S2. Ep40 - How to Build Your Business Website With Claude Code (No Coding Skills Needed)

Katie (00:27)

Hello, welcome back to another episode. I'm Katie and as always I am joined by Noel. Hi Noel, how are you doing this week? You all good?

Noel (00:40)

yeah, all good as always, yeah, keep'em busy, how are you doing?

Katie (00:43)

Yeah, all good. I don't think I've got anything to moan about the weather this week, so, you know, we can just crack on with the podcast this week.

Noel (00:56)

Yeah.

Katie (01:00)

So any updates that we need to be aware of this week?

Noel (01:06)

So Anthropic released a new model this week and it was their Haiku model. that's basically like their lowest tier in terms of intelligence. And it's not actually been updated for a year. So it was long overdue. Yeah, compared to Opus and Sonnet and Fable, they've had all the love, I guess. But actually...

Katie (01:31)

Yes, click clearly.

Noel (01:35)

Yeah,

very much so. But I think what was actually really interesting to see with this release and how it like, how it ranks in terms of intelligence and usability is if it was released in April. So, you know, just a few months ago, it would have been like it would have been Opus. It was would have been the frontier model at the time. Open AI Gemini couldn't have beat it. So, yeah, really.

Katie (02:01)

That's really interesting.

Noel (02:02)

It is, yeah. And it also comes in at a fraction of the price. So let's say

Katie (02:06)

Hmm.

Noel (02:07)

it was released in April, it would have been 98 % cheaper than Opus. So I

Katie (02:11)

Right, okay.

Noel (02:13)

think for anyone who's running Anthropic on their automations anywhere, I think Haiku 5.5 is almost a bit of a no brainer. It's pretty smart and darn cheap. So, you know, it does make a lot of sense.

And I've chested it out on the agent platform, Clyde, that I've built. And yeah, Clyde works very well on Haiku 5.5. And

Katie (02:40)

That's good to know.

Noel (02:40)

yeah, yeah, yeah, so it's a very good model. Yeah.

Katie (02:44)

Okay, so go and check it out.

Noel (02:47)

Absolutely, I would. After this episode.

Katie (02:49)

Yeah, let us know what you think. Yeah, let us know what you think. We're always interested

in hearing your opinion.

Noel (02:55)

Absolutely, yeah.

Katie (02:57)

Any other updates that you can think of?

Noel (03:00)

So Google released something which is kind of interesting in a way, but they released something called Synth ID. So you can put any text, any image, any video into it and it will tell you if it's AI generated or not. So

Katie (03:16)

Mm.

Noel (03:17)

I don't know how I feel about these

sort

Katie (03:20)

is

Noel (03:21)

of things, but.

Katie (03:22)

yeah because the I think the last one we talked about I can't remember what it was

Noel (03:27)

This is for Substack.

Katie (03:30)

yeah and that hadn't worked very well it

Noel (03:32)

No.

Katie (03:33)

was saying that something that was a hundred percent written by AI was actually only like something like 40 percent written by AI and then someone

Noel (03:43)

Mm-hmm.

Katie (03:43)

who hadn't used AI at all

They were saying like 90 % or something like really high had been written using AI and all of these creatives were like having uproar. Rightly so when

Noel (03:57)

You

Katie (03:58)

you're spending hours writing a sub stack post and then someone's going, actually that's written by AI. So it's upsetting. I get it. So how,

Noel (04:06)

Mmm, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Katie (04:10)

how do you think this one compares?

Noel (04:13)

So it's fairly accurate because let's say you create an image in chatGPT There's actually like a, almost like a fuzzy layer that you, we don't see, but it is there. So that's the same for every image that comes out. So it's basically looking for that and then goes app, that's open AI and it can flag it. Same with videos and things like that. Text is a little bit different, but obviously there are now watermarks and things like that on Anthropic, Google, models have all got them. So.

It's kind of looking for those, so it is, I guess, in a way, pretty accurate. However, clever old me, I figured a way around it.

Katie (04:50)

blow your own trumpet why don't you?

Noel (04:57)

So for make automations and also Clyde, you know, I create images and videos straight in Claude. So we'll probably have to do a podcast on this and go into a bit more details to how we do it in the future. yeah, essentially Claude creates the videos and images in code and when it exports it. Yeah, that they can't tell that was created by AI.

it doesn't have that watermark layer to it so yeah completely undetectable

Katie (05:26)

interesting.

Noel (05:27)

so yeah so

Katie (05:29)

Very interesting.

