Matthew Widdop
Matty is a Digital SEO Executive at Intelligency, helping our clients to improve their digital performance. Matty is currently studying for his Level 3 Multi-Channel Marketer apprenticeship and has completed a Sport Journalism Degree at the University of Huddersfield.
In 2025, search is changing faster than ever. With the introduction of AI Overviews, ChatGPT and more, it is imperative that marketers adapt their content to appear on the AI driven search page so they don’t get lost in the shuffle. This is especially important for local businesses who thrive on appearing high on local searches to attract customers to their business. In this article, we will discuss how AI is reshaping local search visibility in 2025 and how to stay ahead of the pack.
Discovery in Local AI Search
In order for your content to be found in LLMs and on AI dominated searches it is imperative that marketers adapt their content for AI models. There are a number of recommended strategies that can be used to enhance local search performance through AI.
- Audit search and LLM – Auditing the content that is appearing in AI searches and Large language models, such as ChatGPT, allows marketers to adapt their content to meet the needs of the audience (and AI) for their specific search queries by understanding what is already working and following suite.
- Optimise local listings – Optimising your local listings and make sure they are up to date with relevant NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) information has always been important in local search and remains imperative in the AI era. There are several local listings you can claim including Google Business Profile, Apple Maps and Bing Places. Google’s AI mode uses Google Business Profile data when generating responses, as well as links to your profile or website which is helpful for generating increased traffic levels.
- Local Business Markup – Local business markup is a type of schema (structured data that helps explain your web page to search engines) provides AI Overviews with valuable data about your business like your NAP information that are displayed in your local listings.
- Online Reviews – Reviews are crucial for getting your business into AI overviews. If users ask search engines for recommendations for local businesses e.g. best local restaurant in my area, AI overviews will rely heavily on reviews to formulate to understand the quality of local services. Encouraging your users to leave reviews can be an important step to gaining more customers who see reviews as a credible source of information.
What does this mean for marketers
Many of the tips for appearing high in local searches remain consistent with what was seen before the introduction of AI Overviews such as optimising local listings, employing schema markup and using online reviews, as AI also uses these functionalities to understand the reputation of a website. However, it is very important for marketers wanting to expand their customer base for local businesses in today’s AI dominated world to continually monitor the content being produced by search engines and LLMs for local queries and adjusting or creating new content to reflect this.
