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© 2026 Back Tier. Jason Todd Wade, Founder.
Get Free AI Audit →Your website is the hub of your AI visibility ecosystem. It needs to be technically flawless for AI crawlers, structurally optimized for AI comprehension, and visually compelling for human visitors. We build both. Back Tier, founded by Jason Todd Wade, serves brands in New York, San Francisco, Austin, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, London, Dubai, Singapore, and Toronto.
A website is no longer just a digital storefront - it is the technical foundation of your entire AI visibility strategy. Every other AI visibility investment you make - content development, authority building, schema markup, entity architecture - depends on a website that is technically capable of supporting those investments. A website with poor Core Web Vitals, inadequate structured data infrastructure, weak content architecture, or poor crawlability will underperform across every AI visibility surface, regardless of how good the content is or how strong the authority signals are. Back Tier's Web Design service builds websites that are optimized for both human experience and machine legibility - the two requirements that modern web design must satisfy simultaneously. For human visitors, this means a visually compelling, intuitive, fast-loading experience that communicates your brand's expertise and value proposition clearly and converts visitors into leads. For AI systems, this means a technically flawless infrastructure with comprehensive structured data, efficient crawlability, semantic HTML, and content architecture that makes your brand's expertise legible to the machines that increasingly mediate how people find and evaluate brands. The two requirements are not in tension - they are complementary. A website that is technically excellent for AI systems is also a website that is fast, well-organized, and trustworthy for human visitors. The investment in AI-optimized web design pays dividends across both dimensions simultaneously. We design and build websites from scratch for brands that need a complete rebuild, and we audit and optimize existing websites for brands that need to improve their AI visibility performance without a full redesign. In both cases, the goal is the same: a website that performs at the highest level across every surface that matters - traditional search, AI Overviews, AI-native search platforms, and direct human visits.
An AI-optimized website is built on a different architectural philosophy than a traditional marketing website. Traditional marketing websites are designed primarily for human visitors - they prioritize visual appeal, brand storytelling, and conversion optimization. AI-optimized websites are designed for both human visitors and AI systems - they layer machine legibility requirements on top of the human experience requirements, creating a website that performs at the highest level across both dimensions.
The architectural foundation of an AI-optimized website is semantic HTML. Semantic HTML uses HTML elements for their intended purpose - headings for headings, paragraphs for paragraphs, lists for lists, articles for articles - creating a document structure that communicates the meaning and hierarchy of content to AI systems. Non-semantic HTML - using div elements for everything, styling elements for visual effect rather than semantic meaning - creates a document structure that is visually correct but semantically opaque to AI systems. We build all websites on a semantic HTML foundation that makes the structure and meaning of content explicit.
The content architecture of an AI-optimized website is organized around topical authority clusters - interconnected groups of content that comprehensively cover a subject area. This architecture communicates to AI systems that your brand has genuine expertise in your subject areas, not just surface-level coverage of a few popular topics. The cluster architecture also creates a natural internal linking structure that distributes link authority efficiently and makes the relationships between content pieces explicit.
The technical infrastructure of an AI-optimized website is built for performance and reliability. Fast loading times, efficient crawlability, comprehensive structured data, and clean URL architecture are all requirements, not nice-to-haves. We build on modern web frameworks and hosting infrastructure that make these technical requirements achievable without sacrificing design quality or development velocity.
Core Web Vitals are Google's standardized metrics for measuring the quality of the user experience on web pages. They measure three dimensions of page experience: loading performance (Largest Contentful Paint, or LCP), interactivity (Interaction to Next Paint, or INP), and visual stability (Cumulative Layout Shift, or CLS). Google uses Core Web Vitals as direct ranking signals, and its AI Overview system strongly prefers sources from websites that meet or exceed Core Web Vitals thresholds.
