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What Should You Tell an AI Website Builder Before It Creates Your Site?

V Volnyn – Website Builder, Domains, Property, Freelancers & Free Games September 9, 2026 8 min read
What Should You Tell an AI Website Builder Before It Creates Your Site?
The quality of an AI-generated website depends heavily on the information you give the builder before it starts. A short description can produce a useful first draft, but a clear brief gives the AI enough context to make better decisions about structure, content, design, and functionality.

Before asking an AI website builder to create your site, give it the information that a human web designer would normally ask for. You do not need technical terminology. You need to be specific about what the business does, who the website is for, what visitors should do, and what the site needs to contain.

1. Start With What Your Business Actually Does

Begin with the basic context. State your business name, industry, location if it matters, and the products or services you offer.

Compare these two descriptions:

  • Vague: “Build a website for my restaurant.”
  • Useful: “Build a website for a family-owned Italian restaurant in Austin that serves dinner, offers private events, and accepts reservations online.”

The second version gives the AI several useful signals. It knows the industry, audience context, location, core offering, and some of the actions the website needs to support.

Volnyn's AI Website Builder is designed around this kind of natural-language input: you can describe what you want to build, and the system generates the initial structure, content, and design. VVolnyn

2. Tell It Who the Website Is For

A website should not try to speak to everyone. Tell the AI who you expect to visit the site and what matters to those people.

You might describe your audience by:

  • Age or customer type
  • Location
  • Professional background
  • Buying situation
  • Main problem or need
  • Level of familiarity with your product

For example, a website for a bookkeeping service aimed at small-business owners should not sound the same as a website for an enterprise accounting firm. The audience affects the language, information hierarchy, calls to action, and even how much explanation the site needs.

Defining the audience also helps keep AI-generated copy from becoming generic. Current guidance from Google similarly emphasizes creating content for an identifiable audience and providing information that genuinely helps people accomplish their goals. GGoogle for Developers

3. Explain the Website's Main Goal

Tell the AI what success looks like. This is one of the most important pieces of information in your brief.

Your primary goal might be to:

  • Generate leads
  • Sell products
  • Get appointment or booking requests
  • Showcase a portfolio
  • Build credibility
  • Publish articles
  • Collect email subscribers
  • Explain a new product or service

Choose one primary goal and identify secondary goals if necessary. A service business, for example, might want visitors to request a quote first and read case studies second.

When the goal is clear, the AI has a better basis for deciding what should appear prominently on the homepage and which calls to action deserve attention.

4. List the Pages and Important Sections

Do not leave the entire site architecture to guesswork if you already know what you need.

Give the builder a rough list such as:

  1. Home
  2. About
  3. Services
  4. Individual service pages
  5. Portfolio or case studies
  6. FAQ
  7. Blog
  8. Contact

You can also specify important homepage sections. For example: hero section, services overview, customer testimonials, process, featured projects, FAQ, and final call to action.

You do not need to design every pixel. The purpose of the list is to establish the information architecture before the AI makes its first draft.

5. Give It Real Business Information

AI can suggest copy, but it should not invent facts about your business. Give it the information you already know is accurate.

Useful inputs include:

  • Your actual services or products
  • Prices or pricing ranges, when appropriate
  • Business hours
  • Location and service area
  • Contact details
  • Years in business
  • Certifications or qualifications
  • Guarantees or policies
  • Customer testimonials you have permission to publish
  • Existing brand messaging

Be particularly careful with testimonials, statistics, awards, credentials, and claims. If you do not provide verified information, instruct the AI to use placeholders rather than inventing details.

6. Describe the Design Direction

You do not need to know the names of every design trend. Describe the visual impression you want.

Useful instructions include:

  • Professional, warm, minimal, editorial, playful, or premium
  • Preferred colors
  • Colors to avoid
  • Light or dark visual direction
  • Photography style
  • Typography preferences
  • Examples of websites whose visual approach you like

If you already have a logo, brand guide, screenshots, or reference website, mention them. Volnyn's current website-building interface also supports adding a website reference or uploading a screenshot, giving users another way to communicate visual direction. VVolnyn

Use references to communicate direction, not to ask the AI to copy another company's identity.

