How to get your company recommended by ChatGPT
Ask ChatGPT for the best managed IT provider for a 30 person firm in your city and it will name three or four companies. If yours is not one of them, you were never considered. More buyers now start their shortlist this way, so this matters as much as your Google ranking.
The good news is that the signals AI assistants rely on are not a mystery. They overlap with good SEO, but they are not identical, and most small and mid-sized firms are missing at least two of them.
What AI assistants look for
Assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity build answers from what they can find and trust about a company. In practice three things decide whether you get named.
1. Clear answers to buyer questions
Assistants prefer pages that answer one question clearly in the first few lines. A services page that opens with "We are passionate about technology" gives them nothing to quote. A page that opens with "We provide managed IT support for businesses of 10 to 100 staff in Leeds, from USD 45 per user per month" does.
2. Structured data that says who you are
Schema markup tells machines your company name, what you do, where you operate and what questions you answer. Organization, LocalBusiness, Service and FAQ schema are the most useful for service firms. Most small business sites have none, or only what a plugin added by default.
3. Mentions on other trusted sites
Assistants trust what other sources say about you more than what you say about yourself. Listings on industry directories, review sites, partner pages, local business lists and "best of" articles all count. A company mentioned in ten credible places is far more likely to be named than one that only appears on its own website.
A 30 day plan
- Week 1: run the test above and list the competitors that get named. Look at what their sites and listings have that yours does not.
- Week 2: rewrite the opening of your main service pages so each answers its question in two lines. Add a real FAQ with 8 to 12 buyer questions.
- Week 3: add Organization, LocalBusiness and FAQ schema. Check it with Google's Rich Results Test.
- Week 4: claim or update your profiles on the main directories and review sites in your industry and region, and ask your best clients for reviews.
What not to do
- Do not stuff pages with "ChatGPT" or "AI" keywords. Assistants do not reward it.
- Do not create dozens of thin pages. One clear, useful page beats ten generic ones.
- Do not expect overnight change. Answers shift as models update, so measure monthly.
The bottom line
Getting named by AI assistants comes down to being clear, being structured and being mentioned. None of it is expensive, but it does need to be done deliberately. If you want to know where you stand today, our AI search visibility audit measures it across all three assistants and gives you a 30 day fix list.