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Would ChatGPT recommend you? How to get it to name your business

If you ask ChatGPT everything, so do your customers. In the US, 45 out of 100 people already ask it to recommend businesses; a year earlier it was 6. This article is so that, when someone asks about your trade in your area, it finds what you do written down.

By Nicolás CossuCo-founder of Exos

Your customers already ask it

According to BrightLocal's annual survey of US consumers (1,002 adults, February 2026), 45% use ChatGPT or another AI to get recommendations for local businesses. A year earlier it was 6%. We didn't find a similar study for Argentina, but the question is the same everywhere: "which vet do you recommend in Palermo?".

When someone asks that, ChatGPT answers with a handful of names. The question for your business is whether you're one of them.

Where ChatGPT gets the names

BrightLocal ran 800 local business searches on ChatGPT across 20 US cities (November 2024) and recorded where each piece of information came from:

  • 58% from the businesses' own websites.
  • 27% from mentions elsewhere: media, guides and Wikipedia.
  • 15% from directories.

Reddit and Quora didn't show up. And according to the same study, ChatGPT's search relies on Bing.

What nobody knows is how it chooses among the businesses it finds: no one can guarantee it will name you. What is in your hands is that, when it searches, it finds written down what you do, where, and that others talk about you.

How to get ChatGPT to recommend your business

  1. Your website's title, with what you do and where. "Vet in Palermo · 24-hour emergencies" says much more than "Home". It's also what people see when your link is shared (your link preview on WhatsApp).
  2. Your services written on the page, with the names people use. "Spaying, vaccines, emergencies", not "gonadectomy, immunization, urgent care". And as text: a menu that only exists as a photo is harder to read.
  3. Your details identical everywhere: address, area, hours and phone written on your website, on Google and on every directory you appear in.
  4. Get mentioned outside your website: Google reviews, neighborhood guides, local media and associations in your trade.
  5. Your business on Bing Places. It's Bing's free business profile, and you can import it from your Google profile.

Test it today

Open a new conversation in ChatGPT and ask: "Which [your trade] do you recommend in [your area]?". Check whether you show up, who shows up instead and which websites it takes the information from. Write it down and repeat it in a month, after the changes above.

How we do it at Exos

We build our clients' websites with what they do and where in the title, services written the way people search for them, and business details identical everywhere. That's how we build websites.

And once your website is in order, make sure your domain is in your name: when your domain expires and whose name it's in.

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