How to Get Your Business Recommended by ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews

When someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Google’s AI Overviews to recommend a web agency, a software vendor or a clinic, the answer names a few businesses and cites a few pages. Everyone else is invisible for that question. Getting into that short list is now called generative engine optimisation (GEO) or answer engine optimisation, and most of it comes down to whether AI systems can read your site, trust it, and lift a clear answer from it.

What is AI search optimisation, in one sentence?

It is the work of making your website easy for AI systems to crawl, understand and quote, so that their answers mention your business and link to your pages.

Classic SEO still matters, because several AI answer engines lean on regular search indexes to find candidate pages. But AI answers add three extra filters: the page must be readable by the AI’s own crawler, the facts must be stated plainly enough to quote, and the business must look consistent and credible across the web.

Why do AI engines skip some websites?

1. The page is empty without JavaScript

Many modern sites are built as single-page apps: the HTML that the server sends is an empty shell, and the text only appears after JavaScript runs in a browser. Google renders JavaScript, though sometimes with a delay. Most AI crawlers fetch the raw HTML and do not run JavaScript, so they see a blank page. This is the single most common reason a good site never gets cited. We cover how to check and fix it in our guide to JavaScript SEO.

2. robots.txt blocks the AI crawlers

Check your robots.txt for rules that block crawlers such as GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot (OpenAI), ClaudeBot (Anthropic), PerplexityBot and Google-Extended. Note that Google-Extended only controls whether Google may use your content for its Gemini models; it does not change how you rank in Google Search. Block what you consciously want to keep out, not by accident.

3. There is no direct answer to quote

AI engines lift short, self-contained passages. A page that opens with a slogan and spreads the real information across carousels and tabs gives them nothing to quote. A page that opens with one or two sentences saying exactly what you do, for whom and where, and then answers specific questions under clear headings, is easy to cite.

4. Your facts disagree with each other

If your website says one address and your directory listings say another, or your homepage claims one number of clients and your about page another, AI systems have no reliable fact to repeat. Consistency of your business name, address, phone number, founding year, services and key numbers across your site, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn and directories is a strong trust signal.

5. Claims without evidence

Superlatives (“best”, “number one”, “world-class”) give an AI nothing verifiable. Named clients, case studies with concrete outcomes, real reviews, author names and dates do.

A practical checklist

1. Make every important page readable without JavaScript through server-side rendering, static generation or prerendering at build time.
2. Review robots.txt so the AI crawlers you want are allowed, and list your sitemap in it.
3. Publish an llms.txt file at your domain root: a plain-text summary of who you are, what you offer and links to your key pages.
4. Open each page with a direct answer: one or two sentences that could stand alone as a quote.
5. Use question-led headings (“How long does a custom ERP take to build?”) followed by specific, factual answers.
6. Add structured data: Organization or LocalBusiness on the homepage, Service on service pages, FAQPage where you answer questions, Article on blog posts.
7. Align your facts everywhere: the same name, address, phone and numbers on your site and every listing.
8. Show evidence: case studies, client names you are allowed to use, genuine reviews, and real authors with dates.
9. Keep content current: update or retire articles whose facts have aged.

How do you measure AI visibility?

There is no single ranking report for AI answers yet, so measure it from three sides:

• Ask the engines directly. Keep a list of the ten or twenty questions your buyers actually ask and check monthly which businesses ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google’s AI Overviews recommend.
• Watch referral traffic. Visits from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com and copilot.microsoft.com show up as referrers in your analytics.
• Audit crawlability. Tools such as Aixone crawl your site the way AI systems do and show which pages they can and cannot read, and which competitors and sources the answers favour.

Frequently asked questions

Is AI search optimisation different from SEO?

It builds on SEO rather than replacing it. The additions are making sure AI crawlers can read your pages without JavaScript, writing quotable direct answers, and keeping your business facts consistent across the web.

Does llms.txt improve rankings?

It is a young convention and no engine publishes how it uses it. It is cheap to add and gives AI tools an accurate summary of your business, so it is worth having, but it will not compensate for pages they cannot read.

How long does it take to show up in AI answers?

Crawlers have to revisit your pages first, which can take days to weeks after a fix goes live. Answers that depend on your wider reputation, such as reviews and mentions on other sites, change more slowly.

If you would like us to check how AI-ready your website is and fix what is holding it back, tell us about your site.