When a customer asks ChatGPT for the best in town, does it say your name?
Our free check shows whether ChatGPT and Perplexity recommend your local business, and it takes about 60 seconds. When the answer skips you, we fix the sources those engines read.
best med spa in Miami
It answered- 1KC Medical Aesthetics
- 24Ever Young Med Spa — Miami Midtown
- 3Miami Surgical MedSpa
The check is free and requires no email address.
Built for owner-run local businesses
We started in wellness, and the same method now carries across the ten trades we measure, from dentists to plumbers. The niches below are where the practice runs deepest.
Day spas
Massage, facials, body work
Med spas
Injectables, lasers, cosmetic dermatology
Beauty salons & hair studios
Hair, color, nails, beauty services
Dental practices
Cleanings, implants, orthodontics
Gyms & fitness studios
Personal training, classes, memberships
Chiropractic clinics
Adjustments, pain relief, rehab
Veterinary clinics
Checkups, surgery, urgent care
Auto repair shops
Diagnostics, brakes, servicing
Plumbing services
Repairs, installs, emergency calls
Law firms
Personal injury, family, immigration
This takes three months. Here is what moves, and when.
Schema markup, name/address/phone cleanup across directories (what marketers call NAP), review-platform audit, and your first citation-worthy pages ship in weeks one and two. From there we track every probe, so you see the shift as it happens instead of waiting for a report.
Weekly tracking covers 30+ client prompts and shows which ones return your name, along with the questions where competitors still win. We adjust content and directory signals based on the answers engines actually give. What nobody can do is promise you a date, because no engine publishes the rules it ranks by.
Every 30 days we re-probe the same core questions and show you where you stand in the answers. If a competitor overtook you, we tell you what changed and what to fix on your end.
- Monthly re-scan of your top 5 questions across ChatGPT / Perplexity / Claude
- Competitor tracking: 2-3 businesses in your city who might displace you
- Content gap alerts: new questions your clients started asking that you don't answer
- Directory changes: Google Business, Yelp, Tripadvisor, industry directories, and Reddit thread visibility. Do they still cite you?
- Quarterly deep-dive with new probe questions based on trend shifts
This isn't a subscription-forever service. Most practices run 3-6 months of retention audit, then re-engage only when they open a new location or want a fresh angle.
Your business holds its position across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Gemini, and the quarterly cycle (re-scan, refresh, report) keeps it there as models update.
Five factors that decide if AI cites your business
When ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude answer a "best spa near me" question, they don't invent the list. They pull from a small set of signals. We built askchat.studio around fixing all five for you.
1. Structured business schema
LLMs parse your homepage the same way Google does, via JSON-LD. If your site doesn't declare what you are (LocalBusiness, DaySpa, HairSalon), the AI has to guess. Guessing costs you spots in the answer.
2. Named author + owner presence
LLMs weight named people over anonymous businesses. If your "about" page doesn't credit the owner by name, doesn't show their experience, doesn't link to their LinkedIn, you look thinner than the studio down the street that does.
3. Directory presence with matching NAP
Google Business, Yelp, Tripadvisor, and the niche directories your clients trust: Medical Spa Locator, Spa Index, hairdressr, discovermedspa, birdeye. These are the maps AI checks first. Your Name / Address / Phone must match character-for-character across every one. Consistency isn't cosmetic; it's the difference between being trusted and being ignored. And the maps shift, since new directories rise and old ones fade. We watch which ones ChatGPT reads today and move your presence as the ground moves.
4. Original client stories over generic blog posts
A "5 tips for facials" post is treated as thin. A page describing what your Signature Renewal Facial actually does, with the practitioner's name and a real client outcome, gets cited. LLMs prefer specificity, and that's your leverage over franchise chains.
5. The voices AI listens to about you
AI draws on what other people say about you as much as on your own site. That means review language on Google, Yelp, and Tripadvisor, editorial mentions in Time Out, Allure, Condé Nast, and city magazines, and organic threads on Reddit where real clients recommend you. Reviews matter more than most owners think, and it is the words inside them that count: AI reads what a client actually says you did, while the star rating barely factors in. Editorial mentions tell AI who trusts you, and Reddit tells it how humans actually talk about you. We help you shape all three, so when someone asks for the best spa in their city, the answer already knows your name.
