The shift that already happened
More and more people skip Google and ask an AI directly. “What’s a good dentist near me?”, “Which software should I use for my practice?”, “How do I get my business to show up in ChatGPT?”.
When someone asks that question, the AI answers with what it knows from the web. If your site doesn’t exist for AIs, you don’t exist for that customer — and every month, more people ask that way.
“ChatGPT SEO” is not just ChatGPT
People search for “ChatGPT SEO” or “how to rank in ChatGPT”, but the reality is broader. The AIs that cite websites today are several:
- ChatGPT (OpenAI) — the most widely used
- Perplexity — AI search, cites sources directly
- Claude (Anthropic) — used by more and more professionals
- Gemini (Google) — integrated into Google Search
- Copilot (Microsoft) — integrated into Bing and Office
The good news: ranking in one helps you in all of them. They all read the web with similar bots and share the same technical foundation. You don’t need a different strategy for each AI — you need a well-built page.
How AIs decide what to cite
Google puts you in an ordered list. AIs do something different: when their answer needs a source, they look for the easiest to read and the most useful to cite.
It’s not about “tricking” an algorithm. It’s about building your page so AIs can read it without obstacles, and publishing content that deserves to be cited.
AIs don’t cite the flashiest. They cite the clearest, the most verifiable, what answers the question best. Your advantage as a local business: you know your field better than anyone, and you can publish answers that generic sites don’t have.
The 5 technical foundations your page needs
These are the 5 things that must be built correctly for AIs to read you. They’re not optional — they’re the difference between existing and being invisible:
1. Static HTML, not JavaScript
Your page content must exist in the HTML from the first byte, without depending on JavaScript. Many AI bots don’t execute JavaScript, just like Googlebot in its first passes. If your site loads everything with JavaScript in the browser, several bots see a practically empty page.
How to check: open your site, right-click → “View page source”. If you see your text there, you’re fine. If you see an empty <div> and a bunch of <script> tags, AIs can’t read you.
2. Structured data (JSON-LD)
These are code blocks that explain to machines who you are: your business (Organization), your services (Service), your FAQs (FAQPage). It’s your site translated into the native language of search engines and AIs.
It’s not visible to your visitors, but it’s the first thing machines read when they arrive at your page.
3. robots.txt that allows AI bots
The robots.txt file tells bots what they can and can’t visit. Many default hosting configurations, security plugins, and CDN services block AI bots without you knowing.
Your robots.txt must explicitly allow GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and company. Allowing costs nothing; blocking makes you invisible.
How to check: open yourdomain.com/robots.txt in your browser. If you see Disallow: / or lines blocking AI bots, you’re invisible to them.
4. llms.txt: the file that summarizes your business
llms.txt is a text file at the root of your site that summarizes who you are, what you offer, your prices and how to contact you — written specifically for a language model to understand in a single read.
It’s like an elevator pitch for AIs. If your site has one, AIs get the full context of your business in a single file, without having to crawl all your pages.
5. Speed
A fast site gets crawled more and better. Bots also abandon slow sites. If your page takes 5 seconds to load, bots read fewer pages per visit and come back less often.
These 5 foundations are exactly what defines the nimboweb Protocol: a standard of 5 verifiable pillars that every site I build complies with. It’s not a decorative seal — each pillar can be audited.
Content that AIs want to cite
The technical foundation makes you readable; content makes you citable. What AIs cite most:
- Direct answers to real questions: “how much does it cost?”, “what is it?”, “how does it work?” — not empty promotional text.
- Specific, verifiable data: prices, timelines, figures, names of laws or standards. AIs prefer to cite something that can be verified.
- Primary sources: citing the official source (a law, an agency, documentation) instead of repeating what another blog said.
- Clear, structured language: headings that announce what each section answers, short paragraphs, lists where appropriate.
Your advantage as a small business: you know the details that generic sites don’t have. The exact price, the real timeline, the questions your customers ask. That’s exactly what AIs look to cite.
How to know if AIs are already reading you
This can be measured, not guessed. If your site is on Cloudflare, the AI Crawl Control tool shows exactly which AI bots visit you, how many times, and which pages they read.
One of my sites registered 388 AI bot reads in 24 hours — you can see the full data in the Servando case.
The monthly digital presence report includes this section for all my clients: which bots read you, how much and where, every month, in a clear PDF.
Checklist for your business
- Verify that your main content is visible without JavaScript (open your site with JS disabled).
- Check your
yourdomain.com/robots.txt: does it allow AI bots? - Add basic structured data (Organization + your services).
- Create an
llms.txtwith your essential information. - Ask ChatGPT or Perplexity about your business: do they know you? What do they say?
- Publish content that answers the questions your customers actually ask.
If you’d rather have all of this solved from day 1, that’s how I build sites at nimboweb: see plans and pricing or tell me about your project.
To understand the full concept behind these techniques, also read What is GEO.
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