AI for Effective Website Marketing: Prompt Magic

For marketers new to building a website or those who have struggled with it before, understanding AI for Effective Website Marketing can make a significant difference. It can be daunting to ensure everything is optimized for search engines while delivering a positive user experience for your visitors.

This middle step is often ignored by course creators. They go over the preliminary steps and the content creation, but leave you to fend for yourself with everything in between.

Below, you’re going to find a list of 10 things you have to work on at this stage, and I’ll show you how artificial intelligence (AI) tools can help guide you in this process.

It’s often the lack of explanation on what we need to consider that causes online entrepreneurs to take missteps in the structure and development of their site, which ends up being a nightmare trying to fix at a later date.

Tech Setup with AI Magic

One of the first things you need to do once you’ve chosen a niche an keyword-optimized domain is find a hosting plan to go with it. This is a confusing step for many – especially with a variety of plans and features.

AI can help you determine what the best match is based on what you plan to publish and the purpose of your site. For example, a simple blog may need much less than a full e-commerce site.

You can prompt AI to help you figure out your hosting needs so that you have something within budget, that meets your technical requirements and is best for your niche needs and features.

So if you’re in the affiliate marketing niche teaching marketers how to succeed online, you might prompt it with: “Recommend reliable hosting providers and plans that are suitable for an information-based niche website that will teach affiliate marketing.”

It will come back with a variety of companies and a summary of perks they offer so that you don’t have to go to each individual site to compare them to one another. You can get even more specific, too.

For example, you might ask AI: “What kind of hosting plan should I look for if I want to build a WordPress blog and have the ability to expand the site with an e-commerce low carb diet store in the future?”

When you tell it exactly what your current needs and future plans are, if can deliver specific details. For instance, it says you can use a company like SiteGround for a WordPress blog and that whatever brand and plan you go with, it needs integration with plugins like WooCommerce.

It says shared hosting might be suitable initially, but for a store, you want to look for scalability options like VPS or dedicated hosting. It includes other things to check off your list, like SSL security, an uptime guarantee, customer support, storage and bandwidth, and more. Then it narrows it down the top 3 options.

Next, you can use AI to help you figure out what platform to use on your domain. Most people go with WordPress, but you may want something else. “If I’m a new marketer with limited tech skills and I want to have a blog now, with a possible forum added later, what website platform should I install to teach affiliate marketing on my site?”

A question like this is going to have AI help you narrow down your options. For example, it might say WordPress is known for an easy interface, plugin support and customization among other things.

If you want a comparison you can prompt it like this: “Compare WordPress to other website platforms if I want to build a low carb blog and possibly expand the site later.” It will give you a comparison between WordPress, Wix and Squarespace and cover things like the learning curve, scability, SEO, cost and more.

Another thing you can have AI help with for your basic technical foundation is a WordPress theme if that’s the platform you’re going with. This is an important part of optimization for SEO as well as branding and user experience.

AI can make suggestions for any niche theme by using a prompt like this: “Suggest a WordPress theme that’s best for mobile users for my affiliate marketing blog.” AI is going to give you a list of options and a blurb about each one explaining why it might be the best choice.

For example, it says Astra is known for speed and simplicity as a lightweight design. It says GeneratePress is a good clean coded option with fast load times and has a mobile-first focus, which is great for those on a smart phone.

It goes down a list of options for you to choose from. You can prompt it like this, too: “What’s a good theme for a low carb e-commerce site I’m building on WordPress?” The answers to this will focus on the features needed to run a store, but with aesthetic appeal and design.

For example, it suggests Flatsome as a great WooCommerce theme. But it also makes suggestions about Hestia Pro for its clean and elegant look, Enfold, Divi, OceanWP and many more – each with reasons why it’s a recommendation.

AI can also help you with technical foundation issues such as website speed and performance. We’ve already seen a couple of mentions of this, but you can have AI help with optimizing images, minimal coding, and using a content delivery network, too.

For this purpose, you might prompt AI like this: “Create a comprehensive strategy to optimize the speed and performance of my affiliate marketing blog. Provide the strategies, tools and practices to implement.”

AI is going to create a comprehensive plan for you. It will begin with a good hosting plan, use of a CDN like Cloudflare to distribute load times, updating plugins, optimizing images and using the proper format, caching and minification of CSS, JavaScript and HTML and more.

