How to Get Your Business Recommended by ChatGPT
To get your business recommended by ChatGPT, you need to be easy for it to find and easy for it to trust: a website its search crawler can read, a presence in the search results it pulls from, and the same facts about you repeated across the web. ChatGPT doesn't take payment for recommendations. It reads what's out there and picks the businesses that clearly answer the question someone asked.
More of your customers are asking it, too. "Best physiotherapist near me open on Sunday" used to go to Google. Now a lot of people type it into ChatGPT and get three names back, with reasons. If you're not one of the three, you never hear about that customer.
- ChatGPT builds local answers mostly from web search results, and your own website is the biggest single source it reads.
- Let its crawler in, make sure Bing can find you, and put the answers customers want (what you do, where, hours, prices) in plain text on your site.
- Keep your name, address and phone identical everywhere, and get mentioned on sites other than your own.
First, ask ChatGPT about yourself
Before changing anything, find out where you stand. Open ChatGPT and ask the questions your customers would ask, the way they'd ask them:
- "Best [what you do] in [your area]"
- "[What you do] near [a landmark or neighbourhood] open on Sunday"
- "Tell me about [your business name] in [your city]"
Write down who it recommends and what it says about you, if anything. Do it again in a month. That list of names is your real competition in AI answers, and it's often different from who beats you on Google.
Where ChatGPT gets its answers
When someone asks for a local business, ChatGPT searches the web, reads the top results and writes an answer from them. BrightLocal ran 800 local searches in ChatGPT and recorded the first ten sources each time (study, December 2024):
| Source type | Share of sources | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Business websites | 58% | Your own site is the biggest lever you control |
| Mentions on other sites | 27% | Local news, "best of" lists, associations, blogs |
| Directories | 15% | Listings like Yelp, Justdial or your local equivalents |
Two more details matter. Research into how ChatGPT handles local searches found that it leans mainly on Bing's results, and that it has no direct link to your Google Business Profile. Your Google listing still matters for Google, so keep it. It just isn't enough on its own for ChatGPT.
1. Let ChatGPT's crawler read your site
OpenAI uses a crawler called OAI-SearchBot to find sites for ChatGPT's search answers. According to OpenAI's own documentation, a site that blocks it doesn't appear in those answers.
Check two places. Open yoursite.com/robots.txt and make sure nothing there blocks OAI-SearchBot. Then ask whoever runs your hosting whether a security or "block AI bots" setting is switched on, because some hosts and firewalls block AI crawlers without the owner ever choosing it. After a change, OpenAI says it takes about a day to take effect.
2. Make sure Bing can find you
Most owners have never opened Bing, which is exactly why this step gets missed. Search Bing for your business name and your main service plus your city. If you don't show up:
- Add your site to Bing Webmaster Tools (free) and submit your sitemap.
- Claim your business on Bing Places, so your name, address, hours and phone are on record there too.
3. Write the answers on your own site, in plain text
ChatGPT recommends the business whose page answers the question. A homepage with a big photo and "Welcome to our family" gives it nothing to work with. Your site should say, in words it can read:
- What you do, in the words customers use ("root canal", not "endodontic solutions").
- Where you are and which areas you serve, by name.
- Your hours, including weekends and holidays.
- Prices or price ranges, if you can share them. "Haircut from 300" or "Cleaning from $90" answers the question people ask most.
- What makes you the right pick: a specialty, years in business, languages spoken, parking, home visits.
Put this in real text, not inside images or PDFs. Give each main service its own page with its own heading, so a question about one service lands on a page about exactly that.
4. Keep your details identical everywhere
ChatGPT trusts a fact more when several sources agree on it. If your website says "Sharma Dental Clinic", your directory listing says "Sharma Dental Care" and the phone numbers differ, it has two half-matching businesses instead of one clear one.
Pick one version of your name, address, phone and hours, and use it exactly on your website, Google, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, Facebook and the directories people use where you are.
5. Get mentioned on sites that aren't yours
More than a quarter of the sources in BrightLocal's study were mentions of businesses on other sites. They do the work a word-of-mouth referral does in person: they tell ChatGPT that other people know you exist.
Good places to start: a local news story, a "best [service] in [city]" list (ask to be added, politely), your trade association's member directory, a supplier's "where to buy" page, or a local blog. One real mention on a site people read beats ten directory listings nobody visits.
6. Ask for reviews, and answer them
Review sites are among the directories ChatGPT reads, and the words in reviews tell it what you're good at. A review that says "they fixed my AC the same evening" helps you get picked for "emergency AC repair". Ask happy customers for a review right after the job, and reply to every review, good or bad, so the page shows a business that's paying attention.
7. Check again every month
ChatGPT's answers change as the web changes. Run the same questions from the first step on the first of each month, note who comes up, and see whether the changes you made are showing. It's the only way to know if any of this is working, and it takes five minutes.
When it's worth having someone do this
Everything above is something you can do yourself, and if you have the time, you should. Most owners don't, which is why we build it into every site we make: pages written so Google and ChatGPT can find you and recommend you, a Google listing with fresh reviews, and on our Known plan, we ask ChatGPT about your business every month and send you what it says. If you'd like us to look at where you stand, get in touch.
Questions
Can I pay to be recommended by ChatGPT?
No. ChatGPT's recommendations aren't for sale. It recommends businesses based on what it finds about them on the web, so the way in is to be easy to find and clearly described.
Does ChatGPT use my Google Business Profile?
Not directly, according to research into how it handles local searches. It reads web search results, mainly Bing's, and your website. Keep your Google profile up to date for Google, and add your business to Bing Places as well.
How long does it take to show up in ChatGPT?
If a setting was blocking ChatGPT's crawler, fixing it takes effect in about a day. Better pages and new mentions take longer, usually weeks, because they need to be found and read first. Checking monthly shows you the trend.
Why does ChatGPT recommend my competitor and not me?
Usually because their site answers the question more clearly, or more sources mention them. Ask ChatGPT why it recommended them; it will often list the reasons, and that tells you what to add.
Do I need a website to be recommended by ChatGPT?
It helps more than anything else. In BrightLocal's study, business websites were 58% of the sources ChatGPT used for local answers. A business with only a social media page gives it far less to go on.
