How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews

When someone asks ChatGPT for “an AI consultant in Auckland” or Google shows an AI Overview for “best accountant for small business NZ”, a handful of businesses get named. The rest are invisible. This is often called answer engine optimisation or generative engine optimisation, but most of it is good search practice done properly.

How AI search finds businesses

AI assistants don’t magically know about your business. When they answer questions about current, local or commercial topics, they typically search the web, read a selection of pages and summarise what they find. That means:

• Your pages must be reachable. If an assistant’s crawler is blocked, or your content only appears after heavy JavaScript runs, it may never see it.
• Your information must be clear and consistent. Assistants favour sources that state facts plainly: what you do, where, for whom, and how to contact you.
• Other sources must agree. Your Google Business Profile, directory listings, reviews and articles that mention you all help confirm you’re real, active and relevant.

Know the crawlers

Each AI company uses named crawlers, and the difference matters:

• OAI-SearchBot is how OpenAI surfaces websites in ChatGPT’s search features. OpenAI says sites that opt out of it “will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers”.
• GPTBot collects content that may be used to train OpenAI’s models. Blocking it is about training, not search visibility.
• ChatGPT-User visits pages when a person asks ChatGPT to look something up.
• Googlebot crawls for Google Search, which also powers AI Overviews. Google-Extended only controls whether content is used for training and grounding Gemini models; Google states it “does not impact a site’s inclusion in Google Search nor is it used as a ranking signal”.

Check your robots.txt. Many websites block AI crawlers by default, sometimes because of a platform setting nobody remembers switching on. If you want to be recommended, make sure the search crawlers are allowed.

The technical checklist

• Server-rendered content. The words that matter should be in the page’s HTML, not loaded later by scripts. Numbers that animate in with JavaScript, for example, can look like zeros to a crawler.
• Fast, mobile-friendly pages. Speed and usability still matter, for people and for the systems that choose which pages to read.
• Structured data. Schema.org markup tells machines exactly who you are: your business name, services, location, founder, contact details and FAQs. Google documents it as a way to help it understand page content.
• A clean sitemap and sensible URLs. Make every important page easy to discover.
• One page per service. A single “services” page that lists everything gives an assistant little to quote. A dedicated page for each service, with real detail, gives it something specific.
• An llms.txt file. This is an emerging, unofficial convention: a plain summary of your site for AI tools. It’s cheap to add, but don’t expect it to change much on its own.

The content checklist

• Answer real questions directly. Start sections with the answer, then the detail. “How much does it cost?”, “How long does it take?” and “Do you work outside Auckland?” are exactly what people ask assistants.
• Be specific. Name your location, the industries you serve, your process and your prices or price ranges where you can.
• Show expertise. Named authors with real experience, case studies with measured results, and sources for your facts all build trust.
• Keep it current. Date your articles and update them. Assistants and searchers both favour fresh, accurate information.

The off-site checklist

• Google Business Profile. Complete, accurate, with the right location, categories, hours, photos and services. It’s one of the strongest signals for local queries.
• Consistent details everywhere. Your business name, address or service area, phone and website should match across your site, Google, LinkedIn, the NZBN register and directories.
• Reviews. Ask happy clients for Google reviews. They help both ranking and trust.
• Mentions and links. Industry associations, local media, partners and community work all help AI systems see that others vouch for you.

How to measure it

AI search is harder to measure than classic search, but you can track:

• Referral traffic from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com and copilot.microsoft.com in your analytics.
• Impressions and clicks in Google Search Console, which include searches that showed AI Overviews.
• A monthly manual check: ask the main assistants the questions your customers ask, and note who gets recommended.

Putting it into practice

This website is built to this checklist: every page is server-rendered, crawlers for search are welcome, structured data describes the business on every page, and each service has its own detailed page. It’s the same approach we take when we design and build websites for clients.

If you’d like to know how your current site stacks up, book a free consult and we’ll take a look together.