The voice query your Portsmouth café is invisible to, and how to fix it

Grey Saturday morning. Someone's walked the dog along the seafront from Southsea Castle towards Old Portsmouth, and they say to their phone: *"Where can I get a good flat white near me that's open now and lets dogs in?"* They don't get a page of links. They get an answer. Maybe one café, maybe three. And then they walk there. Your café might be five minutes away, water bowl by the door, dogs welcome every day. And you still didn't get named. That's usually not bad luck. It's missing information, and most of it you can fix yourself in an afternoon. ## Why that question is harder than it looks Read that question back. There are four separate things in it: 1. **"Good flat white"**: what you serve, and whether people say it's good. 2. **"Near me"**: where you are, exactly. 3. **"Open now"**: your hours, today, including the odd ones. 4. **"Lets dogs in"**: a specific yes or no. A person can work most of that out through your window. A voice assistant or AI tool can't. It can only repeat what it finds written down and trusts. If one of those facts is missing, or says different things in different places, the safe move for the assistant is to name someone else. It would rather recommend a café it's sure about than send a spaniel to a door that says "no dogs". Last week I wrote about [why being ranked on Google and being recommended by AI aren't the same thing](https://solentsignal.com/blog/seo-gets-you-ranked-geo-gets-you-recommended-by-ai). Short version: AI answers reward businesses whose details are clear and agree everywhere. Here's what that means for a café. ## Fix 1: Finish your Google Business Profile properly This is the big one. Google says that businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up in local results, and that local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and prominence. Prominence includes things like how many reviews you have. Most café profiles I look at are half done. Check yours: - **Category.** Pick the most specific one that's true, such as "Coffee shop" or "Café". Google's guidelines say to use as few categories as possible and not to stuff in extras as keywords. - **Name.** Use your real name, exactly as it is on the sign. Don't add "Best Coffee Southsea" to it. Google can suspend profiles for that. - **Hours.** Put in your real customer-facing hours. Then set **special hours** for bank holidays, Christmas, and the days you shut early. "Open now" questions fall over on the days your listing is wrong. - **Seasonal hours.** If you switch to winter hours, update your regular hours when you do. Don't leave summer's up and hope. - **Attributes.** These are the yes/no facts: outdoor seating, Wi-Fi, wheelchair access, and so on. If you see a **Pets** option (dogs allowed inside, dogs allowed outside), fill it in. Set the ones that don't apply to "No". A clear no beats a blank. - **Menu.** Google wants a full menu, not just "popular items", and the menu link can't go straight to a delivery app. - **Description.** Plain sentences about what you serve and who you're good for. No prices or "50% off" in there, because Google doesn't allow it. - **Photos.** Real ones. The counter, the coffee, the dog bowl, the outside tables. ## Fix 2: Write the answers on your own website, in plain sentences AI tools read your website too, and they cope far better with a normal sentence than a photo of a chalkboard. On your home page and a short FAQ, write things like: - "We're on [your street] in Southsea, about five minutes' walk from the seafront." - "Dogs are welcome inside and on our outside tables. We keep water bowls and dog treats at the counter." - "We serve flat whites, oat and soya milk at no extra charge, and decaf all day." (Only if it's true, obviously.) - "We're open 8am to 4pm Monday to Saturday and 9am to 3pm on Sundays." If your hours only live inside an image, some tools won't read them reliably. And an FAQ matches how people actually ask: "Are dogs allowed?", "Do you have gluten-free options?", "Can I bring a pushchair in?" One question, one honest answer. ## Fix 3: Make your details match everywhere NAP stands for **Name, Address, Phone number**. It's the most boring fix and one of the most important. Check your café on Google, Apple Maps, your website, Facebook, Instagram, TripAdvisor and any local directory that lists you. The usual problems: an old phone number, Facebook hours from two summers ago, or a duplicate Google listing a previous owner set up. Pick one correct version and make everything match. For Apple Maps, Apple's free business tool (now called Apple Business) lets you claim your location and set your hours, photos and details. Plenty of people asking their phone are on an iPhone, so it's worth ten minutes. ## Fix 4: Get more honest reviews, and use your replies Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking, and the words in them are more evidence about what you're like. But Google's rules are strict. You're **not** allowed to: - Offer a free coffee or discount for a review. - Only ask the customers you know are happy. - Ask people to mention particular things, like "please say we're dog-friendly". You *can* ask everyone, simply and honestly. A card by the till or a QR code on the receipt is fine. Then use your **replies** to confirm the facts. If someone writes "lovely spot, brought our dog", reply with something like: "Thanks! Dogs are always welcome here, inside and out. See you both again soon." Honest, helpful, and one more clear sentence about you. ## Fix 5: Add basic schema to your website Schema is a bit of hidden code on your website that labels your facts so machines don't have to guess. For a café, the basics are: - The type, which is **CafeOrCoffeeShop** (yes, that's really what it's called). - Name, address, phone number, website. - Opening hours, including seasonal changes. - A link to your menu. - Your map location. Google's guidance has examples for all of this. One thing to avoid: don't put your own star rating in the code. Google says that markup is for sites reviewing *other* businesses. ## What this won't do None of this guarantees you'll be named every time. Nobody outside Google, OpenAI and the rest knows exactly how each assistant picks, and anyone promising you top spot is guessing. What it does is remove the reasons to leave you out. ## Where I come in Solent Signal is just me, based in Portsmouth, so I know the difference between a Southsea side street and a Gunwharf unit. I help local businesses get recommended by ChatGPT, Google AI and voice search: tidying your Google Business Profile and listings, making your website readable by AI, and adding schema properly. If you'd rather not spend your one quiet afternoon on all this, I'll do it for you, or just tell you what's missing so you can fix it yourself. ## Next step Want to know what your phone would say about your café right now? [Get a free AI visibility audit at solentsignal.com](https://solentsignal.com/free-audit). I'll show you what ChatGPT, Google and voice search can already see, and what's stopping them naming you. --- --- ## Follow us - Instagram: [@solentsignal](https://www.instagram.com/solentsignal/) ## Sources 1. Google Business Profile Help: Guidelines for representing your business on Google (name, categories, hours, seasonal hours, menu, description rules). https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en-GB 2. Google Business Profile Help: Tips to improve your local ranking on Google (complete and accurate info; relevance, distance, prominence; reviews). https://support.google.com/business/answer/7091?hl=en-GB 3. Google Business Profile Help: Edit your Business Profile (attributes, factual vs subjective). https://support.google.com/business/answer/3039617?hl=en-GB 4. Google Maps User Contributed Content Policy: Prohibited and restricted content (fake engagement, incentives, selective solicitation, requesting specific content). https://support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/7400114?hl=en-GB 5. Google Search Central: Local business (LocalBusiness) structured data (opening hours, menu, review markup only for sites reviewing other businesses). https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/local-business 6. Search Engine Roundtable: Google Business Profiles adds Pets attribute (dogs allowed), 7 August 2023. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-business-profiles-pets-attribute-35834.html 7. Apple Business (UK): claim your location on Maps and control your hours, images and key details. https://www.apple.com/uk/business/connect/ 8. Schema.org: CafeOrCoffeeShop type. https://schema.org/CafeOrCoffeeShop 9. Solent Signal: SEO gets you ranked. GEO gets you recommended by AI. (28 September 2026). https://solentsignal.com/blog/seo-gets-you-ranked-geo-gets-you-recommended-by-ai