How to Get ChatGPT to Recommend Your Business: The 9-Step UK Playbook (2026)

How do you get ChatGPT to recommend your business?

None of these are tricks. They are the same things that make a business trusted by people: being known, being well reviewed and being clear about what you do. The difference is that AI now does the checking for your customer, in seconds, and only names a handful of businesses. Being fourth is the new being on page two.

This guide is written for UK businesses, from local trades and clinics to law firms, agencies, shops and software companies, but the same principles apply worldwide.

How ChatGPT decides which businesses to recommend

When someone asks ChatGPT for a recommendation, it does not look up a ranking list. It builds an answer from what it knows and what it can find, then names the businesses that appear most often, most clearly and most credibly in those sources. It works in two modes.

In both modes, the same kinds of evidence decide who gets named:

• Independent mentions. Articles, “best of” lists, directories, forums and social posts that name your business for a specific service. This is the strongest signal of all.
• Reviews. Ratings and review text on the platforms ChatGPT can read, which are mostly not Google (more on this in step 7).
• Clarity. Whether it is obvious what you do, where you do it and for whom, using the same words in every place.
• Freshness. Recent news, updated pages and new reviews.
• Relevance and location. How well your evidence matches the exact question and, for local services, where the person is.

Research backs this up. In a study of 75,000 brands, Ahrefs found that the number of times a brand is mentioned across the web was by far the strongest predictor of how often AI answers mention it. It mattered roughly three times more than backlinks, the signal traditional SEO is built on.

Source: Ahrefs study of 75,000 brands and Google AI Overview mentions. These are correlations, not proof of cause, but the pattern is consistent across AI tools.

Why ChatGPT recommends your competitor and not you

Most businesses that ask us this are good at what they do. The problem is almost never quality. It is evidence. Here are the most common reasons, and what each one means.

There is also a reason that has nothing to do with you: ChatGPT’s answers vary. Ask the same question twice and you may see different names. That is why the measuring in step 9 looks at patterns over many questions, not one answer.

People do not type keywords into ChatGPT. They ask full questions, often with context about their situation. “Accountant Manchester” becomes “I’ve just started a limited company in Manchester, which accountants are good for small businesses?” Your first job is to write down 15 to 25 of these questions.

Get the questions from real sources: what customers ask on calls and emails, what your sales team hears, the “People also ask” boxes on Google, and Reddit threads in your sector. Include narrow questions (your service, your town, your specialism) as well as broad ones. Narrow questions are where smaller businesses win first.

Before changing anything, find out where you stand. Open ChatGPT in a private or logged-out window, ask each of your questions, and note the answers. Then do the same in Google’s AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot if you can.

For each question, record:

1. Which businesses are named, and in what order.
2. Whether you appear, and how you are described.
3. Which sources are cited. Click “Sources” in ChatGPT. This is the most valuable part: it shows you exactly which lists, articles, directories and review sites are shaping the answer.

After ten or fifteen questions a pattern appears. The same three or four websites keep being cited: a trade directory, a local “best of” article, a review platform, a Reddit thread, a trade magazine. Those websites are your target list. Getting your business onto them, accurately and positively, is the most direct route into ChatGPT’s answers.

AI tools build a picture of your business by joining up everything written about it. If one directory calls you “Smith & Co Accountants”, another “Smith Accountancy Ltd” and your website “SCA Financial”, ChatGPT may treat these as three businesses, or ignore all of them. Clarity is the foundation every other step stands on.

• One name. Use your exact trading name everywhere: website, Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, Yelp, Facebook, LinkedIn, directories and press.
• One sentence that says what you do. Write a plain description, for example “an independent family law firm in Leeds specialising in divorce and child arrangements”, and reuse it in every profile and bio.
• Service and location in plain words. Put them in your page titles, headings and first paragraphs. Avoid vague phrases such as “solutions” or “excellence” that tell AI nothing.
• Identical contact details. The same address, phone number and website on every listing.
• A proper About page. Founding year, founders, what you do, who you serve, where, awards you have genuinely won, and links to your profiles.
• Structured data. Add Organization or LocalBusiness schema to your site, with your name, address, logo and social profiles, so search engines and AI can confirm the facts.

For individuals, such as founders, consultants and experts, the same applies to your personal name. A Google Knowledge Panel and, where you meet the rules, a Wikipedia page are among the clearest signals of who you are.

