For building firms
How builders get recommended by ChatGPT
Ask ChatGPT for a builder and you often get fewer names than for any other trade. In East Anglia, 74 of 2,361 building firms were ever named. ChatGPT used directories far less here than for plumbers — it wants finished work. Gemini opened Glenigan and the firms’ own sites. Waiting on a listing is the wrong game. launchAEO is how a building company gets the extension and loft pages ready to be recommended, and on Growth sees who ChatGPT names when a homeowner asks who should build it.
Questions customers already ask AI
These are the prompts, not keywords. An assistant that cannot match them to a page on your site will name someone else.
- Who would you use for a single-storey extension in Cambridge?
- Recommend a builder for a loft conversion in a terrace in London.
- I need a firm that will manage building control for a kitchen extension in York.
- Best local builder for a side return in a Victorian house in Bristol.
- Who can take a project from drawings to handover in Edinburgh?
Why someone else gets named
Directories help less here than they do for a leak
ChatGPT leaned on Checkatrade far less for builders than for plumbers. An extension is a months-long project, so the model looks for a firm with a trail of completed work, Federation of Master Builders membership, or a Houzz profile with photographs of finished rooms — not a same-day call-out badge.
Gemini reads Glenigan and the builder’s own case studies
When Gemini named East Anglian builders it opened glenigan.com and contractor websites. If your completed extensions only exist as Instagram carousels, Gemini has no project to describe, so it describes someone else’s.
Town prompts and county prompts name different firms
Wray found that asking by town changed 55% of the names versus asking for the county. A builder who only says “covering the South East” is easy to skip when the customer named a street in Cambridge.
What launchAEO checks
Whether project pages are crawlable case studies
launchAEO checks that the extension, loft and new-build pages exist in HTML with headings a model can quote — not a filtered portfolio that never renders without JavaScript.
Entity details: who the firm is, where it builds
Name, town, Companies House identity and an about page. Builders with thin identity signals look like a trading style, not a contractor an assistant should send a £80k job to.
Who is recommended on the extension questions you care about
Growth stores the answer, the engine, and the pages it pointed to. You can be mentioned in some replies and still absent from “loft conversion in a terrace”. Those two numbers stay apart.
What to change
Same shape as the action plan in the product: what’s wrong, why it matters, how to fix it.
What’s wrong
The site is a contact form and a photo of a van.
Why it matters
Gemini in the builder tests read contractor websites and Glenigan. There is nothing to read.
How to fix it
Publish finished jobs as pages: what was built, which town, whether you handled building control. The action plan will keep asking until those pages exist.
What’s wrong
Federation of Master Builders, or Houzz, is a logo only.
Why it matters
ChatGPT has cited the Federation of Master Builders on builder prompts. A logo image is not a membership the model can verify.
How to fix it
Link the live FMB or Houzz profile and use the same trading name as the site. Listings in launchAEO flag when the public profile and the site disagree.
What’s wrong
Every page says “nationwide” and none name the town.
Why it matters
Town questions named different firms to county questions. “Nationwide” matches neither.
How to fix it
Write the towns and the housing stock you actually work on — Victorian side returns, new builds, listed work — in sentences.
Where assistants look
Federation of Master Builders
The trade body ChatGPT has cited when asked who to hire for building work in the UK.
Houzz
Cited when assistants are asked who to hire for kitchens, extensions and interiors.
Glenigan
A construction-project database Gemini opened when naming East Anglian builders.
Checkatrade
Still used, but far less dominant for builders than for same-day trades.
Questions about this
How can builders get recommended by ChatGPT?
Show finished work on crawlable pages, name the towns you actually build in, and keep FMB or Houzz consistent with the site. launchAEO is how those project pages get ready to be recommended, and on Growth who ChatGPT names on extension prompts.
Why are builders named less often than other trades?
In the East Anglia study, builders and plumbers were the worst hit: about one firm in fifteen named on county questions, and only 74 of 2,361 builders named across the full run. ChatGPT also used directories less. The model needs project evidence, not only a listing.
Do nine Google reviews really get a builder named?
That was the median for named builders in that study — not a target we set. Unnamed builders sat at one review. It is a low bar compared with dentists or restaurants, and it still left 97% of firms unnamed. Reviews help; they are not the whole job.
What does launchAEO do that a builder’s marketing person cannot?
It reads the site the way a crawler does, lists what to fix so the extension and loft pages can be cited, and on Growth asks the assistants the same questions a customer would — then shows whether you were the name in the answer.
Where these facts come from
Independent studies, not launchAEO scores. We summarise them; we do not pretend we ran them.
Other businesses
Roofers
Leaks after a storm, then the full reroof. launchAEO gets those pages ready so the firm is named, not a directory.
Plumbers
Sunday-night boilers and burst pipes. launchAEO gets the plumbing site ready so ChatGPT names the firm.
Trades
ChatGPT citing Checkatrade 85% of the time is the gap: most trade sites are not ready. launchAEO gets the firm recommended instead.
The full playbook sits in the 2026 guide to getting recommended by ChatGPT.
Get onto the recommendation
Free is a homepage check, not a trial. launchAEO shows whether AI can read the site, what to fix, and — on Growth — whether the answers name you. Prefer us to handle it? Managed services are quoted separately.