More and more people no longer ask Google “best web designer near me” and scroll. They ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity, and the AI simply names a few businesses. If your business is one of the names, you win the customer before they have looked at a single website. If it is not, you are invisible, no matter how good you are.
So how do you become the business the AI recommends? It is not a trick, and you cannot pay for it. But there are clear, proven things that tilt the odds in your favour. Here they are.
First, understand how AI picks who to recommend
When you ask an AI assistant for a recommendation, it does not “know” businesses the way a friend does. It pulls together what it can find about you across the web, reviews, directories, articles, your own site, and forms a picture. The businesses it recommends are the ones with a strong, consistent, trustworthy presence in the places it looks. Everything below is about building that presence.
1. Be easy to find on Google and Bing
AI assistants lean heavily on ordinary search results to decide who exists and who matters. ChatGPT in particular draws a lot from Bing. So the foundation is being genuinely findable in normal search: a fast, healthy website and pages that clearly say what you do and where. If search engines cannot place you, the AI cannot recommend you.
2. Build your presence beyond your own website
This is the part most businesses miss. AI assistants frequently recommend based on third-party sources, not just your own site, things like review platforms, local directories, and articles that mention you. Being talked about elsewhere is as important as your own pages. Get listed in reputable directories, earn mentions, and where it fits, get included in “best of” roundups for your area and trade.
3. Get genuine reviews, and keep getting them
Reviews are one of the strongest signals of a trustworthy business, for both people and AI. A steady stream of honest reviews on Google and other platforms tells an assistant you are real, active and well regarded. Make asking for a review a normal part of finishing a job.
4. Be a clear, consistent entity
AI builds a profile of your business from scattered information, so consistency matters. Your business name, address, phone number and the services you offer should match everywhere they appear online. A complete, accurate Google Business Profile is the anchor for this, especially for local recommendations.
5. Publish genuinely helpful, specific content
Assistants favour sources that demonstrate real expertise and say something only you could say. Write about what you actually do, with real detail and examples, and lead each piece with a clear answer. Vague, generic content does nothing. This is also how you become the source an AI quotes, not just one it lists.
6. Make your information easy for machines to read
Clear page structure, plain headings, and basic schema markup (who you are, where you are, what you offer) help AI understand and trust your information. You do not need anything exotic, just a tidy, well-structured site that states the facts clearly.
7. Check whether it is working
The simplest test costs nothing: open ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity and ask the questions your customers would ask, like “who are the best web designers for small businesses in my area”. See whether you appear, and who does. That tells you where you stand and who you are up against.
The honest timeline
This is not instant. Some signals, like fresh content and reviews, register within days to weeks; the fuller picture builds over a couple of months as your presence grows. But the businesses that start now will be the recommended names while competitors are still wondering what changed.
The bottom line
Getting recommended by AI is not about gaming a system. It is about being a genuinely visible, trustworthy, well-reviewed business with a clear and consistent presence across the web. Do that, and when a customer asks an AI for a recommendation, your name is the one that comes up.
This is exactly the kind of AI visibility work we do for businesses across the UK. If you would like to know how your business looks to AI right now, and how to become the recommended one, book a free AI visibility chat.
Vioscale Technologies helps businesses get found by both search engines and AI assistants. Explore our AI services.