Website Strategy for 2026: Optimizing for People and AI Search

The first usage of the internet was to connect to another human being. From Stanford to UCLA, connecting researchers 350 miles apart to share information. It was always about people. It was always about connecting.

When businesses started building websites, the purpose didn’t fundamentally change. While the connection began to include the exchange of services and money, it was still in essence connecting. And then came the bots. As Google started to index the websites, the internet was no longer just about connecting, it also became about convincing bots that you were good enough to connect with other people. With AI, this has become supercharged.

Most clients come to me with the understanding that real people aren’t reading their websites; real people aren’t interacting with the posts; real people are in the ChatGPT / Claude / Gemini windows getting summaries and recommendations based off AI’s reading of a business’s website and reviews.

But AI doesn’t have the credit card.

We still need actual eyes on your website. We need real people to click “contact me” or “buy product”. Real people notice when things are disjointed. They notice when the design looks old and when buttons don’t work and when it’s hard to navigate your site.

So sure, your website should convince AI that you’re an expert, but it also needs to work for PEOPLE. It’s still the first impression that potential customers have of your company. When they buy your product or service, they’re still fundamentally connecting to you the person. 

Making Your Website Work for People

When a live human views your website, there are 4 different ways it can fail: Functionality, Perception of Expertise, Ease of Use, Site Beauty. While the audiences perceives beauty first, the first real failure is in functionality.

Website Functionality

“Does your website work?” seems like the most basic and obvious success/failure metric of a website. And it is. But in auditing sites, there are always functionality breaks. A page doesn’t load, or a contact button wasn’t connected right, or a link leads to a 404 error. The larger the site, the more common these are, but even smaller sites/businesses can fall behind on QAing (Quality Assurance).

Perception of Expertise

While the design, or site beauty, plays into this perception heavily, there are other elements that more directly signal this to customers. First, industry terms should be used where appropriate, but if they might not be known by users, include a definition next to the first usage. The length and depth of pages or posts are both powerful signals. Half a page of general content gives a different perception than 2000+ word article.

Testimonials are powerful social proof of your expertise, especially if they come from people in adjacent fields, not just customers. Case studies or logos of previous clients can bolster your website. An about page with actual information about the owners, and a clear contact page with an address all build on your company’s validity. Finally, any certifications, awards, or partnerships all help.

Ease of Use

Regardless of the size of your business, users do NOT expect your website to have trouble working; they expect it to work the first time, consistently, while looking good. If it’s easy to use, it’s easy to stay.

Whether your site is easy to use can be difficult to review from the inside. From industry-friendly (but not user-friendly) terms, to navigation that may not match how the user navigates, getting an outside perspective of your website can mean a major difference in conversion rates.

Website Funnels contribute to ease of use as well. This strategy of organizing your site around the end goals you have for potential clients make the overall site easier to use for them. Don’t make users search your site for what they’re looking for – build a yellow brick road for them to follow.

Pinterest, the image browsing site, came out of the gate strong. They had a monetization strategy far earlier in their startup than normal. As an image-based site, they sell ad space based on images of products. As you’re scrolling, you might see an image of a purse with a business name. Keep in mind, these are the paid ads – not the free pins. They are set up by businesses trying to sell their product on Pinterest. But when the potential customer clicks, they are often taken to the homepage instead of the advertised product. To find that purse, they have to search through the site navigation. How many times have businesses lost a sale because the potential customer just couldn’t be bothered? Usability isn’t aesthetic – it’s revenue. 

Site Beauty

Finally, the first thing users will notice is the site’s design. If it feels organized and cohesive in its design, colors, fonts, and layouts, the user will subconsciously notice. We live in a world pursuing beautiful in all aspects of life; why would the websites we visit be different?

If something is beautiful to use, it becomes more enjoyable – and vice versa. I recently switched to a new system for paychecks. The old paycheck system looked nice and was fairly easy to use. The new one is ugly, disjointed, and difficult to navigate. But while beauty doesn’t affect bots and AI, it absolutely affects human beings. Every time I use it, it feels like my soul dies a little bit.

Audit Your Site Like a Human

Let’s take these principles, Functionality, Perception of Expertise, Ease of Use, Site Beauty, and walk through how to audit your site. Don Norman’s Emotional Design in 2004, presented good design in three sections: Visceral, Behavioral, and Reflective. While he put them in order of the experience, we’re going to deal with them again in the order of most likely to break the site.

Behavioral Review

The first step is analyzing the experience of using the site; it’s functionality, feel and usability. Start from a fresh perspective, on the homepage or your chosen entry point. Set your goal – one of the primary actions you want users to take – and navigate from your entry point to your conversion CTA (call to action).

• Does it work?
• How many clicks does it take?
• Can you easily find the next step?
• Are the buttons hidden/hard to find/see?
• Do the CTAs (call to actions) make sense?
• Does the page structure support the user’s mental journey through the product/service?

Visceral Review

In the Website Marketing world, this is similar to the Grunt Test. It’s the immediate gut-level reaction to how something looks and what it’s for. The homepage is the first place to apply this, but every entry page should be considered with these same questions.

• Do any images tell the story of what you do, or what this page is offering?
• Do any large text headings support this?
• Do the colors, layouts, and structure of the page support this offering?
• Without reading anything, can people get a sense of what kind of business you are?

Reflective

Lastly, this section deals with the position of your company in relationship to your ideal clients. People want to work with those who either hold similar views, elevate how they view themselves, or matches their self-image.

• Does your tone, language and positioning match what your ideal customer would be looking for?
• Are your testimonials matching your ideal client?
• Is your site design / business name distinctive enough that people will remember you?
• For non-commodity businesses, do you signal your values clearly?
• Are all touchpoints (emails, thank you pages, portals) cohesive?

Making Your Website Work for AI

People will always be the core of any website audience since we still need EYES to make those purchases. But making sure your website is visible to AI will broaden your reach into AI recommendations. The expected behavior of these recommendations, though not always true to life, is that AI reviews the website, testimonials, and company information like an actual human assistant would.

If you want your company to be recommended, there are a few ways you can convince AI that you are the expert and have value.

The first thing for AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), or AIO (AI optimization) is to do is the same thing that worked for SEO: Use keywords in titles (headings), use industry terms, and write long blogs. It’s not sexy, but it works.

The second thing is to make sure AI can see you. If you’re on WordPress and using Yoast, make sure to turn on the llms.txt too. This text document allows AI to read your website easier. Because really, the website is for humans; the llms.txt is for AI. *Update: only 10% of AIs are using this; Google explicitly says it doesn’t.

Lastly, make sure that the AI can see how people see you. Make sure reviews of your business are easily found and connected to your company. The testimonials on your site should be marked as testimonials so AI easily knows what they are.

For the Humans

For twenty years, we’ve been told to write for humans. Use natural language. Be conversational. Think about your reader. And then, quietly, we started writing for something that has no feelings, no patience, and no credit card.

Now, we’re hearing build for AI models. Optimize for Search Engines. Make sure robots can scan your website.

But fundamentally, if your website doesn’t work for real people, it doesn’t work.