UpKeep UK is at the top of AI answers from ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini for London property maintenance. Nearly two years ago, it had effectively no web presence at all.
There was no trick behind it. It was steady, plain work, done in the right order. Here is what I actually did, and what you can take from it for your own business.
Where UpKeep UK started
UpKeep UK is a London property maintenance and construction company. When I started working with them, Google showed the business a handful of times a day. Written enquiries were at zero.
Today the site gets 60k+ Google impressions a month and 20+ written enquiries a month. A 150-flat London portfolio found UpKeep UK through the new site. And when people ask AI tools about property maintenance in London, UpKeep UK is the name at the top.
The full story is on the UpKeep UK project page. This post is about the how.
A domain that matches the business
The first move was to the premium upkeep.co.uk domain. A short domain that matches the brand is easier to remember, easier to trust and easier for other sites to link to. Everything else was built on it.
A site built around buyers and places
Many trade websites are built around a list of services. That's how the trade thinks. It isn't how buyers search, and it isn't how they ask AI tools for help.
So I rebuilt UpKeep UK around two things: the people who buy maintenance, and the places they need it.
- Buyers. The site speaks directly to estate agents, property managers, block managers, landlords and hotels, with landing pages for the main types of buyer.
- Locations. A London hub page, then pages for priority London boroughs and areas, in a clear structure that is easy to follow. More areas are being added.
So when a block manager asks for a maintenance company in their part of London, the site has pages that match both halves of the question: who they are, and where they are.
Fast, consistent pages
I built one master page, the reactive maintenance page, to load fast on phones. New pages follow the same pattern. That keeps the site quick and consistent as it grows, instead of turning into a patchwork of different layouts.
Telling search engines who you are
The site carries schema markup. That's structured data in the page code that spells out who the business is and what it does, in a format machines read easily. It takes the guesswork out.
Behind the scenes there's also spam protection on the forms and conversion tracking. So real enquiries don't get buried in junk, and I know which pages bring them in.
Links and mentions in the right places
Links from other websites still matter, so link building is part of the ongoing work.
When I look at the AI answers for London property maintenance, they don't only cite company websites. They also cite review sites, forums, directories and the national press. My view is simple: if trusted sites say good things about you, AI tools are more likely to repeat them.
So a big part of the current work is off-site reputation: getting good mentions of UpKeep UK on reputable sites that AI answers already cite.
Checking what AI actually says
You can't improve what you don't check. I track a fixed set of questions a buyer might ask an AI tool, grouped by topic: the brand itself, London property maintenance, commercial and hospitality work, local areas, landlords and block management, estate agents and property managers, emergency repairs, and construction and refurbishment.
For each topic I can see who gets mentioned, which sites get cited, and how UpKeep UK compares with its competitors. That shows where it already leads and where the gaps are, so the next piece of work goes where it counts.
AI answers also move around. A business that's recommended this month can slip next month. Regular tracking is how you spot that early.
Bumps along the way
It wasn't a straight line. Along the way UpKeep UK was hit by a negative SEO attack, where someone deliberately tries to damage a site's standing in Google. The site survived it and came out stronger.
Growth online is rarely smooth. What matters is that the basics are solid enough to ride out a bad month.
Getting found is only half the job
The other half is answering. UpKeep UK's site has a web chat agent that answers visitors' questions and sends an automatic follow-up email. An email agent sorts the main inbox and ranks each new lead, so the strongest ones stand out.
Year 2 is now approved: a five-agent AI suite covering phone, WhatsApp, web, email and social media, plus a big push into AI search. You can see the kinds of agents I build on the agents page.
What you can take from this
You don't need to be a big firm to show up in AI answers. You need to be clear, consistent and talked about in the right places. Here's where I'd start:
- Write for buyers, not for the trade. List the types of customer you want most. Give each one a page that speaks to their problems.
- Be specific about where you work. If you serve London, show which parts, with pages that say something useful about each area.
- Make your site easy to read for machines. Fast pages, a clear structure and schema markup help Google and AI tools understand what you do.
- Look at what AI tools say today. Ask ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini the questions your customers would ask. Note who they recommend and which sites they cite.
- Earn mentions where AI looks. If the answers in your trade lean on certain directories, review sites or publications, that's where you want to be seen.
- Answer every enquiry. Being found is wasted if calls and messages go unanswered.
If you'd like a second pair of eyes on where you stand today, that's exactly what my free Digital Growth Audit is for.
AI answers tend to favour businesses that are clear about who they serve and where, and that other trusted sites talk about. Any small business can start working on that this week.
Want to know how your business shows up on Google and in AI answers right now? Book your free 30-minute Digital Growth Audit. It's a quick Google Meet where I look at your business online and give you clear pointers on what to fix first.
