AI Website Optimization | Your Website Looks Great. AI Doesn’t Care
1. Don’t design your website just to please the God’s of Google
Sure, go ahead and create your website, but AI website optimization is now just as important as optimizing for Google.. Currently AI shows up in search results 25% to 30% of the time. (1.)
According to the companies that own the AI’s, there are 13 billion AI overviews per month added to searches. (2) It is very likely that when you read this, that number will have gone up.
These facts bring up the idea that you still need a website (you do), and who are you creating the website for. It used to be Google and searchers. Now AI is being added to the bunch.
1. https://searcherries.com/ai-search-statistics (extremely helpful)
2. AI Website Optimization Starts with Answers
The goal of AI website optimization isn’t fancy design. It’s making your content easy for AI to understand. Your beautifully designed website is pleasing to the search engines, but AI’s don’t care. AI’s are just looking for information.
While you design and create your website, bear in mind that AI is looking for easy to understand headings and text that answers real questions. Simple clarity.
This doesn’t mean you can’t have an attractive site. In fact you should always design your site for visitors. You can look at this site Out of The Box SEO – outoftheboxseo.com for an example. I continue to help visitors understand SEO/GBP. I am also aware that I need to consider AI’s.
3. Trust Matters More Than How Attractive Your Website Is
When it comes to you as the creator of a website, I will say that AI is looking for nearly the same things as Google.
AI wants to ensure you are the business owner. Like Google, AI’s look at reviews, business mentions on the internet, author information (I have a bio box about me on each page I create).
I do a lot of website audits. Because of this I have seen what appear to be anomalies where a simple 3 to 5 page website is outranking more complex sites. This is because the simple website proves the business is real and servicing the area (like St. George) they are located in, without the visitor having to think about it. Trust.
4. Structure Beats Style When Creating An AI Friendly Website
Something I’ve learned is that topical authority is important to both AI and Google. I think of topical authority as creating a page that links to all of the related pages on a website. You can see an example here: https://stgeorgewindowcleaning.pro/window-cleaning-services/.
Topical authority pages are often based on Google Business Profile categories and the services offered within each category. On the website above, the category is Window Cleaning Services. Creating topical authority makes it easier for both visitors and AI to understand what your website is about.
The posts on the window cleaning site have titles that are easy to understand, such as: “We Do Guaranteed Commercial Window Cleaning for St. George and Ivins Businesses.” That page also begins with an introductory paragraph that makes it easy for AI, Google, and visitors to connect the content with the page title. Here’s an example from that page:
“I clean for businesses all over town. From Downtown St. George to the new stores near Stone Cliff. I’ve cleaned windows for Huga Design and Richens Eye Center, so I know what commercial windows can look like and what they need.”
One final thought about structuring your website for AI:
I add schema markup to every page on my site. Schema markup has become an important part of AI website optimization because it helps AI understand your business and content. Adding schema won’t guarantee better rankings, but it does help search engines and AI systems interpret your content more accurately.
5. Of Course You Pretty Website Can Still Fail To Attract AI
What if you’ve spent a ton of money having a website created for your business? You hired an SEO business to make sure it shows up in Google and in AI results. But nothing happens. No AI’s, no Google crawl.
What the heck happened? Well, you have a beautiful website, but colorful-beauty doesn’t mean the website is easy for AI’s (and Google) to understand. If the AI thinks you are running a dental office but it’s not instantly clear what you do, your site won’t be showing up in the AI overview.
Here is a webpage th
at has a large title that doesn’t really mean anything Dentist in Littleton Co. It mentions restorative dentistry: RESTORATIVE DENTISTRY Ageing With A Beautiful Smile. What is that? Why should I have to read the paragraph to understand it?
I re-created the website title and I’m sure you will notice a difference:
“Restorative Dentistry fixes your teeth to look beautiful.
Here is how we do that”
Clear and quickly understood by humans and AI.
6. Here’s what you should do now if you are creating a website (like I am with this SEO/GBP site).
* Build a website that looks nice for Humans
* Build a website that follows good AI website optimization practices. The easiest way to do this is to add schema markup. Funny, any AI can create a schema for you. That’s AI making it easy for AI.
* Build a website that makes it easy on Google search bots using things like image alt tags and H tags.
If you’d like help with AI website optimization, local SEO, or your Google Business Profile, contact me, Don Glasgow, at (435) 879-1239
Reddit r/AI_SearchOptimization
How should small businesses think about AI SEO in 2026?
I’m seeing more small businesses ask about AI SEO, ChatGPT visibility, and brand mentions, but many are still unclear about what actually helps.
From what I understand, the basics still matter: clear service pages, consistent brand information, reviews, business listings, helpful content, and third-party mentions.
For those working on this seriously, what signals have you seen make the biggest difference?
Answer: Hot-Cranberry-9732
I’d stop thinking only about “ranking on Google” and start thinking about “being the best answer.”
AI search is rewarding content that’s clear, trustworthy, and genuinely useful. For small businesses, that means:
Answer real customer questions in plain language.
Publish original content based on your experience, not generic AI-generated articles.
Build topical authority by covering your niche in depth.
Keep your website fast, up to date, and easy for search engines to crawl.
Earn mentions, reviews, and backlinks from reputable websites.
In 2026, trust and expertise matter more than publishing dozens of keyword-stuffed blog posts. The businesses that consistently provide helpful, credible information are the ones most likely to be surfaced by both Google Search and AI-powered search experiences.
Answer: chadworksweb
AI SEO is a misnomer. They are related, but AI search/citations and search engine SEO are separate divisions of an emerging vertical I am calling, simply, Visibility. You need to do both. SEO is a foundation for GEO/AI search anyway, so it’s almost impossible to do AI viz without covering SEO first, but it is still possible to do SEO without AI viz (GEO.)
Get granular. The intensity of the work has gone up, not down. AI tools help us get the work done faster and smarter, but the amount of work has gone up. We now need to account for any thought a human can think, not just every combination of your relevant product or service or locale.
You have to expose your business like never before. The days of mystery, hiding prices, “call for quote,” not blogging, not sharing this finest details — are over. You have to be aggressively vulnerable, translating every public-facing aspect of your business into an element on the page for AI crawlers to read.
Anyone who says there is no difference isn’t working in the trenches.
Anyone who says things haven’t changed hasn’t been paying attention.
Both SEO and GEO must be tended to.
About the owner of this website:
My name is Don Glasgow
I built my first website in 2001. I ranked that sight almost immediatly for "St. George real estate). Yes, I live in St. George, UT.
I've built many more websites since then.
I also have an enormous amount of knowledge on how to get a website to rank.
Try us before you spend a dime!
Thinkin' about using us? Get the first month of GBP/SEO for free when you mention this offer.
Offer subject to change
AI Website Optimization
AI website optimization
