How to Show Up in AI Search (and Get ChatGPT to Recommend Your Business)

A new student asked me some questions last week that a lot of small business owners are also wondering:

• How do I show up in AI searches?
• Why don't I show up, and why do other people show up instead of me?
• What's wrong with my website?
• And how complicated is it to fix it so I'll start to show up in AI search?

She'd already asked ChatGPT. Then she joined Simple SEO Content so she could learn what it would take to help her business be found when people searched with AI.

 

If you've ever typed "best [your service] near me" into ChatGPT and not seen your name, this guide is for you. We'll cover how AI decides who to recommend, the plan I give my students, and where to go deeper on each piece.

 

How AI decides who to recommend to searchers

AI tools aren't choosing their favorite, or even the business that's necessarily the best answer. They're recommending the businesses that have helped them understand what they do and who they help by doing AI SEO on their sites. ChatGPT combines what the model learned in training with live web results for current or commercial questions, and also uses outside sources like your website, other media sites, Wikipedia, review sites, forums like Reddit (though their visibility in AI search recently dropped significantly with an algorithm update), and LinkedIn to figure out which business is best to share with the searcher.

 

Google's AI works a little differently. Its own guidance says optimizing for its AI features is still SEO, because they rely on the same search systems. Google says there's no need to use other terms such as AI SEO, GEO, or AEO; it's all simply SEO, but I've personally found that most small business owners like and use the terms AI SEO or AI Search. It seems that AEO and GEO are more marketing industry terms.

 

AI search is looking for two things when deciding who to share in a response:

1. Businesses it can clearly understand
2. Businesses other people recommend or vouch for

 

AI search doesn't give just one answer. In one study, when buyers asked ChatGPT for the best real estate agent in their city, it named a median of six businesses (Omni Eclipse, 2026 Real Estate AI Search Report). So instead of fighting for one spot, you have several chances to be included. If you can be one of those options, new customers who don't know you yet can find your business.

 

How to show up in AI search: the plan for your small business

 

Step 1: Find out if your business is showing up in AI search right now

Log out of ChatGPT, then ask several questions your ideal customer would ask. For Claude, you can't search while logged out, but you can use an incognito chat. Start a new chat (outside of a project), click the ghost icon in the upper right corner, and look for the black border and "Incognito chat" label. Incognito chats aren't saved to your chat history or Claude's memory, so Claude won't use what it already knows about you.

 

Don't use your business name. You're checking whether the AI search tool connects your business with your niche when customers search.

Ask questions like:

• "Who's a good [your service] in [your city]?"
• "I need help with [problem you solve]. Who should I talk to?"
• "What should I look for in a [your profession]?"

 

You want to make sure you're logged out because the AI tools you use regularly know a lot about you and your business and will likely include you in the response. You want to know what happens if someone who doesn't know you searches for a business like yours. Will they find you or the competition?

 

Then you want to do the same thing with Google so you can see where you show up in the AI Overviews or AI Mode. With Google, like with AI search, your personal search history will impact your results so you want to open an Incognito Browser Window before doing your search.

 

Now ask those same questions in Google to see what the AI results show.

• "Who's a good [your service] in [your city]?"
• "I need help with [problem you solve]. Who should I talk to?"
• "What should I look for in a [your profession]?"

 

If you're curious about how you show up for the keywords related to the searches on Google? You can adjust your search slightly and use the keywords instead of the question, or you can simply copy the question and search with it too. Either should work, and they may show slightly different results. A lot of keywords are actually questions and have been for years; this isn't new because of AI search.

 

Search terms like:

• Your service in your city
• X problem you solve
• How to find X profession

 

Write down who shows up in ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity (if you want to look at all three) and then who shows up in the Google AI Overview (at the top of the page) or Google AI Mode (the AI search results). These are your competitors for these searches.

 

Check each tool separately. Only about 11% of domains are cited by both ChatGPT and Perplexity, so showing up in one doesn't mean you'll show up everywhere. It's good to know where you show up now and where you don't so you can track your results as you work on increasing your visibility in AI search.

 

Step 2: Make it easy for AI search to understand and share your website

Your website should say who you are, what you do, who you serve, and where you're located if you serve a local area. It needs to be super easy to understand and answer those questions when someone first finds your site. If they land on your homepage and can't answer who you help, how you help them, and where you're located within the first 5-10 seconds, you'll lose visitors, and AI search won't share your site with searchers.

 

Use the words your ideal customer uses; skip the industry jargon. If you have to define terms in your text, you probably should use a different word, one that your customer is more familiar with.

 

Make sure all of the important information on your page is in text that's visible to the reader, not hidden inside pictures, sliders, or pop-ups. It's easier for both potential customers and search engines to understand who your website helps and how if you include copy on the pages they can read.

