Industry Playbooks · · 6 min read · By Mobilize Cloud
A good llms.txt for a local business is short. It says who you are, what you do, where you do it, and links to the handful of pages a customer needs: services, hours and location, booking, reviews and contact. Most owners can write one in 15 minutes using the template below.
A quick, honest note first. llms.txt is a proposed standard, and AI companies haven't said much about how, or whether, they read it. Adding the file won't get you recommended by ChatGPT or Google. What it does is give any tool that reads it a clean, accurate summary of your business, written by you. For a local business with a simple site, that takes little effort and has no downside.
What a local business llms.txt should include
The llms.txt proposal asks for a title, an optional one-line summary, and sections listing your important pages. For a local business, the pages that matter most are the ones that answer the questions customers ask before they call:
- What do you do? Your services or menu page, plus one page per main service if you have them.
- Where are you, and where do you work? Your location or contact page, and a service-area page if you travel to customers.
- When are you open? The page that shows your hours.
- How do I book or order? Your booking, quote request or online ordering page.
- Are you any good? A reviews or testimonials page, if you have one on your own site.
- Common questions. An FAQ page covering prices, payment, parking, insurance and so on.
That's usually 6 to 12 links. You don't need to list every page on your site. Think of it as the short list you'd give a new employee who has to answer the phone.
The llms.txt local business template
Copy this into a plain text editor (Notepad, TextEdit in plain text mode, or any code editor), replace everything in square brackets, and delete any line that doesn't apply to you. Keep the #, >, ## and - characters exactly as they are, because they're what make the file readable to software.
# [Business Name] > [Business Name] is a [type of business] in [town, state] serving [area]. We [main services in one short phrase]. [Optional: one or two plain sentences with key facts, such as year founded, who you serve, languages spoken, or whether you offer emergency or same-day service.] ## Services - [Services overview](https://[yourdomain.com]/services): Everything we offer, with starting prices - [Main service 1](https://[yourdomain.com]/[service-1]): [One short note] - [Main service 2](https://[yourdomain.com]/[service-2]): [One short note] ## Visit or contact us - [Location and hours](https://[yourdomain.com]/contact): Address, opening hours, phone and directions - [Service area](https://[yourdomain.com]/service-area): Towns and neighborhoods we cover - [Book an appointment](https://[yourdomain.com]/book): Online booking or quote request ## About us - [About](https://[yourdomain.com]/about): Who we are and how long we've been in business - [Reviews](https://[yourdomain.com]/reviews): What customers say about us - [FAQ](https://[yourdomain.com]/faq): Prices, payment, parking and other common questions ## Optional - [Blog](https://[yourdomain.com]/blog): Tips and news
A few rules that keep the file clean:
- Use full addresses. Write
https://yourdomain.com/services, not/services. Both work, but full addresses are safer for AI tools. - One title only. The
# Business Nameline comes first, and nothing goes above it. - Every section needs links. A
##heading with nothing under it is a wasted line. - The Optional section is for nice-to-haves. Tools short on space may skip it, so don't put your booking page there.
Example 1: a bakery
Rosie's Bakery is a made-up family bakery. Notice how the summary names the town and the things people actually search for, and how the custom orders page gets its own line because it's where the money is.
# Rosie's Bakery > Rosie's Bakery is a family bakery in Dublin, Ohio, making sourdough bread, pastries, birthday cakes and custom wedding cakes. Open Tuesday to Sunday. Custom cake orders need at least 7 days' notice. ## Menu and orders - [Menu](https://rosiesbakery.example/menu): Daily bread, pastries and prices - [Custom cakes](https://rosiesbakery.example/custom-cakes): Birthday and wedding cakes, with the order form - [Catering](https://rosiesbakery.example/catering): Breakfast trays for offices and events ## Visit us - [Hours and location](https://rosiesbakery.example/visit): Opening hours, address and parking ## About - [Our story](https://rosiesbakery.example/about): The family behind the bakery - [Reviews](https://rosiesbakery.example/reviews): Customer reviews - [FAQ](https://rosiesbakery.example/faq): Allergens, gluten-free options and delivery
Example 2: a plumber
For trades, the service area and emergency availability matter more than a street address. A customer, or an AI tool answering for one, mostly wants to know "do they come to me, and how fast?"
# Northside Plumbing > Northside Plumbing is a licensed plumbing company serving Westerville, Worthington and north Columbus, Ohio. We fix leaks, drains, water heaters and sump pumps. We offer 24-hour emergency service. Free estimates on water heater replacements. ## Services - [Emergency plumbing](https://northsideplumbing.example/emergency): 24-hour callouts and what to do while you wait - [Water heaters](https://northsideplumbing.example/water-heaters): Repair and replacement, tank and tankless - [Drain cleaning](https://northsideplumbing.example/drains): Blocked sinks, toilets and main lines ## Areas and booking - [Service area](https://northsideplumbing.example/service-area): Towns and zip codes we cover - [Request a quote](https://northsideplumbing.example/quote): Online quote form - [Contact](https://northsideplumbing.example/contact): Phone, email and office hours ## About - [About us](https://northsideplumbing.example/about): License details and our team - [Reviews](https://northsideplumbing.example/reviews): Customer reviews
Example 3: a dental practice
Health practices should be careful about wording. Describe services plainly, link to your new-patient and insurance pages, and never put anything about individual patients in the file. It's public, like everything else on your site.
# Harbor Dental > Harbor Dental is a family dental practice in Dublin, Ohio, offering checkups, cleanings, fillings, crowns, Invisalign and emergency dental care. Accepting new patients. Evening appointments on Tuesdays and Thursdays. ## For patients - [New patients](https://harbordental.example/new-patients): What to expect at your first visit and forms to fill in - [Insurance and payment](https://harbordental.example/insurance): Plans we accept and payment options - [Book online](https://harbordental.example/book): Choose a time online ## Services - [General dentistry](https://harbordental.example/general): Checkups, cleanings and fillings - [Cosmetic dentistry](https://harbordental.example/cosmetic): Whitening, veneers and Invisalign - [Emergency care](https://harbordental.example/emergency): Same-day appointments for pain or injury ## About - [Our dentists](https://harbordental.example/team): Our dentists, hygienists and their qualifications - [Location and hours](https://harbordental.example/contact): Address, hours and parking
What to leave out
- Hours that change. It's fine to mention general patterns ("open Tuesday to Sunday"), but link to your hours page rather than copying every time into the file. Then you only have one place to update for holidays.
- Prices that change often. Link to the page that has them instead.
- Claims you can't back up. "Best plumber in Ohio" won't help. Specific facts ("licensed since 2009", "24-hour service") are more useful to a reader, human or not.
- Private details. No personal phone numbers, staff home addresses, or anything you wouldn't put on your homepage.
- Pages that don't exist yet. A link to a missing page is worse than no link. If you don't have a reviews page, skip that line.
Publish it and check it
Save the file as llms.txt and upload it to the main folder of your website so it opens at yourdomain.com/llms.txt. On WordPress, our guide on adding llms.txt without coding walks through it. If you'd rather not start from a blank page, our free llms.txt generator scans your site, suggests your main pages and gives you a file to download, or to email straight to whoever looks after your website.
Once it's live, run your address through the validator. It scores the file out of 100 and tells you exactly what to change. If you want ideas for wording, the anatomy of a great llms.txt file covers each part in more detail.
Bottom line: a local business llms.txt is a one-page summary of who you are, where you work and how to book. Keep it short, link to real pages, and update it when your services or locations change. Then list it on LLMs Ledger so it gets checked for you.
Is your llms.txt working?
Check any site for free and get plain-English fixes in seconds.