The one-paragraph version
When someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini, or Google's AI Mode for a contractor, the engine does not rank pages. It reads what it can find about each business, keeps what it can verify from more than one source, and writes an answer that names two or three. In Portland on September 6, 2026, it named a roofer and a plumber that are both absent from Google's three-pack, and it built both answers from BBB profiles, the Oregon CCB license record, Angi, Yahoo Local, and review aggregators. GEO for a contractor is the work of being on those records, with facts that agree, and with pages that say plainly what you do, where, and when. It is the GEO half of the SEO, GEO, and AEO services I run for trades.
The five inputs, for any trade
Every trade-specific post on this site comes back to the same five. The order is the order to do them in. They are also what separate GEO from SEO and AEO in practice.
- Facts that agree. Name, phone, address, hours, license number, and service area, identical on your site, the Google profile, BBB, Yelp, Angi, and the state lookup. When the facts disagree, the engine picks one, and it picked a wrong address for a gutter company. The gutter cleaning answer shows that address being repeated to a customer.
- Records other people keep. A BBB profile, a current CCB record, claimed Yelp and Angi listings, Yahoo Local, the trade association, the chamber. Every source in the Portland answers was one of these.
- Pages that say the specific thing. One per service, one per city, with the process, the timeline, a price range, the warranty, and the questions people ask. The engine repeats what exists.
- Reviews with the job in them. Asked for after every job, with the service and the neighborhood in the wording. The aggregators the AI cites read the same reviews Google shows.
- A monthly check. A fixed list of prompts run in three engines from a signed-out browser, with who was named and what was cited written down. The cited column is next month's work.
What changes by trade
The inputs are the same. What the engine weighs shifts with what the customer is buying.
- Roofers. Credentials and longevity. The Portland answer named manufacturer certifications and 38 years in business as reasons, and the workmanship warranty for the runner-up. Write the certifications and the warranty down.
- Plumbers. Hours and emergencies. The answer read that its first pick closes on weekends and sent emergencies elsewhere. Hours have to be identical everywhere, and an emergency page has to say what you cover at night.
- Electricians. The published service-call fee. Asked for Lake Oswego electricians and what a visit costs, the AI ranked five companies by the fee each one published and put the one with no fee last. The license record still matters for the best-in-city question. GEO for electricians has the fee table.
- HVAC. The fee and the after-hours line, in text, because the midnight furnace call goes to whoever states both. Furnace repair peaks in October and January, and "furnace repair portland" is a $55 click at a difficulty of one. GEO for HVAC companies has the season plan.
- Painters and general contractors. Portfolio and scope, untested so far. Photos with the neighborhood named, a page per project type, and the CCB record, since the answer for roofers quoted the board's own warning about unlicensed contractors.
Where the evidence is
The roofing post has the Interstate Roofing answer in full, and the plumbing post has the Service Plus answer with the weekend caveat. The post on getting ChatGPT to recommend your business has the week of work, and the AI visibility post has the measurement method. The trade pages under Industries carry the search numbers and the ninety-day plan for each.
Two patterns, one rule
Six trades in, the captures show two patterns. Ask the AI for the best roofer or plumber in a city and it names the company it can verify from records other people keep: the CCB, the BBB, a review aggregator, a manufacturer's certification. Ask it who can come this weekend and what it costs, and it opens the companies' own websites and ranks on what it finds there: the fee, the hours, the services, the suburbs. The electrician, gutter, and holiday light answers were the second kind. The roofer and plumber answers were the first. The prompt decides which, and the rule under both is the same: the engine repeats what it can read, so the records and the site have to say the same thing. The free consultation checks both for your trade and lists the disagreements.
Frequently asked questions
- What is GEO for contractors?
- Generative engine optimization for a trade: the work of being the contractor an AI names when someone asks it for one. It is built from third-party records, facts that agree everywhere, specific service and area pages, reviews with the job in them, and a monthly check.
- Is GEO different from local SEO for a contractor?
- It shares most of the work and differs in what decides the result. The map runs on your Google profile, proximity, and reviews. The AI answer runs on records it can verify from outside your site. In Portland the two currently name different businesses.
- Which trades benefit most from GEO right now?
- Any trade where the customer researches before calling: roofing, remodeling, HVAC replacement, electrical panel work. Emergency plumbing and similar urgent calls still go through the map first, but the AI answer is reading hours and routing emergencies too.
- How do I start?
- Make the facts agree everywhere, get on BBB and the state lookup, write a page per service and per city, build the review habit, and run a monthly prompt list. In that order, because each step makes the next one worth more.
Find out who the AI names for your trade.
The consultation runs the prompts for your trade in three engines and shows you who gets named, what was cited, and the order to fix it in. The consultation is free, and the pricing is published.