When we rebuilt metropoliswebdesign.co.uk in October 2026, we started with one question: if someone asks Google, ChatGPT or Perplexity to recommend a web designer in North London, what does that tool need to find on our site? The short answer is clear facts, direct answers and pages that machines can read easily, written so that people still enjoy reading them. Writing for machines was easy. Writing for machines and people at the same time took a second draft.
What are AEO and GEO?
They’re two new names for writing that search tools can understand and quote.
– AEO (answer engine optimisation) is about Google’s AI Overviews and featured snippets: the answers that appear at the top of the results, lifted straight from a web page.
– GEO (generative engine optimisation) is about AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, which read websites and then recommend businesses or quote facts from them.
Both build on ordinary good SEO. Neither is a trick. They reward websites that say clearly what they do, for whom, where and for how much.
What did we change?
Every page answers its question first
Each page now opens with a sentence that answers the question the page is about. Our web design page starts by saying what we build, who for, where, and that new websites start at £475. Only then does it explain the detail. In our experience, AI tools tend to quote the first clear answer they find, so we put ours at the top of every page.
We published real numbers
Vague promises are hard to quote. So every service page now has a starting price, and we added the timescales people ask about: most small business websites take two to four weeks, a health check report usually arrives within five working days, and we usually reply to enquiries the same working day.
Headings ask the questions people actually ask
“How much does a website cost in North London?” is a better heading than “Pricing”, because it matches what people type into a search box. Each page also has a short set of FAQs, marked up so Google can read them as questions and answers.
We told machines who we are
Behind the scenes, structured data (schema) describes the business: what we do, where we work, our services and prices, and who runs it. We also added an llms.txt file, a short plain-text summary of the business written for AI tools.
Our details are the same everywhere
AI tools cross-check a business’s name, location and phone number across the web. We retired an old phone number, so we made sure only the current one appears anywhere online.
The site is fast and accessible
Search tools favour pages that load quickly and work for everyone. Google’s PageSpeed Insights now scores the homepage 98 for performance and 100 for accessibility, best practices and SEO, on a mobile test.
How do you write for AI and people at the same time?
These are the rules we ended up with:
1. Answer first, then tell the story. The opening sentence is for the person in a hurry and for the AI tool. The rest of the page is for the reader who wants to know more.
2. Say each fact once, clearly. One accurate statement beats five vague ones.
3. Use question headings only for real questions. If nobody would type it into Google, make it a statement.
4. Prefer specifics to adjectives. “Two to four weeks” is more useful, and more quotable, than “a fast turnaround”.
5. Keep a voice. One honest opinion on a page makes it sound like it was written by a person.
6. Show proof. A line about what changed for a real client does more than a paragraph of promises.
What can’t you control?
Nobody can guarantee that an AI tool will recommend your business, or that you’ll reach the top of Google. Search tools also weigh things outside your website, such as reviews and how often other sites mention you. New or rewritten pages usually take months, not weeks, to settle. What you can do is make your site the clearest, most accurate source of information about your business, so that when these tools look, they find the right answers.
What’s the risk of writing only for AI?
Copy written purely for machines tends to read like a list of facts. It’s an easy trap: if one direct answer helps, surely ten help more. Before long the business name appears in every paragraph, every heading is a question, and the same reassurance is repeated on page after page.
AI tools don’t need any of that. They need each fact stated clearly, once. People, on the other hand, notice repetition straight away, and they stop reading. So that’s the balance we keep coming back to as we write and edit our own site: say it once, say it plainly, then give the reader something worth reading, like what changed for a real client. The Barnet Society’s website, for example, went from an ageing Joomla site whose news struggled to rank to one that now gets up to 500 visitors a day.
Where should a small business start?
If you only do five things:
1. Make the first sentence of each main page say what you do, who for and where.
2. Publish prices, or at least starting prices, and realistic timescales.
3. Check your robots.txt isn’t blocking AI crawlers.
4. Make sure your name, phone number and location are the same on your website, your Google Business Profile and everywhere else.
5. Add real proof: client stories and reviews.
If you’d like a second pair of eyes, our website health check finds what’s holding your site back, from £49.99. If you’d rather we rewrote the words, content writing starts at £500. Or get in touch for a free, no-obligation chat.