The Agent Readiness Checklist for Local Businesses

Three weeks in. Time to bring it home.

You've seen the score (amiagentready.com). You've learned why your forms and buttons might be invisible to agents. Now here's the full checklist.

There's more coming down the road (Chrome is shipping protocols that will make this even more important), but that's future stuff. This is what to do now.

The current gap

Your GBP is agent-ready. Google spent years pushing you to structure that data — services, hours, products, booking links. That structure is what agents read.

Your website is probably the opposite. Paragraphs. Contact forms with unlabeled fields. "Call us" for booking. Services described in prose instead of structured data.

Agents find you through your GBP. Then they hit your website to complete the task — book an appointment, check availability, compare you to the competition.

If your site can't handle that, they bounce. The competitor whose site works gets the lead.

The agent readiness checklist

Print this out. Hand it to your developer. Or run your site through amiagentready.com and get the same thing with a score attached.

Forms & Buttons

Every form field has a <label> with a for attribute connecting it to the input
Every button is a <button>, not a styled div
Required fields have the required attribute
Error messages are in the HTML, not just visual styling
The form itself has a clear purpose (heading or aria-label)

Structure & Semantics

Headings use proper hierarchy (h1 → h2 → h3, no skipping)
Links are <a> tags, not divs with click handlers
Landmarks exist (header, nav, main, footer)
Interactive elements have cursor: pointer in CSS
Nothing shifts around while the page loads

Schema & Structured Data

LocalBusiness schema with accurate name, address, phone
Service schema for each service you offer
OpeningHoursSpecification for availability
FAQ schema for common questions
AggregateRating pulling from your reviews

Booking & Pricing

Real scheduling tool (not "call us," not a contact form that goes to an inbox)
Pricing visible in some form — "starting at $X" or "free estimates"
Service selection in the booking flow, not just a generic form
Available times exposed (Calendly, ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, whatever)

Agent Discovery

llms.txt file at your domain root (summary of your business for AI)
Robots.txt not blocking AI crawlers
Schema validates in Google's Rich Results Test

The quick test.

Two things you can do in 30 seconds:

Disable CSS on your homepage. Can you still tell what's clickable and what each form field is for? If not, neither can agents.
Run your site through amiagentready.com. Get a score, see where you stand, get a fix list.

What to prioritize?

If you can't do everything, do this first:

Fix your contact/booking form (labels, real buttons)
Add a real scheduling tool if you don't have one
Add LocalBusiness and Service schema

Those three things cover most of the gap for most local businesses.

The business case

40% of appointments are booked after hours. Businesses with online booking capture 3x more appointments than phone-only. AI traffic converts 42% better than traditional traffic now.

The visitors are changing. The sites that work for non-human visitors will get more of the business. The sites that don't will lose to competitors who bothered.

This isn't about chasing a trend. It's about not leaving money on the table.

The links.

→ Check your score: amiagentready.com
→ Full guide: amiagentready.com/is-your-site-ready-for-ai-agents
→ Schema guide: amiagentready.com/guides/local-business-schema-for-ai-agents
→ Forms guide: amiagentready.com/guides/labeling-forms-for-ai-agents

That's the series. Four weeks, one new type of visitor, one checklist.

Go fix your site.

Back to the future,
Garrett

P.S. — If you want us to handle this, get in touch. We're doing agent readiness implementations for local businesses now — audit, fixes, and ongoing monitoring. But honestly, most of this your current developer can knock out in a day or two with the checklist above.