How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT
The short answer
No one can guarantee a ChatGPT recommendation, but you can make your business much easier to find and cite. Let AI search crawlers read your site, publish clear pages that say what you do, where and for whom, add structured data, keep your details consistent everywhere, get indexed in Bing as well as Google, and earn mentions and reviews on other sites.
How AI assistants pick businesses
When someone asks ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity for a recommendation, the assistant searches the web, reads a handful of pages and summarizes what it finds. It favors sources that are easy to read, clearly answer the question and agree with each other. Your job is to be one of those sources, and to be described the same way everywhere.
Step 1: let the AI crawlers in
Check your robots.txt. OpenAI’s search crawler is OAI-SearchBot, Anthropic’s is Claude-SearchBot and Perplexity’s is PerplexityBot. Old “block all AI” rules and some firewall settings quietly block them, which removes you from those assistants’ answers.
Step 2: say plainly what you do, where and for whom
Every service deserves its own page that opens with a direct answer: what it is, who it’s for and where you offer it. AI systems quote passages, so each section should make sense on its own. Avoid hiding key facts in images or behind scripts.
Step 3: add structured data
Structured data (JSON-LD) tells machines exactly what your business is: name, services, area served, contact details, reviews and the people behind it. It should match what’s visible on the page. It isn’t a magic switch, but it removes guesswork.
Step 4: get indexed beyond Google
AI assistants lean on more than one search index. Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools as well as Google Search Console, submit your sitemap to both, and use IndexNow so Bing hears about new pages the day you publish them.
Step 5: be consistent and be mentioned
Assistants trust what several sources agree on:
- Use the same business name, phone and address everywhere
- Keep your Google Business Profile complete and active
- Collect reviews on the platforms your customers use
- Get listed in reputable directories for your industry and city
- Earn mentions from local press, partners and associations
What doesn’t work
Keyword-stuffed pages, fake reviews and hidden text written “for AI” all backfire. So does relying on a single file like llms.txt. The businesses that get recommended are the ones that are easy to verify.
See it in practice
- Case study: MJ Refined Aesthetics
- Service: AI Search Optimization (GEO)
Full-stack web developer in San Diego and co-founder of LunarSites. I build custom Next.js sites and the SEO that gets them found. More about me.