How to get your business on ChatGPT

You cannot register a business with ChatGPT. There is no form, no directory and no fee. When a customer asks it for a plumber in Leeds, an accountant in Bristol or a letting agent in Glasgow, ChatGPT searches the web, reads the pages it finds and writes an answer from them. Getting your business on ChatGPT means making sure those pages exist, describe you clearly and agree with each other. The same is true of Copilot, Gemini and the AI answers at the top of Google.

Is there a way to register a business with ChatGPT?

No, and anyone selling you a ChatGPT listing is selling something that does not exist. OpenAI’s guidance for website owners explains that ChatGPT finds websites the way a search engine does, by reading them, and that a site which blocks its reader “will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers”. There is nowhere to submit your details. People typing “register my business on ChatGPT” are really asking how ChatGPT decides which firms to name. That has an answer.

How does ChatGPT decide which firms to name?

It reads four kinds of page and trusts what they agree on. First, your own website: what you do, where, and what qualifies you. Second, your business listings on Bing and Google, where it takes your address and phone number from. Third, the places other organisations describe you: any professional register or trade body you belong to, and the review sites. Fourth, what other people say about you, in a trade magazine, on a supplier’s or partner’s website, or in a forum thread. When Yext analysed 6.8 million AI citations for questions about local businesses, 86 per cent of what the assistants relied on came from the first two: the firm’s own site and its listings. A firm missing from any of the four, or described differently in each, is passed over for one that is not.

Why does ChatGPT recommend your competitor instead of you?

Usually because the web says more about them than about you. ChatGPT is cautious in the way a new customer is cautious: it prefers a firm that several independent sources describe over one that only describes itself. Your competitor may have claimed a listing you never did, kept a register entry current, collected thirty reviews to your six, and been mentioned in the local paper two years ago. None of that is clever. It is the ordinary evidence that a firm exists, does what it says and is trusted, gathered in places a search can reach. If you have all of it and ChatGPT still names someone else, the usual cause is that your details disagree with each other: an old phone number here, a former address there.

What can you do about it?

Three things, in this order. Make your website answer the questions a customer asks before ringing: what you do, where you cover, and what qualifies you. Claim the free business listings from Microsoft and Google, and make sure every listing, register and page carries the same name, address and phone number, word for word. Then give people reasons to mention you: ask for a review after every job, and keep any register or directory entry current. Where the work becomes technical is in how the pages are written and structured so that a search matches them to the questions your customers actually ask. That part is what we do for service businesses of every kind. The three steps above are the part every firm can do for itself.

How do you check whether ChatGPT knows your business?

Ask it what a customer would ask, once a month, and write the answer down. Type what you do and where, for example “electrician in Leeds” or “accountant in Bristol”, into ChatGPT and into Copilot, and note whether you are named and who is. Then ask “what does [your company] do?” and check the description, the address and the phone number. Where a detail is wrong, it came from a page somewhere that is wrong, and the fix is to correct that page, not to argue with ChatGPT. Where you are absent, look at the four sources above and ask which one is missing you.

Frequently asked questions

Can you pay to be listed on ChatGPT?

No. There is no paid listing and no directory.

Does it help to put “find us on ChatGPT” on the website?

No. ChatGPT reads your site for your services, your areas and your contact details, not for mentions of itself.

If you would like to know how your business shows up in ChatGPT, Copilot and Google’s AI answers today, tell us what you do and where on our contact page. We will run the checks and tell you what we find.