Not long ago, finding a local business meant asking a friend or typing “near me” into Google. Today a lot of people skip both. They open ChatGPT and ask it straight out: “Who’s a good roofer around here?” or “What’s a reliable web design company for a small business?”
ChatGPT answers with a handful of names, and usually a reason for each one.
If your business isn’t on that short list, that customer may never hear about you. So what decides who makes that list? Mostly things you can change.
The short answer: yes, but you can’t buy your way in
Any business with a public website can show up in ChatGPT’s answers, and getting mentioned doesn’t cost a thing.
OpenAI does sell ads in ChatGPT now. They’re clearly labeled and kept separate from the answers, and OpenAI says advertising doesn’t influence what ChatGPT recommends.
So an ad won’t get you named in the answer itself. That comes down to what ChatGPT can find out about you.
Where ChatGPT gets its information
When someone asks for a recommendation, ChatGPT usually searches the web, reads a handful of pages and builds its answer from what it finds. It also leans on what it already learned from the web during training. (Our post on the key difference between AI chatbots and search engines goes into how that works.)
A few places carry the most weight.
- Your own website. It’s the one place you control completely.
- Reviews and listings. Google, Yelp, Bing, Facebook and the directories in your industry. Yelp is now licensing its reviews, photos and business details to OpenAI, and ChatGPT will show Yelp reviews and ratings in its answers.
- Other sites that mention you. Anywhere someone else has written about your business.
How to get your business on ChatGPT
Most of what gets your business on ChatGPT’s short list is the same work that helps you show up on Google, done a little more carefully.
1. Say exactly what you do
Spell out your services, who you serve and the areas you cover, in plain words. “Full-service digital solutions” tells ChatGPT almost nothing. “We build websites for churches, restaurants and law firms” tells it a lot. A separate page for each main service helps even more.
2. Make sure ChatGPT can read your site
OpenAI uses a crawler called OAI-SearchBot to find pages for ChatGPT search. OpenAI says your pages need to be open to that crawler if you want them summarized or quoted in ChatGPT. A line in your site’s robots.txt file or a security setting can block it without anyone noticing, so it’s worth asking whoever manages your website to check.
3. Keep your business info the same everywhere
Your business name, address, phone number, hours and services should match on your website, Google Business Profile, Yelp, Bing, Facebook and any industry directories. When the details disagree, ChatGPT has to pick one. It may pick the wrong one, or skip you. Our post on local SEO goes deeper on this.
4. Earn reviews, and answer them
Reviews make up a big part of what’s written about any local business, so they’re a big part of what ChatGPT has to work with. Ask every customer for a Google review, not just the ones you know were happy. Google’s rules don’t allow picking and choosing.
It also helps when people mention what you actually did for them. “They rebuilt our online store and orders went up” says more than “Great service!”
Yelp is the exception. It asks businesses not to request reviews at all, and its software tries to spot reviews that look requested and leaves them out. Let those come on their own.
Reply to reviews too, the good and the bad. It shows you’re active and paying attention.
5. Get other people talking about you
What other sites say about you carries weight because it’s independent. Local news stories, interviews, podcast spots, partner websites, chamber of commerce listings and “best of” roundups all help. One honest mention on a respected site can do more than ten pages you wrote yourself.
6. Answer the questions your customers ask
Think about what people ask before they hire you. How long does it take? What’s included? Do you work with businesses like mine? Answer those on your site in plain language, in an FAQ or a blog post. When someone asks ChatGPT the same thing, your page becomes a natural source.
7. If you sell products, make sure ChatGPT has your catalog
ChatGPT now shows products with photos, prices and side-by-side comparisons. OpenAI says Shopify stores’ product data already flows into ChatGPT through Shopify Catalog, with no extra work from the store owner. Stores on other platforms can share their product feeds with ChatGPT through OpenAI’s merchant page.
If you’re choosing a platform for a new store, that’s a point in favor of a Shopify build.
What doesn’t work
A lot of people are selling shortcuts right now. Here’s what to skip.
- Anyone who guarantees you a spot in ChatGPT. Nobody can promise what ChatGPT will say about your business, so a guarantee like that is a red flag.
- Fake reviews. Review sites work hard to catch them, and some will post a public warning on your profile when they do.
- Stuffing your site with “ChatGPT” keywords. Writing for robots instead of people never worked on Google, and it won’t work here.
- Planting recommendations in forums. Posing as a happy customer on Reddit or in Facebook groups tends to get spotted, and it can follow your name around for a long time.
How to see what ChatGPT says about you today
The easiest way to find out is to ask, the same way a customer would.
- Ask for your type of business in your area, like “Who’s a good [your service] in [your city]?” Try a few different wordings, since the answers can change.
- Ask about your business by name: “What do you know about [your business]?”
- Read what comes back. Are your services, location and hours right? Is anything out of date?
- Open the sources ChatGPT links to. If something is wrong, fix it where it came from, usually your website or one of your listings. Fixing the source is the only reliable way to fix the answer.
You can also see how many visitors ChatGPT sends your way. ChatGPT adds a small tag (utm_source=chatgpt.com) to the links it shares, so those visits show up as their own source in Google Analytics.
Check again every month or two. It’s a quick habit, and it shows you whether your work is paying off.
So, can your business show up in ChatGPT?
Yes. A clear website, honest reviews, accurate listings and other people vouching for you have always helped online. They count for more now, because someone asking ChatGPT gets a short list of names instead of a page of results.
If you’d like a hand with any of this, Pure Code Digital can look at how your business shows up today, from your website to your listings, and fix what’s holding you back. Take a look at our SEO services or get in touch. We work with businesses anywhere in the US.