I do this work for clients as part of SEO and AI search visibility. Here is the order I do it in.
How ChatGPT decides who to mention
When ChatGPT answers from its own training data, it only knows what was on the web when the model was trained, and small businesses rarely made it in. When it searches the web, it behaves more like a search engine: it runs queries, reads a handful of pages and cites the ones that answer the question clearly.
That second path is where you can win. ChatGPT’s web search leans heavily on Bing’s index, and OpenAI runs its own crawlers alongside it:
- OAI-SearchBot finds and indexes pages for ChatGPT search results.
- GPTBot collects content that may be used to train future models.
- ChatGPT-User fetches a page when a user asks ChatGPT to read it.
If Bing hasn’t indexed your site, or your robots.txt blocks OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT’s search mostly can’t see you, no matter how good your pages are.
Step 1: Make sure ChatGPT’s search can reach you
- Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools and submit your sitemap. You can import your settings straight from Google Search Console in a couple of minutes.
- Turn on IndexNow. Rank Math and most SEO plugins support it. It tells Bing about new and updated pages immediately instead of waiting for a crawl.
- Check robots.txt. Allow OAI-SearchBot. Blocking GPTBot is a separate decision about training data and doesn’t remove you from ChatGPT search.
- Make key content readable without JavaScript. Answers hidden in tabs that only load on click, or text rendered by scripts, may never reach the bot that reads your page.
Step 2: Write pages that answer, not pages that describe
AI assistants quote sentences that directly answer the question someone asked. Most service pages don’t contain any. They say “We deliver tailored solutions for your needs” when the visitor asked “How much does a clinic website cost and how long does it take?”.
- One page per service. A single “Services” page listing everything answers nothing well.
- Put the answer first. Open each page and section with one or two sentences that answer the main question outright, then add detail.
- Answer the buying questions. Price (even as a range or “quoted after X”), timing, process, who it’s for, what’s included, where you work.
- Add a real FAQ with the questions people actually ask you, answered in two or three sentences each.
Step 3: Describe your business the same way everywhere
AI systems piece together who you are from many sources. If your name, services and location differ between your site, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn and directories, the picture is blurry and you’re less likely to be named.
- Use the same business name, one-line description, address and phone everywhere.
- Add schema to your site: Organization or LocalBusiness (or Person for freelancers), Service for each service page, and FAQPage for your FAQs.
- Use the
sameAsproperty to link your schema to your real profiles: Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, Clutch, Upwork, Fiverr, Facebook. - Complete your Google Business Profile, because Google’s AI answers draw on it and other assistants often surface Maps and review data.
Step 4: Get mentioned where ChatGPT already looks
When ChatGPT searches “best wedding planner in Birmingham” or “WordPress developer for clinics”, it reads list articles, directories, review sites and forum threads, then names the businesses that keep coming up. That means off-site mentions matter as much as your own pages.
- Industry directories and review platforms relevant to your trade, with a complete profile and reviews.
- “Best of” list articles in your niche. Many are written by small publishers who will add a genuinely good option if you ask politely.
- Guest articles and interviews on blogs your clients read.
- Genuine answers in communities such as Reddit or niche forums, where you help first and mention your business only when relevant.
- Client sites. A short credit or case study on a client’s website is a mention from a real business in your field.
Step 5: Test it and track it
Write down 10 questions a buyer would ask when looking for what you sell, including your city or niche. Ask them in ChatGPT with search turned on, in Perplexity and in Google, once a month. Note who gets named and which pages are cited. Those cited pages show you exactly what the AI considers a good source, and which sites you need a mention on.
Expect technical fixes to show in weeks and mentions to build over months. It’s slow, but unlike ads, it keeps working after you stop paying.
What about llms.txt?
An llms.txt file is a plain-text summary of your site written for AI tools. It’s cheap to add and harmless, but Google has said its search ignores it and no major AI provider has confirmed using it from other websites. Do the steps above first. I wrote a separate guide on llms.txt for WordPress if you want to add one anyway.