What AI Search Means for Electricians in North Hertfordshire

Look, I had a sparky from Baldock in my office last month. Lovely bloke. Been running his electrical business for twelve years. Website looked decent enough. Google reviews were solid. And he was absolutely baffled why his phone had gone quiet.

Took me about three minutes to spot the problem.

His website was built for Google in 2019. But his potential customers? They're not using Google the same way anymore. Half of them are asking ChatGPT or Perplexity "who's a good electrician near Baldock" before they even open a search engine. And his business simply doesn't exist in those answers.

That's what AI search means for electricians in North Hertfordshire. Your website might be perfectly optimised for traditional search, but if you're invisible to AI engines, you're losing work to competitors who've figured this out.

The thing nobody's telling you about AI search

When someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity for an electrician recommendation, these systems don't work like Google.

Google shows ten blue links. You might be third, you might be seventh, but you're still visible. Someone might still click.

AI engines give one answer. Maybe three recommendations if you're lucky. That's it.

Either you're in that answer or you don't exist. There's no page two. There's barely a page one.

I've been tracking this for the last eighteen months (pretty much since ChatGPT added browsing), and the patterns are bloody clear. The electricians who show up in AI answers are getting calls. The ones who don't have gone mysteriously quiet and can't figure out why.

Why your current SEO won't save you

Your mate who does SEO probably told you to stuff your homepage with "electrician in Hitchin" a few times. Maybe write some blog posts about rewiring. Get some backlinks from local directories.

That worked. Past tense.

AI engines don't care about keyword density. They care about answering questions clearly and having the right signals that you're legitimate, local, and competent.

Here's what I mean. Traditional SEO says optimise for "emergency electrician Letchworth". So you stick that phrase everywhere and hope Google notices.

AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) says think about the actual questions people ask:

• "I've got a tripping fuse box in Letchworth, who can come today?"
• "What should I expect to pay for rewiring a three bed house?"
• "How do I know if my electrical panel needs replacing?"
• "Who's qualified to do an EICR inspection near me?"

Your website needs to answer these questions in a way AI engines can understand, extract, and cite. Not just mention the keywords. Actually answer them.

What AI engines are looking for (and it's not what you think)

I've spent the last three years testing this with local service businesses across North Hertfordshire. You'd think AI engines would favour the biggest companies with the fanciest websites.

They don't.

They favour businesses that make it stupidly easy to understand:

• What you do
• Where you do it
• What qualifications you have
• What previous customers think
• How to contact you
• What problems you solve

Sounds simple. But I've looked at maybe forty electrician websites in the past year and about three of them actually do this clearly.

Most electrician sites I see have a homepage that says "Quality Electrical Services" with a stock photo of someone holding a screwdriver. No mention of being NICEIC registered until you dig three pages deep. Reviews stuck on a separate page that AI can't easily parse. Service area vaguely described as "Hertfordshire and surrounding areas" (which could mean anything from Stevenage to bloody Scotland for all the AI knows).

The structure that actually works

Here's what I set up for that Baldock sparky I mentioned earlier. Within six weeks he was showing up in ChatGPT and Perplexity recommendations.

His homepage now has:

• A clear H1: "NICEIC Registered Electrician Serving Baldock, Letchworth, and North Hertfordshire"
• A services section that lists specific jobs (not vague categories)
• An FAQ section answering the ten most common questions he gets asked
• Schema markup that tells AI engines exactly what he does and where
• Reviews embedded properly, not hidden away
• A simple explanation of emergency vs standard callout times

His service pages don't just say "rewiring". They answer "when do you need a rewire", "how long does it take", "what's involved", and "what does it typically cost".

Real answers. Not marketing waffle.

The FAQ section you're probably getting wrong

Every electrician website has an FAQ section. Most of them are useless for AI search.

They ask questions like "Why choose us?" and "What makes us different?"

Nobody is asking ChatGPT those questions.

They're asking:

• "Do I need an electrician to install a car charger?"
• "Can an electrician fix my storage heaters?"
• "How quickly can an electrician respond to a power cut?"
• "What's an EICR and do I need one for my rental property?"

Your FAQ should read like the questions actual humans ask. Word them the way people actually speak (or type into AI chat). Then answer them properly.

Not "Yes, we provide excellent EICR services with competitive pricing."

Try "Yes, if you're a landlord in North Hertfordshire you legally need an EICR every five years. We're NICEIC registered to carry these out, usually costs £180-£250 depending on property size, and we can typically book you in within a week."

See the difference?

Local citations still matter (maybe more than before)

AI engines cross-reference information. They're not just reading your website. They're checking if what you say matches what appears everywhere else.

If your website says you're in Hitchin but your Google Business Profile says Stevenage and your Yell listing says Letchworth, that's a problem. AI engines see conflicting information and trust you less.

I know it's boring admin work. But you need:

• Consistent business name everywhere
• Consistent address (even if you're home-based, pick one)
• Consistent phone number
• Consistent description of what you do
• Consistent service area

Check your Google Business Profile, your Facebook page, any directories you're on. Make them match. Takes an afternoon.

What to do this week

Right. Enough theory. Here's what you actually do.

Start with your homepage. Open it up and read it pretending you're ChatGPT trying to figure out if you're a good recommendation.

Can you immediately tell: - Exactly what electrical services this business provides? - Exactly where they operate? - What makes them qualified? - How to contact them?

If any of that takes more than five seconds to find, fix it.

Then build or fix your FAQ section. Ten questions minimum. Real questions people actually ask. Proper answers that someone could read and go "oh right, now I understand".

Then check your Google Business Profile is complete. Every section filled in. Recent photos. Reviews replied to. Service area clearly defined.

That's your starting point. Will it get you ranking in AI search overnight? No. But it'll get you visible, and that's what matters.

This isn't going away

Some business owners are waiting for this AI search thing to blow over. Go back to normal.

Not happening.

Google themselves are rolling AI overviews into standard search. Microsoft's got Copilot. Apple's added AI to Siri. Every search platform is heading this direction.

The electricians who sort their AEO out now will own their local market for the next five years. The ones who wait will be scrambling to catch up while watching their competitor's vans drive past.

If you want to figure out where your business stands with AI search, book a call and I'll do a quick audit. No charge for the audit, and if you're already sorted I'll tell you that too.

Or if you want to understand more about how this works specifically in North Hertfordshire, I've written a detailed guide on AEO in North Hertfordshire that breaks down the local market.

Your choice. But don't leave it another six months.