How to Edit AI Website Copy Like a Copywriter

Clients can take forever to send website copy over, and bringing in a copywriter for every smaller build won’t always stack up financially. 

So when a client sends three bullet points and an email saying, “You know us pretty well by now, so feel free to work your magic!” I can see why you’d open up Claude to give you a helping hand.

But when you’re using an AI website content generator to help with copy, there are a few things you really need to watch out for.

As I’m sure you’re aware, the copy can look fairly decent while still being full of little AI habits you might not notice if writing isn’t your day job.

So, here’s the copywriter check I’d give it before the client does.

What every agency should check in AI website copy

SurveyMonkey’s 2025 research found that 46% of people would view a company negatively for using AI-generated content, while 43% said they’d be less likely to buy from one.

Which makes “it reads fine” a slightly risky quality-control process.

You’ll want to review a few things before you deem the website copy done:

#1 See if it knows who it’s talking to

Before hunting down every random “seamless” and “elevate”, start with the more important question: does this page sound like it understands the person who’s going to read it?

Say your client is an HR consultant working with small business owners. Their customers might be dealing with a manager who suddenly has a people problem, an employee issue they’re terrified of handling badly, or a growing team that has somehow reached 25 people without anybody writing a proper HR policy.

If the homepage is talking vaguely about “empowering businesses to build thriving workplaces”, you’re probably missing a lot of the stuff that would make the right person stop and think, oh yep, that’s us. 

Look at things like:

• What problems brought the customer to the website?
• What do they want help understanding?
• What might stop them enquiring?
• What do they care about when they’re choosing between providers?
• What questions are likely to be running through their head?
• Would they recognize their own situation in the copy?

Get the person right first. The sentence-level stuff comes after.

#2 Look for “blah, blah, blah” copy

AI loves things like experienced teams, personalised approaches, trusted partners, exceptional service, innovative thinking, and tailored solutions.

None of those is automatically awful, and they can work well when used sparingly. They’re just not giving the reader much of a reason to choose this company.

Go looking for the information that makes your client special.

Maybe they only work with charities or every customer gets direct access to the founder. They might have a weirdly brilliant onboarding process, a very specific way of solving the problem, or 20 years of sector knowledge.

That’s their unique differentiators, aka the stuff that helps them stand out and gets people interested in what they’ve got going on.

#3 Remove the words and phrases that give AI away

Spend enough time editing AI content and you start spotting certain AI-y phrases a mile away.

A few familiar faces:

• “Smoothly”
• “Quietly”
• “Practical”
• “Empower”
• “Thrive”
• “In today’s fast-paced world…”
• “At the heart of…”
• “Whether you’re X, Y, or Z…”
• “More than just…”
• “Your trusted partner”
• “Unlock your potential”
• “Elevate your business”
• “Navigating the complexities of…”
• “Seamless solutions”
• “Transformative”
• “Tailored to your unique needs”
• “We understand that every business is unique”
• “From X to Y, we…”
• “That’s where [company name] comes in”
• “Measurable results”

One of these showing up isn’t proof that the whole page needs to go in the bin.

But if your homepage contains seamless experiences, unique journeys, and something being unlocked, I’d start getting suspicious.

Once you know the usual suspects, they’re also very easy to search for and edit out.

#4 Watch the sentence patterns too

The vocabulary gets most of the attention, but AI has favourite sentence structures as well.  

“X, not Y.”

• “It’s not just about X. It’s about Y.” 
• “We don’t just provide X. We create Y.”
• “X is more than a service. It’s…”

The “whether” sentence

“Whether you’re launching a new business, scaling an existing one, or planning your next stage of growth…” 

Question. Immediate answer.

• “The result? More leads.”
• “The difference? A better experience.”
• “Honestly? Game changer.”

Everything in threes:

• “Fast, flexible, reliable.”
• “Strategy, creativity, and technology.”
• “Save time, reduce costs, and grow faster.”

Writers use groups of three because they sound good. AI appears to have received this information and gone a bit OTT with it.

Repeated openings

• “We help…”
• “We believe…”
• “We create…”
• “We work…”

Then another paragraph:

• “You can…”
• “You’ll get…”
• “You’ll have…”
• “You’ll feel…”

Again. Real copywriters do indeed use all of these devices. We adored the em dash before AI ruined it for us. We just tend not to use the same thing every 200 words. 

Now I’ve pointed these out, you’ll start seeing them everywhere. (Sorry).

So make sure to read the page out loud and listen to the rhythm. Human writing usually has a bit more natural movement in it. 

#5 Ask what the paragraph actually told you

AI is very good at producing a paragraph that feels informative.

Take this: “Our experienced team combines extensive industry knowledge with a personalized approach to deliver high-quality solutions that help your business achieve its goals.”

Okay. What do we know now?

Uhhh… They have a team?

A handy editing question is: what does the reader know after this paragraph that they didn’t know before it?

If the answer is “basically nothing”, get more specific.

You could explain how the service works, what happens first, how long something takes, who the customer deals with, which problems tend to come up, or what the client does that competitors don’t.

#6 Look for signs that AI has gone delulu

Give your AI content generator of choice a bit of source material and now your client is an award-winning industry leader serving customers across all continents with more than 20 years of experience.

News to everyone involved.

Always, always, always check facts around:

• Years in business
• Team size
• Locations
• Qualifications
• Accreditations
• Industries served
• Guarantees
• Statistics
• Customer numbers
• Awards
• Results
• Processes
• Service details

If you can’t trace a claim back to something the client gave you, verify it.

