# Generating a Site from Brand Inputs

> The generate-from-brand-DNA flow - a client intake questionnaire, a brand and keyword-grounded page plan, copy written in the client's voice, honesty gates, and the review checkpoints before you deploy.

Generating is one of the three ways to fill a new client site. Instead of [porting an existing site](/docs/help/port-a-site) or [cloning a live one](/docs/help/clone-a-site), you build a fresh site from the client's brand inputs. This is how you deliver a site to a client who has no website worth keeping, or none at all.

The output is a set of draft pages built from real builder sections, written in the client's voice, structurally unique to that client, and checked for honesty before it can be saved. You review the draft and finish it in the builder, then deploy.

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## How Intake Works

You invite the client, they receive a link to a guided intake questionnaire, and they fill it in themselves: their business details, brand, proof points, and the voice inputs that make the copy sound like them. Their answers drive the generated site directly.

It works both ways. The client can complete the questionnaire on their own, or you can walk them through it on a call or fill it in on their behalf when that is easier. Either way the answers feed the same brand-and-plan pipeline, the client only ever supplies inputs and approves a couple of checkpoints, and they never touch the live site.

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## The Pipeline

A generate run moves through the same stages, whether the client filled the questionnaire themselves or you completed it with them:

1. **Intake.** Business details, services, service areas, brand identity (or a URL to detect one from), proof points, and the client's own voice inputs.
2. **Brand DNA.** The inputs synthesize into the site's palette, typography, and a durable voice profile. See [Site Settings](/docs/help/site-settings) and [Brand DNA](/docs/help/brand-dna).
3. **Page plan.** A keyword-grounded plan of pages, each with a focus keyword. The plan is not a raw services-by-locations cross-product; low-signal combinations are dropped and near-duplicate keywords are folded together, so you get a tight set of pages worth ranking.
4. **Draft build.** The pages are composed from a template pack, filled with copy written [in the client's voice](/docs/help/client-voice), and [structurally varied](/docs/help/site-variance) so the site is unique to that client. Every honesty gate runs before anything is saved.
5. **Review checkpoints.** The client approves the brand direction and the page plan; the finished draft lands on your operator review board with any needs-review flags surfaced.
6. **Operator deploy.** You review the draft in the builder, publish, and [deploy](/docs/help/deploying).

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## The Intake Questionnaire

The client fills in the raw material a good site is built from:

- **The business** - name, what they do, the services to feature, the areas they serve
- **Brand** - logo and colors, or a website URL to detect a palette and type from
- **Proof points** - the real, specific facts they want the copy to lean on (years in business, certifications, a genuine award), which double as the whitelist the honesty gates check generated claims against
- **How you talk** - a few sentences the client would actually say to a customer, plus whether they read as plainspoken or polished and warm or all-business

Those last "How you talk" inputs are what let the platform write the copy in the client's voice rather than a generic template register. See [Copy in the Client's Voice](/docs/help/client-voice).

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## Copy in the Client's Voice

Generated copy is written to sound like the client, from the voice inputs above and, optionally, from the tone of the writing already on their own site and in their Google reviews. Harvested writing only ever informs tone; it never becomes a quoted phrase or a stated fact. The full mechanics are on [Copy in the Client's Voice](/docs/help/client-voice).

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## Unique by Design

Two clients in the same trade on the same template pack would otherwise receive a recognizably identical site. The variance engine gives each generated site its own structure - column sides, band colors, spacing, typography scale, grids, image treatment, and photo selection - within brand-safe, accessibility-checked bounds, and re-rolls any build that comes out too close to one you already made. See [Never the Same Site Twice](/docs/help/site-variance).

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## Honesty Gates

Generated copy is checked before it can be saved. A build that would ship a claim the client did not actually give you does not persist; it stops with a plain-English reason so you fix the input rather than discover the fiction on the live site.

**Blocked unless the client supplied it:**

| Claim type | Examples | Rule |
|------------|----------|------|
| **Fabricated stats** | "17+ years", "since 1998", "over 500 homes served" | A number-shaped claim must trace to a real fact the client provided, or the build aborts |
| **Rating and award proof** | "5-star rated", "top rated", "award winning", "A+ BBB rating" | A rating or accreditation claim must be a proof point the client actually supplied |
| **Superlatives** | "the best plumber in town", "unbeatable", "#1 in the area" | A market-superiority boast may ship only if the client typed it themselves; the platform never invents one |

**Also enforced on the built-in template packs:**

- **No borrowed identities.** A template pack can never ship a real reviewer's name, a source business's contact details, or a source business's live form embed. This is checked on every build, so a generated site can never route a client's leads to someone else's inbox or quote a stranger as a happy customer.
- **No fabricated proof in images.** A rating badge or "5-star" claim carried in an image, its alt text, or a filename is caught the same way body copy is.

**Advisory checks (never block, always surface):**

- Generic, AI-sounding stock phrasing is flagged for review.
- Two clients whose hero copy comes out very similar are flagged so you can differentiate them.

You decide what to do with an advisory at the review board; the hard gates decide themselves.

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## Drafts Only, Always

Like every content flow, generation never publishes and never deploys. The finished site lands as drafts on your operator review board, honesty-gated and variance-checked, waiting for you to review, finish in the builder, and deploy. A generated site cannot reach a visitor without an operator pressing Deploy.

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## Summary

| Question | Answer |
|----------|--------|
| Input | An intake questionnaire the client fills in, or that you complete with them |
| Output | Draft pages in the client's brand and voice, unique to that client |
| Copy | Written in the client's voice, honesty-gated against fabricated claims |
| Uniqueness | Structurally varied per client and re-rolled if too close to a prior build |
| Publishes anything? | Never - drafts only, you review and deploy |
| When to use it | A new client with no site worth porting |

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Source: https://seedlysites.com/docs/help/generate-a-site
