Why Your Business Isn’t Showing Up in ChatGPT (3 Reasons) | Ep.286

Your business could be very well-known in your industry, have decades of experience, hundreds of happy clients, and still not show up when someone asks ChatGPT a question that you are completely qualified to answer. And when that happens, it's very easy to assume there must be some hidden setting, missing keyword, or some technical trick that your competitors figured out and you didn't.

But most of the time, the problem is a lot more fundamental than that. If your business isn't showing up in ChatGPT, AI just may not have enough clear, consistent, and credible information to understand what you do, connect your business to the question being asked, and confidently include you in the answer.

So today, I'm breaking down the 3 biggest reasons that may be happening and what you can actually do about it.

So last week I talked about how to measure AI visibility and compare your visibility against your competitors without getting fooled by one lucky answer or one impressive screenshot. And one thing that I've noticed recently is that after talking to a lot of business owners and just a bunch of different people that I know that work in marketing for some small and large companies, is that a lot of them still don't understand what the term "AI visibility" means.

Specifically, the word "visibility." I think that's thrown a lot of people off. And honestly, it makes sense. It's still a relatively new term, and it's probably just used more as an industry term in what I do. So let me clearly define it for you.

The simplest version is getting your business found by AI, but it goes a little further than simply just appearing once. Does an AI platform like ChatGPT actually understand what your business does? Can it find and use your content?

Does it cite your content, describe your business accurately, or potentially recommend you when somebody asks a relevant question? That's what I mean when I say "AI visibility." Before that episode was published, I ran a test using 12 random searches and compared what changed within 24 hours.

Before releasing the last episode, only 1 of the 12 showed any visibility for my personal brand, Bill Corcoran Jr., or the bcjr Podcast. Within 24 hours of releasing the last episode, I ran the same 12 searches and Bill Corcoran Jr.

or the bcjr Podcast showed up in 11 out of the 12 searches. And 6 of those 12 used last week's exact episode as the source in Google AI Overviews or was cited in Google's AI mode. I've also seen similar movement with other client content.

Recent Real Estate Right Now Podcast episodes with host Dave Weichock from Weichock Real Estate began appearing in Google search results and earned multiple citations in AI-generated answers within a 24-hour period of publication. Together, those results are strong directional evidence.

They are not proof that one episode permanently changed everything, and I'm not going to pretend like they are. But they do show why this conversation actually matters. The information a business can make available online can significantly change how a business is understood and surfaced across search and AI.

And if your competitors are appearing and you aren't, there's probably something we can learn from that difference. Now, when most business owners hear that, their first reaction is usually like, "Oh, okay, cool. I need to make more content."

Maybe. But before you run out and publish 100 blog posts, 20 videos, and a pile of AI-generated junk, you need to figure out what problem you are actually trying to solve. Because not showing up can mean several different things.

Maybe AI doesn't clearly understand what your business does. Maybe your experience exists, but very little of its information is actually available online. Or maybe you already have plenty of content, but none of it clearly connects your business to the questions your customers are actually asking.

Those are 3 different problems, and they require 3 different kinds of fixes. That's why I keep coming back to the fundamentals. I trained in karate for more than 10 years growing up, and I earned my black belt when I was 16.

And one of the things that gets drilled into you from day 1 is that the basics never stop mattering. Your stance, your form, the proper technique behind every kick and every punch. You don't practice those things only when you're new or only when you have some extra time.

You practice them constantly, even as you advance, because everything else depends on them. And that takes discipline. And AI visibility works in the same way. It isn't enough to clearly explain your business once, answer 1 customer question, or publish 1 strong piece of content.

You need the discipline to keep capturing your expertise, structuring it clearly, and connecting it to the questions your customers continue to ask online. That disciplined repetition is what turns individual answers into a growing body of connected evidence. And one more thing before we actually get into this.

ChatGPT does not publish a simple checklist that says, "Do these 7 things and we'll recommend your company." Its answers can depend on the exact question, the context of the conversation, the information available to it, and whether current web information is being used.

So I'm not presenting this as some secret formula. These are practical reasons a legitimate business can be difficult for AI systems to understand, connect, and surface. And they are areas that a business can actually control. The first problem is clarity.

You know exactly what your company does because you live inside the business. Your team knows. Your existing customers probably know. People who have been referring your business for 15 years know. But that doesn't mean that ChatGPT knows. And it definitely does not mean that the information available online gives it 1 clear, consistent explanation.

Go look at the way a lot of businesses describe themselves. Most of them say things like this: "We deliver innovative solutions." "We help our clients reach the next level." "We provide unmatched service and exceptional results." Okay, but what do you actually do?

Who do you do it for? What problems do you solve? Where do you provide the service? And what should somebody understand that makes your company different from the next 10 options? If your website forces a human being to dig around for those answers, an AI platform may have the same problem.

This is especially common when a business has changed over time. Maybe your homepage describes what the company did 5 years ago. Your LinkedIn page uses a newer description. Your Google Business Profile lists a different service category. And your YouTube channel talks about something completely different.

Each individual piece may technically be true, but together, they don't tell 1 clean story. I've had to deal with this with my own business. OnTheStack started in 1 place several years ago and has evolved since then. The bcjr Podcast has evolved.

My personal brand positioning has evolved. Podcast production is part of my history and still part of the mechanism, but AI visibility is now the objective. If I leave the old story everywhere and only explain the new direction once, I cannot reasonably expect people or AI to immediately understand the difference.

The same thing happens to accounting firms that expanded into additional services. Contractors that added new service areas. Healthcare practices that brought in additional new specialties. And B2B companies that changed the type of customers they serve. Your real-world business can evolve a lot faster than the information explaining it online.

