How to get your business on ChatGPT: a step-by-step setup

OpenAI doesn’t describe a sign-up form for local businesses, so the real work is making sure your website and public profiles say the right things.¹ Picture a homeowner in Newtown asking ChatGPT for a local electrician. If your website gives one phone number and an old map listing gives another, ChatGPT may find two different stories about you. This guide shows you how to check each place, fix what’s wrong and test what ChatGPT says in return.

Our AI SEO agency does this work for clients. You can do everything below yourself. The wider job of getting AI tools to describe your business well is called generative engine optimisation (GEO). Our guide on what is GEO covers it. This page sticks to checking the details on each public profile.

Can you submit your business to ChatGPT directly?

OpenAI’s current Search guidance doesn’t describe a form for submitting a local business. It tells website owners to let in its search robot, which is called OAI-SearchBot. A robot here means a program that visits web pages by itself. You will also hear it called a crawler. Your web host must also allow requests from the network addresses OpenAI publishes.¹ OpenAI’s separate bot pages say this search robot is different from the one used to train its AI models.²

ChatGPT does look beyond your website when someone asks for a local business. OpenAI says it may share the user’s location with trusted outside providers that help supply local information, such as nearby business listings.¹ It also says ChatGPT sometimes teams up with other search providers and sends them its own reworded, more targeted searches.¹

Don’t mix any of this up with ChatGPT Business. OpenAI lists Business with Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Enterprise and Edu as plans that include web search.¹ It’s a plan for using ChatGPT at work. OpenAI’s pages don’t describe it as a way to get listed.

A business listing is a public profile on a map, directory or review service. Claiming a listing gives the authorised owner a way to manage it. It doesn’t put you inside every AI assistant. OpenAI’s pages don’t name any of these profiles as a direct feed into ChatGPT, so treat each one as accurate public information that ChatGPT may read.

Which six steps show how to get your business on ChatGPT?

Work through these in order. Each step ends with a read-back. That means looking at the public result the way a customer or an AI tool would see it.

1. Write down your real business details once.
2. Check that OpenAI’s search robot can reach your website.
3. Check and claim your Bing Places listing.
4. Check and claim your Apple Business location.
5. Check and claim your Google Business Profile.
6. Check the directories ChatGPT actually cites for your trade, then ask ChatGPT and read its sources.

What details should you gather before you claim a profile?

Write your facts down once, then copy from that note into every profile. That keeps each profile saying the same thing.

• Trading name, spelled the way it appears on your signage and invoices
• Phone number customers can ring
• Website address
• Main category, such as the trade you do most
• Opening hours, including public holidays
• Suburbs or areas you serve
• Your real business address, which a platform may ask for in private to verify you

Showing your address publicly is a separate choice from giving it to a platform to verify you. Check each platform’s own rules before you add or hide a location. Never invent an office to look local. If you travel to customers, Google lets you choose not to show your address and set the cities, postcodes or areas you serve instead.¹¹

How do you check and claim Bing Places?

Search for your business on Bing Maps first. Microsoft says Bing Places for Business is the place to claim or update your listing. The details appear in Bing Maps search results.⁵

Microsoft calls Bing Places a free platform for creating and managing listings that appear in Bing search results and Bing Maps.⁴ In October 2025 it moved the owner portal from bingplaces.com to bing.com/forbusiness. Existing users and listings moved across automatically.⁴

1. Search your business name and phone number on Bing Maps. Note any listing that already exists.
2. Sign in at bing.com/forbusiness and claim the existing listing. Add a new one only if none exists.
3. If Bing offers to import details from another profile, check every field first. Microsoft says its import keeps the key facts, such as name, hours and contact details.⁴
4. Complete a verification option shown for your listing. Bing’s help says the available options appear after you claim, so don’t assume every business gets the same choices.³
5. Fill the gaps Bing’s recommendation tool points out. Microsoft says it suggests photos and missing details such as website, hours and social links.⁴
6. Search your business on Bing Maps again and compare what you see with your fact note.

Microsoft recommends Bing Places for local businesses so address, hours and contact details stay current. It says that helps businesses stay eligible for AI-generated answers in Microsoft’s own products.⁶ That is Microsoft’s guidance for its own products. It doesn’t show that a Bing listing is used in a ChatGPT answer. Our guide to Gemini SEO and Copilot SEO covers what Bing reports.

How do you check your Apple Business listing?

Apple Business Connect is now called Apple Business.⁷ Search for your location first. If it already exists, add it and ask for a transfer when another organisation manages it. If it doesn’t exist, add it as new.

These are the steps from Apple’s guide.⁸

1. Sign in as a user whose role can manage locations. Then go to Brands, then Locations.
2. Select Add and enter the location name. If the name matches an existing location, follow the existing location path.
3. If a note says the location is already managed, carry on and add the location. Then request a transfer afterwards.
4. For a transfer, explain why management should move to you and attach a supporting document, such as a business licence or utility bill. Apple says review can take up to five working days.
5. Where the location already exists on Maps, you may be able to verify by phone. Apple calls the number it has on record and you enter a four-digit code.
6. Check the display name, category and map pin, then follow the remaining prompts. If it’s your first location and your organisation isn’t verified yet, complete organisation verification and send it to Apple for review.⁸

Apple says customers see your place card, the information box for your business, when they select your location in Maps.⁸ Search for your business in Apple Maps on an iPhone and compare the card with your fact note. Apple also asks you to allow mail from all apple.com domains so verification emails arrive.⁸

If your business runs from a home address, read Apple’s location requirements before you add a place card. Make sure the location matches how customers really use your business.⁸ If Apple’s location setup doesn’t fit, contact Apple Business support before you submit it. Don’t invent an office for customers.

