The Secret to Getting Your Website into ChatGPT Results

The Missing Link in ChatGPT Visibility: Bing Indexing

I recently tunneled down a rabbit hole after reading a thread on Reddit that perfectly addressed a question I see everywhere lately: "How do I get my website featured in AI and ChatGPT results?"

I think I’ve found a major piece of the puzzle. It starts with one specific step: ensuring your site is indexed on Bing. While most people focus on Google, Bing is its own powerhouse search engine—and it plays a much bigger role in the AI landscape than you might realize. But why Bing?

Consider these ramifications:

• First of all, while it does use various sources, ChatGPT primarily pulls its data from Bing's index, not Google's. So if you rank on Bing, you're more likely to appear in ChatGPT’s generative responses.
• One of the differences between Google and Bing is that Bing clusters keywords differently and relies a lot more on HITL (Humans in the Loop).
• Also Bing loves specific and high-intent queries (unlike Google where ranking for broad keywords (phrases) can drive insane traffic. For example, Google = "best CRM for small teams" > Bing = "CRM software".
• Bing treats on-page SEO with a higher value than does Google – exactly how Google treated on-page SEO back in 2015
• Bing loves schema/structured data. Example: add FAQs to high-intent pages and see the impact in GPT responses within a short period of time.
• Bing isn't just the "second best search engine out there" but is way more than that now, due to ChatGPT’s algorithm for looking to Bing first. Optimize for it and take a first adopter’s advantage.
• Between 60-80% of people over the age of 50 use Bing because it’s the default Edge search engine on their Windows machine and they don’t realize or care to download a different browser.
• When Bing detects shopping intent, it uses Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to pull from blogs, review sites, forums, and company pages – primarily through Bing's index, not Google's.
• Not only ChatGPT, but several other search engines also use Bing results either directly or through partnerships. Yahoo, Duckduckgo, Baidu, AOL and Ecosia leverage Bing's search capabilities to provide their users with comprehensive and relevant search results.
• People need to remember “smaller” is relative. Bing gets upwards of 2 billion visits every month. (In the desktop search engine market, Bing has a global market share of 10.6%. Bing's share of the desktop search market has steadily grown since 2019. By comparison, when it comes to desktop searches, Google has a market share of 82.27). Bing being smaller is more of a relativity issue than anything.
• If you’ve submitted your XML sitemap to Google Search Console – Great. But doing this doesn’t automatically submit it to Bing.

What to do to optimize for ChatGPT

1. Create an XML sitemap of your website’s pages and posts.
   Both the free versions of the Yoast and AIOSEO plugin include a tool for creating this.
2. Create a Bing Webmasters account and upload the XML sitemap for submission. It’ll take a few days to fully index the pages but I recommend waiting 7-14 days before logging back in to see the results/reports. There may be notification of errors to be fixed as well.

3. Because people are using long conversational queries now (phrases, not just a key word or two), best practices include adding that long phrase to your website, and then answering it thoroughly. An FAQ page works great for answering long-worded queries. Blogs are amazing for asking these questions, like ‘How do I find such and such’? Answer the questions why, or when. Or create ‘The complete Guide to such and such’. Write down every question that any client has ever asked you, and turn those questions into blog posts (not all at once!).
4. Apply Schema markup/Structured data to all applicable areas. (examples: FAQs, videos, About page, Contact page).
5. Leverage brand, people, company mentions to help build authority (in your pages, posts and social media engagement). Historically, backlinks have been the cornerstone of SEO authority, but ChatGPT places a greater emphasis on brand mentions across credible platforms.
6. If you’re getting reviews and testimonials, they should be displayed on your Home page. The more detailed the review, the better. Ask your clients for reviews that tell ‘their story’.
7. Stay current with fresh and relevant information; Bing and ChatGPT favor sites that consistently refresh their content. Post on your blog. Create a content calendar to plan future articles around seasonal themes or industry changes.
8. Maintain a strong multi-channel presence. Everything you create should be cross-posted. Join community discussions or podcasts to organically integrate your brand name, thereby enhancing visibility. Contribute to forums, groups, others’ posts on LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Also, be sure to monitor when people engage with YOU, answer or react.
9. If you have products, optimize these too (not just pages and posts)
10. Do this before your competitors do.

 

"SEO" is changing but won’t go away.

AI-driven results have to come from somewhere, the data collected is just scaled and automated.

As I’ve been saying for a while, visibility in AI results depends less on gaming a new algorithm and more on producing quality content that satisfies intent so thoroughly that search engines’ search results treat it as the best possible answer.

To expand further on what ‘constitutes the best answer’, ask if your content delivers all of this:

• Do you satisfy the user’s intent of what they’re trying to get?
• Do you have sources?
• Do you cite those sources and explain something personal you find about the information?
• Is it original or is it repeating things that have been repeated 500 times?

 

Conclusion

To appear in ChatGPT results, get your pages submitted to Bing via an XML sitemap. Also, update your website’s content to ask a question (like a human would), then answer it thoroughly. Establish authority via YOUR expert experiences and insights. Cross-post and be a voice in the community by engaging with social media, forums, etc.

Kerri Marvel
Website Designer, SEO Doer, Blog Writer, Website Care Plan Administrator