By Anthony Mundis, Founder of Key Twenty
At the end of my last post I suggest a simple exercise: ask AI the question your best customer would ask, and see who gets recommended. A few people try it and come back with the same follow-up. Okay, I ran a prompt. Now what?
Fair. So here's the full version. This takes about an hour, costs nothing, and tells you more about your online presence than most paid audits.
Step 1: Write down the questions your customers actually ask
Not the questions you wish they asked. The real ones, in their words.
A customer doesn't ask "who is the leading provider of residential HVAC solutions in the metro area." They ask "my AC is blowing warm air, who should I call in Mesa" or "how much does it cost to replace a furnace." If you've ever heard a customer describe their problem on the phone, use that language.
Aim for eight to ten questions across three types. Problem questions, where they describe the symptom ("water heater making popping noise, do I need a new one"). Comparison questions, where they're choosing ("best family law attorney in Boise for fathers"). And cost questions ("what should a kitchen remodel cost in Richmond"). If you're not sure what your customers actually ask, that's worth solving on its own. It's the same audience problem that sits under most marketing trouble.
Step 2: Run them through more than one engine
Different engines pull from different sources, so test at least three. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews are the big ones. Claude and Gemini are worth adding if you have the time.
A few things matter here. Use a fresh conversation for each question, because context from earlier prompts changes the answers. Ask in plain language, exactly as you wrote the questions. And run the important ones twice on different days. AI answers vary, and you're looking for patterns, not a single verdict.
Step 3: Score what comes back
For each answer, note four things.
Are you mentioned at all? Yes or no. This is the headline number. If you run ten questions across three engines and appear in two of thirty answers, that's your baseline.
Who is mentioned instead? Write down every competitor named. You'll usually find the same two or three names keep appearing. Those businesses are winning the answer, and it's worth understanding why. Usually it comes down to reviews, coverage on sites the engines trust, and content that answers the question directly.
Is what's said about you accurate? Sometimes you appear, but the description is stale. Wrong services, old address, a positioning you moved past years ago. Engines assemble descriptions from whatever's out there, so an outdated directory listing or an abandoned social profile can speak for you.
What sources does the engine cite? Perplexity and AI Overviews show their sources. Click them. This is the most useful part of the whole exercise, because it shows you exactly which sites feed the answers in your market. Local news, industry directories, review platforms, Reddit threads. Whatever shows up repeatedly is where visibility in your niche gets decided.
Step 4: Fix what you find
The results usually sort into three situations.
You're invisible. The most common result, and honestly the easiest to act on. Start with the sources you found in step three. If every answer in your market cites the same review platform and the same local directory, being strong in those two places matters more than anything else you could do this quarter. Then look at the questions themselves. Each one you tested is a page your website probably doesn't have. A page that answers "what does a furnace replacement cost in Denver" with real numbers in the first paragraph is the kind of content engines cite.
You're mentioned but described wrong. This is a cleanup job. Update your Google Business Profile, your directory listings, your about page, and anywhere else your business is described. Consistency is the goal. Engines cross-reference, and conflicting information makes them less likely to state anything confidently about you.
You're mentioned and it's accurate. Good position. Your job is to widen the set of questions you win. Look at the comparison and cost questions where competitors still own the answer, and build toward those.
Step 5: Put it on the calendar
One test is a snapshot. The useful version of this is a habit. Rerun the same questions quarterly, keep the results in a simple spreadsheet, and watch the trend. Mentions per thirty answers is a real metric, and it moves when you do the work.
The engines are still deciding who the trusted answers are in most local markets and niches. Those decisions are being made right now, with whatever information about your business happens to exist. An hour spent finding out what they currently say is the cheapest market research available to you this year.
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