How to get your business mentioned by ChatGPT

To get your business mentioned by ChatGPT, make sure OpenAI's search crawler can access your site, rank well in traditional search for your core topics, publish pages that answer buyer questions directly, and build an accurate presence on the review sites, publications and communities ChatGPT tends to cite. No one can guarantee a mention, but these steps raise your odds.

How ChatGPT decides what to say about businesses

ChatGPT can answer in two ways, and knowing the difference saves wasted effort.

1. From its training data. When ChatGPT answers without searching, it draws on patterns learned from training data collected up to a cutoff date. If your company was rarely or inconsistently described on the web before that point, ChatGPT may not know you at all or may describe you inaccurately.
2. From ChatGPT search. When ChatGPT searches the web, it retrieves current pages and cites them with links. OpenAI documents that it uses a crawler called OAI-SearchBot for this, and says it also relies on third-party search providers. Questions about vendors, prices, comparisons and recent events often trigger a search.

You influence the second path within weeks. The first path changes slowly and only when new models are trained.

OpenAI's crawlers and what each one does

OpenAI's documentation describes separate user agents:

Many sites blocked GPTBot in 2023 and some used rules that accidentally blocked every OpenAI agent. If you want to appear in ChatGPT search, check that OAI-SearchBot is allowed. Whether you allow GPTBot is a separate business decision about training. Our guide to AI crawlers and robots.txt shows how to set each rule.

Also check your firewall and bot protection. Services like Cloudflare offer settings that block AI crawlers, and some are turned on by default for new sites. A robots.txt that allows a bot does not help if the firewall blocks it.

Step 1: Rank in traditional search

Because ChatGPT search draws on search results to find candidate pages, strong rankings in Google and Bing for your core questions make it more likely your pages are retrieved. OpenAI has not published how it ranks or selects sources, but it is widely observed that pages cited in ChatGPT search often also rank well in traditional search.

Practical steps:

• Make sure your site is indexed in Bing as well as Google. Set up Bing Webmaster Tools if you have not. It takes a few minutes, and many teams overlook it.
• Target the questions buyers ask before choosing a provider.
• Fix technical issues that stop pages being crawled or indexed.

Step 2: Publish pages that answer buyer questions directly

When ChatGPT reads your page, it looks for passages that answer the user's question. Make those passages easy to find:

• Start each page with a 40 to 60 word answer to its main question
• Use headings phrased like real questions
• Keep each section understandable on its own
• Use tables for comparisons and numbered lists for steps
• Include specifics: who you serve, where, what it costs if you publish pricing, how long things take
• Name your sources when you cite numbers

Pages that tend to get cited for business recommendations include clear service pages, honest comparison pages, pricing pages and detailed how-to guides. Our post on writing for AI answers shows the structure in detail.

Step 3: Make your company description clear and consistent

If a buyer asks "what does [your company] do", ChatGPT summarizes what it finds. Make that summary accurate:

• Write one plain sentence that says what you do, for whom and where
• Put it on your homepage, about page, LinkedIn page, directory listings and social profiles
• Keep your name, location and services consistent across all of them
• Add Organization structured data to your site with links to your official profiles

Vague positioning such as "we empower businesses to transform" gives an AI system nothing concrete to repeat.

Step 4: Show up where ChatGPT looks for recommendations

When users ask for vendor recommendations, ChatGPT's cited sources often include third-party pages: review platforms, "best of" lists, industry publications, Reddit threads and comparison articles. This is observed behavior rather than documented policy, and it varies by category.

To find the sources that matter for you:

1. Ask ChatGPT (with search on) 10 to 20 questions your buyers ask, such as "best [service] for [type of company] in [region]".
2. Record every cited source.
3. Group them: review sites, publications, directories, forums, competitor pages.
4. Work out how to appear accurately in the most frequent ones.

Our post on why brand mentions matter for AI search goes deeper on this step.

Step 5: Track what ChatGPT says about you

Set up a simple monthly check:

• A fixed list of 20 buyer questions
• Run each in ChatGPT with search, and note mentions, descriptions and cited sources
• Track referral visits from chatgpt.com in your analytics
• Ask new leads where they heard about you, and include AI assistants as an option on your form

Answers vary between runs, accounts and locations, and ChatGPT may personalize responses using memory. Run each question more than once, and look at trends over months.

What does not work

• Stuffing pages with your brand name or prompts aimed at AI systems
• Hiding text meant only for AI crawlers
• Mass-producing low-quality pages about every possible question
• Buying fake reviews or placements on sham "best of" lists
• Expecting an llms.txt file to get you cited, since OpenAI has not documented using it

A 30-day starting plan

If you want this mapped for your company, including what ChatGPT says about you today and which sources to target, book a business audit. It is a 30-minute call and a written plan.