Guides · 2026-10-15 · By VSNARY | Emmanuel Orta · 1 view

How to get your local business recommended by AI assistants

Assistants name a few businesses and the rest are invisible. Thirteen steps, in order, to be easier to find, understand and trust, and how to measure whether it worked.

Across every full scan CrawlCheck has run, 5.6% of sites refused an AI answer-engine crawler while still serving the same page to a browser.

More customers now ask an AI assistant “who’s the best fence company near me?” instead of scrolling through search results. The assistant reads a handful of websites and listings, then names a few businesses. If yours is not one of them, that customer may never see you. There is no button to get recommended, but there are specific things that make a business easier for AI tools to find, understand and trust. This guide covers them in the order they matter, and how to measure whether they worked.

Why the website comes first. A September 2026 study ran 37,927 AI agent sessions, each one a buyer’s question about one of 1,056 real businesses. Only 7 to 10% of the final answer came from what the model already knew; the rest was read live. For businesses whose site an agent could fetch and read, answers were built from their own pages 78% of the time, against 56% for the rest, and those businesses were clearly recommended 1.9 times as often. Holding the business and the question fixed, answers built from the site were 41% more accurate. (Finder, Elovic, Shalev and Yosef, “AX is the New AEO”, arXiv:2609.34951)

Part 1: Make your website easy for AI to read #

1. Say exactly what your business does in the first sentence of your homepage. For example: “Smith Tree Care is a tree removal and trimming company serving Denver, Colorado.” Assistants often lift the opening sentence word for word, so a slogan tells them nothing.
2. Publish your prices or price ranges as plain text. When someone asks “how much does tree removal cost in my city?”, assistants quote whoever lists clear numbers. Put ranges in a table or a sentence, not inside an image. If you do not publish prices, a directory’s averages answer the question instead.
3. Add a short FAQ that answers the questions customers actually ask. Use real questions from calls and emails, and keep each answer to two or three sentences so an assistant can quote it whole.
4. Add LocalBusiness structured data that matches the page. It tells machines your name, phone number, hours and service area. Only include what a visitor can also see; markup that claims more than the page shows is ignored or treated as misleading (Google’s documentation).
5. Make sure AI crawlers are not blocked. Open yoursite.com/robots.txt and check it does not disallow OpenAI’s crawlers (GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot) if you want to appear in ChatGPT (OpenAI’s crawler list). Then ask your host or security plugin whether “bot protection” is blocking them anyway; that is the more common cause. How to check whether AI crawlers can read your site walks through it.
6. Check that your important text is in the page itself. View the page source (Ctrl+U in most browsers) and search for your phone number and main services. If they are not there, many crawlers will not see them either.

Part 2: Make your business consistent everywhere #

1. Complete your Google Business Profile. Categories, services, hours, service area, photos and description. AI answers about local businesses lean heavily on it.
2. Use the exact same name, phone number and hours everywhere. Compare your website, business profile, Facebook page and every directory listing. When sources disagree, assistants trust all of them less.
3. Find out which directories AI cites for your trade, and get listed on them. Ask an assistant that searches the web “Who is the best [your trade] in [your city]?” and look at the sources it cites. In our own runs for Denver trades, the same few directories and comparison sites came back again and again; those are the ones worth being on.
4. Ask happy customers for reviews that mention the job and the place. “They replaced our cedar fence in Lakewood in two days” gives an assistant far more to work with than “Great service!” Never write reviews yourself or pay for them.

Part 3: Measure the results #

1. Ask assistants your customers’ questions once a month. Try “best [service] in [city]”, “[service] near me [city]”, “how much does [service] cost in [city]” and your business name. Write down whether you are named and which sites are cited.
2. Fix the gaps the answers reveal. If the assistant cites a price guide, publish clearer prices. If it cites a directory you are missing from, get listed. If it describes you wrongly, correct the information at its source.
3. Give changes a few weeks. Assistants depend on search indexes and their own crawlers, so updates take time to reach answers. Re-check monthly, not daily.

What not to do #

• Do not trust anyone who promises a specific placement in AI answers; nobody controls that.
• Do not stuff pages with keywords or city names. It makes them harder to read and counts against you.
• Do not add structured data or claims the page cannot back up, such as reviews or credentials you do not have.

The website checks in Part 1 are what a free CrawlCheck scan runs, page by page, with every problem named. For the bigger picture of how answer engines choose sources, read how to rank in ChatGPT.

Questions this post answers

Why does ChatGPT not mention my business?

Common causes are a robots.txt or bot-protection setting that blocks OpenAI's crawlers, a homepage that never states plainly what the business does and where, key text that is missing from the page source, and name, phone or hours that differ between listings. Check each of these, then ask the assistant your customers' questions again a few weeks later, since changes take time to reach answers.

Which crawlers does my site need to allow to appear in ChatGPT?

OpenAI's crawler documentation lists GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot, and both should be allowed in robots.txt if you want to appear in ChatGPT. Robots.txt is only half the check: hosting bot protection, a CDN firewall or a WordPress security plugin can refuse those crawlers even when robots.txt allows them. Ask your host or plugin vendor whether bot protection applies to AI crawlers.

Does a Google Business Profile help with AI recommendations?

AI answers about local businesses lean heavily on Google Business Profile data, so a complete profile matters. Fill in categories, services, hours, service area, photos and description, and make sure the name, phone number and hours match your website and every directory listing exactly. Conflicting details across sources make assistants trust all of them less.

Should I put prices on my website for AI search?

Yes, if you can. When someone asks an assistant how much a service costs in their city, it tends to quote sources that list clear numbers. Publish prices or ranges as plain text in a sentence or table, not inside an image. If your site has no prices, the assistant will answer with a directory's averages instead of your figures.

What kind of reviews help AI assistants recommend a business?

Reviews that name the job and the place give an assistant something specific to work with. A review saying a cedar fence was replaced in Lakewood in two days carries far more information than one that says great service. Ask happy customers to describe what was done and where. Never write reviews yourself or pay for them.

How long does it take for website changes to show up in AI answers?

Expect a few weeks. Assistants depend on search indexes and their own crawlers, so a change has to be recrawled before it can reach an answer. Check monthly rather than daily: ask the same set of questions, such as best service in your city and your business name, and record whether you are named and which sources are cited.

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