPT answers nine questions out of ten without ever opening your website. Same studio, same city, one word apart, and the lower rating won the answer.
Vroom, vroom.
Getting named by AI lifts site visits 1.5 to 2.5 times over the following week, and almost none of it shows up as a referral. Plus: Google Maps just started taking your order.
First place and disqualified.
AI describes brands correctly 96 percent of the time, and 89 percent of them never come up when it is asked who to consider. Plus: your Yelp page just became a ChatGPT input.
The trainer AI only names when you get specific.
Semrush tracked 1,094 ChatGPT topic categories and 85 percent have no owner yet. Meet the Wilmington trainer who is invisible on the big query and first on the one that pays, plus a ten minute check to see whether you own your topic or just got lucky once.
The blue links moved downstairs.
On July 10, Google made AI answers the default for every search, and the blue links now live below the fold. Being cited in the AI answer is your visibility now. Here’s what changed, plus the $29 tools that finally let you keep score.
Something borrowed, something cited.
AI visibility and Google rankings just split into two scoreboards, and winning one doesn’t carry the other. Plus what three engines told a ready-to-book bride, and the playbook for claiming that query in your own market.
The Wilmington coffee shop about to lose PSL season.
Bing built the AI visibility tool Google won’t give you, and Google’s AI is about to start answering your customers for you. Also, a real estate blog is beating local coffee shops for the pumpkin spice query. Whoever moves in July owns September.
Sparklers, fountains, smoke bombs, and snappers.
Only 37.9 percent of URLs cited by AI still rank in the top 10, and ChatGPT and Claude share just 8 percent of citations. Ranking and getting cited have officially uncoupled. Here’s the per-engine playbook.
Goody goody.
Google wired Gemini into Google Business Profiles, and AI Overviews now hit an estimated 30 to 40 percent of searches. Here’s the free setup checklist, plus what a 50-year-old Wilmington omelet house can teach you about getting cited.
Just wispr it.
Google was forced to give publishers an AI opt-out, and it turns out you already have one too. Here’s the setting that decides what AI learns from your business, and why the same two names keep getting cited.
The assistant you can’t afford.
Every major AI engine now lets you save a reusable workflow instead of starting over each time. Here’s how to build your first one in under 30 minutes.
Caught in the storm.
Google just put Preferred Sources inside AI Overviews and AI Mode, badging chosen businesses right in the answer. Here’s how to test if you qualify, and the move to make if you do.
AI made a guest list.
Ask three engines for the best business in your town and they name the same three. Here’s what that pattern means for getting your name in the answer.
Fetch this dog spa.
When ChatGPT thinks, it stops recommending the obvious names and starts citing the specific ones. Here’s how to make sure your business is in that answer.
WOOF’s paw is on every AI engine.
AI engines cite new pages in 6.81 days. Why deep expertise is your unfair advantage in AI search, plus the ChatGPT Ads window just opened.
AI just out-diagnosed the ER.
Harvard found AI more accurate than ER doctors at triage. The lesson for every local business: AI isn’t replacing you. It’s making whoever uses it well noticeably better than whoever doesn’t.
Name that taco.
Yelp launched an AI Assistant that recommends and books in one chat. Here’s how to find out if it names your business, and what to do if it doesn’t.
Long live the Marlboro Man.
Three customers asked AI about your business today. Here’s the 30-minute audit to find out what AI is saying, where the gaps are, and what to fix first.
May flowers.
55% of consumers say AI will replace traditional search within two years. Where the landscaping window is open right now, and the May flowers Cited is sending to a local florist.
Do you like me?
Your customers are asking ChatGPT who to trust before they ever call. This issue shows you what AI is saying about local businesses like yours.
What owners ask about AI search.
These come up in nearly every first conversation. Short answers here, and the newsletter goes deeper each week.
Want to see the answer for your own business? Request an AI Visibility Snapshot
Why isn’t my business showing up when people ask AI for recommendations?
In most cases it’s because answer engines can’t confirm what your business is or verify that it’s trustworthy. AI systems assemble answers from structured data, third-party sources, and content specific enough to quote. If your business is described inconsistently across the web, has thin or generic service pages, and carries no schema markup, the engine has nothing solid to work from and names a competitor it can verify instead.
How do I get my business mentioned by ChatGPT?
Three things have to be true. Your business must resolve as one coherent entity, meaning it’s described the same way on your website, your Google Business Profile, and every directory that lists you. Your site must carry schema markup that tells the engine what you do and where you do it. And your content must answer the specific questions buyers ask, in language simple enough to be quoted directly. ChatGPT cites what it can verify and reuse.
How can I get cited as a source in Perplexity answers?
Perplexity leans heavily on pages that answer a question directly and cite their own sources. Publish content that resolves a single specific question per page, put the answer in the first paragraph rather than burying it, and include real numbers, dates, and named sources. Pages built to be skimmed by a person are usually the ones an engine can quote.
How do I get my business into Google AI Overviews and AI Mode?
Google AI Overviews and AI Mode draw on the same signals as local search, weighted toward businesses Google can verify. Start with a complete and accurate Google Business Profile, since it’s the strongest local signal you control. Then make sure your site has service and location pages with schema markup, and reviews that mention the specific work you do. Both surfaces reward the businesses that are easiest to confirm.
What is Answer Engine Optimization and how is it different from SEO?
Answer Engine Optimization, or AEO, is the practice of getting your business named inside AI-generated answers rather than ranked on a list of links. It overlaps with traditional SEO but prioritizes entity building, schema markup, and answer-ready content over keyword density and backlink volume. The goal shifts from being found to being cited.
Local SEO vs AEO: which matters more now for local businesses?
Neither replaces the other, and the work overlaps more than most people expect. Local SEO still governs the map pack and the Google Business Profile that AI engines read from, so it remains foundational. AEO is what determines whether you’re named when a customer asks an assistant who to hire instead of searching. For a local business today, local SEO is the floor and AEO is the growth.
How can a local business get more visible in AI search results?
Begin by finding out where you stand. Ask ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity the question a customer ready to buy would ask in your market, and note whether you’re named, or request a free 7 Day AI Visibility Snapshot and we’ll run those questions for a week. From there the work is sequential: correct your entity information everywhere it appears, add schema markup, and publish content that answers the questions your buyers actually type. Citation behavior typically begins to shift in 60 to 90 days.
What do I get by subscribing to Cited?
One email every Thursday at 11 a.m., generally two to four minutes long. Each issue covers one development in AI search, explains what it means for a local business, and gives one thing to do about it. It’s free, and it’s written for owners.
Anna Curry is the founder of Top of Search, a marketing consultancy in Wilmington, NC. She helps owner-operated local service businesses nationwide get recommended by AI search engines when customers are deciding who to hire. She has worked in marketing since 2008 and writes Cited, a weekly newsletter on AI visibility for local business owners.
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