7. Specify the Features Visitors Need

A website's job is not only to look good. Tell the AI what visitors need to be able to do.

Depending on the project, that could include:

  • Contact forms
  • Booking or reservation flows
  • Product catalogs
  • Shopping carts and checkout
  • Portfolio galleries
  • Blog categories
  • Newsletter signup
  • Customer inquiry forms

Volnyn currently supports websites ranging from business sites and landing pages to portfolios, blogs, and online stores, with e-commerce functionality including product listings, cart, and checkout. VVolnyn

Only request functionality that your project actually needs. A long list of unnecessary features can make the initial site less focused.

8. Include SEO and Content Requirements

You do not need to turn your initial prompt into a full SEO strategy, but provide enough information for the AI to understand the site's search context.

Tell it:

  • The main service or product
  • The geographic area you serve, if relevant
  • The audience you want to reach
  • Important topics your customers search for
  • Pages that deserve individual search visibility

For example, a local electrician could specify “residential electrician serving Manchester” rather than simply saying “electrician.”

Google recommends using language that people actually use to search for relevant information and making page titles, headings, link text, and other descriptive elements useful and clear. GGoogle for Developers+1

9. Tell the AI What Not to Do

Good prompts are not only about what you want. They can also establish boundaries.

For example:

  • Do not invent customer testimonials.
  • Do not claim services we do not offer.
  • Do not use exaggerated marketing language.
  • Do not make the design overly corporate.
  • Do not hide the primary call to action.
  • Do not use stock-style imagery that conflicts with the brand.

These constraints can be especially useful when accuracy and brand consistency matter more than simply producing a visually impressive first draft.

A Simple Brief You Can Give an AI Website Builder

Instead of trying to write a perfect prompt from scratch, combine the information above into a short website brief:

“Build a website for [business name], a [business type] serving [audience/location]. Our main goal is to [primary goal]. We offer [products/services]. The site should include [pages]. The homepage should feature [important sections]. Visitors should be able to [key actions]. Use a [visual style] design with [colors/style preferences]. Use clear, practical language aimed at [audience]. Prioritize [main call to action]. Use the information I provide and do not invent testimonials, statistics, credentials, prices, or services.”

This format is short enough to use comfortably but detailed enough to give an AI website builder meaningful context.

What to Prepare Before You Start

If you want a stronger first draft, gather your information before opening the builder. A simple preparation checklist can save more time than repeatedly correcting vague AI output.

Information What to Prepare Why It Matters
Business Name, industry, location, description Establishes context
Audience Who you want to reach Shapes messaging and structure
Goal Primary action visitors should take Creates a clearer conversion path
Content Services, products, facts, testimonials Reduces generic or inaccurate copy
Pages Required navigation and sections Provides a useful site architecture
Design Colors, style, imagery, references Gives the AI a visual direction
Features Forms, checkout, bookings, galleries, etc. Defines what the site must do

Review the First Draft Instead of Publishing It Immediately

An AI-generated website is a starting point, not a substitute for reviewing your business information.

Check every important claim, replace placeholder content, review the navigation, test the main calls to action, and make sure the design represents your brand. Read the site from the perspective of a first-time visitor: can they understand what you offer, determine whether it is relevant to them, and figure out what to do next?

Also review the site on mobile before publishing. Volnyn says its generated websites are responsive across phones, tablets, and desktops, but your actual content still needs to be checked at different screen sizes. VVolnyn

Conclusion

You do not need to know how to code to give an AI website builder useful instructions. You need to know your business well enough to describe its purpose, audience, goals, content, structure, design preferences, and required functionality.

The best starting prompt is not necessarily the longest one. It is the one that removes the biggest areas of uncertainty.

If you want to turn that brief into a working site, Volnyn's AI Website Builder lets you describe what you want in natural language and generate a website that you can then customize and refine. VVolnyn

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