How to Get Your Brand Cited by ChatGPT

ChatGPT doesn't rank websites the way Google does. It doesn't care about backlinks, domain authority, or how long you've been around. Instead, it synthesizes answers from patterns in its training data and real-time search results. This creates a completely different optimization game — one that most founders aren't playing yet.

The first thing to understand is that ChatGPT looks for clear, structured information about what your product does. If your homepage is a wall of marketing jargon with no concrete description of your tool's functionality, ChatGPT has nothing useful to extract. Write content that directly answers the question: 'What does this tool do, and who is it for?'

Schema markup is your secret weapon. When you add JSON-LD structured data to your site — WebApplication, Product, FAQPage, or HowTo schemas — you're giving AI systems machine-readable context about your brand. ChatGPT's browsing feature and plugins can parse this data directly. A site with proper schema is dramatically more likely to be cited than one without it.

Entity consistency matters more than you think. Your brand name should appear identically in your title tag, H1, meta description, og:title, and schema markup. If your brand is called 'TaskFlow' but your title says 'TaskFlow App - Project Management' and your H1 says 'Welcome to Taskflow', that inconsistency makes it harder for AI to confidently reference you.

Content structure is equally critical. Use a clear heading hierarchy (H1 → H2 → H3) with keyword-rich headings. When ChatGPT scans your page, it uses these headings to understand the topic hierarchy. A page with one H1 and six well-labeled H2 sections is far more AI-parseable than a page with no structure.

E-E-A-T signals (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) influence AI citations even outside of Google. Having an about page, author bylines, external references, and contact information signals to AI systems that your content comes from a credible source. These trust indicators help AI models decide whether to cite you or a competitor.

Finally, be present where AI looks. If your product is discussed on Reddit, Product Hunt, comparison blogs, or industry publications, these mentions become part of the training data that AI models learn from. A brand that exists in multiple credible contexts is far more likely to be recommended than one that only exists on its own website.