How to get your company recommended by ChatGPT as a supplier

Your buyers now ask ChatGPT which supplier to use before they contact anyone, and when you ask it the same thing, it names other companies and not yours. Here is how to get your company recommended by ChatGPT as a supplier: find out which pages it reads when it answers, put clear facts about what you supply on your own site and profiles, then get your name onto the pages it reads, every day. If you do nothing, the shortlist is made before anyone visits your website, and you are not on it.

Do these three things

About 5 hours a day, every day, with AI drafting most of it. Judge it at month 3, after 84 pages and 8,400 messages, not after one check.

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1. 1Today: ask ChatGPT 20 questions your buyers ask when they look for a supplier like you, 3 times each, and write down who it names and which pages it cites.
2. 2Every day: publish 1 page that answers a buyer's question, send 100 personal messages asking the sites ChatGPT cites, your partners and your clients to mention you, post twice on LinkedIn and give 20 answers where buyers ask for help.
3. 3Every Sunday: ask the same 20 questions again, count how many of the 60 answers name you, and count enquiries that say they found you through ChatGPT.

Get help doing these

ChatGPT or Claude reads this guide and works through it with you.

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1. Ask ChatGPT the 20 questions your buyers ask, and write down who it names

Ask ChatGPT the questions a buyer types when they need a supplier like you, 3 times each, in a clean chat. Write down every company it names and every page it shows as a source. This is your starting point, and the list of sources is where you will spend most of your time.

ChatGPT does not keep a list of suppliers. When a buyer asks, ChatGPT search turns the question into several shorter searches, sends them to outside search providers, reads the pages that come back, and names the companies those pages describe best. It may also use the buyer's rough location. So the pages it cites are the pages you need to be on.

Write 20 questions in your buyers' words. Use the words your clients used on their first call, and these shapes:

Best [what you supply] for [your kind of buyer]
Who makes [product or service] for [your kind of buyer]?
[What you supply] with a low minimum order
[What you supply] in [your region or country]
Alternatives to [a competitor your buyers know]
How do I choose a [what you supply] supplier?
[What you supply] that can deliver in [your lead time]
[What you supply] with [a certification or standard your buyers ask for]

Use each shape 2 or 3 times with different details, to reach 20. Add a place and a size where your buyers would ("for a café brand in Ohio", "for a 20-person firm"). Write down which of the 20 sound most like your best client's first question. Those are the 5 to watch most closely.

Then ask each question 3 times. Open ChatGPT, start a Temporary chat, and choose "Unpersonalized", so your own past chats and memories do not change the answer. Ask the question, then open "Sources" under the answer and copy every page it lists. Start a new Temporary chat for each run. Ask 3 times because the list changes almost every time: in a January 2026 study by SparkToro and Gumshoe, AI tools gave the same list of brands less than 1 time in 100. If an answer shows no sources, ask again and start with "Search the web:".

Give ChatGPT or Claude your 60 answers and ask it to fill the sheet: one row per answer, with the companies named and the pages cited. Check each row against the answer yourself. This list of names is also your real competitor list, because these are the companies your buyers hear about first.

• Tool: ChatGPT and a Google Sheet.
• Time: about 2 hours.
• You will have: 60 answers in a sheet, a count of how many name you, and a list of every page ChatGPT cited, with how often.
• It worked if: every row has the names and at least one cited page, and you have at least 20 different cited pages. If you have fewer, make the questions more specific to who you sell to.
• Common mistake: asking one question once, in your own logged-in chat with memory on, and deciding from that one answer. The next answer will be different.

2. Let ChatGPT and Bing read your website

Check that nothing blocks ChatGPT's search crawler, that your key facts are in the page itself, and that your site is in Bing as well as Google. ChatGPT cannot recommend what it cannot read.

Do these five things once. Most take minutes, and they are on any technical SEO checklist.

1. 1

   Check your robots.txt

   Open yoursite.com/robots.txt. If you see "User-agent: OAI-SearchBot" or "User-agent: *" followed by "Disallow: /", delete those lines. OpenAI says sites that block OAI-SearchBot "will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers". A change takes about 24 hours to reach ChatGPT.

2. 2

   Check Cloudflare, if your site uses it

   Cloudflare changed its AI crawler settings in July and September 2026. Open your domain's Security settings, find the AI crawler setting, and check that search crawlers are allowed. Leave AI training unblocked too unless you have a reason: Cloudflare says blocking training also affects crawlers that do both jobs, such as Bingbot.

