Guides · updated 27 October 2026

How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT.

Make your business easy for ChatGPT to find, read and trust: let its search into your website, be in Google and Bing, say plainly what you do and where, and collect reviews on other sites.

ChatGPT builds every answer fresh, so the aim is to be one of the businesses it can find and keeps finding. Here are the seven steps, each with the page it comes from.

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How it picks

When someone asks ChatGPT who to hire nearby, it often searches the web first, then names businesses from the pages it read.

Your own website is the main source. In a study of 200,000 local AI searches, 93% of the websites the AI tools used as sources were businesses’ own sites. BrightLocal: 200k local AI searches
The list changes every time. The same question asked again gave only 20 to 33% of the same businesses. A business that showed up once came back in about half of the later answers. BrightLocal: 200k local AI searches

The seven steps

Let ChatGPT’s search in. Its search tool is called OAI-SearchBot. OpenAI says sites that block it in robots.txt are not shown in ChatGPT’s search answers, and a change takes about 24 hours to be picked up. Many sites block it without knowing. OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers
Be in Google, and register with Bing. Google says a page only has to be indexed and able to show a snippet to appear in its AI answers, with no extra requirements. Prove the site is yours in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, and send each your list of pages. Google: AI features and your website
Say what you do and where, in words. One page for each service and each town you serve, with your hours and phone, written as text rather than inside pictures.
Label your business details. Structured data tells search engines your name, what you do, where and how to reach you. Google asks that it match what the page says. Google: AI features and your website
Keep your Google Business Profile complete. Google lists an up-to-date Business Profile among the basics for its AI features. A fixed public address also helps you get named. Google: AI features and your website BrightLocal: 200k local AI searches
Get reviews on other sites. Ask happy customers to review you on Google and the directories in your trade, and get listed where your competitors are. BrightLocal: 200k local AI searches
Ask ChatGPT yourself, and keep asking. Ask the question your customers would, in a new chat, a few times. Note who it names and which pages it reads. Do it again every month.

AEO vs SEO

AEO, answer engine optimization, is the name for this work aimed at AI answers. Most of it is ordinary SEO: Google says the same basics apply to its AI features. Google: AI features and your website

Three things are new. You let the AI tools’ crawlers in, you write pages that answer the exact questions people type, and you check what the AI says, because there’s no position to look up.

Check yours

See how ChatGPT and Google read your website, free. It takes about 20 seconds and needs no sign-up. Check my site.

Questions

Will ChatGPT name my business?

These steps set you up for it. ChatGPT builds each answer fresh, even for the same question, so the work is on what it can find and read about you.

How long does it take?

OpenAI says a robots.txt change is picked up in about a day. Showing up in answers takes longer, usually weeks, while search engines and AI tools read your pages again.

My site is on Wix, Squarespace or WordPress. Does that matter?

No. Any of them can be read by ChatGPT. Check that its settings don’t block AI crawlers, and that your pages say what you do in text.

Do I need an llms.txt file?

It’s a short plain-text summary some sites put at /llms.txt for AI tools. Google says its AI features need no special files, so it’s a nice extra, not a must. Every site we build has one.

Can you do this for me?

Yes. AI Search Watch works on the website you already have: we let the right tools in, register you with Google and Bing, label your business details and ask ChatGPT what it says about you. 14 days free. $0 today, card on file. Then $199 a month. Cancel anytime in one click from your status page.

Need a new website? The $300 one comes set up for Google, ChatGPT and AI search.

Start

AI Search Watch: we do this for the website you already have. 14 days free. $0 today, card on file. Then $199 a month. Cancel anytime in one click from your status page.