What we found across 200 runs and ten trades
In August 2026 we asked GPT-4o with live web search the questions clients type, across ten local trades: med spas, dentists, hair salons, gyms, chiropractors, veterinarians, auto repair shops, plumbers, optometrists and personal injury lawyers, in New York, Miami, Chicago, Denver and Tulsa. Each trade and city pair got four question types: ranking, service, symptom and booking. The 200 answers cited 1,423 sources across 927 unique domains, and we classified every domain by hand.
The question type decides who gets cited
On the ranking question, like best dentist in Chicago, 43 of the 50 runs cited nothing beyond directories and ranking lists. The three question types a real client uses, asking about a service, a symptom or an appointment, pulled in sources beyond the directories in all 50 runs of each type, and business websites appear among those sources.
Directories hold about a third of all citations
Across all 200 runs, 452 of the 1,423 cited sources (32%) were directories and aggregators. Their share depends on the question: they made up 96% of the sources on ranking questions and 11% on booking questions.
Chains show the format that wins
The businesses that broke through on client questions usually hold a separate page for each service and each location, the way aspendental.com or rotorooter.com do. An independent shop can copy that structure without their budget.
What this means for your website
A spot in the AI answer exists for a local business, and it goes to the pages that answer the way a client actually asks. A ranking page fights the full wall of directories, while a page written for a service, a symptom or an appointment meets far fewer of them.
One run per trade, city and question type rather than an average across repeated runs, so treat the numbers as directional. They match what our earlier 16-run probe across six trades found.
This is not only our reading of the market. JPMorganChase named the discipline directly in its 2026 Emerging Technology Trends report: “As this new era of agentic commerce takes hold, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) becomes critical, with AI-driven agents now translating intent into transactions, frequently bypassing conventional research and comparison. Winning brands will focus on influencing the signals and rules that drive agent decision-making, not just consumer discovery.” The same report sizes the AI browser market at $4.5B in 2024 rising to $76.8B by 2034.
Four ways to win ChatGPT's ranking factors
When someone asks ChatGPT for the best spa in their city, it doesn't guess, it weighs signals it already trusts: your Name / Address / Phone across directories, review language on Google and Yelp, editorial mentions in local media, organic Reddit threads about you, and how fresh your own content is. Each service below targets one of those signals.
We guarantee the work gets done properly, tracked every month, reported in plain language. We won't promise a date AI starts naming you, because nobody honestly can.
Recent posts
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We asked ChatGPT about 20 San Diego pilates and yoga studios by neighborhood. Fifteen got named. Only six got an actual link. Here is where the other nine went instead.
Read →ChatGPT cited the business's own site in 2.5% of answers. Perplexity did it in 20%.
160 live answers from our free check: GPT-4o cites about 5 sources and the business's own site made it in 1 of 40. Perplexity cites 15 and made room for it in 23 of 115. Same job, different lever.
Read →Which AI is more likely to cite your own site?
A 356,019-citation study of four AI engines finds Gemini and Perplexity send most credit to the business's own site, while ChatGPT splits it almost evenly with directories. Here's what that means for where you spend the next hour.
Read →The top brand in a category gets 31% of AI citations. We checked who wins.
A February study of 8,400 prompts found AI citations are more concentrated than Google search ever was. We checked our own citation database and found the same pattern, and it's chains winning most of the repeats.
Read →43% of Google's AI Overview citations point back to Google itself
A new synthesis report finds 43% of Google's AI Overview citations link to Google's own properties, YouTube leading the pack. Here's what that leaves for everyone else, and what our own ChatGPT and Perplexity data shows instead.
Read →ChatGPT's AI browser is dead. What it did to your website isn't.
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Read →We ran a real Miami med spa through ChatGPT 46 times. Named 13 times, cited once.
Read →Do ChatGPT and Gemini use the same sources?
Read →Only 38% of AI Overview citations rank in Google's top 10
Read →You're #1 on Google Maps. Google's own AI still might skip you.
Read →The AI search glossary for local business owners (20 terms, no marketing degree required)
Read →A bank just said "Generative Engine Optimization." Here's what that actually means for you.
