How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI answers

By Francis Valente, Navaro Systems · Updated 17 October 2026

Short answer: AI assistants recommend businesses they can find and verify. Asked for a recommendation, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Claude will usually search the web, read a handful of pages and summarise what they found, citing sources. So the facts about your business need to be on pages a machine can read, stated plainly, consistent everywhere, and backed by reviews and mentions on other sites.

Key points

Put the facts in plain text on your own site: what you do, where, for whom, and what it costs.
Make sure your pages show their content without JavaScript, or many AI crawlers see an empty page.
Keep your name, phone number and service area identical across your site, Google Business Profile and directories.
Answer the questions customers actually ask, in their words.
Reviews and independent mentions are what make an assistant confident enough to name you.

How assistants choose who to mention

Most assistants answer local questions by running a web search, opening some of the results, and writing a summary. ChatGPT search, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews all show the sources they used. The first test is the same as search: do you appear in the results for the question at all? The second is whether the pages it opens say clearly that you fit what was asked.

An assistant can't ring you or visit your shopfront. It knows what's written about you, on your site and elsewhere, and it leans on what it can confirm in more than one place.

Make your site readable by machines

Check what your site looks like with JavaScript off, or ask an assistant to read your homepage and tell you what it says. Many modern sites built as single-page apps send an empty page to anything that doesn't run JavaScript.
Use real headings, short paragraphs and lists. Assistants lift answers from well-structured text.
Add structured data (schema.org LocalBusiness or ProfessionalService) with your name, phone, area served and services. It states your facts in a form machines don't have to interpret.
Don't block AI crawlers in robots.txt unless you mean to. Some site builders and security services block them by default.
Consider an llms.txt file, a plain summary of your site for language models. It's cheap to add, though how much assistants rely on it is still unclear.

Say the specific things people ask

People ask assistants full questions: who can fix a leaking hot water system in Watsonia today, how much does a small business website cost. Pages that answer those questions directly, with your suburb, your service and your prices in the text, are easier to match than a homepage that promises quality solutions for all your needs.

A page for each main service, naming the suburbs you cover.
Prices or price ranges wherever you can give them.
Plain-language answers to the questions customers ask on the phone.
Who you are: a named person, and how long you've done this.

Be consistent everywhere

Assistants cross-check. If your Google Business Profile, website, Facebook page and directory listings disagree on your phone number or what you do, you look less certain than a competitor whose details line up. Pick one version of your name, phone number and service area and use it everywhere.

Earn the mentions

Reviews on your Google Business Profile, a listing in your industry association's directory, a local news story, a supplier's where-to-buy page: independent mentions turn a business that says it does something into a business others say does it.

Check where you stand

Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude the three questions a new customer would ask, in their words.
Note who gets named and which pages are cited.
Read those pages. They show what assistants currently trust in your category.
Fix your own pages first, then work on reviews and mentions.

Questions people ask

Can I pay to be recommended by ChatGPT?

You can't buy your way into the answer itself. Assistants recommend from what they find and trust, and where ads appear they are labelled and kept apart from the answer.

Is this different from SEO?

Mostly it's the same work: being findable, clear and trusted. The difference is emphasis. Assistants reward pages that answer a specific question directly, and facts they can confirm in several places.

How long does it take to show up?

Changes to your own site can show up once the assistant's search provider re-reads the page, often within weeks. Reviews and mentions build over months.

Free 60-second website read at navaro.com.au, no sign-up. Or ring Francis Valente on 0426 951 399.