The web development process, stage by stage
The web development process stage by stage: discovery, structure, design, build, content, testing and launch, plus what usually goes wrong.
Journal
Blog.
Writing from the team on search, paid media, and the work of getting a brand off the ground. Everything we publish lives here.
89 articles · page 1 of 4
Structured data that machines can read
Structured data tells a machine what your page means. Which types matter for AI search, the rule that keeps markup honest, and what it will not do.
Post purchase emails and the second order
Post purchase emails decide whether a first order becomes a second. What to send after checkout, how to space it, and what to leave out.
Landing pages that turn clicks into enquiries
Landing page optimization for paid traffic: what belongs on the page, what to remove, how to test properly, and the faults that waste most of a budget.
How to run a local SEO audit in an afternoon
A local SEO audit you can finish in an afternoon: the listing, your website, consistency, reviews, real visibility, and the competitors above you.
Meta description and page titles that earn the click
How to write a page title and a meta description that get chosen: length, what to put first, which pages to fix, and why a search engine rewrites yours.
Choosing a CMS your team will actually use
Choosing a CMS decides who can publish, what a page can hold and how easily you can leave. A plain guide to judging one before you sign.
Entity SEO, and why machines need it
Entity SEO in plain English: what an entity is, why machines need one, and the practical steps that make your business recognisable to them.
Abandoned cart emails that recover real orders
Abandoned cart emails in plain terms: when each one should land, how many to send, what to say, and why a discount is rarely the right answer.
Lead generation that produces enquiries worth having
Lead generation explained: how the funnel fits together, why cheap leads are usually expensive, and the changes that improve quality rather than volume.
Near me searches: how to appear without saying near me
Near me searches explained: why you should not put the phrase on your site, what actually decides who appears, and how implied location searches work.
Search intent: the thing most pages get wrong
Search intent explained: the four kinds, how to read it from the results page in under a minute, and why matching it beats every other on page decision.
Website speed, and what actually slows it
Website speed in plain English: what really slows a page down, the order to fix things in, and the point where more tuning stops paying you back.
Measuring LLM visibility without guessing
LLM visibility is not a ranking, so it needs a method. How to measure it with a fixed prompt set, honest sampling and a score you can repeat.
Writing a welcome email series people finish
A welcome email series is the one sequence almost everybody reads. How many emails to send, what each one should do, and when to stop sending.
Return on ad spend, and why it flatters you
Return on ad spend explained: how it is calculated, why the platform figure flatters you, and what to look at instead before scaling a campaign.
A local SEO checklist you can finish in a week
A local SEO checklist in the order that matters: the listing, reviews, consistent details, service pages and area pages, with what to skip entirely.
How to run an SEO audit
An SEO audit you can run yourself, in the order that finds the biggest problems first: indexing, duplication, speed, content, links and measurement.
Responsive web design beyond shrinking things
Responsive web design is more than a layout that shrinks. What breakpoints really mean, what touch changes, and how to test on a real phone.
AI search optimization: where to start
AI search optimization without the hype: which pages to fix first, how to write an answer a machine can quote, and how to tell whether it worked.
Email automation, and what to automate first
Email automation explained in plain English: which sequences to build first, what triggers them, how it goes wrong, and what is better left to a person.
Cost per acquisition, and how to bring it down
Cost per acquisition explained: how to work it out, what a good one looks like for your business, and the changes that actually reduce it.
The map pack: how to get into the top three
How the map pack works and what moves it: the three factors behind the ranking, why results change street by street, and the order of work to get into it.
Link building without the nonsense
Link building explained honestly: why links still count, which ones are worth having, four methods that work for small businesses, and what to avoid.