Noel (05:31)

every time i put someone linkedin it doesn't come up with a little credit note so it's ai generated over some of you know people might think i've you wasted a lot of time in canva creating these

Katie (05:41)

you

Noel (05:42)

these images that i haven't yeah

Katie (05:46)

Okay,

interesting, very interesting.

Noel (05:51)

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, that's pretty much all of it for this week. It's been quite quiet after. There was quite a flurry with Dev Day with OpenAI the other week. yeah, we'll settle down.

Katie (06:02)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We have had some really lovely emails this week.

Because like you say, we read all the emails that come in and we appreciate everyone who gets in touch with us.

So thank you very much. Please do keep sending us emails. Let us know your thoughts, your opinions, what you're working on, what you're trying to get AI to do within your business. We just love hearing about it.

Noel (06:33)

Definitely,

Katie (06:34)

Yeah.

So in this week's podcast episode, we are going to be talking about websites using Claude code. Now, if you're thinking, my goodness, I'm not gonna be able to do this because you've heard the word like code. Please know that if you are quite new to AI, this is something that I think most people can do.

So please don't be put off by the word code. No.

Noel (07:04)

Definitely not.

Katie (07:06)

So I think actually let's start there, Noel.

So for anyone listening who's only used Claude in a chat window or projects or skills, how would you describe what Claude code actually is?

Noel (07:21)

So I would say it's basically the same as what you're used to. It's just a normal chat session. You don't have to look at the code if you don't want to. It can show you previews and things like that. can start the site locally for you and things like that. So it's very similar to how normal Claude session works. So if you can chat to it and you can describe what you want, then that's a good place to start.

Katie (07:48)

Yeah, okay. That does make sense. But I guess why would someone want to build a website? I mean, I know the answer for me. So I'll ask the question, you answer, but I feel like I would quite like to answer as well. Is that allowed?

Noel (08:14)

I know what your answer

would be!

Katie (08:16)

I mean, it's our podcast. There are

no rules because we're the host. So yeah, that's what we're gonna do. So why would a small business or not just a small business owner, any business owner build a website with code instead of something like Squarespace, WordPress, Wix.

Noel (08:37)

I,

it's the configurability and you know, the openness for the design is probably the biggest win that you'll ever get from any other like template builder and things like that. So, you know, you can see the site and then go actually Claude, you know, I don't like this particular element. Could you just move it slightly to the left and it will do that. And if you've ever tried to do that in WordPress or any other, you know, drag and drop builder.

That can be an absolute nightmare to get right. So yeah, that's probably the biggest plus is that you have complete free roam of what it's gonna look like. I think the only limiting factor really is your imagination as to what it could look like.

Katie (09:22)

Yeah, and I think probably for some people it's the design of it that will be difficult, the most difficult.

Noel (09:34)

Yes, yes, I think so. Yeah. I would say lucky would do with any other website is go and find some maybe some inspiration somewhere, find some sites that you like the look of and go,

Katie (09:45)

Yeah. Yeah.

Noel (09:48)

go into the session armed with those ready to go. That

Katie (09:52)

Yes.

Noel (09:53)

that would save quite a bit of time. And we do that anyway, even if we're doing it the old fashioned way.

Katie (09:58)

We do, yeah.

Every time I've had a website built or changed my website, you know,

Noel (10:05)

Mm.

Katie (10:06)

the person who is helping me with my website always says, come with inspiration, go and have a look at websites, take screenshots, tell me what you like, tell me what you don't like, you know, things like that.

Noel (10:20)

Yeah, but there's also things as well. So I've heard when I used to do your websites and, know, we get we get it up and running to a point and then you'd be like, actually, I quite like to have, you know, this particular,

Katie (10:32)

Hmm.

Noel (10:34)

you know, either like a contact form, maybe a directory or something on there. And I'd be like, my word, you know, I'm going to have to go and find plugins. I'm going have to

Katie (10:43)

Yeah.

Noel (10:44)

figure all of this out. It's not like a quick two minute job. But with Claude code,

You can just say to it, look, you know, I want to have like a directory on here, you know, how can I get started with it? And it will go off and it will start doing it for you. know, you don't have to think about, I'm gonna have to download plugins and widgets and all

Katie (11:04)

Hmm.

Noel (11:05)

sorts of stuff. And then it might not look right. You know, the claude code will help you do all of that. All you have to do is ask.

