Should Businesses Optimize for Google or ChatGPT First?
For years, getting your business found online has largely been a Google affair. Businesses invest in SEO to climb the search rankings and reach customers looking for their products or services. But with ChatGPT becoming another place people turn to for recommendations and advice, there’s now a new way for potential customers to discover your business.
And naturally, that raises a question about where you should be spending your marketing budget. Should you continue focusing on Google rankings, or start putting more effort into getting your business mentioned in ChatGPT answers?
In this guide, we’ll compare what Google and ChatGPT offer businesses, explore when each deserves more attention, and look at how you can improve your visibility on both platforms.
Google Should Still Be Your First Priority
Google has more competition for people’s attention than it did a few years ago, but it’s still where most conventional online searches happen. And when you’re deciding where to spend your marketing budget, the sheer number of potential customers using Google is pretty hard to ignore.
Google Still Drives Far More Website Traffic
According to Statcounter, Google held 89.94% of the worldwide traditional search engine market in September 2026. That’s an enormous audience, even if the figure doesn’t account for people searching through AI assistants.
Admittedly, these only measure website visits. Someone could discover your business through ChatGPT and contact you later without clicking a link. Still, Google currently sends far more measurable traffic to websites.
And plenty of those visitors are already looking to buy something. Someone searching for an emergency plumber or a local accountant has a fairly specific need, and appearing in those results can put your business directly in their path.
Google SEO Also Supports AI Search Visibility
Another good reason to invest in Google SEO is that the work can benefit your visibility in AI-powered search results as well.
Google now has its own AI features, including AI Overviews and AI Mode. According to Google’s official documentation, the same fundamental SEO practices used for traditional search also apply to these features.
So, improving your website’s technical accessibility and publishing genuinely useful content can help you compete for visibility in both traditional Google results and its AI-generated answers.
Some of these improvements can also benefit your presence in ChatGPT, particularly when they make information about your business easier to find and understand.
This overlap is also reflected in how agencies approach the two channels. For example, Scale Oxford’s AI SEO services build on traditional SEO while addressing the additional factors that influence whether businesses appear in ChatGPT and other AI-generated answers.
Of course, ranking well on Google doesn’t guarantee that ChatGPT will recommend your business. The platforms don’t always use the same sources. But getting your existing SEO in good shape gives you a useful foundation for expanding into AI search.
Why You Should Still Optimize for ChatGPT
People don’t always arrive at a buying decision with a product name or company in mind. Sometimes they’re still figuring out what they need, and ChatGPT gives them a place to work through the options. That gives businesses another chance to be discovered, even without an immediate website visit.
ChatGPT Is Becoming Another Way Customers Discover Businesses
Imagine you’re looking for software to manage appointments at a small salon. You could ask ChatGPT what features matter, explain how your salon operates, and ask it to suggest suitable providers. You can keep asking questions until you’ve narrowed down the options.
For a software company, appearing in that discussion could mean being considered by someone who hadn’t heard of it before. The customer might ask about pricing or whether the software works with tools they already use. Those are useful moments to be mentioned, especially if your product suits what they’re looking for.
ChatGPT can include links to sources when it searches the web, although a recommendation won’t necessarily lead to an immediate website visit. Someone may remember your business and look it up later, or use the answer to decide which companies deserve a closer look. That’s harder to measure than a click from Google, but it can still influence who gets considered.
ChatGPT Visibility Can Introduce Your Business to New Customers
ChatGPT can also help people discover services they didn’t initially know to look for. Say a newly self-employed designer asks how to manage their accounts. An accountancy firm that specialises in freelancers could be a relevant recommendation, even though the person hasn’t searched for an accountant by name.
Of course, ChatGPT won’t recommend every suitable business. Its responses depend on the question and the information it can draw on, so even an excellent company might be left out. And there’s no reliable trick that guarantees your business a permanent place in its answers.
That uncertainty makes ChatGPT a channel worth testing rather than betting your entire marketing budget on. You can still make it easier for ChatGPT to find accurate information about your business, which we’ll cover later in the article.
When Should Businesses Prioritize ChatGPT Over Google?
When you’re deciding which channel deserves more attention, think about how customers choose a provider. You may need both, but the kind of questions people ask before buying can tell you where the next bit of marketing effort belongs.
Businesses Selling Complex or High-Value Services
ChatGPT can be particularly useful when customers have plenty to figure out before contacting a business. Imagine a company looking for a cybersecurity consultant. Its team might ask ChatGPT about different approaches to security audits, what to look for in a provider and which firms specialise in its industry.