3. 3

   Check your facts are in the page source

   Open your homepage, right-click and choose "View page source". Search for the words that say what you supply and for whom. If they are missing there but show on the page, your site builds them with JavaScript, and AI crawlers do not run it: Vercel's 2024 study found none of OpenAI's crawlers did. Ask whoever built the site to put that text in the page itself.

4. 4

   Add your site to Bing Webmaster Tools

   OpenAI says ChatGPT search sends questions to outside search providers, so be in more than Google. Sign in to Bing Webmaster Tools, open My Sites, click "Import", sign in with your Google Search Console account and pick your site. It is verified at once, it is free, and its AI Performance report shows how often Bing's AI answers cite your pages.

5. 5

   Ask every enquiry where they heard about you

   Add "How did you hear about us?" to your enquiry form, with "ChatGPT or another AI" as one answer. This is self-reported attribution, and it is the simplest way to know when an AI answer sent you a buyer.

Skip llms.txt and schema markup for now. OpenAI's pages on its crawlers and on ChatGPT search do not mention either one, and Google says its AI features need no special files or markup. Spend the time on steps 3 to 6.

• Tool: your site editor, Cloudflare if you use it, Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Search Console. All free.
• Time: about 45 minutes.
• You will have: a site ChatGPT's crawler may read, facts it can see without JavaScript, your site in Bing, and a form that records AI enquiries.
• It worked if: robots.txt has no block for OAI-SearchBot or for all crawlers, your "what we supply" words appear in the page source, and Bing Webmaster Tools shows your sitemap as submitted.
• Common mistake: switching on an "AI bots" block in a site builder or Cloudflare to stop AI training, and blocking search answers at the same time. More on this is in getting a new site found.

3. Write your supplier facts once and use them on your site and every profile

Write down, in plain words, what you supply, who it is for, your minimum order, how fast you deliver, where you deliver, and one piece of proof. Put the same words on one page of your site, at the top of your homepage, and on every profile buyers check. AI tools name the companies they can describe with confidence, and they cannot describe "quality solutions for every industry".

Buyers notice details, not brand names. In a Semrush survey of 622 US B2B professionals in spring 2026, a vendor caught their eye in an AI answer when it matched their use case (53%) or had a clear, detailed description (50%). Only 7% noticed a vendor because they knew the brand. Most (71%) then visited the vendor's website to check.

Fill in this block. Give ChatGPT or Claude your website and your last 3 quotes, and ask it to fill in a first draft. Then correct every line yourself. Each line must be true today.

What we supply: [product or service, in the words buyers use]
Who it is for: [kind of company, its size, the moment it needs you]
Minimum order or smallest project: [number, unit]
Lead time: [how long from order or approval to delivery]
Where we deliver or work: [countries, regions or "remote"]
Price guide: [a starting price, a range, or "quote in 1 working day"]
Certifications and standards: [only the ones you hold]
Proof: [one client result, with permission, or "[number] orders for [kind of company]"]

For the proof line, ask one client for a one-line testimonial you may quote. Then put the block in three places:

1. One page on your site, called something like "[What you supply] for [who it is for]", with the block at the top, then more detail and photos. Link it from your homepage. Put the first two lines in your homepage headline area, so your value proposition and these facts say the same thing.
2. Your LinkedIn company page. Use the same "what" and "who for" in the tagline and the same block in "About". Do the same on your own LinkedIn profile.
3. The 2 or 3 profiles your buyers check. Pick by what you sell:

• Services (consulting, IT, design, agency work): make a free Basic profile on Clutch at clutch.co/get-listed. Clutch lists only companies that serve other businesses.
• Physical products made or distributed in North America: claim your free company profile on Thomasnet, at business.thomasnet.com, and add your company to any trade association member list you belong to.
• Software: set up your profile on G2. In G2's March 2026 survey of 1,076 software buyers, 45% said review-site citations were what made an AI answer most believable.
• Buyers visit you, or you serve one area: also set up a Google Business Profile with the same facts.

Use the exact same company name, address, phone number and description everywhere. If an old profile has a different address or a service you dropped, fix it today.