Katie (11:12)

Yeah, I'd just like to caveat that noel hasn't probably helped me with my website because I got someone who was a WordPress whiz in. Probably, I reckon since about 2015 and I think that's if I'm being generous.

Noel (11:30)

Yeah true yeah but I remember that back in the day when I used to hand code your websites as well and you came to me one day and said you know what I'd really like to sell dog treats online I was like blimey now I'm gonna have to learn how to code like an e-commerce site from scratch without AI.

Katie (11:47)

Yeah, god, I so want to do that. I'd like to

just point out, like at that point I was running a dog walking and home boarding business. I wasn't just

Noel (11:59)

Mm.

Katie (12:00)

like randomly like doing marketing

Noel (12:02)

You

Katie (12:03)

and community management and then going do you know what, but on the next page you can also buy my homemade dog treats.

Noel (12:10)

Yeah,

there was a method to the madness.

Katie (12:14)

Yes, yes,

yes. I feel like that needed a bit of an explainer.

Noel (12:19)

Yeah, that's what I...

Katie (12:21)

Yeah. so going back to the question, why would a business owner build a website with claude code and set a square space,

or WordPress or, your chosen platform for, for me, it's not only the, the money signed a thing, but for me, it's the time, the amount

Noel (12:44)

Mmm.

Katie (12:45)

of time it can take to

get things changed over and so I've always used WordPress. I mean, I have used Squarespace as well. Squarespace for me is a bit easier to change things over because it's a bit more restrictive on its themes. But with WordPress themes, like, yeah, I just feel like it's...

it's not the easiest thing to go in and change. But saying that you can create a website, can't you, using Claude code and then ask it for the WordPress plugin.

Noel (13:28)

Yes, you could do that. Yeah, you could have it to create the theme and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, it would be able to do that. That is

Katie (13:34)

Yeah. Yeah.

Noel (13:35)

a bit more manual, probably a bit more technical as well.

Katie (13:39)

Yeah,

so for me it's more about the ease and guess

Noel (13:44)

Mm.

Katie (13:44)

time saved.

Noel (13:47)

Yes, so I guess as like a time example, we recently updated the make automations dot AI website. And if you go and take a look at it, that took us four hours, I would say. And that's not four hours me staring at a screen that's, you know, going off, having dinner, you know, letting Claude just go off and do its thing, you know. But we got to that point.

of having a fully finished website in a couple of hours.

Katie (14:19)

Yeah, I love how you were saying we as well. Thank you. Thank you for including me.

Noel (14:26)

Yep.

Katie (14:27)

So

on a scale of one to 10, like how technical do you need to be to actually get a website live using Claude code?

Noel (14:35)

So I would say to get the site built within claude Code is pretty straightforward to do.

Katie (14:42)

Yeah.

Noel (14:43)

Again, it's just chatting. You're just asking it to do things. That's quite easy to do. I guess when it gets a little bit more technical is when we're trying to then publish it and make it live somewhere.

Katie (14:55)

Mm-hmm.

Noel (14:56)

That's where it gets a little bit tricky.

guess there's two tools that I always use for this. I always use GitHub so I can upload the code to GitHub. And then I then use a tool called vercel which is where basically basically that's your web hosting. And you can just log into GitHub in vercel and then go, right. There's my repository with all the code for the website. Go and make that live and it will put it up straight away on like a temporary, domain name. And then, you know, if you're happy with it.

You can either buy a domain or transfer the one that you already have. So

Katie (15:33)

Mm-hmm.

Noel (15:33)

those are the two tools I would use. I would say they're a little bit more technical, I guess, in some ways, but Claude can handhold you and give you step-by-step instructions to get started on all of those different tools and help you out.

Katie (15:47)

What would you say is the biggest misconception people have about building a website with Claude Cade?

Noel (15:58)

I guess, I guess, yeah.

Katie (15:59)

Like, are they expecting

like something like magical to happen or do they expect it to be like harder than it is?

Noel (16:09)

I think it's a bit of both of those. think once you do it, you think, that was actually pretty painless. I quite enjoyed though building websites. I used to hate it, but now

Katie (16:20)

Hmm.

Noel (16:21)

I find it quite fun. But yeah, there is...

Katie (16:24)

because you're not building

websites for me anymore.

Noel (16:27)

It would be easier these days, not that I'm putting myself forward for any, but

Katie (16:31)

No, no, it's fine, it's fine.

Noel (16:34)

you could do them.

