AI
How to ask an AI for a website and not get garbage
The tool is not the problem. Almost every disappointing result comes from a prompt that left the important decisions to the machine.
Ask any AI to "make me a website for my business" and you will get something purple and generic with a stock hero image and three columns of nothing. That is not the tool failing. That is the tool guessing, because you did not tell it anything.
Say who it is for and what it must do
Compare these two.
"Build me a website for my lawn care business."
"I run a two-person lawn care business in Northport, Alabama. Most customers find me through word of mouth and call my cell. I want a one-page site whose only job is to get someone to call. Above the fold: what I do, the areas I serve, and the phone number as a tappable button. Then before-and-after photos, then a short section on pricing, then how to reach me. Plain, not fancy. Most visitors will be on a phone."
The second one will get you something usable on the first try.
Give it constraints, not adjectives
"Modern and clean" means nothing — every result is somebody's idea of modern and clean. Constraints do work: single page, two colours plus black and white, no stock photography, no sliders, must load fast on a phone, one call to action.
Ask for one thing at a time
Get the structure first. Approve it. Then ask for the copy. Then the styling. Handed everything at once, it will do all three at medium quality and you will not know which part to fix.
Push back like a client
You are allowed to say "this headline is vague, give me five that mention Northport," or "make the phone number three times bigger and put it at the top." Iteration is the whole method. The first response is the beginning of the conversation, not the delivery.
Give it your real words
Paste in how you actually describe your work — a text you sent a customer, a paragraph from a quote. Ask it to write in that voice. Otherwise you get the voice of the internet's average, and that average is a marketing brochure from 2014.
Then read every word before it goes live. It will confidently invent a certification you do not have.