How to Get Your Business Cited by ChatGPT

AI search has created a new question for business owners.

For years, the big SEO question was:

“How do I get my website to rank on Google?”

Now we’re hearing a different question:

“How do I get ChatGPT to recommend my business?”

It’s a good question.

But it’s also important to reframe it.

Because you don’t really want to “optimise for ChatGPT” in isolation.

You want to build a business presence that is:

easy to discover,

easy to understand,

credible,

relevant,

and useful enough to be referenced.

That’s a much more sustainable approach to Generative Engine Optimisation, or GEO.

And it’s the approach we believe businesses should be taking as AI search becomes another part of the customer journey.

What Does It Mean to Be Cited by ChatGPT?

Let’s start with the basics.

When ChatGPT searches the web to answer a question, its response may include links to the sources it used.

Those links are citations.

For example, someone might ask:

“What are some good SEO agencies in Wagga Wagga?”

If ChatGPT searches the web and considers your website relevant to the question, your business could potentially appear in the response with a link to your website.

That’s valuable.

But there’s an important distinction.

A citation is not the same as a recommendation.

A citation can mean:

“This website contains useful information relevant to this answer.”

A recommendation is closer to:

“This is a business you should consider.”

For a business, the second can obviously be more commercially valuable.

But both depend on the same underlying principle:

ChatGPT needs to understand why your business or content is relevant to the question.

How Does ChatGPT Find Businesses to Mention?

This is where some of the myths around AI SEO need to be cleared up.

ChatGPT isn’t simply maintaining a giant list of businesses that have “registered for ChatGPT SEO”.

When ChatGPT Search is used, it can search the web for information relevant to a user’s query. OpenAI says its search system may rewrite a user’s prompt into targeted search queries and use search providers to retrieve information.

That means your business needs to be discoverable within the wider web ecosystem.

Think:

Website

↓

Search visibility

↓

Local signals

↓

Third-party mentions

↓

Reviews and reputation

↓

Industry relevance

↓

AI understanding

The more clearly those signals connect, the easier it becomes for an AI system to establish:

“This business is relevant to this question.”

Can You Submit Your Website to ChatGPT?

Not in the traditional sense of submitting a website and asking ChatGPT to rank it.

However, there is one technical step that is particularly important.

Your website needs to be accessible to OpenAI’s search crawler.

OpenAI’s current guidance specifically says websites should allow OAI-SearchBot to crawl the site and should ensure their hosting environment or CDN allows traffic from OpenAI’s published searchbot IP addresses.

That’s an important distinction.

You can’t force ChatGPT to cite you.

But you can make sure you’re eligible to be discovered.

And that’s where technical SEO still matters.

10 Ways to Improve Your Chances of Being Cited by ChatGPT

Let’s get practical.

There are no guaranteed shortcuts here.

But there are things you can do to build a stronger foundation for AI search visibility.

---

1. Make Your Business Easy for AI to Understand

This sounds obvious.

It’s not.

A surprising number of business websites make it difficult to answer some very basic questions.

For example:

What does this company actually do?

Where does it operate?

Who does it serve?

What makes it different?

What services does it provide?

Who is behind the business?

Your website should answer those questions clearly.

Don’t bury them inside vague marketing language.

Instead of:

“We create digital experiences that empower brands to unlock their potential.”

Say what you actually do.

For example:

“Digital Marketer Bee provides SEO, Web Design & Build and AI Search Optimisation services for businesses in Wagga Wagga, Albury-Wodonga and regional Australia.”

Clear.

Specific.

Useful.

And much easier for a search system to interpret.

---

2. Build Strong Entity Signals

This is one of the most important concepts in GEO.

Your business isn’t just a website.

It’s an entity with relationships.

Digital Marketer Bee, for example, can be associated with:

• SEO
• AI Search Optimisation
• Web Design & Build
• Wagga Wagga
• Albury-Wodonga
• regional Australian businesses
• its team
• its services
• its clients
• its expertise
• its website
• external mentions

The more consistently those relationships appear across your digital presence, the clearer your business becomes.

Think about all the places your business information appears:

• your website
• Google Business Profile
• social profiles
• business directories
• industry websites
• local publications
• partner websites
• interviews
• reviews
• event pages
• professional profiles

If every source tells a consistent story, you’re creating a much stronger entity.