Katie (16:37)

I

wasn't asking you to build me

a website. was just

Noel (16:39)

Yeah.

Katie (16:42)

thinking, you know, I can remember, yeah, you didn't particularly enjoy it, but I was thinking, was that because, you you had quite a difficult client in that case? Okay. Thank you. did. Yes. Thank you very much. Yeah.

Noel (16:54)

It was the tools. It was the tools. I mean, the client was demanding. She knew what she wanted and yeah, nothing else could deviate. Yeah.

But I guess the other misconception is you would expect it to, I guess, come out with a design that would be award worthy in like one prompt. I would...

set expectations with that to start off with. don't think it would do a good job. It just, it would just look quite generic, I think. So if you come armed with some ideas and some designs, maybe you've already, give it a link to your current website so you can get all your colors. It can even grab all the images off your website. So when it actually

Katie (17:39)

Love that.

Noel (17:40)

creates it, can drop those in. So you're not looking at placeholders, you're looking at the real

Katie (17:44)

Hmm.

Noel (17:45)

thing.

which is really, really helpful. But yeah, definitely

Katie (17:47)

Yeah, it is.

Noel (17:48)

come armed with ideas and designs, philosophy, design philosophies. think Claude actually likes to work more with feelings as well. So I always say, well, yeah, this is the feeling that I want somebody to have when they visit the site. And

Katie (18:04)

Mm-hmm.

Noel (18:05)

they're like, yeah, okay, I can do that. And that kind of breaks Claude away from giving you quite boring outputs.

I would say, yeah.

Katie (18:15)

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so you need a lot of feelings, a lot of emotions of how you

Noel (18:21)

Yeah.

Katie (18:22)

want people to experience your website.

Noel (18:26)

And I guess if you're not sure how to word it, then just open a Claude session and, you know, stop brainstorming in there first. then, you know, the way I always build websites and apps and things is to always have that conversation with Claude first, get an idea rounded off and then take that idea with me. And that that will help no end. So, yeah, if you ever get stuck, I would do that.

Katie (18:51)

Yeah, I think the biggest misconception that I've seen floating around social media is

Noel (18:59)

Mm-hmm.

Katie (18:59)

that you can build a Claude Code website and have it up and like running in an hour.

Noel (19:11)

Yeah, it's possible whether it'll look good or I don't know. Yeah, I would say if you want it to make it look nice, you know, and be unique, then a couple of hours, you might you might want to.

Katie (19:25)

So not within an

hour.

Noel (19:29)

Yeah, if it's really simple. Yeah. Yeah.

Katie (19:32)

Okay.

Noel (19:32)

It wouldn't wow anybody. I'll put it that way. It wouldn't be incredible. But

Katie (19:36)

Okay. Yeah.

Noel (19:38)

yeah, what we're after, I guess, for our businesses is something that's branded, unique, has our style and, you know, how we like to work and things like, you know, it's got a personality into it kind of thing. And I think,

Katie (19:52)

Mm-hmm.

Noel (19:53)

yeah, if you're going for that, then yeah, give yourself a bit of time. There's no need to rush it.

would say.

Katie (19:59)

Yeah.

So obviously you've created now a few claude Code websites and you

Noel (20:06)

Mm-hmm.

Katie (20:06)

mentioned, you know, the first website that you created using claude Code took about four hours, but that wasn't you, at your desk in front of your screen for the whole time. What about for clients?

that you've created claude Code websites for, like, from like opening up claude Code to having something ready to show a client, how long do you think that took you?

Noel (20:44)

So

when it comes to doing somebody else's website, I find that quite difficult. know, it's, you're, unless you have like a real strict brief, then yeah, it's kind of tricky. So, you know, we, I recently did a mockup for one of our friends who runs a local charity and that was quite hard to, kind of like figure out and get that initial concept. So I would say it was probably, you know, in Claude code hours, probably a day.

you know, like an eight hour day or whatever, you know, I'd be iterating on ideas and trying to get something that would really look good and then get that person excited about it. I think that's probably the hardest, but it's easier for me to get excited about a website that I'm building for myself. But when

Katie (21:30)

Yeah.

Noel (21:31)

it's somebody else, it's really tricky. But what I would say is within Claude code today, they have the, well, they used to have Claude design used to be like its own separate thing.

within the claude platform, but now it's integrated into claude code. So you could say, could you give me some mockups? know, give me some ideas. Let's have a, know, give me five or so ideas if you don't really know where to start. And it will bring up the claude design and then show you those. So that's kind of how I usually start. You know, that's how I start with any website really is getting those concepts

Katie (22:10)

Mm Yeah.

