The AI Marketing Audit: 5 Things to Check Today

I talk to Asheville business owners every week who are spending real money on marketing and have absolutely no idea whether AI search engines can find them. They've got Google Ads running, they're posting on social media, maybe they're even paying an SEO agency. But none of that tells them the one thing that matters most in 2026: can AI find them and recommend them?

Here's the thing — you can answer that question yourself in about 30 minutes. No tools to buy. No agencies to hire. Just you, your laptop, and a willingness to face potentially uncomfortable truths.

This is the AI marketing audit. Five checks. Do them today.

Check #1: Ask AI About Your Business

This is the most important check and the one that will probably hurt the most. Open ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google (look for the AI Overview at the top). Ask them:

• "Who is the best [your service] in Asheville?"
• "Recommend a [your business type] in Asheville"
• "What are the top-rated [your category] near downtown Asheville?"

Now look at the results. Are you mentioned? Are your competitors mentioned? Are businesses you've never heard of getting recommended over you?

This is your baseline reality. Not your Google ranking, not your website traffic — your actual AI visibility. The question customers are asking and the answer they're getting. If you're not in that answer, nothing else matters until you fix this.

What the results mean

If AI mentions your competitors but not you, the problem is clear: they have a stronger third-party footprint than you do. If AI gives generic answers without mentioning specific businesses, the problem is that nobody in your category has strong enough signals — which is actually an opportunity. First mover wins.

Check #2: Audit Your Third-Party Presence

Google your business name (in quotes). Not your website — your actual business name. Look at what comes up beyond your own site. Every result that isn't your domain is a third-party signal that AI can find.

Count them. Write them down. Now ask yourself:

• How many independent sources mention your business?
• Are these sources AI would consider trustworthy? (Curated directories, news sites, review platforms — not random blog spam)
• Is the information accurate and current across all of them?
• Do any of them provide rich context about what you do, not just your name and address?

If you have fewer than 10 quality third-party mentions, your citation profile is thin. AI needs multiple independent sources to feel confident recommending you. Platforms like the HereCity Network exist specifically to solve this problem — providing rich, contextual, AI-readable citations across trusted local sites.

Check #3: Audit Your Review Diversity

Open a spreadsheet. List every platform where you have reviews. For each one, note the number of reviews and your average rating. Most Asheville businesses look something like this:

• Google: 47 reviews, 4.6 stars
• Yelp: 3 reviews, 3.5 stars
• Facebook: 8 reviews, 5.0 stars
• Everything else: nothing

That's a problem. AI doesn't just check Google reviews. It looks for consensus across multiple platforms. If you have great Google reviews but nothing anywhere else, AI has one data point. One data point isn't a pattern — it's an anecdote.

The fix isn't complicated: start routing some of your review requests to other platforms. If a customer says they found you on Yelp, ask them to review you there. If they mention Facebook, ask for a Facebook recommendation. The goal isn't to game any single platform — it's to build a distributed reputation that AI can verify from multiple angles.

The Real Internet Sales team tracks review distribution as a core metric for exactly this reason. Single-platform review concentration is one of the biggest AI visibility gaps they see in Asheville businesses.

Check #4: Test Your Schema Markup

Go to Google's Rich Results Test (search for it — it's free). Paste in your website URL. Hit test.

What comes back? If you see structured data results — LocalBusiness, Product, FAQ, etc. — you've got schema. Look at the details. Is the information complete? Is it accurate? Does it match what's on your website and your other listings?

If the test comes back with nothing or just basic website schema (WebSite, WebPage), you have a schema gap. This means AI has to guess what your business does based on unstructured text alone. That's like showing up to a job interview and handing the interviewer a novel instead of a resume.

At minimum, you need LocalBusiness schema with your name, address, phone, hours, and a description of your services. The MarketingCODE system builds this into every site from day one, but any decent web developer can implement it in a few hours.

Check #5: Evaluate Your Content Freshness

This one's simple but painful. Go to your website. Look at your blog, news section, or whatever content area you have. When was the last time you published something?

Now check your Google Business Profile. When was your last post? Last photo update? Last response to a review?

Check your directory listings. When were they last updated?

AI search engines are obsessed with freshness signals. A website that hasn't been updated in six months, a GBP with no recent posts, directory listings with last year's hours — all of these tell AI that the information might be stale and therefore unreliable.

The threshold isn't precise, but generally: if your most recent content across all platforms is more than 90 days old, you have a freshness problem. AI would rather recommend a competitor with recent activity than risk sending someone to a business that might have changed or closed.

Scoring Your Audit

Be honest with yourself. How did you do?

• Check #1 (AI mentions you): Pass or fail. There's no partial credit here.
• Check #2 (10+ quality third-party mentions): Count them up.
• Check #3 (Reviews on 3+ platforms): Diversity is the metric, not volume.
• Check #4 (Complete schema markup): Either you have it or you don't.
• Check #5 (Content updated within 90 days): Across all platforms, not just one.

If you passed all five, you're ahead of most Asheville businesses. Seriously. If you failed three or more, you now know exactly where to focus your marketing dollars. That's not a defeat — that's clarity. And clarity is worth more than any marketing report you've ever been handed.

What Comes Next

This audit tells you where you stand. It doesn't fix anything. But now you're working with facts instead of assumptions, and that changes everything. You can take this information to your current agency and ask them hard questions. You can start tackling the gaps yourself. Or you can reach out and let us show you exactly what a comprehensive AI visibility strategy looks like.

Whatever you do, don't go back to pretending everything's fine. You know the truth now. Use it.