If you want a specific tutorial or advice about one aspect of that, you can prompt AI like this: “I have a low carb blog and I want advice on optimizing my site for speed and performance specifically when it comes to images because I share a lot of meal pictures. Give me a comprehensive plan to address this issue.”

AI will return output that walks you through this process every step of the way, beginning with image compression (telling you what tools to use and why), format options and advice, image resizing and scaling steps, use of lazy loading images, browser caching, thumbnail optimization, image sprites, image audit processes and basic best practices.

Fortify Your Site with AI Hacks

The security of your site is very important – not only to protect everything you’re building, but because customers depend on it. If you don’t have a safe and secure website, nobody will want to click through on your links.

AI can help you go through this process. For example, you need to install security plugins and regularly update your software to protect it from hackers and malware.  You can prompt AI like this: “Recommend the best security plugins for my affiliate marketing website and give me a schedule for software and plugin updates for optimal security.”

AI is going to come back with a list of the best security plugins for your site, including Wordfence to provide a firewall and malware scanner with a host of features, and more. It also gives you a breakdown of security measures to implement on a regular schedule.

The tasks include daily ones like monitoring security plugin activation, weekly ones like checking for updates and reviewing security logs, monthly ones like backing up your site and an as needed task list that includes things like updates for critical vulnerabilities and plugins that are no longer supported.

It also gives you a list of best practices for overall security like using strong passwords, limiting login attempts and enabling two-factor authentication on your website to keep it safe.

You can also have AI help you identify the biggest potential threats to your niche site and help you map out the best security measures to protect it. You can prompt it like this: “For my low carb niche blog, identify the biggest potential threats and provide me with a solution for each one.”

AI will go through a list like discussing a cyber attack, with a solution of a security plugin among other things. It will talk about spam comments and bots, and how to prevent them so they don’t threaten your credibility or link visitors to harmful domains.

For each threat listed, a list of solutions is provided and an explanation of what it can do to protect your domain. You also want to have AI help you with other security measures you may not know, like recommending an SSL certificate or advising you about user registration and authentication issues or the use of CAPTCHA.

If you want to allow people to register to participate on your site, but you don’t know how this works, AI can walk you through it and tell you how to make the entire process secure.

Prompt it like this: “Tell me how to implement a proper user registration process on my low carb website in a way that includes enhanced security measures to cut down on unwanted spam.”

The steps will be spelled out for you, regardless of your niche. It will include a user registration plugin, CAPTACHA system integration, email verification, admin approval, strong password policies, an audit of user registrations and more.

Anytime AI gives you something in a list of advice that you don’t understand, ask AI for clarification or a step-by-step process. For example, if it says to conduct regular user registration audits and you don’t know how, prompt AI like this: “For security measures, I want to conduct a regular audit of user registrations on my affiliate site. But I don’t know how, so provide me with a step-by-step instruction list.”

AI is going to give you a wonderful blueprint that starts with instructions on accessing your user list, what to check when reviewing each account, how to verify their activity and analyze their user roles, sorting and filtering users, cross-checking them with security logs, and removing suspicious accounts.

Pro Design with AI Tips

When designing your website, there are two things you want to make sure one. The first is that it’s visually pleasing to your target audience. The second is that it’s accessible in all ways for those who visit.

The aesthetics of your site include things like the layout, color scheme, and even the fonts being used to present your information. AI has the ability to advise you based on the preferences of your audience and the topic you’re going to be blogging about.

You might prompt AI like this: “For a blog teaching affiliates marketers how to make money online, give me advice on the color palette to use, the layout of information and the fonts that my niche audience would prefer.”

AI will tell you that for a professional niche like this, you may want to go with blues, greens and grays that project professionalism and trust. It even advises you about accent colors like orange or teal and where to use them – like on your call to action buttons.

It gives advice about having a white background for darker text to show up, and tells you how to organize your site in a hierarchy with proper spacing and navigation as well as making it a responsive design.

The fonts is will recommend will be a few options and it will talk about font size, line height, and consistency in fonts. It also gives additional tips on branding, split testing these elements, and more.

Another way to get advice would be like this: “For the low carb niche, what visual site design elements should I make sure to include to project a welcoming and informative site?”

This is perfect for when you’re brainstorming ideas and choosing what you want to do. AI will discuss having an inviting color palette with natural, earthy tones and accent colors to make a vibrant design.

It will be specific about your use of high quality images because you’re going to use food photography. It also covers fonts, specific layout advice for categories like recipes, meal plans, nutrition tips, and so on.

