The Website Advice I Regret Giving (And What I’d Say Now)

I was driving back from a three day conference in Charleston, West Virginia, and realized in horror - I think I gave someone some really bad advice.

Okay - my advice might not ruin this person’s business. In fairness, my advice was actually grounded in truth and practice until this little thing came around that has shaken the marketplace - AI. And for once, in retrospect, I’m glad I gave bad advice. Or at least I’m glad I had to reflect, and my new answer is far better as a web designer.

I sat across from my cohort. We were eating lunch and finalizing our three day meetup for the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business program. She’s a restaurant owner in Parkersburg, and she knew I was an agency owner who specialized in local web design. She asked, “what should I be doing with my website?” My answer was fairly simple. I’ve worked with tons of local restaurants. I explained that your website wasn’t nearly as valuable as your Google Business profile. For the next ten minutes, I offloaded ideas to maximize her profile and win that coveted top spot in the map pack.

You see, local websites for businesses like restaurants and hair salons didn’t really help with conversion or even ranking. Having a website was more of a “I’m professional and I can afford to put some money into my branding.” Users might look at it to see hours, menus, and general location photos - but they usually just grabbed that from Google listings. Typing restaurants near me had users primarily looking at star rankings and reviews on Google, not scanning a personalized website. Sure, make yours look pretty - but don’t put too much money into something that doesn’t get looked at.

I think that is bad advice now.

What Changed - AI Replaced “Search Results” With “Answers”

You might still be the traditional searcher. Head to Google, type a few words, hit search, and scan through the ten blue links (who am I kidding - the ads, snippets, and occasionally good recommendations). Don’t get me wrong - I love you people. You allow me to hold on to what we know and what is safe in the SEO world…but times are changing. When I found myself asking ChatGPT questions, I knew traditional search was not going to control the market for much longer.

We might not 100% trust the answers AI gives us, but we want to. Why? Because we are having conversations with our new friends. We aren’t going to ChatGPT and typing in “restaurants near me.” We are going to ChatGPT and explaining what we are in the mood for, our budget, who is in our party, and dietary restrictions. Instead of searching through results, we want recommendations based on the research done by our chat buddies. Give us a few recommendations, and you are now our best friend.

And yes, these results might not be amazing - yet. Why? Because that kind of information isn’t readily available on users’ websites. ChatGPT can tell distance, the general food category, and the menu - but it might struggle with niche questions and specifics. Especially when websites are three pages with 200 words.

But once businesses start realizing they aren’t being recommended in these searches, they are going to realize the easiest way to let these chat agents know more about their business is to add more information to their website. For years, I’ve been saying a seven page website was enough. I don’t know about that anymore, especially in a crowded market.

I feel SEO and the general practices just got far more important.

Your Website Is No Longer for Customers First - It’s for AI

Business owners probably never really cared if the customer ended up at their website. That traffic was primarily a vanity metric. Most actual business owners cared about sales, calls, and real conversions. For you, you won’t care about this shift. For marketers like me and data nerds, we are slightly vocal and angry with this no-click world.

We want everyone to go to the website or click on some property that we can track to help with ROI. If ChatGPT recommends us and a customer gives us a call and never clicks a single thing, we have no idea where they came from. It’s like old school TV and billboard ads. AI is doing the same work. You might never know if you showed up and got the sale from an individual chat conversation.

This means many customers will never see your website. But that doesn’t mean it’s not important.

Your website will be the hub of where they gather the information. Like it or not, AI is scraping the internet and stealing your content to become smarter. Creatives hate it (yes, they are doing what would land us with cease and desist paperwork from attorneys), but they get away with it. As a website and business owner, you want them to gather as much of your information as possible. We want to tell them everything.

And some of these pages might even look like Wikipedia.

We don’t want to abandon good design and write and design for the user, but stop saying, “no one will ever read this.” You are no longer just writing for that user. You want that AI friend to understand and recommend your business.

Google Business Profiles Can’t Carry You Anymore

Don’t abandon your GBP strategy - but know it’s not a complete fix any longer. These directories are still strong signals - especially since they’re user generated with reviews and ratings. We can’t stop updating and adding relevant information - but I wouldn’t take my earlier (bad) advice. You can only list so much on your GBP.

Local websites need to start adding pages and content that help tell the story. The about page has always been important, but your 300 words won’t cut it anymore.

We are unsure how this will morph local searches and the features that are displayed, but we do know that people will start using AI for more and more…eventually finding ways to get directions and local results. You want to be at the forefront with those recommendations. AI will also promote and push the websites that make their life easy and give them the information they need to provide the best, reliable results.

What AI Actually Looks For (And Why Most Local Businesses Miss It)

If you’ve been practicing solid SEO, I don’t think you need to change much. I’ve been telling clients for years to give me as much information about them and their business as I can get. This information will only help our search engines and humans understand your expertise and authority. Things have not changed for AI.

This is why we want clear service offerings. We want actual written words explaining what you do, why you are good at doing it, and who you help. A bulleted list might be nice - but sometimes spelling things out eliminates assumptions. It’s not just marketing fluff anymore.

Yes, you still need pages that help convert customers. You can’t just make a giant website that looks like something created in 2000 with text and links. But not all of these pages need to be linked on your navigation menu. Maybe your about page is customer friendly, and you link to a highly detailed page that gives a more exhaustive history.

We’ve been building websites out to hundreds and thousands of pages for years. I just think it’s more important than ever - now.

The Advice I’d Give That Restaurant Owner Now

Let’s head back to Friday at noon when I answered incorrectly. I would change my answer.

What should you do with your website?

A lot.

I would run some deep research in ChatGPT and have it tell you everything it knows about your business. When you review those results, ask questions. Simple questions that customers may ask. Find out if it would recommend you or your competitor. How far would it have someone travel to visit? What’s your most popular dish?

The answers will help guide what you need to do. It’s unlikely it gets everything right, and you have some content to add - not to GBP, but to your actual website.

If You’re Not Teaching AI, You’re Hoping It Guesses

Here’s the reality - AI is going to talk about your business whether you like it or not. The only question is whether it’s pulling from accurate, helpful information…or making its best guess based on scraps.

For years, we optimized for rankings. Then we optimized for clicks. Now, we’re optimizing for understanding.

Your website is no longer just a place people land. It’s the source material. It’s the training guide. It’s the thing that helps AI confidently say, “this is a good recommendation.”

And if that sounds familiar, it should. Because at its core, this is what good marketing has always been - clearly explaining what you do, who you help, and why you’re worth choosing.

The difference now is that you’re not just saying it to your customers.

You’re saying it to the systems that decide if you ever get introduced to them in the first place.