AI visibility for local trades and services is whether an assistant names you when someone asks a question like “emergency plumber in <area> open now”. It is decided by whether the engine can read your site and whether you are in the pages it retrieves — both are checkable, and the first is fixable from inside the site.
Four shapes of question decide AI visibility in local trades and services: best-for, alternatives-to, cheapest, and for-a-situation. The lines below are the kind an assistant hears every day; replace the brackets with your market.
An assistant answering those questions retrieves pages and names the companies in them. For local trades and services the pages it retrieves are usually:
A site that is not in those sources is not in the answer, however well it reads. A site that cannot be read is not in them either — and that part is checkable.
Local trades and services sites are most often built on Wix, Squarespace, WordPress. The checks they fail most are the ones that come with that:
What the agent does here: runs the 23 checks on your pages, switches on the fixes it can apply from inside the site — AI crawlers allowed in robots.txt, Organization schema in every page, a sitemap, /llms.txt — writes the answer-first opening and the search description for your approval, and counts every AI visit page by page so you see which questions already bring an engine to you.
Questions of four shapes: best-for, alternatives-to, cheapest and for-a-situation. For local trades and services that means lines like “emergency plumber in open now”, “how much does an electrician charge per hour in
Google Maps and reviews; Checkatrade, Yelp, Angi and trade directories; Nextdoor and local groups; the company's service-area pages. Being in those sources matters as much as the site itself.
json-ld identifies the organization — no LocalBusiness schema with service area, hours and phone. pages open with the answer — no price anywhere on the site — the first question goes unanswered. external profiles match the brand — directory profiles with a different phone number or name.
LocalBusiness schema with service area, hours and the same phone as the Google profile. Starting prices as visible text on the service pages. One name, one phone number, everywhere.
The free page check runs the 23 checks on your public pages — the ones above, measured on yours.