So the first question is not, "How do I rank in ChatGPT?" The first question is this: If somebody reviewed everything publicly available about my businessright now, would they come away with 1 clear and accurate explanation of what we do, who we help, and what problems we solve?

If the answer is no, that is your first gap. The second problem is that your expertise may be real, but most of it is invisible. This is probably the most frustrating part for experienced business owners. You may have 20 or 30 years of knowledge.

You may have solved difficult problems. You know what mistakes customers make. You know what works, what doesn't work, what costs more, what takes longer, and what people should ask before they actually make a decision. But where does all of that knowledge actually live?

Usually, it comes out during sales calls, client meetings, estimates, sales presentations, emails, and conversations internally with your team. Somebody asks a great question, and then somebody gives a great answer. Then the call ends. The meeting ends. And the question just disappears.

ChatGPT was not sitting in the meeting. Google wasn't on the sales call. The rest of the market never heard the explanation either. You can't expect AI platforms to understand expertise that has never been captured and made available online.

And this is where I want to make 1 important distinction. Visible expertise does not mean stuffing your website with generic blog articles that say the same thing that everybody else says. If an article could have been published by any company in your industry, it does very little to show what your business actually knows.

Real expertise includes your experience, your process, your examples, your opinions, your warnings, your trade-offs, and the way you explain a complicated decision to a real customer. That is 1 of the reasons I believe a recurring video podcast can be so effective.

For a lot of founders, executives, business owners, and subject matter experts, speaking is a much more natural way to capture knowledge than staring at a blank document and trying to write a 2,000-word article. The podcast is the source.

AI visibility is the objective. 1 focused podcast episode can capture an answer in your actual voice. Then that answer can become a video, a structured page on your website, a transcript, supporting written content, clips for social media, and other related content that connects back to the same subject around your business.

But the podcast itself is not the magic. Uploading a vague video with a clever title and 2 sentences in the description is not the same thing as making the expertise clear, searchable, and connected. The value comes from capturing something useful and publishing it in a way that helps people and machines understand what the answer is, who it came from, and how it connects back to the rest of the business.

So if your company has real expertise but almost none of it exists in a useful public form, that is your second gap. The third problem is relevance. A lot of businesses create content entirely around what they want to say instead of what their customers are trying to figure out.

They have a page that lists their services. They post company announcements. They share holiday graphics. They upload pictures from an event. They may even publish a few broad articles about the industry. None of that is automatically bad, but it may not answer the question that leads somebody towards an actual buying decision.

Think about how people actually use ChatGPT. They do not always ask, "Give me a list of companies that sell this exact service." They ask things like, "How do I know whether I need a roof repair or a floor replacement?"

"What should I ask a financial advisor before I even consider hiring one?" "What's the difference between these 2 dental procedures?" "How much should this type of project cost?" "What are the warning signs that I chose the wrong provider?"

"Which options make more sense for a company of our size?" Those aren't just keywords. Those are real questions and real decisions. And if your business has never clearly answered those questions online, the connection between your company and the answer may be weak.

Meanwhile, a competitor with less experience may have a focused page on their website, a useful video, a detailed comparison, or several connected answers around that exact subject. That doesn't automatically or necessarily mean the competitor is better at the work.

It may mean the competitor has made its relevance easier to see. This is also why publishing 1 massive page about everything you do is not enough. 1 answer covers the basic question. Another explains the common mistake. Another compares 2 options.

Another shows a real example. Another addresses cost or timing. And each 1 of those connects back to the broader experience of the business. That is how individual pieces of content begin to form a body of evidence instead of a pile of disconnected posts.

And listen, this is not about trying to manipulate ChatGPT into mentioning you. It's about becoming genuinely useful around the questions your customers are already asking. I say this all the time, but it's so true. It's just the basic fundamentals.

If your content helps somebody understand the problem, evaluate the options, avoid a costly mistake, or make a better decision, it has value whether that person finds it through ChatGPT, a Google search, a YouTube video, your website, or somebody else sending them the link.

And when that useful information consistently connects back to your business, you give AI platforms a lot more context for understanding why your company may be relevant. So this is your third gap. Your business may exist online, and your content may also exist online, but the connection to the customer's actual question has not been made clear enough.

If your business isn't showing up in ChatGPT, do not automatically assume that you need some secret tactic or another 100 pieces of content. Start with the fundamentals. That's the same lesson karate taught me. You never outgrow the fundamentals.

You need the discipline to keep practicing because everything is built on top of them. Does your online presence clearly explain what you do, who you help, and what problems you solve? Is your real expertise available in useful content that people and AI platforms can actually access and understand?

And have you clearly connected that expertise to the questions your customers are already asking? If you want help identifying where those gaps may exist, take the free Podcast-Powered AI Visibility Assessment at billcorcoranjr.com/assessment. I'll put the link directly in the description, the show notes on Apple and Spotify, and I'll drop the link here in the comments on YouTube.

If you found this episode useful, or if you know a business owner or a marketing leader who keeps asking why their competitors are showing up in ChatGPT instead of them, send them this episode. And if you have any questions for me, drop them here in the comments, or shoot me a DM on Instagram@BillCorcoranJr, or just drop me a line at billcorcoranjr.com.

Thanks for watching until the end. I cover a lot here, but the conversation doesn't stop with the podcast. I post daily on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn@BillCorcoranJr with quick hits, behind the scenes, and the raw stuff that doesn't always make it into the podcast.

Follow along there, and for deeper dives, head over to billcorcoranjr.com.