How to Get Your Brand Recommended by ChatGPT
When someone asks ChatGPT "what's the best CRM for small businesses" or "can you recommend a project management tool," the AI provides direct suggestions. If your brand appears in those recommendations, you gain a significant advantage in the consideration process. If you are absent, potential customers may never discover you.
This guide explains how ChatGPT forms recommendations and what you can do to increase your chances of being recommended.
How ChatGPT Decides What to Recommend
ChatGPT does not browse the internet in real-time for most queries. Instead, it draws from patterns learned during training on large amounts of text data. When recommending products or services, ChatGPT references what it learned about brands, their reputations, their features, and how they are discussed across the web.
Several factors influence whether ChatGPT recommends your brand:
Content volume and quality: Brands with substantial, high-quality content explaining what they do and why they are valuable are more likely to be well-represented in training data.
Third-party validation: Reviews, mentions in publications, expert endorsements, and customer testimonials all contribute to how ChatGPT perceives your brand's credibility.
Clear category association: ChatGPT needs to understand what category your brand belongs to and what problems it solves. Ambiguous positioning leads to missed recommendations.
Reputation signals: The overall sentiment of how your brand is discussed online influences whether ChatGPT views you as a recommendable option.
Step 1: Audit Your Current Visibility
Before optimizing, understand where you stand. Ask ChatGPT the questions your potential customers might ask about your product category.
Test queries like:
- "What is the best [your category]?"
- "Can you recommend a [your product type]?"
- "What are the alternatives to [your competitor]?"
- "What [product type] should I use for [use case]?"
Document whether your brand appears, where you rank in the recommendation list, how you are described, and which competitors appear instead.
This baseline helps you prioritize efforts and measure progress. For a detailed framework, see our complete AI audit guide.
Step 2: Create Comprehensive Content
ChatGPT learns from content available on the web. If your brand has limited content explaining what you offer, why it matters, and who it helps, ChatGPT has little to reference when forming recommendations.
Develop content that clearly establishes your brand:
Product and service pages that explain exactly what you offer, not just feature lists but the problems you solve and outcomes you enable.
Comparison content that honestly positions your offering relative to alternatives, helping ChatGPT understand where you fit in the market.
Use case content addressing specific scenarios where your product excels, making it easier for ChatGPT to match you with relevant queries.
FAQ content answering common questions about your category and your specific offering.
Thought leadership demonstrating your expertise in your space through guides, analysis, and educational content.
The goal is ensuring that when ChatGPT processes information about your category, your brand is well-represented with clear, accurate, and comprehensive information.
Step 3: Build Third-Party Validation
ChatGPT weighs third-party sources heavily. Self-promotional content on your own website matters, but external validation carries more weight.
Focus on building:
Customer reviews on relevant platforms. Encourage satisfied customers to leave detailed reviews explaining their experience and the value they received.
Media coverage in publications your industry respects. Seek opportunities for features, interviews, or expert commentary.
Expert endorsements from recognized authorities in your space. Analysts, industry experts, and respected practitioners can provide valuable validation.
Case studies and testimonials that document real customer success, preferably with specific metrics and outcomes.
When ChatGPT encounters consistent positive signals about your brand from multiple independent sources, it increases confidence in recommending you.
Step 4: Strengthen Category Association
ChatGPT needs to clearly understand what category your brand belongs to and what specific problems you solve. Weak or ambiguous positioning leads to missed recommendations.
Ensure your brand is clearly associated with:
Your primary category: If you are a project management tool, that association should be unmistakable across your content and mentions.
Specific problems you solve: Beyond category, connect your brand to the particular challenges you address.
Your target audience: Who is your product for? Enterprise teams, small businesses, specific industries?
Key differentiators: What makes you distinct from alternatives in your category?
Consistent messaging across your website, third-party profiles, and external mentions reinforces these associations.
Step 5: Optimize for Related Queries
ChatGPT responds to many different phrasings of similar questions. Consider the various ways potential customers might ask about solutions in your category.
Create content addressing:
Direct category queries: "best [category]" type searches Problem-based queries: "how do I solve [problem]" where your product is the answer Comparison queries: "alternative to [competitor]" or "[product A] vs [product B]" Use case queries: "[category] for [specific situation]" Feature queries: "[category] with [specific capability]"
Content addressing these different query types increases the chances that ChatGPT connects your brand with relevant questions.
Step 6: Maintain Accuracy and Consistency
ChatGPT can become confused when it encounters contradictory information about your brand. Ensure consistency across all platforms:
Consistent naming: Use the same brand name everywhere, avoiding variations that might not be connected.
Accurate information: Keep product information, pricing, and claims current and accurate across all sources.
Unified positioning: Communicate the same core value proposition across channels.
Inconsistencies in your information can reduce ChatGPT's confidence in recommending you or lead to inaccurate descriptions.
Step 7: Monitor and Adjust
AI recommendations are not static. ChatGPT's responses can shift as models are updated, and your competitive landscape continues evolving.
Establish ongoing monitoring:
Regular testing: Query ChatGPT monthly with your key questions and document changes.
Competitor tracking: Note when competitors appear or disappear from recommendations.
Description accuracy: Monitor how ChatGPT describes your brand and correct inaccuracies through content updates.
Continuous attention allows you to identify and address issues before they become significant problems.
What About ChatGPT's Browsing Features?
Some ChatGPT users have access to browsing capabilities that allow real-time web searches. For these queries, traditional SEO factors become more relevant since ChatGPT actively searches for current information.
Strong search visibility complements AI recommendation optimization. Brands that perform well in both areas capture opportunities regardless of how users interact with ChatGPT.
For more on how traditional SEO and AI optimization work together, see our GEO vs SEO guide.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Expecting immediate results: ChatGPT's knowledge is based on training data, not real-time information. Changes you make today may take time to influence recommendations.
Focusing only on your website: Third-party validation often matters more than your own content. Balance investment between owned content and external presence.
Ignoring competitors: Understanding what competitors who get recommended are doing differently provides valuable insights for your own strategy.
Generic content: Vague marketing language does not help ChatGPT understand what makes you valuable. Be specific about capabilities, outcomes, and differentiators.
Getting Started
Begin with an audit of your current ChatGPT visibility. Understanding your baseline tells you whether you need foundational work or refinement of existing presence.
If you are absent from recommendations entirely, prioritize comprehensive content development and third-party validation. If you appear but are poorly positioned, focus on strengthening specific weak areas.
The brands establishing ChatGPT recommendation presence now are building advantages that become harder for competitors to overcome as AI assistants become more central to how people discover products and services.
Want to understand how your brand currently performs in AI recommendations? Get a free visibility report to see where you stand and what to prioritize.
