ChatGPT recommends the businesses it can find clearly described across the web: on their own websites, in their Google Business Profile and Yelp listings, and in their reviews. When someone asks it for a recommendation in Murfreesboro, it searches, reads what comes back, and names the businesses that show up plainly and consistently in those places, so getting on that list means making sure every one of those places says who you are, what you do and where you do it.
I know this matters because it happened to me. In October I asked ChatGPT who builds websites for small businesses in Murfreesboro. That's my whole job, I live right here, and my name wasn't anywhere in the answer. It named other businesses instead. So I'm doing the work on my own business first, and this post is what I'm learning as I go.
It reads the same places your customers already check
ChatGPT's search looks at the open web, the same pages a customer would find on her own. OpenAI says ChatGPT can only show the websites it's allowed to read. For local questions it also leans on review sites. Yelp said this summer that its ratings and reviews now feed into ChatGPT's answers when people ask about local businesses.
Google works the same way. Google's own guidance says a page Google can find that genuinely helps people is what shows up in its AI answers, and it reminds business owners to keep their Business Profile up to date. So the work that gets you named by an AI is the same work that gets you found on Google, done everywhere your business shows up.
Your Google Business Profile is the first thing I'd fix
If you only do one thing this week, make it this one. Google says businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local search results, and that more reviews and positive ratings can help too.
Open your profile and go through every field: your business name exactly as it appears on your website, the category that matches what you actually do, your phone number, your hours, your website link and the towns you serve. If you work from home, you can list the area you serve and keep your street address private.
Then add real photos of your work. A lash artist in Murfreesboro whose profile is full of real sets and says she serves Murfreesboro and Smyrna is far easier for any search tool to understand than one with a logo and nothing else.
Your website has to say the plain sentence, in words
Search what you do plus your town, the way a customer would type it, like "bookkeeper Murfreesboro" or "event florist Rutherford County." Then open your own homepage and look for the sentence that says exactly that.
On a lot of beautiful websites, it isn't there. It's tucked inside a logo, or written on a photo, or it's simply implied by the look of the site, and a search tool can only read the words that are actually on the page.
The fix starts with one sentence near the top of your homepage: what you do, who it's for and where. After that, give each service you offer its own page, with a real price or a starting price if you're comfortable sharing one, and answer the questions people ask you on the phone in plain words. That's the kind of passage an AI answer lifts and quotes.
Your name has to match everywhere it appears
Same business name, same phone number, same website, on Google, Yelp, Facebook, Instagram and your own site. When one listing has your old business name and another has the new one, it reads like two different businesses, and neither of them looks very sure of itself.
I saw how much this matters with a social media marketer here in Middle Tennessee. Her website was genuinely well built, and when I searched her exact business name in quotes, her site wasn't on the page at all. Another business with almost the same name held those results. Her pages had nothing written for a search engine to read, and the fix turned out to be a short list of edits to pages she already had, plus saying her town on every page, claiming her Google Business Profile and asking for reviews. I wrote up the whole thing here if you want to see what that looked like.
Reviews that describe the work give it something to repeat
Five stars with no words helps your rating. A review where a customer says what you did for them, and mentions the town they're in, gives every search tool real words about your business to work with.
So the next time a happy customer asks how she can help you, tell her. Ask her to leave a Google review that says what you made or fixed or planned for her, in her own words.
What I'd do this week, in this order
- Fill in every field on your Google Business Profile and add real photos of your work.
- Put one plain sentence at the top of your homepage: what you do, who it's for and your town.
- Check that your name, phone number and website match on every listing you have.
- Claim your free Yelp business page if you haven't yet.
- Ask your next three happy customers for a review that says what you did for them.
Nobody can promise you'll be the name ChatGPT says tomorrow, and this takes a little while to show. Each thing on this list makes your business easier to find and easier to trust on Google too, and it keeps working long after you've done it.
You can hand this whole list to me
This is the part of the business most of the women I work with keep meaning to get to. You're great at what you actually do, that's why people come to you, and you shouldn't have to become a search expert on top of it. If you'd like to know where you stand first, my free Website Check is seven yes or no questions and takes about two minutes on your phone, so you know whether you'd show up when someone in Murfreesboro asks.
Take the free Website Check before bed tonight
Or if you already know you want this off your plate, pick a time to talk with me, or call or text me at (615) 437-5552.