AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews recommend businesses they can find, understand and trust. Most of what helps is the same careful work that has always helped in search. The difference is that gaps which used to cost you a few places in Google can now mean you are left out of the answer entirely.
A word of honesty before the practical part: nobody can guarantee that an AI tool will mention your business. The tools change often, and the same question can get a different answer an hour later. What you can control is how easy you make their job.
How AI tools decide who to mention
When someone asks an assistant to recommend, say, an accountant in North London, the tool does one of two things. Many now search the web live, read a handful of pages and summarise what they find. Others answer from what they learned during training. Often it is a mix of both.
Either way, they lean on three sources: your own website, what other websites say about you, and whether those two agree. A business with a clear website, consistent details across the web and genuine mentions on trusted sites is far more likely to be named than one with a beautiful website that nobody else refers to.
1. Make sure they can read your site
This sounds obvious, but it is where I find the most surprising problems.
- Check your robots.txt file. This short file tells crawlers what they may read. Some websites block AI crawlers by accident, through a security plugin or a setting nobody remembers changing. The main ones to look for are GPTBot (OpenAI), ClaudeBot (Anthropic) and PerplexityBot. Google’s AI Overviews use the normal Googlebot, while a separate setting called Google-Extended controls whether your content is used by Google’s Gemini models.
- Keep important words as text. Prices, services and opening hours inside images or PDFs are hard for any tool to read reliably.
- Do not rely on scripts to show your content. Some website builders load text with JavaScript, and not every AI crawler runs it. If your page looks empty with JavaScript turned off, that is worth investigating.
- Consider an llms.txt file. This is a plain text summary of your site written for AI tools. It is a proposal rather than an established standard, and there is little public evidence so far that the major tools rely on it. It takes about an hour to write, so I add one, but I would not put it at the top of your list.
2. Answer the questions customers actually ask
AI tools are answering questions, so pages that answer questions clearly are easy to use. Think about what a customer asks before they get in touch: what exactly do you do, where, for whom, roughly what does it cost or what affects the cost, and how long does it take.
Put the direct answer in the first two sentences of the page, then add the detail. A short set of frequently asked questions with plain answers is one of the most useful things you can add to a service page.
3. Keep your facts consistent everywhere
Your business name, address, services and the year you started should read the same on your website, your Google Business Profile, Companies House, LinkedIn and any directories you appear in. When sources contradict each other, a tool is less confident about you, and less confident tools hedge or leave you out.
This is tedious work, and it is also one of the cheapest improvements you can make. Old addresses and former business names are the usual culprits.
4. Add structured data
Structured data, often called schema markup, is a small block of code that states facts about your business in a format machines read easily: who you are, where you are, what services you offer, who runs the business and the answers to common questions.
Visitors never see it. Search engines and AI tools use it to confirm what the page says. It is not a magic switch, but it removes guesswork, and most websites either do not have it or have an incomplete version added automatically by a plugin.
5. Be mentioned by others
This is the slowest part and the one that matters most. AI tools want evidence from beyond your own website that you are real and good at what you do. That evidence comes from:
- Reviews on Google and on the platforms your sector uses
- Inclusion in the “best in your area” guides and lists that tools often cite
- Local press, trade bodies and professional associations
- Partner and supplier directories
- Articles, talks or podcasts where you share what you know
None of this is quick, and none of it should be bought or faked. Ask happy customers for reviews as a normal part of finishing a job, and say yes when a trade body or local publication offers you a listing.
How to check where you stand
You can do a useful check yourself in twenty minutes. Write down five questions a real customer might ask, such as “who is a good commercial electrician in North West London”, and put them to ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google. Note who gets named and, where the tool shows them, which sources it cites. Those sources are the sites you need to appear on.
Answers vary between runs, so repeat the exercise once a month and look for patterns rather than reacting to a single answer.
For a quick technical check of your own website, including whether AI crawlers are allowed in, try the free website health check. If you want the full picture with competitors, AI visibility and a prioritised plan, that is what the £150 website audit covers.
