When someone asks ChatGPT or Google’s AI “who’s the best [your service] in [your city]?”, the assistant names two or three businesses. This guide covers how to become one of them, in practical steps you can start this month.
The underlying principle is simple: AI assistants can only recommend what they can read, understand and trust. Every step below serves one of those three verbs.
STEP 1:
Write the sentence you want AI to say
AI assistants compose answers from text they’ve read. If you want to be described as “a Sydney branding agency specialising in aesthetic clinics”, that exact idea must exist on your website as plain, crawlable text. Audit your homepage and key pages and ask: if a machine could only quote my sentences, could it describe my business accurately? For most businesses the honest answer is no, because the copy is all tagline and no fact. Write a clear “who we are, where we are, what we do, who we serve” statement and place it on your homepage, about page and footer.
STEP 2:
Make your site readable without JavaScript
Most AI crawlers don’t execute JavaScript. Content that loads via scripts, animated statistics, tabbed content, background-image galleries and some page builders’ lazy-loaded sections, simply doesn’t exist for them. Test it: view your site with JavaScript disabled, or fetch it with a basic crawler. Whatever disappears is invisible to AI. Move critical claims, service descriptions and contact details into plain HTML.
STEP 3:
Answer real questions, directly
AI engines favour pages that resolve a query completely. For every service you offer, list the questions customers actually ask, then publish content where each question is a heading and the first two sentences answer it plainly, with detail following. Include the questions people ask AI specifically, which tend to be conversational and comparative: “how much does X cost”, “is X worth it”, “what should I look for in a Y”.
STEP 4:
Add statistics, sources and specifics
The Princeton GEO research (KDD 2024) tested nine optimisation methods and found that adding citations, quotations and statistics improved visibility in AI answers by up to 40 per cent, far outperforming keyword tactics. Dates, prices, named regulations, step counts and cited claims give an AI something concrete to extract and a reason to treat your page as authoritative. Vague copy gives it nothing.
STEP 5:
Implement structured data
The Princeton GEO research (KDD 2024) tested nine optimisation methods and found that adding citations, quotations and statistics improved visibility in AI answers by up to 40 per cent, far outperforming keyword tactics. Dates, prices, named regulations, step counts and cited claims give an AI something concrete to extract and a reason to treat your page as authoritative. Vague copy gives it nothing.
STEP 6:
Build your entity beyond your website
AI models cross-reference. A business that exists only on its own website is a weak entity; one confirmed across independent sources is a strong one. That means a complete Google Business Profile, consistent name-address-phone details everywhere, industry directories, reviews on third-party platforms, and mentions in press, podcasts, association sites and supplier pages. Every credible external mention is another vote that you are who your website says you are.
STEP 7:
Cover your topic properly, not occasionally
One good article signals little. A body of work signals authority. Publishing consistently on your specialty, the way a genuine expert would, is what moves you from “a business that exists” to “the name AI reaches for” on that topic. Depth on a narrow specialty beats breadth across everything, which is why niching (by industry or service) accelerates AI visibility.
STEP 8:
Test, record, repeat
Monthly, ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Google’s AI the money questions for your business and record the answers. Check your analytics for referrals from AI platforms. When you’re named, note which page is being drawn from and do more of it. When a competitor is named instead, read the page earning them the mention; it’s usually obvious why.
What to avoid
- Stuffing keywords or fake reviews. The research shows keyword stuffing does little for AI visibility, and fabricated signals are both detectable and, for regulated industries, illegal.
- Blocking AI crawlers by default. Check your robots.txt and any firewall rules; some security plugins block AI crawlers out of the box, which is self-inflicted invisibility.
- Chasing every AI platform separately. The fundamentals above serve all of them. Optimise the source, not the symptom.
Frequently asked questions
How long until AI assistants mention my business?
Technical and content changes can surface in weeks as crawlers revisit, but consistent recommendation is a three-to-six-month outcome that compounds from there.
Do I need different content for ChatGPT versus Google AI?
No. They differ in mechanics (some browse live, some lean on training data and search partnerships), but all reward the same things: clarity, structure, authority and machine-readable facts.
Can an agency guarantee AI recommendations?
No one controls AI outputs, so treat guarantees as a red flag. What can be done is making your business maximally findable, readable and credible, which is what reliably shifts the odds.
Novu Creative is a Sydney design and digital agency offering AI search visibility (GEO/AEO) alongside branding, websites and marketing. We apply everything in this guide to our own site first. Book a call for an AI visibility review.
Related reading:
- Aggarwal et al., “GEO: Generative Engine Optimization”, KDD 2024.