You will get a lot of great insight about using infographics, other visual aids, interactive elements, trust signals, whitespace, social proof, optimizing footer space, and having a personal touch on your site.

These are all things you may or may not have thought of when sitting down to create your site – things a coach or service would normally take care of, that you might forget initially.

In additional to looking great, you want your site to be accessible for people with disabilities. That means using clear fonts and good contrast, keyboard navigation options and more.

There are different ways you can prompt AI for this purpose. For example, you might prompt: “Give me a checklist I can use to ensure my affiliate marketing blog site is accessible for those with disabilities.”

While you may know one or two things, AI is going to give you a comprehensive list. It will include general accessibility tips like alt text and keyboard navigation, skip navigation and accessible forms.

But it will also have specific advice about text and typography options and adjustments, media and visual tasks like captions and audio descriptions or avoiding seizure-inducing content.

You’ll learn from AI that you need a disability-friendly navigation structure, screen reader-friendly content areas, and more. There are compliance tests you can run that it will name for you, and it will give you additional considerations like accessible CAPTCHA alternatives. 

You can also prompt for something very specific. For example, you might ask AI the following prompt: “My low carb diet site is heavy on images. How can I ensure that visually impaired individuals enjoy their time on my site by making it accessible for them?”

With a prompt like this, it will focus on image-based accessibility tips like the use of alt text, contextual descriptions, text-based alternatives, semantic HTML and ARIA labels, accessible image maps, audio descriptions for complex images, and more.

With all of this, it doesn’t just list what the item is, but it explains it and often gives you an example showing the difference between non-accessible and accessible options so it’s easier to grasp.

Smooth Navigation with AI

We’ve talked a bit about user navigation or structure, and there are specific prompts you can use with AI tools like ChatGPT to assist you in planning this process. It can help you with menus and sub-menus and with an overall mapping of how you want the visitor to flow from one area to the next, moving them to ultimately take an action, like making a purchase or signing up to your list.

Google and other search engines put a big emphasis on navigation. They want to make sure you have a system in place that isn’t frustrating to visitors and helps them find what they need on your site.

For your website structure, if AI knows what your niche and audience is, it can help map out your menu items – the categories and sub-categories where people go to find what they are looking for.

So you can prompt AI like this: “I have a blog that teaches affiliate marketing. Create a primary category and sub-category list of how my navigational menu should look.” AI will then give you a basic outline and explanation of what each category will be.

You’ll have your Home navigation option, but also affiliate marketing basics, content creation tips, monetization, tools and resources, and sub-categories like a glossary of terms, review tips, video marketing, social media, conversion optimization and more.

You can also have AI do a competitive analysis for you by prompting it like this: “In the low carb niche, tell me what the most common categories and sub-categories are and give me ideas for category gaps that this audience may want to see.”

For this, you’ll get categories like low carb recipes, meal planning, nutritional health, weight loss, cooking tips, ingredient spotlights, etc. The sub-categories will be things like keto recipes, vegetarian options, low carb budget meal plans, low carb for diabetes, and more.

The category gaps it has identified that too few competitors are doing include low carb dining out options, low carb travel tips, kitchen gadget reviews for low carbs, and more. You can then pick and choose what you do (or don’t) want to include based on its suggestions.

For the user journey mapping prompts, which help you figure out the best way to funnel visitors from one place to another, you can get AI to create something form scratch or plan from where you’ve already created something.

For example, you might prompt AI like this: “Give me a map of the journey someone might take on my site if they land here from a social media post linking to a blog post promising to teach them how to make money as an affiliate if my goal is to get them on my list.”

It will map out the process, including the use of an engaging introduction and educational content with a call to action offering a free guide or checklist on the top affiliate marketing tools.

It goes so far as to tell you what the opt in form should emphasize, what to put on your confirmation page and in your follow-up email series and more. The tips go all the way through to future content and promotions.

You can do something specific, too like this: “I have a low carb blog. I need options for a customer journey mapped out that maximize the stickiness of my site for SEO purposes.”

AI will have a lot of advice for you, including things like interactive elements related to low carb topics, video content like cooking tutorials, demonstrations, or low carb lifestyle vlogs, exclusive content for registered members that gives premium advice, and so on.

Supercharge Social Media AI

Website owners usually want to incorporate a mix of free and paid traffic tactics. The more organic (free) traffic they have, the less they need to rely on paid traffic. Social media platforms (not just search engines) are easy to integrate with your site.

