When someone asks ChatGPT for a roofer who handles insurance claims, or asks Copilot which shops sell refurbished forklift parts, the assistant doesn’t pull a list out of thin air. It searches an index, reads a handful of pages and writes its answer from what those pages say clearly. Showing up means being in those indexes, being easy to read, and stating your facts plainly enough to quote. Nobody controls what an assistant says, and nobody can guarantee a mention. You can make it much easier for an assistant to pick you.
Where assistants get their information
Each assistant leans on a different source, so it pays to know which is which:
- ChatGPT search and Microsoft Copilot draw on Bing’s index. A page Bing hasn’t indexed is unlikely to be cited by either. OpenAI also runs its own search crawler, OAI-SearchBot.
- Google’s AI results in Search come from the same index as Google’s regular results, so normal Google SEO and Search Console still do the work there.
- Perplexity runs its own crawler, PerplexityBot, alongside its web searches.
- Claude uses Claude-SearchBot for search, while Anthropic’s ClaudeBot collects pages for training.
Assistants also read what other sites say about you: directories, review platforms and industry listings. The steps below cover both your own site and those outside sources. They are the same steps we follow on our SEO and AI visibility work.
Step 1: Make sure your pages can be crawled
- Put important text in the page itself, not inside images or PDFs.
- Not every crawler runs JavaScript, so text that only appears after scripts run may never be seen. The page should arrive with its words already in the HTML.
- Link every important page from your menu or from other pages. A page nothing links to is hard to find.
- Keep public information outside logins.
- List every page in a sitemap and keep it current.
Step 2: Let the AI crawlers in
Your robots.txt file tells crawlers what they may read. Some sites block AI crawlers without meaning to, through an old setting or a copied block list. If you want to be found, allow them. A crawler follows the group that names it and ignores the general * group, so repeat any private paths in each group:
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
User-agent: GPTBot
User-agent: PerplexityBot
User-agent: Claude-SearchBot
User-agent: ClaudeBot
Disallow: /cart
Disallow: /account
User-agent: *
Disallow: /cart
Disallow: /account
Sitemap: https://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap-index.xmlThere is a real choice here. GPTBot and ClaudeBot gather pages for training models. OAI-SearchBot and Claude-SearchBot are the ones that feed search answers. Some owners allow the search crawlers and block the training ones. Either way, don’t block Googlebot or Bingbot. On Wix’s headless hosting, Wix controls robots.txt, so these rules are set through Wix’s API rather than by uploading a file.
Step 3: Get into Bing
Since ChatGPT search and Copilot lean on Bing’s index, Bing Webmaster Tools matters more than its search share suggests. Verify your site, submit your sitemap and check that your main pages are indexed. Our guide to Bing Webmaster Tools for AI search walks through the setup.
Step 4: Add structured data
Structured data is a block of code, written in the schema.org vocabulary, that states facts about a page in a form machines read without guessing. Useful types for most businesses:
- Organization or LocalBusiness (or the closest specific type, such as Plumber or RoofingContractor): name, website, phone, address if it is public, areas served, and links to your profiles on other sites
- Product: price, availability, brand and condition
- FAQPage: the questions and answers already on the page
- Article: author and date on guides and blog posts
It doesn’t guarantee a mention. It removes guesswork about who you are and what you sell.
Step 5: Write your facts plainly
Assistants quote clear factual answers: FAQs, specs, prices, hours, areas served, and what you do and don’t do. Compare two lines from a roofing company’s service page:
- Vague: “Serving the greater region with quality you can trust.”
- Clear: “We replace and repair asphalt shingle and metal roofs in Kent and Ottawa counties, Michigan. Estimates are free and we work with insurance adjusters.”
The second can be quoted as an answer. The first can’t. Put a short FAQ on each service page that answers the questions customers actually ask on the phone.
Step 6: Add an llms.txt file
/llms.txt is a plain-text summary at the root of your site that some AI tools read. It names the business, says what it does, and points to the pages that matter:
# Sample Roofing Co.
> Roof replacement and repair in Kent and Ottawa counties, Michigan.
## Key pages
- [Services](https://www.yourdomain.com/services): roof types we install and repair
- [Service area](https://www.yourdomain.com/service-area): counties and towns we cover
- [FAQ](https://www.yourdomain.com/faq): estimates, warranties, insurance claimsIt takes a few minutes and costs nothing to keep up. Don’t expect it to make up for unclear pages.
Step 7: Keep your name, address and phone identical everywhere
Use the same business name, phone number and address (if you publish one) on your site, Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, Yelp, the Better Business Bureau and the directories in your trade. Small differences, like an old phone number or a former business name, make it harder for any system to tell that two listings are the same business. Link those profiles from your structured data so the connection is stated outright.
Step 8: Earn reviews on real platforms
Review platforms are among the outside sources assistants can read about you. Ask every satisfied customer for a review on Google and on the platform your industry uses. Make it easy with a direct link. Don’t buy reviews, don’t write your own, and reply to the critical ones calmly and specifically.
How to tell if it’s working
- Ask ChatGPT, Copilot, Perplexity and Google the questions your customers ask, the same questions each month, and note who gets named.
- Check the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools, which shows how often Copilot and Bing’s AI answers cite your pages.
- Watch your analytics for visits referred by chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and similar sites.
What nobody can promise
Assistants change how they pick sources, and the same question can get different answers from one day to the next. Anyone who guarantees placement in AI answers is guessing. What you control is being findable, readable, consistent and well reviewed, and that also happens to be good search work for Google and Bing.
Your next step
If you’d like us to check your site against this list, including robots.txt, Bing indexing, structured data and directory listings, get in touch through our contact page. You can also read how we handle SEO and AI visibility for businesses that sell nationally.