How to Get Your Business Mentioned in ChatGPT and Google AI Answers: A Practical Guide for Nepali Businesses
A customer in Kathmandu opens ChatGPT and types: "Which digital marketing agency in Birgunj builds websites for small businesses?" Another asks Google, "best physiotherapy clinic near Adarshnagar," and gets an AI-written summary at the top of the page before any regular results.
In both cases, the AI picks a handful of businesses to mention and links to a few sources. Everyone else is left out of that answer.
This is the new layer of search that Nepali businesses need to understand. The good news is that getting into AI answers is not a mystery or a paid trick. It mostly rewards the same things good SEO always rewarded, plus a few technical details that many local websites get wrong. This guide explains how AI search picks its sources, what actually helps your business get mentioned, and how to check whether it is working.
What "AI Search" Actually Means for a Business
When people say AI search, they usually mean three things:
- Google AI Overviews and AI Mode. AI Overviews are the summaries that appear at the top of some Google results. AI Mode is a separate, chat-style search inside Google for longer, more complex questions. Google announced in October 2025 that AI Mode is available in over 200 countries and territories.
- ChatGPT search. When ChatGPT looks something up on the web, it shows cited sources with links.
- Microsoft Copilot and Bing's AI summaries. These draw on Bing's index and also cite sources.
What these tools have in common: they do not invent answers about local businesses from nothing. They search the web, read pages, and cite the ones they trust. If your business information is missing, unclear, or unreadable to their crawlers, you will not be cited.
Why this matters more than it seems
AI answers compress the results page. In a classic search, a customer might scroll past ten links. In an AI answer, they may only see three or four businesses named. Being one of those names is valuable, and being absent is costly, especially for service businesses where the customer is ready to call.
How AI Tools Decide Which Businesses to Mention
There is no secret ranking formula published by Google or OpenAI, so be careful with anyone who claims to have one. But the official documentation tells us quite a lot.
Google: normal SEO still decides eligibility
Google's own guidance on AI features and your website is direct about this. It says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no special optimization is necessary. To be shown as a supporting link, a page must be indexed and eligible to appear in Google Search with a snippet.
Google also says you do not need to create new AI text files or special schema markup for these features. So if someone sells you an "AI Overview package" built around a magic file, ask hard questions.
The practical meaning: if your website is not properly indexed on Google today, AI Overviews will not save you. Fix the basics first.
ChatGPT: your site must be open to OpenAI's search crawler
OpenAI uses a crawler called OAI-SearchBot to find pages for ChatGPT search. According to OpenAI's crawler documentation, sites that block OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as plain navigational links.
This is separate from GPTBot, which OpenAI uses for training its models. You can block training (GPTBot) while still allowing search (OAI-SearchBot). Many businesses, or their developers, blocked "all AI bots" in a hurry and accidentally removed themselves from ChatGPT search too.
Bing and Copilot: citations are now measurable
In February 2026, Microsoft introduced an AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools (public preview). It shows how often your pages are cited in Microsoft Copilot and Bing's AI summaries, and which pages are cited. Microsoft's own advice in that announcement matches what works everywhere: clear headings, tables and FAQ sections, claims supported by evidence, and content that is kept fresh.
A Practical Checklist for Nepali Businesses
Here is what we recommend, roughly in order of impact.
1. Make sure crawlers can actually read your website
This is the most overlooked problem we see. Many modern websites load their text with JavaScript after the page opens. Google can usually handle this. Many AI crawlers cannot.
A late-2024 study by Vercel and MERJ found that none of the major AI crawlers they measured, including OpenAI's, executed JavaScript at the time. If your services, prices, address and blog posts only appear after JavaScript runs, an AI crawler may see an almost empty page.
What to do:
- Ask your developer whether key pages are server-rendered or statically generated.
- Open your page with JavaScript disabled in the browser, or view the page source. If your main text is not there, crawlers that do not render JavaScript will not see it either.
- Keep important information (services, location, phone number, opening hours) in plain HTML text, not only inside images or sliders.
2. Check your robots.txt file
Visit yourwebsite.com/robots.txt. Look for lines that block OAI-SearchBot, Bingbot or Googlebot. If you want to appear in ChatGPT search, OAI-SearchBot should be allowed. OpenAI notes it can take around 24 hours for changes to take effect.
Also check your hosting provider or CDN. Some security settings block "bots" broadly without the site owner knowing.
3. Get indexed properly on Google and Bing
Verify your site in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Submit your sitemap. Check that your most important pages are actually indexed.