Read →AI names $22 billion of Botox and fillers by brand. Your med spa's name splits what's left over.
Read →How to check if ChatGPT recommends your business
You can run this check by hand in about ten minutes, and it shows you exactly what a new client sees. If you would rather skip the manual work, the free check at the bottom of this page runs the questions for you.
1. Open ChatGPT and start a new chat
Go to chatgpt.com and make sure web search is on, because local recommendations are built from live sources. A free account is enough for this.
2. Ask the question a new client would ask
Type what a real client types, for example "best med spa in Scottsdale" or "where to get a facial in Lincoln Park". Leave your business name out, because you are testing whether ChatGPT brings you up on its own.
3. Read the names and open the sources
Write down which businesses ChatGPT names, then click through the citations under the answer. Those links show where the answer came from, and in our runs they were usually directories, review platforms and city guides.
4. Repeat the question in Perplexity
Ask the same question at perplexity.ai, which shows its sources next to every answer. When both engines skip you, the pages they cited are the place to look.
5. Ask three or four variations
Change the service and the neighborhood the way different clients would, for example "lip filler in Old Town" or "best balayage near the Loop". One answer proves little, and a pattern across four or five questions shows where you actually stand.
6. Search the cited pages for your name
Open the sources both engines relied on and search each page for your business. If those pages skip you, the answer skips you too, and getting added to them is the most direct fix.
What local business owners ask us
Why is my business not showing up on ChatGPT?
Because the answer is usually assembled without your website in it. When someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity for a spa near them, the engine pulls from directories, review platforms, city magazines and Reddit threads, and your own site often never gets opened. We measured this: across 16 probe runs covering six local trades in ten US cities, 13 runs returned an answer built without a single business website among the sources. Fixing that means working on what those sources say about you rather than on your own pages alone.
What is citation engineering?
Citation engineering is the practice of making a local business citable by large language models. Traditional SEO optimises a website so a crawler ranks it. Citation engineering works on the sources an AI answer is actually assembled from: structured schema on the site, directory listings with consistent name, address and phone, review language that names specific treatments and outcomes, editorial mentions, and original data worth quoting. Your website is one input among several, and usually not the decisive one.
How is this different from SEO?
SEO gets you ranked. Citation engineering gets you named. A Google result is a list of links a person then chooses from, while an AI answer is a short recommendation for a spa, or a clinic, assembled from a handful of sources the engine trusts, and only the businesses named in it exist for that client. The two overlap in the basics, but SEO measures position and traffic, and we measure whether your name appears in the answer and which sources put it there.
How fast will I see results?
Plan for three months. Early signals usually show up in the first weeks and you see them in your tracking, but a stable presence across major AI platforms takes three to six months, depending on how competitive your niche is. Anyone promising citations in 30 days is guessing.
Do I need to change my website?
Minimal changes. We add schema markup (invisible to visitors) and may suggest adjustments to about/service pages for better context clarity. No redesign required.
What if I already do content marketing?
Perfect. We'll audit your existing content for citation-worthiness and show you how to refactor it for AI discoverability. Most businesses already have 60% of what they need, and it just needs restructuring.
Can you guarantee I'll be cited?
No one can guarantee AI citations (any agency claiming otherwise is misleading). We can guarantee proper implementation of citation engineering best practices, monthly tracking, and strategy adjustments based on data.
Where do you work? Any city?
Anywhere your business operates. We work with local businesses in any city, whether single-location, multi-city chains, or franchise operators. Our method is location-agnostic: we analyze how AI engines cite your business in the geographies where your clients search.
Does ChatGPT recommend my business?
That's exactly what we measure. Our Local AI Visibility Tracking runs your specific business through ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Gemini every week with 30+ queries clients actually type. You see real screenshots of AI answers showing where you appear and where your competitors do.
I have 200 five-star reviews and still no new clients. Why?
Reviews that say "great service, loved it" don't signal anything specific to AI. ChatGPT cites businesses where reviews mention specific treatments, prices, neighborhoods, and outcomes. Part of our work is restructuring how you ask for reviews so the next 50 become AI-citable, not just human-impressive.
