There’s a universal truth about corporate websites that no-one really likes to acknowledge – and it’s that few people actually read them.

People will pick up on a blog post (especially one of such high quality as these), and they will look at the Teams page to see who they might be working with. But for most, it’s a quick scan for reassurance that the company you want to work with or invest in really are who you thought they were.

It’s that last point that’s key – who they thought you were. Reputation matters. And your reputation goes before you, especially online.

For decades, the measure of your reputation was the front page of Google. The links on there became the Universal Truth. For all that we knew that Google wasn’t a meritocracy and owed more to the arts of search engine optimisation that to sound editorial judgement, we just couldn’t be bothered to click through to page 2 (well, 85% of us couldn’t). So, whatever was on that front page was what people thought of you.

Now that has changed. And yes, that means we have to talk about AI again. Whether by user choice of actively searching AI engines, or by supplier choice of Google serving you AI Overviews, the answer to any search query is increasingly an AI-generated one.

So, when someone searches for your brand, your services or your team, this is where your website comes in, even if they don’t click through. Because if people aren’t reading your website, the AI bots certainly are.

And while media battle against that AI scraping, you can fill the information gap with your own website (and your social media, but that’s for another day).

But only if your website is ready for it. And is it? Have you checked?

So that’s why we offer up a website audit – going through your content, your code and your user journeys so that your site has the best chance of being read by Large Language Models.

And read by people. Those too.

The audit has two significant elements to it:

Getting the code right

We’d crawl your website to make sure the pages are giving off the right technical signals to the AI engines. We’re looking for fluid user journeys – not ones that are blocked by a lack of links, unlinked pages, incomplete meta-data, missing page titles, slow-loading pages, unlabelled images and poor accessibility. Much of this works the same for search engine optimisation as for AI optimisation. If your site works well, then the bots will like it.

Getting the content right

The longer-term work is in the content. Corporate websites often fail in a number of areas:

- Trying to sound clever: By using language, terminology and jargon to sound authoritative websites just end up confusing most users. Sites that use the language that their audiences use will build visibility.

- Not answering questions: ‘Old’ SEO was based on keywords, but visibility is now driven by questions. AI searches tend to be questioning and colloquial. The sites which answer those questions (and use that terminology) will win out.

- Not saying something new: Corporate sites like to reassure by saying very little. AI search rewards authority. It is better, therefore, to have fewer, long blogs, with data proof points that offer authority, than any number of short and inconsequential announcements.  Of course, lots of significant posts is even better…

The content work is an ongoing issue, but even if you get it right - it can still result in people coming to your site, but that doesn’t really matter. Over 60% of searches end in no click as users are satisfied with what the Overviews told them. If, by virtue of your high-quality coding and beautifully created content, those Overviews are saying the things you want them to say about you, then your reputation is enhanced, search referrals to your website notwithstanding.

Of course, direct traffic to your site will still happen, you can still email your blogs to your clients and post them on social media and it will still act as a reassurance to those looking to check you out.

But don’t make that one last mistake that is common with corporate sites – the idea that it’s ever finished. It isn’t. You need fresh content regularly, and the editorial and compliance processes to deliver these (relatively) painlessly. And you need them uploaded to your site with all the right meta data, headers, alt-text, page titles and the rest.

And if that sounded a bit geeky, and hard work, then let us help.

We can create technical reports for you or your developer agency to fix (or we can fix it for you). And we can create content plans, editorial tone and style guide documents both for prose and imagery, that align to any existing brand guidelines. And we can run the creation and sign-off processes to deliver visibility and authority and keep you top of mind. And if you don’t have any brand guidelines, we can help you there too.

Whatever it takes, we can work with you to support your online reputation and reassure even those clients who never actually land on your website.

If that sounds of interest, chat to our digital team.