How to get your business cited by ChatGPT

Start with access, not writing

Before a single sentence of content matters, an AI crawler has to be able to reach your page at all. Check these first:

1. robots.txt allows AI crawlers. Open yoursite.com/robots.txt and confirm GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot and Google-Extended aren't disallowed. Many site builders and page-builder plugins block these by default, without telling you.
2. Content is server-rendered. If your homepage's actual text only appears after JavaScript executes in a browser, many crawlers see an empty shell. Content needs to exist in the raw HTML response — this is one of the reasons this site is built with server-side rendering by default, rather than a client-only JavaScript app.
3. Pages load fast and don't block on scripts. Slow, script-heavy pages get skipped or partially read.

Then, publish an llms.txt

llms.txt is an emerging standard: a plain-text file at the root of your site (yoursite.com/llms.txt) that summarises what your site is, what it offers, and links to the pages that matter most. Think of it as a concise briefing document for an AI crawler, in the same spirit as sitemap.xml — but written for models, not search indexers.

Write to be quoted, not just read

Once a crawler can reach your content, the writing itself decides whether it gets cited. In practice:

• Lead with the answer. State the fact or definition first, then explain it — don't bury the useful sentence three paragraphs into a story.
• Use concrete numbers. "Most small business sites take 3–6 weeks to build" is citable. "We deliver websites quickly" is not.
• Define your terms plainly. If you use an industry term, define it in the same breath — AI models favour content that doesn't require outside context to understand.
• Structure real FAQs. Direct question-and-answer pairs, backed by FAQPage schema, are close to the exact shape a generative answer engine reproduces.
• Cut the fluff a model would skip anyway. Marketing adjectives with no factual content ("industry-leading", "world-class") don't get quoted — specific, checkable claims do.

A simple test you can run today

Ask ChatGPT or Perplexity a question your business should be able to answer — "who's a good your service in your city" or "what's the difference between your service and alternative" — and see what comes back. If your business isn't mentioned, work backwards from the checklist above: is the crawler blocked, is the content invisible without JavaScript, or is the writing too vague to quote? That diagnosis is most of the work.

If you'd rather have this done for you, see the GEO service page for what that looks like end to end.