How to Get Your Business Recommended by ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews

Why AI recommendations matter now

A growing share of buying journeys now start with a question typed into an AI assistant: “Who’s the best pool builder on the Sunshine Coast?” or “Which Melbourne agency is good at AI search?”. The answer that comes back isn’t a page of ten links. It’s a short paragraph that names a handful of businesses — and the buyer’s shortlist is often formed right there.

That changes what “visibility” means. Ranking on page one of Google still matters, but it no longer guarantees you’re part of the conversation. A business can rank well in the classic results and still be absent from the AI Overview sitting directly above them — or from ChatGPT’s answer entirely.

How AI engines decide who to recommend

Most AI assistants that answer questions about businesses work in two stages. First they retrieve: they run searches or look up an index to collect a handful of relevant pages. Then they synthesise: a language model reads those pages and writes an answer, often citing some of them.

That gives you two separate problems to solve. To be retrievable, your pages must be crawlable, indexed and relevant to the question. To be quotable, the content on those pages must be clear, specific and trustworthy enough that the model chooses to use it — and to name you.

Notice the pattern: classic search health is the entry ticket almost everywhere. If Google or Bing can’t crawl and trust your site, the AI engines that rely on their indexes won’t find you either. That’s why GEO complements SEO rather than replacing it — we explain the differences in GEO vs SEO.

The 8-step playbook

1. Baseline with real buyer prompts

   Write 20–40 questions your customers actually ask (“best fencing contractor north Brisbane”, “how much does a fibreglass pool cost”). Run them in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Google, and record who gets named. This is your starting line — and it usually shows exactly which competitors the AI engines currently trust.

2. Let the AI crawlers in

   Check your robots.txt and firewall. Many sites block AI crawlers by accident through security plugins or CDN bot rules. The crawlers that matter for answers include OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT search), PerplexityBot, Googlebot and Bingbot. Note that Google-Extended controls use of your content for Gemini training — Google states AI Overviews use regular Googlebot crawling.

3. Add structured data that validates

   Organization (or LocalBusiness), Service, FAQPage, Person and BreadcrumbList schema tell machines who you are, what you do and who stands behind it. Validate it — broken schema is worse than none because it sends mixed signals.

4. Make your entity consistent everywhere

   Your business name, address, phone, services and founders should read identically on your website, Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, LinkedIn and industry directories. AI engines cross-reference these; inconsistencies reduce confidence.

5. Rewrite key pages answer-first

   Lead each service page with a direct, two-sentence answer to the question it targets, then support it. Use specific numbers (price ranges, timeframes, suburbs served) instead of vague claims. Models quote specifics; “contact us for a quote” gives them nothing to use.

6. Add evidence: sources, statistics, quotations

   The GEO research tested content methods directly — adding citations to credible sources, relevant statistics and quotations from authorities produced the strongest gains. Name your sources, link to them, and attribute expertise to real people.

7. Earn mentions where AI engines already look

   Industry associations, local press, supplier and partner sites, review platforms and genuine expert roundups. AI engines lean on sources they already trust; being mentioned there matters more than raw link counts.

8. Measure monthly with the same prompt set

   AI answers vary from run to run. Re-running the same prompts monthly — and tracking AI referral traffic and enquiries in your analytics — turns noise into a trend you can act on.

What the research says works — and what doesn’t

The 2023 GEO paper tested nine content optimisation methods across thousands of queries and measured how visible each source became inside generated answers. The headline finding was that the best methods improved visibility by up to roughly 40%. Just as useful is what didn’t work.

A real example: AI visibility in fibreglass pools

In July 2026 we benchmarked five national fibreglass pool manufacturers using the Ahrefs AI responses index. Compass Pools — a long-term client — leads the category in classic Google search. In AI Overviews, it’s one of just two brands with a strong presence.

Two lessons stand out. First, AI visibility broadly tracks organic strength — the brands that have declined in Google are barely visible in AI answers too. Second, it isn’t identical: Barrier Reef appears in more AI Overviews than Compass despite less organic traffic. AI visibility is its own race, and it rewards brands that invest in it deliberately.

Common mistakes that keep businesses out of AI answers

• Blocking AI crawlers by accident — a security plugin or CDN rule quietly returning 403s to bots.
• Vague service pages — no prices, no suburbs, no specifics. There’s nothing for a model to quote.
• Anonymous expertise — no named people, credentials or case studies, so trust signals are weak.
• Inconsistent business details — different names, phone numbers or addresses across profiles.
• Judging by one search — AI answers vary between runs; decisions need a repeatable prompt set.
• Treating GEO as a replacement for SEO — most AI engines depend on search indexes; weak SEO caps GEO.

Your 30-day action plan

1. Week 1

   Baseline

   Build your prompt set, run it across five engines and record who gets named. Check robots.txt and firewall rules for AI crawler blocks.

2. Week 2

   Structure

   Deploy and validate Organization/LocalBusiness, Service and FAQ schema. Align your name, address and phone across every profile.

3. Week 3

   Content

   Rewrite your five most important pages answer-first, with specific numbers, cited sources and named experts.

4. Week 4

   Authority & measurement

   List ten sources AI engines already cite in your industry and plan how to earn a mention on each. Re-run the prompt set to set your monthly benchmark.

About the author

Dr Andrej Miklosik

Founder of Catnapweb and Professor at the Department of Marketing and Commerce, Comenius University. Author of 170+ research publications on AI in marketing and search visibility, cited 1,705 times. Full profile →