AI can help you make decisions about this process, such as installing social share buttons, social media feed connections and even embedding the right kind of content in your posts.

So you might prompt AI like this for a broad response: “What are some ways I can integrate social media into my affiliate marketing blog?” It’s going to give you answers that include things like the social share buttons, including attention-grabbing images in posts that will be pulled into social media content, using a call to action for users to share the content on social media, etc.

It will tell you where to include the social media icons (in the header and footer), where to put the embedded social media feeds (in your sidebar), and instruct you on the use of social media widgets, floating share bars and more.

You can even get insight about upping engagement using social media commenting systems like Disqus or Facebook comments on your blog. You can also ask for specific help when it comes to integrating social media on your blog.

For example, you might ask: “For my social media share buttons, if I only want to choose 3 buttons to appear, which platforms should I select for a low carb blog and why?”

It will tell you to have buttons for Pinterest (a great visual platform for recipes and food topics), Facebook (one of the biggest platforms with a big audience for health and food), and Instagram (another visual platform that has a wide audience for meals and recipe as well as weight loss).

Crunch Numbers with AI Analytics

Data analytics is something you’re going to want to incorporate into your site so that you can track user behavior and better understand how to get your visitors to convert into subscribers and buyers.

When you have the information gathered from data analytics, you’ll be able to create better content, improve your layout and design and use more effective marketing and monetization strategies.

You can prompt AI about what you should focus on like this: “What form of data analytics should I set up on my affiliate marketing blog and what key metrics should I pay attention to for my niche if my goal is improving conversions?”

AI will tell you to set up Google Analytics (GA4) but also some other options, including tracking tools provided by affiliate networks to monitor link clicks and conversions, heatmaps and user session recording tools like Crazy Egg.

For key metrics, it will tell you pay close attention to conversion rates, clickthrough rates, bounce rates, time spent on each page, exit page identification, funnel conversions, affiliate link performance, device and location data, A/B test results, and more.

Again, you can be specific with AI to get tailored advice in this area. For example, you might ask: “In Google Analytics, for a low carb blog, what would be considered a healthy bounce rate compared to something I need to address?”

That way you can have metrics outlined to quickly pay attention to whenever you review the data. AI is going to tell you that as a general guideline, most blogs have a 40-60% bounce rate, so below 40% is decent – the lower the better.

Anything higher, it says, indicates a big problem with your content and blog. It also gives tips on improving your bounce rate. After your blog starts getting traffic, you can take the analytics data and feed it into AI and have it sort through, prioritize and advise you on how to deal with all of the results.

Boost Engagement AI Style

Engagement is important on a blog. It is a form of social proof, but also a signal to you that people feel comfortable interacting with you. There are different ways AI can help you add more engagement to your site.

You might ask AI a basic, broad prompt like this: “How can I increase visitor engagement in the form of comments on my blog that teaches affiliate marketing strategies?”

It will give you a list of options ranging from asking thought-provoking questions to replying to comments that people leave to prove you’re paying attention and engaging back with them.

It also gives different tips like creating controversial or debatable content, blogging about success stories, using engaging media that sparks discussions, and making sure you monitor the comments section so that spam is filtered out.

You might prompt AI for help like this: “Provide me with a strategy for providing support options on my low carb blog.” This is a form of direct engagement from your audience, and AI is going to suggest a dedicated support page (and tell you what to do with it), a FAQ page, the inclusion of contact information and a contact form, live chat support and more.

You can also ask AI how to set up and structure a built in forum community on your site so that visitors can engage not only with you, but with one another, too. Prompt it like this: “How should I structure a forum on my low carb blog with categories and rules, etc.?”

AI is going to advise you to state the purpose of the forum, tell you about your forum software options, list the categories you might have in the forum (like low carb breakfasts, low carb desserts, snacks, etc.), tell you what rules and guidelines to define, and more.

It will advise you to select a team of moderators early on, to include features that foster engagement (like upvotes, badges, etc.), to ensure safety and security, and monitor the maintenance of the forum.

Smart Selling with AI

Not everyone will be including a store of some sort on their site. Some will restrict it solely to an affiliate blog. But if you do want to go this route, it helps to know how AI can assist you.

It can make recommendations for the e-commerce platform you might want to consider. It can give tips on payment gateways and give you advice on best practices for running your store.

