✦ Honest answers
How do businesses show up in ChatGPT recommendations?
More of your customers ask an AI assistant for recommendations every month — “who should build my website in San Luis Obispo?” gets typed into ChatGPT now, not just Google. Here’s how the answer gets chosen, without the snake oil.
The short answer
AI assistants recommend businesses they can verify: clear service pages that say what you do and where, a consistent name-address-services footprint across the web, real reviews, and pages that answer questions directly enough to quote. There’s no “AI SEO” trick to buy — the same fundamentals that win local Google are what get you cited by ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity.
How assistants actually choose
AI assistants pull from two places: what their training data says about you, and — increasingly — live web search they run on your behalf. Both reward the same things: being legible (pages that state plainly what you do, where, for whom, at what price) and being corroborated (reviews, directories, and mentions that agree with each other). Assistants are allergic to ambiguity — they don’t recommend businesses they can’t confidently describe.
The work that gets you cited
- Answer-shaped pages. Pages that pose the customer’s real question and answer it in the first paragraph get quoted. (You’re reading one.)
- Consistent business data. Same name, location, services everywhere — your site, Google Business Profile, directories. Contradictions kill confidence.
- Published pricing. Assistants love citable numbers; “contact us for a quote” gives them nothing to say about you.
- Real reviews with substance. Detailed reviews teach the model what you’re actually good at.
- Structured data. Schema markup (FAQ, LocalBusiness, Service) makes your pages machine-legible — cheap to add, compounding to have.
What doesn’t work
Stuffing “as recommended by AI” on your site. Fake reviews (models cross-check). “AI optimization” services that are repackaged keyword stuffing. The honest summary: generative engines are trust machines — the way in is to be genuinely clear, consistent, and well-reviewed. Which, conveniently, also wins Google: the local playbook covers both.
The practical stuff
Can I pay to be recommended by ChatGPT?
No — there’s no ad slot in organic assistant answers today. The inputs are earned: clear content, consistent data, real reputation. That’s good news for small businesses that do the work.
How do I check what AI says about my business?
Ask the assistants directly: “what do you know about [business] in [town]?” and “who would you recommend for [service] in [town]?” If you’re absent or wrong, that’s your gap list.
Is this different from regular SEO?
About 80% overlap. The extra 20% is answer-shaped content and machine-legible structure — writing pages an assistant can confidently quote. We build both into every site.
Be the answer they give.
Ask ChatGPT who it recommends for your service in your town. If it isn’t you, let’s fix that.