How a local business can show up in ChatGPT and AI search

How AI assistants pick businesses

When someone asks "who is a good electrician in Austin", an assistant does not look in a private directory. It searches the web and summarises what it finds: your website, your Google Business Profile, directory listings, reviews and forum posts. It favours sources that state facts plainly and agree with each other.

That has two consequences. First, there is nothing to sign up for. Second, the assistant is only as good as what the web says about you. If your site is vague and your listings disagree, it has nothing solid to repeat, so it recommends someone else.

Can you register your business with ChatGPT?

No. There is no sign-up form, no listing to claim and no way to pay for a recommendation. Anyone selling "ChatGPT registration" is selling nothing. What you can do is make it easy for the assistant to find and trust what is already public about you, and that is the rest of this guide.

What to fix this week

1. Let AI crawlers in

Each assistant reads the web with its own crawler. If a file on your site called robots.txt blocks them, they cannot quote you. Check that it does not block these:

You can see your file by typing your address followed by /robots.txt. If the names above appear after the word "Disallow", ask whoever runs your site to remove those lines.

2. Say it in one sentence

Write one sentence an assistant could copy word for word: "We are a licensed electrician in Austin, Texas, doing rewires, panel upgrades and EV chargers." Put it near the top of your page. Slogans cannot be quoted. Facts can.

3. Add structured data

Structured data is a block of code that repeats your key facts in a format machines read without guessing: your trade, address, phone and hours. The kind you want is called LocalBusiness schema. A good website builder adds it for you.

4. Keep your details identical everywhere

Your name, address and phone should match exactly on your site, Google, Bing Places, Yelp and Facebook. "Smith Plumbing" in one place and "Smith & Sons Plumbing LLC" in another looks like two businesses to a machine.

5. Answer real questions on your page

People ask assistants questions, so pages that contain the question and a clear answer get quoted. Write down what customers ask you: what it costs, how soon you can come, which areas you cover, whether you guarantee the work. Answer each in two or three plain sentences.

6. Get reviews

Assistants lean heavily on what customers say. Ask for a Google review after every good job, and reply to the ones you get. Reviews on the directories for your trade help too.

7. Add an llms.txt file

A newer, optional standard: a plain-text file at your address followed by /llms.txt that summarises your business for assistants. It takes minutes and does no harm.

8. Get listed on Bing Places

ChatGPT's search draws on Bing's index, among other sources. Many owners set up Google and forget Bing. Claiming your Bing Places listing is free and takes about ten minutes.

Before and after: writing an assistant can quote

Only write what is true. An assistant that repeats a claim you cannot back up has just made a promise to your next customer on your behalf.

How to check whether you show up

1. Ask the assistants yourself. Type "best [your trade] in [your town]" into ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google, and see who is named.
2. Ask about your business by name. If the answer is wrong or empty, your details online are thin or inconsistent.
3. Look at the sources. Most assistants show the pages they read. Those are the sites worth being listed on.
4. Repeat it monthly. Answers change as the web changes.

What does not work

• Stuffing keywords into your page. It reads badly and assistants ignore it.
• Fake reviews. They break the FTC's rules, and assistants cross-check sources.
• Buying links from link sellers.
• Hidden text written for machines only.
• Paying for "AI ranking" guarantees. Nobody controls what an assistant says.

How long does it take?

The technical fixes take an afternoon. The results do not arrive overnight: crawlers need to revisit your site, and reviews build up over months. Think of it as the same steady work as local SEO, because it very nearly is. A business with a clear site, matching listings and a few dozen real reviews is hard for an assistant to overlook.

Listings worth claiming

Assistants check your details against more than one source. These are the listings a local business should claim first. All are free.

Use exactly the same name, address, phone and opening hours on each. If you move or change your number, update them all on the same day.

Get mentioned locally

A business other people talk about is easier for an assistant to recommend. You do not need a PR agency for this.

• Sponsor something small: a youth team, a school fair. Local organisations usually list their sponsors online.
• Offer a local reporter a useful comment when your trade is in the news, such as a cold snap for a plumber.
• Join the neighbourhood groups where people ask for recommendations, and be helpful, not pushy.
• Ask suppliers and partners to list you on their "where to buy" or "installers" pages.