How to Make Your Website Easier for AI Engines to Understand (GEO for beginners)

Most websites are harder to understand than their owners think.

The homepage says the company is “transforming the way teams work”. The services page is full of broad claims. The blog has useful thinking, but the topics are scattered. The about page talks around the founder instead of clearly saying who they are, what they know, and why they are credible.

That might still pass as normal brand copy. It does not pass as clear information architecture.

The practical answer is this: to make your website easier for AI engines to understand, your site needs to clearly explain who you are, what you do, who you help, what topics you have authority in, and how each page supports that story. Then you need to make that content crawlable, structured, consistent, and easy to summarise.

I do not think AI search changes everything about marketing. But it does punish a problem that has been around for years: vague websites.

I have worked across big tech, B2B software, and growth marketing long enough to know that most visibility problems are not only technical. They are clarity problems wearing technical clothes.

AI Engines Need Clear Entities, Not Just Keywords

Traditional SEO made marketers obsess over keywords. AI search pushes us closer to entities.

An entity is a recognisable thing: a person, company, product, service, topic, location, or concept. For a personal brand like mine, the entity is Christopher Chow or Chris Chow. For a B2B company, it might be the company, the product category, the founder, the market, and the problems it solves.

If an AI engine is trying to understand a website, it is not only asking, “What keywords appear here?”

It is also trying to work out:

• Who is this website about?

• What is this person or brand known for?

• What topics are repeatedly connected to them?

• Are the claims consistent across pages?

• Is there enough context to answer a user’s question confidently?

That is why thin, generic websites struggle. They might look polished, but they do not give machines much to work with.

A vague website says, “We help businesses grow.”

A clearer website says, “Chris Chow helps B2B marketers, founders, and job seekers with growth marketing, LinkedIn distribution, demand generation, GEO, and marketing career coaching.”

The second version is less fancy. It is also much more useful.

Start With the Five Things Your Website Must Make Obvious

Before touching schema, tools, or technical fixes, I would audit the site for five basic signals.

1. Who You Are

Your website should make the main entity obvious.

For a personal brand, that means your name, role, topics, and credibility should be consistent across the homepage, about page, author bio, article pages, and schema.

For a company, it means the business name, product category, market, and core positioning should be clear.

Do not make AI engines piece this together from poetic copy. Say it plainly.

Example:

“Chris Chow is a growth marketer, B2B content creator, and career coach based in Australia.” (I know this could be shorter and clearer!)

That sentence is not trying to win a brand poetry competition. It is doing its job.

2. What You Do

A lot of B2B websites describe outcomes without naming the actual work being done.

The copy ends up sounding interchangeable.

Something like:

“AI to unlock productivity and performance.”

The above could apply to almost any product.

A better approach:

“Accounting software that automates the boring work.”

AI engines need clear categories in order to help them understand context!

3. Who You Help

Audience clarity matters because AI answers are usually context-specific.

A founder searching for growth marketing help has different needs from a marketing manager trying to improve LinkedIn distribution. A job seeker looking for marketing career coaching has different intent again.

Your site should name the audience groups you serve.

For example:

• B2B founders

• Growth marketers

• Content leads

• Marketing job seekers

• SaaS and technology teams

• Early-stage companies building demand

This does not mean stuffing every page with audience labels. It means being specific enough that your website can be associated with the right people and problems.

4. What Topics You Own

AI engines need repeated topic signals.

If you want to be associated with growth marketing, B2B content, LinkedIn distribution, demand generation, AI search, and marketing career coaching, those topics need to appear in a structured way across the site.

That means having:

• Strong service pages

• Useful articles

• Internal links between related topics

• Consistent author bios

• Clear category pages

• FAQs that answer real questions

• Pages that explain definitions, comparisons, frameworks, and use cases

One isolated article will not build much authority. A cluster of useful pages can.

5. Why You Are Credible

Credibility does not mean making inflated claims.

It means giving enough context for a reader, search engine, or AI system to understand why your perspective is worth using.

For me, that might mean mentioning that I have more than a decade of marketing experience and have worked across companies like Apple, Microsoft, Dovetail, and Smokeball. I do not need to turn that into a heroic origin story. It just gives context.

For a company, credibility might come from team experience, product detail, customer types, case studies, published thinking, speaking, press, or practical examples.

The key is to avoid fake authority. If something needs evidence, support it. If you cannot support it, do not say it.

My Practical Framework: The CLEAR Website Test

When I look at a website for AI search readiness, I like simple tests. Here is one I would use.

C: Clear entity
Can a reader quickly identify who the site is about and what the brand is known for?

L: Linked topic clusters
Do related pages connect to each other, or is every page sitting alone?

E: Explicit answers
Do important pages answer obvious questions directly, or do they hide behind soft brand language?

A: Accessible content
Can search engines crawl and read the content? Are key details buried in images, scripts, PDFs, or gated assets?

R: Reinforced structure
Does the site use consistent headings, internal links, metadata, author details, and schema markup?