My competitor shows up in ChatGPT and I don't. What are they doing differently?
They are usually sitting in the sources the answer is assembled from, and you are missing from those same pages. Ask ChatGPT the question a client would ask, then open every source it cites and look for both names. In our probe runs those sources were mostly directories and review platforms, with Reddit threads mixed in, so the gap tends to live there rather than on either website. Once you know which pages feed the answer, you know exactly where to get listed.
How do I get my business recommended by ChatGPT?
You make yourself easy to cite. In practice that means schema markup on your site, one identical name, address and phone across the directories AI reads, reviews that mention specific treatments and neighborhoods, and a presence in the local lists engines keep pulling from. Our probe data shows most local answers are assembled from those third-party sources, so working on that layer pays off faster than another pass over your own website. Plan on seeing the first shifts within weeks and a stable presence in about three months.
Where do I check if AI mentions my business?
You can do it by hand: ask ChatGPT and Perplexity the questions your clients type, leave your business name out of the question, and note which businesses come up. The step-by-step version is a little higher on this page. If you would rather have it done for you, the free check below runs five real client questions through both engines and shows whether your site gets cited, with no email required.
Why is my business not in Google's AI Overviews?
AI Overviews lean on Google's index plus the Places data behind your Business Profile, so a thin or inconsistent profile keeps you out even when your website ranks well. Search Console folds AI Overview impressions into the regular performance report without a separate filter, which is why you cannot see them on their own. The fixes overlap with ChatGPT visibility, and the place to start is a complete Business Profile plus directory listings that agree with each other.
I pay for ads and AI still doesn't recommend me.
Your ad budget never makes it into the pipeline an answer engine reads. Google Ads can put you above an AI Overview as a sponsored link, but ChatGPT and Perplexity assemble their answers from directories, reviews and editorial pages, where spend carries no weight. Ads keep bringing visits while a campaign runs, and citation work keeps you in the answer after it ends.
Is SEO dead now that clients ask AI instead of Google?
SEO still matters, because AI engines lean on search indexes to find candidate sources, and a crawlable site keeps you in that pool. The last step changed: the engine now writes one short answer with a few names in it instead of showing a page of links, so being findable stopped being enough. Our probe runs show the deciding layer sits in third-party sources, which classic SEO rarely touches.
Do people really ask ChatGPT to find a spa?
They do. 37% of clients now start their search in an AI assistant rather than in Google, and the answer they get back is a short list of names instead of a page of links. Clients rarely look past that list, which is why a spot in it matters more than a position on page one.
Do patients really pick a dentist by asking ChatGPT?
A growing share does, and our runs show what they get told. On the ranking question every one of the five cities we tested returned directory-only sources for dentists, and Reddit threads fed the answer in four of the five. On service and symptom questions, dental practice websites showed up among the sources in every city. The practical move is a separate page for each treatment, written the way a patient asks about it.
My auto repair shop gets all its work by word of mouth. Does AI search change that?
The word of mouth already reaches AI before you do: for auto repair, Reddit threads appeared in the cited sources in all five cities we ran. On the ranking question no shop website made the sources in any city, and on service and booking questions the answers pulled in sources beyond the directories every time. Your shop can meet that demand with pages that name the repair, the neighborhood and the turnaround.
How does a personal injury firm get named by ChatGPT?
On the ranking question the answer is assembled almost entirely from legal directories, and expertise.com appeared in all five cities we tested. One firm website still broke through in Miami, and the client-style questions about a specific situation opened the door far wider. Pages that speak to the situation, like what to do after a rear-end collision in your city, compete where the directories are thin.
Can a local gym show up when someone asks AI where to train?
It can, and the pattern is clear. On the ranking question the sources were directories in every city, with loc8nearme.com present in all five, and one gym website broke through in Tulsa. Booking-style questions, like who has a day pass available, pulled in sources beyond the directories in every run. A page per class type and location gives the engines something to cite.
Free quick check
See where your business ranks in 60 seconds
We probe 5 real AI-search questions about your business type and check whether your website shows up as a cited source in ChatGPT and Perplexity. We detect your service type and city from your site. Results on this page, instantly.