Your next customer may not begin with Google.
They may ask ChatGPT:
Who can repair a leaking roof near me?
What is the best family-owned restaurant for a birthday dinner in Portland?
Which local accountant works with construction companies?
If ChatGPT cannot find clear, current, trustworthy information about your business, it has little reason to mention you.
There is no button that guarantees a recommendation. But you can make your business much easier to find, understand, verify, and cite.
Today, let us work on that.
⚡ IN THIS ISSUE
Test whether ChatGPT can find your business right now
Check one setting that could keep your website out of ChatGPT search answers
Complete a 30-minute website visibility fix
Give ChatGPT better evidence about what you do and where you do it
Track visitors who arrive from ChatGPT
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🔬 TODAY'S FIELD TEST
ASK CHATGPT ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS
Open a new ChatGPT conversation. If possible, use a temporary chat so your previous conversations are less likely to influence the test.
Replace the brackets and try these three prompts:
Recommend three [type of business] companies in [city].
Who helps with [specific customer problem] in [city]?
What should I look for when choosing a [type of professional] in [city]?
Do not stop after the first answer. Change the wording and ask a few natural follow-up questions—the way a real customer might.
Record four things:
Did your business appear?
Was the description accurate?
Which websites or pages were cited?
What important fact about your business was missing?
This is a diagnostic test, not a permanent ranking report. Answers can change based on the question, available sources, location, context, and time.
Your goal is not to obsess over one result. Your goal is to discover what ChatGPT can—and cannot—verify about your business today.
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📡 SIGNAL CHECK
OpenAI says any public website can appear in ChatGPT search. However, if your website blocks OAI-SearchBot, its pages will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, although a basic navigational link could still appear.
OAI-SearchBot is OpenAI's crawler for search. It is separate from GPTBot, which controls potential use of crawled content for training. A website can allow the search crawler while blocking the training crawler.
Ask your web developer or hosting company this exact question:
Does my robots.txt file or firewall block OAI-SearchBot or OpenAI's published search-crawler IP addresses?
If the answer is yes—and you want your content eligible for ChatGPT search—ask them to allow it. A basic robots.txt instruction may look like this:
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /Do not replace your entire robots.txt file with those two lines. Your site may contain other important rules. Have someone add or review the instruction in the context of the existing file.
OpenAI notes that crawler-setting changes may take about 24 hours to be reflected. You can review the official OpenAI crawler instructions.
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🧪 THE EXPERIMENT:
YOUR 30-MINUTE CHATGPT VISIBILITY FIX
Set a timer. You are not rebuilding your website today. You are giving search systems clearer evidence about your business.
MINUTES 0–5: WRITE ONE UNMISTAKABLE SENTENCE
Read the first paragraph on your homepage.
Could a stranger identify your service, customer, and location without scrolling?
Replace vague language like this:
We provide outstanding solutions and unmatched service for all your needs.
With something specific:
EXAMPLE: River City Plumbing repairs burst pipes, clogged drains, and leaking water heaters for homeowners in Portland and nearby communities.
Use the words customers actually use. Clever slogans can support the message, but they should not replace the message.
MINUTES 5–10: IMPROVE ONE SERVICE PAGE
Choose the service you most want to sell. Make sure it has its own useful page.
The page should clearly answer:
What problem do you solve?
Who is the service for?
Where do you provide it?
What does the process involve?
What should the customer do next?
“Services” is too broad. “Emergency water-heater repair in Beaverton” gives a customer—and a search system—something concrete to understand.
Do not create dozens of thin, nearly identical city pages. Build one genuinely useful page around a real service and a real customer situation.
MINUTES 10–15: ADD ONE ANSWER CUSTOMERS NEED
Think of a question you answered on the phone this week.
Add the question and a direct answer to the relevant page. Good topics include:
price ranges and what changes the price
how long the work normally takes
who is a good fit for the service
what a customer should prepare
common mistakes or warning signs
what makes your process different
Write the answer the way you would say it to a good customer. Specific answers are far more useful than a page filled with general marketing claims.
MINUTES 15–20: ADD PROOF ONLY YOU CAN PROVIDE
Give the page information that cannot be copied from a competitor in five minutes:
a short project example
a real before-and-after photograph
a lesson learned from years in the field
an anonymized customer situation
the number or types of projects you completed
a credential, award, license, or association membership
Use only facts you can verify. Firsthand detail makes your business easier to distinguish from every other company making the same “quality service” promise.
MINUTES 20–25: CHECK YOUR BUSINESS FACTS
Compare your website with your Google Business Profile, Apple Business Connect listing, Facebook page, professional directories, and other major profiles.
Look for mismatches in:
business name
phone number
address or service area
hours
website address
services and categories
ChatGPT can draw on public web sources when searching. Consistent information makes your business easier to corroborate. Conflicting information creates uncertainty.
While you are checking, remove outdated services, expired offers, former employees, and old hours.
MINUTES 25–30: STRENGTHEN YOUR ABOUT PAGE
Add the facts that establish why a customer should trust the people behind the business:
owner's or team's real names
years of relevant experience
licenses and credentials
communities served
specialties
a brief, genuine origin story
a current photograph
Do not invent an impressive-sounding author or anonymous “editorial team.” Make it easy to connect the business's claims to real people with real experience.
GIVE CHATGPT SOMETHING WORTH CITING
The fastest way to become more visible is not to repeat your business name 40 times.
Publish the best answer to a specific question your customer is already asking.
For example:
A roofer could explain what to do during the first hour after discovering a leak.
A restaurant could publish a clear guide to group dining, parking, allergy options, and reservations.
An accountant could explain the five records a construction company should organize before tax season.
A veterinarian could explain when a symptom requires same-day care.
Make the page current, useful, and based on actual experience. Then share it through your newsletter, social accounts, Google Business Profile, relevant associations, and community relationships.
Mentions from legitimate third-party sources can help establish that your business exists and is known for something. Earn those mentions through good work, useful information, partnerships, memberships, local press, and real customer reviews. Do not manufacture fake reviews or spam links across the internet.
MEASURE WHETHER IT WORKS
OpenAI automatically adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to referral links from ChatGPT search. That means you can look for ChatGPT visits in Google Analytics or another analytics platform.
Once a month, check:
visits with
utm_source=chatgpt.comwhich pages received those visits
whether visitors called, submitted a form, subscribed, or purchased
which newly improved pages are attracting attention
Traffic is encouraging. Qualified inquiries and sales are the real goal. OpenAI explains the tracking parameter in its publisher and developer guidance.
🎯 BEFORE YOU CLOSE THIS EMAIL
Do these three things today:
Ask ChatGPT the three test questions above.
Confirm that OAI-SearchBot is not blocked.
Rewrite one paragraph so it clearly states what you do, who you help, and where you work.
Then reply and tell me what happened. Did ChatGPT find your business? What part of showing up in AI search do you need help with? What would you like me to explain in a future issue?
Your question may become the next Visibility Science field test.
Bottom line: You cannot force ChatGPT to recommend your business. You can make your business easier to discover, understand, verify, and cite. Start with one clear page and one useful answer today.
❓ WHAT DO YOU NEED HELP WITH?
We want Visibility Science to help with the marketing problems you are actually facing—not the ones marketers assume you have.
Reply to this email and tell us:
What part of marketing do you need help with right now?
What have you been trying to figure out?
What would you like me to explain or show you in a future issue?
It can be a broad question or one very specific problem. Your reply may help shape one of the next experiments we work through together.
Marketing engineered for business growth.
Till next time,