How to be visible on ChatGPT: the practical guide for a French brand
No submission form, no magic formula: what actually gets a brand cited in ChatGPT's answers, with honest numbers to back it up.
The short answer
To be visible on ChatGPT, three conditions: your site must be indexed on Bing (ChatGPT relies on it for its web search), your pages must answer your customers' questions directly and clearly, and your brand must be mentioned on trusted third-party sites. There is no submission form: the AI cites what it finds. First effects usually show within 2 to 6 weeks.
Why your customers are already looking for you on ChatGPT (and how much it really weighs)
Let's start with the numbers, because the topic is wrapped in alarmist talk. Today, traffic coming from ChatGPT represents roughly 0.2% of e-commerce site traffic, and it converts less well than Google traffic (source: Digiday). If an agency promises you a tidal wave of ChatGPT sales by tomorrow, it is overselling.
Usage, however, is already massive: about 44% of working French adults use generative AI (source: francenum.gouv.fr). Your customers are already asking ChatGPT questions before they buy, along the lines of “which French solid skincare brand should I pick”. The answers name brands. The question is whether yours is one of them.
So the real issue is not today's volume, it is the trajectory. Few French brands have done the work: getting cited still takes little effort, and that is precisely the window to seize, before it becomes a contested channel.
How do you know whether ChatGPT already cites your site?
You do not need a paid tool for a first assessment. Open ChatGPT and ask the questions your customers actually ask, in their own words: “best brand of X in France”, “is [your brand] any good”. Run the test with web search enabled and without it: without search, you measure what the model knows about you; with it, you measure whether your pages surface as sources.
Second check, more technical: type `site:yourdomain.com` into Bing. If Bing returns only a handful of pages, or nothing, ChatGPT simply cannot find you during a web search. That is the first thing to fix.
Repeat this test once a month with the same questions and write down the results. It is artisanal, but it is currently the most reliable way to track your visibility in AI answers.
GEO, AEO, AI SEO: what are they, and what actually changes?
You will run into these acronyms everywhere, so let's settle them once and for all. GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization: working on your visibility inside AI-generated answers (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews). AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimization: structuring your content so it serves as a direct answer to a question. “AI SEO” is the catch-all term that covers both; in practice, these labels largely describe the same work.
That is why at Sonho this work is not a layer bolted on afterwards: SEO, AEO and GEO are built directly into the code of the sites we make, with the schemas, the direct answers and the page structure to match. The details are on /services/seo-aeo-geo.
| Before (classic SEO) | With AI engines | |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Getting clicked in a list of links | Getting cited in a written answer |
| Winning format | Long page covering one keyword | Short passages that answer a question |
| Trust signal | Inbound links | Brand mentions on third-party sites |
| What does not change | Useful content, fast site, clean structure | Exactly the same |
The six concrete levers to appear in the answers
Here, in the order we tackle them, are the six levers that actually move a brand's visibility in ChatGPT.
- Get indexed on Bing. Create a Bing Webmaster Tools account, submit your sitemap, check that your key pages are indexed. It is the absolute prerequisite, often overlooked because everyone only watches Google.
- Put the answer at the top of the page. Every important page must answer its main question within the first 2 or 3 sentences. Context, nuance and supporting arguments come after, not before.
- Write your H2s as real questions. “How much does a website redesign cost?” rather than “Our pricing”. AI engines match a question asked by the user with a heading that asks the same question.
- Add schema.org structured data. FAQPage, Organization, Product, Service: these tags describe your content in a format machines read without ambiguity. It is code, not copywriting, and it is often where custom websites fall short.
- Earn third-party mentions. Trade press, industry directories, comparison articles, customer reviews on recognized platforms: this is what feeds the model's knowledge between two web searches. A brand nobody mentions does not exist for an AI.
- Write pages that are citable passage by passage. Every paragraph must be able to stand alone and still make sense: one fact, one sourced figure, one definition. Paragraphs that depend on the previous one for their meaning never get cited.
Should you create an llms.txt file?
llms.txt is a text file placed at the root of your site that summarizes your important pages for AI engines, modeled on robots.txt. Straight answer: yes, do it, but do not expect a miracle. It costs an hour of work, some AI crawlers read it, but no engine has announced officially taking it into account.
