This article belongs to the guide Local SEO in Antwerp province: getting found in your own municipality.
Where do AI assistants get their local business facts?
AI assistants draw on three kinds of source: your Google Business Profile and Maps data, ordinary web pages including your own site, and aggregator directories. The exact mix differs per assistant and changes often. What you can observe is which sources an assistant cites in its answer.
The basic facts almost always come through the same channel as an ordinary local search. A business that is visible in Google Maps and clear on its own site hands an assistant something to work with. The article on local SEO in Antwerp province covers that foundation in detail.
| Source | What it holds | How much you steer |
|---|---|---|
| Google Business Profile and Maps | Name, address, hours, category, reviews, photos | Fully, you manage it yourself |
| Your own website | Services, municipalities, prices, explanation | Fully, you write the text |
| Aggregator directories | Old listings, sometimes outdated details | Partly, corrected site by site |
| What the assistant actually retrieves | Unknown from the outside | Visible only through the sources it cites |
Why do written reviews help more than star ratings alone?
A star rating says customers were satisfied. A review describing what happened (which car, which fault, how long it took) gives a model something concrete to quote. A business with recent, written-out reviews is therefore easier to summarise than one carrying only numbers.
An assistant summarises. To say anything about you it needs sentences stating what you did and how it went. Four stars without text stay too thin for that.
Clutch on my Golf replaced in two days, price quoted up front and that is what I paid. They rang me as soon as the car was ready.
That review names the make, the job, the price agreement and the follow-up. Those are four handles a summary can grip. So when you invite a customer, ask for one sentence about what you actually did, and leave the wording to them.
Why must name, address and phone number match everywhere?
A model that meets three different phone numbers for the same business hedges or skips you. Writing the name, address and number identically on your profile, your website and every directory makes your details unambiguous, and unambiguous details are easier for an assistant to repeat.
Assistants assemble their picture of your business from several sources. When those sources agree, your name simply gets repeated. When they conflict, the answer turns vague or leaves you out.
- Google Business Profile: name, address, phone, hours
- The contact page and the footer of your website
- Your Facebook and Instagram pages
- Sector directories and old listings you once created
- Your quotes and invoices, because customers copy that spelling
Which steps are actually in your hands?
Seven of them: a complete profile, the correct primary category, services described in your customers’ words, accurate opening hours, a steady flow of reviews, a reply under every review, and one page per municipality on your own site. The same work wins ordinary local search.
- 1Complete your Google Business Profile: name, address, phone, hours, photos and a description.
- 2Pick the primary category that covers your core trade, and add the rest as secondary categories.
- 3Describe your services in the words customers use on the phone, for example ‘brake replacement’ or ‘inspection preparation’.
- 4Keep your opening hours accurate, holidays and closures included.
- 5Ask every customer for a review, week after week.
- 6Reply under every review, briefly and without a stock phrase.
- 7Publish one page per municipality on your own site, written the way you would explain it to a customer.
Each of those seven points also serves your position in Google Maps. That is the honest summary of this article: the effort stays the same, and an assistant gains material about you.
What should you avoid?
Never ask a customer to slip a town name or a search term into their review, because steered reviews breach Google policy. The same holds for bought or generated reviews and for keywords added to your business name. These moves risk a penalty and make your data less trustworthy.
| Practice | Why it backfires | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Asking customers to name your town in the review | Steered reviews breach Google policy | Ask for an honest account; the town usually appears on its own |
| Buying or generating reviews | They get removed and the profile risks suspension | Build a routine of asking after every job |
| Adding keywords to the business name | Google corrects the name and your data conflicts | Put those words in your categories and your service list |
| Pages stuffed with place names | There is nothing in them to quote | Describe per municipality what you genuinely do there |
These rules already applied to ordinary search results and they still apply now that assistants read the same pages. Whatever earns a penalty in Google Maps hurts you just as much inside a generated answer.
How do you check whether you get named?
Once a month, ask two or three assistants the questions your customers would ask, in Dutch and in French, and write down which businesses get named. Answers vary by conversation and by location, so read the record as a direction over several months.
No dashboard shows how often an assistant names you. A fixed test round that you run and record yourself gives you a usable picture.
- 1Write down five questions the way your customers phrase them, for example ‘which garage near Boom is reliable’.
- 2Ask each question in Dutch and in French.
- 3Put them to two or three assistants your customers genuinely use.
- 4Note per question which businesses get named and which source is shown.
- 5Repeat the same round every month and compare the lists.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I get into ChatGPT answers?
- Make sure the public sources about you are correct and have something to say: a complete Google Business Profile, a site describing your services and municipalities, and reviews with real text. There is no setting or sign-up that adds you.
- Do Google reviews count for AI Overviews?
- Google often shows local results with rating and review count inside those answers, so the same data appears. Google publishes no per-signal weight for generated answers, so treat it as a consequence of your ordinary local visibility.
- Do I need to change my website for AI search?
- Write clear pages covering your services, your prices or price range, your service area and your contact details. Short answers to real customer questions travel most easily. A separate AI version of your site stays unnecessary.
- Can I ask customers to mention my town in their review?
- No. Steering the wording of a review breaches Google policy and such reviews can be removed. Ask for an honest account, and customers will often name their town and the job on their own.
- How many reviews do I need to get named?
- No assistant applies a published threshold. In practice it helps to sit among the best-rated businesses in your category in your municipality, with reviews that are recent and carry text.