LCP measures how long it takes for the largest visible content element on a page to load. For most pages, this is the hero image or the main heading. Google's threshold for a 'good' LCP score is 2.5 seconds or less. Achieving this threshold requires a combination of fast server response times, efficient image optimization, effective use of browser caching, and careful management of render-blocking resources. We audit LCP performance on every page and implement the specific optimizations needed to meet Google's threshold.
INP measures the responsiveness of a page to user interactions - how quickly the page responds to clicks, taps, and keyboard inputs. Google's threshold for a 'good' INP score is 200 milliseconds or less. Achieving this threshold requires efficient JavaScript execution, minimal main thread blocking, and careful management of third-party scripts that can degrade interactivity. We audit INP performance and implement the JavaScript optimization and third-party script management needed to meet Google's threshold.
CLS measures the visual stability of a page - how much the layout shifts as the page loads. Layout shifts are disorienting for users and signal poor technical quality to AI systems. Google's threshold for a 'good' CLS score is 0.1 or less. Achieving this threshold requires explicit size attributes on images and videos, stable ad slots, and careful management of dynamically injected content. We audit CLS performance and implement the layout stability fixes needed to meet Google's threshold.
Beyond Core Web Vitals, we optimize for overall page performance - minimizing total page weight, optimizing the critical rendering path, implementing effective browser caching, and using modern image formats (WebP, AVIF) that provide better compression than traditional formats. These optimizations improve the experience for human visitors and signal technical quality to AI systems simultaneously.
Structured data is the technical bridge between your website and AI systems. It is the machine-readable layer that communicates the structure and meaning of your content to AI systems - not just what your content says, but what type of content it is, what entities it references, and how it should be displayed in AI-generated answers. A website without comprehensive structured data is a website that is asking AI systems to guess at its content structure rather than telling them explicitly.
The structured data implementation on an AI-optimized website covers all relevant schema types for the content and business type. For a B2B service business like BackTier, the most important schema types are: Organization (describing the business entity), Service (describing each service offering), Person (describing team members and content authors), Article and BlogPosting (describing content assets), FAQPage (marking up FAQ content for Featured Snippet eligibility), and HowTo (marking up instructional content). Each schema type has specific required and recommended attributes that should be populated completely.
JSON-LD is the implementation format we use for structured data - it is Google's preferred format and the most maintainable approach for complex schema implementations. JSON-LD structured data is implemented in script tags in the head of each page, separate from the HTML content, making it easy to update and validate without affecting the visual presentation of the page. We implement JSON-LD structured data as a standard component of every website build and optimization engagement.
Structured data validation is an ongoing requirement. Schema implementations can break when websites are updated, when content management systems are changed, or when new pages are added without the appropriate markup. We implement structured data validation monitoring as part of every website engagement, using Google's Rich Results Test and Schema.org validators to detect and fix schema errors before they affect AI visibility performance.
An AI-optimized website that doesn't convert visitors into leads is a missed opportunity. The technical excellence and AI legibility of the website create the conditions for strong AI visibility - driving more qualified visitors to the site. But converting those visitors into leads requires a different set of design principles: clear value proposition communication, intuitive navigation, compelling calls to action, and trust signals that reassure visitors that your brand is the right choice.
Value proposition clarity is the most important conversion design principle. Visitors who arrive from AI-generated answers have often already been exposed to your brand's expertise through the AI's summary of your content - they arrive with a higher baseline of trust and familiarity than visitors from traditional search. But they still need to quickly understand what you do, who you do it for, and why you're the best choice. The hero section of an AI-era brand website should communicate this value proposition clearly and specifically, without the generic platitudes that plague most marketing websites.
Trust signal design is the second critical conversion principle for AI-era brands. Visitors who arrive from AI platforms are often sophisticated, research-oriented buyers who are evaluating multiple options. Trust signals - client logos, case study results, team credentials, industry recognition, and specific outcome data - are the evidence that convinces these visitors that your brand can deliver what it promises. We design trust signal sections that present this evidence in the most compelling and credible format.
