How to Get Your Business Recommended by ChatGPT

Ask ChatGPT "where can I buy quality leather bags in Accra?" and it won't give you ten pages of links. It gives you a few names, sometimes with a reason for each. If your business isn't one of them, you don't exist to that buyer.

More and more buyers start their search this way. Here's how AI assistants decide who to recommend, and what you can do about it.

How ChatGPT and other assistants find businesses

AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews build answers in two ways:

1. From what they learnt in training: a huge amount of public text from the web.
2. From live search: when they search the web for current information, read the top results and summarise them.

Either way, they recommend businesses they can find clear, consistent, trustworthy information about. If the facts about you are thin, scattered or contradictory, they skip you or describe you wrongly.

Step 1: Check what AI says about you now

Open ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google, and ask the questions your buyers ask:

• "What's the best [your product or service] in [your city]?"
• "Where can I buy [your product] in Ghana?"
• "What is [your business name]?"
• "Is [your business name] legit?"

Write down what each one says. Are you mentioned? Are the facts right? Who is recommended instead, and why?

Step 2: Make your facts consistent everywhere

AI assistants trust facts that agree across sources. Make sure your business name, address, phone number, opening hours, services, areas served and founder are identical on:

• Your website.
• Your Google Business Profile. See how to set up Google Business Profile.
• Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok.
• Directories and listings.

One old phone number on a directory can confuse an AI's picture of you.

Step 3: Write pages that answer questions directly

AI assistants quote pages that answer questions clearly. That means:

• A clear statement of what you are, near the top of your about page. "MediaWura is a sales and marketing agency in Accra, Ghana, founded in 2025."
• A page for each service, saying what it is, who it's for and where you offer it.
• FAQ sections with real questions and direct answers.
• Facts in plain text, not hidden in images.

Write the answer first, then the explanation. See website copywriting.

Step 4: Add structured data

Structured data, or schema markup, is code that tells search engines and AI exactly what your page is about: your organisation, your services, your FAQs, your reviews. It removes guesswork. See SEO for small businesses.

Step 5: Let AI crawlers in

Some websites accidentally block AI crawlers in their robots.txt file. Check yours allows the bots used by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Perplexity and others. Consider adding an llms.txt file, a plain summary of your business written for AI. See what llms.txt is.

Step 6: Get mentioned on sites AI trusts

AI assistants don't just read your website. They read what others say about you:

• Reviews on Google and other platforms. See Google reviews.
• News articles and interviews.
• Industry directories and "best of" lists.
• Guest articles and partnerships.
• Forums and community discussions.

The more independent, credible sources that describe you consistently, the more confident AI is in recommending you.

Step 7: Publish genuinely useful content

Detailed guides that answer your buyers' questions give AI something to quote and a reason to cite you. Thin, generic posts don't. See does your business need a blog?.

Step 8: Check again every month

Ask the same questions every month and record the answers. AI results change as models update and new content appears. Tracking shows whether your work is paying off.

What you can't do

No one can guarantee what ChatGPT will say. Anyone promising guaranteed AI recommendations is overpromising. What you can do is make your business the easiest, clearest and most trustworthy option for AI to recommend.

Common questions

Is this the same as SEO?

It overlaps heavily. Good SEO helps AI visibility. But AI also leans on reviews, mentions, consistency and how directly your pages answer questions. See generative engine optimisation.

How long does it take?

Fixing facts and pages can change live-search answers within weeks. Training data updates take longer.

Can you do this for my business?

Yes. See our AI search optimisation service and our guide to AI search optimisation in Ghana.