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LLM SEO for MSPs: How to Get Recommended by ChatGPT, Step by Step

A six-step plan to get your MSP recommended by ChatGPT: measure first, open the crawler door, build six pages, get on the lists it reads, add proof, and re-test every week.

LLM SEO for an MSP is the work of getting recommended by ChatGPT. Do six things in order. Measure how often it names you for real buyer questions. Let OpenAI's crawler in. Build the pages it reads most: your homepage, industry, city and service pages. Get onto the best-of lists it uses. Add real client proof. Then re-test every week. Nobody can promise a spot, so track how often you appear.

Lourdes Paul Agilan, founder of Aquinel

Founder, Aquinel · Published · 8 min read

Note on verification: The ChatGPT numbers in this post come from Aquinel's own tests, which are small and not peer reviewed. Two outside articles we quote were written by vendors, and we label them. We found no study of how long this takes, so we do not give a timeline.

Picture a clinic manager in Houston. She types, "Who is a good IT company for a 30-person medical practice?" ChatGPT writes back three names. If yours is one of them, you were recommended.

That is different from being cited. A citation means ChatGPT used your page to write the answer. A recommendation means it said your name to the buyer. You can be cited and never named. That is why this plan is built around the second one. If you want the first, our post on how to get cited by ChatGPT covers it.

One more thing before the steps. You cannot rank number one in ChatGPT, because there is no list to rank on. SparkToro's January 2026 study had 600 volunteers run 12 prompts a combined 2,961 times. It found less than a 1 in 100 chance that ChatGPT or Google's AI gives the same list of brands in any two answers. So the goal is not "be first." The goal is "show up more often than the other MSPs."

Step 1: Find out where you stand today

Do this before you touch your site.

Write down ten questions a buyer would type. Make them real and long, with a city, a size and an industry in them. For example:

  • "Best MSP for a dental office in Dallas?"
  • "Who offers co-managed IT for a 50-person law firm in Chicago?"

Open a fresh chat for each one, with web search on and no history. Ask each question five times. Count how many of the five name you.

Why five? We did exactly this on 17 September 2026 for the question "best ai seo agency for MSPs." Twelve agencies showed up across the five runs. Not one agency appeared in all five. We were named in 2 and listed last both times. One run, or one screenshot, would have told us a very different story.

Five is a starting point, not a proof. SparkToro suggests running a prompt 60 to 100 times to get a percentage you can trust. For a small MSP, five runs a question, written down every week, is plenty to see direction.

Step 2: Let ChatGPT's crawler in

This takes ten minutes. OpenAI's publisher FAQ says "any public website can appear in ChatGPT search." It also tells you to make sure you aren't blocking OAI-SearchBot, its search crawler.

Ask your web person to check your robots.txt file and your firewall. Many security tools block unknown bots by default. If the door is shut, nothing else in this post matters.

We found no form to submit your site and no way to pay for a spot. Be careful of anyone selling one.

Step 3: Build the pages ChatGPT reads before it names you

This is where most of the work is. In our test of 1,500 buyer prompts in October 2026, ChatGPT cited at least one MSP's own website in 95% of answers. It searched about twice per question, built a shortlist, then checked each MSP's site. We wrote up all six page types in the pages ChatGPT reads before it recommends an MSP. Here is the short version, with the share of prompts where each page was cited:

PageShare of prompts citedWhat to put on it
Homepage78%Who you serve, where, and the services in plain words
Industry pages55%One page per industry: clinics, law firms, manufacturers
City pages35%The cities you serve, with real local detail
Service pages34%Co-managed IT, security, Microsoft 365 migration
Industry plus city pages19%"IT support for dental offices in Dallas"
Pricing page6%Ranges and what is included

Two notes. The About page was cited in just 3% of prompts, so do not start there. And these are shares from our own test of ChatGPT with web search on, from a US location. Your market may differ.

Step 4: Get named on the lists ChatGPT reads

Here is the part owners miss. ChatGPT often finds your name off your site, then checks your site to confirm it.

In the same 1,500 prompts, ChatGPT cited a best-of list in 51% of answers and Google Maps in 43%. In our five-run agency test, one roundup page was cited in four of five runs and another in three. When ChatGPT used only those lists, it did not open any agency's own page.

So find the lists, directories and "best MSP in [city]" pages that show up when you run your Step 1 questions. Make a note of every URL ChatGPT cites. Then work out how to be on the page: a profile, a review, an honest request to be included. Fill in your Google Business Profile fully, because Maps came up so often.

Be careful. Many of these lists are written by the companies on them. A list is useful for getting found. It is not proof you are good.

Step 5: Add proof ChatGPT can repeat

In four of our five agency runs, ChatGPT told the buyer to ask for "MSP case studies." It cannot repeat proof that is not written down.

Put on your site, in plain words:

  • One short case study with a number (tickets cut, downtime avoided, clients kept)
  • A named person with a real bio
  • Client reviews on a site other than your own
  • The things you do not do. ChatGPT picked this up for us and described us as "unusually focused."

Skip claims you cannot back up. "Proven results" gives ChatGPT nothing to say.

Step 6: Re-test every week, and be patient

Run the same questions every week and log the counts. Pages you publish today may take weeks to be read.

How long? We do not know, and the two sources we found disagree. A June 2026 MSP Success article by a vendor CMO says the effect "kicks in around weeks three and four" if you publish three short niche posts a week. It cites no data. An August 2026 MSP Today piece by an agency founder tested one client across four AI assistants. The client appeared in 2 of 10 prompts on ChatGPT, and the author says it took "roughly a year of sustained work." Both writers sell to MSPs. We would plan for months.

Also keep your expectations plain. A good week is a few more mentions out of the same ten questions. A bad week is noise. Judge over a month.

Where this leaves you

You need six things: a baseline, an open door, six page types, list placement, real proof, and a weekly check. Most of it is good SEO done with care. The new part is the testing, and the work of getting named on pages you do not own.

If you want us to run the questions for your MSP and show you where you stand, take the free call. We will show you the numbers, including the runs that go against us.

Aquinel does this work for MSPs and IT services firms. See our services and SEO for MSPs.

Free Consultation Call, No Obligation

Questions

What is LLM SEO?

LLM SEO means making your site and your name easy for AI assistants like ChatGPT to find, read and repeat when someone asks for a recommendation. Most of the work overlaps with normal SEO. The new parts are testing the same buyer questions many times and getting named on pages other than your own.

How long does it take to get recommended by ChatGPT?

Nobody knows. Two sources we read disagree. One MSP Success article says results start around weeks three and four, with no data behind it. An MSP Today test by an agency says its one client took roughly a year of sustained work. Measure over months, not days.

Can I pay to be recommended by ChatGPT?

We found no way to buy a recommendation. OpenAI's publisher FAQ describes no submission process. It says any public website can appear in ChatGPT search, and asks that you do not block OAI-SearchBot.

Is LLM SEO different from SEO?

Mostly it overlaps. Google's own page says there are no additional requirements or special optimizations for AI Overviews and AI Mode. What differs is measuring: ChatGPT gives a different list of brands almost every time, so you test many runs, not one.

Why does ChatGPT name my competitor and not me?

In our 1,500-prompt test, ChatGPT cited a best-of list in 51% of answers and an MSP's own site in 95%. A competitor is usually on the lists and has pages that answer the question. Check both before you change anything else.

Sources

If you would like us to walk you through how this would work for your firm, the call is free.

Lourdes Paul Agilan, founder of Aquinel

About the author

Lourdes Paul Agilan

Founder of Aquinel. Works with MSPs and IT services firms from Chennai, India, on getting recommended by ChatGPT and found on Google.

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