More of your future clients are asking ChatGPT who to hire before they ever open Google. If your business is not in that answer, you never get the chance to impress them. Here are nine things that help coaches, consultants and small service businesses get suggested by ChatGPT, what to ignore, and a simple plan to start this week, grounded in OpenAI's own documentation.
To get your business recommended by ChatGPT, let OpenAI's search crawler (OAI-SearchBot) read your site, say what you do and who it is for in the first lines of each page, and get mentioned in places AI tools read, like Reddit, podcasts, LinkedIn and review sites. Keep your description consistent, publish specific case studies and keep pages fresh.
Who this is for: Coaches, consultants and small service businesses who want to show up when people ask ChatGPT who to hire.
ChatGPT does not keep a list of approved businesses. When someone asks "who is a good business coach for first-time founders?", it often searches the web, reads a handful of pages, and writes an answer from what it finds. The businesses it names are the ones that show up clearly and often in those pages.
So the real question is what it can find about you. That comes down to three things: can its crawler read your site, does your site say plainly what you do and who for, and do other places on the web mention you in the same way. If all three line up, you have a fair chance. If one is missing, you are mostly invisible.
It also helps to know that this is still mostly search. Google's guidance on AI features says the usual SEO best practices "remain relevant" for AI Overviews and AI Mode, and that no special optimisation is needed. ChatGPT is a different product, but the lesson carries over: clear, findable, trusted pages win.
According to OpenAI's crawler documentation, OAI-SearchBot is the crawler used to surface websites in ChatGPT search, and sites that block it "will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers". ChatGPT-User is different: it visits a page when a user asks ChatGPT to, and it is not used to decide what appears in search. GPTBot is for training models, and you can block it without leaving search.
Open yoursite.com/robots.txt and check nothing blocks OAI-SearchBot. Some website builders and security plugins block AI bots by default, so check your settings too. OpenAI says changes can take around 24 hours to apply.
AI tools pull short passages, not whole pages. If your service page opens with three paragraphs about your journey, the useful part never gets read. Put the answer first: what you do, who it is for, and what happens next.
A good test is to read only the first two sentences of each page. If a stranger could not repeat back what you sell, rewrite them. The story can come after.
One "services" page that lists everything is hard for a person to scan and hard for AI to quote. A separate page for each service, each with a clear heading such as "Leadership coaching for new managers", gives ChatGPT something specific to match to a specific question.
Say who it is for in the words your clients use. "Help for consultants who are fully booked but underpaid" beats "strategic revenue transformation". People type plain questions into ChatGPT, so plain pages match them.
Many questions people ask ChatGPT are comparisons: "coach or course?", "how much does a fractional CFO cost?", "agency or freelancer?". Pages that answer these fairly, including when you are not the right fit, get read and repeated because they are useful.
You do not have to publish a fixed price. A range, what changes the cost, and what is included gives ChatGPT something real to say. Our guide on how to price your offer covers how to explain pricing without boxing yourself in.
This is the one most small businesses skip, and it may matter most. The Ahrefs study of 75,000 brands found branded web mentions had a stronger link to appearing in Google's AI Overviews (0.664) than backlinks did (0.218). That is a correlation, not proof, and it was about Google rather than ChatGPT, but the direction is clear.
SE Ranking's study of ChatGPT citations also found sites with more Reddit and Quora mentions were cited more often.
If your website says "executive coach", your LinkedIn says "leadership consultant" and your podcast bio says "mindset mentor", AI tools get three weak signals instead of one strong one. Pick one plain line: what you do, for whom, and where.
Then use it on your site, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile, directory listings and guest bios. It is dull work, but it is how ChatGPT learns to connect your name with a type of problem.
"Helped a client grow" tells nobody anything. Write it the way you would say it to a friend: who the client was, what was broken, what you changed and what moved, with the real numbers. "A solo accountant, booked calls up from X to Y a month after the booking page was rebuilt" is the shape of a line ChatGPT can repeat when someone asks who helps accountants get more calls.
Name the type of client, the starting point, what you changed and the result, with permission. Our case studies follow that pattern. Two or three real ones beat a wall of logos.
SE Ranking's study of ChatGPT citations found pages updated within the past three months averaged 6.0 citations, against 3.6 for outdated pages. Again, that is a correlation, but stale pages with old dates and dead offers do not inspire trust from anyone.
