You can improve your chances of being recommended by ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and other AI platforms by making your business easy to discover, understand, verify, and trust. That means building a strong website, publishing useful and accurate information, maintaining consistent business listings, earning credible third-party mentions, and making sure search engines can access your content.
There is no guaranteed way to make an AI platform recommend your business. These systems use different sources and selection methods, and a business that appears in one answer may not appear in another. The goal is to strengthen the signals that help people and AI systems understand what your business does, who it serves, and why it may be a relevant choice.
This is often discussed as generative engine optimization (GEO) or AI search optimization. The terminology is evolving, but the practical work starts with something familiar: a business that communicates clearly, earns trust, and can be found online.
1. Make sure AI platforms can find your website
Before improving your content, confirm that search engines and relevant AI search crawlers can access it. A beautifully designed website cannot earn visibility from a system that cannot retrieve its pages.
Start with these checks:
Google Search Console: Check whether your important pages are indexed and investigate any crawling or indexing errors.
Bing Webmaster Tools: Check your site's indexing status and submit your sitemap. Bing also offers URL submission tools to help search engines discover updated pages.
Your robots.txt file: Review whether your site blocks search crawlers that you want to access your content.
Your website and hosting setup: Check whether a content delivery network, firewall, or security plugin blocks legitimate crawler traffic.
For ChatGPT specifically, OpenAI says website owners should allow OAI-SearchBot to crawl their sites if they want their content to be eligible for inclusion in ChatGPT search results. You also need to make sure your host or content delivery network allows the crawler's published IP addresses. Allowing this search crawler is separate from allowing GPTBot, which relates to potential use of content for training OpenAI's foundation models.
For Google Search's AI features, including AI Overviews and AI Mode, Google says the same foundational SEO practices apply. Pages must meet the relevant technical requirements for Search, including being indexed and eligible to appear with a snippet. There is no special markup or separate AI optimization trick that guarantees inclusion.
Your first priority: Make sure your best service pages, location pages, product pages, and educational content are accessible and indexable. Fix technical barriers before investing heavily in more content.
2. Explain exactly what your business does
AI platforms need to connect your business to the questions people ask. If your website uses vague descriptions, creative slogans, or industry jargon without explaining the actual offering, it may be harder for a system to determine when your business is relevant.
Your website should make these points easy to understand:
What does your business do?
Who do you help?
What products or services do you offer?
Where do you operate?
What makes your approach, experience, or offering distinctive?
What questions can you answer for prospective customers?
For example, a commercial landscaping company should not rely only on a headline like “Growing Better Spaces.” It should clearly explain that it provides commercial landscape maintenance, installation, and property services, identify the types of properties it serves, and describe its service area.
That doesn't mean removing your brand personality. It means giving personality something clear to work with.
Build pages around specific services and audiences
Create a dedicated page for each major service or offering when there is enough useful information to justify one. Explain what the service includes, who it is for, what problems it addresses, how the process works, and what customers should consider before choosing a provider.
Include relevant location information if your business serves specific geographic markets. A page about a real service in a real city is more useful than a collection of nearly identical location pages created only to target keywords.
Keep important information in readable page content rather than hiding the explanation in an image, video, or graphic that may not communicate the same details clearly to search systems.
3. Publish genuinely useful answers to customer questions
People often ask AI platforms questions in conversational language:
“Which accounting firm works with small businesses?”
“How much does commercial landscaping usually cost?”
“What should I look for in a personal injury attorney?”
“Which marketing agency can handle SEO and paid advertising together?”
“What are the pros and cons of replacing my HVAC system?”
Your content should address the questions your actual customers ask before they buy.
Google's guidance for AI features emphasizes helpful, reliable, people-first content and valuable information that adds something beyond what is already widely available. Generating large volumes of generic pages without meaningful added value can run afoul of Google's spam policies.
Make articles easy to understand and use
A strong educational article typically includes:
A direct answer near the beginning.
Descriptive headings that reflect the reader's questions.
Clear explanations of unfamiliar terms.
Practical steps, examples, comparisons, or decision criteria.
Reliable sources for factual or changing claims.
Relevant limitations, caveats, and situations where the advice may differ.
A clear indication of who created or reviewed the content when expertise matters.
For instance, an article titled “How Much Does Commercial Landscaping Cost?” should explain the main cost factors, such as property size, service frequency, scope, and location. If you publish actual pricing, explain what it covers and keep it current. If you cannot substantiate a price range, explain the factors that affect cost rather than inventing a number.
Answer the question, not just the keyword
A page that repeats “best commercial landscaper” throughout the text without helping someone compare providers is not particularly useful. A page that explains how to assess qualifications, service scope, insurance, references, and proposals gives readers a practical way to make a decision.
AI systems may use different sources and methods to answer a question, so no article format guarantees a recommendation. But content that clearly answers real questions gives search systems and people more useful information to work with.
4. Build credibility beyond your own website
Your website is only one part of your online presence. Prospective customers may also encounter your business through directories, professional associations, news articles, industry publications, customer reviews, partner websites, and other third-party sources.
These sources can help establish a more complete picture of your business. They can also give customers independent ways to verify what you say about yourself.
Focus on earning credible, relevant mentions through activities such as:
Contributing expert commentary to reputable industry publications.
Participating in professional associations and legitimate industry directories.
Sharing original research, useful data, or informed perspectives that others may reference.
Building real partnerships with complementary businesses.
Encouraging satisfied customers to leave honest reviews on appropriate platforms.
Keeping business details consistent across important directories and profiles.
Do not buy bulk links, manufacture fake reviews, or create misleading company listings in an attempt to influence AI recommendations. These tactics can damage trust and may violate platform policies.
