This checklist covers the three places your visibility is won: your website, your Google Business Profile, and your AI readiness. Start by fixing your name, address, and phone consistency, then optimize each page, complete your profile, build citations and reviews, add connected schema, and open your site to AI crawlers. Work top to bottom.
Before anything ranks, the basics have to be right. These are the site-level items every agent should confirm first.
The site loads quickly and works cleanly on a phone, where most buyers actually search.
HTTPS is on, the site returns 200, and nothing blocks search engines from indexing your pages.
Each page has a single keyworded H1 and a logical heading structure below it.
Every page has its own keyworded title and meta description, none duplicated across the site.
Each page answers its core question in the first paragraph, before any setup, so it is extractable.
Real images carry accurate alt text, so search engines and screen readers understand them.
This is the highest-leverage part of local SEO for an agent, because it drives the map pack. Work through every field.
Own the profile and complete verification so you control the listing buyers see.
Categories, hours, service area, phone, website, and a clear description, all filled in accurately.
Real photos and regular posts signal an active business Google is comfortable ranking.
Ask satisfied clients for honest reviews on a steady cadence, and reply to every one.
New here? Start with the guide to getting found on Google, then work the profile items above.
The layer most agents skip, and the one that separates a findable agency from an invisible one in AI search.
List on the core platforms with identical name, address, and phone, no drift anywhere.
Business, page, service, and FAQ markup sharing one ID, validated in Google's Rich Results Test.
Question-shaped headings with direct answers, matching how people ask AI, backed by FAQPage schema.
Your robots.txt permits GPTBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, and Google-Extended, so you stay citable.
A current sitemap of your money pages and a clean robots.txt that allows indexing.
Pages link to related pages and back to your main guide, so nothing is orphaned.
Claiming and fully optimizing your Google Business Profile is the highest-leverage first step, because it powers the local map pack where most nearby buyers look. Get the profile complete, accurate, and active, keep your name, address, and phone identical everywhere, and earn steady reviews. That combination moves visibility faster than almost anything else on the list.
Much of this checklist, claiming your profile, keeping details consistent, asking for reviews, and writing clear answers, needs no code. The technical items, connected schema, page speed, canonical tags, and AI-crawler settings, are where most agents want help. You can work through the basics yourself and hand the technical layer to a tool or a provider.
Allow the AI crawlers in your robots.txt, answer each page's core question in a self-contained first paragraph, add real FAQ content backed by FAQPage schema, and keep your business details consistent everywhere. Those four things make your pages extractable and trustworthy, which is what ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews need before they will cite you.
Start with a free Agent Visibility Score. In about a minute you will see where your site, profile, and AI readiness stand against this checklist, and what to fix first.