How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT

ChatGPT doesn't rank the web. It picks a few names out of the pages it has just read.

A client doesn't type "executive coach Toronto" into ChatGPT. They describe a situation: "I just became a VP and my old peers now report to me. Who can help?" ChatGPT turns that into a few searches, opens the pages it finds, and writes its answer from what they say. Then it names the people and firms whose pages let it answer.

We've watched this on 72 answers about hiring coaches and consultants, and on a new site we launched in another trade. Three things stood out:

• It reads your own site most. 70% of the sources in the hiring answers were the websites of the experts it named, and half of those were homepages.
• It quotes the page that answers. On the new site, ChatGPT named our client first and labelled it "best published sedan price", built from the prices on the client's own page.
• Google rank doesn't decide it. Of the 183 expert websites ChatGPT named, only 11 were in Google's top 10 for the same search.

So the contest is smaller than it looks. You aren't up against every firm on the internet, only the ten or so pages ChatGPT opens for that one question. Most of them don't answer it well.

The full data is in our study, What ChatGPT reads before it recommends an expert.

Four things decide whether you're named. Most businesses miss at least one.

1. 1A site it can read

   ChatGPT has to be able to open your pages. Many sites keep it out without anyone knowing.

   The first thing we check

2. 2The right page

   A page that answers your client's exact question, with facts ChatGPT can compare.

   Where most businesses lose

3. 3Proof that others know you

   Reviews, listings and mentions on the sites ChatGPT trusts in your field.

   Wins "who's the best"

4. 4Answers checked every month

   The same questions, asked again and again, and every enquiry traced back to its source.

   So you can see it move

If ChatGPT can't open your page, the best page in your field won't get you named.

ChatGPT reads the web with its own crawler. Security settings, hosting firewalls and some website builders turn that crawler away, or serve pages it can't read in the few seconds it allows. Nothing on the site looks wrong to you or your visitors. ChatGPT just never sees it.

When the door is open, it moves quickly. On the new site we launched, OpenAI's crawler arrived on day 10. Microsoft's Bing, which many people assume ChatGPT relies on, didn't visit until day 23. ChatGPT had found the site on its own.

This is the first thing we check for every client, because everything else depends on it.

ChatGPT names the page that answers, so that page has to exist.

Your homepage does most of the work

On hiring questions, ChatGPT reads homepages more than any other page. Many experts' homepages open with a slogan like "Unlock your potential", which gives it nothing to repeat. The ones that get named say plainly who they are, who they help, with what, and where.

Situations, not services

Clients describe a situation, so ChatGPT searches for that situation. A page about "leadership coaching" rarely matches. A page about coaching newly promoted VPs does. The experts who get named usually have a page for each situation their best clients are in.

Facts it can repeat

ChatGPT often builds a comparison and quotes whoever gives it the facts to fill it. Here's what that looked like for our client, a transport company, a week after its route page went live:

Experts have facts like these too: the kinds of clients they've worked with, what changed for them, how an engagement runs, their background. Most keep them off their site, and ChatGPT names someone who didn't.

For "who's the best" questions, ChatGPT stops reading pages and starts counting reputation.

Our client won its specific questions within weeks, and it lost the broad one. Asked for the best company of its kind in the country, ChatGPT read 12 sites, all of them established firms, and named one with years of reviews. On a tour question, the companies it picked had between about 90 and 300 reviews each. Our client had 17.

On those questions, ChatGPT goes to review platforms, directories, editorial "best of" lists and the press. Which ones count depends on the field. In our hiring answers it used Clutch for management consultants, CoachVouch for executive coaches and Find Finance Pros for fractional CFOs.

It also needs to recognise you across those sites. If your name, profession and clients read differently on your site, your LinkedIn and your listings, it may not connect them. This part takes months, which is why we start it early.

ChatGPT's answers move, so one check tells you little.

In our hiring answers, 16 of the 28 executive coaches ChatGPT named came up only once in nine answers. Ask once and you may see a name that never comes back. That's why we ask every question three times, every month, and judge on how often you're named.

There's also a difference between being read and being named. ChatGPT often lists a site among its sources without naming the business in the answer. Only the name in the answer brings a client.

Most analytics tools can't see ChatGPT either. They count its visitors as "direct", so the enquiries it sends look like they came from nowhere. We trace every enquiry back to where it came from, which is how we know the numbers below.

Days for a specific question on a clear page. Months for "who's the best".

Most agencies answer "how long?" with "a few weeks to a few months". Here is what we saw on our client's new site, day by day, from the day it went live:

Google was moving too, more slowly. After five weeks the site's main searches sat between 58th and 97th place on Google, which is normal for a new domain. Google builds trust over months.

Experts move on a different clock, because their clients' questions are broader and their name has to connect across several sites. With our first Canadian client, Vanessa Kay of The Kay Media, ChatGPT named her company first in all 15 answers to her clients' questions about ten weeks after she signed. The details are on our results page.

A client who arrives from ChatGPT has usually already decided.

By the time someone clicks through from a ChatGPT answer, they've described their situation, read a short comparison and seen why you were named. They aren't browsing. Most of Google's clicks were people looking up the company's name. ChatGPT's were people who had asked who could do the job and came to book.

For a firm or an expert, one well-matched client can be worth months of fees. On a short list of four to seven names, you're one of very few people the client will contact. Off it, they may never know you exist.

Either it never read you, or it read you and preferred someone else.

The second row is the most common one we see. The competitor usually isn't better known. Their page just says what they do in plainer words. Your capture shows which of these applies to you.

No. There are now two contests, with different rules, and you want to win both.

Google ranks pages on trust it builds over months, mostly from links and a site's history. ChatGPT picks a few names out of the pages it has just read, and rewards the page that answers best. A new site can win in ChatGPT within weeks while it's still far down on Google.

You still need Google. People who hear about you check you there, and the reviews and mentions that win the broad questions in ChatGPT help on Google too. What changes is the order: clear pages can bring enquiries from ChatGPT first, while the Google work builds underneath. We work on both together. Our pages on SEO for independent experts and SEO for consulting firms cover the Google side.

We do all four for you, and show you the answers every month.

1. We ask ChatGPT your clients' questions. In their words, three times each, and show you every answer, every name and every source. That's the free capture.
2. We make sure it can read you. We check that ChatGPT gets in and sees your pages whole, and fix what's in the way.
3. We write the pages it's missing. Your homepage first, then a page for each situation your best clients are in, built on your own facts.
4. We get you known where your field is read. The listings, directories and publications ChatGPT uses for your profession.
5. We report every month. The same questions, three times each, and which enquiries came from ChatGPT.

Nobody can sell you a place in the answer, and we don't promise one. You see the answers yourself, every month, and judge whether it's moving.

See what ChatGPT says about you

It's free and private. Or book a free 20-minute call.

What people ask us about getting recommended.