Clickless searches! AI scrapers! Detailed AI previews that answer people’s questions in plain language! It’s enough to make you wonder if it’s worth the work to keep up a business website. When questions about digital publishing strategy come up from stakeholders, what do you say? Here are some talking points.
Building a website is a lot of work, and it isn’t one-and-done; websites need upkeep. Plus, no one will find your site without SEO and promotion. So, is it worth it? That depends on your business model and the resources you have to devote to your online presence. For most businesses, the answer is “yes.”
Why It’s Good to Have Your Own Website
- A good website makes you look more legitimate.
- Not everyone likes AI Search or AI overviews.
- AI previews retrieve information from the web.
- You own your website data, rather than relying on a platform like Facebook.
- You have choices regarding your business model—you can sell products, show ads, or attract sponsors.
You Might Not Need a Website if…
- You have a hyper-local business that relies on word-of-mouth or local listings—but remember, you are still at the mercy of those platforms’ local content policies.
- You have a small group of customers who congregate on the same online service—but you should still have a backup plan in case that changes.
- You trust AI to accurately describe your business expertise—but you should test it to see what it is actually saying about your brand or specialty.
- You are blogging on platforms like LinkedIn or Medium—but ensure you have a copy of all your content in case your account is revoked or suspended.
Questions that About Your Website and AI Search
No. AI search results are a combination of a model’s training data and information available on the open web. (see Retrieval-Augmented Generation). Your brand or message should be online in as many places as you can manage so that bots can find and retrieve it.
Yes. An updated, well-functioning website is essential for most businesses. It doesn’t have to be big or elaborate; even a few pages can make a good impression and build trust.
Not at this time. There is no definitive way to know everything AI says about you or your business. The best strategy is to get your messaging out on as many digital “surfaces” as possible, such as social media, Q&A websites, video, and, of course, your own website.
You can train the specific AI instance you use to remember what you’ve told it, but that information stays within your local storage. You cannot train the frontier models (like ChatGPT or Perplexity) to repeat your message to everyone. AI search results come from a combination of the information the creators used to train the model plus the information it retrieves online.
Are You Doing All The Things?
…front end dev, writer, maintainer, marketer, and explainer? I can help. Contact me for metadata updates, image alt tags, and white label dashboards or slide decks,
