Ask ChatGPT for "a good accountant for freelancers in Petah Tikva" and you will usually get three to five names, with a sentence about each. None of those businesses paid to be there. The system gathered information from their websites, reviews, directories and other sites that mentioned them, and decided they fit the question.
Those spots are very few. A check run this year on multi-location brands found that ChatGPT recommended just 1.2% of their locations, while on Google's map the same locations appeared in the top three results about a third of the time. Ranking well on Google today does not automatically put you in ChatGPT's answer.
There is no official list of what gets checked, and the studies don't always agree. What recurs across them is set out here in seven parts, from checking where you stand today to a work plan for the first month.
Where your business stands today
Before changing anything, find out what the systems say about you now. It takes half an hour.
- Write three questions a real customer would ask, with your trade and city. For example "licensed electrician in Rishon LeZion", "electrician who comes the same day in Rishon" and "how much does installing a power socket cost in Rishon LeZion".
- Ask each question in ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Mode.
- Rephrase each question twice, because answers change even between two nearly identical phrasings.
- Record in a table whether the business appeared, in what position, what was said about it, and which sources the system showed next to the answer.
- Record which competitors appeared as well. Looking at their sites and reviews usually shows what they have that you don't yet.
- Repeat the same questions once a month. That way you see whether the fixes change anything, rather than relying on a feeling.
What on your website helps you get into the answer
A language model reads a page like a person in a hurry. It looks for a sentence that answers the question, and takes it from the page where it is easiest to find.
- The answer sits in the first two sentences of the page. A page about replacing a solar water heater opens with what it usually costs and how long it takes, and only then talks about the business.
- Headings are written the way customers ask. "How much does replacing a solar water heater cost" works better than "Our services". A good source for headings is the questions people ask you on the phone.
- The page shows a last-updated date. A page written three years ago and untouched since gets its prices and date updated the same day.
- The page says who wrote it, with a sentence about their experience and a licence number if there is one. It shows a real person stands behind the information.
- The site has information gathered from the work itself that nobody else has. "In 2026 we replaced 214 water heaters, and in a third of them the problem was the heating element, not the tank" is a sentence no competitor can write. Opening your calendar or last year's list of documents and counting is enough.
- There is a pricing page. "How much does it cost" is one of the most common questions, and a business that doesn't answer it leaves the answer to another site. Even when the price depends on the job, you can give a range and explain what moves it.
- There is a page comparing alternatives, without naming competitors: repair versus replacement, a monthly plan versus paying per visit, an independent versus a chain.
- There is a questions-and-answers page built from customers' real questions, each with a two- or three-sentence answer.
- Every area you actually serve has details: which towns, how quickly you arrive, and whether there is a travel charge. A list of 40 towns with no details doesn't help.
- Important information is written as text on the site, not inside an image or a PDF. A price list shown as an image is a price list the system doesn't read.
Reviews that describe the work
How many reviews there are, how recent they are and what they say all get checked. A high rating alone isn't enough. In checks of businesses that were recommended, their average rating was 4.3, only a tenth of a star above the overall average.
- There are reviews from recent months. A business with 40 reviews, the latest two years old, looks like one that may have closed.
- The business replies to every review, including negative ones. A business that replies looks like one somebody runs.
- Reviews describe the work itself. "Came within an hour on a Friday and fixed the water heater" fits a question about an emergency plumber at the weekend. "Great service, recommended" fits no particular question.
- Reviews live in more than one place: the Google business profile, Facebook, and the review sites of your trade. In some studies of ChatGPT's answers, most of the sources it showed were review sites and directories rather than the business's own site.
- Ask for a review on the day the job is finished. The Google business profile has a direct link to the review form; send it on WhatsApp with a personal line: "Glad we could help with the water heater. If you have a minute, a short review would help us a lot, and if you mention what we fixed, it helps others looking for the same thing."
- Reply to a negative review within a few days, factually and without arguing: what happened and what you did to put it right. The person reading the reply is the next customer.
Your business details across the web
A system that finds conflicting details about a business can't tell which to believe, and a business it isn't sure about risks being left out. In a 2026 survey of local search experts, three of the five most important factors were about business details matching across sites.
- The business name, address and phone number are identical on the site, the Google business profile, Facebook, Instagram and every directory. "Y. Cohen Plumbing" and "Cohen Plumbing Ltd." are two different names to a system.
