How to Get ChatGPT to Recommend Your Business

Google’s market share is shrinking, customer behavior is shifting, and as business owners, we’ve got to adapt.

The good news is people still need your help. It’s just how they find you that’s changing.

By the end of this episode, you’re going to have a proven roadmap for how to get found in ChatGPT and other AI tools.

Return guest Tanya Van Gastel (Episode 700) from RankingonAI.com is back to pull back the curtain on how you can get ChatGPT to recommend your business.

Tune in to Episode 717 of the Side Hustle Show to learn:

The three foundational things every business should do to improve AI visibility
How to create content that actually gets cited
The biggest content mistake people make

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The Bad News and The Good News

The bad news: we’ve moved to a zero-click environment. People aren’t getting clicks, and it’s not clear where traffic is coming from.

The good news: ChatGPT conversions convert at 15 times the rate compared to organic SEO.

That’s a strong indicator for companies of all sizes to focus on appearing in AI answers.

If You Do These 3 Things…

Tanya recommends three core actions that will get you 60% further than your competition, no matter if you’re a service provider, publisher, or e-commerce seller.

1. Create Your Own Source of Truth

Even if you sell on Amazon or another marketplace, create your own website where everything about your brand lives.

This helps ChatGPT identify you as an entity and know where to find reliable information about you.

What you need:

an about page
FAQ
services
contact info

ChatGPT sometimes spreads misinformation about brands, pulling from old Reddit conversations or outdated information. Your website is where you can correct that.

If you do a ChatGPT audit and ChatGPT says something incorrect about you, put the correct information in your FAQ. Because you’re the ultimate source of truth for your website and ChatGPT recognizes that, this is how you correct misinformation.

2. Do Outreach to Get Listed Where AI Tools Look

Search ChatGPT for “best [your niche].”

Look at the sources ChatGPT cites. You’ll likely see Reddit threads and listicles.

Get your business listed there.

Include authority arguments: Revenue numbers, conversion rates, social proof, “As Featured In” credentials. Listicle bloggers get tons of outreach emails every day, so you need to stand out.

For Reddit: Be open and honest. Be relevant to the conversation. Don’t include a link because that’ll get you banned immediately.

Expect about a 2-3% conversion rate on your outreach emails.

3. Create Content That Ranks

The shortcut: create a YouTube video that is a listicle or how-to.

Give the answer upfront using BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) plus an FAQ section.

You can seed FAQ questions from the “People Also Ask” section in Google.

Example: “10 Best Podcasts for Entrepreneurs.”

Include yourself at the top, plus nine others. Be honest and helpful. Link to the other businesses you mention.

About 50% of clicks go to the first recommendation, 30% to the second and third, and 20% to the rest.

Auditing Your Existing Exposure in AI

Check what these AI tools are saying about you:

One shift: Side Hustle Nation is now the top query in Google Search Console. By default, ChatGPT doesn’t include links but will still mention brands by name, leading to more direct Google searches and direct traffic.

How to Structure Your Content

Use BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front): Give the answer immediately at the top. Don’t make people scroll through thousands of words to find what they’re looking for.
Add an FAQ section: Answer conversational questions that users might ask.
Add authority arguments: Place them close to your entity name. Type them out instead of using images because AI doesn’t index images as well yet.

The Biggest Mistake

Don’t AI-generate your written content.

Google has become really good at detecting AI-generated content, especially for reviews and listicles.

If Google allowed AI-generated content to rank, the whole internet would become AI-generated, and their own AI algorithms wouldn’t have any human data to train on.

Instead, use transcripts to shape written content:

Willow Voice – transcribe your thoughts as you speak
HappyScribe – record and transcribe conversations with a friend
Akiflow – productivity app Tanya uses for organizing content tasks

Then edit the transcript into an article. It’s way easier than staring at a blank page.

Easy Things People Can Implement to Start Ranking

Custom GPTs and Claude Artifacts

Worth it to create your own branded custom GPT in the ChatGPT store?

