Getting found online
How AI assistants pick which local business to recommend
ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI search results read pages differently to a person. Here is what to put on yours.
May 9, 2026 · 7 min read
The short version
- Assistants need text they can read: services, area, hours and prices in plain words.
- A page on your own domain is easier to cite than a profile inside an app.
- Nobody can promise you a mention. You can only make yourself easy to describe.
People increasingly ask an assistant instead of typing into a search box. The question sounds like a person talking: somewhere open late that does fades near me, or a groomer who handles anxious dogs.
What the assistant is looking for
- A page whose text plainly says what you do, where you do it and when you are open.
- Service names written the way a customer says them, not internal jargon.
- Prices or a price range, if you are willing to publish them.
- Structured data on the page describing the business, its address and its hours.
- Consistency between your site, your Google Business Profile and your map listings.
What tends not to help
- Key information trapped inside an image or a flyer graphic.
- A homepage that is one photo and a booking button with almost no text.
- Hours that differ between your site and your listings.
- A presence that exists only inside a marketplace app.
There is no ranking to buy and no placement to guarantee. Anyone selling guaranteed AI visibility is selling a promise they do not control. The honest version is simpler: publish clear, current, machine readable information at an address you own, and you become one of the businesses that is straightforward to recommend.
Sources
General information for business owners, not legal, tax or financial advice. Rules vary by state and by trade.
