ChatGPT SEO: How to Get Your Business Into ChatGPT's Answers
Hundreds of millions of people now ask ChatGPT the questions they used to type into Google, including "who should I get to fix my boiler?" and "best web design agency for a small trade business". ChatGPT SEO is the work of being the business those answers name. There's no trick and no submission form. ChatGPT's answers come from two places you can influence (its live web search and its trained knowledge), and this guide covers the specific levers for each, including the Bing connection almost nobody in the UK is using.
Where ChatGPT's recommendations come from
Ask ChatGPT anything current or local and it doesn't answer from memory. It searches the web, reads the results, and writes its answer from them, with citation links back to the sources. That search layer is the door most businesses can walk through this quarter, because it behaves like search: pages that rank for the underlying question get read, and only pages that get read can be cited.
Behind the memory answers (the ones with no citations) sits the model's trained knowledge: a compressed picture of the web as it stood at training time. If the web consistently described your business back then, ChatGPT can recommend you without searching at all. That door moves slowly and rewards the patient off-site work: reviews, directories, mentions, a coherent identity everywhere. The two-door mechanics apply to every assistant, and we've unpacked them fully in our LLM SEO guide. This page is about pulling ChatGPT's specific levers.
The Bing lever nobody in the UK is pulling
One detail separates people who've read about ChatGPT SEO from people who've done it: ChatGPT's web search is closely tied to Bing's index, not Google's. A site Google loves and Bing has never properly crawled is fighting ChatGPT answers with one arm tied.
The fix costs nothing and takes an afternoon: set up Bing Webmaster Tools (it imports straight from Search Console), submit your sitemap, and check your money pages are indexed. While you're at it, confirm your robots.txt isn't blocking OAI-SearchBot or GPTBot, OpenAI's crawlers for search and training respectively. Blocking them is a legitimate choice for some publishers; for a business that wants AI referrals, it's shooting the messenger.
UK small businesses have ignored Bing for fifteen years because the traffic was a rounding error. ChatGPT quietly turned Bing indexation into the plumbing of a channel your customers use. On Bing, your competitors' fifteen-year head start is exactly zero.
Being quotable: the page-level work
When ChatGPT reads five pages to compose an answer, it lifts from the ones that hand it clean material. That means pages where the answer comes first and the elaboration second; concrete facts it can repeat (prices, timescales, areas covered, certifications) rather than superlatives it will strip out; question-shaped headings; FAQ and LocalBusiness schema making the structure explicit; and enough real expertise that quoting you makes the answer better.
The effect compounds, because the content shape that wins ChatGPT citations is the same shape that wins Google's AI Overviews and featured snippets and voice answers. Write answerably once and every answer engine pays the same page. That's the through-line of our whole SEO, AEO & GEO approach.
Being recommendable: the reputation layer
For shortlist questions like "recommend three roofers near Watford", ChatGPT behaves less like a search engine and more like a well-read friend: it synthesises the consensus. What feeds that consensus is everything written about you that isn't by you: Google reviews (volume, recency, and what they say), established directories, trade associations, local press, forum and Reddit threads where real people name real firms.
You influence it the slow, honest way: be consistently findable and consistently praised in the places the consensus is formed. One practical habit: make sure the language customers use in reviews matches the work you want recommended for ("rewired the whole house", "boiler swapped in a day"), because those phrases are what gets synthesised into "known for full rewires and fast boiler installs". Every review is a tiny press release to the training run.
Seeing the channel in your numbers
ChatGPT traffic is visible if you look: chatgpt.com as a referrer in your analytics (older visits show chat.openai.com). The counts undercount. Some clicks arrive stripped of referrer and land in "direct", so treat what you see as the floor. Layer on the human signal by adding "asked an AI assistant" to your how-did-you-hear options; a decent share of AI-influenced customers never click the citation, they just Google your name afterwards, and only the intake question catches them.
Then sample the answers themselves: once a month, ask ChatGPT your five money questions and record who it names. Watch the trend over months rather than trusting screenshots. It's the same discipline we apply to map pack tracking. If your business isn't in those answers yet, treat it as the before photo.
Common questions about ChatGPT visibility
How do I get my business recommended by ChatGPT?
Two ways, and you want both. For cited answers, ChatGPT searches the web using an index closely tied to Bing, so rank for the underlying question and write pages it can quote cleanly. For uncited recommendations from the model's own knowledge, build the footprint it was trained on: consistent business details everywhere, strong reviews, directory presence, and third-party mentions. There's no submission form and no paid placement; the work is earning both layers.
Does Bing really matter for ChatGPT visibility?
Yes. It's the least-known lever in the whole topic. ChatGPT's web search draws heavily on Bing's index, so a site invisible to Bing is handicapped in ChatGPT answers regardless of how well it does on Google. Register with Bing Webmaster Tools, submit your sitemap, and check your pages are indexed. Most UK small businesses have never looked at Bing once, which makes this cheap ground to take.
Can ChatGPT actually send customers to a local business?
It already does, in growing numbers. People ask it to shortlist tradesmen, compare quotes, and sanity-check who to trust. The visitors who click through arrive unusually ready to buy, because the answer has effectively pre-sold them. Volumes are still small next to Google, but they're compounding, and the businesses being cited now are building a lead while competitors wait for proof.
How can I tell if ChatGPT is sending traffic to my website?
Look at your referral sources for chatgpt.com (and historically chat.openai.com). Visits from ChatGPT's browsing carry that referrer in most analytics setups, though some arrive stripped and hide in direct traffic, so treat the reported number as a floor. Adding 'asked ChatGPT' to your how-did-you-hear question catches the customers who saw the recommendation, then Googled your name instead of clicking.
Founder, RankLocal Agency
Local SEO specialist working with London tradesmen and small service businesses. Focuses on Google Business Profile optimisation, Astro web builds, and rank tracking for the map pack and organic results.
LinkedInAsk us what ChatGPT says when your customers ask it.
Our free SEO audit, the Visibility Snapshot, checks whether ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews mention you when customers ask, alongside your website, your Google Business Profile and where you rank today for your three main searches. You'll get the one thing I'd fix first by email within one working day.