There is no button for "appear in ChatGPT". There are signals the model reads. These nine tactics are ordered from lowest to highest effort.
1. Lock down your category sentence
Pick a one-liner shaped like "[Brand] is a [category] for [audience] that [outcome]" and repeat it verbatim on the homepage, footer, social profiles, press releases and directories. Consistency is what turns your brand into a recognisable entity.
2. Publish a "what it is / who it's for" page
Models retrieve pages that define before they sell. First paragraph: literal definition. Then use cases.
3. Build your own honest comparisons
An "Alternatives to X" or "A vs B vs C" page that covers competitors fairly gets cited far more often than a sales brochure.
4. Get into the listings AI already cites
Identify which sources appear in answers for your category (industry directories, publications, aggregators) and get listed there. Highest-return lever by far.
5. Answer questions in question format
Headings with the literal user question, answer in two sentences. That block is what the assistant copies.
6. Structured data
Organization, Product, FAQPage and BreadcrumbList where relevant. Not magic, but it helps the machine understand who you are.
7. Third-party mentions
Interviews, guest articles, podcasts with transcripts, industry reports. Co-occurring with your category terms on other domains is one of the strongest signals.
8. Reviews with text
Long, specific reviews contribute vocabulary attached to your brand. Volume helps; descriptive text helps more.
9. Update and date
Review your key pages quarterly and show the date. Freshness matters in live retrieval.
How to verify it works
Every tactic needs a measurement: run the same questions before and after, with identical wording, and compare mentions, position and cited sources. Without that before/after you are optimizing blind — and that weekly record is exactly what AskBrandly keeps for you.