Once a quarter, review your top service pages and your most visited articles. Update prices, examples and dates, and remove anything you no longer offer.
Structured data (schema) tells machines your business name, what you offer, where you are and how to reach you. Google says no special schema is needed for its AI features, so treat it as good housekeeping rather than a trick. A basic Organization or LocalBusiness block and a clear about page with a real person behind it are enough to start.
Make sure your contact page has your name, location or service area and a way to book. A business that looks real is easier to recommend.
Here is the same list as a quick plan. Most of it costs time rather than money, and you can start any row this week.
| Signal | Why it matters | How to do it this week |
|---|---|---|
| Crawler access | Blocking OAI-SearchBot keeps you out of ChatGPT search answers | Check robots.txt and any bot-blocking setting in your site builder |
| Answer-first pages | AI quotes short passages, usually the clearest ones | Rewrite the first two lines of your homepage and main service page |
| One page per service | Specific pages match specific questions | Split your biggest service into its own page with a plain heading |
| Comparison and pricing content | People ask ChatGPT to compare options and costs | Write one fair "X or Y?" page and add a price range or cost factors |
| Mentions on other sites | Mentions linked more strongly to AI visibility than backlinks in the Ahrefs study | Answer three questions on Reddit or Quora, pitch two podcasts |
| Consistent description | One clear line is easier to connect to your name | Write your one-line description and paste it into every profile |
| Specific case studies | Real results give AI something concrete to repeat | Ask one happy client for permission and write up their numbers |
| Fresh pages | Recently updated pages were cited more often in SE Ranking's data | Update dates, prices and examples on your top three pages |
| Schema and about page | Helps machines confirm who you are | Add Organization schema and a named, human about page |
If you want to see where your site loses people once they do arrive, the free funnel leak calculator shows which step costs you the most.
There is a lot of noise about "AI search optimisation". Some of it is useful. Some of it is old SEO tricks with a new name, and a few things are sold as magic fixes when the evidence is thin.
If you are doing this yourself, start small. Most coaches and consultants get further with four focused hours a week than with one big weekend that never gets repeated.
To check progress, ask ChatGPT the questions your clients ask, in their words, once a month, and note whether you appear. Also ask new enquiries how they found you. That is how we learned that several of our best clients had found Unbury through ChatGPT, and it is a more honest measure than any score a tool can give you. If short videos are part of your plan for getting mentioned, our guide to short-form video for business covers what to make.
If you do not have clear services and a clear audience yet, fix that first. No amount of AI optimisation helps a business that cannot say what it does. Our guide to content marketing for coaches is a good place to begin.
Doing this yourself works if you have a few hours each week and enjoy writing. It stalls when the work keeps getting pushed behind client delivery, which is what happens to most solo coaches and small consultancies.
A done-for-you studio fits when you already know your offer and your clients, but your site, content and mentions are not keeping up. It also fits when people find you and then go quiet, because being recommended only pays off if your pages and follow-up turn that visit into a booked call.
That is the work we do at Unbury: we find where your marketing loses people, build the pages, content and follow-up, and run it week to week. If you would like to know where you stand first, start with a free marketing audit and we will show you what to fix before anything else.
First make sure your robots.txt does not block OAI-SearchBot, the crawler OpenAI uses for ChatGPT search. Then make each page say clearly what you do and who it is for in its first lines. Being mentioned on other trusted sites makes it more likely you get named.
We are not aware of any way to pay for a place in ChatGPT's organic recommendations, and OpenAI's crawler documentation describes access through its crawlers, not payment. Be wary of anyone selling guaranteed ChatGPT placement. The reliable route is being findable, clear and mentioned.
The evidence is weak. SE Ranking's study of ChatGPT citations found llms.txt had negligible impact, and Google says you do not need AI text files for its AI features. It is cheap to add, but it will not fix an unclear website.
Mostly no. Google's guidance says normal SEO best practices still apply to its AI features and no special optimisation is needed. The main extra focus is on being mentioned in places AI tools read and on answering questions clearly in short passages.
Fixing crawler access can take effect in about a day, according to OpenAI. Building enough clear pages and outside mentions to be named regularly usually takes several months of steady work. Check monthly by asking ChatGPT your clients' questions.
Send us your setup and we will tell you honestly where it is leaking customers and what to fix first. Free, no pitch.