From AEO-invisible to cited: a local HVAC company in six weeks
A twelve-person residential HVAC company in the US Midwest ran an AEO Score check in early 2026. The result: 0/5 assistants cited them for their top three buying queries ("best HVAC repair near me", "emergency furnace repair [city]", "AC installation cost [city]"). Six weeks later, they were named by ChatGPT and Perplexity on two of the three. This is what actually moved the needle.
Starting state
- Fine on Google (page-one rank for their branded terms).
- Google Business Profile claimed, 68 reviews at 4.7★.
- No JSON-LD on the homepage.
- No third-party citations naming the business by name for service queries.
- Assistant citation rate: 0/5.
The six moves
1. LocalBusiness + Service schema
Added LocalBusiness and Service JSON-LD to the homepage and each service page, with unambiguous name, areaServed, priceRange, and openingHours. Assistants extract these fields verbatim when composing answers.
2. Homepage facts block
Rewrote the hero to state the exact service area, response-time SLA, and price bands in a single scannable paragraph. This is what assistants quote when a user asks "how much does…" or "who serves…".
3. Two substantive Reddit answers
A staff member wrote two helpful, non-promotional answers in r/HVAC and r/[cityname] threads asking for recommendations, signing off with the business name and city. Perplexity picked both up within two weeks.
4. Local news mention
Pitched the local paper on a "how to prep your furnace for winter" angle. The resulting article named the company and linked to the homepage. This became the anchor citation ChatGPT now cites.
5. Fifteen fresh reviews with substance
Asked recent customers for reviews that named the specific service and neighborhood. Star ratings alone don't move AEO; review textthat mentions the service, location, and outcome does.
6. llms.txt + FAQ page
Added a /llms.txt file with the five most-asked questions and short factual answers, plus a matching FAQPage-schema page on the site. Both got picked up in follow-up citation tests.
Result at week 6
- ChatGPT: cited on 2/3 queries (was 0/3).
- Perplexity: cited on 3/3 queries (was 0/3).
- Gemini: cited on 1/3 queries (was 0/3).
- Google AI Overviews: cited on 1/3 queries (was 0/3).
What to steal
The pattern generalizes: schema so the facts are extractable, third-party citations so assistants trust the name, substantive reviews so the citation trail is deep. Run the free AEO Score check on your homepage to see which of these you're already missing, or read AEO vs SEO for the strategic frame.