More of the people I talk to now start a search by typing a full question into ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Copilot instead of Google. "Which IT company in Ranchi builds mobile apps?" "Who does website maintenance near me?" The tool doesn't hand back ten blue links. It writes one answer, and your business is either in it or it isn't.
This is what people mean by AI search optimization, sometimes called GEO (generative engine optimization). It sounds new, but most of the work is the same groundwork good SEO always needed, done more carefully. Here's how I explain it to small-business owners.
1. Understand what these tools actually read
AI assistants build answers from two places: what they learned from large crawls of the web during training, and, for many of them, live web search at the moment you ask. Either way, they're reading public pages. If the facts about your business are thin, scattered or contradictory online, the tool has nothing solid to repeat.
So the first question isn't "how do I trick the AI?" It's "if a careful reader looked me up across the web, would they get a clear, consistent picture?"
2. Say plainly what you do, where, and for whom
AI answers lean on pages that state things clearly. Vague taglines like "we deliver excellence" give a model nothing to quote. A sentence like "We build custom web and mobile apps for small businesses in Ranchi, Jharkhand" does.
On your own site, check that:
- Your home page and each service page say what the service is, who it's for and where you work, in normal sentences near the top.
- Every service has its own page, rather than five services crammed into one paragraph.
- Your about page states when you started, what you specialise in and how to contact you.
3. Answer real questions on your pages
People ask AI tools questions, so pages that answer questions directly are easy to draw from. Write down the questions customers actually ask you on calls and WhatsApp, such as how long a website takes, what a maintenance plan includes, or whether you work with businesses outside your city. Then answer them honestly on the relevant page, with a short FAQ section if it fits.
Keep each answer self-contained. A two- or three-sentence answer that makes sense on its own is much more likely to be picked up than a point buried in a long paragraph.
4. Add structured data
Schema markup is a small block of code that tells machines what a page is about: your business name, address, phone, services, and FAQs. Search engines have used it for years, and it helps AI-driven search read your pages without guessing. At minimum, most local businesses should have LocalBusiness (or Organization) markup and FAQPage markup where they have FAQs. Test it with Google's Rich Results Test after adding it.
5. Keep your details identical everywhere
Your name, address, phone number and description should match across your website, Google Business Profile, directories, social profiles and anywhere else you're listed. If one listing has an old number and another spells the business name differently, you're making it harder for any system, human or AI, to be sure they're all the same business.
This is boring work, but it's one of the most useful things a local business can do.
6. Get mentioned on other sites, not just your own
AI answers tend to reflect what the wider web says, not only what you say about yourself. Genuine mentions help: a listing in a relevant industry directory, a local news feature, a guest article on a site in your field, a customer review on a third-party platform, a helpful answer in a community forum. The goal is to be cited as a real, active business by sources other than your own website.
Avoid shortcuts like bulk link packages or spun content. They don't build trust with readers, and they can hurt your regular search rankings.
7. Don't let the technical basics slip
None of the above helps if crawlers can't read your site. Make sure pages load reasonably fast, aren't blocked by robots.txt by mistake, return proper status codes instead of errors, and have correct canonical tags and titles. Broken pages and duplicate content confuse both search engines and AI tools.
8. Check what the tools say about you
Every month or so, ask a few AI assistants the questions your customers would ask, like "best website developers in [your city]" or "who offers [your service] in [your area]", and note whether you appear and whether the details are right. If something is wrong, trace it back: usually an outdated listing or an unclear page is the source. Results vary from tool to tool and day to day, so look for patterns rather than reacting to one answer.
The honest summary
There's no switch that makes ChatGPT recommend you. What works is being clear about who you are, answering your customers' real questions, keeping your details consistent, and earning genuine mentions across the web. The nice side effect is that all of it improves your regular Google visibility too.
At Crework Tech, an IT and digital marketing agency in Ranchi, we've been building websites and software for over seven years, and lately a lot of our conversations with clients are about this shift. If you want to go deeper, we've put together a guide to AI search optimization and GEO that covers how tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity find websites.
Akhil Baraik is the founder of Crework Tech, an IT and digital marketing company in Ranchi, Jharkhand.
Top comments (2)
I like that you start with consistency across the web, because that's where many small businesses slip. A quick test I'd suggest is asking ChatGPT and Perplexity a few of the questions customers would ask, then noting which sources they cite. The cited sources are often directories or review sites, so fixing the name, address and service description there can matter as much as the business's own site. Have you seen local directory listings show up in the answers for your Ranchi examples?
The question-shaped content point is the one worth acting on. A small business gets further with ten pages that each fully answer one question a customer actually asked than with a hundred generic posts, because the specific page is the one an answer engine can quote without guessing. The other honest note: you can test it yourself. Ask ChatGPT and Perplexity the questions your customers ask, screenshot what comes back, and you have a baseline before you change anything.