How to Get Your Business Recommended by ChatGPT

ChatGPT has fundamentally changed how millions of people discover businesses. Users are no longer just scrolling through ten blue links on Google. They are asking direct questions like “What is the best marketing agency in Honolulu?” or “Can you recommend a good plumber near Waikiki?” and receiving specific business recommendations in return.

If ChatGPT is not mentioning your business when users ask about your industry in your area, you are invisible to a rapidly growing segment of potential customers. At Nekko Digital, we help businesses engineer their online presence so that AI assistants recognize and recommend them.

We have seen this shift firsthand in our recent client work. The traditional rules of SEO are evolving into something new.

Here is how the process works and how you can adapt.

Understanding How ChatGPT Makes Recommendations

You need to understand how the platform decides which businesses to mention before you can influence it. ChatGPT draws from two primary sources to construct its answers.

Training data ChatGPT was trained on a massive corpus of text from the internet, including websites, articles, reviews, forums, and social media. If your business was mentioned positively across these sources before the training data cutoff, the AI has a foundational awareness of your brand.

Real-time search (with browsing) When ChatGPT uses its web browsing capability, it searches the internet in real time and synthesizes current information. This is where your ongoing digital presence becomes critical.

The specific mechanism often involves Bing. Since OpenAI partners with Microsoft, ChatGPT frequently pulls live local data from Bing Search and Bing Places. If you ignore your presence on Microsoft’s platforms, you risk being excluded from these real-time answers.

The key insight is this: ChatGPT does not randomly choose which businesses to recommend. It draws from the same signals that indicate authority and relevance across the internet.

Strategy 1: Build a Strong Brand Mention Footprint

The volume and quality of your brand mentions across the web are among the most powerful factors influencing AI recommendations. When your business name appears frequently in credible contexts, AI systems learn to associate your brand with your area of expertise.

We call this “Entity Salience.” The goal is to make your business name synonymous with your service category in the eyes of the AI.

Here is how to build your mention footprint:

• Earn press coverage: Get featured in local publications like Honolulu Magazine, Hawaii Business Magazine, Pacific Business News, and local news outlets.
• Contribute guest articles: Write expert pieces for industry blogs and publications that mention your business and expertise.
• Participate in podcasts: Appear on industry and local podcasts where your brand is mentioned and discussed.
• Engage in community events: Sponsor and participate in local events that generate online coverage.
• Build partnerships: Collaborate with complementary businesses and earn mentions on their websites.

Each mention creates a data point that AI systems can discover and use when generating recommendations. The more authoritative the source of the mention, the more weight it carries.

Mentions vs. Links: A Quick Comparison

Feature	Traditional SEO (Google)	GEO (ChatGPT/AI)
Primary Signal	Hyperlinks (Backlinks)	Contextual Mentions (Text)
Value Source	Domain Authority of linker	Sentiment & context of text
Goal	Higher rank on a list	Direct citation in an answer

Strategy 2: Create Comprehensive, Expert Content

AI models favor content that demonstrates genuine expertise. Thin, keyword-stuffed pages will not earn AI recommendations.

Your content must position you as the definitive authority on your core topics. This concept is often referred to as “Information Gain.” Google and AI models prioritize content that adds new value rather than just summarizing what is already out there.

For each of your primary services or areas of expertise, develop content that:

• Answers questions comprehensively: Cover every aspect of the topic, from beginner basics to advanced nuances.
• Includes specific data and examples: AI systems are drawn to concrete facts, statistics, and real-world examples.
• Demonstrates original insight: Share perspectives, strategies, or knowledge that cannot be found on every other website about the topic.
• Uses clear, quotable language: Write sentences that AI can extract and present as direct answers.

This approach aligns with the broader discipline of generative engine optimization, which is about making your content the preferred source for AI-generated answers.

Strategy 3: Optimize Your Reviews and Social Proof

When ChatGPT recommends businesses, it often references review ratings and customer sentiment. A strong review profile across Google, Yelp, and other platforms signals to AI systems that your business is trusted and well-regarded.