You would be surprised how many websites accidentally block AI tools. ChatGPT can only use your pages in live answers if it is allowed to read them, and OpenAI says placement is never guaranteed even then.

Check three things with your web developer:

1. Your robots.txt file does not block these crawlers.
2. Your firewall or CDN, such as Cloudflare, does not block them as “bots”. Some security settings now block AI crawlers by default.
3. Your key content is in plain HTML. Many AI crawlers do not run JavaScript, so services, locations, reviews and FAQs that only appear after scripts load may be invisible to them.

Then submit your site to Bing Webmaster Tools and turn on IndexNow, which tells Bing about new and updated pages straight away. Because ChatGPT search leans on Bing, this is one of the quickest wins available.

When someone asks “who are the best…?”, ChatGPT very often answers by reading articles that already answer that question: “The 10 best wedding photographers in Kent”, “Top PR agencies for startups”, “Best CRM tools for small businesses”. If you are on those lists, you are much more likely to be in the answer.

1. Find the lists. Use the sources ChatGPT cited in step 2, and search Google and Bing for “best [your service] [your town]”.
2. Check the details. If you are already listed, make sure your name, description and link are accurate.
3. Ask to be included. Contact the writer or publisher with a short, factual note: what you do, what makes you different, proof such as reviews, awards or results, and a photo.
4. Earn awards and rankings. Industry awards, “ones to watch” lists and supplier directories all feed the same evidence.
5. Publish honest comparisons yourself. A fair page comparing your approach with the alternatives, including where others may suit better, is often cited because it answers the question people ask.

If mentions are the strongest signal, press coverage is the strongest kind of mention. A feature in a national paper, a trade magazine or a respected regional title tells AI, in an independent voice, who you are and what you are known for. It also tends to rank well on Bing and Google, so ChatGPT finds it during live searches, and it becomes part of the material future models learn from.

The coverage that helps most (our guide on how to get press coverage for your small business shows how to earn it):

• Features and interviews that describe your business and expertise in detail.
• Expert comment in news stories about your sector.
• Press releases about real news: launches, awards, new hires, funding, expansion, research and results.
• Trade press and podcasts in your industry.
• Case studies published by clients, partners or suppliers.

Specific wording matters. A mention that says “Smith & Co, a Leeds family law firm known for child arrangements cases” teaches AI far more than “Smith & Co” on its own. When you send out a press release or give an interview, use your one-sentence description from step 3.

One caution: AI tools increasingly recognise sponsored and low-quality content. Earned, editorial coverage carries the most weight. Our guide to earned vs sponsored coverage explains the difference, and how AI search is changing PR covers the bigger picture.

Reviews are a major signal, but there is a catch most businesses miss: ChatGPT does not read Google reviews directly. It leans on Bing, licensed data from Yelp (since a July 2026 deal with OpenAI) and Reddit, and public review pages such as Trustpilot, Tripadvisor and sector sites. Research on Bing’s business listings found Facebook, Yelp and Tripadvisor were the review sources shown most often. We explain this in full in does ChatGPT use Google reviews?

• Keep Google reviews coming for Google’s own AI Overviews, AI Mode and Gemini, which do read them.
• Spread reviews across other platforms: Trustpilot, Yelp, Facebook recommendations and the main sites for your sector, such as Checkatrade, Doctify, Tripadvisor, Glassdoor or G2.
• Ask for detail. Reviews that mention the service, the place and the result give AI the words it uses to describe you.
• Reply to reviews, calmly and specifically, so the latest word on any complaint is yours.
• Deal with fake reviews quickly. AI summaries look for a “however”, so one dramatic fake review can become a warning attached to your name.

Never write fake reviews or offer hidden rewards for them. Since April 2025, both have been illegal in the UK. If you are targeted by fake or defamatory reviews, we can remove any review from everywhere, from Google and Trustpilot to Glassdoor, Yelp and Reddit. Removal is booked upfront, with a full refund if the review is not removed.

Your own website still matters. It is where AI checks the facts, and well-written pages are cited directly. Write for the questions from step 1, in a way that is easy to quote.

