When we ran our first AI-visibility baseline for Villa Orthodontics in Glen Allen, Virginia, ChatGPT named them the #1 recommendation in their market — twice. Once for “best orthodontist for my teenager,” once for “Invisalign cost + who should I go to.” This is the story of the unglamorous groundwork that put them there, and what it says about where local marketing is heading.
The Client
Villa Orthodontics — Dr. Richard Villa’s family practice in Glen Allen, Virginia, nearly 30 years in business, beloved by patients, and facing the same problem every established local business faces: newer competitors with bigger ad budgets and thousand-review profiles crowding the map. National blog traffic they’d built for years was evaporating as Google’s AI Overviews absorbed informational clicks. The growth path had to be local — and increasingly, the “local” battleground includes what AI assistants tell patients.
What We Actually Did
- Rebuilt the Google Business Profile into the most complete in its market — 38 detailed services, full attributes, active posting cadence. A competitive audit later showed they beat both main rivals on every controllable profile signal.
- Made reviews carry the message. Patients were coached (gently, honestly) to mention their treatment by name. Result: “Invisalign” became the #1 topic in their review profile — 12 mentions, while their two closest competitors had zero.
- Built city-level landing pages with FAQ schema for every community they serve — each with quotable, direct-answer content in exactly the format AI systems cite.
- Treated directories as first-class citizens. Zocdoc, Healthgrades, and industry registries — the sources AI assistants actually read — got the same attention most agencies reserve for the website.
What the Baseline Found
When we measured AI visibility, ChatGPT (with web search) recommended Villa Orthodontics first for a parent asking about teen Invisalign in their town — building its case from their directory profiles and review scores. Asked about cost and provider choice in the county, ChatGPT again put them first, this time citing the practice’s own website. Google’s Gemini surfaced them via Healthgrades reviews — specifically reviews where patients mentioned their treatment. Every citation traced back to something on the groundwork list above.
The Lesson for Every Local Business
Nobody “optimizes for ChatGPT” directly. The AI recommendation layer is built from the boring stuff done extremely well: complete profiles, reviews that say what you do, quotable pages, consistent directories. That’s also exactly what wins the Google map pack — so the work pays twice. The businesses that figure this out before their competitors get a compounding head start in a channel that names two or three winners and ignores everyone else.
Want to Know What the AI Says About You?
Leedly’s free visibility analysis includes your AI baseline: what ChatGPT and Google’s AI actually say when customers ask about businesses like yours, which sources they cite, and the fix list in priority order.