Noel (22:13)

and things like that.

yeah

some of them are pretty pretty dull pretty boring you'll always find i think if you don't give it any direction the first one it will always give you is editorial style and i don't get excited by editorial websites at all so yeah

Katie (22:30)

Okay.

Noel (22:31)

i usually tell it off and go no no no no let's do something that's really cool and interesting that's really dull and boring you know yeah so yeah

Katie (22:38)

Right, whereas

I love editorial website, just... hello Lord Code.

Noel (22:43)

Claude code is for you. Yeah,

I just just fight. Yeah, I think the Claude's editorial can be a bit dull. I think maybe the editorial you're thinking of is

Katie (22:54)

Okay. Right, okay.

Noel (22:58)

made. Yeah, think your expectations may vary. Yeah, yeah.

Katie (23:02)

Okay, good to know. Is there

anything that you can or can't do with Claude Cade that you can or can't do with like a drag and drop builder?

Noel (23:17)

So I guess maybe, so no, I would say there's nothing you can't do with Claude that you can do somewhere else. Everything can be replicated within

Katie (23:27)

Okay. Yeah.

Noel (23:29)

Claude code. I won't worry about that. So obviously, most websites are maybe a single page, multi-page with information. That's great. But if you're thinking hang about, noel, I've got a blog.

how is that gonna work? Because I've got WordPress, I can go right click a new post and then write it and it appears, right? That's fairly straightforward, but you can recreate those within Claude Code. So our Make Automations website has its own content management system that we've built from scratch. Well, Claude's built from scratch, I didn't, but.

Katie (24:05)

Yeah.

Noel (24:08)

So you can connect.

I use a database tool called SuperBase because that integrates really nicely with claude Code. It knows how to use it. knows what to do. And yeah, it's created all of that for me. So I've got like an admin dashboard, which is authenticated so only I can log in and see it. I can manage the blog posts. can manage for us. I've got podcasts episodes in there that we have. So if you've got things that you think, well, I need a database or

you know, features like maybe it's even an e-commerce, maybe you're selling a few products on your website, then those can also be replicated with Claude code. You don't need to have to use something like WordPress to have a blog website. You can just do it with Claude.

Katie (25:02)

Okay, good to know. So let's talk money. So

Noel (25:08)

Oof.

Katie (25:08)

how does the cost compare to say like a monthly website, builder subscription or like even the cost of hiring like a web designer?

Noel (25:24)

So I guess if you also you'll be using your Claude subscription usage to be able to do this. So you could technically mark the offers free, I guess you were going to use it anyway. So you know, you're going to use it to build a website. that takes your design costs almost to zero. And then to host it. So with vercel you can host for free.

The other apps I've mentioned so far, so GitHub's free. SuperBase is also free to start off with. yeah, the only cost is really your Claude usage to get started

Katie (26:04)

Okay.

Noel (26:05)

with this.

Katie (26:05)

And how much usage like have you, have you got like a, a price you can put on it?

Noel (26:14)

It's very hard with claude Code to know how many tokens it's used to build something. It doesn't make it very obvious.

Katie (26:22)

Yeah.

Noel (26:22)

It will tell you like overall how many tokens you've used over time, but it won't tell you per project. So, I mean, we might.

Katie (26:29)

Okay, because what subscription

do you need for this

Noel (26:36)

year.

Katie (26:38)

within Claude? Because you

Noel (26:39)

That's a good question.

Katie (26:41)

can't do it on a free account.

Noel (26:44)

No, I believe you release need the first paid plan, but then with that first pay plan your Your usage is going to be quite restricted So if you've got like a single page website, you could probably get that done That would be fairly easy to do and not hit your limits but

Katie (27:00)

Yeah.

Noel (27:00)

if you've got something needs a content management system or you know, it needs Some other fancy tools maybe e-commerce then I would suggest looking at a higher paid

plan, even if it's just for the month, just to get that website up and running and done. But

Katie (27:18)

Yeah.

Noel (27:19)

even with that, like the top plan, well, not the top plan, but one of them is like £90 or $100. So compare that to what you would have paid, you know, either in like monthly hosting fees, like you've

Katie (27:34)

you

Noel (27:34)

already saved that already, or maybe you're going to outsource to somebody to go off and do it for you. Like that's going to be more than

you know, $100.

