How to Get Your Business Found in AI Search

More of your customers are asking AI tools questions they used to type into Google: who fixes a leaking roof near me, which accountant is good for small businesses, is it worth paying for a CRM. The answer they get often names a handful of businesses and links to a few sources. If you are not one of them, you are invisible at the exact moment someone is ready to buy.

The good news is that the rules are less mysterious than the hype suggests. Google and OpenAI have both published guidance, and most of it rewards the same things that have always won customers: clear, original, helpful information.

Do you need special optimisation for AI search?

No. Google says there are no additional requirements or special optimisations needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. To be shown as a supporting link, a page simply has to be indexed and eligible to appear in Google Search with a snippet.

Google's own optimisation guide, published in May 2026, goes further. It says you do not need new machine-readable files, special AI markup or to break your content into tiny chunks. Its generative AI features are rooted in the same ranking and quality systems as normal Search. In other words, good SEO is still the foundation.

If your page would not rank in normal search, it is unlikely to be quoted by AI search either.

How does ChatGPT search decide which sites to show?

ChatGPT search uses OpenAI's crawler, OAI-SearchBot, to find pages. OpenAI states that sites which block OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, although they can still appear as plain navigational links.

This is separate from AI training. OpenAI treats each crawler setting independently, so you can allow OAI-SearchBot (to appear in search) while blocking GPTBot (which signals your content should not be used for training). Changes to your robots.txt file can take around 24 hours to take effect.

Check this today

1. Open yoursite.com/robots.txt in a browser.
2. Look for any line that disallows OAI-SearchBot or blocks all bots with "User-agent: *" and "Disallow: /".
3. If you find one and want to appear in ChatGPT search, ask whoever manages your website to remove it.
4. In Google Search Console, confirm your key pages are indexed and not marked noindex.

What kind of content gets picked up?

Google's guide says the most important long-term factor is unique, non-commodity content: expert-led material that adds value beyond common knowledge. It specifically warns against pages that recycle what is already online or could easily be produced by an AI model.

For a service business, that is an advantage. You know things a generic article does not: what jobs actually cost in your area, the questions customers ask on the first call, the mistakes you fix every week. That first-hand detail is exactly what makes a page worth quoting.

• Write one page per service, not one page listing everything you do.
• Answer the real question in the first two sentences, then explain the detail.
• Use the words customers use: "boiler service cost", not "heating maintenance solutions".
• Include specifics: typical price ranges, timescales, areas covered and what is included.
• Add a short questions-and-answers section to each service page.
• Use real photos of your work where they help explain the service.

Does your Google Business Profile matter for AI answers?

For local searches it matters a lot. Google ranks local results on relevance, distance and prominence. Relevance comes from complete, detailed business information. Prominence is based on how well known you are, including how many reviews you have and how many websites link to you. Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking.

Keep your categories, services, opening hours and service area accurate, and make asking for a review a normal step after every finished job. Google is also clear that nobody can pay for a better local ranking.

How do you know if AI search is sending you customers?

Google now offers a Generative AI performance report in Search Console so you can see how your pages perform in its AI features. ChatGPT also adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to the links it sends people through, so those visits show up as a separate source in your analytics.

Visits are only half the story, though. The question that matters is whether those visitors became paying customers. SholaX Lead Capture records the UTM tags with every enquiry, so an enquiry that came from ChatGPT is labelled as such in the CRM, and you can follow it through to a booked job.

What should you do this week?

1. Check robots.txt is not blocking OAI-SearchBot or Googlebot.
2. Confirm your main service pages are indexed in Search Console.
3. Rewrite the opening of each service page so it answers the customer's main question directly.
4. Add three to five real customer questions and answers to each service page.
5. Update your Google Business Profile and ask your last five happy customers for a review.
6. Make sure enquiries from AI tools are tracked through to the sale, not just the visit.