How to get your local business recommended by ChatGPT and AI search

Why this matters now

AI recommendations are harder to earn than a Google ranking, and most people still check Google afterwards. So the goal is to be the business AI tools can describe confidently, and then win the Google check that follows.

Where AI assistants get local information

• ChatGPT search: OpenAI says it sometimes partners with other search providers, sending them rewritten versions of your question, and may use trusted third-party providers for nearby business listings. Its help page links to Microsoft's privacy policy among those providers. Your website can only appear if OpenAI's search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, is allowed to read it.
• Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode: Google says these use the same index and quality systems as normal Search, and that optimising for them “is still SEO”. Your Google Business Profile and website feed them directly.
• Gemini: draws on Google Maps data. In SOCi's study, business details shown by Gemini matched the businesses' profiles 100% of the time, against about 68% for ChatGPT and Perplexity.
• Everywhere: review sites, directories, local news and your own website, which is why consistent details across the web matter.

Eight steps to get recommended

1. Complete your Google Business Profile: the most specific primary category, services, hours, description and real photos. It feeds Google's AI answers and Gemini directly.
2. Claim Bing Places and Apple Business Connect, and copy your Google details exactly. They're free and widen the sources AI tools can draw on.
3. Make your name, address, phone and hours identical everywhere: your website, Google, Bing, Apple, Facebook and the main directories in your industry.
4. Keep earning reviews, steadily. Ask every customer soon after a good experience; people who are asked while it's fresh tend to write more. Don't tell them what to write: Google's policies don't allow asking for specific content.
5. Give every core service its own page on your website, in plain text, with the areas you serve, prices or price ranges where you can, and answers to the questions customers ask.
6. Let AI search crawlers in. Check your robots.txt allows OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT search), Claude-SearchBot and PerplexityBot, and that your key content isn't hidden in images or PDFs.
7. Get mentioned on other local sites: local news, community and business groups, suppliers you work with and “best of” lists. In Whitespark's expert survey, three of the top five AI search visibility factors relate to citations.
8. Check regularly. Ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity the questions your customers ask, such as “best plumber in [town]”, every month and note who they recommend and why.

What doesn't work

• Adding an llms.txt file to rank in Google's AI answers. Google says its Search doesn't use these files and they neither help nor harm your visibility.
• Paying for “guaranteed” AI placement. OpenAI says placement in ChatGPT search isn't guaranteed, so no one can promise it.
• Fake mentions, reviews or forum posts. They break platform rules and the law on fake reviews, and Google says chasing inauthentic mentions isn't helpful.
• Rewriting your site in a special “AI style”. Google says you don't need AI-specific rewrites; clear, specific, helpful pages work for both people and AI.