Short answer: start by finding out what the assistants actually say about you, then fix things in a set order. Make sure they can read your website, make your pages say plainly who you help and where, and build up consistent listings and reviews elsewhere. Only then think about paying anyone.

This week we answered six questions practice owners ask about AI search. This guide pulls them together into one starting plan, with a link to the full post at each step.

Step 1: Find out what AI says about you now

Don't change anything until you know where you stand. Open a fresh chat in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity and ask what a stranger would ask, such as "Can you recommend an accountant in Bolton for a small limited company?" Then ask "What do you know about [your practice name] in [your town]?"

Write down which firms were named, whether you were one of them, and anything said about you that is wrong. Repeat the same questions a few times over a week, because answers change from one run to the next.

If you would rather not do it all by hand, our free AI visibility checker asks Gemini about your firm and town and emails you the answer with a short scorecard. Our post on the free tool to check if AI recommends your accounting firm explains what the checker can and can't tell you, and how to cover the other assistants for free.

Most results land in one of three places. The assistant describes you correctly, it says little or nothing, or it says something confident and wrong. All three tell you something useful.

Step 2: Work out why other firms get named

If a competitor comes up and you don't, it is rarely about who does better work. An assistant can only name firms it can find and describe.

OpenAI's help page on ChatGPT search says ChatGPT rewrites the question into shorter search queries, can use a person's approximate location, and ranks what it finds on several factors. So a newer firm with a page that says "small business accountant in Bolton" can be an easier match than an established firm with a one line list of services.

The quickest way to see why a rival was picked is to look at the sources ChatGPT cites under its answer, then compare those pages with yours. Our post on why ChatGPT recommends your competitors, not you walks through that test step by step.

Step 3: Make sure AI tools can reach your website

This is the step most practices never check, and it can undo everything else. OpenAI's guide to its crawlers explains that a site needs to allow OAI-SearchBot to appear in ChatGPT search results. That is a separate setting from GPTBot, which relates to training. A robots.txt file that blocks the wrong one, often added years ago by a plugin or a developer, can keep you out without anyone noticing.

For Google, the picture is simpler. Its guide to AI features in Search says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no special files or markup to add. Normal SEO good practice applies. So if your site is slow, broken on a phone or hard for Google to crawl, fix that first.

Step 4: Say plainly who you help and where

An assistant can only repeat what is written down. If your homepage says "accounts, tax and payroll" and nothing more, there is very little for it to work with.

Give each main service its own page, and say which clients it is for and which towns you cover, in the words clients actually use. If you have a specialism, put it front and centre. Our post on AI visibility for chartered tax advisers shows how this works for a specialist practice, including why a qualification only helps if it is written down where assistants can read it.

Don't copy a competitor's pages and change the name. Write about the clients and work you really have. The practice sites on our work page show the kind of specific, plain writing we mean.

Step 5: Build a clear trail beyond your website

Assistants read the wider web, not just your site. That means your Google Business Profile, professional body listings, directories and client reviews all count.

Three things matter most here:

  • A complete Google Business Profile. Correct categories, services and hours, with reviews coming in regularly. Google's guidance on how local results are ranked says prominence is partly based on links to a business and the number of reviews it has.
  • The same details everywhere. Your practice name, address and phone number should match across your website, your profile and every listing, so it is clear they all describe the same firm.
  • Accounts you own. On one of the sites on our work page, the practice's previous web designer had kept the domain, the inbox and the Google Business Profile under their own login. Make sure yours sit in a login you control.

Step 6: Be careful what you pay for

Once you know where you stand, you will start to notice agencies selling GEO, short for generative engine optimisation, and offers of paid spots in ChatGPT.

Some GEO work is useful. Some is ordinary SEO with a new label, and some is guesswork. A UK study of 540 AI answers about accountancy firms, published by Ben Locker in August 2026, found no evidence that adding structured data helped firms get named. Our post on questions to ask before you pay for GEO covers that study and six questions to put to any agency, including us.

As for buying your way in, ChatGPT now shows ads in the UK, but OpenAI's help page on ads in ChatGPT says advertisers can't shape, rank or alter its answers. Our post on whether you can pay ChatGPT to recommend your practice explains what an ad does and doesn't buy.

Do it yourself, or get an audit?

Steps 1 to 5 are all things a practice owner can do with a free afternoon and a list. Many firms will get most of the way there on their own.

An audit makes sense if you have tried the tests and can't see why you are being left out, if your website hasn't been touched in years, or if you have moved office, changed your name or added services. Our post on what an AI visibility audit should cover sets out what a useful one checks and what it should leave you with: a record of what each assistant said, a short list of gaps and the order to fix them in.

Whichever route you take, keep expectations straight. Nobody can make an assistant recommend you, and answers will keep changing. What you can control is how clearly and consistently your practice is described.

If you only have an hour this week

1. Run the free checker and ask ChatGPT the same two questions yourself. 2. Note which firms were named and open the sources behind them. 3. Check your robots.txt file doesn't block OAI-SearchBot. 4. Read your homepage and service pages as a stranger would, and note anything that doesn't say who you help or where. 5. Check your name, address and phone number match on your website and Google Business Profile.

That list alone will tell you which of the steps above matters most for your practice.

Want us to look at it with you?

Run the free checker, then get in touch and tell us what came back. We will tell you plainly what we would fix first. If you would rather hand the work over, our SEO service for accountants covers the pages, profiles and listings in this guide.

Common questions

How do I know if my practice is invisible to AI?

Ask ChatGPT and Gemini for an accountant in your town, the way a client would, several times over a week. If you are never named and a direct question about your firm gets a vague or wrong answer, assistants don't have enough to go on yet.

What should I fix first?

Check that AI tools can reach your website, then make sure your pages say plainly what you do, who for and where. Listings and reviews come next.

Do I need to pay for a tool or an agency to start?

No. The free versions of ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, plus our free checker, are enough to see where you stand.