How to Make Your Business Agent-Friendly: A Practical Guide for the AI-Driven Web
In the age of AI agents, your biggest customer might be a bot. Here’s how to structure your content, experiences, and strategy to stay visible and actionable.
Last week, I wrote about the Agentic Web—a shift from a web people browse to one where AI agents act on their behalf. Since then, I’ve had one question pop up again and again: “OK, I get it, but how do I actually prepare for this?”
That’s what this post is for. If your business depends on being found, understood, or chosen, here’s your playbook for making it agent-friendly. We’ll cover what “agent-friendly” means, why it’s more than SEO or UX, and practical steps to get your site, content, and strategy ready for AI agents. Let’s dive in.
What Does “Agent-Friendly” Mean?
An agent-friendly business is one that’s easy for AI to find, understand, trust, and act on. Think of AI agents as super-efficient assistants—they don’t have time to admire your sleek design or clever taglines. They need clarity, structure, and confidence to pick you over the competition.
This isn’t about making your site prettier for humans. It’s about being legible and outcome-ready for machines. As the web evolves, agents are becoming gatekeepers, deciding which businesses get traffic or conversions. If you’re not agent-friendly, you risk being filtered out.
Make Your Offering Machine-Readable
Most websites are written for humans who are already interested. AI agents don’t work that way—they scan fast and decide faster. To stand out, your offering needs to be crystal clear to a machine.
How to do it:
Use structured data: Add Schema.org markup for products, services, pricing, and reviews. This helps agents parse your site’s purpose instantly. According to Moz, sites with structured data can see a 30% boost in click-through rates from search engines (Moz, 2023).
Write plain-language value propositions: Avoid vague buzzwords. Instead of “We craft seamless digital journeys,” say, “We build websites and apps for small businesses.” Clarity beats cleverness.
Keep it above the fold: Place your core offering in the first 100 words of your homepage or landing page.
Example: A boutique agency once told me their site wasn’t converting. Their headline? “Empowering transformative brand experiences.” After switching to “We design e-commerce sites for retailers,” their bounce rate dropped by 25%. Machines (and humans) need the point upfront.
Optimize for Task Completion
AI agents don’t care about dwell time or how far someone scrolls. They’re here to get a job done—whether it’s booking a demo, getting a quote, or downloading a resource. Your job is to make those tasks effortless.
How to do it:
Map key tasks: Identify the top 3–5 things your customers want to do. For example, a SaaS company might prioritize “request a demo,” “view pricing,” and “contact support.”
Simplify the path: Use direct URLs (e.g., yoursite.com/book), clear forms, and minimal steps. The Baymard Institute found that 69% of users abandon checkouts due to complex processes (Baymard, 2024).
Test with voice or prompts: Try completing a task using a voice assistant or a text prompt like “Book a meeting with [your company].” If it’s clunky, it’s not agent-friendly.
Example: A client streamlined their booking process from five steps to two (select time, confirm). Their conversion rate jumped 15%. Agents love efficiency—give it to them.
Build Trust Signals for AI
AI agents are picky about safety, quality, and trust. If your site looks risky or unreliable, they’ll skip you. Trust signals aren’t just for humans anymore—they’re critical for machines deciding whether you’re a safe bet.
How to do it:
Show fresh reviews: Include up-to-date testimonials, ideally in structured data format. Nielsen Norman Group notes that 70% of users trust sites with visible, authentic reviews (Nielsen Norman Group, 2022).
Prioritize security and accessibility: Use HTTPS, follow WCAG accessibility guidelines, and ensure a privacy-first approach.
Keep info consistent: Ensure your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) are identical across Google, Yelp, and your site. Inconsistent NAP can hurt your ranking by up to 20% (Search Engine Journal, 2023).
Example: A small retailer I worked with had outdated contact info on their site. After syncing their NAP across platforms and adding structured reviews, their local search visibility rose by 40%. Agents reward reliability.
Expose Value Through APIs and Agent Hooks
If you want agents to interact with your business directly, give them the tools to do it. This means opening up structured ways for agents to search, submit, or buy from you.
How to do it:
Create simple APIs: Offer endpoints for common tasks like searching products or submitting forms. Postman’s 2024 API Report shows 65% of businesses now rely on APIs for customer interactions (Postman, 2024).
Build agent-friendly tools: Develop GPTs or ChatGPT plugins that mimic your customer journey. For example, a travel agency could create a GPT for “Find hotels under $200 in London.”
Tag URLs clearly: Use descriptive URLs like /book or /get-quote to signal intent.
Example: A B2B client built an API for quote requests, allowing agents to pull pricing data directly. Within three months, 10% of their leads came from agent-driven queries. Start small, but start.
Think in Prompts, Not Just Pages
Your future customer might kick off their journey with a prompt like: “Find me a B2B CRM for under $50/month with great support.” Would your business show up?
How to do it:
List customer prompts: Write 5–10 natural language queries your ideal customer might use. For example, “Best accounting software for freelancers” or “Local web designer for restaurants.”
Reverse-engineer your content: Ensure your site’s data, structure, and copy align with those prompts. Include relevant keywords and clear answers.
Integrate prompt thinking: Use these prompts to guide content creation, product pages, or even custom GPTs.
Quote: “The future of search is conversational. Businesses that align with natural language queries will win,” says Dr. Emily Bender, AI researcher at the University of Washington (TechCrunch, 2024).
Example: A CRM provider optimized their site for the prompt “affordable CRM with 24/7 support.” By adding a dedicated page with clear pricing and structured data, they ranked in the top 5 for related agent queries.
Fred’s Take
I’ve seen this shift before—first with mobile, then no-code, and now AI in UX. Each time, the businesses that thrived were the ones who adapted early. Not perfectly, just early. Being agent-friendly is the next version of being findable. It’s not about scrapping your site or budget—it’s about tweaking your perspective to support agents with goals and filters.
You don’t need to be a tech giant to start. Pick one thing—structured data, clearer URLs, or a prompt-driven page—and test it. The web’s changing, and this is your chance to stay ahead.
Let’s Get You Agent-Ready
To recap: Make your business agent-friendly by being machine-readable, task-focused, trustworthy, API-accessible, and prompt-aligned. Start small, but start now. The Agentic Web is here, and it’s not waiting for anyone.
Have you tested your site with a voice assistant or prompt? Drop a comment—I’d love to hear what worked (or didn’t). If you found this useful, subscribe for more practical guides or share it with someone still writing landing pages like it’s 2018.
Up next: A real-world teardown of what agent-friendly looks like (and doesn’t) using live business websites. Want that next, or would you prefer a step-by-step guide to building a GPT-style agent for your product? Let me know below.