The clearest single problem with your site: it never actually says where you are. Not on the homepage, not on the about page, not on the contact page - nowhere does it name a town, city, or service area. Real customers searching for a wendy house builder search by location ("wendy house builder in X"), and an AI can't recommend a business it can't place on a map. That single gap, more than anything technical, is likely the biggest reason you're invisible below.
For 20 years, "getting found online" meant Google. You optimized your website so it ranked in Google search and showed up on Google Maps - that's called SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and most businesses have at least done the basics.
But more and more people now ask AI assistants - ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini - instead of typing into Google. "Who builds wendy houses near me", "is this wendy house company legit", "how much does a custom log cabin cost" - these questions used to go to Google. Now they increasingly go straight to an AI, which gives one direct answer instead of a list of links.
The problem: SEO doesn't automatically carry over. An AI reads your website completely differently to Google, and most businesses' sites - even ones that rank well on Google - are invisible or wrong when an AI is asked about them directly. This is called AEO/GEO (Answer Engine / Generative Engine Optimization): making sure AI assistants can find you, describe you correctly, and recommend you.
Below, we actually asked ChatGPT and Gemini about your business, live, today - so you can see exactly what your customers see when they ask AI instead of Google.
open ChatGPT or Gemini and type exactly this - it's the same natural, open question a real stranger who has never heard of this business would type, not a search for the business by name. We used a national-level question here rather than "in your town" because your own site doesn't state a town for either of us to search by:
You'll see the same result shown below. This isn't a claim to take on trust - it's repeatable.
Both engines named a full page of competitors - some general, some specifically for the Western Cape - and neither mentioned WendyHouseNN once.
As a follow-up in the same conversation, we asked each engine directly by name: "What can you tell me about WendyHouseNN specifically? Where did you get that information from?"
- ChatGPT found nothing at all. Its answer: "I couldn't find evidence that 'WendyHouseNN' is an established Wendy house manufacturer in South Africa. A search for that exact name did not return a company website, business listing, or credible third-party references." It went on to guess you might be a misspelling, a Facebook-only seller, or a very small business with no web presence - it could not even locate your actual website. - Gemini did find you, and its answer was accurate: it correctly named Dawie Jacobs as founder, the 1994 start date, and your three product categories (custom timber structures, pet solutions, recreational/outdoor). No hallucinations, no invented facts - it even correctly described your delivery, installation and warranty terms, which only exist in the FAQ on your Services page. It said plainly this came from "a live web search of their official business website, wendyhousenn.co.za" - your own site was the only source it had, because nothing else about this business exists online for it to cross-check against.
That last point matters: one engine found you and reported you accurately, but only because it went and read your site directly, live, in that moment. There's no independent listing, review, or directory anywhere backing that up - which is also why the other engine found nothing at all.
Note: this reflects one live test, today. AI assistant answers can vary between sessions, accounts, and over time - so treat this as a real, current snapshot of what customers see, not a permanently fixed score. The underlying gaps found below are what actually need fixing, regardless of small variation in the exact wording an engine gives on a different day.
Note: AI assistants refresh their knowledge on their own schedule. Changes typically start showing in AI answers over the following weeks; the fix makes your site ready to be picked up.
If any of this feels like more than you want to take on yourself, or you don't have someone who can implement it, reach out and we'll handle it for you remotely, wherever you're based.
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