How to write a good prompt for an AI website builder

Updated on 6 Nov 2026

Ask an AI website builder for “a website for my business” and it will happily build one. The trouble is that it has no idea what your business is, who buys from you or what makes you different, so it fills every gap with safe, middle-of-the-road choices. You end up with a site that could belong to almost anyone.

The fix is simple. The more useful detail you give the AI up front, the closer its first attempt will be to the site you actually had in mind. This is especially important because most AI website builders measure your usage in credits, so every unnecessary regeneration uses up allowance you could have spent refining your site.

This guide walks through how prompts work in an AI website builder, what to include in yours, real examples you can adapt and the mistakes that most commonly waste a good first attempt.

How do prompts work in an AI website builder?

An AI website builder prompt is the description you give the tool to tell it what to build. With some website builders, that’s a few sentences typed into a box before the AI generates a draft. With newer chat-based builders, the prompt is the start of a conversation – you describe your site, see the result and keep chatting to change it.

Think of the AI as a very fast designer who’s never met you. Every word in your prompt is a clue it uses to make decisions – a mention of “families” nudges it towards a friendlier tone, “luxury” changes the fonts and colours it reaches for, and naming a booking form means one gets built. Anything you leave out, it has to be guessed. Chat-based builders also write the code for your site as you go, so they can create working features as well as pages when you ask for them.

This is why short, vague prompts tend to produce short, vague websites, and why a few extra sentences at the start can save you a lot of back and forth later.

With the new Fasthosts AI App & Site Builder, for example, you start by sharing your idea with the AI. This can be through chat, voice input, giving it your old site URL, or adding images of the kind of project you’d like to create. It generates your site or web app from that description, and you can then refine every part of it by chatting – no drag-and-drop editing or coding needed.

What makes a good AI website builder prompt?

You don’t need special wording or technical language. A good way to approach it is to imagine you’re explaining your business to a new member of staff on their first day – what you’d tell them is usually exactly what the AI needs to hear.

Lead with the job your website needs to do

Before anything else, decide what you most want visitors to do. Phone you? Book an appointment? Buy something? Fill in an enquiry form? Specifying this early tells the AI what to put first on every page, from where buttons go to how the homepage is laid out.

Introduce your business properly

Give the AI your business name, what you offer and where you’re based (if location matters to your customers). “A website for a nail salon” tells the AI almost nothing useful. “A website for Nails by Sarah, an independent nail salon in York specialising in builder gel and nail art” gives it something to build from.

Describe the people you want to reach

Who’s visiting, and what are they hoping to find? A first-time customer comparing prices behaves very differently from a regular who just wants your opening hours. Mention age group, situation or what they care about most, and the AI can pitch the wording and layout accordingly.

Set the look and feel

Describe the impression you want to give in words a customer might use – “calm and natural”, “bright and fun” or “smart but friendly”. Add your brand colours and colour codes if you have them, and mention anything you definitely don’t want, such as dark backgrounds or lots of animation.

Map out your pages

List the pages you need, ideally in order of importance. If a page has a specific purpose, add a few words about it, such as “a prices page laid out as a simple table”. This stops the AI from defaulting to a standard set of pages that you then have to rework.

Name your must-have features

Booking calendars, enquiry forms, maps, reviews, galleries and online shops won’t always appear unless you ask for them. Chat-based builders can often create interactive tools too, so describe how you’d like a feature to work, not just that you want one. 

With AI App & Site Builder, you can build a complete business website, custom web apps like booking systems, invoice trackers and staff rotas, and landing pages for product launches, events and lead capture.

Upload what you already have

If your builder accepts files, your logo, product photos, price list or an existing leaflet gives the AI real material to work with, so you’ll get less placeholder text and fewer stock images.

Our AI App & Site Builder accepts all of the common file types you’d use with other popular AI tools (with a file limit of 10MB), and you can add up to 5 images per chat turn to give the AI plenty to work with to create your ideal site.

AI website builder prompt examples

Here’s how a basic prompt compares with a detailed one for a few different types of businesses.

A coffee shop

• Before: “I run a café and need a website.”
• After: “Create a website for Cup & Bean, an independent coffee shop in Leeds aimed at local professionals and students who want good coffee and a quiet place to work. Include a homepage, a menu page, an about page telling our founding story and a contact page with opening hours and a map. Use a warm, earthy colour palette with browns and creams, and a friendly, informal tone of voice.”

A trades business

• Before: “Website for my locksmith business.”
• After: “Create a website for Locke’s Locks, a mobile locksmith covering Sheffield and Rotherham. Most visitors will be on their phone and either locked out or worried after a break-in, so put a large ‘Locked out? Tap to call’ button at the top of every page. Add a services and prices page covering lockouts, lock changes, uPVC door repairs and landlord lock packages, an ‘Areas we cover’ page listing the postcodes we serve and a page of Google reviews. Keep the copy calm and reassuring, and use charcoal grey with a bright orange accent.”

A maker’s portfolio

• Before: “I need a portfolio site.”
• After: “Create a portfolio website for Isla Fenwick, a furniture maker based in Hebden Bridge who builds bespoke oak dining tables and benches to order. Most visitors will be homeowners who’ve found her on Instagram and want to see more of her work before getting in touch about a commission. Start with a homepage that shows one finished piece large, with a single line about what she makes. Add a gallery of past commissions with the wood type and dimensions under each photo, a ‘How a commission works’ page explaining the process from first chat to delivery, and an enquiry form asking for the room size and the piece they have in mind. Keep it calm and natural, with off-white backgrounds, muted greens and wood tones, and short, warm copy written in the first person.”