Lead capture design for AI-era brands needs to match the sophistication of the audience. Generic contact forms with minimal fields are appropriate for some audiences, but the high-intent, research-oriented visitors that AI visibility drives often respond better to more structured lead capture experiences - diagnostic tools, assessment frameworks, or detailed intake forms that demonstrate your brand's expertise and create a more valuable first interaction. We design lead capture experiences that are appropriate for the specific audience and conversion goal.
Mobile-first design is a non-negotiable requirement for AI-era websites. The majority of web traffic now comes from mobile devices, and Google's mobile-first indexing means that the mobile version of your website is the version that Google's systems evaluate for ranking and AI Overview citation eligibility. Every website we build is designed mobile-first - with the mobile experience as the primary design consideration, and the desktop experience as an enhancement.
An AI-optimized website needs to be not just well-built at launch but maintainable and scalable over time. The content development, authority building, and EEAT optimization work that drives AI visibility improvement requires a content management infrastructure that makes it easy to publish, update, and organize content without technical barriers.
Content management system (CMS) selection is a strategic decision that affects the long-term maintainability and scalability of the website. We evaluate CMS options based on the specific requirements of each client - the volume and variety of content they need to manage, the technical capabilities of their team, the integration requirements with other marketing systems, and the performance and SEO requirements of the website. We work with a range of CMS platforms - from headless CMS solutions like Sanity and Contentful for technically sophisticated teams to more accessible platforms like WordPress for teams that need a familiar editing experience.
Content workflow design is as important as CMS selection. A content management infrastructure that doesn't support efficient content creation, review, and publication workflows will become a bottleneck for the content development programs that drive AI visibility improvement. We design content workflows that match the specific needs of each client's team - with appropriate review and approval steps, content scheduling capabilities, and integration with the content planning tools the team already uses.
Scalability planning ensures that the website can handle growth - in content volume, in traffic, and in feature complexity - without requiring a rebuild. We build on hosting infrastructure and CMS platforms that can scale efficiently, and we design the website architecture with future growth in mind. This includes: database-driven content management for high-volume content sites, CDN integration for global performance, and modular component architecture that makes it easy to add new features without disrupting existing functionality.
An AI-optimized website is not a finished product - it is a continuously improving system. The analytics and measurement infrastructure we implement as part of every website engagement provides the data needed to identify improvement opportunities, track the impact of changes, and make evidence-based decisions about where to invest optimization resources.
The analytics infrastructure for an AI-era website goes beyond traditional page view and session tracking. We implement event tracking that captures the specific user interactions that indicate engagement and intent - scroll depth, content section engagement, CTA clicks, form interactions, and video plays. This granular engagement data reveals which content is resonating with visitors and which is not, enabling targeted content improvements that improve both human engagement and AI citation signals.
Search performance tracking covers both traditional organic search and AI visibility surfaces. We implement tracking for organic ranking positions, Featured Snippet appearances, and AI Overview citation frequency - providing a comprehensive picture of search visibility performance across all surfaces. This tracking data feeds directly into the ongoing optimization programs that drive AI visibility improvement.
Conversion tracking is the foundation of ROI measurement for the website investment. We implement comprehensive conversion tracking - covering all lead capture touchpoints, from contact form submissions to phone calls to chat interactions - and connect conversion data to traffic source data to enable channel-level ROI analysis. This measurement infrastructure makes it possible to demonstrate the business impact of AI visibility investment and to optimize the website's conversion performance based on evidence rather than intuition.
A/B testing infrastructure enables systematic conversion optimization. We implement A/B testing frameworks that allow continuous testing of headline variations, CTA designs, lead capture form formats, and other conversion-critical elements - building an evidence base for the design decisions that drive the highest conversion rates. This continuous testing and optimization program compounds the conversion performance of the website over time, increasing the return on the AI visibility investment that drives traffic.
We'll analyze your brand's current AI citation rate across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Grok - then show you exactly what it takes to dominate AI search in your category.
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