Katie (27:43)

You, well, you're,

yeah, you're talking easily a couple of thousands of pounds

Noel (27:47)

yeah,

yeah, definitely. the cost I would say is minimal to get started.

Katie (27:55)

Okay.

So if you build a website using Claude Code, who actually owns it?

Noel (28:08)

Well that's always the thing with whoever owns AI generated content isn't it?

Katie (28:12)

Yeah, which we have covered in a previous topic with Lucy Wheeler, who

Noel (28:19)

Mm.

Katie (28:22)

is a UK lawyer and she talks all about using AI for your business and the legal side of things, who owns the content, who doesn't own it, and things like that, which...

If you haven't listened to it, do go back and check that episode out. We'll link it below. But yeah, it is kind of like, do you actually own this website?

Noel (28:51)

I would say, I would, for me, I would say yes. So once you've got the code into something like GitHub where, you know, and they're then hosted somewhere on a website. So once you've done that offload, you know, into GitHub, that's kind of like your code to own. So in the future, you know, you could give it to a developer who could then change it if you wanted it to. So if Anthropic, you know, went bust tomorrow.

then

Katie (29:20)

Mm.

Noel (29:20)

you haven't lost your website. You do still have that there in your own file storage and things like that. yeah, I would say you still own it.

Katie (29:33)

Okay.

How does it actually handle changes that you want to make to the website? So maybe you want to add a page, you want to add a blog, a blog post, you want to update your prices further down the line. How easy is that to do?

Noel (29:55)

Very, very easy, would say. It's far easier than any website builder that's on the market. you can just say, look, you know, here, I don't quite like the placement of this, or I need to update the price on this page. This is what it needs to be. And it would just go off and do it. And it'll be done within, you know, probably a couple of minutes. So I think it is incredibly easy. But if you're trying to edit the design and look,

then what I'd always suggest is to take a screenshot and say, well, this is what it looks like. I don't like this bit over here. Can you move it to there? I, you know, the place, maybe elements don't quite line up. Maybe an image isn't

Katie (30:38)

Yeah.

Noel (30:38)

quite in the right place or whatever. You know, you can just give it a screenshot and then go, look, this is the bit that I want you to change. And they'll go, sure. You know, it narrows it down and makes life easier for the model to find it.

Katie (30:52)

So it doesn't

behave like if you're creating an image with chat GPT and you're like change the background and then it basically changes absolutely everything or you're like remove

Noel (31:03)

No.

Katie (31:04)

this from this image is great but remove this from the image and then like it removes everything or yeah it doesn't behave like that okay

Noel (31:13)

no, no,

no, no, definitely not. think with the coding models we've got today. So with Opus 5.5, you, I've never had, had that trouble. It just gets on and does, a great job every single time. It understands what I want, you know, even if I'm pretty vague about things, it may be, just like, I want to add something, but I'm not quite sure. You know, it will gather, it'll have a really good go and it will be consistent.

Katie (31:38)

Hmm. Okay.

Noel (31:42)

So yeah, there's all kinds of things, I guess, on our website, the booking page, you know, you can go through and then book and then book in a session. But when you get to the payment page, where it goes through Stripe, you have like the default Stripe page payment page, which is pretty damn boring, isn't it really? It's not very inspiring or interesting, is it? It's just everyone sees it, you know, but...

You could even say to like Claude, it's like, look, you know, update that page. You know, there is ways to do it within the code and it would just go short, you know, go and check the internet. will check how it should do it. And then it would just go off and do it for you. So like all of our payment pages are all unique and bespoke to us with our style.

Katie (32:27)

Yeah.

Noel (32:28)

So it's a consistent flow for people all the way through our site. So yeah, it changes dead easy.

Katie (32:37)

Okay. And what about things like security, the speed of the website, what does it look like on mobile and of course SEO?

Noel (32:50)

I'll tackle mobile first. So mobile is always

Katie (32:53)

Okay.

Noel (32:54)

the tricky one mainly because

Katie (32:56)

But it's

also really, really important because the highest percentage of people are looking at your website on their mobile.

Noel (33:05)

Very true, yeah. So when you design it in claude Code on your laptop or PC, obviously it's gonna give it you in that format. So I would always check it, upload it to, know, vercel and have it on like that temporary link, temporary domain, and then get that up on your phone and have a look. That's what I always do. But...

