Getting found · Google, ChatGPT and the AI answers
How do customers find a local business on Google and ChatGPT?
Your customers ask Google, and more and more of them ask ChatGPT. The same four things decide whether your name comes up in either one.
The first visit is free: 30 minutes at your place. You leave with the first three things I’d fix. No obligation.
Blake Porterfield, St. Clairsville Fisher College of Business, Ohio State, 2015. As seen in The Intelligencer and The Times Leader.
The short answer
Four things decide it. Most are free.
Four things: a complete Google listing, steady reviews, pages that answer questions plainly, and other local sites that name you. Google’s map ranks on those, and ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews answer from them. Most of it is free. I can do it for you, and I never promise a ranking.
- Google listing tune-up
- $150 flat
- Reviews asked for automatically
- $199
- Directory cleanup, 12+ sites
- $250
- Local search care
- from $250/month
- Free online audit
- Free
What to do, in order
Six steps, most of them free.
- Finish your Google listing. Hours, phone, website, the category that names what you sell, every service, and real photos. Google’s map and the AI tools both read it first. In the same check, 12 listings posted no hours at all.
- Ask for reviews every week. Text happy customers the direct review link the week of the job, and answer every review. In my July 2026 check of 117 Ohio Valley businesses, 24 had fewer than ten reviews and contractors had a median of four. AI answers quote reviews. Never buy them: Google removes fake reviews and can suspend the listing.
- Answer the question in the first lines. Give each thing you sell its own page, with the answer, the price and your town in the first two sentences, then the detail. That is the part AI answers lift and quote.
- Get named on other local sites. The chamber, your suppliers, the paper, a team you sponsor, “best of” lists. ChatGPT recommends the names it sees mentioned elsewhere. Same name, phone and address everywhere.
- Let the search tools in. One line in a file called robots.txt can block Google or the AI tools from reading your site. Leave the door open to Googlebot, GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and ClaudeBot.
- Check what they say about you. Once a month, ask ChatGPT and Google the questions your customers ask, like “best plumber in St. Clairsville”. Write down who gets named. That is your scorecard.
Half of the valley’s 11,201 Google reviews belong to 14 businesses.The Ohio Valley Digital Report · 117 businesses, July 2026
Questions.
How do I get my business mentioned by ChatGPT?
ChatGPT answers from what it finds about you online: your Google listing, your reviews, your website and other sites that mention you. Make all of those complete and consistent, and get named on local lists and directories. No one can buy a spot in its answer.
What are Google’s AI Overviews?
The short answer Google writes above the search results, with links to the pages it read. A page that answers the question plainly in its first lines is the kind it quotes.
How long does it take to show up?
A corrected Google listing can show within days. New pages usually take a few weeks to be read and a few months to settle. AI answers change as the web changes. Anyone who promises a week is guessing.
Can you get me to the top of Google or into ChatGPT’s answer?
No one can promise either, and I won’t. I make sure everything Google and the AI tools read about you is complete and correct, and I check each month what they say.
What does it cost to have you do it?
The Google listing tune-up is $150 flat. Directory cleanup across 12 or more sites is $250. Local search care, where I keep it all current and check what Google and ChatGPT say about you every month, starts at $250 a month.
Free visit
Tell me what eats your week.
30 minutes at your place or on the phone, anywhere in the Ohio Valley. You leave with the first three things I’d fix.
Blake Porterfield The person who shows up. St. Clairsville, Ohio.