Can ChatGPT find your local business? What to check first

Write down what someone needs to know

Example / Illustration

Describe the service, the place or area you serve, the customer languages and the next step for getting in touch. Put these facts on the page itself. A visitor should not have to infer your location from a photograph or your specialism from a vague slogan.

Choose one question you already receive and answer it fully. A cleaner could explain which areas they cover and how a quote is prepared. A translator could explain the language pairs offered and the information needed for a request. These are content-planning examples, not claims about particular businesses or guaranteed AI results.

• Does the service page identify who it is for?
• Does it state the real location or service area?
• Can someone understand the next step without contacting you for basic information?

Check access before paying for an AI package

Open the public page on a phone without signing in. Check that it loads, that the text is visible and that links work. Ask your supplier to verify crawler access and indexing settings. A blocked preview or a broken production page is a concrete problem to fix before discussing AI visibility.

OpenAI identifies OAI-SearchBot as its search crawler; its access is separate from GPTBot's training control. Ask your supplier to check the search crawler policy. Whether a site has an AI-labelled plugin tells you little.

Ask what the AI service includes

Google says special AI text files such as llms.txt are not required for its AI search features. An agency should be able to explain the work it will do in ordinary terms: fix inaccessible pages, correct business details, improve service explanations or answer a real customer question.

Use one shared list of business facts when updating your website, Google profile and other listings. When details differ, decide which version is accurate and repair the mismatch. Structured data can describe those same facts, but it should never add invented reviews, awards or services.

Measure observations and enquiries separately

Keep a small list of realistic questions in your customer languages. Record the date, service area, tool used, cited source and whether the answer described your business accurately. A single mention is an observation. It does not show a stable recommendation rate or prove that a new customer came from AI.

Track actual enquiries alongside those checks. A click on a WhatsApp button is not a confirmed conversation or booking. Navidu Presence includes an AI-ready setup; Growth adds a monthly AI-visibility check and 1 new answer page per month. We do not guarantee search rankings or mentions in AI answers.

• Repeat the same small set of relevant questions when comparing checks.
• Save the cited page and correct factual mistakes in your own information.
• Judge useful enquiries separately from mentions and contact-button clicks.