Does AI Content Hurt Small Business Websites?

Everything you need to know about how AI content can prevent your website from bringing in customers.

Maybe you’ve heard of this little thing called AI.

You might be hearing about business owners doing all of their work with it — from writing emails, to ads, to even generating their entire website — and thinking “hey, that sounds amazing! But what’s the catch?”

I’m here to explain that part. Yes, AI content can hurt small business websites by damaging clarity and trust. That’s the simple answer, but I’d like to explain how it happens so that you walk away knowing more about how you can make a good website.

The 2 things every website needs

Your website has two jobs:

• Explain what pain points you solve
• Prove that you can be trusted to solve them

AI written content can sabotage your website on both counts.

Explanation

First, AI written content is basically word soup. We’re supposed to think that it’s capable of strategizing like an expert would, but by its nature AI writing is generic and lacks substance (I’ll explain why later).

A website filled with generic fluff is going to fail to sell customers on what you do and why it matters.

Second, users perceive the use of AI written content negatively. What would you think of a student who wrote their essay with ChatGPT? You might think it’s lazy, dishonest, and you may doubt their competence.

We think the same of people using it to write emails, ads, and websites — even if their business has nothing to do with those things!

Why AI written content lacks clarity

We like to think that AI considers what we asked, sees into our soul, and produces a game-changing insight that will solve all our problems.

What it actually does is predict text based on tons and tons of data. It learns statistical relationships between words and phrases without even understanding what they mean.

Maybe you asked a question about cleaning your pool. It knows all the words that are somewhat related to that. It starts from where you left off, building a response piece by piece based on what’s most likely to come next.

That can be fine for general questions and starting points, but AI generated content for something as important as a website falls flat in the following ways:

• Fails to find and stick to customer pain points
• Tone is generic and slightly inhuman
• The actual content is vague
• Lacks intention or clear goals
• Goes on for too long
• Can produce false information

Most end users dislike seeing AI written content

You might be wondering what real people think when they see AI written content. I was too, so I checked Reddit to see what people were saying.

“When I get served up AI from someone, I feel like I received the minimum amount of effort they felt they could get away with, and that feels insulting.”
- NuncProFunc

“I don’t want to talk to a robot, I want to talk to the person.”
- CarPhysical2367

“AI customer service is terrible. I called my AC company for service and got their AI voice CSR… it was so jank and broken.”
- darthsabbath

“There’s something about it that makes me not want to read or engage with it. It leaves me with a feeling like the person cheated, and it makes me not trust them or the post.”
- CarPhysical2367

Why does that happen? It’s a simple answer. We’re trusting people to help us. That implies paying attention.

An AI written email signals that they probably didn’t even read what we said — they’re basically ignoring us!

No wonder we’re not fans of it. We want people to take us seriously — when they do, we’re more confident that they can do the work in a way that will satisfy us.

Closing thoughts

So yes, AI content can hurt your business website by weakening trust, clarity, and perceived effort right when you need to show those things the most.

If you want to knock your website out of the park, remember that you need to resonate with the customer’s pain points, and show that you can be trusted to solve them.

There’s no doubt that AI content is changing the world, but it’s important to know its limits so that you can use it in ways that help instead of hurt.