If one says you’re based in Wagga Wagga, another says Albury, another describes you as a web designer and another calls you a generic marketing agency, you’ve created ambiguity.

AI doesn’t need more words. It needs clearer context.

---

3. Create Content Worth Citing

This is probably the biggest content lesson in AI search.

Don’t create articles simply because you found a keyword.

Create resources that genuinely answer questions.

Imagine someone asks:

“How much does SEO cost for a regional Australian business?”

A generic 500-word article repeating the phrase “SEO cost” isn’t particularly useful.

A better resource might explain:

• what affects SEO pricing
• local vs national SEO
• technical requirements
• content requirements
• competition
• realistic timeframes
• what an SEO agency actually does
• what businesses should ask before hiring one

Now you’ve created something that can actually help answer the question.

And that’s the kind of content you want associated with your business.

---

4. Answer Questions Directly

AI search loves questions because that’s how people naturally interact with AI.

Think about the questions your customers ask:

How much does a website cost?

Do I need SEO if my business already ranks on Google?

Can SEO work for a small regional business?

How long does SEO take?

How do I get my business into ChatGPT?

What’s the difference between SEO and AI Search Optimisation?

Build content around those questions.

Then answer them clearly.

Don’t make someone read 1,500 words before they discover the answer.

Give them the answer.

Then provide the depth.

That’s good AEO.

And it also creates content that can potentially support GEO.

---

5. Strengthen Your Local SEO

This is especially important for businesses like those DMB works with across Wagga Wagga and Albury-Wodonga.

Imagine someone asks:

“Who provides SEO services in Wagga Wagga?”

That’s a highly contextual search.

The AI needs to understand:

business + service + location

So make those relationships obvious.

Your website should clearly communicate:

• your service areas
• your physical location where relevant
• your local expertise
• the communities you serve
• the services available in those locations

Your Google Business Profile also matters to your broader local presence.

And your local ecosystem matters too.

Think:

• local directories
• chambers of commerce
• industry organisations
• local media
• community organisations
• partnerships
• local sponsorships
• regional publications

The goal isn’t to manufacture hundreds of directory listings.

It’s to create real regional relevance.

---

6. Build Authority Beyond Your Own Website

This is where GEO starts to look a lot like good old-fashioned SEO.

You can say:

“We’re the leading SEO agency in Wagga Wagga.”

But that’s a claim.

It’s much stronger when the wider web provides evidence that your business is relevant and credible.

That might include:

• industry publications mentioning you
• local media coverage
• interviews
• expert contributions
• professional memberships
• awards
• partnerships
• customer reviews
• case studies
• relevant backlinks

The important word here is:

relevant.

You don’t need 10,000 random backlinks.

You need credible signals that reinforce what your business actually does.

---

7. Publish First-Hand Expertise

This is one of the biggest opportunities for small and regional businesses.

You have experience.

Use it.

Don’t just publish generic articles that could have been written by any agency anywhere in the world.

Talk about:

What you’ve actually seen.

What you’ve actually tested.

What you’ve learned.

What worked.

What didn’t.

What customers keep getting wrong.

That’s where your content becomes difficult to replicate.

And it’s where Bee’s personal voice can become a genuine advantage for Digital Marketer Bee.

Because DMB isn’t just a collection of anonymous blog posts.

There’s a real person behind the business.

Bee’s experience, opinions, observations and approach can become part of the company’s digital authority.

That’s far more valuable than trying to sound like every other SEO agency.

---

8. Make Your Website Technically Accessible

You can write the world’s best GEO content.

But if search systems can’t access your website properly, you’ve got a problem.

Check:

• robots.txt
• indexing
• crawlability
• canonical tags
• internal links
• page status codes
• site architecture
• mobile usability
• structured data
• page speed
• JavaScript rendering
• XML sitemap

And specifically for ChatGPT Search, check whether OAI-SearchBot is allowed to crawl the content you want discovered. OpenAI explicitly identifies this as a requirement for inclusion in ChatGPT Search.

This is a good reminder:

GEO isn’t just content.

Technical SEO still matters.

---

9. Make Your Important Pages Obvious

Don’t make AI, or humans, dig through your website to understand your main services.

If SEO is a major service, have a strong SEO page.

If Web Design & Build is a major service, have a strong web design page.

If AI Search Optimisation is a major service, explain it properly.

And connect related content to those pages.

