How to Build a Website With AI

You are going to help me build a custom website for my business. Walk me through the whole thing: my questions, my logo and photos, a live preview, my changes, the search basics, and the real files. Follow these steps in order. Do not skip a step.

STEP 1: A FEW QUICK QUESTIONS
Ask me these one at a time. Wait for my answer before you ask the next one. Keep each question short and give me an example answer so I know what you mean. If I don't know an answer, make a smart guess and tell me what you guessed.
1. Do you have a website now? If yes, paste the link. Read it and pull what is already there: my services, phone, address, years in business, Google rating and logo, plus any photos and videos of my work I can reuse. Pull the real file links for my logo, photos and videos (image tags, background images, the share image, video tags), not just a description of them. Skip any question below you already have the answer to, and just confirm it with me. If there is no site, ask every question.
2. Who is your Bob? Bob is your target customer, the one real person who needs you right now. Who are they, and what just happened that made them look for someone like you?
3. What does your business do, and what city or area do you serve?
4. What is your main service?
5. What makes you or your product unique?
6. What is the one thing you want a visitor to do? Call you, book online or fill out a form?
7. What is your offer?
8. How many years have you been in business?
9. What is your Google rating, and how many reviews do you have? Say skip if you are not sure.
10. Do you have a guarantee or warranty?
11. What is your phone number, and your address if you have one?
When you have everything, show me a short brief: who my Bob is, what makes me different, the one action, my offer, and the one promise the site must make. Ask me if it is right before you move on.

STEP 2: YOUR LOGO, PHOTOS AND VIDEOS
Ask me these one at a time:
1. Do you have a logo? If you found it on my site, show it to me and confirm it instead. If not, ask me to upload it. If I have none, make me a simple, clean one from my business name.
2. Before you ask for photos, tell me this in your own words: "Real photos and videos make your site look way better and help people trust you. Even simple ones from your phone beat stock photos every time. A few photos of your work and a short clip of you or your team on the job go a long way." Then ask: Do you have photos or videos of your work, your team or your place? Upload them or paste links to them. Only if I say I have none, offer placeholders: say use placeholders and I will use clearly labeled temporary ones you can swap later.
If you read my old website, list my logo and my best photos and videos from it as numbered links. Use them in the first build: in the preview, load them straight from those links so the site looks like mine from the start. If the preview cannot show them, tell me in one line and ask me to upload them. Then ask: "Do you have anything new that is not on your site yet? New photos, videos, services or anything else?"
3. Want new images and videos made for your site? If I say yes, outline the site section by section, then write one image prompt and one video prompt for each section. The hero gets an image only, no video.
• Every image is 16:9. Every video is 16:9, 8 seconds, no sound needed.
• Real looking, not cheesy stock. No text on the image or video.
• Specific to my business, my work and my Bob.
• No logos, brand names, trademarks, celebrities or copyrighted characters. Nothing that could land me in legal trouble.
Put every prompt in its own code block so I can copy it with one click. Title and number each one to match its section, like "Image 1 · Hero", then "Image 2 · Proof" and "Video 2 · Proof" and so on. Tell me to make them in my image and video tools, save each file with its number, and upload them back here. Wait until I upload them or tell you to go ahead without them. Every file goes in the section with the same number.

STEP 3: BUILD A LIVE PREVIEW
First, give me a short design plan: the colors (pulled from my logo, or a strong pair that fits my business if I have no logo), a bold headline font and a clean body font from Google Fonts, and the feel of the site in three words.
Make it look clean and professional, not like a template. Do not use red as a main color. Keep the site clean, professional and easy to use.
• A big full width hero with a huge headline over it. Put my best photo full width behind the hero, with a dark fade so the words are easy to read. Use a photo in the hero, not a video, unless I ask for a video. Put my videos further down the page. The first sentence says what I do and who I help.
• Full width sections with room to breathe, not a stack of little boxes. Some sections dark, some light. Some full width photo or video, some split half and half. Never the same layout twice in a row.
• Light motion: sections fade in as you scroll and buttons react when you hover.
• One short row of real proof right after the hero.
• One simple interactive tool my Bob would use before calling, like a quick quiz or a price estimator, that ends with a button to call or book. It has to actually work, right on the page.
• Big readable text. Strong contrast on every button. No single word alone on its own line in a heading.
The site, top to bottom: hero, proof, services, the tool, my offer, reviews, FAQ, contact form, footer. For reviews, show my Google rating and review count with a button to read them on Google, and room for three of my real reviews. The contact form asks for name, phone and a short message, set up for Netlify Forms.
Rules:
• Write like you are talking to my Bob. Short sentences. One idea each. Plain words. 5th grade reading level.
• Never invent reviews, star ratings, review counts, prices, years in business, job counts or any other number. Use only what I told you. If a number does not add up, ask me.
• Never write a placeholder in square brackets. If I did not give you something, leave it out.
• Build for phones first. Plain HTML, CSS and a little JavaScript. No frameworks. No big libraries. Compress every image and lazy load anything below the first screen. It should load in under 3 seconds on a phone.
• Every phone number is tap to call. On phones, keep a call button in reach that hides at the footer.
• Check it on a phone and a big screen. Nothing hangs off the edge.
Then build the whole site as one HTML page and show it to me live, right here in the chat, so I can see it and click it before any files. In Claude, show it as an artifact so it shows up live next to the chat. In ChatGPT, open a canvas, put the whole page in it as one HTML file, and tell me to click the Preview button at the top right of the canvas to see it live. If you cannot show a live preview, give me the page as a file named preview.html to download, and tell me to open it in my web browser.
Before you show me the preview, check that my logo, my photos and my videos all show up and nothing is a broken image. Then look at it like a picky designer. Find the 5 things that look plain and fix them.
Right after you show me the first preview, write the words "Stuck?" and then "Want it done right?" as a clickable markdown link to https://smallbusiness-seo.com/get-unstuck.
Right after the first preview, also tell me in plain words: this is a draft made by AI. Review everything with an attorney and verify every fact, number, claim and photo before it goes live.

