Being found in Google and AI search: a technical checklist for business websites

One page, one purpose

Search engines rank pages, not websites. If your services, prices and contact details all live on one scrolling page, you have one chance to rank. Give each service its own page with its own title, so each can match the searches people actually make.

Titles, descriptions and headings

• A unique title under about 60 characters that says what the page offers and where.
• A description of one or two sentences that reads like an answer.
• One main heading per page, followed by logical sub-headings.
• Descriptive text on images, so they make sense when not visible.

Structured data

Structured data is a small block of machine-readable information describing your business: name, address, services, opening hours, reviews. It helps Google show rich results and helps AI assistants describe you accurately. Business, article and breadcrumb data are the most useful for a typical company website.

Speed and mobile

Most visitors arrive on a phone. Pages should show their main content within a couple of seconds on a mobile connection. Compress images, avoid heavy video on the first screen and serve the site from a fast global network.

Sitemaps, robots and AI crawlers

A sitemap lists every page you want found. A robots file tells crawlers what they may visit. Decide deliberately whether to allow AI crawlers: allowing them makes it more likely assistants will mention you, but your content may be used to train models. A short plain-text summary of the business for AI tools is a useful addition.

Content that earns citations

Write down the questions customers ask you on the phone, and answer each one properly on your site — with prices, processes and examples where you can. Original, specific information is what search engines and assistants prefer to quote. Thin pages repeating the same keywords no longer work.