- Nobody controls what ChatGPT says, so be wary of anyone who promises a mention.
- Make sure your site doesn't block the crawlers AI search tools use.
- State your services, areas and details in plain words, backed by structured data.
- Consistent listings, real reviews and mentions on trustworthy sites all help.
- Check what assistants say about you and fix wrong facts at the source.
Be honest about what you can control
ChatGPT and similar assistants write their own answers. There's no form to submit and no setting that makes an assistant name you. ChatGPT now shows some labeled ads, but OpenAI says ads run separately and don't influence what the answer itself says. Answers also vary: two people asking the same question can be told about different businesses.
What you can influence is the material these tools draw from. When ChatGPT answers a question about local businesses, it can search the web, and it relies on what it finds there: your website, your listings, your reviews, and what other sites say about you. The clearer and more consistent that material is, the better your chances of being mentioned, and of being described correctly when you are.
How ChatGPT finds businesses to mention
ChatGPT can answer from what it learned in training, or it can search the web and cite the pages it used. For local questions, like who to call for a furnace repair in a particular town, it will often search, because training data goes out of date and doesn't know who opened last year.
OpenAI uses a crawler called OAI-SearchBot to find pages for ChatGPT's search features. If your site blocks it, your pages are unlikely to appear as sources. Some hosting and security services now let site owners block AI crawlers with a single switch, and some turn that on by default. Ask whoever runs your website to check.
Other assistants work in similar ways. Microsoft Copilot draws on Bing, and Google's Gemini draws on Google Search. That's one more reason to keep your Bing and Google listings complete, not just the one you use yourself.
Put the plain facts on your website
An assistant can only repeat what it can find and understand. A lot of small business websites never state the basic facts in plain words. They say "quality service you can count on" but never say which services, in which towns, for whom, or at what hours.
Add structured data as well. LocalBusiness markup from schema.org states your name, address, phone, hours and services in a format machines read directly. It won't force an assistant to mention you, but it takes the guesswork out of your basic facts.
- Say what you do in plain words near the top of the home page, including your main services and the area you serve.
- Give each main service its own page that explains what it is, who it's for, and what it involves.
- List the towns and areas you serve by name.
- State the details people ask about: hours, emergency availability, languages spoken, licensing, insurance accepted, financing, brands you work on.
- Answer common questions directly, in a short FAQ on the page they relate to.
- Keep your name, address and phone the same on every page and every listing.
Make your listings and reviews do the talking
Assistants that search the web come across business listings quickly, and review sites are some of the clearest signals of what customers think. Keep your Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, Yelp and your industry's main directories complete and consistent with each other.
Reviews count in two ways. The rating and the number of reviews show that real customers use you. The words in the reviews describe what you're good at. A review that says "they replaced our water heater the same day and cleaned up after" says more about you than a page of your own copy.
Ask for Google reviews after every good job, with a direct link that makes it easy. Reply to them, too. Never buy reviews or offer anything in exchange for them. Yelp asks businesses not to request reviews at all, so focus your requests on Google and the sites that allow them.
Get mentioned on other trustworthy sites
When an assistant recommends a business, it can lean on what other sites say, not only on what the business says about itself. People decide the same way: a neighbor's recommendation counts for more than an ad.
Look for real ways to be mentioned.
Skip paid placements in fake best-of lists and articles on low-quality sites made to sell links. They're easy to spot, and they can do more harm than good.
- Local news coverage of something you actually did, like a community project or expert comment on a local issue.
- Member directories for your chamber of commerce and trade associations.
- Dealer and installer locators from the manufacturers and suppliers you work with.
- Sponsorships of local teams, events and charities that list their sponsors.
- Community guides and best-of lists written by real local people and publications.
Mistakes that make you harder to find
Some common website habits hide information from AI tools without the owner realizing it. Check your site for these.
Each of these is a small fix on its own, and together they make it much easier for any assistant, or any customer, to work out what you do.
- Prices, menus or service lists that only exist as images or PDF downloads, rather than as text on the page.
- Key details like hours and service areas that only appear inside a chat widget or a booking tool.
- A business name written differently on your site, your profile and your social accounts.
- Service pages that are a single line long, with nothing an assistant could quote.
- A security setting or robots.txt rule that blocks AI crawlers, switched on by default and never checked.
Check what assistants say about you
Every month or so, ask ChatGPT and other assistants the questions your customers would ask, like who to call for your service in your town, and questions about your business by name. Note whether you're mentioned, what it says, and which sources it cites.
If the facts are wrong, find the source. Often it's an old listing, an outdated page, or a directory with stale details. Fix it there. You can use the feedback buttons in the assistant to flag a wrong answer too, but fixing the source is what lasts.
Answers change from person to person and from day to day, so judge the pattern over several months rather than one answer.
Northward's SEO & AI Search plan includes structuring your site so AI assistants can understand and cite your business, at $499 a month on a 30-day agreement.
