Guide

How do I get my business recommended by ChatGPT?

Marc Wargo Brady Wolford, founders

Mostly by showing up in the places AI tools already look, and by having a page that answers the exact question a customer asks. We’ve run the same six questions, four of them about Portland or Bend, through AI-powered search six times between early August and mid-September and written down every business the answers named. In crowded categories, the answers lean on directories like Clutch and Upwork, and those directories came back every time. In thin categories, small local firms get named. Nobody outside the AI companies knows the full recipe, and anyone who tells you otherwise is guessing. Most of what helps is free, though, and you can check where you stand in about ten minutes.

For the record, our own firm wasn’t named in any of those 36 answers. We’re working the same list you’ll find below.

Section 1

Check where you stand first. It takes ten minutes.

Before changing anything, find out what the answers say today.

  1. Write down three questions a customer would actually type. Put your town in them: “best plumber in Salem,” not “plumbing services.”
  2. Ask each one in ChatGPT, in Microsoft Copilot, and in Google (the AI summary at the top of the results). Add Perplexity if you have a minute.
  3. For every answer, note two things: whether you’re named, and which websites the answer points to. That second list is your to-do list.
  4. Do it again in a month, not next week. In our checks, the core names held for six weeks while the ones around them came and went. Checking weekly mostly measures that churn.

Section 2

What six weeks of checking showed us

We track six questions in our own field: four about web design and AI consulting in Portland and Bend, and two broader ones with no town in them. Here’s what came back.

  • Directories own the crowded questions. For both Portland web-design questions, Clutch, Upwork, or both showed up in every single check. In Bend, DesignRush joined the answers from mid-August on.
  • A core sticks, the edges move. Four Portland AI consultancies were named in all six checks. Other names showed up once or twice and disappeared, and the Bend list reshuffled almost every time.
  • Thin categories reward a specific page. For “AI consulting in Portland,” the firms named were small local shops. In one round we also looked at their sites, and each had a page about AI consulting in Portland specifically.
  • Broad questions name nobody local. A question like “AI implementation consultant” came back with research firms and national consultancies. There was no local answer to win.

That’s six questions in one industry, ours. Treat it as a pattern worth testing in your own category, not a rule.

Section 3

What the AI companies actually say about where they look

Only a few things are confirmed by the companies themselves. Here they are, with the source:

  • Google says its AI Overviews and AI Mode draw on its own search index, often running several related searches behind the scenes. Its short list of advice for site owners includes keeping your Business Profile information up to date. It doesn’t say the AI answers read the profile.

  • Microsoft’s documentation for Copilot in Microsoft 365 says it sends its searches to Bing. Bing Places for Business is the free listing that puts you in Bing search and Bing Maps, and Microsoft says it’s working on deeper ties between Bing Places and Copilot. It hasn’t said Copilot reads those listings today.

  • OpenAI says ChatGPT sometimes sends a rewritten version of your question to outside search providers, and its help page names Microsoft among them. It also shares a rough location with partners that supply local information such as nearby business listings. It doesn’t say which listings, or how it chooses between businesses. It does say a website has to let its search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, in to be eligible at all, and that placement isn’t guaranteed.

You’ll read confident claims that ChatGPT pulls from one particular directory, or that your review count decides whether you’re recommended. We went looking for the AI companies saying so themselves and couldn’t find it. We wouldn’t build a plan on it.

Section 4

What you can do yourself

None of these costs anything but time.

  1. Finish your Google Business Profile. Every field, current hours, real photos. It’s on Google’s own list of advice for site owners, and customers see it whether or not an AI does.
  2. Claim Bing Places for Business. It’s free and it puts you in Bing search and Bing Maps. Microsoft says Copilot searches Bing, though it hasn’t said Copilot reads the listing itself.
  3. Make sure ChatGPT’s search crawler can reach your site. OpenAI says a site has to let its crawler, OAI-SearchBot, in before it can show up in ChatGPT search at all, and that placement isn’t guaranteed. Ask whoever manages your site to confirm it isn’t blocked.
  4. Get onto the directories your answers point to. Run the check in §1. Whichever directories show up for your category are the ones worth a complete profile. Keep your business name, phone number, and website written identically on every one.
  5. Give each service you sell in each town you really serve its own page. It should answer the question a customer in that town would ask. A copy of your homepage with a different town dropped into the heading helps nobody, and search engines treat it that way.
  6. Answer the questions customers ask, in plain sentences, on your own site. Price ranges, turnaround, what’s included, what isn’t. Whether or not an AI quotes it, the customer who lands there gets an answer.

Section 5

What you can’t control

Some of this is out of your hands, and it’s better to know that before you spend a weekend on it.

  • You can’t see a report. Google Search Console shows how often you appear in Google’s results. We haven’t come across an equivalent that shows how often an AI chat tool names your business, so asking the questions yourself is the direct check.
  • The recipe isn’t published. Section 3 is close to everything the companies have said in public.
  • Wording changes the answer. In our checks, “web design Portland” and “Portland web designer” came back with partly different lists. Test the phrasing your customers actually use.
  • Directories you don’t own carry weight. In a crowded category, your ranking on a directory may matter more than anything on your own site.

Section 6

When it’s worth paying for help

If your category is thin and your town is small, the list in section 4 may be all you ever need.

It starts being worth paying for when the directories own your category and you need a plan to get into them, when you serve several towns or services and each needs a page that’s really different, or when you want someone checking every month so you don’t have to remember. Ours starts with a Modern Discoverability audit, from $1,500: a written read of how search engines and AI tools see your business today, and what to fix first.

FAQ

How long does it take to start showing up in ChatGPT’s answers?

Longer than most people expect. In six weeks of checking our own category, the core of each answer barely changed, so think in months, not days. Listings and directory profiles you add today have to be found and indexed by the search systems these tools rely on before they can count. Fix the basics, then check again in a month instead of every morning.

Does ChatGPT use Google reviews to decide who to recommend?

OpenAI hasn’t said. Its help page explains that ChatGPT sends searches to outside providers, naming Microsoft among them, and gets local information such as business listings from partners. It says nothing about how reviews factor in. Plenty of articles state it as fact; none that we found trace it to OpenAI. Reviews are worth earning because customers read them, whatever any AI does with them.

Is a Google Business Profile enough to get recommended by AI?

It’s a start, not the whole job. Google advises keeping your Business Profile current, though it doesn’t say its AI answers read it. Microsoft’s Copilot searches Bing, where a free Bing Places listing is the equivalent, though Microsoft doesn’t say Copilot reads that listing either. Neither company has said what ChatGPT uses for local businesses. The directories that show up when you run the questions yourself are the most direct thing to cover.

Do I need a new website to get recommended by AI tools?

Usually not. Start with the free steps: your Google and Bing listings, and complete profiles on the directories that appear when you ask the questions yourself. A website matters most when you don’t have a page answering the exact question a customer asks, such as a specific service in a specific town. That’s often a new page, not a new site.

How can I check if ChatGPT recommends my business?

Ask it the questions a customer would, with your town in them, and note whether you’re named and which websites the answer points to. Do the same in Microsoft Copilot and in Google’s AI summary. Write the results down and repeat monthly, using the same wording each time so the answers are comparable. We haven’t found an official report for this, so checking by hand is the direct way.

Sources

What a website costs in Oregon Where to start with AI Web design

CHECKED AND NOT THERE?

Run the checks first. Call us if the answer is “not yet.”

Tell us your category and your town. The first call is free, and if section 4 is all you need, we’ll tell you so.

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