For example, you might prompt AI like this: “Give me recommendations for an e-commerce solution where I can sell digital info products from my blog that teaches affiliate marketing rather than use third party platforms.”

It’s going to talk about the various tools you may need, including a CMS (like WordPress), an e-commerce plugin like WooCommerce or EDD (Easy Digital Downloads).

It’s going to advise you about creating digital files that can easily be downloaded and delivered to customers securely. For payment gateways, it tells you to see which processors (like Stripe or PayPal) connect to the plugin you want to use.

It even covers things like pricing, product listings, shopping carts and checkout systems, taxes and shipping, customer accounts, and legal compliance issues. You can ask it for specific advice, too.

For instance, prompt AI like this: “If I have a basic hosting account, which e-commerce solution will work well with it so I don’t have to upgrade my hosting plan?” AI is going to advise you on the best lightweight e-commerce solution (like EDD) or Ecwid, a cloud-based e-commerce solution that won’t load your hosting server.

By getting tips from AI on what tools and strategies to use, you can maintain the functionality of your site – which is something that often goes downhill as inexperienced website owners bog down their site with too many plugins and bloated tools.

Stay Compliant AI Shield

Making sure your site is in compliance is a necessity if you’re a niche leader. You need to do this for two things – legal compliance and agreements with any platforms or companies that require it (like Amazon’s Associate disclosure statement).

In some cases, depending on where you live, you may also have other regulations and guidelines to adhere to (like GDPR). You can be broad with your prompt, such as asking AI the following: “If I’m an affiliate marketer who has a low carb blog where I prompt products from Amazon and I live in the UK, what regulations and compliance issues do I need for my website?”

This is perfect because AI is going to ensure you are well-protected, starting with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) advice, and including affiliate disclosure, cookie consent, terms of service, copyright tips, and more.

It even goes so far as to remind you that you need to be accurate with your claims and comply with advertising standards in the UK, such as the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) and the terms and conditions of the affiliate program.

You can also be more specific with AI and have it help you with some of these compliance measures directly. For example, you can prompt: “Create a template I can use for a basic cookie consent statement on my affiliate marketing blog.”

AI provides you with a copy and paste statement you can use on your own site, without you having to hire a legal expert and pay them to draw something up for you. You can do the same for your terms of service and privacy policy pages, too.

Easy Maintenance with AI

It’s not going to do you any good if you go to the trouble to select the perfect domain, pay for hosting, and spend ample time designing and uploading content to a site if you’re not going to manage it properly.

Site maintenance is imperative to your online success, and it’s a task that AI can help you with. Site maintenance includes updates, bug fixes, security patches, backups of content, and other issues.

You can prompt AI for basic help like this: “For my WordPress blog where I teach affiliate marketing and sell digital downloads using EDD, create a site maintenance plan that keeps my site from encountering technical issues.”

AI is going to be able to tell you when to backup your site (including the database and files), when to run security scans, how to optimize your database for efficiency using a plugin like WP-Optimize, when and how to audit your theme and plugins, how to test the performance of your site with online tools and more.

You might have a specific site maintenance issue you want AI’s help with, so you can prompt it like this: “What are the pros and cons of using an automated backup system for my low carb WordPress blog rather than doing it manually?”

For decisions like this, it’s good to have Ai explain why something is a smart (or bad) idea. It will tell you that the automated option is consistent, saves time, has less room for error, offers easy restoration, allows for incremental backups and scheduled database optimization.

On the negative side, it forces you to rely on a plugin (and technology has been known to fail). Plus, it consumes more resources on a regular basis, which can make your site lag.

It tells you that a manual backup gives you more control and better server resource control without any dependency on a plugin. But it’s also time-consuming, you may forget about it and there’s more room for human error.

Relying on artificial intelligence to guide you in the many decisions you have to make as a website owner can ease the pressure you feel with certain technical or strategic processes.

It’s also great because you have the ability to quickly ask AI a question like: “What does cookie consent mean?” if there’s something you don’t know. Or, “Why do I need to do that?” if there’s a recommended task you’re unsure about. 

Keep in mind that as a site owner, it will be your responsibility to conduct a quality assurance test to ensure that your site is running and functioning properly with the advice you’ve implemented.

And as you grow your site into something expanded, ask for AI’s help in making sure you don’t run into problems that often plage site owners during their scaling efforts. By using AI to lean on during the site building and maintenance process, you’ll guarantee that your visitors have an enjoyable experience and that search bots report back to Google that your site is a good option for their users.