For example:

How to Get Your Business Cited by ChatGPT

↓

AI Search Optimisation

↓

SEO Services

↓

Local SEO

↓

Contact / Enquiry

That’s a logical information architecture.

It helps users.

It helps search engines.

And it helps establish the relationship between your content and your commercial services.

---

10. Give AI Something Specific to Cite

This is the one I’d really like businesses to think about.

Don’t just create another generic article.

Create something specific.

For example:

“The Wagga Wagga Small Business SEO Checklist”

or:

“How Much Does a Website Cost in Regional Australia?”

or:

“SEO vs Google Ads for Wagga Wagga Businesses”

or:

“The 2026 AI Search Visibility Checklist for Australian Businesses”

Specific resources create specific reasons for someone, or an AI system, to reference them.

And that’s a much stronger content strategy than endlessly publishing generic blog posts.

What Not to Do

The rise of GEO has also created a new wave of questionable SEO tactics.

Be careful.

Don’t keyword stuff

Adding “ChatGPT SEO” to every paragraph doesn’t make your website more authoritative.

Don’t create hundreds of AI-generated location pages

A page for:

• SEO Wagga Wagga
• SEO Albury
• SEO Junee
• SEO Griffith
• SEO Temora
• SEO everywhere within driving distance

doesn’t automatically create local authority.

Thin location pages can do more harm than good.

Don’t invent expertise

If you haven’t done something, don’t pretend you have.

Don’t fabricate case studies

AI search doesn’t change the importance of trust.

Don’t chase citations at the expense of customers

A citation is nice.

A qualified enquiry is better.

Can You Guarantee a ChatGPT Citation?

No.

And anyone promising otherwise should make you very nervous.

OpenAI says ChatGPT Search ranking uses multiple factors designed to help users find relevant and reliable information, and explicitly notes that placement is not guaranteed.

That’s important.

No agency can legitimately promise:

“We’ll get your business cited by ChatGPT.”

What a good SEO/GEO agency can do is improve the conditions that make your business more discoverable and understandable.

That’s a much more honest promise.

How to Measure ChatGPT Visibility

This is another area where businesses need to think beyond traditional rankings.

You can’t simply open Google Search Console and see:

“ChatGPT visibility: 74%”

It doesn’t work that way.

Instead, create a structured monitoring process.

Start with a set of prompts relevant to your business.

For example, if you’re a local SEO agency:

“Best SEO agencies in Wagga Wagga”

“SEO services for small businesses in Wagga Wagga”

“Who can help my business with SEO in Albury?”

“Best digital marketing agencies in Wagga Wagga”

“Who provides AI Search Optimisation in regional NSW?”

Then record:

• whether your business is mentioned
• where it appears
• how it is described
• which competitors appear
• whether your website is cited
• which sources are being cited
• whether the information about your business is accurate

Repeat those prompts consistently.

Over time, you can start building an AI visibility baseline.

And that’s much more useful than asking ChatGPT once:

“Am I famous yet?”

The Goal Isn’t to Be Cited Everywhere

This is worth emphasising.

You don’t need ChatGPT to mention your business for every possible search.

You want to be visible for the right searches.

If Digital Marketer Bee is trying to generate qualified enquiries in Wagga Wagga and Albury, the valuable prompts aren’t necessarily:

“What is SEO?”

They’re closer to:

“Who provides SEO services in Wagga Wagga?”

“What’s the best SEO agency for a small business in Albury?”

“Who can help a regional Australian business with AI Search Optimisation?”

That’s commercial intent.

And that’s where GEO needs to connect back to SEO and conversion strategy.

The Digital Marketer Bee Approach

WThis is where we think the conversation needs to move beyond:

“How do I get cited by ChatGPT?”

The better question is:

“How do I build a business that search engines and AI systems can confidently understand, while making it easy for real customers to choose me?”

That’s the approach we take at Digital Marketer Bee.

Because SEO, AEO and GEO aren’t separate islands.

They overlap.

Your technical SEO creates the foundation.

Your content demonstrates relevance.

Your local presence creates context.

Your authority creates trust.

Your entity signals create clarity.

And your website turns that visibility into action.

And this is where Bee’s approach matters

One of the biggest advantages of a business like Digital Marketer Bee is that there is an actual human voice behind the strategy.

Bee isn’t trying to make DMB sound like every other SEO agency.

The business is built around practical digital growth, helping businesses get found, understood and chosen.

