How to Get ChatGPT to Recommend Your Business

Updated July 8, 2026

There is no switch, schema tag or single optimization that guarantees ChatGPT will recommend a business.

The practical goal is to make the company easy to find, clearly relevant to the customer's request and supported by credible public evidence.

Before trying to improve performance, learn how to check whether ChatGPT currently recommends your business .

What influences whether a business appears?

ChatGPT search can retrieve current information from the web and provide links to supporting sources. A business therefore needs more than an attractive homepage.

It needs public information that helps establish:

• Who the business is
• What it provides
• Where it operates
• Whether it matches the user's request
• Why the information is credible

The exact sources and response can vary by prompt, location, context and time.

1. Make sure ChatGPT search can access the website

OpenAI identifies OAI-SearchBot as the crawler used to surface websites in ChatGPT search results.

Check that your website does not accidentally block it in robots.txt, through firewall rules or through bot-protection settings.

A simple permissive rule looks like this:

User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /

This does not guarantee inclusion. It simply avoids an unnecessary technical barrier.

You should also confirm that:

• Important pages return a successful HTTP status
• The pages do not contain a noindex directive
• Content is visible without requiring a login
• Important pages are linked internally
• Canonical tags point to the intended URLs
• The website has an accurate XML sitemap

2. State what the business does in plain language

Many business websites rely too heavily on slogans.

Copy such as:

Creating exceptional experiences through quality and care.

does not clearly identify the industry, service or location.

A stronger statement would be:

Summit Roofing is a licensed residential roofing contractor serving Portland, Beaverton and surrounding communities. We provide roof repair, replacement, inspection and emergency leak service.

The second version gives a retrieval system explicit facts it can understand.

3. Publish detailed service pages

A homepage usually cannot answer every specific customer question. Create substantial pages for important services and service areas.

A roofing company might publish:

• Residential roof replacement
• Emergency roof-leak repair
• Metal-roof installation
• Roof inspections
• Commercial roofing services

Each page should explain:

• What the service includes
• Who it is intended for
• Where it is available
• Relevant qualifications or experience
• The process
• Important limitations
• How to request service

Avoid mass-producing thin pages that merely swap city names. Pages should contain useful, location-specific information.

4. Make location and service-area information explicit

Local recommendation prompts depend heavily on geographic relevance.

Clearly state:

• The primary city or market
• Nearby communities served
• Whether customers visit a storefront
• Whether the company travels to customers
• Any meaningful service-area limitations

Do not list places the business does not genuinely serve.

5. Keep contact and business information consistent

The business name, address, phone number, website and operating details should be reasonably consistent across important public sources.

Review:

• The official website
• Google Business Profile
• Industry directories
• Professional associations
• Licensing records
• Major review platforms
• Social profiles that rank for the brand

Old phone numbers, conflicting business names and obsolete locations can create confusion for customers and automated systems.

6. Build legitimate third-party evidence

A business that is described only on its own website is harder to corroborate than one that appears in relevant independent sources.

Useful third-party evidence can include:

• Professional-association profiles
• Government licensing records
• Local news coverage
• Industry publications
• Chamber or business-organization listings
• Relevant directories
• Genuine customer reviews
• Supplier or partner profiles

Relevance and credibility matter more than raw link volume. Purchasing hundreds of unrelated directory links does not create trustworthy evidence.

7. Display credentials and expertise clearly

This is especially important for regulated, expensive or high-trust services.

Clearly display applicable:

• Licenses
• Certifications
• Professional memberships
• Years of experience
• Named team members
• Insurance or bonding status
• Relevant specialties

Credentials should be accurate and verifiable. Do not make vague or inflated claims.

8. Answer the questions customers actually ask

Useful question-and-answer content can help a page match conversational prompts.

Strong topics include:

• Which services are available?
• Which areas are served?
• Is emergency service available?
• What does the process involve?
• What factors affect pricing?
• Which licenses or certifications apply?
• How quickly can service begin?
• What should a customer prepare beforehand?

An FAQ section is useful when the answers are substantive. It is not valuable merely because it uses an FAQ format.

9. Use structured data accurately

Structured data provides standardized information about a page and its subject. For eligible local businesses, appropriate LocalBusiness markup can clarify details such as the name, address, telephone number and opening hours.

Use the most specific applicable subtype where appropriate, and ensure every marked-up claim matches visible page content.

Structured data can help search systems understand a page, but it does not:

• Guarantee rankings
• Guarantee a rich result
• Guarantee inclusion in ChatGPT
• Guarantee an AI recommendation
• Replace useful visible content

10. Maintain an accurate Google Business Profile

Eligible local businesses should claim and maintain an accurate Google Business Profile because it is a major public source of business identity, location, hours and contact information.

Keep the profile aligned with the real-world business:

• Use the genuine business name
• Use accurate categories
• Keep hours current
• Maintain the correct website and phone number
• Represent service areas honestly
• Respond appropriately to genuine reviews

11. Publish original evidence

Original information gives other websites and retrieval systems a reason to reference your site rather than a generic directory.

Examples include:

• Original research
• Local market statistics
• Detailed case studies
• Before-and-after project documentation
• Pricing-factor explanations
• Industry benchmarks
• Expert commentary on local issues

The information should be truthful, useful and clearly sourced.

12. Consider llms.txt, but do not overestimate it

llms.txt is a proposed convention for publishing a concise, Markdown-formatted guide to important website content.

It may be inexpensive to add, especially for documentation-heavy websites, but it is not a substitute for:

• Crawlable HTML pages
• Internal links
• An XML sitemap
• Accurate robots directives
• Useful content
• Third-party authority

There is no public guarantee that adding an llms.txt file will increase ChatGPT recommendations.

Learn more in What Is llms.txt, and Do You Need One?

13. Compare your evidence with the businesses already appearing

Run recommendation prompts and inspect which competitors appear.

Compare:

• Service-page depth
• Location clarity
• Credentials
• Third-party mentions
• Reviews and reputation sources
• Content answering specific questions
• Technical accessibility

Do not assume one visible difference caused the result. Recommendation systems can consider multiple sources and signals.

14. Re-test using the same prompts

After making meaningful changes, repeat the exact prompts used in the original test.

Record:

• The prompt wording
• The date
• The platform
• Whether web search was active
• Which businesses appeared
• Which sources were linked
• How your company was described

Consistent testing is necessary because generated answers can vary.

Which changes should you prioritize?

This order matters. An optional machine-readable file is unlikely to solve a website that lacks clear services, credible evidence or crawlable pages.

What should you avoid?

• Buying bulk backlink packages
• Publishing hundreds of thin city pages
• Inventing credentials or awards
• Using fake reviews
• Claiming locations you do not serve
• Stuffing repetitive keywords into every paragraph
• Assuming schema markup guarantees recommendations
• Treating one favorable answer as permanent visibility

How long does improvement take?

There is no fixed timeline.

Technical corrections can make pages accessible quickly, but indexing, third-party discovery, authority growth and changes in generated answers may take longer.

Measure progress through repeated testing rather than assuming that publishing a change immediately alters every AI response.

How an AI visibility audit helps

An audit should distinguish between website readiness and observed recommendation visibility.

Review the VisibilityIndex.ai methodology and AI visibility audit examples for more information.