Describing your business to an AI builder

Facts, not adjectives

Professional, reliable and experienced tell a tool nothing, because every business in your trade says them. They occupy the same space in any description and produce the same generic output.

We arrive between seven and nine, we protect the floor before carrying anything in, and we tell you within an hour if the job is bigger than quoted. That is specific, and no competitor has written it.

The rule is simple. If a sentence could appear on a competitor's site unchanged, it is not information. Our page on choosing sources explains why that matters beyond first impressions.

Talk about the work, not the values

The most useful material is a plain account of how a job actually runs. What happens first, what the customer has to do, what usually goes wrong, and how long it really takes including the awkward parts.

That account contains everything needed to write a service page, a process section, an FAQ and half a dozen educational pages. It is also impossible to produce from outside the business.

Dictate it rather than writing it. Ten minutes of talking produces more usable material than an hour of typing, because the trade knowledge comes out naturally when you are explaining rather than composing.

The details people always leave out

Every item below appears in real customer conversations and almost never in the description a business gives when asked to describe itself. Supplying them is what separates a specific site from a generic one.

• What you refuse to do, and why
• What goes wrong most often on a job
• What you wish customers knew before calling
• What makes a quote go up
• How long the whole thing really takes
• What you tell people to ask any provider
• Which jobs you would refer elsewhere

Coverage, in real names

Name the towns and counties rather than describing a region. The greater area means nothing to a reader deciding whether you come to them, and nothing to anything reading the site.

Say where the edges are. We go this far north but not past the river is genuinely useful, and it prevents the calls that waste everybody's time.

Our page on service area businesses covers how coverage should be described and presented once the site exists.

Money, as far as you are willing

You do not have to publish prices. You do have to say what determines them, because that is the question behind most enquiries and refusing to address it costs more than a number would.

Say what a typical job involves, what makes it more expensive, and whether you charge for a visit or an estimate. That answers the real question without committing you to a figure.

Our page on pricing claims covers what you must be careful about once you do publish figures, including the wording that creates obligations you did not intend.

Proof, gathered properly

Photographs of real work, with permission where a property or a person is identifiable. Real reviews with the wording people actually used. Credentials with the issuing body and the date.

Never supply invented versions of any of these and never let a tool fill the gap. Our page on what to keep off covers why these specific items are the ones that cause real trouble.

If you do not have proof yet, say so and leave the section out. An empty space is recoverable. A fabricated testimonial is not, and it is the kind of thing that surfaces at the worst moment.

What to say about words

List the words you refuse to use. Most trades have marketing language that practitioners find embarrassing, and saying so up front prevents it appearing across thirty pages.

Give an example of your own writing if you have one. A single email you wrote to a customer does more to establish voice than any description of tone could.

And state the claims you will not make. That instruction is worth more than it sounds, because unsupportable claims enter a site most easily when they arrive already phrased confidently.