That means the content DMB publishes should reflect:

• experience
• opinions
• practical advice
• lessons learned
• real examples
• regional business understanding
• a clear point of view

And that’s exactly the kind of content that becomes more valuable as AI search expands.

Because when generic content becomes abundant, original expertise becomes a differentiator.

Your ChatGPT Citation Action Plan

If you want to start improving your AI visibility, here’s where we’d begin.

Step 1 — Check crawlability

Make sure important content can be crawled by search engines and that OAI-SearchBot isn’t unintentionally blocked.

Step 2 — Audit your entity

Can someone — or an AI system — clearly determine:

who you are + what you do + where you operate + who you serve?

Step 3 — Improve your core service pages

Make your most commercially important services impossible to misunderstand.

Step 4 — Answer customer questions

Create genuinely useful content around the questions prospects ask before they buy.

Step 5 — Build topical authority

Create clusters of related content rather than isolated blog posts.

Step 6 — Strengthen local relevance

Make your location, service areas and regional expertise clear and consistent.

Step 7 — Build third-party authority

Earn relevant mentions, links, reviews and references beyond your own website.

Step 8 — Add first-hand expertise

Bring the people behind the business into your content.

Step 9 — Monitor AI visibility

Track a fixed set of commercial prompts regularly.

Step 10 — Measure what matters

Connect visibility to:

website traffic → enquiries → qualified leads → customers.

The Bottom Line

There is no secret button that gets your business cited by ChatGPT.

There is no legitimate “submit your business to ChatGPT and guarantee a recommendation” service.

And there certainly isn’t a magic number of times you need to use the phrase “AI SEO” on your website.

What there is is a new opportunity to build a stronger digital presence.

One where your business is:

easy to discover,

easy to understand,

relevant to the question,

supported by evidence,

trusted by people,

and accessible to AI-powered search.

That’s what GEO should really be about.

Not gaming ChatGPT.

Becoming the business that deserves to be in the answer.

FAQs

How do I get my business cited by ChatGPT?

You can’t guarantee a citation, but you can improve your chances by making your website crawlable, creating useful and authoritative content, strengthening your entity signals, building relevant third-party authority and making your business information clear and consistent.

Does ChatGPT Search use websites?

Yes. ChatGPT Search can search the web and provide links to relevant sources. OpenAI says its search experience is designed to provide timely answers with links to relevant web sources.

Can I submit my website to ChatGPT?

There isn’t a traditional “submit my website” process that guarantees inclusion. However, OpenAI advises website owners to allow OAI-SearchBot to crawl their sites if they want their websites to be eligible for inclusion in ChatGPT Search.

Does SEO help with ChatGPT visibility?

Yes. Strong technical SEO, useful content, relevance, authority and clear website structure can all contribute to making your business easier for search systems to discover and understand. GEO should be viewed as building on strong SEO foundations rather than replacing SEO.

How long does it take to get cited by ChatGPT?

There is no fixed timeframe. AI-search visibility depends on factors including crawlability, relevance, authority, the query being asked and the information available on the web. OpenAI also states that search placement isn’t guaranteed.

Can an SEO agency guarantee ChatGPT citations?

No. A reputable SEO or GEO agency should not guarantee that ChatGPT will cite or recommend a particular business.

Is being cited by ChatGPT the same as ranking on Google?

No. Google rankings and ChatGPT citations are different visibility outcomes. A business can perform strongly in traditional search and not appear in a particular AI response, or potentially be cited by an AI system for a query without holding the top Google position.

What type of content does ChatGPT cite?

There isn’t a publicly documented checklist guaranteeing that a particular type of content will be cited. The practical approach is to create content that is relevant, useful, accurate, authoritative and easy to understand, while ensuring the website is accessible to search crawlers.

Want to know whether ChatGPT can find your business?

This is the question we think businesses should be asking next.

Not:

“How do I rank #1?”

And not simply:

“How do I get cited by ChatGPT?”

But:

“When my ideal customer asks Google or AI for a business like mine, what happens?”

At Digital Marketer Bee, we help businesses across Wagga Wagga, Albury-Wodonga and regional Australia build the SEO, local visibility, website and AI Search foundations needed to compete in this changing search landscape.

Because being found matters.

Being trusted matters more.

And when the customer asks AI:

“Who should I choose?”

You want your business to be part of the conversation.

Ready to see how visible your business is across Google and AI search? Let’s talk.