- Opening hours are identical everywhere, including special holiday hours.
- The Google business profile is complete: the right category, a list of services, service areas, real photos and a description a few sentences long.
- The business is listed in general directories and in the sites of its trade.
- Anyone with a professional body or register appears in its directory with the same details. In one check of recommendations for lawyers, some of the sources were bar association pages.
- After changing a phone number or address, go through the whole list again. Old details in a forgotten directory are exactly what causes confusion.
To find every place, search for the business name on Google and go through each result that shows your details. It is the cheapest check in this guide and can be done in an hour.
What others write about you
This part is the hardest to control, and in some studies it is also the most influential. In one of them, articles and lists on content sites made up about half of the sources the answers showed, with community discussions adding roughly another tenth.
- Articles in local press or on news sites covering your trade.
- "Best of" lists for your town or field, on sites people actually read.
- Forum and community discussions where people recommend you or where you answered under your own name.
- YouTube videos that mention the business, including ones you made yourself explaining a common problem in your trade.
- Pages of suppliers and business partners that recommend professionals. You can ask to be included.
- Links to your site from other sites.
- How many people search for your business name on Google, and whether your site appears in the regular results.
- When anyone last talked about you. A mention from five years ago is worth less than one from last month.
Letting the crawlers in
None of the above is worth much if the system can't read the site. Each company has its own crawler, software that goes through websites and stores what it finds, and every site has a small file called robots.txt that tells crawlers where they may go. You can see it by opening your site's address with /robots.txt at the end.
- The file doesn't block OAI-SearchBot, OpenAI's crawler. A site that blocks it won't appear in ChatGPT search answers.
- The file doesn't block Google-Extended unless you decided so deliberately. A site that blocks it won't be used as a source for Gemini's answers, as explained in our article on blocking AI training.
- If the site runs on Cloudflare, check its dashboard settings for blocking AI crawlers too. Cloudflare is also now helping OpenAI find new pages, as described in our article on ChatGPT search.
- The site appears on Google. Search for site: followed by your address and check that the important pages are listed.
Blocking lines sometimes end up on a site without the owner knowing, when whoever built it copied a ready-made file. It is worth checking even if you are sure there are none.
Structured data can wait
For several years, guides have recommended starting with structured data markup (schema). It is code added to the site that tells search engines what a page contains: a business, a price, reviews, opening hours.
An experiment published in May 2026 looked at 1,885 pages that added such code between August 2025 and March 2026, and compared them with 4,000 pages that did not. It found no real increase in how often AI systems cited them, and Google's AI Overviews even showed a slight drop. The experiment only covered pages that were already being cited, so it doesn't settle the question entirely. If the code is already on your site, there is no reason to remove it. If it isn't, this is not the place to start.
A plan for the first month
Most businesses meet only a small part of these lists. The items they miss are exactly where a competitor gets the recommendation instead. There is no need to fix everything at once.
- Week one: the check of where you stand, matching your details everywhere, and checking robots.txt.
- Week two: completing the Google business profile, and asking your five most recent customers for reviews.
- Week three: a pricing page and a questions-and-answers page.
- Week four: reopening your main pages so the answer appears in the first two sentences.
- After a month: the same questions, in the same systems, and a look at what changed.
The recommendation brings the customer as far as your website. What happens there, and why so many leave without getting in touch, is covered in the guide to a website that brings no leads.
Common questions
How do I know whether ChatGPT recommends my business?
Ask it the question a customer would ask, with your trade and your city, and see whether your name comes up. Repeat the check with a few phrasings and in Gemini and Google's AI Mode too, because answers vary between systems and between runs.
Can I pay to have ChatGPT recommend my business?
No. Recommendations are built from what the system finds on the web: the website, reviews, business details and what others write about it. The way in is to improve those sources.
Is a 4.9-star rating enough?
Not necessarily. In checks of businesses that were recommended, their average rating was only a tenth of a star above the overall average. Recent reviews, replies from the business and content that describes the work matter just as much.
Does structured data markup help me appear in answers?
An experiment published in May 2026 found that adding such markup did not raise the number of citations. It does no harm, but it isn't the place to start.
Is my website blocking AI crawlers?
Open your site's address with /robots.txt at the end and look for lines that block OAI-SearchBot or Google-Extended. If the site runs on Cloudflare, check the crawler settings in its dashboard too.