How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT and AI search

How AI search finds a business

When someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot or Google which company to hire or which shop to buy from, the assistant usually searches the web first. It reads the pages it finds and writes its answer from them. Whether you get named depends on two things: whether those pages can be found and read, and whether what they say about you is clear enough to quote.

• ChatGPT search reads the web with OpenAI's own crawler, OAI-SearchBot, and also draws on third-party search indexes.
• Perplexity uses its own crawler, PerplexityBot.
• Google AI Overviews and AI Mode are built on Google's normal search index.
• Microsoft Copilot answers from Bing.

So the base is plain search: if Google and Bing have not indexed your site, AI assistants will have a hard time finding it.

Step 1: Let the crawlers in

• Check your robots.txt. It should allow Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot. Blocking GPTBot only stops OpenAI from using your pages for model training. OAI-SearchBot is the one that decides whether you can appear in ChatGPT search answers.
• Google-Extended controls whether Google may use your content for its Gemini models. It does not remove you from Google Search or AI Overviews.
• Check your CDN and firewall. Some providers now block AI crawlers with a single setting, and Cloudflare blocks them by default on many new sites. Make sure it was switched on because you wanted it, not by accident.
• Put the important text in the HTML. Many AI crawlers do not run JavaScript. If your services, prices or contact details only appear after scripts load, the crawler may see an empty page.

Step 2: Get indexed in Google and Bing

• Add the site to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools and submit your sitemap in both. Bing can import your setup from Google Search Console in a couple of clicks.
• Use IndexNow to tell Bing and other engines when a page is new or has changed. Google does not use IndexNow, so request indexing for your key pages in Search Console as well.
• Fix what both tools report: pages blocked by mistake, broken redirects, duplicate pages without a canonical tag.

Step 3: Say clearly who you are

AI answers are built from sentences that can be quoted. Slogans are not quotable. Facts are.

• An About page with plain facts: your name, what you do, for whom, where you are based, which countries and languages you serve.
• One page per service and per main type of customer, saying what is included and who it is for.
• The same name, description and contact details everywhere: on your site, your Google Business Profile, LinkedIn and directories.

Compare “Remi Visuals is a web studio in Lithuania that builds WordPress, WooCommerce and Shopify sites for brands across Europe” with “We craft digital experiences that inspire”. Only the first one tells an assistant when to mention you.

Step 4: Answer the questions people actually ask

• Write down the questions customers ask before they buy: how long it takes, which option suits them, whether you work in their country. Answer each one on your site in a short, direct paragraph.
• Put the answer first and the detail after it. Assistants quote the first clear sentence they find.
• Write guides and comparisons for the decisions your customers make, like Shopify or WooCommerce. They get cited because they help someone choose.
• Show a date on content that ages, and update it.

Step 5: Add structured data

Structured data (schema.org, written as JSON-LD) labels the facts on a page so machines do not have to guess. The useful types for most businesses are Organization or LocalBusiness, Service, Product, FAQPage, Article and BreadcrumbList.

Add a sameAs list to your organisation markup with links to your LinkedIn page, Google Business Profile and directory profiles. It tells search engines that all those profiles belong to the same business. Check the result with Google's Rich Results Test.

Step 6: Get mentioned on other sites

An assistant trusts what several independent sources agree on. Your own site alone is one source.

• Create profiles with the same details on Google Business Profile, LinkedIn and the directories of your industry. For agencies and studios that means places like Clutch, GoodFirms and Sortlist. For shops it means review platforms and marketplaces.
• Ask happy customers for reviews on those third-party sites.
• Look for mentions in industry articles, partner pages, “best of” lists and local business news.

What about llms.txt?

llms.txt is a proposed convention from 2024: a short Markdown file at /llms.txt that summarises your site for language models. No major AI search engine has confirmed that it reads the file. Treat it as a cheap extra, not a fix. We add one to the sites we build because it takes minutes.

How to check that it works

• Ask ChatGPT with search on, Perplexity, Copilot and Google the questions your customers would ask. Note who gets named and which pages are cited. Repeat every month, because answers change.
• Look for visits from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and copilot.microsoft.com in your analytics. ChatGPT often adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to the links it shows.
• Keep an eye on Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools for indexing problems.

Expect weeks to months, not days. Nobody can guarantee that an assistant will recommend you. What you can do is make sure nothing stops it.

Checklist

1. robots.txt allows search and AI search crawlers.
2. Key text is in the HTML, not only loaded by scripts.
3. Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools are set up, sitemap submitted.
4. An About page with plain facts, and one page per service.
5. Short, direct answers to customers' questions.
6. Structured data with sameAs links to your profiles.
7. Profiles with identical details, and reviews on third-party sites.
8. A monthly check of what the assistants say.