A few weeks ago we looked at a client's analytics and honestly, we were surprised: about a quarter of all visitors to their website came from ChatGPT. Not from Google, not from Google Maps. And that was in the first three weeks after we rebuilt their website.
A year ago that number would have been zero. Back then almost every visitor came from Google or Google Maps, especially for a local service business. Our own most recent new client found us through a recommendation from ChatGPT, too.
So the question is: How do you get ChatGPT and other AI assistants to recommend your business? Here's our guide, step by step: three things you can do today, the one biggest lever, and the biggest misconception about AI visibility, which for young businesses is actually an advantage.
Some people call this ChatGPT SEO, others call it GEO (Generative Engine Optimization). It means the same thing: AI assistants find you, understand you and recommend you.
One honest thing up front: nobody outside OpenAI knows exactly how ChatGPT decides. This is a guide from practice, not a look inside the algorithm: it's what we see working for our clients and for ourselves.
1. Let the AI crawlers onto your website
Type your domain into the browser and add /robots.txt to the end, for example yourcompany.com/robots.txt. That file says which programs are allowed to read your website. Look for these names:
- GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot and ChatGPT-User (ChatGPT)
- ClaudeBot (Claude)
- PerplexityBot (Perplexity)
If one of these names has Disallow: / under it, you're locking out exactly the system you want to be found in. It happens more often than you'd think: back when AI wasn't a big topic yet, your agency, or you yourself, may have ticked a box while building the website that shuts AI programs out. Deleting that line takes a few minutes.
And look one level deeper: for a while, the firewall on the server of our own website was turning AI crawlers away, even though our robots.txt allowed them. The quickest way to find out whether ChatGPT can really read your site is to ask ChatGPT what's on your website.
2. Say in one sentence what you do, who it's for and where
Most websites say something like this: “We are an experienced tax advisory firm with over 10 years of experience, serving clients from many industries.” It sounds like a lot and says almost nothing.
But nobody types just “tax adviser” into ChatGPT. People write whole sentences, or they say them into their phone: “I run a small plumbing business in Vienna. Find me a tax adviser near me who knows the trades.” ChatGPT then doesn't recommend the biggest firm in town. It recommends the one that matches that sentence most closely.
So write one simple sentence that answers three questions: What do you do? Who is it for? Where? For example: “Tax advice for trade businesses in Favoriten, Vienna.” In big cities it's worth naming the district or neighbourhood; in smaller places the town is enough.
That sentence belongs on your website as text, not in an image and not hidden in the footer. Ideally as a heading, right at the top of your homepage.
3. The same contact details everywhere
Before ChatGPT recommends you, it checks whether everything fits together: your website, your Google profile, your directory listings, your social media profiles. If your name, address, email and phone number match everywhere, that's the strongest sign that you really exist.
So go through all of it once: website, Google Business Profile, Herold or Gelbe Seiten, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. An old address or a second phone number can be enough to make the AI unsure.
The biggest lever: your Google Business Profile
If you only do one thing, do this: set up a Google Business Profile, that's your listing on Google Maps, and look after it properly.
Especially for questions with a place in them, like “physiotherapy in Salzburg”, AI leans heavily on these listings: first to see that you really exist, then to check your reputation. The reviews are built right in. For an AI, your profile is a goldmine of information about your business.
Here's how to set it up:
- The right category. On Google Maps it already does a big part of the work.
- Every service on its own. List your services separately, not as one block. The more information there is, the more the AI can read from it.
- Your area. If you have an address customers come to, add it. If not, add the area you work in.
- Real photos, not stock images. Walk through your space once and take pictures. If you don't work on site, pictures of your work or a simple graphic will do too. What matters is that it looks real and cared for.
- Reviews, above everything else. Ask your best customers for two or three sentences. Tell them it takes a minute and helps you a lot.
The real trick is in that last point: ask your customers to name the service you helped them with. “Great, professional service” isn't worth much. “Did my tax return in three days, even though I left it late” is real content ChatGPT can work with.
If you only work online and aren't tied to a place, the profile is still worth it, but it's not your big lever. So don't spend the whole weekend on it. If you do have a place where you work, even without an office, set it up no matter what. We, for example, work for clients across the whole German-speaking world and still have a profile for Salzburg.
The biggest misconception: you don't need 50 new strategies
A lot is being sold around AI right now, and with this article we're joining in a little, we admit it. But it often sounds as if you now need 50 new strategies and nothing that worked before works any more. That's just not true.
If you're easy to find on Google, you'll very likely show up in ChatGPT too. The principle stays the same: become the name people trust in your area.
One thing does change, though: how people search. On Google we type a few keywords. In ChatGPT we're back to writing whole sentences, and lots of people just say their question into their phone. So the one big search term like “tax adviser” counts for less. You win by being specific: “tax adviser” is a lost battle in ChatGPT, “tax adviser for the self-employed in Graz” isn't.
Why this is a real chance for young businesses
If your business is young, this is one of the best things that could have happened to you. We mean that.
Think about why Google shows who it shows: Google plays it safe. It wants to show you the result that's most likely to satisfy you. Usually that's the business that's been around the longest, with lots of history and lots of links pointing to its website. As a new business, you'll hardly ever close that gap.
ChatGPT looks at things differently. It looks at your business as a whole: your services, your reviews, how precisely you say what you do. That's how a bookkeeper who offers “bookkeeping for Amazon sellers in Vienna” can get named ahead of a firm that has been “your reliable partner in financial matters” since 2004.
The cards aren't completely reshuffled, though: mentions, reviews and how long a business has been around still count. There's just a new currency on top, and you can start working on it this month.
What we did for Theragym
Back to our client from the start, the physiotherapy and class studio Theragym in Hamburg. We didn't do anything crazy:
- Rebuilt the website from scratch, with a separate page for every service. That gives ChatGPT, and Google just as much, a lot more to work with.
- Built out the Google Business Profile: category, services, good photos.
- Collected reviews.
In the first three weeks after the relaunch, that brought in around eight bookings through the website, plus calls and emails we can't count. We don't know exactly how many of those bookings came through ChatGPT. What we can see: about a quarter of visitors came from ChatGPT.
Today Theragym gets over 10 enquiries a month. One client, one time period: this is an example, not a study. But the direction is clear.
Your list for this week
- Check your robots.txt: GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot must not be blocked.
- Write the one sentence: what you do, who it's for and where, as a heading at the top of your homepage.
- Match your contact details: name, address, email and phone the same everywhere.
- Build out your Google profile: category, every service on its own, real photos.
- Collect reviews: and ask people to name the service.
Want to know where you stand right now? With the AI check we look at whether ChatGPT recommends you or your competitors, and what you're missing.
