ChatGPT SEO means getting your business named when a customer asks ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews or Gemini in Maps for “a good garage in Sherbrooke.” Nobody publishes the recipe. Here is what Google and OpenAI confirm, and what’s in your hands.
How does ChatGPT choose the businesses it names?
Nobody knows. According to OpenAI, ChatGPT can search the web, links to what it read and can take your town into account to suggest nearby businesses. OpenAI doesn’t say how it chooses. A guaranteed spot in ChatGPT is not something anyone can sell.
Google only cites what it can read
According to Google, its AI Overviews rely on regular search. For a page on your site to be cited there, it has to show up in regular search already. Nothing extra to install.
If a site went live with a “don’t show in Google” box checked, Google can’t cite it, even with a perfect profile.
In Maps, Gemini reads your profile and your reviews
A customer can ask Gemini in Maps whether there’s parking, when you close or what the place is like. According to Google, Gemini answers from Business Profiles and reviews.
Your Google Business Profile is still the starting point. Our guide to Google Business Profile optimization takes it field by field.
What AI SEO specialists have noticed
What follows comes from Search Engine Journal and BrightLocal. Neither Google nor OpenAI has confirmed it.
The same contact details everywhere. AI compares your profile, your site, your Facebook page and directories. A phone number that differs from one place to the next casts doubt.
Reviews that tell a story. Review text is used to describe a business in an answer. “They put my tires on in 30 minutes on a Saturday” says more than five stars.
The profile first. BrightLocal starts from the same place in its small business guide: an up-to-date Google Business Profile and replies to reviews.
Do directories matter?
Yes, according to BrightLocal. Yellow Pages, your town’s site, your association’s site: your name often shows up there without you knowing.
BrightLocal found close to two million business mentions there. Check the directories where your name already appears.
A page that answers the phone for you
According to Search Engine Journal, a page that clearly says which services you offer and in which towns gives AI something specific to repeat. The Joliette plumber writes: “Drain cleaning, water heaters, bathroom renovations. Joliette, Saint-Charles-Borromée, Notre-Dame-des-Prairies.”
Five checks to run tonight
Tonight, in 30 minutes
- Type your business name into Google. Your site doesn’t show up? Ask whoever built it whether it’s blocked.
- Open your Google Business Profile. Category, hours, services, photos: is it all accurate today?
- Compare name, address and phone across your site, your profile, Facebook and directories.
- Reply to the reviews waiting for you, the good and the not-so-good.
- Reread your services page. Can a stranger tell in ten seconds what you do and where?
None of these sources promises a result, and neither do we. Every month, we get your site ready for ChatGPT and other assistants, included in the base price.
Want to know where your business stands? Request your free preview.