What are the best tools to get seen in ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews?

The free basics, in order

1. Google Search Console. AI Overviews draw on Google's index, so fix indexing problems first.
2. Bing Webmaster Tools. ChatGPT's search leans heavily on Bing's index, and most small businesses never set it up.
3. Google Business Profile, if you are a local business. Complete it and keep genuine reviews coming.
4. Check robots.txt is not blocking AI crawlers, such as OAI-SearchBot and Google's crawlers. Sites often block them by accident through a security plugin or CDN setting.
5. Structured data, checked with Google's Rich Results Test and the schema.org validator, both free.
6. Pages that answer real customer questions in plain sentences near the top, before any selling.
7. Test it yourself. Ask ChatGPT and Perplexity the questions your customers would ask, and see who gets named and why.

Tools worth using after that

Semrush and Ahrefs both offer AI visibility tracking if you want to monitor citations over time. Our own free tools check pages for answer engine readiness, E-E-A-T signals and schema without needing an account. Whatever you use, check the rule behind each warning before spending money fixing it, because a lot of what audit tools flag turns out to be a false positive.

Sources

• Google Search Central: AI features and your website
• Bing Webmaster Tools
• OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers

This answer started as a reply in a Reddit discussion.

Frequently asked questions

What are the best tools to get seen in ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews?

no tool gets you into ChatGPT or Google AI Overviews by itself. Both mostly draw on pages that already rank and are easy to understand, so the free basics matter most. Paid tracking tools are worth it only once those are done.