How to prepare your website for AI search

Start with one page, not a new marketing vocabulary.

Open a page that matters to your business. Imagine someone reaching it for the first time: can they tell what you offer, whether it is right for them and what to do next?

That is a useful starting point for AI search readiness. The work is sometimes called generative engine optimisation, or GEO. It does not require you to turn your website into a collection of answers written for machines.

Google’s guidance for generative search keeps established SEO and useful, original content at the centre. It does not require special AI markup, an llms.txt file or an artificial answer length. Treat those as reasons to focus on your customers, not as a promise of appearing in an AI answer.

Make sure the intended page can be found.

Before rewriting a service description, check that visitors can reach the service page from the relevant part of your website. A useful page should not depend on someone already knowing its exact address.

In your audit, look for broken links, unexpected redirects and indexing restrictions on pages you intend to make public. A restriction might be deliberate: account pages, test pages and private information should not be opened up simply to improve an audit result.

For a technical finding, give your developer the affected URL, the observed instruction and your intended outcome. “This is our public repair service page; please check whether the indexing restriction is intentional” is more useful than “make the site AI-friendly”.

ScanMySEO can also review suitable website rules captured during the crawl. That shows the policy for the paths checked, not proof that a search provider visited them.

Explain what you offer.

General praise is easy to write and difficult to use. “Tailored solutions”, “exceptional quality” and “a complete service” leave a potential customer with the same questions they arrived with.

Fictional example: a home-cleaning service

Before

Professional cleaning tailored to your needs.

A more useful introduction

Regular home cleaning for kitchens, bathrooms and living areas. Before the first visit, we agree which rooms to clean and any jobs that need extra time.

The second version explains the service and the next conversation. It is an illustration, not a claim about any actual business. Your version must match what you genuinely provide.

Work from confirmed details: the service, the people it helps, what is included, important exclusions and the booking process. Put qualifications, locations or prices on the page only when they are accurate and relevant. A confident description does not need an invented testimonial or an unsupported result.

Answer the questions customers ask before buying.

Look through enquiries, conversations and support questions you already have permission to use. Which details do people repeatedly need before they can decide?

A replacement-part page might need a verified model-compatibility list. A service page might need to explain preparation, lead times or what a quotation covers. A guide might need to say when its advice does not apply.

Put that information where it belongs. A short section beside the relevant service detail can be more useful than an FAQ repeating the rest of the page. Do not lengthen a contact page just to reach a word count.

Then ask someone unfamiliar with the business to read the page. Ask what they would expect to receive, what is still unclear and whether they know the next step. Their misunderstanding can reveal a more useful edit than another promotional sentence.

Show what important claims are based on.

Where you refer to research, name and link the actual source. Where you describe first-hand work, explain what you did and provide relevant evidence you have permission to publish. A project photograph, a method or a measured result may help a reader assess the explanation, but only when it is genuine.

Check that the source supports the specific wording. A link does not make an unrelated claim reliable. Remove or qualify claims you cannot substantiate, and make dated examples clearly recognisable as examples from that time.

For a small business, consistency also matters. The same service should not have contradictory descriptions across the main page, a pricing page and a booking form. Compare the contexts before changing anything: different packages or billing periods may explain an apparent difference.

Turn a finding into a task.

The AI search section in ScanMySEO brings relevant website findings together. Core findings remain available on Free; deeper content review depends on the paid audit and the pages it successfully reviews. A missing review is not a judgement that your content is poor.

For each improvement, record the page, the problem, the proposed change, the person responsible and how you will check it. Use the report’s source evidence rather than rewriting the finding from memory.

Check the website change before judging the outcome.

After publication, re-crawl to check the relevant technical change. For content, read the live page and verify its details. An eligible content review can help assess the revised page, but it does not tell you how often an AI service mentioned the business.

Keep actual appearances, visits and enquiries separate. Our guide to measuring AI search visits explains what to record. The AI search readiness page explains what ScanMySEO checks.

Provider guidance reviewed on 6 September 2026. Consult the linked primary documentation when making platform-specific decisions.