AI visibility monitoring for the trades

When a homeowner asks ChatGPT who to call…
is it you?

Homeowners have started asking AI for contractor recommendations instead of scrolling Google. Most local shops are invisible in those answers. FirstCall audits the signals AI engines actually read, hands you a plain-English punch list, and re-checks your business every day.

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22%

of homeowners already use AI assistants to find service providers

1.2%

of local businesses ever get recommended by ChatGPT

45%

overlap between Google rankings and AI recommendations — ranking on Google does not mean AI names you

How it works

1

Register your shop

Business name, trade, the towns you cover, your website. Two minutes, no card.

2

Get your score

We run a 12-point audit of the exact signals AI engines read and score you 0–100.

3

Fix what matters

A prioritized punch list in plain English. Impact and effort on every line. No marketing speak.

4

We watch it daily

Your score is re-checked every day. Fix something, watch it climb. Break something, know immediately.

What the audit checks

AI crawler access

Is your robots.txt blocking GPTBot, ClaudeBot, or PerplexityBot? If so, AI literally can't read your site.

LocalBusiness schema

The machine-readable block that proves you're a real local business — name, trade, phone, service area.

FAQ content

AI answers are built from Q&A. We check you're supplying questions AI can quote.

Service-area towns

“Plumber in Lyndhurst” and “plumber in Rutherford” pull different answers. Every town needs to be on your site.

Review-site links

AI engines cite Google, Yelp, Angi, Thumbtack, Nextdoor. We check you're connected to the sources they read.

Title & description

Does your homepage actually say what you do and where — in the fields machines read first?

HTTPS & mobile

Table stakes. Broken on phones or not secure means skipped by AI and homeowners alike.

Sitemap & llms.txt

The files that tell crawlers what pages exist — plus the new AI-specific standard almost nobody has yet.

Built for the trades

HVAC / Heating & Cooling Plumbing Electrical Roofing Landscaping / Lawn Care Cleaning Services Pest Control Garage Doors Locksmith General Contractor / Remodeling

Straight answers

How do I get my business recommended by ChatGPT?

AI assistants recommend businesses they can read and verify. Your website needs to allow AI crawlers like GPTBot and PerplexityBot in robots.txt, carry LocalBusiness schema with your trade and service area, name every town you serve in plain text, and be backed by the review platforms AI engines cite, like Google, Yelp, and Angi. FirstCall audits all of those signals, scores you 0 to 100, and gives you a prioritized fix list in plain English.

What is AI visibility for a trades business?

AI visibility (also called AEO, answer engine optimization) is whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini name your business when a homeowner asks something like "who's a good emergency plumber near me." It's the AI-era version of ranking on Google, and it depends on different signals: crawler access, structured data, town-by-town service pages, and citations on review sites.

I rank well on Google. Doesn't that mean AI already recommends me?

Not reliably. Studies of local results show large gaps between Google rankings and AI recommendations, because AI engines read different signals and lean heavily on review platforms and machine-readable data. Plenty of shops on page one of Google never get named by ChatGPT. The audit shows you exactly where you stand.

What does the free audit check?

Twelve signals: AI crawler access in robots.txt, LocalBusiness schema, FAQ content AI can quote, service-area town coverage, links to the review platforms AI engines cite, homepage title and description, HTTPS, mobile rendering, sitemap, llms.txt, and more. You get a 0 to 100 score and your top three fixes free, with no card required.

How long until I show up in AI answers?

Fixing crawler blocks and adding schema takes effect as soon as AI crawlers revisit your site, typically days to a few weeks. Building up review citations takes longer. That's why the paid plans re-audit every day: you see your score climb as each fix lands, and you know the same day if something breaks.

Do I need to be technical to use this?

No. Every fix comes as a plain-English instruction with impact and effort listed, like a punch list. You can hand it to whoever built your website, or do the simple ones yourself. Nothing in the report assumes you know what schema or robots.txt means before you start.

Which trades does FirstCall work for?

HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, garage doors, landscaping, pest control, general contracting, and other home services. The audit adapts its checks to your trade and the towns you serve.

How is this different from hiring an SEO agency?

Agencies selling AI visibility to home-services companies typically charge $3,000 to $5,500 a month and target big multi-truck operations. FirstCall is monitoring software for shops with one to five trucks: it tells you exactly what to fix for $0 to $299 a month, and you keep the work in-house or hand the list to your web person.

Your competitors don't know this exists yet.

That's the whole opportunity. The shops that show up in AI answers this year own the next five.

Run your free audit