Flarseo
How to get your business mentioned by ChatGPT
When a customer asks ChatGPT for an accountant, a plumber or a clinic nearby, the answer names two or three businesses. This guide explains where those names come from, how to check whether yours is one of them, and what you can fix on your website and listings.
The short answer
ChatGPT names a business when it finds clear, consistent information about it on the public web. That takes four things: a website that says who you are, what you do and where; the same details on your site, Google Business Profile, Bing and directories; pages that answer your customers' questions; and a robots.txt file that does not block OpenAI's search crawler (OAI-SearchBot).
Nobody can guarantee a mention, because answers vary from person to person and from day to day. You can measure whether and how you appear, though, by asking ChatGPT your customers' questions and repeating the check over time.
Where ChatGPT gets its information
An answer can come from two different sources. It is worth telling them apart, because you work on each one differently.
What the model learned in training
The model read a vast amount of text up to a cut-off date. If your business was mentioned often and consistently, it may know you without searching. That knowledge only changes when a new model is released, so a business that opened recently is not in it.
What it finds on the web when the question is asked
For questions about services, shops and professionals, ChatGPT often searches the web before answering and then shows its sources. Here what counts is indexed pages, business listings and public reviews. This is the part you can work on straight away: a new, well-written page can start appearing in answers once it is indexed.
How to see what ChatGPT says about your business today
You need about twenty minutes and a sheet to note the answers.
Write your customers' questions
Pick five to ten questions the way someone who does not know you would ask them: "accountant in Leeds for sole traders", "electrician in Bristol available on Saturdays". Leave your business name out.
Ask about yourself by name
Ask "What do you know about [business name] in [town]?". If the answer lists wrong services, address or opening hours, you have found the first thing to correct at the source.
Note who is named instead of you
For each question, record the names that appear and the linked sources. Sources that keep coming back tell you which sites and directories ChatGPT relies on in your sector.
Repeat every month
One answer proves little: the same question can return different names on different days. What matters is how often you appear across several checks.
What makes a mention more likely
Let the search crawler in
OpenAI uses different crawlers for different purposes. OAI-SearchBot collects pages that can appear in answers with search; GPTBot collects text for training. You can block the second and allow the first. Check your site's robots.txt: some security plugins block every unknown bot without telling you.
One page per service, with the area spelled out
A homepage that lists ten services in a single line gives little to quote. A page per service, saying what you do, for whom, in which towns and on what terms, hands ChatGPT a ready-made answer.
The same details everywhere
Name, address, phone number and category should match on your website, Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Maps and industry directories. If your name appears in three different forms, the model struggles to tell it is the same business.
Answer first, detail after
Pages that get cited usually answer the question in the first lines and then go deeper. A frequently asked questions section written in your customers' words helps Google and assistants alike.
Structured data and an about page
LocalBusiness or Organization structured data tells machines your name, address, opening hours and service area without ambiguity. An about page with your history, your people and your company details makes the business verifiable.
Reviews and mentions on other sites
ChatGPT tends to name businesses that others talk about too: recent reviews, local press coverage, trade associations. None of this can be bought, but you can ask satisfied customers and the people you work with.
None of these steps guarantees a mention. Together they make your business easier to find, understand and verify, which is what an assistant checks before recommending anyone.
A website ready to be cited, visits measured
On your connected website Flarseo publishes pages and articles with the answer up front, FAQs and structured data, and it keeps your Google profile details in line with your site. Then it measures the visits that come from ChatGPT and other assistants. Checking the answers, as described in this guide, remains a step to do by hand.
- The answer up front and FAQs in every article
- Structured data on pages and articles
- Visits coming from assistants, with the landing page
Frequently asked questions about ChatGPT and businesses
Prepare your website and measure the visits from AI assistants
Flarseo publishes content written to be cited and shows you how many people reach your website from ChatGPT and other assistants.