A booking or quote tool

• Before: “Add a quote form.”
• After: “Add a quote calculator to the services page for Crumpley Window Cleaning. Customers should choose their property type (flat, terraced, semi-detached or detached) and how often they’d like a clean (every 4, 8 or 12 weeks), then see an estimated price. Below the price, add a button that opens a form asking for their name, address and phone number, and send the details to our email address.”

Common mistakes that weaken your prompt

Relying on words that could mean anything

“Make it look nice” or “something eye-catching” could describe a thousand different websites. Swap them for concrete details the AI can act on, such as a colour, a mood a customer would recognise or a feature you want to stand out.

Trying to describe the whole site at once

A huge first message packed with instructions for every page can confuse the AI and bury the details that matter most. Start with a clear overview of the business, audience and main pages, then work through individual sections in follow-up messages, beginning with whatever matters most to your customers.

Leaving out who the site is for

The same type of business can need a very different website depending on its customers. A wedding venue marketing to couples and a conference venue marketing to office managers might both ask for “a venue website”, but the tone, photos and priorities should be almost entirely different.

Not naming your pages

If you don’t specify pages and structure, most AI website builders fall back on a generic layout, which you’ll then need to restructure.

Regenerating instead of editing

If a section is close but not quite right, it’s usually more effective to describe the specific change than to regenerate the whole page. Regenerating can lose details you’d already got right, and it typically uses more AI credits than a targeted edit.

How do AI credits affect your prompts?

Many AI website builders count each request you make in credits, with bigger tasks using more of them. Credits are what the AI uses each time it builds or changes something for you. As an example, an AI tool could use around 1 credit for small changes like updating text, around 2 credits for a new page or section and up to 10 credits for larger changes.

This is why clear, specific prompts are worth the extra minute. A detailed first prompt reduces how many rounds of changes you need, and grouping small, related edits into one request (“change the button colour to green and shorten the intro text”) can be more efficient than sending them one at a time.

It’s also important to select an AI website builder plan that suits your needs, so you don’t end up running out of credits in the middle of a task. For example, the Fasthosts AI App & Site Builder offers three different tiers at £16/month, £26/month and £65/month respectively after the first month, allowing you to choose a plan that best suits your needs and budget.

How to refine your site after the first draft

Once your first draft is ready, open it on your phone as well as your computer and look at it as a customer would. Then ask for specific changes, one area at a time:

• “Move the opening hours higher up the homepage so they’re visible on a phone without scrolling.”
• “Put the prices on the services page into a table so they’re easier to compare.”
• “Swap the stock images in the gallery for the photos I uploaded.”
• “Cut the about page introduction down to two sentences.”

Precise requests like these get far better results than “make it better” because the AI still needs clear direction at this stage. And if you ever decide you prefer an older version of your site, tools like the Fasthosts AI App & Site Builder have a built-in version history and undo functionality, allowing you to easily roll back changes you don’t like.

Before you send your first prompt

Run through these points to make sure the AI has what it needs:

• The single most important thing you want visitors to do
• What you sell or offer, and where (if location matters)
• The kind of customer you’re trying to win
• Your pages, listed in order of importance
• A few words describing the look and feel, plus brand colours if you have them
• Any tools or features the site can’t do without
• Your logo, photos or documents, ready to upload

A couple of minutes spent on these before you start saves you from a back-and-forth of generic drafts and gets you to a usable website much faster, whichever AI website builder you’re using.

Ready to put your prompt to the test? Try the new Fasthosts AI App & Site Builder and see how far a well-written description gets you, with your domain, email, hosting and an SSL certificate included. Or get in touch if you’d like advice on the right setup for your business.

Frequently asked questions

How do prompts work in an AI website builder?

A prompt is the description you give an AI website builder to tell it what to create. The AI uses every detail you include – your business, customers, style and features – to make design and content decisions, and guesses at anything you leave out. With chat-based builders, you can keep prompting to change the site after the first draft.

What should I include in a good AI website builder prompt?

Start with what you want visitors to do, then cover your business name and what it offers, who your customers are, the pages you need, the look and feel you’re after and any must-have features like a booking form or online shop. If you can upload your logo or photos, include those too.

What’s a good AI website builder prompt example for a small business?

A useful pattern is – “Create a website for [business name], a [type of business] in [location], aimed at [audience]. Include [list of pages]. Use [colours or style] and a [tone] tone of voice.” You can then add any specific features you need, such as a contact form or booking calendar.

Can I use prompts to make small changes, not just build the whole site?

Yes. Most AI website builders let you keep prompting after the first draft to make targeted changes – such as adjusting a section, swapping an image or shortening some text – rather than regenerating the whole site each time.

Do prompts use AI credits?

On many AI website builders, yes. Each request uses a number of credits depending on how complex it is, and plans include a set allowance each month. Writing clear, specific prompts helps you get the result you want in fewer requests.

As a general rule, a quick tweak uses around 1 credit, a new page uses around 2 credits and bigger changes can use up to 10 credits. On the AI App & Site Builder’s Lite plan, you get 150 credits/month, which covers roughly 50 edits or 2–3 new pages. On the Plus plan, you get 300 credits every month – enough to build out a full site or app and keep refining it. And on the Max plan, you get 2,000 credits every month to build, rebuild and refine as much as you like – making it ideal for complex apps and projects that change often.

Do I need any special skills to write AI website builder prompts?

No. Plain, specific descriptions in your own words work best, so there’s no need for technical or ‘AI’ language. The main skill is giving concrete details, like a colour, a customer type or a feature, instead of words that could mean anything.