In other words, it is a low-cost bet, not a main lever. A flawless llms.txt will not save pages that bury their answers; conversely, a clear and well-structured site will get cited even without this file.
Sonho's own site has one, just as it applies the rest of these principles: direct answers at the top of pages, tagged FAQs, H2s phrased as questions. This guide is itself built to be citable.
What about Google AI Overviews in France?
AI Overviews, the AI-generated answers Google displays above its classic results, are not rolled out in France yet. They are live in the United States and in part of Europe; their arrival here is only a matter of time. And that is actually good news.
Good news, because everything above prepares you for it. The criteria that get a page cited by ChatGPT (direct answer, question-based structure, structured data, third-party mentions) are the same ones that will get it picked up in an AI Overview. Doing the work now means being ready on rollout day.
One point of caution: if your current site does not let you change page structure or add schemas, the topic becomes a redesign question. How to choose is covered in our guide on redesign technologies.
How long before you see results?
Faster than classic SEO. The market sees first effects within 2 to 6 weeks: a restructured page with a direct answer can be picked up by ChatGPT as soon as Bing has reindexed it. In Google SEO, the same work often takes several months to pay off, simply because competition there is far denser.
Let's be precise about what “results” means: being cited in answers, seeing ChatGPT show up in your traffic sources, receiving inquiries that mention “I found you through ChatGPT”. Not tripled revenue within a quarter. It is a channel you build, not a channel that explodes.
If you would rather delegate this work, it is what we do: an audit first, priced according to scope, then monthly SEO support from €800/month that also covers visibility in AI engines. The offer is detailed on /services/seo-aeo-geo, and you can reach us through /contact to talk it over.
Frequently asked questions
- Can ChatGPT recommend my online store?
- Yes, on two conditions. When a user asks for a product or brand recommendation with web search enabled, ChatGPT cites the sites Bing surfaces that clearly answer the question. Your store therefore needs to be indexed on Bing, and your product or category pages must state clearly what you sell, for whom, and at what price. Mentions in the press and in comparison articles raise your odds significantly.
- Is classic SEO still worth anything?
- Yes, and it remains the priority. Google still drives the overwhelming majority of traffic to French sites, while ChatGPT accounts for roughly 0.2% on e-commerce. The right reflex is not to replace SEO with AI work, but to do both at once: content structured as questions and answers with schema.org data serves Google, ChatGPT and the upcoming AI Overviews simultaneously. It is the same job.
- How do I check whether AI engines can read my site?
- Three quick checks. Type `site:yourdomain.com` into Bing to confirm indexing. Open your robots.txt file and make sure it does not block GPTBot, ClaudeBot or PerplexityBot. Finally, paste a page URL into ChatGPT and ask it to summarize the page: if the summary is accurate, your content is accessible and understandable. If the AI cannot manage it, you have a technical problem to fix first.
- Should you block or allow AI crawlers?
- For a brand selling products or services, allow them. Blocking GPTBot or PerplexityBot protects your content from model training, but it also makes you invisible in their answers: that trade-off makes sense for a publisher that lives off its content, not for a brand looking for customers. Check your robots.txt: some site templates block these crawlers by default without you knowing.
- What is a citable answer?
- A passage of 2 to 4 sentences that answers one precise question on its own, without depending on the paragraph before or after it. It contains the answer, a verifiable fact or figure, and makes sense out of context. Example: “A complete brand identity starts at around €1,500 excl. VAT with an independent French agency.” An AI can extract that sentence as is. It is the basic unit of visibility in AI engines.
How does “ChatGPT SEO” actually work?
First thing to understand: there is no way to submit your site. No form, no account to create, no ad budget to spend. Nobody can “register your site with ChatGPT”, and anyone selling you that is selling hot air.
ChatGPT cites brands through two mechanisms. First, its training knowledge: what the model read about you while it was being built, mostly mentions on third-party sites (press, directories, comparison articles, reviews). Second, its web search: when a question calls for up-to-date information, it runs a search that relies on Bing's index and cites the pages that answer most clearly.
Direct consequence: being indexed on Bing is a prerequisite, and the rest comes down to how clear your pages are. A page that buries its answer in the fourth paragraph will be read but not cited; a page that answers in two sentences right at the top stands every chance.