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Published by Runexus

How to Show Up When Customers Ask ChatGPT for a Local Recommendation

More customers are typing questions like "Who's a good emergency plumber in Plano?" or "Best family dentist near me that takes new patients?" into ChatGPT instead of a search bar. Some get back a short list of names. If your business isn't on it, you never get the call, and you never find out why.

Nobody can promise you a spot in an AI answer. OpenAI says so itself: placement in ChatGPT search "is not guaranteed." But you can find out where those answers come from and make sure the information there is accurate, complete, and easy to read. Here's how, based on what OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Apple have published.

First, understand what happens when someone asks

When a question needs current or local information, ChatGPT can search the web before it answers. OpenAI's help center describes the process plainly:

(OpenAI: Searching the web with ChatGPT)

What that means for you: ChatGPT isn't a magic box that already "knows" your business. It often searches the web and listing sources, then summarizes what it finds. If those sources are thin, outdated, or contradictory, you're a harder pick.

OpenAI doesn't publish a full list of its local data sources, and it can change. The steps below help no matter which source an answer draws on.

Step 1: Make sure ChatGPT is allowed to read your website

This one is quick to check, and it's easy to get wrong without noticing.

OpenAI uses a crawler called OAI-SearchBot to find websites for ChatGPT's search features. According to OpenAI's crawler documentation, sites that block OAI-SearchBot "will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers," though they can still appear as plain navigational links. OpenAI also recommends making sure your host or content delivery network (CDN) doesn't block its published IP addresses. (OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI Crawlers)

It's a separate setting from GPTBot, the crawler for model training. You can allow search and still opt out of training.

What to do:

  1. Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt in a browser.
  2. Look for any Disallow rules that apply to OAI-SearchBot or to all bots (User-agent: *).
  3. If you use a security service, firewall, or "bot protection" setting, ask your web person whether it's blocking AI crawlers by default. Some do.

If you change robots.txt, OpenAI says it can take about 24 hours for search to catch up.

Step 2: Claim and complete the listings AI tools lean on

Local answers also lean heavily on business listings. Three are free and worth an afternoon:

Google Business Profile. Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance, and prominence. Its advice is to give "complete and detailed business info," keep your hours and categories accurate, respond to reviews, and add photos. Google also says there's no way to pay for a better local ranking. (Google: Tips to improve your local ranking)

Bing Places for Business. Since OpenAI lists Microsoft among its search providers, your Bing listing deserves the same care as your Google one. Bing Places is free. It now lives at bing.com/forbusiness and can import your Google listing so you don't have to retype everything. (Bing blog: Introducing the new Bing Places for Business) Microsoft also notes that Bing may give priority to other sources when Bing Places data goes stale or conflicts with them, so set it up and then keep it updated.

Apple Business Connect. Apple's free tool controls your "place card," which Apple says appears across Maps, Siri, Messages, Wallet, and other Apple apps. Since 2024, businesses without a storefront can use it too. (Apple Business Connect User Guide; Apple Newsroom, Oct 2024)

If you're a restaurant, also check your Yelp page and whichever reservation platform you use.

What to do: Search for your business on each platform. Claim it if you haven't, and report any duplicate listings. Make sure the name, phone, website, hours, and category match exactly everywhere.

Step 3: Say plainly what you do, and where

An AI tool can only recommend you if it can tell you fit the request. Lines like "Quality you can trust" give it nothing to work with.

Your website and listings should answer these in plain sentences:

Give each main service its own page if you can.

Why Service Area Precision Changes AI Recommendations explains why the places you name have to be the places you actually serve.

Step 4: Get recent, specific reviews

Google lists review count and ratings as part of prominence. Reviews also give AI tools something concrete to repeat. "They fixed our AC the same afternoon" is more useful to an answer engine than five stars and no text.

You can't control what customers write, and you shouldn't script it. You can ask happy customers to leave a review and mention what you did for them, then respond to reviews (good and bad) in a calm, specific way. Google recommends both.

Why Reviews Need Context to Help AI Recommendations explains why recent, specific reviews help an answer more than a star average alone.

Step 5: Ask the question yourself, and write down what you see

Once a month, open ChatGPT and ask the questions your customers would ask. Use your town name, since that's closer to what ChatGPT searches for anyway:

Note whether you show up, which competitors do, and which sources ChatGPT cites (click Sources when it's shown). If it states something wrong about you, like old hours or a closed location, the cited sources usually tell you which listing to fix.

Expect the answers to vary from one try to the next. That's normal. Look for patterns over several weeks instead of reacting to a single answer.

How to Measure Whether AI Can Recommend Your Business describes how to keep a record of those checks without treating one answer as a ranking.

The short version

  1. Don't block OAI-SearchBot on your website or CDN.
  2. Claim and complete Google Business Profile, Bing Places, and Apple Business Connect, and keep them matching.
  3. Describe your services and service area in plain, specific language.
  4. Earn recent, detailed reviews and respond to them.
  5. Check what ChatGPT says each month and fix the sources it cites.

None of this is a trick. It just makes your business easy to find and easy to trust.

Not sure where you stand? Runexus offers a free AI Presence Scan that checks how readable and consistent your business information is to AI systems. It's a quick way to see which of the steps above to tackle first.

Sources