How ChatGPT Decides Which Local Business to Recommend
People keep asking me this. It's always the first question.
They find out we do AEO, and before I've finished explaining what that even means, they want to know exactly how ChatGPT picks who to recommend. Fair enough. The answer is less mysterious than you'd expect, but it's worth understanding properly.
It reads the web, then picks a winner
Google gives you ten links and lets you choose. ChatGPT does something completely different. It reads what's available online and gives you a name. One business, sometimes two, and that's your answer.
For local businesses in North Hertfordshire, this changes everything. You can't rely on being somewhere in a long list anymore. Either AI names you or it names your competitor. There's no third option.
Direct answers win. Every time.
This matters more than anything else, in my experience. Tested it dozens of times across different trades and different towns. The pattern is remarkably consistent.
If someone asks "How much does a boiler replacement cost in Hitchin?", ChatGPT looks for a page that answers exactly that. Your website has a clear answer with a realistic price range? ChatGPT references you. You've got a page that says "Contact us for a free quote"? It moves on to someone who actually gave a number.
I'm not saying you have to publish your exact prices. But giving people a ballpark, "Most combi boiler replacements in the Hitchin area cost between £2,000 and £3,500 depending on the system", that gives AI something useful to work with.
We put together a full checklist in our post on 5 things your website needs before AI will recommend you.
You have to spell out where you work
ChatGPT will not guess your service area. I keep saying this because it keeps being true and people keep not doing it.
If your site says "We cover Hertfordshire" but never mentions Letchworth, Baldock, or Royston specifically, AI might not connect you to those towns. You genuinely have to name them. Every single one. I realise that sounds tedious. It works though.
An electrician in Letchworth added a simple list of his service areas to every page. Within weeks he was showing up in ChatGPT results for queries he'd never appeared in before. Nothing fancy. Just the words on the page.
Trust signals matter a lot
AI assesses credibility before it recommends anyone. Makes sense when you think about it. ChatGPT is putting its reputation on the line (in a manner of speaking) every time it names a business. It wants to be confident it's giving good advice.
Businesses with detailed case studies and genuine customer reviews come across as more trustworthy. A website that says "We're the best" without evidence isn't convincing to anyone, and the AI seems to agree.
Descriptions of past work help enormously. Customer testimonials with specifics carry real weight. "Fixed our leaking flat roof in Stevenage same day, very professional" is infinitely more useful to AI than "Great service, would recommend."
Your business name needs to be consistent
If your website says "Smith Plumbing" but your Google Business Profile says "Smith's Plumbing Services", that weakens your signal. AI needs a clear, consistent entity to reference. If it can't be sure it's talking about the same business across different sources, it gets cautious.
Seems like a small thing. I've seen it make a genuine difference though. One afternoon auditing your listings across every platform can tighten this up completely.
Structured, readable pages
Pages with clear headings and short paragraphs are much easier for AI to parse. A wall of text with no structure makes it hard to pull out anything useful.
Use headings that describe what the section is about. Keep paragraphs to three or four sentences. Use bullet points where they make sense. This applies to every page on your site, not just the homepage.
What North Hertfordshire businesses should focus on
If you serve Hitchin, Letchworth, Baldock, Royston, Stevenage, or anywhere across North Hertfordshire, your website needs four things done properly:
- What you do, written specifically
- Where you do it, naming actual towns
- Why someone should pick you, backed by real proof
- How to get in touch, made obvious on every page
That's what AEO optimisation does. It structures your content so AI can recommend you with confidence rather than guessing.
Your competitors probably aren't doing this yet
That's what makes this interesting right now. Most local businesses are still focused entirely on Google rankings (which still matter, don't get me wrong). The AI search piece is wide open.
We cover how to take advantage of this in our guide on getting your business recommended by AI in North Hertfordshire. The businesses that start now get a genuine head start. By the time everyone else catches on, you're already the name ChatGPT knows.
Book a call if you want to see how AEO could work for your business. Happy to have a look at where you stand.