AEO for contractors

Where AI engines get their answers

AI tools don't know your work the way a neighbor does. They only know what has been written down and where. They read websites, business listings, reviews, and mentions on other sites, then put together a reply from the sources that look clear and consistent.

So AEO is mostly about giving them clear, consistent material to work from. Reviews matter here too. When customers describe the work you did, in their own words, an engine has real language to pull from. A page that only says "quality service" gives it nothing to quote. A page that says what you install, where, and how the job goes gives it a lot. Two ideas explain most of the rest.

How we do it

The work follows plain steps, and each one feeds the next:

• Find the real questions homeowners ask before hiring in your trade
• Write question-led content on each service page, with direct answers first
• Add FAQ content written for both AI tools and search
• Clean up your business facts so they match across the web
• Add schema markup and other entity signals
• Test the results by asking the engines the same questions customers ask

How we test your visibility

You can't judge AEO by looking at your website. You have to ask the engines. We run the questions your customers ask, in the way they ask them, across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI. For each one we note whether your business is named, who is named instead, and what source the engine seems to lean on.

AI answers can change from one day to the next, so a single lucky answer proves nothing. We track patterns across many questions and report them each month. That tracking tells us where to put effort and shows you where you stand against competitors. Sometimes the finding is surprising. A competitor with a weaker website may be named more often because their business facts match everywhere. That kind of gap is fixable, and it's much easier to see once you've asked the engines directly. If you want a quick look first, the AI visibility gap report shows how we frame it.

What it costs

AEO is part of our SEO/AEO + GEO service, which is $1,500 per month plus a $499 setup. It runs alongside classic SEO and GEO because the work overlaps, and doing one without the others leaves gaps. The full list is on the pricing page. Monthly services are month to month, and a monthly Sonar Analytics report is included.

Who it fits, and who it doesn't

This is built for home service contractors doing $300K or more a year who want to be the name AI tools give for their trade and city. We partner with 15 contractors total, only one per trade per market, and never two in the same trade whose markets overlap. Based in Boise, we work with contractors nationwide.

It's not for someone who wants a guaranteed spot in an AI answer. Nobody can promise that, and anyone who does is guessing. It's also a weak fit if your business has few reviews or an unclear offer. AI tools can only repeat what's out there, so we'd start by fixing that.

Common mistakes

The first is writing for robots. Content stuffed with keywords reads badly and doesn't get cited. Write like you're answering a real customer, in short sentences, with the answer in the first line. A homeowner asking "how much does a new roof cost" doesn't want your company history first. The second is ignoring your facts. A perfect page can't make up for three conflicting listings. The third is treating AEO as a one-time project. Engines keep reading, competitors keep publishing, and your answers need upkeep.

Done well, AEO and classic search support each other. Clearer pages help both. The same page that answers a question for an AI tool also gives a human reader what they came for, and that is the test we keep coming back to. If you want to see how an agency-style engagement works, our AEO agency page covers that angle.