The Impact of AI Explainer Pages on Website Traffic

Is your website struggling to get traffic? The traditional recommendation to solve this challenge came from two main methods: paid advertising, and search engine optimization. Today - new small businesses struggle to rank on Google with traditional seo practices. Many companies now explore non-Google channels, instead focusing time developing social media posts on TikTok and Instagram.

But what if your company sells expensive services instead of products? Social media is not a great way to generate real leads for expensive goods - most customers simply aren't in the frame of mind to impulsively commit to a $5000 purchase while doomscrolling their Facebook feeds at 1 AM. This is where explainer pages come in.

Explainer pages for AI allow you to go beyond your traditional service pages and FAQs to build trust and authority. Many small businesses have simple websites with a minimal number of pages, list their available services and hours, and expect customers to find them. Companies with some SEO background may also build out standardized FAQs to help answer customer questions or have a keyword-based blog with a handful of monthly contributors. Very rarely do you see companies with robust explainer pages establishing topical authority.

How do I best optimize my website to get traffic?

The solution is simple: build the pages that your customers care about and then support them with the context that AI cares about. Let's say you want to sell a search engine optimization service. Your main service page would highlight features about the product offering - this is your chance to sell and have a clear call-to-action. You then have a supporting page of Frequently Asked Questions specific to the service you are selling. Finally, you have a supporting explainer page that shows why you have authority to sell the service in the first place.

You may be thinking - how is this different than a blog post? I already address frequently asked questions, and I have inter-link building from my blog articles. There are a few distinct benefits of having explainer pages that are not captured in blogs.

The first benefit is having a nested URL structure: for AI, crawling is essential. In fact, without a nested URL structure, Google may not rank your pages at all because the content is viewed as thin or veiled. It simply isn't enough to have 1 page per topic anymore.

The second benefit is not optimizing for keywords. Have you ever used ChatGPT and misspelled something, but ChatGPT was able to reconcile what you meant anyway? This is the difference between query-based logic and keyword-based logic. ChatGPT is optimized for intent, not specific keywords or phrases. Explainer pages are an opportunity to go into great detail about what the service is that you offer, who it is for and who it may not make sense for, why it is important, and when you need it. This is a journalistic approach that is a core principle of AI relevance.

Explainer pages are optimized for structure - the goal is the make the information as easily digestible for AI to understand as possible. Writing these pages with a conversational tone of voice and bulleted or numbered lists make these pages really shine.

Help me with explainer pages

If you need help with your website traffic and navigating the complexities of ranking within AI, Stone Graphic Art offers robust ecommerce consulting services and we would love to talk to you.