#7 Make sure the page is doing its job

AI knows what a website page usually looks like. Hero. Intro. Three benefits. Process. CTA. Tick, tick, tick. 

But what is the reader meant to know, feel, or do by the end of it?

• A homepage should help a visitor understand what the company does, whether it’s relevant to them, why they might trust it, and where they should go next.
• A service page needs to explain the service properly, answer obvious buying questions, deal with common concerns, give proof, and help somebody decide whether they want to reach out.
• An About page should give people confidence in the company and the humans behind it. It probably doesn’t need 600 words about “our journey”.

If the reader still has loads of obvious questions by the end, you’re not quite finished yet.

#8 Check if the brand voice survived

AI isn’t the best at emulating the right brand voice. It can get close sometimes, but never all the way perfect. 

So compare the draft against the client’s actual brand voice guidelines.

Check:

• Level of formality
• Vocabulary
• Humor
• Punctuation habits
• Technical language
• How the company talks about customers
• Phrases they naturally use
• Words they would never say
• How much personality normally comes through

Ask yourself: would the client genuinely say this? If the answer is no, the copy needs another pass.

And if your next thought is, “We don’t actually have brand voice guidelines…”

Good timing. We’ll get to that shortly.

#9 Read the whole website together

AI tends to repeat the same things across multiple website pages (almost word-for-word). 

Stuff like:

• Benefits
• Differentiators
• Service descriptions
• CTAs
• Adjectives
• Whole sentence structures

Do one final site-wide read to remove repetition and use Ctrl + F while you’re there.

Search some of those AI favourites too. You might be disturbed to find out how many “clear and practical solutions” have been happening behind your back.

#10 Make sure SEO hasn’t made everything weird

I wouldn’t personally recommend letting AI take charge of SEO optimization.

It can help you draft around a keyword list, but it doesn’t always know what keywords to use where, when a phrase is being overused, or if the page is actually answering the search intent.

If you do feed it keywords, keep an eye on:

• How often the exact keyword shows up
• Keywords being forced into too many headings
• Funky-sounding sentences built around the keyword
• Pages becoming longer than they need to be
• The same keyword being used across several pages
• Meta titles or descriptions that don’t sound natural

How to get better AI website copy in the first place

You can fix a lot during the edit, but life is obviously easier when draft one gives you a good foundation to work with.

So before you ask AI to “write a five-page website in an engaging tone”, give the poor thing a fighting chance.

#1 Give your AI tool a proper brief

AI only knows what you give it. If the whole brief is “write website copy for an HR consultant and make it friendly and professional”, you’ve left quite a bit open to interpretation.

Give it the same raw information you’d give a human copywriter:

• Target audience
• Customer problems
• Buying triggers
• Common objections
• Services
• Differentiators
• Competitors
• Proof
• Testimonials
• Case studies
• FAQs
• Discovery notes
• SEO keywords
• Page purpose
• Desired CTA
• Facts it can use
• Claims it must avoid
• Call transcripts

DO NOT give it sensitive company info. I feel like that goes without saying. But I’m saying it anyway.

#2 Send over your Brand Voice Bible

If you’re going to use AI regularly for the same client, you’re going to want a Brand Voice Bible.

This guide will give your AI clear rules around personality, tone range, vocabulary, sentence style, humour, messaging, banned phrases, audience language, and examples of what does and absolutely does not sound like the brand. It also means everyone working on the client gets the same rules. 

P.S. If documenting somebody’s preferred sentence rhythm sounds like an absolutely terrible way to spend your week, hello. We quite like this stuff over at The Content Lab.

#3 Tell AI what you DON’T want

People spend a lot of time telling AI what they want. Give it a list of things to stop doing too.

Once you’ve noticed a few patterns you hate, put them into the instructions:

• Don’t use the word “thrive”
• No Americanisms for this client
• Don’t use “it’s not just X, it’s Y”

Keep adding to that list as you edit. You’ll gradually build much better instructions for the client because the prompt is learning from the problems you’ve already found.

And when you land on prompts that consistently work, save them somewhere. 

#4 Don’t ask it to write the entire website in one go

I mean, you can give AI a brief and ask it for five complete pages.

But I’d still recommend you work page by page. Give it the business context, explain what that particular page needs to achieve, agree the structure, get a draft, and edit it before moving onto the next one.

You’ll get much more control over the result, and you’re less likely to reach page four and find the client’s “personalised approach” has been thrown in again for the millionth time.

#5 Use AI to pick holes in its own draft

Let AI do a bit of self-reflection.

Ask things like:

• Where am I repeating myself?
• What buyer questions haven’t been answered?
• What information is missing?
• Where does the tone stray from these approved examples?

Will AI catch everything? Of course not. You still need to look at what it gives you and decide whether the suggestions are any good.

Go forth and use AI. Just don’t lose the standards while you do. Please.

I’m not going to tell you to stop using AI for client website copy (even though it might sting my copywriter heart just a little). Frankly, if it helps you save time, keep projects on track, and make the numbers work better, crack on.

Just remember that draft one is draft one. That’s all I’m saying.

If you want somewhere to compare notes with other agency owners working out how AI fits into their services, come hang out in The Admin Bar community.

And for deeper support, extra resources, and more of the “thank God someone else is dealing with this too” stuff, Barflies is where the extra goodies live.