How to Get Your Business Recommended by ChatGPT and Other AI Assistants

"What's the best accountant near me?" More of your customers now ask that question to an AI assistant before, or instead of, a search engine. If the assistant recommends a competitor, no analytics report tells you. There's no paid placement in these answers, but there are practical steps that make your business easier for AI assistants to understand, trust and recommend. This guide covers them.

For the background on why this matters, read what AI visibility is first. This article is the practical how-to.

How AI assistants decide what to recommend

Assistants generate answers from what they've learned and, increasingly, from live web searches. In both cases they lean on:

• Clear, consistent information about what a business does, where and for whom
• Third-party mentions on sources they consider trustworthy: reviews, directories, press, industry lists
• Content that directly answers the question being asked
• Consistency: the same facts everywhere, so the assistant is confident

You can influence all four.

Step 1: Make your own site unambiguous

1. Say exactly what you do, where, and for whom, in plain words on the homepage and service pages.
2. Create a page for each service and, for local businesses, each area you serve.
3. Answer common questions directly with an FAQ on each key page.
4. Show proof: case studies with real numbers, credentials, reviews.
5. Add structured data so machines can read your business details reliably; see schema markup for beginners.

Step 2: Make your site easy for machines to read

• Don't block reputable AI crawlers in robots.txt unless you mean to; see how to write a robots.txt file
• Consider an llms.txt file summarising your site; see llms.txt explained
• Make sure key content is in the HTML, not hidden behind scripts or images
• Keep pages fast and indexable; check with Google Search Console

Step 3: Be consistent everywhere

Your name, address, phone number, services and description should match on your website, Google Business Profile, directories, social profiles and anywhere else you're listed. Inconsistent details make assistants, and search engines, less confident.

Step 4: Earn mentions on trusted sites

This is often the biggest lever:

• Reviews on the platforms your industry uses
• Industry directories and professional bodies
• "Best of" lists and comparison articles in your niche
• Local press and trade publications
• Partnerships: suppliers, clients and associations that mention you

Assistants frequently cite these sources when recommending businesses.

Step 5: Publish content that answers real questions

Write the guides your customers wish existed: costs, how-tos, comparisons, checklists. Clear, factual, well-structured articles get cited. See content that actually ranks in 2026 and how AI Overviews are changing SEO.

Step 6: Measure, monthly

1. List 10 to 20 questions your customers ask, such as "best wedding photographer in Bristol".
2. Ask the main assistants each month: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and any others your customers use.
3. Record whether you're mentioned, who else is, how you're described and which sources are cited.
4. Track your share of mentions over time and against competitors.

Answers vary between runs, so look at trends over months rather than single results.

Content formats AI assistants cite

Certain kinds of pages are easier for assistants to quote and link:

• Clear definitions near the top of a page ("X is…")
• Comparison tables with honest pros and cons
• Step-by-step guides with numbered steps
• FAQs that answer one question each, directly
• Original data: surveys, benchmarks, case-study numbers
• Pricing and process explanations that remove uncertainty

Our own Journal articles follow these patterns; see content that actually ranks.

Extra steps for local businesses

1. Complete your Google Business Profile: categories, services, hours, photos, and regular posts.
2. Gather reviews steadily and reply to them.
3. Create a page for each location with unique, useful content.
4. Get listed in local directories and your trade bodies.
5. Earn local press: sponsorships, events, community stories.
6. Use consistent name, address and phone everywhere.

See our local SEO checklist for the full list.

A 90-day plan

Ninety days is enough to see early movement, though reputation keeps compounding after that.

What doesn't work

• Stuffing pages with keywords or questions you don't answer
• Fake reviews, which damage trust and can break platform rules
• Hiding text meant only for AI crawlers
• Expecting overnight results; reputation builds over months

Track it without the manual work

Zelvorm's AI Visibility Tracker asks the leading AI assistants your customers' questions every month and tracks your share of voice, citations and sentiment against competitors, so you can see whether these changes are working. Start with a free AI Website X-Ray to check how ready your site is for AI search.

The short version

AI assistants recommend businesses they can clearly understand and that trusted sources mention consistently. Make your site unambiguous and machine-readable, keep your details consistent, earn third-party mentions, publish genuinely useful answers and measure your visibility monthly.