Why plain text is more important than a pretty picture

More and more people are no longer asking Google their questions, but an AI assistant instead. For example, they might ask what a plumbing business costs, or whether a particular shop is open on Sunday. The assistant then searches for an answer, and in doing so it reads websites the way a human would, only much faster and without paying attention to beautiful design. The problem is that many business websites put their most important information in a picture. Think of a photo of the storefront with opening times on it, or a logo with a phone number worked into the design. For a visitor who is looking around, that's no problem — they just see it. But an AI assistant usually cannot read text in a picture. For it, that information does not exist. What you can do today Go to your own website and take a critical look at your contact page and your services page. Is everything a customer needs to know actually there as text on the page, or is it only in an image? Think of your address, opening times, phone number, but also a simple description of what you do. Not in technical jargon, but in the words a customer would use themselves. An example. Say you have a car repair shop and you mainly repair Volkswagens and Audis. If that is only worked into a logo or banner, an AI assistant will miss that information. Just write it down, as a simple sentence somewhere on the page: we specialise in maintenance and repair of Volkswagen and Audi. That may sound unnecessary to you — you already know it — but for a system that reads text it is exactly what is needed. Why this is more than a technical detail This is not about a trick to score higher. It is about making sure that the information you already have can actually be found by whoever is looking for it, whether that is a person reading for themselves or an assistant searching on someone else's behalf. If your most important data are hidden in a picture, a video, or a complicated menu, then that information reaches no one, however beautiful your website looks. It is a matter of taking the time today to read your own website the way a stranger would. Not looking at how it looks, but at what is literally there. Missing something? Add it as a simple sentence, somewhere it makes sense. You do not need to create a separate page or invent new text that does not fit who you are. The point is that what you already know and already tell customers who come in should also be on the website, in words, not just in pictures. This is something you can check yourself, without needing any technical knowledge. Read your own site, and ask yourself on every page: if someone could only read this, without seeing the pictures, would they still know what they need to know?