The short answer
Give each customer question its own heading and answer it in the first two sentences underneath, in plain words. Put the key facts (who, where, price, timing) in sentences rather than images.
Show who wrote the page and when. That makes a page easy for a person to trust and easy for an assistant to quote.
Why the first lines matter
Animated illustration: the Services page of a fictional firm, Quillwhistle Accountants. One plain sentence on the page is highlighted, and an AI answer quotes it and cites the page.
When an assistant builds an answer from web pages, it looks for passages that respond directly to the question.
A page that opens with a welcome message, a history of the firm and three paragraphs of general reassurance makes that harder. The useful sentence may be there, but it is buried, hedged or split across several places.
The fix is not a trick. It is the same advice good editors have always given: say the important thing first, then support it. What changes is that it now matters for machines as well as busy readers.
Five steps
- Pick one question per page or section. Write the customer question as a heading, in their words. One section answers one question.
- Answer in the first two sentences. State the answer straight away, then explain. An assistant looking for a quotable line should find it without reading the whole page.
- Put the facts in plain sentences. Who you serve, where, what it costs or how it is priced, how long it takes. Facts hidden in images, sliders or vague phrases are hard to use.
- Show where the facts come from. Name the author and their role, date the page, and link to sources such as a regulator or trade body where they support a claim.
- Add questions and schema markup. A short FAQ in customers’ words, marked up with schema, helps machines read the answers correctly.
A before and after
Here is the opening of a services page for Quillwhistle Accountants, the fictional firm we use in our demos. The customer question is "Do you do accounts for small charities?"
Before (Illustration, fictional business)
"Welcome to Quillwhistle. For over a generation we have been passionate about helping organisations of every shape and size achieve their goals. Our friendly team prides itself on a personal approach. Get in touch to find out how we can help you."
After (Illustration, fictional business)
"Yes. Quillwhistle Accountants prepares annual accounts and independent examinations for small charities in the surrounding area, with fixed fees agreed before we start. Our charity work is led by a chartered accountant, and most examinations are completed within six weeks of receiving the records."
The second version:
- answers the question in its first word;
- names the service, the area and the pricing approach;
- says who does the work and gives a timescale.
Every one of those is a fact an assistant could repeat, and a customer could check. Only write facts that are true for your business; an invented timescale is worse than none.
Supporting the words
Clear prose comes first, then the extras.
- Schema markup labels facts such as address and services so machines read them correctly.
- An llms.txt file can point AI tools at your best pages, though it is only a proposal.
- The AI-readiness self-check gives a rough sense of where a page falls short in about two minutes. Use it before you rewrite anything.
Honest limits
A well-written page is more likely to be understood and quoted, but nobody controls what an assistant writes. We do not promise rankings or a place in AI answers.
GEO Agency's page analysis runs on Google Gemini and scores how answerable and well-structured a page is; the scores are estimates, not a record of what any assistant said.
Common questions
Should I write differently for AI than for people?
Mostly no. Pages that answer clearly, early and specifically are easier for people and assistants alike. The main change is putting the answer first rather than building up to it.
How long should a page be?
Long enough to answer the question and the obvious follow-ups, and no longer. Padding makes the useful sentence harder to find.
Does keyword stuffing help with AI answers?
No. Repeating phrases does not make a page clearer. Use the words customers use, once, in a sentence that means something.
Will a rewrite get my business named?
It improves the odds that a page is understood and quoted. It cannot guarantee a mention, because assistants also weigh other sources and vary their answers.