AI Discoverability Foundations·Beginner·Module 2 of 4

Can AI Understand Your Brand?

Make your business clear through its messaging and page structure. Try the same kind of assessment on your own website.

8 minBeginner

What you'll learn

Separate brand clarity from visual polish

Recognise the page information AI needs to understand your offer

Use a prompt to assess your own website and prioritise improvements

Two ways to think about a webpage

The interaction layer is the experience people see and use: layout, imagery, animation, navigation and booking controls.

The information layer is the content and structure that explain the business: titles, headings, descriptions, links and machine-readable facts. These layers overlap. Good headings help a human scan the page and help a machine identify what each section means.

Design gives people a useful experience when they visit and interact with your website. Well-organised information gives machines a useful experience too: they can quickly find the facts needed to answer a customer's question.

The same business, two descriptions

Take KoruGrid as an example. We built two versions of its website, both with a polished energy-themed design. One used vague messaging; the other clearly explained its services, who they were for and where it operated.

We pointed ChatGPT at each website with the same customer request:

I operate three refrigerated food-manufacturing sites in New Zealand's North Island. I need a company that can install commercial solar and battery storage, reduce peak electricity costs, and provide backup power to protect refrigeration during outages. Based only on this website, should I consider KoruGrid? Explain what the company does, who it serves, where it operates and why it matches my needs. If something is not stated, say so. Do not infer facts from the brand name.

What the website communicated	Vague version	Clear version
What it offers	“Smarter, more resilient solutions”	Commercial solar, battery storage and energy management
Who it serves	“Organisations”	Food manufacturers and cold-storage operators
Where it operates	Not stated	Hamilton-based, serving the North Island
Why it fits the need	No explicit connection	Peak-cost reduction and refrigeration backup

For the vague version, ChatGPT said it would not consider KoruGrid a viable shortlist candidate based on the supplied information. For the clear version, it described the offering as a strong fit to investigate.

The difference was the information. Once the services, audience and location were clear, ChatGPT could connect the business to the customer's needs.

Start with brand clarity

Before adding technical markup, make sure a reader can answer these questions:

What do you offer, and who is it for?
Where do you operate?
What are the prices or useful price ranges?
What restrictions or suitability requirements apply?
What are the hours, seasons and typical duration?
What makes the offer different, and why choose it?
How does someone book or enquire?

For example, “Unforgettable experiences in extraordinary places” creates a mood. “Two-hour guided glowworm kayaking near Rotorua, suitable for children aged eight and over” explains an offer. You can use both, but the specific information must be present.

Give those facts a useful structure

Page titles and descriptions should name the offer and location. They are labels and short summaries of what the page contains.

Headings and paragraphs should organise the information into recognisable subjects, such as “Who this experience suits”, “Prices” and “What to bring”.

Lists, tables and ordinary links help separate conditions, compare options and connect related pages. “View tour prices” says more than “Discover more”.

Image descriptions explain meaningful visual content. Essential facts should also appear as text instead of being available only inside an image.

Structured data such as JSON-LD provides labelled facts in the page's code. Think of it as a fact sheet that reinforces what the page already says. It should agree with the visible content; it cannot repair a vague offer by itself.

Content available when the page first loads gives more retrieval tools a straightforward way to read it. Support for JavaScript and interactive features varies, so keep essential details on the public page rather than only behind a button or booking widget.

Test your own site

Use the interactive exercise to ask an AI to explain your business using your own website and identify missing or unclear facts. Compare the result with your intended message. Pick three improvements and send them to the person responsible for your website.

Start the brand clarity exercise →

Technical background: Google's guidance on structured data and JavaScript SEO basics.

Key takeaways

Clear structure cannot compensate for an unclear description of the business.

State the offer, audience and location directly in useful page text.

Use the assessment to identify specific improvements for your website provider.

Try it yourself

Assess your website's brand clarity

Enter your website address and we'll prepare the assessment prompt. Copy it into a new conversation with an AI that can visit websites.

Your website address

Record your own answers first (optional)

Keep these as your comparison notes. They are not included in the prompt, so the AI has to work out what your business does from your website.

What does your business do?

Who is it for?

Where do you operate?

These notes aren't saved. Keep this page open to compare them with the AI's answer.

Your details are added to the prompt automatically.

Preview your prompt

Review this website as if you are encountering the business for the first time:

Website: [PASTE WEBSITE ADDRESS]

Use only information from the business's own website. Do not fill gaps using assumptions, general knowledge, social media, directories, reviews or information from other websites.

Review the homepage and up to three other pages a customer would use to understand the business. Prioritise the main offering, pricing or booking, and practical visitor information. If you cannot read a page, name it and continue; if you cannot read any pages, stop and say so.

First, explain in no more than two sentences:

- what you believe this business is;
- what it offers;
- who it is for; and
- where it operates.

Then give your confidence in that interpretation as High, Medium or Low and briefly explain why.

ASSESS THE CLARITY OF THE INFORMATION

Assess how clearly the website communicates each of the following:

- what the business offers;
- who it is for;
- where it operates or provides its services;
- prices or useful price ranges;
- restrictions, requirements or suitability information;
- opening hours, seasonality or availability;
- the duration of its experiences or services;
- what makes it different from alternatives;
- why someone would choose it; and
- how a customer can book or enquire.

For each item, use one of these ratings:

- CLEAR — directly and plainly stated;
- IMPLIED — it can be worked out, but is not stated clearly;
- HARD TO FIND — it is present, but not where a customer would reasonably expect it;
- MISSING — it could not be found; or
- NOT APPLICABLE — it is genuinely irrelevant to this business.

ASSESS THE CONTENT STRUCTURE

Review whether the pages make their meaning easy to understand:

- Are page titles clear and descriptive?
- Does each page have an obvious main heading that explains its subject?
- Does the opening text quickly explain the offer?
- Are headings specific and arranged in a logical order?
- Do navigation labels make important information easy to find?
- Are essential facts written as ordinary page text rather than appearing only inside images, videos, pop-ups or interactive features?
- Can essential facts be found without first clicking a button or opening a widget?
- Is the core description of the business consistent across different pages?
- Is the next step, such as booking or enquiring, obvious?

If your tools allow you to inspect the underlying page information, also check:

- whether essential facts are included in the page information available when the page first loads, rather than added only after interaction; and
- whether any machine-readable information, such as JSON-LD, accurately reinforces what the visible page says.

If you cannot inspect either of those two items, mark it NOT CHECKED. Do not guess.

WRITE THE RESULT FOR A NON-TECHNICAL BUSINESS OWNER

Use this exact structure:

1. FIRST IMPRESSION
Give your two-sentence description of the business, followed by your confidence level and reason.

2. INFORMATION CLARITY
Create a table with these columns:
Information | Rating | What the website communicates | Where it appears | What would make it clearer

3. CONTENT STRUCTURE
Create a table with these columns:
Structure check | Good, Needs work, Missing or Not checked | What you found | Recommended improvement

4. WHERE YOU HAD TO GUESS
List the three most important things you had to infer, could not find or could easily have misunderstood.

5. FIVE PRIORITY IMPROVEMENTS
Recommend the five highest-impact changes in priority order. Make every recommendation specific by naming the page, heading or message that should change. Where useful, provide an example of clearer wording.

List the website pages you reviewed at the end of the assessment.

Prefer a worksheet?Download worksheet (PDF)Markdown version