If you do start to spot issues and things like that, you can take screenshots of it and go, Hey, this isn't, quite working right. This isn't in the right place. This all looks wrong. You know, it can go in and change that. But if when we go through like the planning phase and we're mentioned Claude design, sometimes that will also, if you like hone in on an idea and say, that's really great. Could you build, you know, that prototype?

for me, it would usually go off and then create the mobile friendly version next to it. So you would have in the same window, it would show you both side by side. So you have a rough idea of what's going to look like when it comes out the other end. And at that point you can obviously then tweak things and then say, you know, make it mobile friendly. But I guess

Katie (34:20)

Yeah.

Noel (34:21)

from the start of project, always add that in, know, just, just.

Katie (34:25)

Yeah.

Noel (34:27)

FYI, you know, just just put that in there

Katie (34:30)

Mm-hmm.

Noel (34:31)

When it comes to SEO and a year, which is AI? Search optimization and things that it's I Would say it's a lot easier. So when so we changed the make automations website over on the 24th of September and we're now on the 14th of October or something that so

Katie (34:55)

Mm-hmm.

Noel (34:55)

So we completely updated our SEO and AI search optimization. what we just did, all I did to Claude was say, look, this is what I want it to do. I want to be seen on Google. I want to be seen in AI search. with that, I also paired it with a blog post, which were there to answer client specific questions.

So if you're worried about not showing up in AI search, then work out what your customer is going to be tapping into chat, GBT, or even Google these days or Claude, and then start, you know, creating content to answer that particular question. And within the, you know, the bar, not even a month, you know, our impressions has been like 2.2 K, almost 2.25 and our Google search.

AI citations has jumped to 191 in just that little window.

Katie (35:56)

Yeah,

that's incredible. isn't it

Noel (35:58)

Yeah, the

speed in which it can do it is crazy these days. You used to sit there and wait six months for keywords to register.

Katie (36:06)

god, yeah.

Noel (36:08)

yeah, it's quite straightforward to do. would say instruct claude Code to have a look at the best practices currently, and then start to then build the scripts that will sit on each page and things like that and make it more optimized.

and it will go off and do that for you. It's really quite clever how it does it. Yeah.

Katie (36:33)

Yeah.

Okay. So is there a risk that every AI built website ends up looking the same like those AI posters?

Noel (36:43)

Yes,

very big risk. you can. Yeah.

Katie (36:46)

Really? Okay.

Noel (36:48)

So like with images, I can now look at a website and know it's been AI generated or not.

Katie (36:54)

Okay.

Noel (36:55)

So, yeah, it's not as obvious as a person with seven fingers, but it is.

Katie (37:01)

Gosh, those

were the days.

Noel (37:06)

Will Smith eating spaghetti and all that.

But yeah, you can definitely tell. So I think where most AIs trip up is they forget that us humans have eyes and we need to be able to read the content. I don't know

Katie (37:22)

Mm.

Noel (37:25)

if anybody's ever sat in a presentation and just gone, well, that was created by AI because I couldn't actually read any of the content on the slide.

because the AI would shrink the text. It would be like, yeah, I've shrunk it down so it fits within the space, but forgetting

Katie (37:42)

Mm.

Noel (37:43)

the font size is way too small. So that to me is always a tell tail trigger of AI. Any blues and purple hues and gradients, they're always a, yeah, you could, I don't know, you can just spot them.

Katie (38:00)

So what can people do then to if, so if people want to go and create a website using Claude Code, but they

Noel (38:06)

Mm-hmm.

Katie (38:07)

don't want their website looking like the same as everyone else's, it is, I guess, to incorporate their brand colors, know, their own images, photos.

Noel (38:21)

Yes, 100%. Yeah. And also go armed with that inspiration of stuff that looks different. It's unique in design. know, even if it's down to not like the entire page, but maybe like the contact form looks pretty cool on a website. You take a little screenshot of that and say, right, you kind of like building it up in little pieces almost

So yeah, so it's like a mood board, you you're building it together and you you'll end up with something which does look quite unique. So if you look at our website, for example, makeautomations.ai, I can't remember a site that looks like ours. You know, it was, I was very intentional that it should look like no one else's. So if someone else does have that, then yeah, do let me know.

I'd love to see it, but yes. But one thing I did say to Claude, I was getting a little frustrated with some of the designs and I said, you know what, just don't come back to me until you can blow my socks off. There were literal words and then what it came back with is what we ended up with. I was like, perfect, thank you. So sometimes maybe in the design sense, you might need to be a little forceful.

Katie (39:37)

Yeah, okay.