 

Most of these fixes are small, but they matter. If you're not showing up in AI search, you may be wondering what's wrong with your website. I'll walk you through that in another post very soon. There are changes you need to make to your site to help it be easier for AI search to understand.

 

If you want to learn how people are getting clients from AI Search, here's a blog post and podcast episode that will help you understand how it all works.

 

Step 3: Complete your Google Business Profile if you have one for your business

If you serve a local area, this one is big. In real estate, most of the sources ChatGPT cites for its agent picks are the agent's own website and their Google Business Profile, not Zillow, Realtor.com, or other sites.

 

You can help optimize your Google Business Profile by filling out every section, choosing accurate categories, and adding your services to your listing. Make sure your name, address, and phone number match everywhere they appear online; this is important for AI search in particular. It's looking for information about your business and wants it to match what it's found in other areas.

 

I have a blog post and podcast episode on how to do SEO on your Google Business Profile; read or listen here to learn what you need to do today to help you be more visible on Google Maps and in AI search.

 

Step 4: Consistently build Google Business Profile Reviews to help with AI Search visibility

When people are using AI search, the results often come from a mix of sources including your website, your Google Business Profile Reviews, Yelp reviews, LinkedIn, and other sources across the web. AI Search doesn't just rely on your website to tell how amazing you are because, well, people can claim they're amazing and not be… we've all seen that, right? AI Search compiles information about your business from different sources to help it understand how people feel about you, in addition to how you feel about your business. These are referred to as citations by AI Search.

 

What you need to do is try to increase the number of positive citations you have for your business in order to help boost your visibility in AI Search.

 

Ask every happy client for a review. Send a direct link. You can find your direct link by going to your Google Business Profile listing; in the right column, Google will show you what your link is. Ask them to mention the service they got and the result, because specific reviews give AI more to work with.

 

Here's a blog post and podcast episode that walks you through how to get more Google Business Profile reviews.

 

If there are other industry-specific review sites or local review sites such as Yelp that you have a profile on, it's good to try to build reviews there too. The more positive reviews your business has, the better it will help boost your AI visibility.

 

Step 5: Get your business mentioned in other places to help boost your AI search visibility

Just as reviews help you, mentions on other sites help your business too. AI trusts you more when other people talk about your business. Choose a few of these options and focus on them; you don't have to be everywhere all the time to be successful with AI search.

 

Ideas that can help with AI search visibility include:

• Be a guest on podcasts your clients listen to
• Get on local or industry "best of" lists
• Write guest articles for sites your clients read
• Join professional directories in your field
• Show up on LinkedIn or in communities where your clients ask questions

 

Lists are interesting because we're seeing Listicles show up more often in AI search. For a while, Google demoted them in the search results, but AI is relying more heavily on them. I'm not sure if Google will start looking at Listicles more positively, but AI currently likes them. Their visibility was impacted by the Helpful Content Algorithm Update a few years ago.

 

Step 6: Answer your clients' questions with content

Think about what people always ask on discovery calls, during webinars, before buying from you, or when you meet with them in person. Answer each question clearly with a blog post, a podcast episode, or a section on a service page. This blog post idea came from a question I received from a new student when I asked what questions do you have about how to get found on AI search? Start with your paying clients, ask them what questions they had before hiring you. Go through your discovery or consult calls if you have them and pull out the questions that you get asked. Brainstorm a list of questions and make sure you've answered them either on your blog or podcast.

 

Put these answers on your blog or podcast, not only in social posts. AI search doesn't read most of what you post on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. It may see your profile details on some platforms, but not your posts. The exceptions are LinkedIn, Reddit, and Substack, which AI search does read and cite. If you use Substack, keep your posts public; paywalled Substack archives get cited far less, because AI can't read what's behind the paywall.

 

State the question, answer it fully, and explain why it matters. Google especially wants unique, high-quality content that includes anecdotes, statistics, stories, things that AI can't share because AI is a summary of everything available, and you are bringing your unique perspective and experience to the piece. Google recently defined this as non-commodity content. To learn more about the type of content Google wants you to create if you want to be visible, read this blog post or listen to the podcast episode. AI Search isn't going to reference you either if all you have is content it already has and knows. You have to give them a reason to share your information with searchers.

 

Step 7: Find out if you're showing up in AI search and track your data

With any marketing channel, you want to make sure that what you're doing is working. There's no point in spending time creating content, optimizing it, and adding it to your website if it's not bringing customers into your world. You need to remember that it won't necessarily happen overnight, but you should see results within the first year. In my experience, AI Search works faster than Google, and I'm seeing students and clients start generating leads in less than 12 months.

 

You can find out if what you're doing to show up in AI search is working by looking in a few places. If you're using Clicky Analytics (affiliate link, I may get a little commission but it costs you nothing more) you can find your AI Search traffic information right on the home screen. You can see which AI Search engines are sending you traffic and which pages people are visiting. If you have Goal Tracking set up too, then you can see which visitors are turning into leads and customers too.

