Is your website AI-ready? A 10-point check

By Mark Yegge · AI Blind Spot

You can find out in ten minutes whether your website is set up to be found, read, and trusted by both buyers and AI tools. Run the 10 checks below. Score 8-10 and you are in good shape. Score 5-7 and a $4,997 Starter build gets you there. Score 0-4 and your site is probably costing you clients, which is what the $15,000 full rebuild fixes.

Is your website AI-ready? A 10-point check — free, 10 minutes, by Mark Yegge. Score bands: 8-10 in good shape, 5-7 Starter build $4,997, 0-4 full rebuild $15,000.

Download the printable checklist (PDF)

The problem

Most business websites were built before people started asking AI tools "who should I hire" and "which firm actually does this." The site works fine in a browser from 2019. It quietly fails every day now: the title says "Home," the contact form goes nowhere, the robots.txt blocks the very bots that recommend vendors, and the one paragraph that explains what you sell is at the bottom of page two.

The cost is invisible. You do not see the clients who asked an AI tool for a recommendation and got three competitors instead of you.

The check

Take ten minutes on a desktop and a phone. Each check is a yes or no. No signup, no email form, no download required.

  1. One clear H1 per page. The main heading says what that page is about, in plain English, once. ("Home" does not count.)
  2. Plain-English offer in the first screen. A visitor (or an AI crawler) can tell within the first screen what you sell and who it is for, without scrolling.
  3. An FAQ section that answers real questions. The questions buyers actually type into search and AI tools, answered in your own words.
  4. Schema markup that validates. Run your homepage through Google's Rich Results Test. Structured data present, no errors.
  5. llms.txt exists. A simple file at your domain root that tells AI tools what pages matter and what to cite.
  6. robots.txt is not blocking AI crawlers. Check for rules that block GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, or similar crawlers from useful pages.
  7. Title and meta description on key pages. Each important page has a unique title and a description that reads like an answer, not a keyword list.
  8. A working contact path. A real person or an agent answers a submitted form or a listed phone number, within a reasonable time.
  9. Mobile speed on PageSpeed Insights. Your key pages score in the green on phone connections, not just desktop.
  10. A byline or About page with a real person. A named human with a face and a role that a buyer can verify. If you outsource work, name the firm and the person.

Score your result

  • 8-10 yes: you are in good shape. Most of what AI tools and buyers are looking for is already in place. A few fixes will tighten it.
  • 5-7 yes: the Starter build fits. For $4,997, we rebuild your site on the same quality bar we use on AI Blind Spot properties: clean, modern design, mobile-first, fast load; written pages that answer what buyers and AI tools actually ask, in your voice; SEO and answer-engine structure with schema markup. We migrate your existing copy, cleaned and placed. See the AI-Ready Website Starter
  • 0-4 yes: a full rebuild gets you there. For $15,000, we plan, write, and build a complete site that positions your company as the clear answer, with every page engineered for search engines and AI systems alike, then launch it on your domain. See the AI-Ready Website

If you are not sure which path fits, apply for a strategy call with Mark and bring your checklist. Apply for a strategy call

Want to see what this looks like in practice first? Join the $297 AI Business-Builder Challenge, four weeks where you build an AI system for your own business with Mark. See the $297 Challenge

FAQ

How is "AI-ready" different from "SEO"?

SEO makes a page findable in search engines. AI-ready makes a page understandable to AI tools that answer questions and recommend vendors. The two overlap, but the AI part is newer, cheaper to fix, and often ignored entirely. We built this check so you can see the gap yourself in ten minutes.

Do I need to be technical to run this check?

No. Every item is a yes/no observation you can make in a browser. Where a tool helps (Rich Results Test, PageSpeed Insights, robots.txt viewer), we name it and you just open the link.

Will you sell me something at the end?

The check is free and complete on its own. If your score is high, you do not need us. If it is low, the Starter build and the full rebuild are the two options we offer, and a strategy call is the honest next step, not a pitch with a deadline.

Do you use AI to write the site copy?

Yes, and it is reviewed by a human and written in your voice. AI tools reward sites that answer questions directly; we write pages that do that and that still sound like your firm, not like a template.

What does the $15,000 rebuild actually include?

A full content and design build: written pages for your company on the quality bar we use across AI Blind Spot properties, real photos of you and your team where they fit, information architecture AI tools can parse, schema markup that validates, and launch on your domain with the structural pieces (sitemap, llms.txt, robots policy) set up correctly.

See the full spec

About the author

Mark Yegge runs AI Blind Spot, a company that helps small businesses and professional firms put AI to work safely and profitably. He writes directly about what actually works, and he puts his name on every page. If you found this check useful, run it, score it, and send the score in with your strategy-call application. Mark reads them.