Noel (39:39)

But don't swear at it

Katie (39:39)

So what...

Noel (39:40)

though, that's a big thing. That snuck into Claude's Ts and Cs this week. If you constantly swear at Claude,

Katie (39:45)

was that your pants? Where are they?

Noel (39:47)

yeah, if you constantly swear at Claude or abuse it, they'll delete your account. So yeah, don't do that. Forceful but polite.

Katie (39:52)

my gosh. I love it. Don't verbally

abuse AI. Okay, guys.

Noel (40:00)

Yeah.

Katie (40:03)

They just want to go to work and be respected.

Noel (40:07)

exactly yeah it's crazy isn't it

Katie (40:12)

So

where do you see these AI generated websites heading in the, let's say in the next year, because even in

AI

Noel (40:21)

Hmm.

Katie (40:21)

terms, that's pretty radical, isn't it?

Noel (40:26)

Yeah, so in terms of design, I think that we're going to be able to do things that no one's really thought of doing before. That there's going to be websites

Katie (40:37)

Hmm

Noel (40:38)

out there and just like, you'll see it in just, I didn't even know that could even be done on a website. I think we're going to get to that point.

Katie (40:45)

And you know what,

I cannot wait for that day because, yeah,

Noel (40:49)

Yeah.

Katie (40:52)

that to me is actually really exciting.

Noel (40:55)

Yeah, I mean a lot of these sites that I see, especially on YouTube and stuff like that, they'll show it as like some like really crazy fancy animation, but really all it is is like a scroll effect with a video that's playing. So as you scroll down,

Katie (41:09)

Mm-hmm.

Noel (41:10)

like something would pop out or a product would spin round. That's just a video, but it looks cool, but is it groundbreaking? No, not really. We've been doing that for

Katie (41:17)

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay.

Noel (41:22)

years.

Apple have

Katie (41:24)

Yeah.

Noel (41:24)

been doing that for many years, haven't they? yeah. So,

Katie (41:26)

Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah.

Noel (41:29)

but then there's also the point of is a lovely looking website really going to be that useful in the future? So we covered WebMCP a couple of weeks ago and how AI agents are going to interact with your site. So, you know, are more people visiting your website just going to be people's AIs because they're using

chat GPT and Claude like Google, you know, so they're the agents just coming to your site, getting the information and just disappearing. It doesn't care what it looks like. So I don't think we're going to be at a point where the making it look nice is going to be pointless, but I think there will be a crossover point where you would focus more time on getting that information to the AI quicker than, you know, making it look nice.

Katie (42:19)

I think it still needs to look nice in a way that it seems trustworthy and people will feel

Noel (42:24)

Mmm.

Katie (42:25)

confident in buying from you. That it

Noel (42:28)

Yes.

Katie (42:29)

is updated. mean, you know, you still have to have that, I guess, particular look and feel so that actually people who have landed on your website, wherever they've come from, whether that is from

social media, it's from AI, it's from Google, you know, it's a recommendation, it doesn't matter. I still think that your website does a particular job in making people feel like they can trust you with,

Noel (43:05)

Mm.

Katie (43:06)

you know, whatever it is you're selling them.

Noel (43:10)

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Katie (43:13)

whether it's

a seven pound downloadable printable or whether it's to go and look at a house that you're selling.

Noel (43:28)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get that. Yeah. It does have to look nice, but there's, there is that element where you do need to be able to give AI and AI agents the information quickly. So it would actually recommend your site. So when that person then goes, that's pretty cool. I'll go and check that out. You need to be in that position where they see your site first. Otherwise,

Katie (43:55)

Yeah.

Noel (43:56)

yeah.

But having the AI search optimization and things like that there, that's always a great start. I need to go off and find how we're performing on chat.gpt and Claude on our website. Now we've updated it, but yeah.

Katie (44:13)

Yeah. Okay. Well maybe

come back with the results for next week or when you have them and we'll share. Yeah. So yeah, let us know what you think about building websites with Claude code. Is it something that you're going to give a go or you're hesitant and also yeah, go and check out our new website, makeautomations.ai

Can you tell it's AI? Yes or no? Do you like it? mean, we're happy with any feedback. Maybe there's something that you really like. Maybe there's something that you really don't like. Come and tell us. Email us. Hello at makeautomations.ai. Get really nervous over the next week and what people are going to email in.

But as always, we really hope that you've enjoyed this podcast episode and we will catch you next time for another episode very soon.