---
title: "AI Visibility and Local SEO Guides | The Lighthouse"
description: "Learn how to get your business recommended by AI. See how ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI choose which businesses to name."
source: "https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog"
---
[Home](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/) / Blog
The Lighthouse
# Get recommended when customers ask AI
Plain-English guides on showing up when your customers ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI who to hire.
[All](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog) [AI Visibility](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/category/ai-visibility) [Local SEO](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/category/local-seo) [For Agencies](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/category/agency-growth) [Guides](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/category/guides)
[Latest AI VisibilityTop-Rated AI Search Visibility Tools for Small Businesses in 2026
Ten AI search visibility tools, scored on five things a one-location business cares about. Free snapshots, trackers under $50, the band where coverage fills out, and the prompts to load on day one.Will Colachis Sep 10, 2026 • 11 min readRead the guide ](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/ai-search-visibility-tools-for-small-businesses)
## More guides
[What Is a White-Label AI Audit? One Prospect, Start to Finish
Follow one roofing company through a white-label AI audit, from a cold email to a scored report to a lead in your inbox, and see where the audit stops and the tracker starts.Will Colachis Sep 9, 2026 • 10 min readFor Agencies](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/what-is-a-white-label-ai-audit) [AI Search Visibility Is a Revenue Channel. Here's How to Earn It.
AI answers already send buyers who convert better and spend more. Here's the 2026 research on how the assistants pick what to cite, a worked revenue calculation you can copy, and the order to fix things in.Will Colachis Sep 8, 2026 • 11 min readAI Visibility](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/improve-brand-visibility-in-ai-search) [How to Track Your Brand's Visibility in AI Search Results
Ask an assistant the same question twice and you can get two different businesses. Here's how to track your brand's AI visibility as a rate instead of a snapshot, with four metrics and a scorecard.Will Colachis Sep 7, 2026 • 9 min readGuides](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/how-to-track-brand-visibility-in-ai-search) [Do You Need an XML Sitemap? What It Does for Your SEO in 2026
An XML sitemap is the page list you hand search engines. Here's what Google reads in it, what it ignores, whether a local business site needs one, and how to check yours in two minutes.Saihajpreet Singh Sep 4, 2026 • 9 min readGuides](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/what-is-an-xml-sitemap) [AI Visibility Tools for Agencies, Compared for 2026
Agencies don't need the tracker with the most engines. They need one a client can see under the agency's brand, at a price that still leaves a margin. Twelve tools, five axes, one table.Will Colachis Sep 3, 2026 • 11 min readFor Agencies](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/ai-visibility-tools-for-agencies) [Where AI Gets Its Data About Your Local Business (2026)
Nearly 2 million logged citations show exactly where AI assistants pull local business facts from. The list is shorter than you'd guess, and you can claim every spot on it.Saihajpreet Singh Sep 2, 2026 • 13 min readAI Visibility](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/where-ai-gets-local-business-data) [Do You Need a Google Business Profile for AI Visibility?
Every major assistant reads Google Business Profile data somewhere in its answers, even ChatGPT. Here's what your profile feeds them, and what to do if Google won't let you have one.Will Colachis Sep 1, 2026 • 6 min readLocal SEO](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/google-business-profile-ai-visibility) [How to Speed Up Your Website, Biggest Wins First
Most slow sites are slow for the same few reasons, and images top the list. Here's how to speed up your website in order of impact, the biggest wins first, and how to hand the whole list to AI.Will Colachis Aug 30, 2026 • 8 min readGuides](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/how-to-speed-up-your-website) [AggregateRating Schema, and Why Your Star Ratings Might Not Show
AggregateRating is the schema that puts your star rating in code machines can read. Here's how it works, the reason your own stars often won't show in Google search, and how to write one that holds up.Saihajpreet Singh Aug 30, 2026 • 7 min readLocal SEO](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/aggregate-rating-schema) [SEO vs. AEO, and Why You Now Need Both
Ranking on Google and getting recommended by AI are two different games. Here's the difference between SEO and AEO, why you can win one and lose the other, and how to cover both.Will Colachis Aug 29, 2026 • 7 min readAI Visibility](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/seo-vs-aeo) [Core Web Vitals in Plain English, and How to Improve Yours
Someone told you your site "fails Core Web Vitals" and it sounded like a foreign language. Here's what LCP, INP, and CLS actually mean, how to measure them in Chrome, and how to fix them with AI.Saihajpreet Singh Aug 27, 2026 • 8 min readGuides](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/core-web-vitals-explained) [What Is Local Schema Markup, and How Do You Add It?
A few lines of code can tell Google and AI exactly what your business is, where it works, and when it's open, no guessing required. Here's how local schema markup works, and how to add it in one sitting.Saihajpreet Singh Aug 26, 2026 • 7 min readLocal SEO](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/what-is-local-schema-markup) [What Is an llms.txt File, and Do You Need One?
More AI models read your site before they recommend anyone. An llms.txt file hands them a clean summary instead of your raw code. Here's what it is, whether you need one, and where it goes.Saihajpreet Singh Aug 26, 2026 • 6 min readGuides](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/what-is-llms-txt) [How to Get Your Business Recommended by AI
When a customer asks AI for a business like yours, only a few names come up. Here's how AI decides who to recommend, how to check where you stand, and what to fix to get named more often.Saihajpreet Singh Aug 25, 2026 • 7 min readAI Visibility](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/how-to-get-your-business-recommended-by-ai) [How to Check If AI Recommends Your Business
Your customers are asking AI for a business like yours. Here's a simple way to check whether the major assistants name you, read the answers like an auditor, and turn it into a habit.Will Colachis Aug 19, 2026 • 6 min readGuides](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/how-to-check-if-ai-recommends-your-business) [How Reviews Shape AI Recommendations
The assistants that recommend businesses lean heavily on your reviews, how many, how recent, how good, and what they say. Here's how reviews feed AI recommendations, and how to make yours work harder.Saihajpreet Singh Aug 12, 2026 • 6 min readLocal SEO](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/how-reviews-shape-ai-recommendations) [AI Visibility Is the New Service for Agencies
AI answers are where more of your clients get found or filtered out. For agencies, that's a new service line that extends the local SEO work you already do. Here's how to package, price, and report on it.Will Colachis Aug 5, 2026 • 7 min readFor Agencies](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/blog/ai-visibility-the-new-service-for-agencies)
Your AI visibility
## See where AI recommends you, and where it doesn't
Lighthouse Local tracks all five platforms, shows who's getting named instead of you, and turns every gap into a plain-English fix.
[Start for free ](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/for-business) [Run a free audit](https://audits.lighthouselocal.ai/?utm_source=lighthouselocal&utm_medium=marketing-site&utm_campaign=blog&utm_content=blog-index-closer-audit)
## Sitemap
- [Markdown sitemap](https://www.lighthouselocal.ai/sitemap.md)