MET Signal

How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT

More customers are asking AI assistants who to hire. Here's how those assistants pick a business, and what you can do so they pick yours.

MET Signal · September 27, 2026 · 8 min read

Why this matters now

Customers used to type "plumber near me" into Google and scroll. Now many of them ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Claude a full question, like "Who's the most reliable plumber in my area for a water heater install?", and get back a short list of names.

That list is usually two to five businesses. If you're on it, you're competing with a handful of others. If you're not, you're invisible to that customer. The good news: the things that get you on the list are mostly things you can control.

How AI assistants choose which businesses to recommend

When you ask an AI assistant for a local recommendation, it usually runs a web search behind the scenes, reads what it finds, and summarizes. It isn't picking at random, and there's no way to pay for a spot. It leans on a few kinds of evidence:

  • Your own website: what you do, where you do it, and whether the pages clearly answer the question being asked
  • Your business listings: Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect and directories, and whether the details match
  • Reviews: how many, how recent, and what customers say about you in their own words
  • Other sites that mention you: local news, industry directories, "best of" lists, supplier and partner pages
  • Clear, consistent facts: the same business name, address, phone, hours and services everywhere

8 steps to get recommended

  1. Make sure AI crawlers can read your site

    Check your robots.txt file doesn't block AI search crawlers such as OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT search), PerplexityBot and ClaudeBot. Some website platforms and security plugins block them by default. If they can't read your site, they can't recommend it.

  2. Give every service its own page

    A single "Services" page listing ten things is hard to cite. A dedicated page for each service, like "Water heater installation in Springfield", matches the exact questions people ask and gives the AI something specific to quote.

  3. Answer the questions customers actually ask

    Add plain answers to common questions on your service pages: cost ranges, how long the job takes, what's included, whether you offer emergency service. AI assistants love content that directly answers a question.

  4. Say clearly where you work

    List the towns and neighborhoods you serve in normal sentences, and create pages for your main service areas. "Near me" answers depend on the AI being sure you serve that area.

  5. Complete and match your business listings

    Fill out your Google Business Profile fully, then claim Bing Places and Apple Business Connect. Several assistants draw on more than one search engine, so a Bing listing is cheap insurance. Keep your name, address, phone and hours identical everywhere.

  6. Earn reviews that describe the work

    Ask every happy customer for a review, and ask them to mention the service and town ("replaced our water heater in Springfield same day"). Specific reviews give AI assistants details to repeat.

  7. Get mentioned on other trusted sites

    Local chambers of commerce, industry associations, supplier dealer pages, local news and genuine "best of" lists all count. AI answers often cite these third-party sources, not just your own site.

  8. Add structured data

    Local business schema (a small block of code) tells search engines and AI your business type, address, hours, services and reviews in a format they can't misread.

What doesn't work

  • Stuffing pages with keywords or "AI" buzzwords. Assistants summarize meaning, not keyword counts.
  • Fake reviews or paid lists. They risk penalties on Google and damage trust when customers notice.
  • Hiding key details in images or PDFs. If your prices, services or menu only exist in an image, AI can't read them reliably.
  • Waiting for one big fix. Recommendations come from lots of small signals adding up over weeks and months.

How to tell if it's working

Ask the assistants yourself, the same way a customer would, every few weeks. Use a private or logged-out window so your own history doesn't skew the answer, and write down who gets named and which websites are cited. Our free AI visibility check guide walks through exactly how to do this.

MET Signal automates this: every week we ask the questions your customers ask across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude, and track whether you're mentioned, which competitors are named instead, and which sources the AI cited. We also track visits and leads that actually arrive from AI assistants, so you can see if it turns into customers.

Questions

Can I pay to be recommended by ChatGPT?+

No. There's no paid placement in AI assistant answers for local recommendations today. You earn a spot through your website, listings, reviews and mentions on other sites.

How long does it take to start showing up?+

It varies. Fixing access problems (like blocked crawlers) can help within weeks, while reviews, listings and mentions build over a few months. Track it monthly rather than daily.

Is this different from regular SEO?+

It overlaps a lot. Strong local SEO (good pages, listings and reviews) is the foundation. AI visibility adds a focus on clear answers, consistent facts across the web and third-party mentions the AI can cite.

Do different AI assistants give different answers?+

Yes. Each one searches and summarizes differently, and answers can change with the wording of the question and the user's location. That's why it's worth checking several assistants with several questions.