Yelp is particularly important for the Apple ecosystem and often feeds data into various AI aggregators. Ignoring platforms outside of Google can leave a gap in your visibility.

Actionable steps include:

• Maintain a Google review rating of 4.5 stars or higher.
• Generate a steady flow of new reviews (recency matters to AI models).
• Respond professionally to all reviews, demonstrating customer care.
• Build a presence on multiple review platforms relevant to your industry.

For a detailed guide on building your review presence, see our reputation management guide.

Strategy 4: Establish Topical Authority Through Content Clusters

AI systems evaluate authority at the topic level rather than just the page level. If your website has a single blog post about “digital marketing,” ChatGPT is unlikely to view you as an authority on the subject.

We advise clients to build “semantic webs” of content. If your website has a comprehensive content cluster covering digital marketing strategy, SEO techniques, content marketing, paid advertising, analytics, and case studies, the AI will recognize your depth of coverage.

Build content clusters around your core service areas:

1. Create a pillar page that provides a comprehensive overview of the topic.
2. Develop supporting articles that explain subtopics in detail.
3. Interlink everything so the relationships between pages are clear.
4. Update regularly to keep the content current and demonstrate ongoing expertise.

Strategy 5: Leverage Structured Data and Entity Signals

Help AI systems understand exactly what your business is, what you do, and where you operate by implementing comprehensive structured data on your website. This code, known as Schema markup, acts as a native language for search engines and AI bots.

One critical, often overlooked tag is the “SameAs” property. This tells the AI that your website, your LinkedIn profile, and your Crunchbase listing are all the same entity.

Key schema types to implement:

• Organization schema: Your business name, logo, founding date, and key personnel.
• LocalBusiness schema: Address, phone number, hours, and service area.
• Article schema: On all blog posts and content pages.
• FAQ schema: On pages that answer common questions.
• Review schema: Aggregate review ratings where appropriate.

These structured signals help AI systems categorize your business accurately and recommend you in the right contexts.

Strategy 6: Maintain an Active Digital Presence

AI systems with real-time browsing capabilities favor businesses that are actively publishing and engaging online. A website that has not been updated in two years sends a signal that the information may be outdated.

You must also claim and update your Bing Places for Business profile. Since ChatGPT relies heavily on Bing’s index for local queries, an unclaimed or empty Bing profile is a major liability.

Keep your digital presence active by:

• Publishing new blog content at least twice per month.
• Keeping your Google and Bing Business Profiles updated with fresh posts and photos.
• Maintaining active social media profiles with regular engagement.
• Updating your website content to reflect current services, pricing, and information.

Testing Your AI Visibility

You can audit your current AI visibility by conducting searches in ChatGPT and other AI tools like Perplexity or Google Gemini.

Try these types of queries:

• “What is the best [your industry] in [your city]?”
• “Can you recommend a [your service] provider in [your area]?”
• “What companies specialize in [your niche] in [your region]?”
• “Who are the top [your industry] experts?”

Document where you appear and where you do not. This baseline helps you measure progress as you implement your GEO strategy.

The Compounding Effect of AI Visibility

AI visibility compounds over time, unlike paid advertising which stops producing results the moment you stop paying. Every authoritative mention, every piece of expert content, and every positive review adds to the cumulative signal that AI systems use to evaluate your business.

The earlier you start building these signals, the stronger your position becomes. We have observed that businesses establishing these signals now are effectively “future-proofing” their digital presence for the next generation of search.

Start Building Your AI Search Presence

At Nekko Digital, we help businesses build the kind of digital presence that earns recommendations from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other AI search tools. Our generative engine optimization services are designed to make your brand the go-to recommendation in your industry.

You can take the first step today.

Contact us for a free AI visibility audit and find out whether ChatGPT is already recommending your business or your competitors.

Related reading:

• What Is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?
• Google AI Overviews: How to Get Your Content Featured
• SEO vs. GEO: Do You Need Both?