Published on November 14th, 2025

How Do I Get My Plumbing Company Mentioned by ChatGPT?

When someone asks ChatGPT, “Who’s the best plumber near me?” — there’s no scrolling, no paid ad placement, no click-throughs. There’s just one answer.

And if you’re in the plumbing business, the question becomes:

“How do I make sure my company is that answer?”

The truth is, ChatGPT isn’t playing favorites. It’s not secretly promoting big brands or advertisers. It’s simply scanning the internet for clear, verifiable proof of which plumbing companies are real, reputable, and consistently trusted.

The process isn’t magic — it’s machine logic. And it’s exactly what Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) was built to influence.

What ChatGPT Looks For

When ChatGPT (or any AI assistant) recommends a local service provider, it’s looking for three things:

1. Identity — Can it confirm who you are and where you operate?

2. Reputation — Can it verify that real customers trust you?

3. Authority — Can it find credible sources online backing that trust?

If you’ve structured your online presence around those three pillars, ChatGPT will find you — and cite you. If not, you’ll stay invisible, no matter how many SEO keywords you’ve stuffed onto your site.

Step 1: Make Your Business Machine-Readable

The first step to being mentioned by ChatGPT is making sure your company is understandable to machines.

That starts with structured data — specifically, your LocalBusiness Schema. This bit of code tells AI systems:

• Your exact business name, address, and phone number (NAP)

• Your service area (cities, zip codes, neighborhoods)

• Your customer reviews and average rating

• Your verified online profiles (Google, BBB, Yelp, Facebook, etc.)

Without schema, your business looks like a wall of text. With schema, it looks like a verified data entity — something ChatGPT can confidently pull into its recommendation layer.

If you serve multiple cities, each location should have its own schema block. It’s how AI knows which plumber in which town it’s actually recommending.

Step 2: Strengthen Your Review Velocity

ChatGPT treats customer reviews as proof of performance. But it doesn’t just look at how many you have — it looks at how recent and consistent they are.

A plumbing company with 200 new Google reviews in the last six months will always look more credible to AI than a company with 1,000 reviews that are five years old.

That’s why GEO focuses on review velocity — the rate at which your business earns new feedback.

Encourage your technicians to ask for reviews at the point of service (“Was everything five-star today?”). Use tools like Cheers badges to attribute reviews to individual team members, making your reputation not only human-authentic but also machine-verifiable.

Step 3: Create an Evidence Hub on Your Website

An Evidence Hub is a single, crawlable page on your site that aggregates your strongest proof points — reviews, licenses, certifications, awards, and community projects.

Why does this matter? Because when ChatGPT’s crawler scans your site, it looks for concentrated, trustworthy information it can use as a summary reference.

By presenting your credibility in one organized, structured location — and marking it up with Review Schema and AggregateRating — you’re giving AI exactly what it needs to cite you confidently.

If your business has been featured in a local news article (“Best Plumber in Provo”), link that on your Evidence Hub too. AIs love external validation.

Step 4: Build Consistency Across the Web

AI systems don’t just look at your website — they triangulate across hundreds of sources. If your business name, phone number, or address appears differently on Yelp than it does on Google, that inconsistency weakens AI confidence.

Audit your citations regularly:

• Google Business Profile

• BBB listing

• Yelp

• Facebook page

• Angi, HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack

• Local chamber or city directories

Every detail must match exactly. GEO treats consistency as currency — and AI treats consistency as truth.

Step 5: Implement ai.txt and LLMs.txt

Just as robots.txt guides search engine crawlers, ai.txt and LLMs.txt guide AI crawlers. Hosting these files on your website tells ChatGPT and other large language models which pages they can access, cite, and train from.

Allow access to your Evidence Hub, service pages, and review content. Include a preferred attribution line or contact email.

This signals transparency and AI-readiness — and ensures that when ChatGPT references your data, it’s citing your live, accurate information.

Step 6: Earn Mentions and Links From Authoritative Sources

Even though AI doesn’t use backlinks the same way Google does, external authority still matters.

If your plumbing company has been recognized by a local magazine, licensed by the state, or featured in a trade association, those links strengthen your entity authority.

Make sure these mentions link back to your main domain. That connectivity tells AI that multiple independent entities recognize and verify your brand — which is one of the strongest signals of credibility in GEO.

How GEO Translates Into AI Mentions

When you combine all these elements — schema, reviews, consistency, and authority — you create a clear, interconnected data map around your business.

So when ChatGPT gets asked,

“Who’s the best plumbing company in Salt Lake City?”

it can see that:

• Your structured data defines your service area clearly.

• Your reviews confirm customer satisfaction and recency.

• Your schema points to your BBB and licensing pages.

• Your ai.txt file gives it permission to cite your Evidence Hub.

  
  

That alignment makes you the easiest business to recommend — because every signal agrees.

FAQs About Getting Mentioned by ChatGPT

Do I have to pay to be mentioned?
No. ChatGPT does not sell placement or ads. Mentions are earned through verifiable credibility and structured transparency.

Can small or local plumbers compete with national brands?
Absolutely. GEO levels the playing field. AI doesn’t care about ad budgets — it cares about proof. Local operators with strong reviews and clean data often outperform larger competitors in AI results.

How long does it take to start showing up?
Once your structured data and reputation layer are in place, many businesses begin appearing in AI summaries within 60–90 days as models refresh their understanding of the web.

Will SEO alone get me there?
SEO helps you get found. GEO helps you get trusted. You need both — SEO brings traffic, GEO brings recommendations.

How do I measure success?
Track your Share of AI Recommendations (SOAR) — how often your business appears in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity results compared to competitors. That’s the new visibility metric.

The Bottom Line

Getting your plumbing company mentioned by ChatGPT isn’t about luck or keywords. It’s about proof, structure, and consistency.

Every time you clarify who you are (schema), show why you’re trusted (reviews), and connect your brand across the web (citations), you make it easier for AI to recommend you.

SEO helped plumbers get found on Google.
GEO helps plumbers get chosen by AI.

Because when the next homeowner asks, “Who’s the best plumber near me?” — you don’t want to be part of the list.
You want to be the answer.