Free guide in six steps

How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT and other AI

Plenty of buyers now ask an AI which business to call, and it usually names a handful. This guide shows you how to check whether you're one of them and what to change if you're not. It's free, and you can do all of it yourself over about a month.

Step 1 of 6

Ask AI about your own business

Start by asking the questions your buyers ask. Open ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini, each in a new chat, and use a private window or a temporary chat so your history doesn't colour the answer. Fill in the brackets, then ask each question in each one.

Who are the best [your trade] in [your suburb or city]?

I need [the job you do] near [suburb]. Who should I call, and why?

Which [your trade] in [city] would you recommend for [a specific job you want more of]?

What do people say about [your business name] in [suburb]?

Compare [your business name] with [a competitor you know]. Which would you choose?

Copy every answer into one document. For each, write down three things: whether it named you, who it named instead, and whether it showed any sources underneath. Read what the AI said about each business it named, because that's what your buyer read.

Your task

Run the questions above by hand, or let Are you found by AI? do a first check for you. The free scan asks two buyer questions on two AI engines and shows whether you were named and who was named instead. It takes about a minute and needs no sign-up or card.

Step 2 of 6

Find out why AI named someone else

When an AI searches the web before it answers, it usually lists the pages it used. Perplexity shows them as numbered sources under the answer. ChatGPT shows links when it searches, and Google's AI Overviews show them beside the summary. Those sources tell you which sites AI trusts for your market.

Go back through your answers from step 1 and list every source. Most will be directories, review sites, industry associations, local news or your competitors' own pages. Then sort them into three groups: sites you're already on, sites you could get onto, and sites you can't do anything about.

Look for the sites that come up again and again. When the same directory is cited across several answers for your trade and area, AI is leaning on it for your market, and it's the first place to be listed properly.

Your task

Write down the five sources that appear most often. You'll use this list in step 4. The full Are you found by AI? report counts the sources each engine cited for your buyer questions, so you can see the same thing across all seven engines at once.

Step 3 of 6

Tell AI exactly who you are

AI can only recommend a business it can identify with confidence. Give it one name, one address, one phone number and one website, and make them match everywhere: your own site, your Google Business Profile, every directory and every social profile. An old address on one directory or a different phone number on Facebook makes you harder to match.

Then add organisation schema to your homepage. It's a short block of code that states your official name, ABN, address and profiles in a format machines read directly. Fill in the generator below, copy the result, and paste it into the <head> section of your homepage, or send it to whoever manages your website.

What kind of business is it?

Business name, as customers know it

Registered name

Website

ABN

Phone

Street address (leave blank if you don't publish one)

Suburb

State

Postcode

Your official profiles, one link per line

Paste this into the <head> of your homepage

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "LocalBusiness"
}
</script>

Nothing you type here leaves your browser. The code is built on this page and we don't store it.

Your task

Fix any mismatched details you found, add the schema, then test your homepage in the Schema.org validator to check the code reads correctly.

Step 4 of 6

Get mentioned where AI reads

Your own website is one voice. AI also reads what other sites say about you, which is why step 2 matters. Take your list of five sources and work through it:

Claim or create your listing on each directory that was cited, using exactly the same details as your schema.
Ask recent customers who were happy with your work to leave a review on the review sites that appeared.
If an industry association or chamber of commerce was cited, join it and fill in your member listing.
If local news was cited, offer that outlet a short, useful story about your work or your area.

Your task

Get three listings or mentions live this month, and note the date each one went up. That's how you'll tell, in step 6, whether it made a difference.

Step 5 of 6

Answer your buyers' questions on your own site

When AI reads your website, it looks for plain answers to the question it was asked. Many good websites never say plainly what the business does, where, and for whom. Take the questions from step 1 and make sure your site answers each one in the first couple of sentences of a page, in words a customer would use.

A frequently asked questions page built from real customer questions helps, and so do price ranges, service areas by suburb, and how long a typical job takes. Also check your robots.txt file doesn't block the crawlers AI companies use, such as GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot. If they can't read your site, they can't quote it.

Your task

Rewrite one page so it answers your most valuable buyer question in its first two sentences. Then run the free scan again a few weeks after the change and compare it with your first result.

Step 6 of 6

Check again every week

AI answers change. The engines update, competitors publish new pages, and directories come and go. Pick one day a week, ask the questions from step 1 again, and keep one line per week: whether you were named, who was named instead, and any new sources. After a month you'll see whether your changes moved anything.

If you'd rather not do it by hand, the paid plan on Are you found by AI? asks your buyer questions across all seven AI engines every week, tracks which competitors are named instead of you, and emails you a short summary of what changed. You can also connect your own AI, such as Claude, to your results and ask it what to do next.

Your task

Put a weekly reminder in your calendar and log your first week today.

Where to go from here

Check where you stand now

Two questions on two AI engines, about a minute, no sign-up.

Run the free scan

Have it done for you

Tech Horizon Labs does this work for Australian businesses, from the schema and listings to the pages themselves.

Talk to Tech Horizon Labs

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Want more to work with? The academy's prompt library and Claude skills are free too, and the GEO guide goes deeper on finding the questions your buyers ask.