Most people won’t land on your website first anymore.

They’ll land on an AI summary.

It might be a Google AI Overview, a ChatGPT answer, a Perplexity summary, a Copilot snippet, or some embedded assistant inside a browser, phone, or app. Either way, the first “page” a potential customer sees is often a few sentences written by a model—not your design, not your navigation, not your copy.

That’s the shift: AI summaries are becoming the new landing page.

And if you treat that like a curiosity instead of a conversion surface, you’re going to feel it—lower click-through rates, more “no-click” discovery, fuzzier attribution, and a growing gap between brand awareness and revenue.

The good news is you can influence what those summaries say. Not with gimmicks. With structure, proof, clarity, and a few deliberate pages most sites never build.

Here’s how I think about it—and what I’d do if I were starting from scratch.

Why This Changes Everything

Classic landing pages assume a few things:

• You control the first impression (headline, design, trust signals).
• You can guide the visitor (navigation, CTAs, funnels).
• You can measure the journey (sessions, sources, conversions).

AI summaries break all three.

The model decides what to highlight. The model chooses what to omit. The model often answers the question without sending the click. And even when it does send traffic, a lot of it shows up as messy referral data that’s hard to attribute.

So the question isn’t “How do I rank?”

The question is: “When an AI describes me, what does it say—and does that description make the right people want to take the next step?”

The New Funnel: Discover > Verify > Decide

AI systems are incredible at discovery. They pull options together, summarize trade-offs, and give people a short list fast.

But most buyers still do two human steps before spending money:

• Verify: “Is this real? Is it credible? Does it match what I need?”
• Decide: “Is it worth the switch? What’s the risk? What’s the fastest path to results?”

If your site only focuses on discovery content (generic blog posts) and neglects verification content (proof, specifics, comparisons, clarity), you’ll get mentioned… and then ignored.

Winning brands build for all three steps.

What AI Summaries Actually Pull From

AI summaries don’t “read your site” the way a human does. They assemble an answer from patterns and sources.

In practice, the inputs that tend to matter most look like this:

• Clear, consistent positioning across your homepage, about page, and product pages.
• Explicit definitions of what you do, who it’s for, and what makes you different.
• Third-party validation (reviews, reputable mentions, comparisons, citations).
• Structured content (FAQs, specs, pricing clarity, “best for” breakdowns).
• Freshness (clear dates, updated pages, version notes, current screenshots).

Notice what’s missing: clever taglines, vague brand promises, and fluff.

AI systems don’t reward poetic. They reward specific.

The “AI Landing Page” Framework

If AI summaries are the first impression, you need to engineer the inputs that shape that impression. I think about it as building an invisible landing page made of four parts:

1) One-Sentence Positioning That Doesn’t Collapse Under Pressure

Most positioning sounds fine until someone asks, “Okay, but what do you actually do?”

I want a sentence that survives summarization—meaning it stays accurate even when it’s shortened.

Here’s a simple template that works:

[Product] helps [specific audience] achieve [specific outcome] by [mechanism], without [common pain].

Then I’d repeat that idea (not word-for-word) across the homepage, about page, pricing page, and top product pages.

2) “Best For” and “Not For” Clarity

AI summaries love to answer: “What’s best?” “What should I choose?” “What’s the difference?”

If you never explicitly say who you’re best for, AI systems will infer it from whatever scraps they find—usually the least flattering ones.

I like adding a tight section on key pages:

• Best for: 3–5 specific use cases
• Not ideal for: 2–3 cases where you’re a weak fit
• Alternatives: 2–3 competitors with a fair “choose them when…” explanation

This feels scary because it’s honest. That’s exactly why it works. It builds trust with humans and gives models clean comparisons.

3) Proof That Can Be Repeated

Most proof is buried in case studies nobody reads or testimonials with zero specifics.

I want proof that’s easy for a model to extract and reuse:

• Concrete results (percent lifts, time saved, cost reductions)
• Named methodologies (your framework, your process)
• Clear sourcing (who, when, what changed, what the baseline was)

If you can’t say, “We did X and got Y,” you’ll get summarized as “a tool that helps you with…”—which is marketing purgatory.

4) A “Verification Layer” That Removes Doubt Fast

This is the layer most sites skip. They build content for discovery, then act confused when people don’t convert.

Your verification layer is a set of pages designed to answer the questions people ask right before they decide.

Here are the ones I’d build first:

• “How it works” page with screenshots and a 60-second overview
• Pricing clarity page that explains what’s included and common add-ons
• Competitor comparisons (honest, specific, updated)
• “Results” hub with case studies + summarized takeaways
• FAQ that’s actually decision-focused (not a junk drawer)

When AI mentions you, people will go looking for this stuff. If it’s missing, they bounce—even if the summary was positive.

How To “Train” The Summaries Without Gaming Anything

I’m not talking about manipulating models. I’m talking about making your business easier to describe accurately.

Here’s what I’d do in order:

Step 1: Audit What The Internet Thinks You Are

Search your brand name plus phrases like:

• “best for”
• “pricing”
• “alternative”
• “review”
• “vs”

What shows up is what models tend to learn from. If the top results are outdated, inaccurate, or thin, you have a summary problem.

Step 2: Fix Your “Canonical Sources”

If I had to pick the pages that most influence how you’re described, I’d start with:

• Homepage
• About
• Pricing
• Top 3–5 product/service pages
• Top comparison page (you vs the leader)

Make these pages stupidly clear. Remove vague claims. Add specifics. Add dates. Add proof.

Step 3: Publish The Pages Everyone Avoids

Most companies avoid writing pages that require opinions or trade-offs. That’s why those pages are such a competitive advantage.

I’d publish:

• “Who this is for”
• “Who this is not for”
• “Alternatives” (with honest recommendations)
• “Results and benchmarks”

These pages don’t just convert. They reduce refund requests and bad-fit customers.

The AI Landing Page Checklist

If you want something practical to run with, here’s the checklist I’d use.

• Positioning: One sentence that stays accurate when shortened
• Consistency: Same core message across homepage, about, pricing, product pages
• Best for / Not for: Explicit, specific, not generic
• Proof: Measurable outcomes with context and dates
• Comparisons: Honest “vs” pages that actually help people choose
• Decision FAQs: Questions that remove risk, not random support docs
• Freshness signals: Updated timestamps, current screenshots, version notes
• Verification hub: One place to validate claims fast (results, case studies, benchmarks)
• Attribution plan: UTMs, post-purchase “how did you hear about us?” and clean analytics setup

The Brands That Win Will Treat Summaries Like Product

This is the mindset shift I want you to take away:

Your AI summary is not marketing. It’s a product surface. It’s the first impression, the pitch, and often the filter that decides whether the click happens at all.

If you build the right inputs—clear positioning, honest fit, real proof, and a strong verification layer—you don’t have to fear AI summaries.

You’ll benefit from them.

Because when people ask, “What should I use?” the winner won’t be the loudest brand or the longest blog post.

It’ll be the brand that’s easiest to describe accurately—and easiest to trust quickly.

That’s the new landing page. Build for it.

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