How to get your Devon business recommended by AI search

More and more people don't search — they ask. “Who's a good dentist in Exeter?” “Recommend a builder in Devon.” They type it into ChatGPT or read Google's AI overview and take the handful of businesses it names. If you want your business to be one of those names, that's a specific and learnable skill — sometimes called Answer Engine Optimisation. Here's a practical, local checklist for getting recommended by AI search.

Why this is worth your attention now

For twenty years, getting found meant ranking on page one. That still matters — but a growing share of people never see a list of links at all. They get a written answer with two or three businesses named, and they pick from those. Being the tenth blue link was never great; being unnamed in an AI answer is worse. The good news: the things that get you recommended by AI are mostly the same things that make you trustworthy to humans, done a bit more deliberately.

Answer the questions your customers actually ask

AI models are built to answer questions, so they favour content that answers questions plainly. Think about what a customer types — “how much does a website cost in Devon?”, “do I need planning permission for a garden room?” — and answer it directly, near the top of the page, in plain words. Waffle and marketing fluff get skipped. A clear, useful answer is what gets lifted into a recommendation.

Make your business easy to understand and trust

• Be specific about what you do and where.“Web design for service businesses across Devon” tells an AI exactly when to name you. “We deliver solutions” tells it nothing.
• Keep your details identical everywhere. Same business name, address, and phone on your site, your Google Business Profile, and every directory. Consistency is what lets a model trust the information enough to repeat it.
• Structure the page clearly. Real headings, short paragraphs, and an FAQ section make it easy for a model to find and lift the right answer.
• Add structured data. Behind-the-scenes schema markup spells out what your business, pages, and reviews are — removing the guesswork for both search engines and AI.
• Build real credibility. Genuine reviews, named people behind the business, and real proof of work all feed the trust signals that decide who gets recommended.

Local is where this gets winnable

You're not trying to be the answer for “best web designer in the UK.” You're trying to be one of the names when someone asks about your service in your area — “a good web designer in Exeter,” “branding for a Devon business.” That's a far smaller, far more winnable race, and it's exactly where being clear, consistent, and genuinely local pays off. It's the same foundation behind ranking well on Google locally — do it properly and you show up in both the classic results and the AI answers.

It's not a trick — it's clarity done well

There's no setting to switch on and no hack that games your way into an AI answer. What works is a fast, well-structured site that clearly says who you are, what you do, where you do it, and why you can be trusted — backed by consistent details and real proof. That's good practice for humans and AI alike, and it's how we build every site at Charged.

Common questions

What's the difference between SEO and AEO?SEO gets a page to rank so a person clicks it. AEO makes you the source an answer engine quotes or recommends. They overlap heavily — most of what earns one earns the other — so it's not a case of choosing between them.

Can I control what ChatGPT says about my business? Not directly — but you strongly influence it. Clear, consistent, credible information across your site and profiles is what these tools draw on, so the better and more consistent that information, the more likely you are to be named accurately.

Do I need to do anything different for AI search?Mostly it's the fundamentals done deliberately: answer real questions, structure content clearly, add schema, and keep your details consistent. A well-built modern site already covers most of it.

Want your Devon business showing up when customers ask AI for a recommendation? That's part of what our SEO service is built to do — or tell us about your projectand we'll take a look.