If not, you are losing work to the decorators who figured this out first. This page is the 15-point checklist we run on every painter and decorator website we audit. Start with the free checker, or skip to the $15 workbook.
When a homeowner asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude or Google AI Overviews for a painter and decorator, the tool names two or three businesses. Every decorator not named is invisible for the query. The models weigh before-and-after photography, reviews that name the job ("two-coat emulsion throughout"), and clean service pages per job type.
The usual gaps on painters and decorators websites:
None of that is hard to fix. Most of it is under an hour per item.
The first 40 words of the homepage, rewritten.
Delivering premium painting and decorating solutions for discerning clients across central Scotland.
Painters and decorators in Edinburgh and the Lothians. Interior repaints, exterior work, wallpapering and spraying. Farrow & Ball certified, dust-sheets-down same day, fixed quotes.
The after version is the one ChatGPT can match against “best painter and decorator in Edinburgh for a whole house repaint”. The before version is functionally invisible to AI search.
These are the kinds of prompts real customers type into ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude when they are trying to hire. Every one of them is a chance for a model to name you, or name somebody else.
Paste any of these into ChatGPT right now and see who gets named. If it is not you, that is the gap the checklist below is designed to close.
Same 15-point framework we run on every business we audit, adapted to the reality of painters and decorators. Items are ordered by impact, not difficulty.
Name the work you want most, the towns you cover, and one trust signal. For decorators that usually means naming your specialism: interior repaints, exterior, spraying kitchens, wallpapering, F&B certification. "Professional painting services" is wasted copy.
Every photo needs a caption. "Dining room, Farrow & Ball Hague Blue, two-coat on plaster, Bruntsfield 2025" is readable by a model. An uncaptioned jpg is not. Captions should echo the phrases homeowners search.
Split interior work, exterior work, wallpapering and spraying into four pages. Each gets its own Service schema, its own FAQ and its own gallery. Models rank specificity.
Covers: how long to dry between coats, do I move furniture, what paint do you use, do you move radiators, spraying vs brush-and-roller, whether dust sheets protect wooden floors. Wrap in FAQPage JSON-LD.
DIA, PDA, GoodPainter, Farrow & Ball certified, Dulux Select, Benjamin Moore approved. Name them in the hero, the footer and on a dedicated trust page. Link to your profile on each directory.
Rewrite in 750 characters: the work you do, where, the brands you use, one or two trust signals. Lead with the job, not with "family-run since 2001".
Primary: Painter, or House painter. Secondary worth filling: Wallpaper store (if you supply), Paint store (if you supply), Commercial painting service. Empty slots are missed signal.
List your towns, postcodes or council areas on the contact page. Mirror as areaServed in schema. Models use it for "decorator near me" and "painter in [postcode]" queries.
Name, address and phone must match exactly across GBP, website, and every directory profile. Any mismatch weakens the entity.
Name the principal, trade years, any City & Guilds or NVQ qualifications, and the towns covered. Decorators are one of the trades where individual reputation matters more than brand, so put the name in.
The phrases that help: "tidy, dust-sheets down, no paint on the carpet, finished when they said, brush marks invisible". Prompt gently for these with real examples. Never fake a review.
Paste the ten prompts homeowners in your town would use into ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude. Log who is cited. Adjust.
Pick the three decorators cited instead of you. Compare gallery depth, FAQ, GBP categories, directory profiles. Close the gap.
Decorators are LocalBusiness with areaServed. You rarely run a premises customers visit. If you do (a showroom, a wallpaper sample room), add it as a physical location with a Painter or HousePainter sub-type where supported.
A decorator running one or two jobs at a time can run this backlog in a weekend. Hero, gallery captions, four service pages, FAQ, schema, GBP. Ship and measure for a month.
The basics, in the order an AI model reads them:
Every item on the checklist above folds into this same picture. Get the picture right and citations follow.
The free AI Visibility Checker gives you the exact prompts to paste into ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude. No signup required to see the result.
Copy and paste each prompt into ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude. Log the three businesses named each time. That log is your competitor-gap baseline.
When a homeowner types "best painter in Edinburgh" into ChatGPT, the model names two or three decorators directly. If you are not named, the job is gone before a click happens. Most decorator websites were built in the pre-AI era and show it.
Caption every photo in your gallery with the room, paint brand, town and year. A model cannot match queries to uncaptioned photos. Second biggest: rewrite the first 40 words of your homepage in customer language.
DIY is fine with the $15 workbook. The $197 audit is for decorators who want a ranked list with copy and schema ready to paste.
One to three weeks for ChatGPT, often faster for Perplexity and Google AI Overviews.
Yes. United States, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. The trade-body names change (PDCA in the US, PDA in the UK) but the signals do not.
Yes. getseoforai.com/checker gives you the exact prompts to paste. Under 60 seconds, no signup.