Want ChatGPT to find your RIA? Update your website

Bonfire Studio identified advisor-owned websites in 45% of 1,048 distinct sources returned by ChatGPT 5.5 when the firm ran 135 location-based queries on July 23. The searches targeted New York, Chicago, Dallas–Fort Worth, Phoenix and Charlotte.

Bonfire asked questions such as “Who does retirement planning in Charlotte, NC?” and “I’m looking for a financial advisor in Chicago, IL — who should I talk to?” The model’s answers referenced 1,048 distinct sources overall and cited websites owned by individual advisors or advisory teams more often than other categories.

Government and regulatory bodies and professional associations accounted for nearly 11% of citations, while banks, wirehouses and insurance company sites made up about 8.2%. The single most-cited domain was napfa.org. When advisor-owned sites were grouped, they outnumbered other source types. The study identified 206 individual advisory firms’ sites in the results, and the top 10 most-cited domains appeared in roughly one-fifth of responses.

Bonfire founder Sara McQueen noted that a firm’s own website remains the clearest place for AI and search engines to learn what a firm does and where it operates. She added that many advisors build a site and then do little to update it as staff, locations or services change. McQueen pointed out that large language models tend to favor information published in the previous six months, so recent updates affect visibility.

The firm also tested repeatability. When Bonfire re-submitted the same Charlotte queries, the websites cited by ChatGPT changed nearly 45% of the time. McQueen suggested the model appears to draw from a short list of authoritative firms and returns only a few names per response, so timing and small query differences can change which sites are surfaced.

Fran Merlie, senior vice president of content and AI strategy at Gregory, observed that advisor websites are often overlooked even as firms pursue visibility in AI-driven search. He recommended that firms test models multiple times with varied queries to measure where their visibility is strong or weak and to use multiple channels-website content, PR and social media-to publish expertise.

Bonfire’s results showed citation patterns vary by query topic. Advisor-owned sites dominated for tax planning, fee-only planning and retirement searches. Wirehouses, banks and insurance companies were cited more often for questions about high-net-worth services for portfolios of $5 million or more. Estate planning queries most frequently brought up law firm websites.

Bonfire noted that prior research found ChatGPT is the large language model used in roughly 92% of professional-service searches. The study’s authors and marketing professionals cited regular blogs, third-party articles and multimedia posts on platforms like LinkedIn and YouTube as ways firms publish subject-matter content that models may draw on.