How to Prepare Your Business Website for AI Search—and Make Enquiries Easier

Preparing for AI search starts with a useful business website

To prepare your business website for AI search, start with the essentials: explain what you offer, support your claims with genuine evidence, make important pages accessible to search engines and give visitors a straightforward way to enquire. Then check whether those enquiries actually reach your business.

On 15 October 2026, Google announced changes to links and source presentation in its AI Search experiences. Some changes were launches or rollouts; others were tests. That announcement is useful context, but it does not create a new website checklist or establish availability in Ghana.

At Sobiaonline, we recommend treating discovery and enquiries as connected tasks. A visitor needs useful information before making contact, whether they arrive through a conventional search result, an AI-supported answer or a recommendation.

This guide separates Google’s eligibility requirements, our practical website recommendations and measurement checks. The documented eligibility rules below concern Google Search, not every AI-search platform.

Understand Google’s eligibility requirements—and their limits

According to Google’s guidance on AI features and your website, a page must be indexed and eligible to appear in Google Search with a snippet to qualify as a supporting link in Google AI Overviews or Google AI Mode. A snippet is the preview text that can accompany a search result.

Google says existing SEO best practices remain relevant, with no additional requirements or special optimisations necessary for these AI features. In particular, you do not need:

• A special AI text file or new machine-readable file.
• Special schema.org structured data for AI inclusion.
• A separate AI-specific technical layer simply to meet Google’s eligibility requirements.

Eligibility is not selection. Google explicitly says that meeting its requirements, best practices and policies does not guarantee crawling, indexing or serving your content. No schema type, page template or checklist can guarantee an AI citation or ranking.

For your business, the useful question is therefore not “Which AI trick should we add?” It is “Can Google access this page, and does it give a prospective customer reliable information?”

Make each service or product page answer a customer’s questions

We recommend reviewing your most commercially important pages before adding more articles. Someone considering a service should not have to assemble the offer from a homepage slogan, a photograph and several social media posts.

Google’s people-first content guidance encourages original information, complete explanations, descriptive titles and evidence of first-hand expertise. It also asks whether readers learn enough to achieve their goal.

The following is Sobiaonline’s recommended page structure, not a Google-prescribed format:

• The offer: name the service or product and explain it plainly.
• The intended customer: identify who it suits and any relevant limitations.
• Coverage: state the locations served or applicable delivery arrangements.
• Scope or specifications: explain what is included, available options and important exclusions.
• Evidence: show genuine work, relevant photographs or substantiated details.
• Common questions: answer issues that affect a buying decision.
• The next step: explain how to enquire and what information to provide.

Write enough to answer the decision-making questions. Avoid repeating keywords or stretching the page to reach an arbitrary length.

Example: a clearer service page for an Accra caterer

Imagine an Accra catering business reviewing its event-catering page. This is a hypothetical example, not a Sobiaonline client case study.

Instead of saying only “quality catering for every occasion”, the page could describe the event types it handles, areas served, menu options and whether service staff or equipment are available. It should state only arrangements the business actually offers.

A quote request could ask for the event date, venue, estimated guest numbers and dietary requirements. Visitors would then know what to send without guessing.

A product business can adapt the same structure around dimensions, materials, available variations and delivery information. The principle is the same: answer the questions that determine whether the offer fits.

Support your claims with original evidence and accurate business details

Broad claims such as “experienced”, “reliable” and “high quality” need substance. We recommend showing the work behind them rather than adding more adjectives.

Where you have permission, a useful project description can explain the customer’s requirement, the work undertaken, relevant constraints and the finished result. Use original photographs and distinguish clearly between what your business delivered and what others contributed.

For example, a hypothetical Kumasi fabricator could document a completed gate with photographs, materials, dimensions and an explanation of the installation. That is more informative than an unexplained image gallery. It should not include invented customer praise, performance claims or measurements.

Apply the same care to your business identity. Check your business name, contact details, operating information and service areas. If customers visit your premises, make the location clear; if you serve customers remotely or on site, describe that accurately.

Google specifically recommends keeping applicable Google Business Profile and Merchant Center information up to date. Our broader recommendation is to remove avoidable contradictions between those details and your website. Neither accurate listings nor project evidence guarantees an AI citation.

Check crawl access, discoverability and page structure

Useful content still needs to be accessible and findable. Google’s recommended SEO fundamentals include crawl access, internal links and important information in text. Ask the person responsible for your website to check:

• Crawl access: are robots.txt rules or hosting and content delivery network controls unintentionally blocking Google from important public pages?
• Internal links: can visitors reach key services and products through relevant navigation and links, rather than needing a direct URL?
• Text content: are essential specifications, service descriptions and contact details written on the page, rather than available only inside images or video?
• Structured data: if used, does it match the information visitors can actually see?
• Page organisation: does each page have a descriptive title and headings that group related information logically?

