How to Get Your Business to Show Up in ChatGPT (and Google’s AI)

How does ChatGPT decide which businesses to mention?

Nobody outside OpenAI knows the full recipe, and we will not pretend to. What OpenAI does document is the first gate: its search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, is what surfaces websites in ChatGPT’s search features, and OpenAI recommends allowing it in your robots.txt so your site can appear.

After that gate, the answer is built from what the engine can find and trust about you. In practice a business shows up in two ways: as a cited source (ChatGPT links to your page because it answered the question) or as a named recommendation (ChatGPT lists you as an option). The first depends on your pages. The second depends just as much on what other sites say about you.

Google is more explicit. Its guide to AI features and your website says a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet, that there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and that the usual SEO fundamentals still apply. That is good news: the work that gets you cited is mostly the work that gets you found.

Step 1: let the AI crawlers in

If the crawler cannot read your site, nothing else on this page matters. Check three places:

1. robots.txt. Open yoursite.com/robots.txt. Make sure there is no Disallow: / under OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Googlebot or Bingbot, and none under User-agent: *. Perplexity documents that PerplexityBot surfaces and links websites in its results and is not used to train models.
2. Your firewall or CDN. Security tools sometimes block bots that robots.txt allows. If your host shows a “checking your browser” page to strangers, a crawler may see the same wall.
3. How long changes take. OpenAI says a robots.txt change can take about 24 hours to reach its systems. Our ChatGPT search guide explains the difference between the search crawler and the training crawler (GPTBot) in detail.

The good news for most businesses: in our study of 63 Miami real estate websites, every one let OAI-SearchBot and Googlebot in. Access is rarely the problem. What comes next usually is.

Step 2: get indexed in Google and Bing, not only Google

An AI answer engine can only cite a page it knows exists. Set up both free tools:

• Google Search Console for Google Search, AI Overviews and AI Mode. Since 31 August 2026 it has a generative AI performance report that shows impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode by page, device and country.
• Bing Webmaster Tools for Bing and Microsoft Copilot. Since 10 February 2026 its AI Performance report shows when your pages are cited in Copilot, in Bing’s AI summaries and in select partner integrations.

Submit your sitemap in both. Many owners set up Google years ago and never touched Bing. That leaves a whole family of AI answers reading an older copy of the site, or none at all.

Step 3: say what you are, where, and for whom, in one sentence

An AI engine has to decide what your business is before it can recommend it. Most homepages make that hard: a slogan, a hero video and a “Learn more” button. Put one plain sentence near the top of the homepage and the About page:

“[Business name] is a [category] in [city/area] that helps [who] with [what].”

Then use the same name, phone number, city and category everywhere: your site footer, Google Business Profile, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Yelp and any directory. When your own profiles disagree (an old address here, a different phone there), the engines have to guess which one is true. Fixing that is free.

Step 4: build one clear page for each question your buyers ask

AI answers are built from passages that answer a question directly. A single “Services” page listing twelve things gives the engine nothing to quote. One page per service, per location you really serve, and per common question does.

On each page:

• Answer in the first two sentences. If someone asks “how much does a root canal cost in Doral,” the page that answers that in its opening lines is the one worth quoting.
• Use headings written as questions, the way people type or say them. In our Miami study, 87% of the sites had fewer than two question-shaped headings.
• Use real specifics: prices or price ranges you actually charge, hours, areas served, languages spoken, credentials. Vague claims are easy to skip.
• Keep one H1 per page. 38% of the Miami sites did not have exactly one.
• Add a short FAQ with the follow-up questions. Google retired FAQ rich results in 2026, but the questions and answers are still the kind of self-contained passage an answer engine can lift.

Step 5: add business schema so machines can connect your profiles

Be honest about what schema does. Google says no special structured data is needed to appear in its AI features. So schema is not a secret switch.

What it does well is remove doubt about identity. An Organization or LocalBusiness block with your name, logo, phone, area served and sameAs links to your real profiles tells a machine that the website, the Google profile and the Instagram account are the same business. In our Miami study, 38% of sites had no Organization, LocalBusiness or RealEstateAgent markup, and 32% had no structured data at all.

Step 6: finish your Google Business Profile and ask for reviews

For “near me” and “best [service] in [city]” questions, local profiles carry a lot of weight. Google says its local results depend on relevance, distance and prominence, and that verifying your profile, completing your information and earning more reviews can help.

• Verify the profile. Pick the most specific primary category.
• Fill in services, hours, service areas, photos and the website link.
• Ask every happy customer for a review, and answer the reviews you get.
• Claim the same business on Bing Places and Apple Business Connect, with identical details.

Never buy or fake reviews. Beyond the rules, it is the kind of signal that gets a business removed, not recommended.

Step 7: get mentioned where AI answers look

When we checked AI-related agency searches on 26 September 2026, the results were dominated by “best of” list articles and directory pages, not agency homepages. That pattern is common: answer engines like sources that compare several options.

So part of showing up is being on the lists that already rank for your category: the main directories for your industry, your local chamber or association, trade publications, and genuine partner or supplier pages that mention you. Keep the facts identical to your site. One real mention on a page that already ranks is worth more than ten new blog posts nobody links to.

How do you know if it is working?

No tool can see inside ChatGPT’s answers for every user. Use the measurements that exist and a simple manual check:

Expect weeks, not days, for most changes. The robots.txt fix is the only step OpenAI puts a number on (about 24 hours).

What does not work

• An llms.txt file as a ranking trick. Google says it does not use llms.txt for Search. We keep one on our own site because it is cheap and accurate, not because it moves anything. More in does llms.txt work?
• Anyone who guarantees a ChatGPT spot. Nobody controls what an AI engine says. A good partner promises the work and shows you the measurements.
• Stuffing pages with AI-written filler. Thin pages that repeat what every other site says give an engine no reason to pick you.