 

Google recently added Generative AI performance reports in Search Console for all websites. These new reports show impressions for AI Overviews and AI Mode.

 

If you have an intake form or ask new customers where they found you, be sure to add ChatGPT, Claude, or AI Search so you can track that information too.

If you want to figure out if AI Search is sending you traffic, here's a post and podcast episode that walk you through how to find the answer.

 

Why do other businesses show up instead of me?

This is the question that can be the most frustrating, especially when you're trying to figure out how to show up in AI Search. If you do the visibility check I talked about earlier in this piece and find that you don't show up, it can sting a bit. But it's not the end of the world. You can start to show up in AI Search by focusing on the items I've talked about in this post.

 

I work with entrepreneurs on this every week in Simple SEO Content. We work to figure out which questions they need to answer on their websites, optimize their Google Business Profiles, and build citations to help increase their AI Search visibility; in return, a lot of them are starting to generate leads and get clients from AI Search.

 

Jane recently got a new 1:1 client by doing this work on her site. The client was searching for information on how to explain binge eating to her partner and asked ChatGPT for resources. ChatGPT searched and shared Jane's podcast episode on how to explain binge eating to your partner as one of the answers. The searcher listened to the episode, and then went to Jane's site to learn more about working with her. She signed up to work with Jane 1:1 for several months and paid $5,000, all because ChatGPT connected her with the podcast episode Jane had created to answer the question she had.

 If you're not showing up when people are searching on AI, and your competition is, they're going to get the client, not you. Let me show you how to do what Jane's done so you can get the client the next time someone is searching for information on AI. Join me in Simple SEO Content here.

 

How complicated is this, really?

The website part is generally pretty simple. I walk students through what to do on their websites over the first 6 weeks we work together in Simple SEO Content. The actual fixes for AI Search don't take that long to implement, once you know what changes you need to make.

 

The ongoing work, like building citations, mentions, reviews, and content that answers the right questions, is what we work together on over the course of time. It isn't hard or complicated, but it does require consistency over time to get results.

 

If you want to work on this with me, I'd love to guide you through it like I've helped others. We can work on it one-on-one,  or you can join Simple SEO Content, the group program. Either way, I'll show you what your website needs in order for people to find your business on AI search.

Learn more about working with me one-on-one here.

Or find out more about the group program here.

Either way, I'll guide you through what to do on your website page-by-page.

 

Are there things people say matter for AI Search that you don't really need to do?

Yes, I think because AI Search is still new, we're still kind of figuring out what matters and what doesn't. We don't have a lot of information from the AI tools about how they actually perform searches, so people are working to piece it together. When ChatGPT first came out a couple of years ago, the training on it for the SEO industry included reading the patents to help us understand how it worked…. It was not user-friendly at all.

 

Google published its first official guidance on AI Search in 2026 and gave us some insights that are truly helpful. They said you don't need an llms.txt file on your site, you don't need special schema markup just for AI search, and you don't need to rewrite everything for AI. Schema is still useful for your overall SEO, so keep using it; there's just no special "AI schema" you need to add. If you're creating non-commodity content, you are creating the type of content that AI Search is looking for. If you're curious what Google says about AI Search, you can read their guidelines here.

 

Continue to create great content, provide value to your reader, answer their questions, and be helpful in your responses, and you should be able to build your AI Search visibility. It takes time; stay consistent and focus on what makes a difference. You don't have to do everything. Be careful who you learn from, and make sure they know what they're talking about; they're not simply guessing or telling you what they think matters. There's a lot of incorrect information out there. You don't want to waste your time doing things that won't work.

 

Is AI Search or AI SEO really just SEO?

Honestly, Yes. Google outright stated that, in their opinion, it's all just the next iteration of SEO and there's no need to use another term for it. Within the marketing and SEO industry, people can't seem to agree on what they want to call it. Some like GEO, others prefer AEO; I personally have used AI SEO because I think it's easier for non-marketers to understand what it is and that it's doing things for AI Search, not just Google. The bottom line is that what works for Google SEO also works for AI SEO or AI Search in most cases. We just do a bit more for AI Search.

 

If you've been working on SEO, you'll be ahead of your competitors who haven't done anything.

If you want an easy starter plan for Google and ChatGPT (or any AI Search) SEO, here's a blog post and podcast episode I created for you.

If you're curious whether AI SEO or SEO is more important for your business, here's a blog post and podcast episode that answer that question too.

 

Your next steps for AI Search for your business

Just like Google, AI recommends businesses it understands and trusts. Help it understand your business with a clear, easy-to-read website, great content that helps your ideal customer, and consistent publishing so that when someone searches, your business shows up in AI Search.

 

Let's work on it together either one-on-one or in a small group inside Simple SEO Content. I'd love to help you, whichever option is best for you and your business.