Make your expertise verifiable
If your team has relevant qualifications, professional experience, certifications, or a documented approach, explain those details accurately. Give readers a way to understand who is behind your business and why they are qualified to provide the service.
For specialized subjects, publish content that demonstrates actual knowledge instead of merely repeating general advice. Use real examples only when you have permission and can substantiate the details.
The goal is not to make your business sound important everywhere. It is to make your expertise easy to verify.
5. Keep your business listings and reputation accurate
If you serve a local market, accurate business information matters even more. A potential customer asking an AI platform for a nearby service provider needs more than a business name. They may need to know where you operate, how to contact you, what you offer, and whether your business fits their needs.
Review your profiles on relevant platforms, including Google Business Profile and Bing Places for Business. Confirm that your business name, address or service area, phone number, website, hours, categories, and services are accurate.
Google's Local Business structured data documentation explains how websites can provide information such as business hours and other business details to Google Search. Google also recommends using accurate structured data and ensuring that pages remain accessible to its crawler.
Pay attention to your reputation, too. Monitor reviews, respond professionally, and address recurring customer concerns where appropriate. Do not treat a review score as a guaranteed AI ranking factor; the goal is to maintain an accurate, trustworthy public presence.
Use structured data where it fits
Structured data is code that helps search engines interpret information about a page or organization. Depending on your business, relevant markup might describe your organization, a local business location, a product, or another supported type of content.
It must accurately reflect the information visible on your site and follow the platform's requirements. Structured data can clarify facts, but it does not guarantee that an AI platform will mention your business or display a special search result.
6. Protect your brand while making content easier to discover
AI visibility is not a reason to flatten your brand into generic, search-friendly copy. Your distinct perspective, creative work, and understanding of your customers are what make your business recognizable in the first place.
Use a consistent business name, service descriptions, positioning, and factual information across your website and public profiles. Make sure your written content, images, videos, and other assets communicate a coherent picture of the business.
AI tools can support research, content organization, and other workflows, but speed should not replace editorial judgment. Review content for accuracy, originality, tone, and usefulness before publishing. Add first-hand expertise and context that a generic article would miss.
Google's published guidance does not prohibit using AI tools to help create content. It emphasizes that content should be useful and original, and warns against producing pages at scale without adding value.
The same principle applies to your brand creative: technology should help your business reach the right people without erasing the qualities that make the business yours.
7. Measure AI visibility instead of guessing
AI recommendations can vary based on the question, context, location, available sources, and platform. One successful test is not proof that your business has achieved consistent visibility.
Build a simple monitoring process around the questions your prospective customers are likely to ask.
Create a set of realistic test questions
“What companies provide commercial landscaping in Atlanta?”
“Which agencies offer SEO and paid advertising together?”
“What should I compare when choosing a business accountant?”
“Who provides emergency plumbing services near me?”
“How can I reduce water damage risk in a commercial building?”
“What does [your business name] offer?”
Test these questions periodically in ChatGPT, Gemini, and other relevant platforms. Where possible, use web-enabled search experiences and record the date, wording, whether your business appeared, which sources were cited, and whether the information was accurate.
Repeat the tests. Results can change, and one platform's response should not be treated as a universal ranking.
Track the business impact
AI mentions are useful to monitor, but visibility alone is not the end goal. Where your analytics setup permits, track:
Referral traffic from AI platforms.
Engagement with landing pages receiving that traffic.
Contact form submissions, calls, bookings, and purchases.
Search impressions and clicks for relevant queries.
Changes in branded searches and qualified leads.
Bing has also introduced an AI Performance report in public preview for eligible users of Bing Webmaster Tools. Its availability and reporting capabilities may change, so check the current documentation and your account before relying on it.
Keep your baseline data so you can compare performance over time. If your business is mentioned more often but receives no qualified visits or leads, investigate whether the platform is reaching the right audience and whether the cited content gives people a useful next step.
8. Follow a practical 30-day action plan
You do not need to overhaul your entire marketing strategy at once. Start with the fundamentals, then build on what you learn.
Week 1: Check discoverability
Review Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, check indexing, submit your sitemap, and review crawler access. Identify any important pages that search engines cannot access.
Week 2: Strengthen your core pages
Improve your homepage, key service pages, location pages, and About page. Make your offering, audience, expertise, and service area clear.
Week 3: Answer important customer questions
Publish or improve a small number of genuinely useful articles. Update relevant business listings and check for inconsistent or outdated information.
Week 4: Establish your baseline
Test a consistent set of AI search questions, record citations and mentions, review referral analytics, and prioritize the next improvements based on what you find.
Thirty days is enough to establish a foundation and identify issues. It is not a promise that your business will be recommended within that time. Crawling, indexing, and changes in visibility can take longer, and outcomes depend on your starting point, competition, and the quality of your online presence.
So, how do you get your business recommended by AI?
Start by making your business easy to find and understand. Build helpful website content, keep your business information accurate, establish credibility beyond your own site, and make sure relevant crawlers can access your pages. Then monitor how AI platforms represent your business and use that information to guide your next steps.
There is no magic phrase to put on your homepage or single technical fix that guarantees a recommendation. AI visibility is built through a combination of discoverability, useful information, credibility, and a consistent brand presence.
At Murder Marketing, that combination is the point. We bring together human-centered brand strategy and digital expertise so your visibility efforts work together rather than operate as disconnected tactics. We use the technology, follow the data, honor the creative, and keep the humans who make your business matter at the center of the work.
Your business deserves more than a passing mention. It deserves to be understood by the people you want to reach.