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CASE STUDY

How El Tianguis Went from Invisible to #1 AI-Recommended

A San Diego restaurant increased AI visibility from 0% to 67% in 30 days using persona-based testing. Here's exactly how they did it.

67%

Visibility Increase

30

Days to See Progress

#1

New Category Rank

The Challenge

El Tianguis is an authentic Mexican restaurant in San Diego's North Park neighborhood. They specialize in gluten-free and celiac-safe dining. This is a critical differentiator for their target customers.

Owner Oscar Ancira noticed a problem: His customers were asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude for restaurant recommendations, but El Tianguis wasn't appearing in the results.

When Oscar ran a Signal report in December 2024, the diagnosis was clear: 0% AI visibility across all 7 platforms.

The Solution

FAQPage Schema

Added structured data answering: "Is your kitchen celiac-safe?" "Do you have separate fryers?"

LocalBusiness Schema

Complete business details with "gluten-free certified kitchen" attribute.

Menu Schema

Structured menu data with dietary restrictions clearly marked.

Review Schema

Marked up testimonials with "celiac-safe" mentions.

robots.txt Updates

Allowed GPTBot, Claude-Web, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended.

Persona Content

Content addressing "celiac-safe" and "cross-contamination prevention."

30-Day Timeline

  • Day 1: Signal diagnostic showed 0% visibility
  • Day 2-3: Solutions strategy prioritized FAQPage schema first
  • Week 1: Implemented all schema markup and updated robots.txt
  • Week 2: Created "Celiac-Safe Dining" content page
  • Week 3: First Perplexity mentions (15% visibility)
  • Day 30: 67% visibility achieved, #1 recommendation

Key Takeaways

Persona-based testing is critical. Generic prompts would have missed the "celiac-safe" queries.

FAQPage schema delivers fast results. First to show impact (Week 3).

Bing Webmaster Tools matter. Critical for Perplexity visibility.

Small businesses can compete. AI rewards specificity, not marketing budgets.

Get the Same Results

El Tianguis went from 0% to 67% in 30 days. Your business can too. Run it once for your own brand, white label it for clients, or call it directly from your own tools via API. Want to resell this as a service? Learn more on our For Agencies page.

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