Writing great prompts
Advanced prompting patterns that consistently produce better sites.
The best PageFork prompts name four things: the audience, the page’s single purpose, the content blocks to include, and the tone or visual style. One clear sentence each, in that order, produces dramatically better first generations than vague prompts.
Editing with AI covers the basics. This page is the next level: patterns that teams who ship great-looking sites with PageFork tend to share.
Name the audience
Tell PageFork who the site is for. The AI shapes copy, density, and visual style differently for “enterprise IT buyers” vs “new parents looking for a daycare”. Include audience context in the first prompt for a new site:
“Launch page for technical founders evaluating observability tools. Needs to feel precise, quietly confident, low-chrome.”
State the constraint, not just the goal
Constraints shape the output. Add at least one to each Edit prompt:
- Length: “in one sentence”, “under 30 words”, “3 bullets max”.
- Tone: “confident”, “playful”, “first-person”.
- Structure: “3 columns”, “above the fold”, “between hero and FAQ”.
- Style: “no exclamation marks”, “no em-dashes”, “UK spelling”.
Without constraints, the AI picks a reasonable default — which is often not what you want.
Reference real things, not adjectives
“Make it more modern” means nothing. “Use the editorial layout of the NYT homepage” or “use a hero similar to Stripe’s docs landing” gives the AI something concrete. URLs and attached reference images both work — see Reference images.
One topic per prompt (most of the time)
The AI works well when one prompt = one coherent change. Combine things only when they’re logically related:
Related (good): “Make the hero darker, use lime accents, and shorten the headline to under 8 words.”
Unrelated (bad): “Make the hero darker, add a pricing page, fix the testimonial typo, and change the footer.”
The second one will technically execute, but the AI splits attention and quality degrades.
Describe before you restructure
Big structural changes work best in two steps:
- Discuss first: “What sections would improve conversion for a pricing page?”. Read the answer.
- Edit with a specific plan: “Add a comparison table between Starter, Pro, and Enterprise, keeping the current hero and FAQ.”
See Edit vs Discuss.
Use blocks to fix specific things
If you want to change “this button” or “this card”, use Select mode to insert a block reference. It’s more accurate than describing the element in prose.
Anti-patterns to avoid
- “Make it better.” The AI will change things for the sake of changing things.
- “Fix everything wrong.” Nothing is specific, so nothing improves predictably.
- “Redo the site.” Use Undo instead, or start a new site.
- “Exactly like [famous site].” Trademark and copyright issues aside, this usually results in a shallow imitation.