AI WORLDBuild a simple chatbot for your small‑business site with Cohere
A step‑by‑step drag‑and‑drop guide that lets you add a friendly AI helper to answer common customer questions on your website.
Hook: By the end of this guide you’ll have a live chatbot on your website that can answer the most frequent customer queries – no coding required. It’s perfect for shop owners, service providers, or anyone who wants a quick, friendly AI assistant.
- A free or paid Cohere account (sign‑up takes under a minute).
- Access to your website’s HTML – for example, the ability to edit the footer or a page through your CMS (WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, etc.).
- A list of the top 5 questions your customers ask (e.g., “What are your opening hours?”).
Create a Cohere account
Go to cohere.com and click the “Sign up” button. Fill in your name, email, and choose a password. You’ll receive a verification email – open it and confirm the account.
Start a new chatbot project
- Once logged in, look for a Dashboard or Projects area – it’s usually a big button labelled “New Project”.
- Click it and pick “Chatbot” as the project type.
- Give the bot a name, like “ShopHelper”.
Why? This creates a dedicated space where Cohere will store the language model (LLM – large language model, the brain behind the chatbot) and all your settings.
Use the drag‑and‑drop builder to set up replies
Cohere provides a visual builder where you can drag blocks like “Question”, “Answer”, and “Condition” onto a canvas and drop them into order.
- Drag a “Question” block onto the canvas and type a common query, e.g., “What are your opening hours?”.
- Drag an “Answer” block right below it and type the response, e.g., “We’re open Monday‑Friday 9 am‑5 pm.”
- Repeat for each of your top questions.
Why? This visual layout replaces writing code – you just tell the bot what to say when it hears a certain phrase.
- Question block: “Do you ship internationally?”
- Answer block: “Yes, we ship to Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.”
Turn the bot into a web widget
A widget is a small piece of interactive UI (user interface) that you can embed on any web page.
- In the builder, find the “Deploy” or “Export” tab – look for a button that says “Create widget”.
- Choose the style you like (size, colour, font). The system will generate a short snippet of HTML/JavaScript code.
Why? This snippet is the bridge that lets your website talk to the Cohere LLM via an API (application programming interface – a way for two programmes to exchange data).
<script src="https://widget.cohere.com/embed.js"></script>
<div id="cohere-chat"></div>
<script>
CohereChat.init({
container: "#cohere-chat",
botId: "ShopHelper"
});
</script>
Add the widget to your site
- Open your website’s editor and locate the part where you want the chat icon to appear – usually the footer or a “Contact us” page.
- Paste the snippet from Step 4 into the HTML area. Save and publish.
Why? Once the page reloads, visitors will see a chat bubble that opens the AI assistant you just configured.