How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT

How do AI assistants decide which businesses to recommend?

AI assistants recommend businesses whose websites clearly answer the question, come from sources that seem reliable, and agree with what other sites say. When someone asks “What’s a good law firm for work permits in Bangkok?”, the assistant looks for exactly those signals.

There are two broad routes into an answer. The first is what a model learned during training, which reflects what was widely written about you in the past. The second is a live search: ChatGPT search, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews look up pages at the moment the question is asked, then summarise and cite them. You can influence the second route directly, and over time the first follows.

In both cases, the assistant favours businesses whose websites are crawlable, specific and consistent, and that other trustworthy sites mention.

Is AEO different from SEO?

AEO builds on SEO rather than replacing it. Good SEO still matters, because AI tools often draw on search results. AEO adds a focus on clear answers, structured facts and reputation across the web, so that an AI can quote you confidently.

Much stays the same. A fast, secure website, a sensible page structure, descriptive titles and links from reputable sites help in both. What changes is the writing: instead of repeating a phrase, each page should give a complete, direct answer that still makes sense when it is lifted out and quoted on its own.

For a fuller explanation of the term, read what is generative engine optimisation?

10 steps to get recommended by ChatGPT and Google AI

These ten steps cover access, clarity, structure and reputation, in roughly the order we tackle them:

1. Let AI crawlers in. Check that your robots.txt doesn’t block search and AI crawlers such as Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot.
2. Answer first. Put a clear two or three sentence answer at the top of each important page, then the detail.
3. Write headings as questions your customers actually ask: “How much does…”, “How long does…”, “Do you…”.
4. Add structured data (schema.org) for your organisation, services, prices, FAQs and articles, so machines can read the facts.
5. Publish real numbers: starting prices, timelines, opening hours, areas served. Vague pages are hard to quote.
6. Keep your details identical everywhere: business name, address, phone and website on your site, Google Business Profile and directories.
7. Collect reviews on Google and the platforms your customers use, and reply to them.
8. Get mentioned on trusted sites: industry directories, local press, partner websites and client credits.
9. Add an llms.txt file, a plain summary of your business and key pages for AI tools to read. Our guide llms.txt explained shows what to put in it.
10. Keep it fast and current. Fast, mobile-friendly pages with recent dates are easier to trust and to crawl.

What should your website publish so AI can quote it?

Your website should publish plain, specific facts about what you do, who it is for, where you work and what it costs, each on a page an AI can find and quote. Think of every key page as the source for one answer:

The common thread is specificity. “We offer quality services” gives an AI nothing to repeat. “Custom websites from $1,500 USD, launched in 3 to 6 weeks” does.

Make sure the facts match wherever they appear. If your service page says one price, your FAQ another and your structured data a third, an AI has no reliable answer to give. Keep one source of truth for prices, hours and contact details, and update every page and listing together when something changes.

What stops AI from recommending a business?

The most common blockers are pages AI cannot read, information it cannot trust and details that contradict each other. Watch for these:

• Crawlers blocked by accident, through an old robots.txt rule or a security setting that turns away bots.
• Key facts hidden inside images, PDFs or pop-ups instead of written as text on the page.
• Vague copy with no prices, locations or timelines, so there is nothing concrete to quote.
• Inconsistent details, such as an old address on a directory or a different business name on social media.
• Few or no reviews, which leaves little outside evidence that customers trust you.
• Out-of-date pages showing old prices or services you no longer offer.

Most of these are quick to fix, and fixing them also helps your normal search rankings.

How long does it take, and how do you check your progress?

There is no fixed timeline, and no one can guarantee a mention. Technical fixes such as crawler access and structured data take effect as soon as pages are re-crawled. Reputation, meaning reviews, mentions and links, builds over months. The businesses that show up most are usually the ones that have been clear and consistent for longest.

To track progress, run the same simple check every few months:

1. Write down 10 to 20 questions your customers would ask, in their words and in each language you serve.
2. Ask them in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google, and note which businesses are named.
3. Look at the sources cited. They show which pages and directories the AI trusts in your industry.
4. Fix the gaps: a missing page, a weak answer, an outdated listing or too few reviews.
5. Repeat and compare. Answers vary from one session to the next, so look for patterns rather than single results.

For platform-specific tips, read how to show up in Perplexity and AI Overviews.

What does this look like on a real website?

On a real website, these foundations are built in from the start rather than added later. Every website we build ships with answer-first copy, question-led headings, schema markup, a sitemap, an AI-friendly robots.txt and an llms.txt file. It is part of what we mean by a website that converts, because being found is the first step to being chosen.

The Kingdom Law Group website, a premium, search-ready site for a Bangkok law firm, is one example of this approach in practice. If you would like to know how ready your own website is for AI search, tell us about your business and we will reply within one business day.

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