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How to Get Your Business Recommended by ChatGPT (Without the Jargon)

Someone in Charlotte just asked an AI who to hire for what you do. It named three businesses. Here's how it picked them, and how to be one of them — in plain English, from someone who tests this every week.

Michael Lucas ·

What actually happens when someone asks

Here’s the part every “AI SEO” page skips: when you ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity “who’s a good landscaper in Matthews,” it doesn’t consult a secret database of businesses it likes. It searches the web — right then — reads the pages that come back, and writes an answer from what it can confirm. Perplexity shows you the sources. ChatGPT and Gemini mostly don’t, but they’re doing the same thing.

So the question isn’t “how do I rank in ChatGPT.” It’s “when an AI reads about my business for ten seconds, can it tell what I do, where I do it, and whether real people vouch for me?” Most Charlotte businesses fail that test — not because they’re bad, but because their website says “Welcome to our website!” and their Google profile was last touched in 2022.

I test this every week for my own clients, and the businesses that get named have three things in common. None of them is a trick.

The three signals

1. A website the machine can read. Not “SEO-optimized” — readable. Clear pages that say the service and the city in plain words (“Water heater replacement in Charlotte, NC”), a phone number and address as text rather than an image, and structured data — a small block of code that tells machines “this is a plumbing business, here’s its name, phone, hours, service area and rating” without making them guess. Fast enough that the crawler doesn’t give up. Most of this is invisible to you and glaring to the AI.

2. An active Google Business Profile with recent reviews. AI engines lean on Google’s data because it’s verified — a real address, a real phone, real customers. A profile with 40 reviews, the last one two weeks ago, photos from this month, and every review answered says “this business is alive.” A profile with 6 reviews from 2023 says the opposite, no matter how good the work is. Recency matters as much as the count.

3. The same facts everywhere. Your name, address, phone and services should match on your site, your Google profile, Apple Maps, Bing, Facebook, and the directories for your trade. When an AI finds three different phone numbers and two spellings of your name, it does what a cautious person does: recommends someone else. This is the quiet reason a lot of good businesses never get named.

There’s a fourth thing that helps and that you can’t fully control: being mentioned by other sites the AI trusts — a local directory, a “best of” list, a news mention, a supplier’s dealer page. That’s the same authority Google has always rewarded. It comes from doing the first three well and from actually asking for the links you’ve earned.

Five things to do, in order

  1. Ask the AI yourself, today. Open ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. Type what your customer would type — your trade plus your neighborhood, three or four ways. Signed out, on a phone. Write down who gets named. This is your baseline, and it’s usually humbling. (The AI answer test on my homepage does this live if you’d rather not open three tabs.)
  2. Fix the Google profile first. It’s the fastest win: correct category, every service listed, hours right, twenty real photos, this month’s post, every review answered. An hour of work that changes what the AI sees tomorrow.
  3. Turn on the review system. Ask every customer, automatically, after every job. Answer every review. No gating, no incentives — those get you removed. Thirty days of this changes the recency signal; six months changes the count. Here’s how I run it.
  4. Give the website real pages and real structure. One page per service, one per area you actually serve, each saying the obvious thing in plain words. Add the structured data. If the site can’t do that — a subscription builder, a Wix template from 2019 — that’s the audit conversation, not a tweak.
  5. Line up the facts. Same name, address, phone, hours and services on every listing that matters. Boring. Skipped by almost everyone. Then ask the two or three sites that should mention you — a supplier, a directory, a chamber — to actually do it.

Then re-run step one in 90 days. The difference is usually visible, and it’s usually the reviews.

What doesn’t work

Stuffing “AI” into your website. A page titled “AI-Optimized Plumbing Services” does nothing except tell customers you read a LinkedIn post. The AI is looking for plumbing in Charlotte, said clearly.

llms.txt and other magic files. llms.txt is a proposed convention; as of this writing no major AI company has said its crawlers read it. I have one on this site because it costs nothing, and I’ll tell you the same thing: it’s a garnish.

Buying “AI visibility” as a separate product. Every Charlotte agency now has an “AI SEO” page. Read what’s in it and you’ll find the three signals above, renamed. That’s fine — the work is real — but you shouldn’t pay twice for it. It’s why my Get Found plan is one thing, not five.

Hoping. The businesses getting named right now are the ones that did the boring parts. There’s no shortcut and, for once, no catch: it’s the same work that gets you found on Google, done properly.

The honest timeline

The readability fixes — structured data, profile cleanup, real service pages — change what the AI sees within weeks, because it fetches your pages live. The trust signals — review count, mentions on other sites — take months, because they depend on other people. That’s the same curve as local SEO, and for the same reason: it is local SEO, with a new front door.

If you want to know where you stand today, the $450 audit includes exactly this check — what the three AI engines say about you now, and which of the three signals you’re missing. If you’d rather just see the answer, run the free test. It asks a real AI engine, live, and shows you what it says about your category. Fair warning: the first time is usually not fun.

The short version

How does ChatGPT decide which businesses to recommend?

When you ask for a local recommendation, modern AI assistants search the web in real time, read what comes back, and name the businesses they can verify: a fast website with clear services and structured data, an active Google Business Profile with recent reviews, and the same facts everywhere they look. There's no secret ranking to game — it's verification.

Is 'AI search optimization' different from SEO?

Less than people selling it want you to think. AI engines lean on the same signals good local SEO always built: a readable site, an active Google profile, real reviews, consistent facts, and being mentioned on the pages they trust. The work is the same, done more carefully. The label is new; the job isn't.

Do I need an llms.txt file or special AI keywords?

No. llms.txt is a proposed convention no major AI company has committed to reading, and stuffing 'AI' into your page copy does nothing. Spend the time on a real service page, your Google profile and your reviews instead.

How can I check whether AI recommends my business?

Ask it. Open ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity and type what a customer would type — 'best HVAC company in Ballantyne' — and see who gets named. Do it signed out, on a phone, a few different ways. Or use the free AI answer test on my homepage, which asks a real AI engine live and shows you the answer.

How long does it take to start showing up in AI answers?

Weeks for the fixes that are purely about readability — structured data, a clean Google profile — because AI engines fetch pages live. Months for the parts that depend on reviews accumulating and other sites mentioning you. Same timeline as local SEO, because it's mostly the same work.