You don’t rank in Perplexity the way you rank on Google. For each question, Perplexity searches the web, writes an answer and cites the pages it used, so a local business shows up by being on those pages and by letting Perplexity’s crawler read its own site. The six steps below start with finding out what Perplexity already cites for your trade and town, because that tells you exactly where to work.

How Perplexity picks local businesses

Perplexity’s help centre says it searches the internet in real time, sums up what it finds and adds numbered citations that link to the original sources. For local searches it also uses licensed data: it has added Yelp’s maps, reviews and business details to answers about places such as restaurants, and in January 2025 it partnered with Tripadvisor for travel and hotel results.

Perplexity doesn’t publish a ranking formula, so nobody can promise you a spot in its answers. What you can control is whether your business appears on the pages it reads, and whether those pages agree with each other.

Step 1: See what Perplexity cites for your trade and town

Ask Perplexity the questions your customers would ask, in their words, not your business name. For example:

  • “Best emergency plumber in Leeds”
  • “Who repairs water heaters near Austin?”
  • “Good family dentist in Mississauga open Saturdays”

For each answer, open the sources and note every website it cited. Ask each question again on two or three different days, because the same question can pull different pages each time. Keep a simple log with the question, the date, the businesses it named and the sites it cited. After a few rounds you’ll see a pattern: the same directories, review sites, local news articles and “best of” lists keep coming up. That list is your to-do list for Step 3.

Step 2: Let PerplexityBot crawl your website

Perplexity’s crawler documentation says PerplexityBot is used to surface and link websites in its search results, and is not used to collect content for training AI models. Perplexity recommends allowing it in your robots.txt file and allowing its published IP addresses. It also says changes can take up to 24 hours to take effect.

  • Check robots.txt. Open yoursite.com/robots.txt. Look for a “User-agent: PerplexityBot” line followed by “Disallow: /”, or a rule that blocks every bot. Google’s robots.txt guide explains how these rules work.
  • Check your firewall. Some hosting firewalls and CDN “bot fight” settings block AI crawlers without telling you. Perplexity’s documentation explains how to allow its bots in Cloudflare and AWS.
  • Know the second agent. Perplexity-User visits a page when someone asks Perplexity a question. Perplexity says it generally ignores robots.txt because a person asked for the page, so blocking it there won’t keep you out.

If this part feels technical, our technical SEO service covers crawler access along with site speed.

Step 3: Get listed on the sites Perplexity cites

Go back to your log from Step 1 and work through the sites one by one.

  • Yelp. Because Perplexity uses Yelp data for local places, claim your free Yelp business page and fill in your categories, hours, service area and photos. Be careful with reviews here: Yelp’s rules say don’t ask anyone to review your business, and its software may hide reviews that look requested.
  • Directories for your trade. If Perplexity keeps citing a trade body’s “find a member” page or an industry directory, get listed there.
  • Local lists and news. Local “best of” articles and community news are often among the cited sources. Real local work, such as sponsoring a team or helping after a storm, gives reporters a reason to mention you.
  • Tripadvisor, if you run a hotel, restaurant or attraction.

Use the same business name, address, phone number and hours everywhere. Conflicting details give Perplexity two versions of you to choose from.

Step 4: Put clear facts on your own website

When Perplexity reads your site, it can only repeat what you’ve actually written. Make sure each main service has its own page that says, in plain sentences:

  • what you do and who it’s for
  • the towns or areas you cover, written as text rather than only shown on a map
  • your opening hours and whether you do emergency call-outs
  • your prices, or how you price a job
  • any licences, accreditations and how long you’ve been trading

Put the direct answer near the top of the page and answer common customer questions in a sentence or two. Our guide on how to write a service page that ranks shows a simple layout that works for Google and AI answers alike.

Step 5: Add LocalBusiness structured data

Structured data states your business facts in code that machines can read. Google’s LocalBusiness structured data guide asks for your name and address, recommends phone, website and opening hours, and says to use the most specific type available, such as Plumber or Dentist. Perplexity doesn’t say whether it reads structured data, so treat this as a cheap way to remove doubt rather than a ranking switch. Keep it identical to what the page shows.

Step 6: Earn reviews and mentions honestly

Review rules differ by platform. Google lets you ask customers to leave a review through a link or QR code, but it bans incentives such as discounts in exchange for reviews. Yelp asks businesses not to request reviews at all. Follow each platform’s rules, reply to reviews politely, and never buy reviews or paid “top 10” placements.

Then repeat Step 1 a month later with the same questions. If your business now appears more often, or appears on more of the cited sources, the work is paying off.

Perplexity, ChatGPT and Google work differently

Each AI tool draws on its own mix of sources. We cover what ChatGPT uses in Does ChatGPT use your Google Business Profile?, and the fixes overlap a lot: complete listings, a crawlable site and clear facts. To see where your business is missing across Google, Maps and AI answers, run the free Search Gap check, or see our AI search optimization service if you’d like help.