Website Architecture for AI Search: 6 Things That Matter
Ask most marketers what it takes to show up in ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity, and they’ll talk about SEO and digital PR. Both matter. But there’s a third piece that’s easy to overlook: the website itself.
If AI can’t work out what your business does, can’t load your content, or gets lost in a confusing site hierarchy, you’re making it harder to be surfaced. If a buyer does click through from an AI answer to a slow, awkward site, the AI visibility you worked for is wasted.
In this episode of Charlie Explains AI Search, Charlie Marchant, CEO of Exposure Ninja, talks to Jenny Nicholson, our Head of Web Development, about what a website built for AI Search looks like and what to fix first.
Follow Charlie Explains AI Search on LinkedIn to stay up to date on the latest in AI Search.
What Does Good Website Architecture Look Like?
Website architecture is how your site is organised: the pages you have, how they’re grouped, and how people (and AI) move between them.
When Jenny looks at a site for the first time, the clearest signal is simple: can she understand what the business does? Can she find her way around, work out what’s being sold, and see what action the business wants her to take?
“If I can’t do that, AI certainly isn’t going to be able to do it,” says Jenny Nicholson.
1. Plan the Site Structure Before the Design
The temptation with a new website is to jump straight into designs. At Exposure Ninja, a build starts with planning instead.
That means understanding what the site needs to achieve, who the audience is and the journey you want to take them on. Jenny is clear that AI is now part of that audience, so the plan has to consider how AI models will read the content too.
The starting point is the questions customers will ask when they arrive. Those questions shape the journey through the site and where every call to action should sit.
On a rebuild, there’s also existing content to review: what to keep, what to improve and how to group it. The web team works with the client and our SEO team, who bring keyword research and technical input, to agree a site structure before the build begins.
That structure then informs everything else:
- The navigation, both the main menu and the links within your content
- The copy for each page
- Later SEO work
- The build itself: how many pages, and how the menus fit
As Jenny puts it, “Not everything can go on the menu, obviously. I know a lot of clients would like that, but that’s not how it works.”
2. Use Mega Menus Only When Your Content Needs One
Of the common navigation elements (mega menus, tabs and accordions), Jenny finds mega menus the most challenging.
Used well, a mega menu creates a clear hierarchy on a site with lots of content and leads people into sections that take them on to the action you want. The problem is when a client asks for one before anyone knows what the site’s content will look like.
“Sometimes it can feel like style over function, and actually I think a mega menu should only be used if it’s got a purpose on the site,” Jenny Nicholson, Head of Web Development, Exposure Ninja.
On a site with only a handful of pages, a mega menu ends up padded out. Charlie points out that building one for the sake of it can mean putting things on a menu that nobody wants to navigate to, and creating confusing hierarchies for AI.
The same goes for tabs and accordions. “None of them are particularly bad, but they all can be if they’re not built right,” says Jenny. Every element should earn its place, because each one adds load to the page and complexity for crawlers.
3. Don’t Let Your Content Depend on JavaScript
When a person loads a normal web page, the HTML arrives first and JavaScript runs afterwards to finish how the page looks.
AI systems work differently. Jenny explains that some can read JavaScript and some can’t. If one that can’t arrives at a page that relies on JavaScript to load its content, it can end up with a page that has no content at all.
Her advice is to put all the important content in the HTML, so it loads whatever is reading it: a crawler, an AI model or a person on a slow connection. JavaScript can enhance the page visually, but it shouldn’t be what pulls in the content.
To check your own pages, turn JavaScript off in your browser and load them.
“Even if it doesn’t look great because some of the elements might need JavaScript to make them look pretty, if the content is there, you know then that it can be read,” adds Jenny.
If you’re not sure how your site renders, a technical SEO audit will show what search engines and crawlers can see.
4. Keep Your Pages Fast
Page speed has been a talking point for over a decade. Has AI Search changed why it matters?
“It’s as important now as it ever has been,” says Jenny Nicholson. If anything, it has a bigger audience, because AI models are looking at sites too, and AI agents will increasingly use them the way people do.
