How do I get my business into ChatGPT and AI search?

Step 1: the listings (one afternoon)

Claim your Google Business Profile and fix every field: categories, hours, holiday hours, services, website link. Then claim Bing Places; it can import from Google in a few clicks. Most small businesses have never touched Bing, and ChatGPT’s search leans on it.

Then Yelp and Apple Maps (Apple Business Connect). Same name, same address, same phone, same hours, everywhere.

Step 2: a website that says it plainly

Write one sentence per thing you want to be found for, in the words a customer would type. “We fit wide-width work boots, sizes 7 to 15, EE and 4E.” “We take walk-ins on Saturdays.” “Private room for up to 40 for rehearsal dinners.”

Assistants quote sentences. If the sentence isn’t on a page, it can’t be quoted.

Step 3: make the site easy for AI to read

Add your business details in the machine-readable format search engines use (name, address, hours, what you do), add a short AI fact sheet called llms.txt, and make sure your site isn’t blocking AI crawlers. These are small files; a web person can add them in an hour.

We can measure that this gets read. On our own site, AI assistants had been asking for our fact sheet since August, before it existed. Once we put it up, it was read 14 times in its first 12 hours.

Step 4: ask again, every week

Re-ask the same questions and write down what changed. Sources update on their own schedules, and answers vary from one ask to the next, so a single check tells you little.

The short list

1. Google Business Profile: claimed, every field filled, website linked

   The map card in ChatGPT’s local answers.

2. Bing Places: claimed and matching

   ChatGPT’s search leans on Bing.

3. Yelp and Apple Maps: same facts

   Assistants read directory list pages.

4. One plain sentence per thing you want to be found for

   Assistants quote sentences, not vibes.

5. Business details in machine-readable form, plus an llms.txt fact sheet

   Makes the facts easy to pick up correctly.

6. AI crawlers allowed in robots.txt and your security settings

   Blocked pages can’t be read.

Check it yourself in five minutes

1. 1

   Open ChatGPT in a private (incognito) window, so it isn't shaped by your own history, and ask: “best [what you do] near [your town]”

2. 2

   Ask the same question two more times, worded a little differently. Answers change from one ask to the next, so one try is not a verdict.

3. 3

   Write down who gets named, in what order, and what it says about each. Then ask it directly about your business by name and check every fact: hours, address, what you sell.

4. 4

   Do the same in Perplexity and Claude if you can. The businesses that show up everywhere are the ones whose facts are clear in the places all of them read.

Questions