Bing matters more than most Nepali businesses assume. Copilot uses it, and Bing's tools now show AI citation data you cannot easily get anywhere else.
4. Keep your Google Business Profile complete and current
Google's AI features guidance specifically mentions keeping Business Profile information up to date. For local businesses, this is often the single most important source Google has about you: your category, address, hours, photos, and reviews.
If you have not done this properly yet, our guide on local SEO in Nepal walks through the basics.
5. Say clearly what you do, where, and for whom
AI tools need to connect your business to a specific question. A homepage that says "We deliver excellence and innovation" gives them nothing. A page that says "We build mobile-friendly websites for clinics, schools and retailers in Birgunj and Parsa" gives them a clear match.
On each important service page, state plainly:
- the service you offer
- the city or area you serve
- the type of customer you work with
- price ranges or starting prices, if you are comfortable sharing them
- how to contact you
6. Answer real customer questions on your website
AI Mode in particular handles longer, more specific questions. Google says people ask questions in AI Mode that are nearly three times longer than traditional searches. Those questions sound like: "How much does a restaurant website cost in Nepal and how long does it take?" or "Is Facebook or TikTok better for a clothing shop in Birgunj?"
If your website has a clear, honest answer to questions like these, you have a real chance of being cited. An FAQ section on each service page and a few well-written blog posts that answer one question properly will do more than dozens of thin posts.
7. Build mentions beyond your own website
AI tools look at more than your site. Reviews on your Google Business Profile, listings in reputable local directories, news coverage, and mentions on partner or client websites all help confirm that your business is real and relevant.
Focus on consistency. Your business name, address and phone number should match everywhere. Mismatched details make it harder for any system, AI or not, to be confident about who you are.
How to Check Whether It Is Working
You cannot see AI rankings the way you see positions on a results page, but you can measure the effects.
| What to check | Where | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Traffic from ChatGPT | Google Analytics, filter by source chatgpt.com |
Visits that came from ChatGPT answers |
| AI citations on Bing and Copilot | Bing Webmaster Tools, AI Performance | Which pages are cited and how often |
| Google search performance | Search Console, Performance report | AI Overviews and AI Mode clicks are included in overall "Web" data |
| Manual spot checks | ChatGPT, Google, Copilot | Whether your business is named for your key questions |
OpenAI's publisher FAQ confirms that ChatGPT adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to referral links, which makes this traffic easy to spot in analytics.
For manual checks, keep a simple list of 10 to 15 questions your customers would actually ask, and test them once a month. Results vary from one search to the next, so look for patterns over time rather than reacting to a single answer.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Paying for "AI SEO" that ignores the basics. If the site is slow, unindexed or unreadable to crawlers, no AI tactic fixes that.
- Blocking every AI bot by default. Decide deliberately. Blocking training is a reasonable choice, but blocking search crawlers removes you from those answers.
- Publishing large amounts of generic AI-written content. Thin pages that repeat what every other site says give AI tools no reason to cite you.
- Hiding key details in images. A price list posted only as a JPG is hard for any crawler to read.
- Ignoring your existing website problems. Many of the reasons Nepali business websites fail to get customers also stop them from being cited by AI.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a separate "AI SEO" strategy?
Not a separate one. Google says standard SEO best practices apply to its AI features. The extra work is mostly technical: making sure AI crawlers can access and read your pages, and checking Bing as well as Google.
Should I create an llms.txt file?
Google states you do not need new AI text files to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. It will not hurt, but it is not where your time should go first.
Can I pay to appear in ChatGPT or Google AI answers?
Organic citations in these answers are not something you can buy. Advertising products on these platforms exist separately and are labelled as ads.
How long does it take to start appearing in AI answers?
There is no fixed timeline. If your site is already well indexed, fixing crawler access and improving key pages can show results within weeks. If your site has basic indexing problems, expect it to take longer.
Is this relevant for a small shop in Birgunj, or only for big brands?
It is arguably more relevant for small local businesses. AI answers for local questions often draw heavily on Business Profile data, reviews and clear local pages, areas where a well-organised small business can compete with much bigger names.
Conclusion
AI search is not a reason to panic or throw out what already works. It rewards businesses that are easy to find, easy to read and easy to trust: a properly indexed website, a complete Business Profile, clear service pages, and honest answers to real customer questions.
The businesses that lose out will mostly be the ones with technical gaps they never checked, like blocked crawlers or content that only loads with JavaScript. Those are fixable problems.
If you want to know whether AI tools can read your website and how your business shows up today, get in touch with Media Mitra. We will check the technical basics and tell you plainly what needs fixing.