• Answer first. Put a direct, two or three sentence answer at the top of each page, then the detail.
• One topic per page. A page for each service and each main location beats one long page trying to cover everything.
• Use question headings and FAQs that match how people ask, such as “How long does a divorce take in England?”.
• Show real proof. Named case studies with numbers, such as “cut energy bills by 31% for a Birmingham hotel”, give AI concrete facts to repeat.
• Be specific about who you serve: sectors, sizes, locations and problems.
• Keep it fresh. Update key pages when things change and add new content regularly.

Freshness has a measurable effect. An Ahrefs study of 17 million citations found AI assistants cite content that is on average about 25% newer than what ranks in normal Google results, and ChatGPT showed the strongest preference for recent content of all the tools studied. That does not mean changing dates on old pages; it means genuinely updating them and publishing new material, such as news, guides and results.

Because AI answers change from one question to the next, you need a simple monthly routine rather than a one-off check.

1. Re-run your question list from step 1 in ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Gemini, in a private window, on the same day each month.
2. Record a score: how many of your questions name you, your position, and how you are described.
3. Log the sources cited and note any new ones.
4. Check Google Analytics for visits from chatgpt.com, which ChatGPT adds as a source on many of the links it shows.
5. Watch your branded searches in Google Search Console. When AI mentions you more, more people search your name.

Can you advertise on ChatGPT or buy a recommendation?

This is one of the most searched questions on the topic, and the honest answer has two parts.

You cannot buy a place in ChatGPT’s answers. OpenAI says its product results “are not ads” and are selected independently, and that ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives. Any agency promising a guaranteed ChatGPT recommendation is promising something nobody can deliver.

Advertising does now exist, separately. In January 2026 OpenAI announced it would start testing ads in ChatGPT for logged-in adults in the United States on its free and Go plans. Ads appear at the bottom of an answer, clearly labelled and separate from it, and are not shown on Plus, Pro, Business or Enterprise plans. Availability in the UK may follow, but an advert is not the same as being recommended. People can see the difference, and the organic answer is the one they trust.

How to get ChatGPT to recommend your local business

Local recommendations work slightly differently, because ChatGPT uses the person’s approximate location and business listing data from third-party providers. For a plumber, dentist, restaurant, salon or solicitor, focus on:

• Bing Places and Apple Business Connect, completed in full with the same details as your Google Business Profile.
• Yelp and Facebook, now feeding ChatGPT directly or through Bing.
• Your town in plain words on your website, including the areas you cover.
• Local press and local “best of” articles, such as the regional paper, the city lifestyle magazine and the chamber of commerce directory.
• Sector directories, such as Checkatrade, Rated People, Doctify, Law Society Find a Solicitor or Tripadvisor.

Start with the narrowest questions: your exact service in your exact town. Those are the answers a well-reviewed, well-documented local business can win quickly. See our local business reputation management service for help with this.

How to get ChatGPT to recommend your product or online shop

For products, OpenAI is more open about how things work. Its help pages say products appear when ChatGPT judges them relevant to the question, and that merchants are ranked on factors such as availability and quality. Shopify stores are already connected through Shopify Catalog, and other merchants can apply to send OpenAI a product feed.

• Make your product data complete: clear titles, descriptions, sizes, stock and images.
• Earn independent reviews on Trustpilot, retailers and review sites. ChatGPT summarises reviews from public websites.
• Get into comparison articles and “best of” guides written by independent reviewers and the press.
• Answer buyer questions on your product pages, such as who it is for, how it compares and how long delivery takes.

If you sell online, our e-commerce PR team focuses on the reviews and coverage that feed these answers.

What does not work (and can backfire)

How long does it take to get recommended by ChatGPT?

It is a compounding effort. The businesses AI recommends most often are rarely the ones that tried hardest last month; they are the ones that have been consistently visible, reviewed and talked about for the longest.

Does the same work for Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot?

Mostly, yes. The foundations are shared, but each tool has its own favourite sources:

• Google Gemini, AI Overviews and AI Mode lean heavily on Google’s own index, Google Business Profile and Google reviews. Strong traditional Google SEO matters most here.
• Microsoft Copilot is built on Bing, so Bing Places and Bing rankings matter most.
• Perplexity runs its own search and uses Yelp and Tripadvisor data, and often cites recent articles and forums.

Measure each one separately; it is normal to appear in one and not another at first. For the technical side of AI visibility, see how to rank in AI search and what is AI SEO. If an AI tool is saying something wrong about you, start with what ChatGPT says about your business.

How to get ChatGPT to recommend your business: FAQ