How to get your business found in ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI answers

People now ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Google's AI Overviews questions like “who fixes furnaces in North York?” The answer lists a few businesses, sometimes with links. Nobody can promise a place in those answers, but you can make your business easy to find, understand and quote.

What AI assistants read

When they search the web, AI assistants mostly read what search engines already index: your website, your Google Business Profile, directory listings, reviews and articles that mention you. They favour pages that state facts clearly. Who you are, what you do, where you work, and for whom.

Say the facts plainly on your site

• Put your business name, service area and main services in plain words near the top of the home page.
• Give each main service its own page, with the questions customers ask answered on it.
• Use the same name, address and phone number everywhere: your site, your Google profile and directories.
• Write answers in full sentences that make sense on their own, so they can be quoted.

Add structured data

Schema markup is a block of code that tells search engines, in a fixed format, what a page is about: a local business, a service, an FAQ. It doesn't change what visitors see. It removes guesswork for the machines reading the page.

Keep your Google Business Profile complete

Fill in every field: categories, services, hours, service area and photos. Reply to reviews. Google's own AI answers draw on this profile, and it is often the first thing shown for local searches.

Consider an llms.txt file

llms.txt is a short text file at the root of your site that summarizes who you are and links to your key pages, written for AI tools. It is a new and informal convention, not a ranking factor anyone has confirmed. It is cheap to add and does no harm.

Make the site fast and easy to read

Slow, script-heavy pages are harder for everyone to read, including crawlers. A fast, mobile-first site with clear headings serves customers and machines alike.

Check where you stand

Ask the assistants yourself. Try “best [your service] in [your area]” in ChatGPT, Gemini and Google, and note who is mentioned and which pages they cite. Repeat every month or two; it shows what to improve better than any tool.