AI search: how to get recommended by Google and ChatGPT

When someone searches for "hairdresser near me" or "how much do floor tiles cost per square metre", they increasingly get an answer first and a list of links second. Google shows that answer as an AI Overview or in AI Mode, and more and more people ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity the same question directly.

For a small business, that changes the goal. Being somewhere on page one is no longer enough. You want the AI, when it puts its answer together, to take the facts from your site and mention you.

What Google officially says

The good news is that there is no secret trick. Google's documentation on AI features says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no special optimisation is needed. A page has to be indexed and eligible to be shown in Search with a snippet. That's it.

In other words, AI search stands on the same foundations as classic SEO. If you have them, you're ahead. If you don't, the AI simply never sees you.

Anyone selling you "AI optimisation" as a separate, expensive service is mostly selling you good old SEO under a new name.

Five things an AI has to be able to read

1. Text, not pictures of text

A price list as a JPG, a menu as a photo, opening hours only in an Instagram story: an AI reads all of that badly, and often not at all. Your key information has to be real text on the page. What you do, where, for whom, roughly what it costs and how to get in touch.

2. Answers to the questions people actually ask

AI tools assemble answers to questions. If your site clearly answers "Are you open on Saturdays?", "Do you cover the surrounding area?" or "How long does it take?", you have something to offer. The easiest way is a short FAQ with concrete answers and no marketing phrases.

3. The same details everywhere

Your business name, address and phone number must be identical on your site, your Google profile, Facebook and directories. When they differ, systems can't tell which source to trust. There's more on this in the article about Google Business Profile.

4. Structured data

Schema.org markup (such as LocalBusiness or FAQPage) helps search engines understand what's on a page: this is the address, these are the opening hours, this is a question and its answer. Google says it isn't required for AI features. It still helps Search understand you correctly, and everything else depends on that.

5. A site that loads fast and clean

If your content only appears after a pile of JavaScript has run, or the site falls apart on a phone, a search crawler may get an empty page. Pre-rendered HTML, as on this site, is the safest option.

Check your robots.txt

Some hosting panels, CDN services and security plugins offer one-click blocking of AI crawlers, and sometimes it gets switched on without you knowing. It's worth knowing the difference:

• Googlebot crawls for Google Search, AI Overviews included. Never block it.
• Google-Extended controls whether Google may use your content to train Gemini models. According to Google, it doesn't affect how you appear in Google Search.
• GPTBot is OpenAI's crawler for model training; OAI-SearchBot is the one for ChatGPT search. Block OAI-SearchBot and your site won't be among the sources in ChatGPT search answers.

If you want AI assistants to recommend you, let the search crawlers in. Training is your call.

Fewer clicks, but better ones

When an AI answers a simple question, some people won't click anywhere. That's reality. But whoever clicks through to you as a source already knows who you are and what you offer. So the page they land on has to offer the next step straight away: a call button, WhatsApp or a short form.

Your list for this week

1. Move prices, opening hours and services out of images and into text.
2. Add 5 to 10 common questions with concrete answers.
3. Make your name, address and phone match on your site and your Google profile.
4. Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt and check it doesn't block Googlebot or OAI-SearchBot.
5. Give every page a clear way to get in touch.

Not sure where to start? Get in touch for a free twenty-minute call, and I'll tell you what actually matters on your site and what can wait.