How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT and AI search

How AI search finds businesses

Tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI answers combine two things: what their models learned during training, and live results from search indexes and their own crawlers. ChatGPT search relies largely on Bing's index and OpenAI's crawler, and it can also visit pages live. Google's AI answers draw on Google's own index.

So there is no single "AI SEO" switch. You need to be readable by Google, Bing and the AI crawlers themselves.

1. Let the crawlers in

Check your robots.txt allows the crawlers you want, such as Googlebot, Bingbot, GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot. Some web hosts block AI crawlers at the server level even when robots.txt allows them, so test your site with each crawler's name, not just in a browser.

An llms.txt file, a short plain-language summary of your business and key pages, is an emerging convention. It is cheap to add and makes your site easier to summarise.

2. Make every page readable without JavaScript

Many AI crawlers don't run JavaScript. If your site is built with a modern framework and sends an empty page that fills in later, crawlers may see nothing. Prerendering or server rendering sends the full text in the first response.

3. Answer the questions people actually ask

AI tools quote pages that answer a question clearly and directly.

• One page per service, and one per main area you serve
• A direct answer in the first paragraph, then the detail
• Real FAQs with specific answers
• Proof: named work, results and reviews you can back up

4. Add structured data

Schema markup tells machines exactly what a page is about: your business, services, location, FAQs and articles. It removes guesswork for search engines and AI tools alike.

5. Be consistent everywhere

Use the same business name, address, phone and description on your website, Google Business Profile, Bing Places, social profiles and directories. Consistency is one of the strongest trust signals you control.

6. Register with Google and Bing

Set up Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools and submit your sitemap. Bing matters more than most businesses realise because it feeds ChatGPT search and Microsoft Copilot.