Use the words people actually search for
People search in plain words - and a lot of sites describe themselves in language no one would ever type. If your page says ‘bespoke ceramic vessels’ and your customers search ‘handmade mugs’, the two never meet. On a bernard-hosted site you close that gap by asking your AI to speak the way your visitors do.
The prompt
“Read [the page] and rewrite it to use the words people actually search for when they want [what you make or do] - keep my voice, don’t stuff in keywords, and show me what you changed and why.”
Signed in, Get my prompt fills in your site for you. Otherwise press Copy and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard once: Use your own AI (opens in a new tab).
How it works
- Connect bernard to your AI (once). Log in to bernard, open your site, go to Use your own AI, and paste the setup prompt into your AI to connect it - a one-time setup.
- Paste it into your AI - ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, whichever you already use - then ask in your own words, or use the prompt below.
- Approve. The AI shows you what it changed and why. Read it, make sure it still sounds like you, press Approve, and it’s live.
The aim is plain language, not jargon and not spam - the words a real person uses when they want what you make. Once a page says the right things, give those questions a home of their own with Write FAQs that AI assistants will quote.
Don’t guess - look at what people already search
You don’t have to imagine the words. Google keeps a record of every phrase your site turned up for, and there are two ways to read it.
In bernard. Open Reports, press Traffic, and the bottom of the card lists the searches with how often Google showed you, how many clicked, and where you sat on the page. This half needs no measuring switched on and no tracking of any kind, so it is there even on a site that is not counting visitors - see How many people visited my site?.
Through your own AI. Ask it: “What do people search to find me?” You’ll get the same record with the long tail included - the phrases searched once or twice that nobody would ever think to guess. That tail is usually where the useful work is: the oddly specific questions, the wrong-word-for-the-right-thing searches, the places you show up but nobody clicks. You can ask about the past week, month, or the whole past year.
Two honest caveats. Google’s record runs about three days behind, so the last few days are always missing. And a site that has only just been connected has very little history yet - you’ll be told that rather than shown a thin week dressed up as a trend. The list gets deeper the longer you are with us.
To read those numbers without chasing the ones that don’t matter, see How do I tell if any of this is working?.
Questions people ask
- How do I know what words people search for?
- Think how a stranger would describe what you do, not the insider term - ‘wedding photographer in Bath’, not ‘visual storyteller’. Your AI knows the common search phrases for your field and weaves them in naturally; you approve every change on a preview first.
- Isn’t this just keyword stuffing?
- No - stuffing repeats words unnaturally and search engines penalise it. This is saying what you do in plain, searchable language. Ask for it to read naturally, and check the preview before you approve.
- Can I see the actual phrases people search to find me?
- Yes, two ways. Open Reports, press Traffic, and the bottom of the card lists them. Or ask your AI what people search to find you and it reads the same record from Google, including the long tail of one-off phrases and the past year. Neither one changes your site, so there is nothing to approve. A site that has only just been connected has little history yet, and both will say so rather than guess.