What ChatGPT does when someone asks for a local business
When a customer asks ChatGPT for “a good hairdresser in Leichhardt”, it doesn’t open a directory and read from the top. It searches the web, reads what comes back, and writes a short answer that names a handful of businesses. ChatGPT search uses web results, including Bing’s index, so how you appear on the web is how you appear to it.
In the 60 answers we have stored from ChatGPT and Claude, each answer named about 4.5 businesses on average. That is a short list. You are either on it or you aren’t, and there is no page two.
How do I get my business on ChatGPT?
There is no sign-up form, no account to create and no one to pay. “Getting on” ChatGPT really means being easy for it to find, understand and trust in the places it reads. The rest of this page is that list, in plain words.
How do I get my business to show up on ChatGPT?
Start with the basics that decide whether you can be found at all:
- A Google Business Profile with the right category, your hours, your services and a few real photos.
- A Bing Places listing. Bing feeds ChatGPT search, and many small businesses have never set it up.
- A website that says things in text. Your services, your suburb, your prices if you can, and how to book. A menu or price list that is only a picture or a PDF is hard to read.
- The same name, address and phone number everywhere. If one listing says “St” and another says “Street”, or has an old phone number, you look like two businesses or none.
Can your business be “listed” on ChatGPT?
No. ChatGPT doesn’t have a directory of businesses that you can join. What you can do is be listed on the sites it reads: Google, Bing, Apple Maps, review sites, local guides and industry directories. The more of those that describe you clearly and the same way, the easier you are to find and to trust.
How do I rank on ChatGPT?
There is no ranking page, and no one outside OpenAI knows exactly how it weighs what it reads. The same question can also get a different answer on a different day. So treat it like reputation, not a position: you can improve your odds, but you can’t hold a place.
In our own checks, 9 of 10 areas had one business that the assistants recommended in at least 4 of 6 answers. A few businesses keep coming up again and again, which is why getting in early matters.
What helps, in order
- Real, recent reviews on Google and the sites your customers use. Ask happy customers, and reply to the ones you get.
- Mentions on other websites: a local guide, a news story, a supplier’s “where to find us” page, a community group. A business that other sites talk about is easier to be sure about.
- Let the assistants read your site. Check your robots.txt file isn’t blocking OpenAI’s crawlers (OAI-SearchBot and ChatGPT-User) or Anthropic’s (Claude-SearchBot and Claude-User). Ask whoever looks after your site.
- Answer real questions on your site. “Do you take walk-ins?”, “Are you open Sundays?”, “Do you have parking?” Short, plain answers are easy to quote.
What nobody can tell you
We don’t know how much each of those things counts, and neither does anyone selling you a package. No one can make ChatGPT pick a business, and we won’t pretend otherwise. What we can do is show you what it looks at for your suburb and your trade, so you work on the right things first.
See where you stand
Our free check shows whether ChatGPT and Claude recommended your business in the answers we have stored for your area, and who they named instead. The A$79 full report adds why they picked who they did, which websites they trust, and every fix written and ready to send.