If a website fails this test, I would fix those basics before worrying about more advanced GEO tactics.

What This Looks Like on a B2B Website

Let’s say a B2B software company wants to be more visible in AI search for customer research, product feedback, or user insights.

A weak site might have:

• A homepage full of broad claims

• A features page that lists product modules without explaining use cases

• Blog posts that chase unrelated keywords

• No clear author information

• No internal links between related topics

• No structured data

• A thin about page

• Case studies that are hard to summarise

A stronger site would have:

• A homepage that clearly names the product category and buyer

• Use-case pages for specific customer problems

• A clear glossary or learning hub

• Articles that answer practical questions

• Author bios with relevant expertise

• Internal links from articles to use cases and service pages

• Schema for the organisation, website, articles, FAQs, and authors

• Case studies with concise summaries, context, and outcomes that are properly supported

That is not a trick. It is just a more understandable website.

Common Mistakes I See

Mistake 1: Treating GEO as a Plugin

GEO is not something you install once and forget.

Structured data helps, but it cannot rescue vague thinking. If your pages do not clearly explain the business, the audience, the offer, and the topic, schema is just tidying up weak content.

Mistake 2: Writing for “Everyone”

If your site tries to sound relevant to every possible buyer, it usually becomes less useful to the buyers that matter.

Specificity helps AI engines because it narrows context. It also helps humans decide whether you are relevant.

Mistake 3: Hiding the Good Stuff

Some brands have strong expertise, but it is hidden in sales decks, private proposals, webinars, or founder conversations.

If you want AI engines to associate you with a topic, some of that expertise needs to exist in crawlable public content.

That does not mean publishing everything. It means publishing enough useful material for the website to earn the association.

Mistake 4: Publishing Articles With No Internal Logic

A blog full of disconnected posts is not a content strategy.

If you publish one article on growth marketing, one on hiring, one on AI, one on leadership, and one on productivity with no clear connection, you make your site harder to interpret.

Topic clusters matter because they show repeated expertise.

Mistake 5: Making the About Page Useless

The about page is often one of the clearest entity signals on a website.

Do not waste it on vague values copy. Use it to explain who you are, what you do, who you help, your relevant background, and where readers should go next.

A Simple Website Audit for AI Search

If I were improving a site this week, I would not start with a 40-page strategy deck.

I would ask these questions:

• Does the homepage clearly say who we are, what we do, and who we help?

• Do our service or product pages answer the questions buyers actually ask?

• Do our articles link to related services, definitions, and deeper guides?

• Do author bios reinforce real expertise?

• Are important pages crawlable and indexable?

• Do headings describe the content clearly?

• Do we use structured data where appropriate?

• Are our claims supported?

• Can someone summarise each page in one sentence?

That last question is underrated.

If a human cannot summarise the page, do not expect an AI engine to do a better job.

My Perspective

I think the biggest mistake marketers make with AI search is assuming it is mainly a technical discipline.

Technical SEO matters. Structured data matters. Crawlability matters.

But the deeper issue is usually strategic clarity.

A website becomes easier for AI engines to understand when the brand itself becomes easier to understand. That means sharper positioning, cleaner content architecture, more useful answers, and fewer vague claims.

Pick the topics you actually want to be known for. Build useful pages around them. Link them properly. Support your claims. Make your expertise obvious.

Not louder. Clearer.

FAQ

What is AI search website optimisation?

AI search website optimisation is the process of making a website easier for AI-powered search engines and answer engines to understand, summarise, and associate with the right topics. It includes clear positioning, structured content, crawlable pages, internal links, metadata, and schema markup.

Is GEO different from SEO?

GEO, or generative engine optimisation, overlaps heavily with SEO. The difference is emphasis. SEO often focuses on rankings and search result visibility, while GEO focuses on whether AI systems can understand, trust, and summarise your brand or content in generated answers.

Does schema markup help AI search visibility?

Schema markup can help search engines understand the structure and meaning of a page, but it should support clear content rather than replace it. Use schema for pages, articles, FAQs, organisations, people, and other relevant entities where appropriate.

What pages matter most for AI search?

The most important pages are usually the homepage, about page, service or product pages, author pages, topic hubs, key articles, case studies, and FAQ pages. These pages give AI engines context about who you are, what you do, and what topics you are credible on.

Should I create content only for AI engines?

No. The best AI-search-friendly content is also useful for humans. If a page clearly answers real questions, explains the topic well, and supports the brand’s expertise, it is more likely to be useful across search, AI answers, and human decision-making.

Closing Takeaway

If you want your website to perform better in AI search, start by making it easier to understand.

Say who you are. Say what you do. Say who you help. Build clear topic clusters. Make your content crawlable. Add structured data where it makes sense. Support your claims.

AI engines do not need you to sound more complicated.

They need you to be more obvious.

Bonus tip: Audit the “About” section across all social channels. Is the messaging consistent, or does it vary significantly from platform to platform? If it is not consistent, how will LLMs know what is true!