How to get your business on ChatGPT
Make yourself easy to find in the places ChatGPT reads. There is no form that adds you to answers.
"ChatGPT ranks search results using multiple factors intended to help users find relevant, reliable information. Placement is not guaranteed." (OpenAI Help Center)
| Step | What to do | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Let OpenAI's crawler (OAI-SearchBot) reach your site. Check robots.txt and your firewall or CDN. | OpenAI says this is what makes a site "eligible for inclusion" (OpenAI). |
| 2 | Claim your Yelp page. List every service, your area and hours. | Yelp content shows inside ChatGPT answers (Yelp) and was cited in 80% of ChatGPT's local answers (BrightLocal, 2026). |
| 3 | US only: claim your existing listing in ChatGPT's Business Hub. | After an ID check you can update your details and see mentions and clicks (OpenAI). |
| 4 | Set up Bing Places by importing your Google Business Profile. | Microsoft is one of ChatGPT's search providers (OpenAI); the import keeps both in sync (Bing). |
| 5 | Give each service its own page: the service, the area, who it's for, how pricing works. | Business sites were 42% of local AI citations (BrightLocal, 2026). |
| 6 | Keep reviews coming on Google and your trade's directories. On Yelp, don't ask: Yelp discourages it (Yelp). | Recommended restaurants had 3 to 5 times more reviews, but barely higher ratings (Ibrahim and Zaki, 2026). |
Steps 2 to 4 are covered in detail in where ChatGPT finds local businesses.
Why does ChatGPT recommend my competitor and not me?
Usually because it found them and not you, in the listings and pages it read for that question. Three causes come up most.
- Their listings are complete and yours aren't. A claimed Yelp page with services and reviews gives ChatGPT something to show. An empty one doesn't.
- They have more reviews. In a study of AI recommendations across the 100 largest US metros, restaurants showed "a 3-5x review-count premium but a rating premium of at most a tenth of a star" (Ibrahim and Zaki, 2026). Volume beat stars.
- You asked once. The same question gives different answers. Repeat ChatGPT result sets overlapped only 23% on average, and a business that appeared once showed up again in about half of later tries (BrightLocal, 2026). One miss is not a verdict.
Location shifts the list too. ChatGPT guesses your city from your IP address and turns "near me" into a city search, such as "top restaurants San Francisco" (OpenAI). Test from your customers' city, or name it.
How AI picks "the best dentist near me": specific needs beat generic ones
ChatGPT turns the question, plus details it knows about you, into search queries.
"For example, if you have shared that you are vegan and live in San Francisco, ChatGPT may search for “good vegan restaurants San Francisco” when you ask for nearby restaurants you might like." (OpenAI Help Center)
So "best dentist near me" is a contest of the biggest, most-reviewed names. "Dentist in Plano who does sedation for anxious patients" is a search for a page that says exactly that. A small business can't out-review the city's largest practice, but it can be the clearest answer to a specific need. Write a page for each need you serve well, in the words customers use.
Can I pay to be recommended?
No. OpenAI says ads don't change the answer.
"Advertising doesn’t influence ChatGPT’s independent answers." (OpenAI Help Center)
The two can perform very differently. An accounting firm we run marketing for ran ChatGPT ads for three days in October: $428, 166 clicks, 0 bookings. Meanwhile ChatGPT's unpaid answers sent the firm's best clients: everyone it referred reached "ready to start", and 2 of its first 5 bookers paid. Being recommended by ChatGPT worked; paying ChatGPT for clicks didn't. If you still want to try ads, read ChatGPT ads for small business.
How long does it take?
Weeks, not days. Bing listings take 7 to 12 days to publish (Bing). OpenAI says changes to your ChatGPT listing "can take time to appear in a listing or a ChatGPT answer" (OpenAI). Retest a month after your fixes, with the same questions.
Example
A roofer missing from "best roofer in Denver"
The two rivals ChatGPT names have claimed Yelp pages with 80 and 120 reviews. The roofer's Yelp page is unclaimed and his site has one "Services" page. Fixes: claim Yelp, import Google into Bing Places, split the site into pages for repair, replacement and insurance claims. Retest in a month with 20 questions, not one.
A family lawyer who wins only niche questions
ChatGPT never names her for "divorce lawyer Houston", but it does for "Spanish-speaking divorce lawyer Houston" because her site says so. Her next pages: custody for parents working shifts, and divorce with a family business. Each is a need where she can be the clearest answer.
A Canadian clinic
Business Hub lets local businesses claim only existing US listings for now (OpenAI). Same steps, without step 3.
Different for you?
- You want to check your visibility before changing anything: the 20-question test.
- You want to know which listing matters most: where ChatGPT finds local businesses.
- An agency quoted you a monthly GEO fee: is GEO worth paying for?
- You care about Google's AI answers: AI Overviews and AI Mode for local services.
- You serve customers in a second language: a second-language site for search and AI answers.
- You'd rather have it done: SEO & GEO Agent.