Sixteen checks. Each one explained.

Can an AI assistant actually read your website?
A site that needs a full browser to show anything is invisible to most of the software now answering questions about businesses like yours.

What is llms.txt, and does a small business need one?
One plain text page that answers, in order, what you are, what you sell and how somebody reaches you.

Your hours and services, in a form a machine understands
A hidden block on the page that states your address, your hours and what you sell as facts, not as words on a picture.

If a machine cannot read your prices, it cannot recommend you
Assistants asked to compare on price compare the prices they can read. A number in a picture is not one of them.

The map of your pages, and why anything can find them without it
A plain list of every page you have, published so a reader does not have to find them by wandering.

A direct line an assistant can use to ask your business a question
Reading a website is guessing. An interface is asking, and getting an answer that is not a guess.

A way to reach you that does not need somebody to answer
An assistant acting for a customer needs a way in it can actually use. A number printed on a picture is not one.

The padlock, and what happens to a business without one
Visitors get a warning. Careful software does not get a warning, it simply refuses.

Stopping somebody from quietly pointing your address somewhere else
Every visit starts by asking where your website lives. Without protection, that answer can be forged.

Anyone can send email as you until you stop them
A stranger can send mail from your address today, to your customers, and it will look genuine.

Proving that something really came from your business
An invoice from you and a convincing fake from somebody else look exactly the same to the person holding one.

Your licence is real. Can anybody check it without ringing you?
A photograph of a certificate proves nothing. Anybody can make one in a minute.

When software is ready to buy, is there a door for the money?
An agent with funds and an instruction to buy needs somewhere to put the money. Most businesses have nowhere.

The assistant got as far as your checkout and stopped
Finding you was the easy part. Finishing the purchase is where almost every business loses the machine.

Being paid in seconds, by somebody in another country
The payment an agent makes clears in seconds and does not care which country either party is in.

When an agent asks how much, does your business have an answer?
A price list is a document. A quote is an answer to a question somebody just asked.