AI can now produce a complete, decent-looking website in minutes. That is the easy part. The hard parts are the same as they always were: knowing what the site has to say, making sure it says it accurately, and keeping it that way. This guide covers all three.
1. Decide what the site is for
Before you open any tool, write one sentence: who arrives at this site, and what should they do next? “Homeowners in Tacoma with a broken water heater should call us” is a website brief. “We need a website” is not. Every AI tool produces a better result from the first sentence than from the second, because it can make decisions — what goes at the top, which pages exist, what the button says.
Then list the pages that sentence implies. For most small businesses that is a home page, a page per service, an about page, and a contact page. For a portfolio it is the work, the person, and a way to get in touch. Resist adding pages you have nothing to put on.
2. Gather the facts the AI cannot invent
Language models are fluent, which makes them dangerous with facts. Give the tool everything that has to be exactly right, in writing, before it starts:
- Business name, address or service area, phone number and email.
- Opening hours, including when you do and do not answer.
- The services or products you actually offer, in your own words, with prices only if you publish them.
- Licence or registration numbers, where your trade has them.
- Real photos of your work, your team or your premises.
- Real reviews you have permission to show, with where they came from.
Anything you do not supply, a model may fill in with something plausible. A plausible wrong phone number is worse than no website.
3. Pick the kind of tool
“AI website builder” covers three quite different things, and the right one depends on who you want doing the work after launch.
- AI inside a site builder (Wix, Squarespace, Hostinger and similar). The AI drafts the first version; after that you edit it yourself in their editor. Good if you like editing and want the cheapest monthly price.
- AI app builders (Lovable and similar). They generate code from prompts. Powerful and flexible, but you own the result as a software project — hosting, fixes and updates included.
- Managed AI websites (Curb is one). The AI builds the site and makes every later change for you; you describe the change and approve a preview. Good if you want the site to stay current without becoming its maintainer.
Our comparison page sets the main options side by side, with prices from each vendor’s own pages.
4. Generate, then edit hard
Treat the first draft as a draft. Read every sentence out loud. Delete anything you would not say to a customer’s face — “passionate about excellence”, “one-stop shop”, “cutting-edge solutions”. Replace generic claims with specific ones: not “fast service” but “same-day callouts in Pierce County before 2pm”.
Then check the facts line by line against the list from step 2. Phone number, hours, address, prices, licence. This is the single most valuable ten minutes in the whole process.
5. Check the parts you cannot see
A site can look finished and still be broken for search engines and AI assistants. Before you publish, check:
- Every page has its own title and description, not the builder’s default.
- Images have alt text that describes them.
- The site loads quickly on a phone over mobile data, not just on your office Wi-Fi.
- There is structured data describing the business — name, address, phone, hours — that matches what the page says.
- The contact form actually delivers. Send yourself a test.
- Your robots.txt does not block search engines or AI crawlers you want to be found by.
Our free website audit checks most of these in about ten seconds, with no signup.
6. Publish on your own domain
Put the site on a domain you own and control, registered in your name. A subdomain of the builder’s brand is fine for a draft and poor for anything else. See how to publish a website for the steps.
7. Plan for the second month
Most websites are accurate on launch day and wrong six months later. Hours change, a service is dropped, a price goes up, someone leaves. Decide now who will make those changes and how. If the answer is “me, in the builder, when I get a moment”, be honest about how often that will happen.
This is the gap Curb was built for: you text or chat the change, an agent makes it, you approve the preview, and it is live — usually within the hour. Whatever you choose, choose something, because an out-of-date site quietly costs you the customers who believed it.