• Tool: a Google Doc for the block, your site editor, LinkedIn, and the free profiles above.
• Time: about 3 hours.
• You will have: one facts block, live on one page of your site, at the top of your homepage, on LinkedIn and on 2 or 3 profiles.
• It worked if: the same eight facts are on your site and every profile, with no number different, and a stranger shown your page for 30 seconds can say what you supply, who it is for, your minimum and how fast you deliver.
• Common mistake: a description that fits any company ("innovative solutions for every industry"), or a minimum order on one site and a different one on another. Pick one, and change it everywhere at once.

4. Publish one page a day that answers a buyer's supplier question

Every day, publish one page on your site that fully answers one question from your step 1 list, or one of the shorter searches ChatGPT turns it into. A page that answers the exact question with real numbers is a page an AI answer can quote.

Pick the next question from your sheet. Start with the 5 you marked in step 1, then the rest, then new ones from your sales calls and keyword research. Good pages for suppliers:

• "[What you supply] for [use case]": one page per kind of buyer or job, such as "printed boxes for hot sauce gift sets".
• "How to choose a [what you supply] supplier": the checklist a buyer should use, honest about when you are not the right fit.
• "[What you supply] costs in [year]": real price ranges by quantity, from your own quotes.
• "[Competitor] alternatives": a fair comparison page for the names ChatGPT gave in step 1.

Put the answer in the first two lines. Then add a short list, a table with real numbers, and 3 to 5 questions at the end. In a May 2026 study of 40 software questions asked 10 times each, every page ChatGPT cited used a list, 68% had a comparison table and 56% had an FAQ. It was a small study of software only, but the shape is easy to copy.

AI makes one a day possible. Give ChatGPT or Claude the question, your facts block, and notes from your sales calls, and ask for a first draft. Then spend your hour on what only you know: a real photo, a price range from your quotes, a mistake you have seen buyers make. Google treats many pages made only to rank as spam, whether a person or AI wrote them. A page that answers one real question with your own numbers is not that. Writing a page that ranks goes deeper.

After you publish, open URL Inspection in Search Console and click "Request indexing", so it gets indexed sooner. The same pages help you show up in Google's AI Overviews.

• Tool: your site editor, ChatGPT or Claude to draft, and Google Search Console.
• Time: about 1 hour a page.
• You will have: 28 new pages in 4 weeks and 84 by month 3, each answering one buyer question.
• It worked if: URL Inspection shows "URL is on Google" within 1 to 2 weeks of publishing, and by month 3 Bing's AI Performance report shows at least one citation. Judge it like search, at month 3, not week 2.
• Common mistake: publishing 30 AI pages in one day, then nothing, or writing about your company ("our story", "our values") instead of the buyer's question.

5. Ask 100 people a day to mention you on the pages ChatGPT reads

Send 100 personal messages a day to the people who can put your company's name on the pages AI answers read: the writers of the pages ChatGPT cited, trade editors, businesses that serve the same buyers, and your clients. Ask each one for one specific thing.

Other sites matter more than your own. In that May 2026 study, 88% of the pages ChatGPT cited when it recommended a tool were on someone else's site. And in Ahrefs' December 2025 study of 75,000 brands, the brands ChatGPT named most were the ones other websites and YouTube videos mentioned most. Links mattered much less. That is a pattern, not proof, but it points at the same work: more people writing your name next to what you supply.

Message four groups, in this order:

1. The writers of the pages ChatGPT cited in step 1, and of similar pages Google shows for the same questions. Offer something that makes their page better: your real price range, a photo, a short expert quote. Getting onto "best of" lists covers this group in detail.
2. Trade editors and writers for the magazines, newsletters and podcasts your buyers read. Offer one useful number or story from your work. Pitching journalists and getting booked on podcasts have the scripts.
3. Businesses that serve the same buyers but do not compete with you: for a packaging maker, label designers, food photographers, co-packers. Ask to be named on their "suppliers we work with" page, and offer to name them on yours or promote each other. This is the start of a referral partnership.
4. Your clients. Ask for a review on the profile from step 3, a line on their site ("boxes by …"), or a case study you write for them to approve.

100 a day empties a list fast, so add 100 new names a day. Take them from each Sunday's cited pages, from Google searches for your step 1 questions, and from the "about" and "partners" pages of companies that serve your buyers. A free lead list method works for the partner group.

