01.10Guide10 min

The AI Visibility Guide: How to Get Recommended by AI

A step-by-step guide to getting your business recommended by ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI, whatever your industry.

This guide walks through the whole process we use at Groow, in the order we'd do it for a new client. You can do most of it yourself. It just takes time.

Step 1: Measure your starting point

List the questions your customers ask about what you sell: discovery, comparisons, cost and trust, plus urgent needs if you have them. Ask each one on ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot, several times each. Record how often you're recommended and who's recommended instead.

AI visibility · HVAC · Des Moines

7-week trend

  • ChatGPT64%↑ 9%
  • Claude48%↑ 7%
  • Perplexity71%↑ 10%
  • Gemini39%↓ 2%
  • Google AI22%↑ 3%

Sample data

How often each AI assistant names a business, week by week.

Step 2: Lock down your facts

Decide on the exact business name, address or service area, phone number, website, hours and product or service names you'll use everywhere. Write them down. Every listing, profile and page should match them character for character.

Step 3: Complete your business profiles

  • Your Google Business Profile, if you have locations: the most specific category, every service, real photos
  • Your listings on the review and comparison sites for your industry, like G2, Healthgrades, NerdWallet or Yelp
  • Every product or service described clearly, in the words customers use
  • Answers to the questions customers ask, like pricing, comparisons and availability

Northbeam Heating & Air

★★★★★ 4.9 · 312 reviews

HVAC contractorFurnace repair serviceAir conditioning contractor
CallDirectionsWebsite

Profile score

96/100

Services

  • Furnace install✓ added
  • Heat pumps✓ added
  • AC repair✓ added
  • Duct cleaningqueued

Posts · last 8 weeks

Sample data

A Google Business Profile with every field filled in.

Step 4: Clean up your listings

Search for your business on the major directories and review sites, plus the industry associations, marketplaces and partner programs you belong to. Fix wrong details, merge duplicates, and claim what's missing. Prioritize the sites you saw cited in step 1.

Step 5: Build a review habit

Ask every customer for a review after a purchase or visit, by text or email, with a direct link. It's fine to ask them to mention the product or service they used. Don't offer incentives, and don't only ask the happy ones. Both break most review sites' rules.

After every job

Automatic

  1. 1

    Job closed

    Furnace install · Sarah K.

  2. 2

    Text sent

    2 hours later

  3. 3

    Review posted

    ★★★★★ “Same-day install…”

  4. 4

    Reply drafted

    Approved by you

Sample data

Asking every customer for a review, right after the job.

Step 6: Answer the questions on your website

For each question you're missing from, make sure a page on your site answers it clearly: pricing, comparisons, availability, guarantees. Add Organization, Product or Service, and FAQ structured data. Check that your robots.txt doesn't block AI crawlers.

Step 7: Get into the sources AI cites

Look at the third-party pages cited in your market: roundups, review sites, forums, association directories and news. Find out how businesses get included and pursue the legitimate ones.

Sites AI trusts vs. Oakline

HVAC questions

Website AI citesYouOaklineAnswers
Google reviews✓✓31
Angi✗✓24
Yelp✓✓18
Des Moines Register “best of”✗✓12
Nextdoor✗✓9

3 sites list Oakline but not you, in 45 answers

Sample data

Sites AI cites that list competitors but not you.

Step 8: Measure again, every week

Re-ask the same questions on the same engines. Note what changed and which fixes came before it. This is the loop: measure, fix, measure again.

Rather hand this off? Groow does every step for you and reports the results monthly. Book a demo to see where you stand today.

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Also on its own page: The AI Visibility Guide: How to Get Recommended by AI

Put this to work on your business

Groow checks how ChatGPT, Google and Google Maps see your business every week, tells you what to fix first, and drafts the work for your OK.