Remington BeggTraditional marketing wisdom focuses on appealing to human emotions, pains, and aspirations. We craft compelling narratives, design beautiful experiences, and aim to connect on a personal level. But a new "persona" is emerging that marketers must consider: the AI Agent.
Think about it: increasingly, individuals and businesses will leverage AI assistants (like deep research functions or specialized procurement bots) to perform initial research, vet options, and summarize information before a human even visits your website.
These agents don't care about your stunning hero image or your emotionally resonant "why." They are tasked with specific research goals: What does this company do? How does its process work? What results does it achieve? How does it compare to alternatives? How much does it cost? What do reviews say?
They are looking for clear, structured, factual information to fulfill their prompts. If your website doesn't provide this information in an accessible way, you risk being filtered out before you even have a chance to make your case to a human buyer.
The Disconnect: Emotional Appeal vs. Factual Retrieval
Much marketing content, especially at the top of the funnel, relies on emotional hooks and compelling storytelling – crucial for human connection. However, this content might lack the specific, structured data an AI agent needs to answer decision-focused queries.
Conversely, purely data-driven, agent-focused content might feel dry and unengaging to a human visitor. The challenge is to cater to both.
Bridging the Gap: Content Strategies for a Hybrid Future
Preparing your website for both human visitors and AI research agents requires a strategic approach to content structure and depth:
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Structured Data is Key: Ensure your core offerings, processes, and value propositions are clearly articulated. Use clear headings, bullet points, and potentially schema markup to make information easily digestible for algorithms.
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Build Out Knowledge Bases & Detailed FAQs: Create comprehensive resources that answer specific questions about your services, implementation, support, pricing, and outcomes. Think beyond marketing fluff and provide substantive answers. This content serves both curious humans and researching agents.
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Detail Your Process ("What to Expect"): Transparency builds trust with humans and provides concrete data for agents evaluating your methodology. Map out the customer journey post-purchase.
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Surface Bottom-of-Funnel Content: Don't hide crucial decision-making information (like case studies, detailed comparisons, or pricing guides) behind gates or solely within sales conversations. Make it discoverable on your site. Agents can't analyze what they can't find.
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Deep Linking & Information Architecture: Structure your site logically with clear navigation and internal linking. Allow users (and agents) to drill down into specific topics for more detail. A shallow website is a liability.
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Don't Abandon the Human Element: While structuring for agents, maintain the compelling narrative, strong design, and user experience that engages human visitors. Personalization (showing the right message to the right visitor) becomes even more critical to avoid overwhelming humans with excessive detail meant for agents.
The "Agent Audit"
Consider performing an "agent audit" on your own business (and your competitors). Use your favorite tools like Deep research feature with broad prompts ("Tell me about [Your Company Name] and its services for [Target Customer]"). What information does it surface? What does it miss? Are there inaccuracies? This exercise reveals how AI currently perceives your online presence and highlights content gaps.
The future isn't about creating separate "agent-only" pages (search engines have discouraged this in the past). It's about building a single, robust, well-structured website that provides deep, factual information accessible to AI while remaining engaging and persuasive for humans. You need to satisfy the agent's need for data and the human's need for connection and confidence. Is your website ready?
