Calling all SMEs: your website needs you
- Marc Bates
- May 27
- 3 min read
Not to panic. Not necessarily to start from scratch. But possibly to take a proper look at what your website is, and isn't, doing for your business right now.
The way people search for businesses is changing quickly. Where once someone would type a query into Google and scroll through results, more and more people are asking an AI assistant a question and accepting the answer they get. No clicking through websites. No comparing options. Just an answer, and a decision made on the back of it.
If your business isn't part of the information that AI is drawing from, you don't appear. Not in a "we could do better" sense. In a "we're not there at all" sense.
We've been here before, of course. Cast your mind back to the early days of SEO, when every business owner suddenly had to get their head around keywords and rankings and why their website wasn't showing up on Google. Most adapted. The ones who didn't are still wondering where the enquiries went. This is that moment, but for AI.
What actually makes a difference
AI-visibility isn't some mysterious dark art. It comes down to giving AI tools clear, consistent, well-structured information to work with, and there are a few places where that effort pays off most.
FAQs, done properly. Not the kind that exist to fill a page and avoid committing to anything. Real questions — the ones your customers actually ask — answered directly and specifically. AI assistants draw heavily on FAQ content when forming responses, and a well-written FAQ section is one of the most effective investments you can make in your site right now.
Schema markup. Structured data that sits behind the scenes and tells search engines and AI tools exactly what your business is, what it offers, where it operates, and who it serves. It removes ambiguity. Most small-business websites aren't configured properly. Most AI tools quietly reward the ones that do.
Consistent, citable information. Your business name, address, phone number, services, and hours need to match precisely across every place they appear online — your website, your Google Business Profile, local directories, and your social profiles. That's what we call content, and content is King. Small inconsistencies create doubt in the systems that decide whether to surface your business. Consistency builds a quiet credibility that compounds over time.
And sometimes, the website itself. A site that's slow, hard to navigate, or hasn't been meaningfully updated in years isn't just aesthetically tired — it's structurally holding you back. Getting the foundations right, from the content and structure through to the technical setup, is increasingly what separates businesses that AI recommends confidently from those it overlooks entirely.
Who this is for
I work with SMEs across a pretty wide spectrum; from established businesses that have never really got to grips with their digital presence, to growing companies that know something isn't working but can't quite put their finger on what.
What I particularly enjoy is working with founders and owners who find the technical side of things genuinely baffling and who slightly glaze over every time someone starts talking in marketing jargon. No acronyms, no mystifying frameworks. Just a plain-English conversation about what your business needs and how to make it happen.
Your website needs you, so let's talk
If you'd like an honest assessment of where your site currently stands and what it would take to get it working properly for you, get in touch. It's usually a more straightforward conversation than people expect — and it starts with a simple, no-obligation chat.
Get in touch today to boost your marketing.
About Marc Bates
Marc is a fractional marketing director who helps growing businesses sharpen their positioning and build stronger digital presence. Through Fractional Marc, he works with established companies ready for strategic direction and emerging businesses building their marketing foundations from scratch. He's also a co-founder of Iterato Training, an online Project Management training provider.
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