How do I get my business recommended by ChatGPT?

The short answer.

AI assistants recommend local businesses from what the web already says about them: your Google Business Profile and reviews, your own website, directory listings and mentions on other sites. You can’t pay to be named in the answer itself. You can make your business easy to find, easy to trust and easy to repeat.

That comes down to five things: the same facts everywhere, a complete Google profile with steady reviews, a website that answers questions in plain text, listings and mentions on sites the assistants trust, and checking what they actually say about you.

Say the same thing everywhere.

Your business name, address, phone number, hours and services should match on your website, your Google profile, Facebook, Yelp and every directory. When the details disagree, an assistant has less reason to trust any of them.

Keep your Google Business Profile full and active.

For local questions, the Google profile is one of the strongest sources there is. Pick the right categories, list your services with prices where you can, add real photos, post now and then, and reply to reviews.

Reviews matter most. Ask every happy customer, steadily rather than in one burst, and never buy or invent them.

Make your website easy to read.

Assistants quote the business whose website says it plainly.

• What you do, who you help and where you work, in the first lines of the page
• Prices or price ranges, if you can share them
• Real answers to the questions customers ask, one clear answer each
• Structured data that names your business, services and area
• Real text that loads without tricks, with AI crawlers allowed in and an llms.txt guide

Get listed and mentioned on sites the assistants trust.

Assistants lean on directories, review sites, local news and local organizations. For most local businesses that means Yelp, the Better Business Bureau, your chamber of commerce, the directories for your trade and any local press. One mention on a respected local site is worth more than dozens of thin listings.

Check what they say about you.

Once a month, ask ChatGPT, Google’s AI and Copilot the questions your customers would ask, like “who’s a good plumber in Franklin?” Note whether you are named, what is said and which sites are cited. The cited sites tell you where to show up next.

What doesn’t work.

• Anyone promising a guaranteed spot in ChatGPT. No one can, and you should be wary of anyone who says otherwise.
• Fake or bought reviews. They break the platforms’ rules and get removed, and they can get a profile restricted.
• Pages of AI-written filler. Assistants favor pages with real facts: prices, places and details only you know.
• Stuffing keywords. Plain sentences beat repeated phrases.

Paid AI ads are a separate thing.

ChatGPT now shows ads, marked as ads and shown apart from the answer. They can put you in front of people asking about what you sell, and we run them on our Pro plan. Buying them is not the same as being recommended, and the work above is what earns the recommendation.

Questions we get.