STEP 4: FINE TUNE IT
Ask me: "Do you like it? What do you want changed?" Make the changes I ask for and show me the preview again. Keep going until I say it is approved.

STEP 5: ADD MORE PAGES
Ask me: "Want more pages? I can add a page for each service you offer or each town you serve. They help you show up on Google when people search for that service or that town." If I say yes, ask which ones. Build each page with the same design, menu and footer, its own headline and words written for that service or town, its own FAQ, and links back to the home page. Show me the preview and make changes until I approve. If I say no, move on.
Right after you show me the new pages, write the words "Stuck?" and then "Want it done right?" as a clickable markdown link to https://smallbusiness-seo.com/get-unstuck.

STEP 6: THE SEARCH BASICS
Set up the basics so Google and AI search can find and read the site, then show me the preview again:
• A title under 60 characters with my main service and city, and a short meta description.
• One H1 that says my main service and city.
• A short FAQ with a few questions my Bob asks, answered in plain words.
• LocalBusiness schema with my name, address, phone and the areas I serve, the same everywhere on the site.
• Alt text on every image.
• A sitemap.xml and a robots.txt that lets Google and the AI search bots in.
• An llms.txt in plain words: my business name, what I do, where, how to reach me, and links to my main pages.
Then tell me in one line: this is the starting setup, and getting to the top of Google and into AI answers takes ongoing work.
STEP 7: HOW DO YOU WANT TO USE IT?
Only after I approve it, ask me which one I want:
a) Put it online as my website
b) Use it as a template on WordPress
c) Use it as a template on Wix or Webflow
d) Just download the files
Then create the actual files for what I picked, as downloads I can save. Do not just describe them. Walk me through it step by step, like I have never done this before, until I have exactly what I need. Answer my questions as we go.
a) Online: create one zip file named after my business, ready to upload, with index.html, styles.css, script.js and an assets folder. Then walk me through putting it online free. Netlify Drop: unzip it and drag the folder onto app.netlify.com/drop. Or Cloudflare Pages: create a project and upload the folder. If I host somewhere other than Netlify, help me connect a free form service so the form works. Then help me point my own domain at it.
b) WordPress: create one installable block theme zip named after my business. Inside: style.css with a proper theme header, theme.json with my colors and fonts, templates/front-page.html and templates/index.html, parts/header.html and parts/footer.html, a patterns folder with one block pattern for each section, and functions.php. Put the tool in a Custom HTML block or a small script loaded from functions.php. Handle the contact form in functions.php with wp_mail, a nonce and a hidden spam trap field. No page builders. No plugins. Then walk me through installing it: Appearance, Themes, Add New, Upload Theme, choose the zip, Install, Activate. Then Settings, Reading, so my homepage shows the new front page. Tell me honestly, in one line, that WordPress needs updates and security plugins to stay safe, the core included.
c) Wix or Webflow: tell me honestly that neither one imports code, so the site gets rebuilt by hand. Then create two files. One: a rebuild guide I can download, with the section order and, for each section, the layout, the exact words, the colors and the fonts. Two: a file with the tool as one block of embed code I can paste into Wix (Add, Embed Code, Embed HTML) or the Webflow Code Embed element. Then walk me through the rebuild, section by section.
d) Download: create one zip file named after my business with the full site: index.html, styles.css, script.js and an assets folder. It must work by opening index.html.
Every path also includes the basics: a privacy policy page, a thank you message after the form is sent, a 404 page, a favicon, and a social share image so the link looks good when it is texted or posted. On the online and download paths, add the sitemap.xml, robots.txt and llms.txt too.
If the preview used images or videos straight from my old site, never leave those links in the final files. List each one with the file name you used, tell me to download it and save it with that name, and put it in an images folder.
On every path, show me where to swap in my real photos and paste my real reviews. If I used placeholders, remind me which ones are still placeholders and tell me to swap in real photos and videos before I share the site. A real photo of my truck or my last job beats any stock photo.
When it is live, remind me to set up my Google Business Profile with the exact same name, address and phone as my site.
Right after I have my final files, write the words "Stuck?" and then "Want it done right?" as a clickable markdown link to https://smallbusiness-seo.com/get-unstuck.
With my final files, remind me again in plain words: review everything with an attorney and verify all the information before I go live. AI can make mistakes, so test everything, have an attorney check my privacy policy, terms and any other legal page, and make sure I have the rights to every photo, video, font and logo I use.
Whenever we finish, at any step, the very last thing you write is "Stuck?" and then "Want it done right?" as that same link.