These are cold emails, so the sending rules apply. Let AI draft. Paste 10 rows at a time into ChatGPT or Claude, each with one true thing about the person's page or business, plus the template below. Read each draft, make the first line true, then send it. That is about a minute a message. Send one at a time from your own email, or on LinkedIn to people you are connected to. If you email more than about 50 strangers a day, use a second domain and warm it up first. Every email needs SPF or DKIM set up on your domain. In the US, every message also needs your postal address and a way to say no. Follow up twice, 3 days apart, then stop.

Subject: [their page or publication]: [one useful thing you can add]Hi [first name],[One true line about their page, article or business.]I run [company]. We make [what you supply] for [who it is for], [one fact: minimum order, lead time or price range].[One specific ask: "Would you add us to your list of …", "Could I send you our real price ranges for your article on …", "Would you name us on your suppliers page? I'd name you on ours."][Your name], [company], [postal address]
Not for you? Reply "no" and I won't write again.

• Tool: your email and LinkedIn, ChatGPT or Claude to draft, and a Google Sheet to log who you asked, what you asked for and when to follow up.
• Time: about 1 hour 30 minutes for the messages and 45 minutes to find 100 new names. About 2 hours 15 minutes a day.
• You will have: 700 requests sent in week 1 and 8,400 by month 3, each logged.
• It worked if: at least 1 new mention goes live for every 200 messages. If you have 2 or fewer after 1,000 messages, rewrite the first line and the offer so they help the reader of that page, then send the next 100.
• Common mistake: asking only for a link, or paying for a place on a "best of" list. Ask to be named, with your facts, and never pay for a place that is not marked as paid.

6. Post on LinkedIn twice a day and answer 20 buyer questions where they ask

Post twice a day on LinkedIn from your own profile, and answer 20 questions a day from buyers in 5 online places. AI answers quote LinkedIn posts and forum threads, so each useful post or answer is one more page that says what you supply.

LinkedIn. In a March 2026 study by Profound, LinkedIn was the site AI tools cited most for work and business questions, and posts by people were cited more than company pages. So post from your own profile, twice a day. Each post is one fact, answer or mistake from your pages: a price range, a checklist, a question a buyer asked this week. Give ChatGPT or Claude yesterday's page and ask for 4 short posts in your voice; then add one true line from your own week. B2B post ideas has 50 more starting points.

Answers. Pick 5 places where your buyers ask for help: a subreddit, a LinkedIn or Facebook group, a trade forum, a Slack group. Read each place's rules on self-promotion first. Search each one for "supplier", "recommend", "who makes" and your product, sorted by new. Answer 20 a day across the 5 places, so no single place sees more than 4 from you. Answer the question fully; mention your company only if it truly fits, and say it is yours. Write the answer yourself: AI can find the threads and list the points, but many communities remove AI-written replies. Promoting on Reddit without getting banned has the rules that matter there.

If you can talk on camera, add video. In Ahrefs' study, YouTube mentions went with being named by ChatGPT more than any other signal. Turn one page a week into a short YouTube video that says your facts out loud.

• Tool: LinkedIn, the search box on each of your 5 places, and ChatGPT or Claude to draft posts.
• Time: about 30 minutes for 2 posts and 1 hour for 20 answers. About 1 hour 30 minutes a day.
• You will have: 14 posts and 140 answers a week under your own name, each saying what you supply in plain words.
• It worked if: after 4 weeks, at least 3 enquiries or calls say they saw you on LinkedIn or in a thread, and some of your posts or threads start to appear in the Sunday "pages it cites" column.
• Common mistake: posting only from the company page, or putting your link in every answer. Moderators remove those, and buyers stop reading.

7. Ask the same 20 questions every Sunday and count enquiries from AI

Every Sunday, ask ChatGPT your 20 questions again, 3 times each, in the same way as step 1. Count how many of the 60 answers name you, and how many enquiries said they found you through ChatGPT. Do not track a "rank": the order changes almost every time.

Each Sunday, fill in one row:

Week | Answers naming you (of 60) | Your 5 main questions (of 15) | New mentions live | Pages published | Messages sent | Enquiries: ChatGPT or other AI | Enquiries: other
New cited pages this week: [list them, then add them to the step 5 list]

Add two more numbers when you have them: citations in Bing Webmaster Tools' AI Performance report, and visits from chatgpt.com in your analytics. Tracking AI traffic and ChatGPT mentions shows where to find them, and tag the links you share with UTM parameters so you can tell them apart.

