Get found in AI search: the tradie's guide

Your next customer is asking ChatGPT for a tradie. This is how you become the answer.

Something big changed in how Australians find a tradie. Instead of scrolling ten blue links, they ask an AI a question: "who's a good electrician near Sutherland?" and the AI names two or three businesses. Job done. If your business is one of the names, you are in the conversation from the start. If it isn't, the conversation happens without you.

Page 1 is no longer the finish line

For twenty years the game was simple: get on page 1, get the clicks. That game has changed. When Google shows an AI answer above the results, a US study of 68,879 searches found people click a regular result on just 8% of visits, almost half the rate of a page without one. And the AI answer is not just reading the top of the rankings: Ahrefs checked 4 million pages cited by Google's AI Overviews and 62% of them ranked outside the top 10. Pages that never cracked the top 10 are being quoted in the answer ahead of pages that did. The finish line moved. Wombid measures exactly where it moved to.

Getting named in those answers is called Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), or AI search optimisation. Where classic SEO is about earning rankings, GEO is about being named in AI answers. The good news for tradies: in a 2025 industry survey of 1,025 Australian tradespeople, only 17% used SEO at all, so the field is wide open for whoever gives AI something worth citing.

Not sure where you stand today? Run the free AI visibility check first, then work through this guide.

How do AI engines pick which tradies to recommend?

AI assistants like ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, Claude and Perplexity read the live web when they answer local questions. They lean on a handful of signals:

• Google reviews: volume, recency and what the reviews actually say. This is the signal you have the most direct control over.
• Your Google Business Profile: complete, active, correct categories, real photos, regular posts.
• Consistent listings: the same business name, phone and area across directories like Yellow Pages, True Local, hipages and Localsearch.
• Website content that answers questions: a page that plainly answers "how much does a switchboard upgrade cost?" is a page an AI can quote.
• Being mentioned by others: local roundups, community pages, forums.

Curious where you sit today? Run the free AI Visibility Audit for your trade and suburb and see which engines name your business, which name someone else, and where you land in the Google Maps local pack. No login, no card.

What are the five fixes, in order?

1. Get your Google reviews flowing. Ask every happy customer, ideally by text with a direct link. Aim for a steady drip, not a one-off burst, and ask them to mention the suburb and the job.
2. Complete your Google Business Profile. Every category, every service, service area suburbs, opening hours, photos from real jobs. Post to it monthly at minimum.
3. Fix your listings. Pick one exact version of your business name, address and phone, then make every directory match it.
4. Answer real buyer questions on your website. Write the questions your customers actually ask, then answer them directly in the first sentence. That structure is what AI engines lift into answers.
5. Keep measuring. AI answers change constantly as competitors gather reviews and models refresh. Check monthly whether the engines name you, and for which questions.

How long does it take?

Signals do not move answers overnight. Wombid reruns the same questions on your plan's schedule and shows you whether the answer changed. Steady, boring, effective.

Common questions

Trade-specific guides: AI marketing for tradies (overview) · AI marketing for electricians · AI marketing for plumbers · AI marketing for builders · all guides