For example, link a project description to the relevant service page, and link that service page to the appropriate enquiry route. Use wording that explains the destination rather than repeated “click here” links.

Google recommends verifying your site in Search Console to help diagnose technical issues. Remember that allowing crawling is not proof of indexing, and indexing is not proof that a page will be selected for an AI answer.

Make the mobile journey readable and accessible

Review the website as a visitor completing a task, not just as a design viewed on a large screen. Can someone understand the offer, compare options and find the next step on a phone?

W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative design guidance recommends readable presentation across different viewport sizes, consistent navigation, sufficient contrast and identifiable interactive elements. Turn that into practical checks:

• Read your main service page on a narrow screen and with browser zoom increased. Check that text, menus and key information remain usable.
• Keep navigation names and positioning consistent across pages.
• Use headings and spacing to separate scope, evidence, questions and contact options.
• Make links and buttons recognisable, with sufficient contrast.
• Do not use colour alone to communicate required fields or errors.
• Check keyboard access and ensure the currently focused link or control is visibly indicated.
• Provide appropriate alternatives for images and media, and controls for automatically starting content.

These are introductory accessibility checks, not proof of full Web Content Accessibility Guidelines conformance. Their immediate purpose here is to identify barriers that prevent people from understanding your offer or contacting you.

Test the enquiry form from start to finish

Complete your form on a phone, then test it using a keyboard and increased browser zoom. Every field should have a descriptive, clearly associated label. Required information should be understandable before submission.

Deliberately leave a required field empty or enter an invalid email address. Can you identify the error and correct it? After a valid submission, is there clear confirmation?

Finally, check that the test enquiry reaches the person or system responsible for responding. A reassuring on-screen message is not enough if the business never receives the enquiry.

Give visitors a clear, truthful next step

Our recommendation is to choose a primary action that suits the page. “Request a fabrication quote” tells someone more than “Submit”. A product page might instead direct visitors to check availability or ask about a specification.

Explain briefly what information will help you respond. For a hypothetical NGO seeking printing services, that might include quantities, format, delivery location and deadline. Ask only for details relevant to that enquiry.

Offer phone, email or WhatsApp options only where your business actually operates and monitors those channels. Do not advertise a response time you cannot consistently meet.

Keep the distinction clear: clicking a contact button expresses intent, but it does not prove that a message was sent, received or suitable for your business.

Measure enquiries rather than treating visits as success

Use search reporting, website analytics and actual enquiry records to answer different questions:

• Search Console: how is your website performing in Google Search?
• Analytics: which configured actions are being recorded on the website?
• Enquiry records: what actually reached the business, and was it relevant?

Google says traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode is included in Search Console’s overall Performance reporting under the Web search type. That aggregate reporting is not a separate AI-only traffic report.

We recommend comparing recorded actions with received enquiries over a consistent reporting period. Keep actual enquiries separate from qualified opportunities, such as requests that fit your service, coverage and capacity. Visits alone do not establish commercial success.

Example: record and verify a confirmation-page lead event

Google’s Analytics key-event tutorial describes an approach for websites that already track page views and send visitors to a confirmation page after submission:

1. Create a separate generate_lead event based on page_view, restricted to the relevant confirmation-page URL.
2. Mark generate_lead as a key event. Do not mark every page_view as a lead.
3. Allow for the configuration to apply; Google says this can take a few minutes to a few hours.
4. Visit the confirmation page and check for generate_lead in the Realtime report’s “Key events by Event name” card.

This example depends on that confirmation-page workflow. If your form behaves differently, the measurement needs to match it. A confirmation-page visit is still not automatically a unique, qualified enquiry: repeat visits and test submissions need validation against actual records.

Interpret acquisition reports without overstating attribution

Google’s tutorial also describes selecting generate_lead in the User acquisition report. Its traffic-source dimensions concern how users were first acquired—their first session.

Use this to explore patterns, not to claim the source of every individual enquiry or isolate all AI-search visits. Keep conclusions proportionate to what your configuration records.

Your prioritised website preparation checklist

Start with one important service or product page rather than trying to rewrite the entire website at once. We suggest this order:

1. Remove blockers: investigate unintended crawl restrictions, broken navigation and enquiry forms that fail.
2. Clarify the offer: complete missing scope, specifications, coverage and business details.
3. Add genuine evidence: explain real work and use original assets with permission.
4. Improve the journey: check mobile readability, keyboard access, form feedback and the next step.
5. Validate measurement: test recorded events against enquiries actually received.

Your first action can be simple: open that page on a phone, read it as a prospective customer and complete its enquiry journey. Record where information is missing or the task becomes difficult.

If you are planning a new website or improving an existing one, discuss your project with us at Sobiaonline. Tell us what you offer, who you need to reach and where visitors currently struggle. Those are useful starting points for a clearer website—not a promise of AI placement.