Fix wrong facts the same week. If an answer gets your minimum, location or services wrong, find the page it cites, ask that site to correct it, and check that your own page and profiles say the right thing. G2 found that 64% of software buyers see wrong AI recommendations often, so expect some.

Decide at month 3, after 84 pages and 8,400 messages:

• If the answers name you more than in week 1, or AI enquiries have started: keep all of it, and add 5 new questions from your sales calls.

• If ChatGPT names you in 0 of 60 answers: look at the pages it cites now. If your name is on none of them, move one hour a day from posts to more messages to those exact pages. If your name is on them but it still does not name you, check step 2 again and make your facts page more specific.

• If AI brings visits but no enquiries: the problem is the page they land on. Turning B2B website visits into enquiries is next.

• Tool: ChatGPT, Bing Webmaster Tools, your analytics, and your Google Sheet.

• Time: about 1 hour 45 minutes each Sunday.

• You will have: one row a week, and a clear answer on whether ChatGPT names you more and whether it brings enquiries.

• It worked if: you can say how many of the 60 answers named you this week and where every enquiry came from. Bring the row to your monthly marketing review, next to your SEO numbers.

• Common mistake: checking once, seeing nothing, and stopping in week 2, or paying for a tool that reports one "position" in ChatGPT. Count how often you are named across many answers.

Where Scout7 helps

Scout7 speeds up steps 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7. Steps 3 and 5, your profiles and your messages, stay with you.

Steps 1 and 7. AI question coverage collects the questions real buyers ask AI assistants in your category and shows who answers them today on Google and in AI answers. Scout7's competitor set shows which competitors win the AI answers you want, and by how much. That gives you the 20 questions and a weekly view of who is named.

Step 2. The search and AI audit crawls your site and scores its AI answer presence, with a fix list by page. It checks your robots.txt, llms.txt and structured data. You apply the fixes on your own site.

Step 4. Content Co-Pilot drafts each day's page from the question: it asks you shaping questions with recommended answers, then writes the article with sources, an FAQ and structured data. You answer the questions and approve the draft. It can publish to a Scout7-hosted blog on your own domain.

Step 6. Scout7 writes LinkedIn image posts in your voice and schedules them. Join Conversations finds live threads about your category and drafts a reply for each. You read every thread and approve or rewrite every post and reply. Nothing goes live without your approval.

Your checklist for getting recommended by ChatGPT as a supplier

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Work through this list with an AI assistant

It drafts the work and keeps track of what is done.

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Step 1 · Ask ChatGPT the 20 questions your buyers ask

• Write 20 questions your buyers ask when they look for a supplier like you.
• Ask each question 3 times in a new Unpersonalized Temporary chat, and log who it names and which pages it cites.

Step 2 · Let ChatGPT and Bing read your website

• Check robots.txt and Cloudflare so ChatGPT's search crawler can read your site.
• Check that your key facts are in the page source, not only added by JavaScript.
• Add your site to Bing Webmaster Tools and add "How did you hear about us?" with a ChatGPT answer to your enquiry form.

Step 3 · Write your supplier facts once and use them everywhere

• Fill in the supplier facts block.
• Publish a facts page and put its first two lines at the top of your homepage.
• Put the same facts on your LinkedIn company page and the 2 or 3 profiles your buyers check.

Step 4 · Publish one page a day that answers a buyer's supplier question

• Every dayPublish one page that answers a buyer's supplier question, then request indexing.

Step 5 · Ask 100 people a day to mention you

• Every daySend 100 personal messages asking cited writers, trade editors, partners and clients to mention you.
• Every dayAdd 100 new names to your list.
• Every dayFollow up with everyone who has not replied, up to twice, 3 days apart.

Step 6 · Post on LinkedIn twice a day and answer 20 buyer questions

• Pick 5 places where your buyers ask for suppliers, and read each one's rules.
• Every dayPost twice on LinkedIn from your own profile.
• Every dayAnswer 20 buyer questions across your 5 places, in your own words.

Step 7 · Ask the same 20 questions every Sunday

• Every SundayAsk the 20 questions 3 times each again and fill in one row of the Sunday sheet.
• Every SundayAdd new cited pages to your list and ask sites with wrong facts to correct them.
• After 8,400 messagesApply the month-3 rule and move your hours.

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