The short answer
To get your brand cited by ChatGPT, work three levers and then measure the result. First, make sure ChatGPT’s crawler can reach your pages by allowing the right AI user agents in robots.txt and publishing an llms.txt and clean sitemap. Second, lead each page with a direct, extractable answer to the question, using clear headings and JSON-LD so the model can lift it cleanly. Third, build topical authority with corroborating pages, strong entity signals, and real backlinks so ChatGPT treats you as a trustworthy source.
Make sure the crawler can reach you
ChatGPT cannot cite a page it never read. Confirm the AI user agents are allowed through robots.txt, publish an llms.txt that points to your best pages, and keep a clean sitemap. A free scan checks AI-crawler access across 16 agents in one pass, so you can see exactly what is blocking you before you change anything else.
Give the model a clean answer to lift
Even with access, ChatGPT needs to find a clear answer on the page. Lead with a direct response to the question, use plain claims and clear headings, and add JSON-LD so the structure is machine-readable. Pages that bury the answer under long setup rarely get quoted.
Earn the authority to be trusted
Models cite sources they trust. Corroborating pages across your topic, clear entity salience, and real backlinks (which feed a DR-weighted Domain Score) all raise the odds that ChatGPT treats you as the source worth naming.
Track which prompts cite you, then fix the gaps
The only way to know if this is working is to run your category’s prompts and read who gets cited. AI citation tracking records your citation rate, share of model, and sentiment per engine and flags where competitors appear and you do not. Read the AI citation methodology for how it is measured, or run the free AI visibility scan to start.