Book 2 of the Solo Operator Series
A customer asked ChatGPT for help. It named three others.
Found by AI is a short plain-language book by İsmail Günaydın that shows small business owners how to get recommended by ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI. It works through the five questions an AI effectively asks before naming a business, and each chapter ends with a one-page tool you can run that day.
Found by AI. How Small Businesses Get Recommended by ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI
Tonight someone with exactly the problem you solve opens ChatGPT. She does not scroll ten blue links. She types her question like she is asking a friend, and the answer comes back with three businesses, each with a friendly sentence on why it fits. You are better than all three. You are not on the list. You will never know she asked, because nothing shows up in your inbox when a machine passes you over.
That silence is the expensive part. The source data in this book is plain: when an AI summary appears, people click a traditional link about 8% of the time, down from 15% without one (Pew Research Center, 2025). A list of ten is shrinking to a short answer. If the machine cannot read you, place you or trust you, your reviews and your craft never get a chance to speak.
Most advice treats this as old SEO with a new label, or sells a magic file you add to your site. The book takes both off the table. Ranking and being cited are different games, and no password file makes an AI notice you. Instead it walks through five questions: can the AI find you, tell what you are, trust you, quote you, and is your name there when the question is asked.
After reading, you will know whether AI crawlers can reach your site at all, how to state what you do so a machine cannot misread it, which trust signals it looks for, and how to write passages it can quote on their own. You will also have a 30-day build that turns those answers into steady work instead of a one-time scramble.
Why does the AI keep recommending someone else?
- AI crawlers may not reach youYour site can look fine to people and still be closed to ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity. Chapter 1 checks that first.
- Your business is hard to placeIf your pages do not say clearly what you are and who you serve, the AI picks a business it can describe with confidence.
- Nothing outside your site vouches for youAn AI wants proof from more than your own homepage before it names you. The Trust Signal Map shows where you are thin.
- Your content cannot be quoted cleanlyLong, winding pages give the machine nothing to lift. The Citability Checklist reshapes them into passages that stand alone.
Five questions an AI asks before it names you
- 01The New Front Door: AI Visibility SnapshotAsk the AI tools about your field and see, today, whether your name comes up and who comes up instead.
- 02Can I Even Find You? AI Crawler Access CheckConfirm that the bots behind ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity are allowed to read your site at all.
- 03Can I Tell What You Are? Entity Clarity SheetOne page that pins down your name, what you do, where and for whom, stated the same way everywhere.
- 04Do I Trust You Enough to Name You? Trust Signal MapMap the reviews, mentions and listings that tell an AI you are real and worth recommending.
- 05Can I Quote You Cleanly? Citability ChecklistRewrite key pages into short, self-contained answers an AI can lift without losing the meaning.
- 06Are You There When It Is Asked? Prompt-Match MapList the real questions your customers type and check that your content answers them directly.
- 07Conclusion: 30-Day Visibility BuildA day-by-day plan that turns the five questions into a month of focused, finite work.
What changes once the AI can read you?
You stop guessing. You know whether AI crawlers can reach your site, your business is described the same clear way everywhere, and your key pages hold short answers a machine can quote. No one can guarantee a recommendation, but you will have removed the reasons an AI has to skip you.
This book is for you if
- You run a small or one-person business and your customers have started asking AI tools for advice.
- You did the SEO basics and still cannot tell whether ChatGPT knows you exist.
- You want plain language, not code dumps or config files.
- You serve a town or a niche and want to be the name an AI gives for it.
This book is not for you if
- You want a guaranteed AI recommendation. No honest tactic can promise that; this book stacks the odds.
- You need a technical SEO manual with server configs and code.
- You are a large brand with an agency on retainer. Every example here is a small business.
Who wrote this book?
İsmail Günaydın builds and runs digital businesses as a one-person operation. He is the founder of ModernWebSEO and has built more than 100 websites. He writes about systems, leverage and the practical tools that let a single operator do work that used to need a team. If a chapter can't be acted on by Friday, it didn't earn its pages.
Questions before you buy
What format is Found by AI in?
It is an English-language ebook on Amazon Kindle for $6.99. You can read it in the free Kindle app on any phone, tablet or computer, or on a Kindle device.
How long is it?
About 70 pages: an introduction, five chapters, one per question an AI asks, and a conclusion with a 30-day visibility build. Each chapter ends with a one-page tool you can run the same day.
Is this just SEO with a new name?
No. SEO is about ranking a link. This is about being the business an AI names inside its answer. The book cites Ahrefs research finding only about 12% of URLs cited by AI engines ranked in Google's top ten.
Does it work for a local business?
Yes. The running example is a one-person bookkeeping practice, and the five questions apply whether you serve one town or customers everywhere. The examples are written for small businesses, not big brands.
Is the data in the book current?
The statistics come from 2025 and 2026 sources such as Pew Research Center, BrightLocal, Ahrefs and Semrush, and each one is cited in the text. It is the first edition, Book 2 of the Solo Operator Series.
