Google's Core Web Vitals and how they affect your website
What Google's Core Web Vitals are, what changed when INP replaced FID, how they affect your rankings and how to check your own website.
Your website isn't dead, but its job is changing
Every few years someone declares that websites are dead. First it was social media, then apps, and now it's AI. Why would anyone visit your website when they can just ask an AI assistant for a recommendation?
I don't think websites are going anywhere. But I do think their job is changing, and if you run a small business, it's worth understanding how.
Your website has always had two audiences: the people visiting it, and the search engines working out what it's about. For years, that second audience mostly meant Google, and Google got very good at making sense of messy websites.
Now there's a third: AI assistants. When someone asks one to find "a good electrician near Grantham" or "a web designer who can build an online shop", it goes off, reads websites, and comes back with an answer. And those assistants aren't always as good as Google at picking through a cluttered page to find what matters.
You'll hear new acronyms for this - GEO, AEO and so on. Honestly, most of it is the same good practice as always: a clear, well-built website that says plainly what you do, where you do it and how to get hold of you.
Which AI tools people use, and where those tools get their information, keeps changing - sometimes month to month. Building your whole approach around one of them is a gamble.
It's also tempting to think you need a separate version of your site just for AI. We've been here before with separate mobile websites, and they nearly always ended up out of date and out of sync with the main site. A better approach is one website, with one set of content, built properly enough that people and machines can both understand it.
That's why every site I build includes structured data behind the scenes. It's information that tells search engines and AI tools exactly who you are, where you're based and what you offer, without changing anything your visitors see.
It used to be that a fast, technically solid website set you apart. With better tools around, that's quickly becoming the baseline. That's a good thing for everyone, but it means a technically decent site won't be what makes you stand out for long.
What will? Having something real to say, and a genuine reason for people to choose you.
This might sound strange coming from a web designer, but not every business needs a big website. If you're a tradesperson with more work than you can handle from word of mouth, a website might not change much for you right now - and that's a perfectly sensible decision.
But if people compare you with competitors, find you online, or buy from you without ever meeting you, your website matters more than ever. It's often your shop front, your brochure and your best salesperson all at once.
More and more, people make up their minds before they ever land on your website. They ask an AI assistant, read a summary, check a few reviews and pick someone - sometimes without clicking through at all.
That changes what your website is for. It's becoming the place those tools go to check the facts about your business. If your site is thin, out of date or hard for them to read, you're less likely to be the business they recommend.
Further down the line, some websites will let AI assistants do things on a customer's behalf, like checking availability, booking an appointment or placing an order. It's still early days, but it's worth knowing where things are heading.
AI has made it very easy to produce generic content. Anyone can generate a page of polished, perfectly average copy in seconds, which means that kind of content is worth next to nothing.
What can't be faked is the real stuff: real work, real people, a real voice and real customers who'll vouch for you. And AI tools are getting better at checking it. They can compare what your website says with your Google Business Profile, your reviews and what other people say about you, all in a few seconds. If your details don't match, or your claims don't stack up, that counts against you.
There's something else going on too. Look at the AI-generated posters and adverts popping up everywhere - on social media, in shop windows, even from big brands. Most people can spot them straight away. Everything's a little too smooth and a little too perfect, and somehow it feels empty. A lot of people switch off the moment they notice.
Imperfection is what makes something feel human. A photo that's slightly off-centre, a sentence that sounds like someone actually said it, a website that clearly reflects the person behind it - these used to be things you'd try to polish away. Now they're a sign that a real person was involved, and people trust that. I'm not saying you should do a sloppy job, but don't sand off everything that makes you, you.
In practice, that means:
Making sure your name, address, phone number and opening hours match everywhere you're listed
Showing real work and real results, rather than stock photos and vague promises
Having a proper About page with a real person behind it
Encouraging genuine reviews from happy customers
Writing in your own voice, about things you actually know
Your website isn't dead, but it's more than an online brochure now. It's the home of your business online - the one place you control, and the place everything else points back to. The businesses that do well will be the ones whose websites are well built, easy for both people and machines to understand, and obviously real.
If you'd like to know how your website measures up, get in touch and I'll take an honest look. And if you're curious about the person behind this site, you can read a bit more about me.
01 Keep reading