How do you check your Google Business Profile?

Find your business in Google Search and Maps before you add anything. Google says only businesses eligible for a Business Profile can add or claim a location. It says you can do so at no charge.⁹

• To claim an existing unverified profile: search for the business name and city in Google Maps, select “Claim this business”, then “Manage now” and choose a verification option.⁹
• To add a new profile when none exists: go to business.google.com/add, select “Add your business to Google” and follow the prompts.⁹
• If the profile is already verified: you can request ownership from the current owner, provided you are authorised to manage the business.⁹

Google decides which verification options you get and you can’t change them. They depend on your business type, public information, region or opening hours.¹⁰ The options include video, phone or text, email, a live video call and a postcard. Google says most postcard codes arrive within 14 days and expire after 30 days. It adds that verification reviews take up to five working days.¹⁰

After you verify, edit the profile from Google Search or the Maps app by selecting Edit profile. Google reviews changes before they go live.¹¹ Read your public profile again a few days later and compare it with your fact note.

Reviews are a separate job. Our guide on Google reviews and AI search covers them.

Which Australian directories should you check?

Check the directories and registers that appear in real answers for your trade, not a generic top-ten list. A directory is a website that lists many businesses in one place. A register is an official list of members or licences. The quickest way to find the right ones is to ask ChatGPT your own trade question for your suburb, then list every website it links to.

Kavera note: In our Sydney trades AI search index, 34 of 50 ChatGPT answers contained a link to a government source. Service NSW was the most linked website, in 21 of 50. Directory links appeared in 8 of 50 ChatGPT answers and 14 of 50 answers from Perplexity, another AI search tool. hipages.com.au, airtasker.com and thequoteyard.com.au were among the websites linked most often. We chose the questions ourselves across Sydney trades, so it isn’t a survey of homeowners or a full count of local businesses. It also didn’t test whether joining a directory changes a result.

Treat that as a pattern and not a rule. A plumber, a dentist and an accountant may each see different sources.

Work from your own ChatGPT test. Add a directory only when it already lists businesses like yours or appears in your answers. Claim the existing entry before you create a new one.

How do you check whether ChatGPT now has the right details?

Ask ChatGPT two kinds of question and keep the results apart. OpenAI says search results and citations (the links ChatGPT shows) can be incomplete, outdated or incorrect. So open each source it links to and check that it supports the answer.¹ If a result looks wrong, OpenAI suggests asking ChatGPT to search again using a specific source, date or location.¹

Include the suburb or city in every question. OpenAI says to add your city, neighbourhood or postcode when local results show the wrong area.¹

Kavera note: One question in our study mentioned Canterbury without naming Sydney. Perplexity answered for Canterbury in England. Add the suburb, city and state to your own checks, then look at which place the answer is about. Clearer wording helps you test the market you mean but doesn’t guarantee an answer for the right place.

Save each answer with the date, the question and every source link. A correct answer to the named question doesn’t show that ChatGPT recommends you to someone who has never heard of you. Repeat both questions a few weeks after each change, because listings and pages take time to update.

The picture below shows these as two separate stations, one for checking your details and one for checking whether you get recommended.

What if your business still does not appear?

Check access first. OpenAI says its search robot, OAI-SearchBot, must be able to read your site. Your hosting security must also allow requests from OpenAI’s published network addresses.¹ The public file that tells crawlers which parts of your site they may visit is called robots.txt. OpenAI says changes to that file can take about 24 hours to apply.²

OpenAI uses OAI-SearchBot for search and GPTBot for training its AI models. It says the two settings are independent, so you can allow one without allowing the other.² Our guide to AI crawlers and robots.txt covers each visitor.

OpenAI also says ChatGPT ranks results using several factors and doesn’t guarantee placement.¹ Accurate profiles remove mistakes you can avoid. They can’t promise a mention.

For the bigger strategy, read our ChatGPT SEO guide. In two checks about two months apart, our client SHORE went from absent to first in one Sydney builder shortlist.

To count visits separately from mentions, use our guide to tracking AI traffic in GA4. Keep only the referral details your analytics really records. Where it can’t tell where a visit came from, leave the source as unknown.

Can we set this up for you?

Yes. Our AI SEO agency checks your website and public profiles together and tells you which fix comes first. We can’t promise a place in any ChatGPT answer.

Our SEO audit is free and includes a technical, keyword, competitor and Google Business Profile review with a prioritised roadmap. Implementation is separate unless retained. Monthly plans start at Suburb SEO, $890/month + GST. See the SEO packages for scope and terms. No SEO package guarantees rankings, leads or revenue.