Last week, I ran a simple experiment:

I asked Copilot (Microsoft’s AI search assistant) to recommend a business in five random industries, across five random towns and cities in the UK.

No fancy prompts. No SEO tricks. Just real questions that real consumers might ask.

The results were VERY interesting 🤯

The test is simple:

• I will ask Copilot to recommend me a business in X who can do Y service

For the business that gets the top recommendation, I will analyse five key factors:

• Their SEO pros and cons, including their Google/Bing Business Profiles
• The number of reviews across their top three visible review sources
• Backlinks and authority trust signals, such as features in newspapers or related blog entries by major brands
• The location of the business, for instance whether they have premises in the same location as the request
• The specificity of their content to the question asked (e.g. if I ask for an emergency plumber, does their website explicitly say “emergency plumbing”?)

For future reference, a factor that we can at best mimic is the proximity of the business to the requester.

(We are based in Dumfries, and can’t accurately test proximity elsewhere.)

The aim is to show you what really makes the difference in who gets picked, and who gets ignored on Copilot.

Test 1: Divorce lawyer in Leamington Spa

Prompt: “Can you recommend a good divorce lawyer in Leamington Spa?”

Who showed up: Stowe Family Law LLP
Website: stowefamilylaw.co.uk

Test 2 – Mobile dog groomer in Sunderland

Prompt: “Who’s the best mobile dog groomer in Sunderland?”

Who showed up: Frizzy Izzy’s Grooming
Website: N/A – they use Facebook

Test 3 – Wedding photographer in Glasgow

Prompt: “Can you recommend a good wedding photographer in Glasgow?”

Who showed up: Good Luck Wolf
Website: goodluckwolf.co.uk

Test 4 – Personal trainer in Truro

Prompt: “Who are the best personal trainers in Truro?”

Who showed up: Breathe Health & Fitness
Website: breathehq.co.uk

Test 5 – Massage therapist in Stockport

Prompt: “I’m looking for a good massage therapist in Stockport”

Who showed up: Jira Thai Therapy
Website: jirathaimassage.co.uk

Some quick thoughts on the pros and the cons…

Before we get into the takeaways, there are a few things I didn’t highlight above because I wanted to make sure they were given their own focus:

1. Being a bigger brand with a lot of legal reports, case studies, and a large physical presence, Stowe Family Law may have a natural advantage over smaller brands.

That said, they do a LOT of things right with their SEO and online presence. For me, they are very much a case study in themselves in many of the things to do to stand out online, including to AI crawlers.

2. Something interesting that I didn’t mention was the use of schema markup. All of the brands used at least one, but most of them lacked the basics, like Services or LocalBusiness schemas.

A simple thing each of them can do to solidify their place in AI search would be to have one to two schemas per page that accurately describe the purpose of the page and its content to any crawlers.

3. While each made some mistakes or missed basic SEO requirements, all five of the options listed did really well in at least one area:

• Stowe Family Law had almost every metric covered to an impressive level
• Frizzy Izzy’s has a very strong social presence across multiple platforms
• Good Luck Wolf have near perfect SEO best practices across their site
• Breathe and Jira respectively have over 100 reviews across multiple platforms, showcasing proof to AI

4. None of the brands showcased today were perfect. Every one of them lacked something, even if it was small or minor.

This should act as a positive note for any small brands looking to boost their online credibility. With AI, you don’t need to be a big, perfect brand with lots of everything.

Just answer the questions that your ideal clients ask, and just make sure you do not neglect these basic needs.

5. Some of the brands made price visible, and some did not. Some of the prices were high-ticket, and others were the opposite.

Neither are wrong, but if you can show your price (or even a hint of the range), AI will treat you more favourably for it.

Why? Because specificity matters

If a user includes their desired price in their query – and you don’t state your price online – you’ll be ignored for that query.

So what ACTUALLY matters for Copilot right now?

Here’s what I’ve learned from this, and what I believe you can take as a lesson in AI search discoverability – as well as some general SEO do’s and dont’s:

1. Structured listings and citations are foundational for appearing in AI

Ensure a consistent name, address, phone number, and prices. Use as many of Bing/Yelp/Apple Maps/Google as you can. Have 1-2 schemas per page to feed AI structured information about your page.

2. Volume × recency of reviews = AI trust

Businesses with hundreds of recent reviews outperform those with one-off feedback, especially when the reviews are across multiple review sources.

3. Specificity content wins every time

FAQ pages, pricing transparency, localised Q&A content, personal messages, the lot. Everything you write feeds AI discovery.

You don’t need to do anything grand or exceptional. Just answer a customer question in a blog post every couple of days. Eventually, you’ll notice knock-on effects in new organic traffic.

4. Authority isn’t just about backlinks

Real-world engagement – social media, specialised directories, case studies – are critical for showing E-E-A-T to Copilot.

Additionally, the number of internal links you can make to valuable content via your website will lead to boosted user signals.

5. SEO and basic crawl hygiene matter

Broken links, over‑internal linking, missing structured markups, missing descriptions, even having no alt text can hinder AI’s decision to surface your brand.

AI isn’t going to send users to a website that takes forever to load, has a confusing structure, links to irrelevant content, and ultimately does the user a disservice.

A final thought 👇

By the way, did you know that most of the brands weren’t #1 on Google?

You don’t need to be perfect. To appear in AI search results, you don’t need to be the best, cheapest, or fastest in your industry.

Most of the businesses that showed up here weren’t fancy big brands with huge budgets or hundreds of staff nationally.

But every single one of them did one thing right. And the results followed.

My advice? If you’re a local business and you’re desperate to be seen (in order of difficulty):

1. Create Q&A and niche content that answers real consumer questions
2. Create videos and posts about your business every week for your socials doing the exact same thing as above
3. Have zero major SEO faults, and very few warnings for your website
4. Find a way to get lots of reviews from happy customers on multiple sites
5. Find a way to get backlinks from high quality local sources, like newspapers

Do two of these things, and you will begin to appear in search results in platforms like Copilot. And if you don’t, go for three or four to boost it further.

If you’d like to learn more about how to appear in AI search results, or if you want to see more lessons like this, check out some of our content below for free 👇