There’s a commercial reason as well. You can put a lot of effort into earning citations in AI answers, but if someone clicks through to a slow site, they’re still not going to convert. As Jenny says, “it sort of cancels out all that work and effort that you put into that.”
Charlie adds that AI models are trying to give answers quickly too. If a page is slow or doesn’t load properly, there’s another option for them to draw from.
5. Design Mobile-First and Test on a Real Phone
Many redesigns start on a desktop, because that’s where marketing teams work. But for most businesses, Charlie notes, mobile drives the most traffic, and plenty of people use AI through apps on their phones.
Most sites are now responsive, but Jenny says the experience of using them often still isn’t great. That’s why she recommends testing on a real mobile, not just a resized browser. Small details matter:
- How much room there is to tap a button
- How the mega menu translates to mobile
- Whether pop-ups can be closed easily
Google also takes a mobile-first view. Its PageSpeed Insights tool leads with mobile results, and Google indexes the mobile version of your site.
That’s why Jenny warns against hiding content on mobile to make the page look tidier. “That shouldn’t happen because you really want all that content mobile. That’s the bit that’s getting primarily searched,” she explains. Instead, use elements such as accordions or sliding content, so the content is still loaded on the page.
Time Your Pop-Ups
One of Jenny’s pet hates is a large pop-up that appears as soon as you arrive and can’t easily be closed.
Charlie sees the same mistake on ecommerce sites: a 10% discount pop-up on the homepage, before a visitor even knows what the brand sells. That offer is better placed once someone is browsing products and showing signs they’re considering a purchase, or when they go to the basket or are about to leave.
“I don’t mind you trying to give me a discount or something, but wait until I’m trying to exit or go to the cart or something else where I want it, not as I join the homepage and want to view something,” Jenny Nicholson, Head of Web Development, Exposure Ninja.
6. Know When to Fix and When to Rebuild
A new website isn’t Jenny’s first answer. When she reviews a site, she looks for what can be fixed first. A slow page or a menu that needs adjusting can be handled as a one-off.
A rebuild comes into question when there are multiple issues at once, such as:
- Lots of plugins or themes
- Code left behind by several developers over the years
- Content structure problems
- A business that has changed and a site that no longer reflects it
Sites tend to grow over time with no housekeeping. At that point, one small change can have a knock-on effect and break something else.
There’s also a cost question. Many small fixes over three to six months can end up costing more than a full rebuild done in one go. And some problems, such as the site structure, can’t be fixed bit by bit.
“Some things you can’t just incrementally fix,” says Jenny. “Like the structure of the site, you really need to go for a rebuild.”
Charlie adds that pruning old content matters for AI Search too. Pages that no longer represent the topics you want to be known for can make it harder for AI to understand what your brand does.
And a site can look fantastic on the surface while having technical issues underneath. Jenny compares it to a car: you can’t see the engine, but the work done under the bonnet is what makes it run faster and better for SEO.
If you’re weighing up a redesign, our podcast on the signs it’s time to redesign your website is a good next listen.
What’s Next: WebMCP
Looking ahead, Jenny is watching WebMCP, a proposed new web standard.
She describes it as working a little like schema markup, but for AI. Where schema tells machines what your data is, WebMCP describes how to use parts of your site. For example, you could explain in the code what a form is for and how it should be used, so an AI agent doesn’t have to guess.
“It’s almost like giving it a prompt when it turns up so it knows what to do,” says Jenny Nicholson.
Chrome’s developer documentation describes WebMCP as a proposed web standard that is still under discussion and subject to change, available as an origin trial from Chrome 149. Jenny hasn’t tested it yet, but she thinks it’s likely to be adopted, and that agents may come to prefer sites that use it.
Is Your Website Ready for AI Search?
AI Search visibility isn’t only about what’s said about your brand elsewhere. Your website needs to be clear, fast and readable by both people and AI.
If you’re wondering whether your website is technically ready for AI Search, or whether it’s time for a rebuild, a redesign or a few targeted fixes, our website development team can help you work out the best return for your business. Book a consultation call with the Exposure Ninja team today.