Yes. ChatGPT has crazy domain authority. By having something linked from a ChatGPT page, it’s good for your SEO.

When people search for topics related to your GPT, they may find it, and your website link will be right there.

You only need the $20/month ChatGPT Plus plan to create custom GPTs.

Claude Artifacts work similarly to custom GPTs.

Parasite SEO

Use existing domain authority to promote your stuff.

If you’re a brand new website without much trust from Google yet, publish your content on high-authority sites like Medium or Substack.

Because they’re ranked higher by Google, your content is way more likely to get traffic.

Check domain authority using Ahrefs’ domain rating checker.

Commonly Asked Questions from Clients

Site Speed and Site Structure

Site speed and structure matter, but don’t overthink it.

If you’re using Shopify, Framer, Lovable, or Webflow, your site speed is probably fine.

Run a free SEO audit at SEOptimer. If you see red flags, copy the report into ChatGPT and ask for help troubleshooting.

Schema Markup

Schema is structured data markup language that tells Google and AI engines what type of content is on your page (article, how-to, FAQ, review, etc.).

Search “schema generator.” Answer the questions. Copy the markup code. Paste it into the schema box in your CMS.

That’s it. Don’t overthink it.

Better Analytics Tools

SEO Gets is a free tool and a better alternative to Google Search Console.

It shows your clicks, impressions, and click-through rates in an easy-to-understand way.

If you’re getting impressions but not clicks, change your title and meta description to make your listing more compelling.

Bing Webmaster Tools

Add your website to Bing Webmaster Tools.

Do Google Search Console first, then go to Bing and automatically import all your websites. Takes less than 60 seconds.

This matters because of Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI.

Content Refreshes

Find older content that has potential but hasn’t unlocked it yet.

Update the text, add paragraphs, refresh images, change the title, and hit publish.

Ahrefs studies show that refreshed content gets 60% more pickup.

When you refresh content, add BLUF and FAQ sections.

Types of Content That Perform Well

Conversational queries: Answer questions the way people actually ask them in ChatGPT.
Use case content: Show how your product or service solves specific problems.
Comparison content: Bottom-of-funnel content like “Product X vs Product Y.”
Q&A content / FAQ: High citation content.
Statistics: Data-driven content gets cited frequently.
Press releases: About product features, milestones, or awards.

Use ChatGPT to draft press releases. Add images. Distribute through EIN Presswire. Costs around $200 to $300.

Make it factual, not just interesting. Include authority arguments and social proof.

Tanya’s seen clients get really great pickup in huge publications without even pitching individual journalists, just by using press releases through newswires.

A good press release could get picked up in 40+ publications, boosting backlinks, SEO, and AI search visibility.

Differences Between GEO and SEO

Traditional SEO: People learned to use specific keywords and parameters to get results from Google.
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization): People ask conversational questions like “Based on what you know about me, what’s the best AI tool for writing?”

AI search engines are conversational, so structure your content in a conversational way.

Give the answer immediately (BLUF) instead of burying it after thousands of words.

Common Mistakes You See People Making

Don’t overthink it.

Do the three core things:

create your source of truth
do outreach
create content that ranks

Don’t get bogged down in technical details before you’ve done the basics.

Tools/Tech

What’s Next for Tanya?

Tanya is on a content journey at @foundertanya on Instagram and YouTube, talking about AI search marketing and more.

She’s building her AI search marketing agency at RankingOnAI.com, helping tech and SaaS businesses between $2 million and $200 million in annual revenue get recommended by ChatGPT.

Her team has grown to 10 people.

Download Your Free AI SEO Checklist

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You'll also receive my best side hustle tips and weekly-ish newsletter. Opt-out anytime.

Tanya’s #1 Tip for Side Hustle Nation, 2026 Edition

2026: “Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

2025: “Don’t give up. Success is just failure to failure.”

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