If your company appears in those conversations, potential customers can come across it well before they’re ready to request a quote. That’s a good reason to give ChatGPT more attention, particularly if your sales conversations already involve a lot of research and comparison.
It helps to look at the questions customers actually bring to you. They’re a better guide to potential AI searches than guessing what people might type.
Local Businesses and Companies Targeting Immediate Purchases
For a local locksmith, Google is usually the better place to focus first. Someone locked out of their home is probably looking for a nearby business they can call right away. An accurate Google Business Profile and good visibility in local search results are particularly valuable here.
The same applies to many straightforward purchases. If someone already knows the exact product they want, they may go straight to Google to find a seller. ChatGPT might still influence their choice, but spending heavily on AI visibility while your Google listing is incomplete would be a strange order of priorities.
Businesses That Already Perform Well on Google
If Google already brings you regular enquiries, you have more room to experiment. You can maintain the SEO work that’s producing results while putting additional effort into finding out whether ChatGPT recommends your business for relevant questions.
For instance, a specialist recruitment firm might investigate how ChatGPT answers employers asking for help with difficult-to-fill roles. If the firm rarely appears, it could be worth improving how clearly its expertise is explained online. Just keep an eye on whether that extra visibility leads to worthwhile enquiries. Google shouldn’t lose its budget merely because ChatGPT is the newer attraction.
Dennis Beytekin, founder of Scale Oxford Marketing Agency, offers this perspective:
“When a business is already getting good results from Google, it makes sense to protect what’s working while exploring opportunities in AI search. ChatGPT can introduce your business to a different audience, but I’d want to see whether those appearances are turning into genuine customer interest before recommending a significant change in budget.”
How to Optimize for Google and ChatGPT at the Same Time
Fortunately, improving your visibility on both platforms doesn’t mean doubling your marketing workload. Much of the work overlaps, so you can build on your existing SEO efforts while making a few adjustments for AI search.
Get the SEO Fundamentals in Place
A well-organised website is a good starting point. Your important pages should be easy to find, load properly and contain enough information for search engines to understand what your business offers.
It’s also worth checking whether search crawlers can access your content. Google uses its own crawlers, while ChatGPT Search uses one called OAI-SearchBot. If your website accidentally blocks either, you could be missing opportunities to appear in search results.
Google Search Console can help identify indexing problems, and your website’s robots.txt file is worth checking if you’re unsure which crawlers are allowed.
Create Content That Answers Your Customers’ Questions
Think about the questions customers ask before deciding to work with you. Those questions can make excellent topics for your website, particularly when you can offer answers based on your experience.
For example, a roofing company could explain what happens during a roof inspection and how homeowners can tell whether repairs are necessary. This gives Google useful information to index while also providing material that ChatGPT may draw on when answering related questions.
You don’t need to publish an article for every possible question, either. Sometimes, expanding an existing service page with a genuinely helpful explanation is enough.
Make Your Business Easy to Verify
Your website shouldn’t be the only place people can find reliable information about your business. Accurate business listings, relevant industry directories and genuine customer reviews can all help potential customers learn more about you.
It’s particularly useful to keep your company details consistent across these sources. If your website says you operate nationwide but your business listings suggest otherwise, you’re creating unnecessary confusion.
Independent mentions of your business can also provide useful context, although there’s no guarantee they’ll lead to ChatGPT recommendations.
Measure Results Before Shifting Your Budget
Google Search Console and website analytics can show how your organic search performance changes over time. You can also use analytics to identify visitors arriving through ChatGPT links.
Measuring brand visibility in ChatGPT takes a little more work. Try asking a consistent set of questions that potential customers might use, and monitor whether your business appears in the answers over time.
Remember that ChatGPT responses can vary, so appearing in one answer doesn’t mean you’ll always be recommended. If you’re considering spending more on AI search optimization, it’s worth looking for signs that the additional visibility is bringing worthwhile enquiries before moving money away from Google.
Final Thoughts: Google SEO vs ChatGPT Optimization
For most businesses, Google is still the sensible place to focus their SEO efforts. It’s where plenty of customers are already looking for products and services, and much of the work that improves your Google visibility can benefit AI search too.
ChatGPT is certainly worth paying attention to, especially if your customers spend time researching and comparing providers before making a decision. And if your Google SEO is already performing well, there’s good reason to start exploring it further.
You can give ChatGPT a fair chance without taking resources away from a Google strategy that’s already bringing in customers.
