SEO & AI — how people find you

What this screen is for. This is how people find you. Buyers search Google — and more and more they ask an AI assistant. Your HomeRecon site is built to be read by both. Fill in the two lines below. We send your site to Google and Bing for you. One step is left that only you can do: your free Google Business Profile. The Get found on Google checklist walks you through it. How to get there. Marketing → My Website → SEO & AI. What every button does Why this matters — tap it for five short lines on how people find you. Be found on Google — the sheet where you write what Google shows: Headline in Google — the blue headline people click, with a live counter against Google's 60-character habit ("61/60 · Google may shorten this"). What Google shows under your name — the one-or-two-sentence gray summary. Picture shown when your link is shared — texts, Facebook, and the rest show it next to your link; blank uses your site's big photo. Two live previews — a Google result and a Social card — repaint as you type, so you see exactly what a searcher sees. Save commits. Be found by AI assistants — the honest window into the other half: assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity read a plain-text copy of your site and can recommend you by name. Its sheet, What AI assistants see, shows you exactly what they read, live. Behind Change sits one switch — "Let AI assistants read your site": on, they can find, rank, and recommend you; off, they're told to stay out and the plain-text copy stops serving. Get found on Google — a checklist with three lines. It shows once your site is published. Each line gets a tick when it is done, and the top says how many are done ("2 of 3 done"). Sent to Google — we send your site to Google for you. It says "We sent it to Google on" and the date. You do nothing for this. Google still decides when your pages show up. Sent to Bing — we send it to Bing for you too. Your free Google Business Profile — the one step only you can do. Tap Show the steps to open them. They are written out below under Get found on Google. Your city pages — one page per service area, listed with its state: "On your site · /inspections/arlington-wa" with an Open link, or honestly "Off your site" with nothing to open. Write your own page jumps to the area under Business → Service areas, where each page's words and its on/off switch live. Common questions "What should the headline say?" Your name plus what a searcher typed: "Parker Home Inspections — Everett Home Inspector." The preview shows the click they'll see. "What does the AI switch actually do?" On (the default), AI assistants get a clean plain-text copy of your business — services, prices, areas, hours — and can name you when someone asks for an inspector in your town. Off, they're turned away entirely. "How do I see what an AI sees?" Tap the Be found by AI assistants tile. Its sheet shows the live copy, word for word. "How do I get a page for each town I serve?" Add the town as a service area (Business → Service areas) and its page appears here. Its words and switch live on the area. "Do I need to send my site to Google myself?" No. Each time you publish or save your site, HomeRecon sends it to Google and to Bing for you. Many saves close together count as one send (at most one every 10 minutes). We use our own Google account for this, so you do not need one. Your sitemap (your address followed by /sitemap.xml) is the list of your pages. It updates itself. "How soon will I show up on Google?" Google decides when, and where. It often takes a few days to a few weeks. Nobody can list you on Google right away. "Will this put me on page one?" Nobody can promise that. We make sure Google and Bing know your site exists and which address is yours. Where you show up is up to Google. Your Google Business Profile helps most, because it puts you on Google Maps. "What if I leave the headline blank?" Your site uses "Your Business | Home Inspector in Your City, ST", with your own name, city and state. It does the same if the headline is just your business name. Good to know A city page switched off is genuinely off the internet — off the sitemap, out of the AI copy, and its address shows a not-found page. Your site only appears at your own address — your free HomeRecon web address, and any custom web address you have verified, are the only places your sitemap and AI copy are served. A made-up or unclaimed web address shows a not-found page, never your name or details, so your business never turns up on an address you do not own. The technical layer stays out of sight on purpose — the machine-readable copies and structured data run themselves; the two lines you write are the whole job. A hidden site tells search engines not to list it. When you hide your site, Google and Bing are told to leave it out. Publish again and we send it to them again. Your site has one real address. Once your own domain is verified, it is the only address search engines are given. Your free homerecon.ai address still works, and it sends visitors on to your own domain. Get found on Google We send your site to Google and Bing for you, every time you publish or save. One step is left. Only you can do it, because Google needs to know the business is really yours: your free Google Business Profile. It is your listing on Google Maps and in local search. The checklist gives you everything you need: Copy your details. There are Copy buttons for your business name, your phone, your website address, and the category Home inspector. Use them so every detail matches your site exactly. Open Google Business Profile. The button takes you to business.google.com. Paste your details in. Put your website address in the Website box. Hide your home address. If you work from home, choose to hide your address. Show your service area instead (the towns you cover). Prove it is you. Google checks the business is really yours. Often this is a short video of you and your work. It takes a few days. Tick the box. When you are done, tick I've set up my Google Business Profile. The reminder on your website page then goes away. Good habit: use the exact same business name and phone everywhere you are listed, such as InterNACHI (if you are a member), Yelp, the BBB and Bing Places. Related Areas — the zones behind the city pages Business → Service areas — each city page's editor Blog — more pages Google loves