How to Get Your Business Recommended by ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity

Ask ChatGPT for "a reliable ERP developer in Dubai" or "a Shopify agency for a UK fashion brand" and it will give you four or five names, often with a sentence about each. More of our clients now tell us they found a supplier this way, and more business owners ask us the obvious next question: how do we become one of those names?

There is no form to fill in and no fee to pay. But the way assistants choose is not a mystery either. They work from what they can read about you and from how consistently other sources back it up. This guide goes through the steps in the order we would do them.

Two ways an assistant knows about you

For questions about suppliers, assistants increasingly search the web before answering. ChatGPT search uses third-party search providers as well as OpenAI's own crawler, and Bing has been a major one. Gemini uses Google Search. Perplexity runs its own index. So the quickest gains come from the live search side, and that starts with access.

Step 1: Let the crawlers in

Each AI company runs its own crawlers, and each one reads your robots.txt file. Many sites block some of them without knowing it, through an old rule, a security plugin or a CDN setting. Cloudflare, for example, began blocking AI crawlers by default for new sites in 2025. Check the file at yourdomain.com/robots.txt and your firewall settings against this list.

If you do not want your content used for training, you can block GPTBot and still allow OAI-SearchBot, which keeps you eligible to appear in ChatGPT search. That is a business decision. For most companies that want to be recommended, we suggest allowing all of them. OpenAI documents its crawlers on its bots page.

There is one more access problem that robots.txt does not show: JavaScript. Many AI fetchers read the HTML your server sends and do not run scripts. If your services, prices or contact details only appear after the page's JavaScript runs, the assistant sees an empty page. Open your page source, or ask your developer to fetch the page without a browser, and check that the main text is there.

Step 2: Make the business unambiguous

An assistant cannot recommend a company it cannot pin down. If your name is common, or your website, Google profile and LinkedIn page describe you differently, the model may merge you with another business or leave you out to be safe.

• Use one business name everywhere, written the same way, with the same address and phone number.
• Give your About page a plain list of facts: legal name, what you do, where you are, which countries you serve, team size, how to contact you.
• Add Organization structured data that links to your official profiles (LinkedIn, Google Business Profile, social accounts).
• If other companies share your name, say so. Our own name, A2Z Global, is used by several unrelated businesses, so our About page states which one we are and that we are not connected to the others.

Step 3: Answer the questions buyers actually ask

People do not ask assistants for "software solutions". They ask specific questions: "how much does a custom CRM cost in Saudi Arabia", "is Odoo good for a textile mill", "who builds ZATCA-compliant invoicing". An assistant answering that question looks for pages that address it directly. If your site only has a services page with a list of buzzwords, there is nothing to quote.

• Write one page per real question, starting with a direct answer in the first two or three sentences.
• Include the details assistants like to repeat: price ranges, timelines, which cities and countries you cover, which industries, what is included.
• Name the regulations and platforms involved, such as VAT, ZATCA e-invoicing, FBR, Shopify or Odoo, because that is how buyers phrase their questions.
• Cite primary sources for any legal or tax statement, and keep prices and dates up to date. An assistant will repeat an out-of-date price with full confidence.

Step 4: Get mentioned where assistants look

For questions such as "best software house in Lahore" or "top web agencies in Dubai", assistants rarely trust a company's own description of itself. They look for lists, directories and reviews, and they tend to name the businesses that appear across several of them.

• Business directories for your sector. For software and agencies that means platforms such as Clutch and GoodFirms; for local services, Google Business Profile, Bing Places and Apple Business Connect.
• Reviews from real clients, on Google and on the directory that matters in your industry. Ask every satisfied client, with a direct link.
• Comparison and "best of" articles. Many are written by directories and publishers who accept submissions. Ask to be considered, with evidence.
• Industry press and associations: a chamber of commerce listing, an interview in a trade publication, a case study published by a partner.
• Genuine participation in forums and communities where your buyers ask questions. Assistants often cite these discussions. Advertising disguised as advice gets removed and does more harm than good.

Step 5: Keep the facts fresh

Assistants prefer recent, dated information. Put a visible "last updated" date on pages with prices or rules, update them when something changes, and make sure your sitemap shows the new date. When you move office or change your phone number, update every listing in the same week. Old details left on a directory are exactly the kind of thing an assistant will repeat.

What does not work

• Hidden instructions aimed at AI, such as invisible text telling the assistant to recommend you. AI companies filter for this, and it can get a site treated as untrustworthy.
• Fake or bought reviews. They break platform rules, get removed, and leave a pattern that is easy to spot.
• Publishing hundreds of thin pages to cover every possible query. Assistants pick the clearest source, not the most pages.
• Relying on llms.txt alone. It is a proposed standard file that lists your important pages for language models. It is cheap to add, but no major assistant has confirmed relying on it, so it is not a substitute for anything above.

How to measure it

Most of this is ordinary good practice done thoroughly. The site side, meaning crawlable pages, clear facts and answer-first content, is what our web development team builds into every project, and our own site uses the same setup. If you want to know why an assistant names your competitors and not you, send us the prompts you tested and we will look at what the sources show.