Guides
The lessons teach the sequence. These guides answer the single questions that come up while you work: what a term means, which option to pick, how often to do something, what to do when it goes wrong. Each one links back to the lesson it belongs to.
Across the whole course
Pages that sit above any single lesson.
AI search glossary: 10 terms local business owners need
GEO, AEO, RAG, grounding, citation, NAP, schema, entity and AI Overviews, defined in plain language, each with why it matters to you.
The 90-day local AI SEO checklist
Every task from the course sequenced into a dated 90-day plan, grouped by month, with time estimates and a definition of done for each.
Lesson 1: How AI search picks local businesses
The retrieval-and-citation mechanics behind every AI recommendation of a local business, with a 5-minute self-test.
AEO vs GEO vs local SEO: which one are you actually doing?
One-line definitions of each, where they overlap, what a local business should actually care about, and why most vendor distinctions are marketing.
ChatGPT Search vs Google AI Overviews vs Perplexity: where each one gets local business facts
Which sources each engine leans on for local queries, what a citation looks like in each, and where to spend your effort first.
Do you need to do anything different for GEO as a local business?
A one-line gloss of GEO with the fuller definition on aiseocourse.wiki, then what a local business actually changes and what it can ignore.
Which AI crawlers read your site: GPTBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot and OAI-SearchBot
What each named AI crawler is, who runs it, the difference between training and search crawls, and how to spot them in your server logs.
Why AI assistants recommend a competitor instead of you
The usual causes, thin profile, no citable page, stale third-party data, how to check each one, and what to fix first.
Lesson 2: Google Business Profile for AI search
Making your Google Business Profile the clean, consistent fact source AI engines prefer, one field at a time.
Google Business Profile vs Apple Business Connect vs Bing Places: which to claim first
Which assistants read which profile, the effort-to-payoff for each, and a claiming order for an owner with limited time.
How often to update your Google Business Profile
A realistic cadence for posts, photos, hours and review replies, plus a 20-minute monthly routine and what is just busywork.
How to pick your primary Google Business Profile category
Why primary category outweighs every secondary one, how to research what competitors use, and what happens after you change it.
NAP consistency explained: why one wrong phone number breaks AI answers
What NAP consistency means, how one mismatch spreads through data aggregators, and a simple audit pass you can run this week.
Service-area businesses with no public address: what to do
How hiding your address changes what AI can verify, how to set service areas correctly, and what to put on your site instead.
Lesson 3: Write local pages AI can quote
What on-page content AI assistants are willing to quote, and how to write it: answer-first structure, one service per page, facts instead of adjectives.
How to write a service page an AI will cite
A section-by-section structure for the pages that matter most commercially, with a worked example you can adapt.
Long-form guides vs short answer pages: what AI search actually pulls from
Why passage-level clarity beats word count, when a long guide is justified, and how to split a bloated page.
Lesson 4: Schema for local AI SEO
LocalBusiness, Service, FAQPage and sameAs markup so AI engines can resolve your business as one entity, plus how to validate it and what not to mark up.
Do you need schema to appear in AI Overviews?
A direct answer: what schema demonstrably helps with, what it doesn't, and who should skip it and do content work first.
Marking up areaServed when you serve several towns
areaServed shapes, how many places to list before it stops helping, and keeping schema consistent with your profile service areas.
Using sameAs to link your business to Wikidata and your real profiles
What sameAs does, which profiles to list and in what order, whether you need a Wikidata item, and how to check the links resolve.
Where to paste JSON-LD on WordPress, Wix, Squarespace and a static site
Where the script tag goes on each platform, how to validate it, and the mistakes that silently break a block.
Lesson 5: Build a local site AI can find
The method (structure, pages, the profile link, llms.txt, crawler permissions), then a walkthrough building the plumber site with LocusPilot. Disclosure included.
llms.txt for local businesses: what it is and whether it helps
What the proposed standard is, which engines consume it today, a minimal example, and an honest verdict on effort versus payoff.
robots.txt for AI crawlers: allowing GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot
Per-bot user-agent strings, allow and disallow blocks to copy, what blocking actually costs you, and how to verify the file is live.
Website builder vs WordPress for an AI-findable local site
What each platform makes easy or hard for schema, speed and control, migration cost, and a decision rule by situation.
Lesson 6: Reviews, mentions and citations AI trusts
How off-site signals feed the facts and sentiment AI assistants repeat: review velocity and replies, the directories that matter, local mentions, and NAP consistency.
Citations vs unstructured brand mentions: which moves AI visibility
What each is, how each reaches an AI answer, why directory volume plateaus, and where to spend your next 10 hours.
How AI reads your reviews: what sentiment analysis picks up
What aspect-based sentiment analysis extracts from review text, which attribute words recur, and why a few specific reviews beat many generic ones.
How to ask for reviews without breaking Google's rules
What Google prohibits, timing and wording that work, SMS and email templates, and how to handle a negative review.
Lesson 7: Measure your AI search visibility
A manual prompt set, a weekly log template, the Search Console signals that mean something, free trackers, and what a realistic 90-day curve looks like.
How often to re-check your AI search visibility
Why weekly checking produces noise, a monthly and quarterly rhythm that works, and what to log each time.
How to run a manual ChatGPT and Perplexity prompt test for your business
Build a fixed prompt set, run it logged out in ChatGPT and Perplexity, and record the results without fooling yourself.
What to do when AI search says something wrong about your business
Why the error usually starts off-platform, how to fix the underlying source, the feedback routes that exist, and realistic timelines.
Lesson 8: Where to go next
The 90-day checklist, and three honest paths after it: keep going alone, get the site built, or step up to AI SEO Rainmakers, with dated facts and the referral disclosed.
The guides support the course, they do not replace it
If you have not read Lesson 1 yet, start there. It explains the mechanics every guide assumes.
No signup. No paywall. 8 lessons, ~80 minutes.