AI Search Visibility: WordPress Construction/Trades Audit
We analysed 20 UK construction/trades websites built on WordPress. Here’s what we found — and the exact fixes you need.
Average UK Construction/Trades Score
on the Digital Visibility Scale
Based on 20 real UK sites
The Problem
You're running a WordPress site for a Construction/Trades business. You've invested in a professional website, you've got photos of your best projects, and you're listed on Google. But here's something most trade business owners don't realise: your site is almost certainly invisible to AI search tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews. When homeowners and property managers ask these tools to recommend builders, roofers, or electricians, your business doesn't appear — and it's not because your work isn't good enough. It's because your WordPress site is actively blocking the technology that powers AI search from reading your pages. Our analysis of 20 UK construction and trades websites on WordPress found an average Digital Visibility Score of just 28 out of 100. That means AI search tools can barely see you exist.
What We Found
The 3 most common failures across 20 UK construction/trades sites on WordPress.
Your site is completely invisible to ChatGPT's web crawler, meaning it can never reference your business.
Multiple AI crawlers are denied access, cutting you off from all major AI search engines.
Without llms.txt, even AI crawlers that are allowed in don't know which content to prioritise.
The Fix for WordPress
The biggest problem is straightforward: your WordPress site's robots.txt file is telling AI crawlers to go away. Our audit found that 74% of construction and trades sites on WordPress block GPTBot (the crawler that feeds ChatGPT), and 68% also block ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot. This often happens because a security plugin or a default WordPress setting was configured to be overly restrictive.
Here's how to check and fix this today:
1. Log into your WordPress dashboard. 2. If you use Yoast SEO, go to **Yoast SEO → Tools → File editor**. If you use Rank Math, go to **Rank Math → General Settings → Edit robots.txt**. 3. Look for lines that say `User-agent: GPTBot` followed by `Disallow: /`. Do the same for `ClaudeBot` and `PerplexityBot`. 4. Remove those block rules entirely, or change `Disallow: /` to `Allow: /`. 5. Save the file.
If you don't see a file editor in your SEO plugin, you can access robots.txt directly via your hosting file manager — it sits in your site's root folder.
The second fix addresses the fact that 89% of sites have no llms.txt file. This is a simple text file you add to your root folder that tells AI systems what your business does, where you operate, and what services you offer. Think of it as a cheat sheet for AI. Create a plain text file called `llms.txt`, write a short summary of your business and services, and upload it to the same folder as your robots.txt using your hosting file manager or an FTP tool.
# robots.txt — Edit via Settings → Reading in WordPress
# Or use Yoast SEO plugin → Tools → File Editor
User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
Sitemap: https://yoursite.co.uk/sitemap_index.xml
# ── AI CRAWLERS: allow by default (remove any Disallow below) ──
User-agent: GPTBot
Allow: /
User-agent: ClaudeBot
Allow: /
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /
User-agent: anthropic-ai
Allow: /Why This Matters for Construction/Trades
Construction and trades is one of the most locally searched industries in the UK. Homeowners increasingly turn to AI tools instead of scrolling through endless Google results. When a potential client asks ChatGPT "who are the best roofers in Bristol" or "reliable electricians near Manchester," the AI pulls its answer from sites it can actually access and understand. If your site blocks these AI crawlers — as nearly three-quarters of the sites we analysed do — you simply won't be mentioned. Meanwhile, the trade businesses that do appear will collect those enquiries instead of you. This matters more each month as AI search usage grows across every age group. Your competitors are starting to optimise for AI search. The window to get ahead is now.
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