AI tools promise to build a professional website in minutes. Just describe your business, and AI tools can give you a list of website requirements (best practices) generate layouts, text, and even images instantly.

It sounds perfect for busy small business owners in Tacoma and beyond.

But there’s a catch: AI often delivers generic results that don’t fully align with your business and give such basic information that your Web Designer already knows that it's not particularly helpful.

What “Generalized” Really Means

AI models train on vast amounts of existing web data. When you prompt them, they pull from common patterns, popular templates, and typical industry examples. The result? A website that looks polished but feels familiar; sometimes too familiar and often including things that you don't offer or have in your business.

The AI/LLM tools give some version of generic "best practices" such as reminding you to include calls to actions, intake forms, eCommerce or connecting to third party systems for scheduling or even eCommerce. Do you need those things? AI has no idea but those are things many websites have.

AI Generated Templates or Live Examples?

Often I find it far more valuable to simply look for businesses that are doing similar things to you in other markets to get an idea of what a fully functioning website looks like, the pages, content, photos or videos they use, as well as, any "advanced" functionality such as scheduling systems, quoting systems, event sign ups, etc. You can of course search for your industry and the word 'template' to get some ideas as well. These are often fully designed websites with place holder photos and content so you can get a feel for it instead of just looking at a static images of a website design layout.

I recommend you use this technique as a guide to nail down the overall look and feel because your content, photos, logo, etc will look different.

Compare what YOU have against the example sites. Do you need more content/pages? Do you need better photos? How about a short video showing your people at work. It's not always useful loving a website example or template that really only looks good because it has 10 professionally taken photos or or a video in the background you don't have. Make sure you assess the things you like/love about the templates/examples (which is something AI cannot do.)

Why This Matters for Your Business

Asking AI "what should I do" won't get you the answers you need. You will still need to sift through what it says or if you send that on to your Web guy, he/she will probably ask "do you offer this service", "do you have photos like this", "do you have a video", etc. When you answer no to those things, then the whole design concept AI generated falls apart.

Using AI to get some ideas is fine, but be mindful about what you send on to your web designer who probably knows about Calls to Action, making things clean and clear, mobile friendly, etc.

Use AI where it helps such as brainstorming ideas or polishing text.

Do NOT use AI to get a "every website should have" list and just send that to your web designer. It'll inevitably include things such as

• Modernizing the homepage layout
• Improving visual hierarchy and readability
• Creating a cleaner, more premium user experience
• Increasing lead generation and appointment bookings
• Improving mobile responsiveness

Read that list and ask yourself, WHAT DOES it MEAN? There is not web design translation tool that can take jargon like this and translate.

Your web design might just ask you:

• What does Modern mean to you?
• What about your current site is bad in terms of visual hierarchy?
• What does Premium user experience mean to you?
• What about your current websites mobile responsiveness is lacking?

At Envision Design Solutions, we’ve been building custom websites since 2009.

I take the time to understand what design assets you have, photos, video clips and especially content which is the most important part, get a feel for what you like and don't like (via examples you provide or issue you communicate about your current site if you have one.)

I embrace my customers using AI tools but want to make sure that you understand it's not a replacement for thinking about your site and figuring out what you truly need. Be sure that YOU understand what you like or don't like so that can translate into what you want or don't want.

From there, I can craft a website that has the things is needs because I have the experience to deliver those (good mobile layouts, calls to action, doing things to promote faster load times, search optimization, etc.)

Contact me today