How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT and other AI search tools

No. Nobody can force ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or Perplexity to recommend a business. These tools decide what to show based on the question, what they find on the web and their own systems. Those systems change often and aren't published.

That's worth knowing because a new industry has grown up around 'AI rankings'. Some advice is sensible SEO with a new name. Some is guesswork. The honest approach is to do the things the AI and search companies themselves say help, and to measure what you can.

Be wary of anyone who promises your business will be recommended by ChatGPT or appear in AI Overviews. Google says even a page that meets all its requirements may not be crawled, indexed or shown. No outside agency can promise what the AI companies themselves don't.

When an AI tool answers a question about local businesses, it usually searches the web, much like a search engine. Each one uses its own crawler (a program that visits and reads web pages) or index. That's good news, because it means the basics of being found online still apply.

Your robots.txt file is a small text file on your website that tells crawlers what they may visit. Some sites block AI crawlers by accident, through a setting in their website builder, hosting or security service.

OpenAI says that to appear in ChatGPT search results, you should allow OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt. It runs a separate crawler, GPTBot, for training its models, so you can block training while still allowing search. Perplexity also recommends allowing PerplexityBot, and notes that some firewalls may need to allow it too.

1. 1 Visit yourwebsite.co.uk/robots.txt in a browser to see your file.
2. 2 Look for lines that mention OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Googlebot or Bingbot followed by 'Disallow'.
3. 3 Ask your web developer or host to check any firewall or security service as well.
4. 4 Decide separately whether you want to allow training crawlers such as GPTBot. This doesn't affect ChatGPT search.
5. 5 After a change, allow time. OpenAI says robots.txt changes take about 24 hours to reach its search systems.

For Google, no. Google's guidance on AI features says you don't need to create new machine-readable files, AI text files or special markup to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. It also says there's no special schema.org structured data you need to add.

Structured data (code that labels details such as your opening hours and address) can still help in normal search. Google's LocalBusiness structured data can support business details in Search and Maps. But Google is clear that adding it doesn't mean a feature will show.

Local questions such as 'best dentist near me' lean heavily on local business information. Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and prominence. Relevance is how well your profile matches the search, distance is how far you are from the searcher, and prominence is how well known your business is.

Google says businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up in local results. Google's AI features guidance also suggests keeping your Business Profile information up to date. Google states there's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.

• Choose the most accurate main category for your business.
• Fill in hours, services, service areas and attributes such as parking or accessibility.
• Keep holiday hours up to date.
• Use the same business name, address and phone number on your website and other directories.
• Add real photos of your premises, team and work.

Google says prominence is based partly on how many reviews and positive ratings a business has. It also says replying to reviews shows you value customer feedback.

Only genuine reviews count for anything. Google's policy says fake engagement is not allowed and will be removed. It also bans paid reviews and reviews from people with a conflict of interest, such as staff. The safe route is to ask every happy customer, at the right moment, for an honest review.

AI tools quote pages that answer a question clearly. Google's advice on helpful content asks whether readers leave feeling they've had a satisfying experience, and whether the content shows first-hand expertise. Of experience, expertise, authority and trust, Google says trust is the most important.

In practice, that means a clear page for each service you offer, in plain English, with prices or price ranges where you can give them. It also means answering the questions customers ask you on the phone. Say who wrote the content and why you're qualified to write it.

Measurement is still patchy, but there are free tools that show some of the picture. Google says traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode is included in the Performance report in Search Console, under the Web search type. It isn't shown separately.

Bing Webmaster Tools has an AI Performance report that shows how often your pages are cited as sources in AI answers, including Microsoft Copilot. It also shows a sample of the search phrases the AI used to find your content.

1. 1 Set up Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools if you haven't already. Both are free.
2. 2 Check Bing's AI Performance report each month for cited pages.
3. 3 Write down five questions a customer might ask an AI tool, such as 'Who does emergency boiler repairs in Gateshead?'
4. 4 Ask those questions in ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and Perplexity once a month and note what comes back.
5. 5 Ask how customers found you when they get in touch. Some will tell you it was an AI tool.

Our SEO and Content service covers the steps in this guide: optimised pages or articles each month, local SEO, Google Business Profile posts, citation building (getting your business listed accurately on other sites), rank tracking and reporting. Review optimisation helps you get more genuine Google reviews.

This is the Attract part of our ACCC Framework, which is about getting found. We can't promise any AI tool will recommend you, but we can make your business easier to find and understand. To talk it through, use the 'Tell us about your project' form.