18d • 💬 General Discussion
Most local service businesses don't know where they actually stand in their market.
They have a gut feeling, maybe some ad results, and whatever their agency tells them. That's not a market position. That's a guess.
Here's a 30-minute audit that gives you more clarity than most contractors get in years. All you need is Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and your own GBP.
Step 1: Google search (5 min) Search "[your trade] [your city]" in incognito mode. Look at the map pack. Who's in the top 3? Note their review count, review recency, categories, and photos. That's your benchmark. If you're not in the top 3, you now know exactly who you're behind and by how much.
Step 2: Audit your GBP vs the top 3 (10 min) Compare your profile to whoever ranks above you. Photos, review count, review recency, posts in the last 30 days, services listed, Q&A section. The gap between your profile and theirs is your visibility gap. Most of it is fixable in under a week.
Step 3: AI search (5 min) Open ChatGPT. Type "best [trade] in [city] in 2026." Do the same in Perplexity. Write down who shows up. If you're not there, the companies that are have more consistent data across the web, more recent reviews, and more structured content than you. Now you know the specific gap.
Or skip the manual work and run our free AI Visibility Audit: 👉 https://makariosmarketing.com/ai-search-audit/?utm_source=skool&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=30min_audit
Step 4: Competitor websites (5 min) Click into the top 2 or 3 competitor websites. Do they have service pages by neighborhood or city? Pages for each specific service? Recent testimonials with names and locations? If they have neighborhood-specific pages and you don't, that's a big reason why they rank and you don't.
Step 5: Review velocity (5 min) Look at the last 10 reviews for your top competitors. How many weeks did that take? If a competitor is getting 4 to 5 reviews per week and you're getting 1 to 2 per month, they have a system and you don't. Review velocity is one of the strongest local ranking signals and one of the easiest to fix.
After 30 minutes you'll have a clear picture of exactly where you stand, which gaps are highest leverage, and whether you're visible in AI search at all.
Most of what you find will be fixable within 30 to 60 days. The hard part isn't fixing it. It's knowing where to look.
What's the biggest gap you find when you do this? Drop it in the comments. 👇
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Most local service businesses don't know where they actually stand in their market.
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