Molik | Helping UK businesses get found @LS8Digital

Credit where it's due. Dental practice sites: Title tag present: 49 of 50 Phone number visible: 48 of 50 Mobile viewport tag: 47 of 50 The basics are mostly there. What's missing is what says who you are: local-business schema (22 of 50), one H1 (32), a homepage price (12).

Before you buy an AI receptionist: 1) Can a human take over? 2) Where is call data stored (UK GDPR)? 3) What does it say when it doesn't know? 4) Who updates your prices and hours? 5) What's the real monthly cost at your call volume, in writing?

41 of 50 dental sites had schema (structured data). Sounds fine. Only 22 told Google they're a dentist or local business. The other 19 never name the business type. Only 11 of those 22 include phone, address and opening hours. Schema isn't the same as useful schema.

Before you hire a web designer: 1) Who owns the domain? 2) Is the price fixed in writing? 3) Who writes the words? 4) What happens after launch? 5) Can you see a price on their own site? Five questions, five minutes, and most bad hires fail question 2.

@RyanKnuppel And the ten-minute callback doesn't need someone glued to the phone. Enquiry lands, an instant text confirms it and asks the one question you need to price the job, then a nudge to the owner. The speed comes from the system, not willpower.

@Kerbrank 225 points is a proper test. If I re-run the dentists I'll add map-pack position from a few points per town and see whether the 25 with no profile link sit lower. I'd rather show that with numbers than assume it.

I checked 50 dental practice websites across Yorkshire. Only 15 passed four basics: "dentist" plus a place in the title, one H1, local-business schema, a meta description. Only 6 passed all four and showed a homepage price. Not advanced SEO. Just my first-ten-minutes list.

Why website quotes for 'the same thing' range from £500 to £5,000: pages, who writes the words, integrations, SEO set-up, what happens after launch. Ask every designer to list those five in the quote. If one won't, that's your answer.

@CaroBuildsUK yes, that's the better test. Nobody types your business name unless they already know you. 'Emergency plumber in Leeds open now' tells you far more than 'Smith Plumbing Leeds' does.

Two-minute check for any UK small business: 1. Google your service + your town. 2. Ask ChatGPT the same question. If you're not named in either, that's your real problem. Not your website design. What came up for you?

@Mangoogrow Agreed. And 'from £X' doesn't lock you in. It sets the expectation, and the real quote still happens on the call. In my sample only 10 of 47 showed even that much.

I audited a sample of 47 UK plumber homepages. 33 mention Gas Safe. Only 10 show a £ price. If a customer can't tell roughly what it costs, they may ring the next name on Google. My view: a price signal is the cheapest fix on most trade sites.

@TreasureMusaAI Same with AI receptionists for small firms. The demo caller says 'I'd like a quote'. A real caller says 'water's coming through the ceiling, do you cover Wakefield?' from a car. I'd test with the owner's last 20 real enquiries before go-live.

@NeuralFlow_AI Good add. Where it goes wrong is the site and profile drifting apart over time. On a new build I'd start from the profile's service list, then write one short section per service with the towns covered, so both say the same thing from day one

Three free fixes on a Google Business Profile that usually matter more than another blog post: 1. Set the right primary category 2. List every service you offer 3. Reply to every review, good or bad Save this for your next Sunday admin session.

@kieron141 Mostly the basics, done consistently. Same name, address and phone everywhere, every service and town written out in plain words on your site, and reviews that mention the actual job. Nobody can promise a ChatGPT mention, so fix what also wins you calls from Google first

I run LS8 Digital, a small UK agency. From today I'm sharing what I see auditing and building for small businesses: local SEO, Google, and how ChatGPT decides who to recommend. No hype. If you run a UK small business, follow along and ask me anything.

@Kerbrank didn't check Maps rankings, only the homepages, so I can't say. What I did see: only 25 of the 50 link to their Google profile at all, and 8 embed a map. Ranking for 'dentist + town' is the obvious next column if I re-run it. Do you score Maps from one point or a grid?

@samwoods The small-business version is simpler: a missed call gets a text back in seconds, AI asks the job, postcode and urgency, and the owner gets a one-line summary before the next call. Same idea, intake before the calendar, with a phone instead of a form

@andywalkerhq Agreed, and the bit most small firms miss is making it automatic. Job marked done in the calendar or invoicing tool, a text with the review link goes out within the hour, one polite reminder after 3 days, then stop. Nobody has to remember to ask

@IliyaOblakov Fair point, 'near me' is a trap in that check. Town in the question every time. Asking on 3 separate days makes sense too, since one answer is a snapshot, not a ranking. Do you also log which sites it cites, or just whether the business gets named?