Reach out to book a complimentary 20-minute call. Share your website, specific concerns, and book your no-obligation chat to ask me anything about your website.
WordPress gives you ownership, flexibility, and independence. You can update it yourself, grow into it over time, and work with any developer you choose — including someone other than me.
Reach out to book a complimentary 20-minute call. Share your website, specific concerns, and book your no-obligation chat to ask me anything about your website.
WordPress gives you ownership, flexibility, and independence. You can update it yourself, grow into it over time, and work with any developer you choose — including someone other than me.
Lately I’ve been trying out Studio, WordPress’s own local development app. Initially, just as an alternative to Local to see what it could do. I’ve found that Studio Code, the agentic AI built into it, has been surprisingly nice to use. Connected to WordPress-specific documentation, it feels more powerful and reliable than my trial run of that other WordPress experiment, Telex, which tends to unravel with successive requests (in my experience).
Using Studio Code on a few real-life client tasks this past week, my overall impression is positive: it’s intuitive and I really like being able to connect my IDE to this setup. However, while it’s good at creating a solution it is less good at choosing how a solution should be built in WordPress.
This is a BETA version, I’m sure the experience will become refined over time and with more usage.
Make me a theme!
Diving right into Studio Code on the heels of it’s launch (and with 100,000 free AI credits to start), I asked it to build me a new block theme based on an existing classic site, and gave it a full-page screenshot to work from.
In just a few minutes it had spun up a new site and a custom block theme. “Wow!,” I thought with just a twinge of existential dread, “This is going to save me so much time!”
But then I looked at how it decided to build. Behind the pretty design curtain was a hardcoded stylesheet of colors, font sizes, spacing values, and core block tweaks that had no global definitions. Rather than using theme.json, or executing designs in core blocks on the page, Studio Code had created something with a classic junior-developer mindset – built literally to the spec but without any consideration for long-term maintainability or natural changes in content over time.
Taking apart what AI built and putting it back together the “right” way, I wondered if being more specific in my prompts about how to build this theme would improve the result. But also, shouldn’t it already sort of know that hardcoding everything is “wrong”? Or, at least, that it shouldn’t be the default?
As I rejiggered the theme, I gave Studio Code a short, specific task to explain why a style wasn’t appearing, using CSS I’d already written and tested elsewhere. I shared the code snippet (add a border-bottom on the current page’s link in the main navigation).
Studio Code found the relevant code in my theme, checked the frontend and reported that the class it needed — .current-menu-item — wasn’t being applied. Which it then decided to interpret as an error. It called the missing class the “real bug” and promptly dove into architecting a solution.
As it iterated, showing me a log that proved it was working very hard, it found the reason why the class didn’t exist on the front-end: the nav links weren’t wired to real WordPress Page objects. WordPress only auto-adds .current-menu-item when a nav link references a real post ID. The menu links were hardcoded URLs because Studio Code had created a visual match to my initial design, but not the actual pages indicated.
But, again, this was a choice made by Studio Code to put placeholder links in the menu rather than create a menu of pages. That’s not something I would do when building a site out and it didn’t occur to me that anyone else (or any agentic presence) would create a menu this way either.
From this “bug”, it determined that the next step was to create a new PHP function: a filter that manually compared each link’s URL to the current request and tags it as “current” allowing my class to work.
But that solve was also a totally unnecessary fix (that cost me whole $1.97 in AI credits). The better answer would have been going into the editor and reconnecting each nav item to its actual Page. The new function solved a perceived failure that was actually just WordPress working as intended. If I was using Studio Code as a non-developer, I wouldn’t have known the difference.
Studio Code didn’t tell me it was about to add a custom function, and it never surfaced that an alternative fix was rebuilding the nav links, not working around their absence. Solving-the-symptom and solving-the-cause looked identical to the tool (because it’s predictive, not consciously trouble-shooting).
I expected that Studio Code would have the context around how WordPress works to approach the initial request differently. But, that just reinforces the value of my own experience with WordPress over 20 years. I know where to look when funky issues occur. To Studio Code (aka. The Hammer), everything is a nail.
Status:
Investment: 100,000 AI credits
Used: 19,727 credits
Level of completion: Complete but also wrong
Production-readiness: Not ready
Probabilistic decision-making
“Combobulating…”
Part of why I didn’t catch these misdirected efforts in the moment: Studio Code (and other AI pals) display a running log while they work. They are disarmingly busy with file searches, checks, little status lines, and occasional bits of personality. To a human, that reads like someone narrating their process, and we extend that the same trust we’d extend a colleague who’s talking through their steps out loud. A person doing that is usually also self-correcting as they go, so hearing the narration is itself a signal that the work is on track.
Alas, ’tis but an illusion. The log is a UX pattern, not a transparency window. It tells you the tool is doing something, even when that’s just diving down another rabbit-hole.
Web designers aren’t out of a job (yet)
What Studio Code produced worked but it didn’t reliably reach for the WordPress mechanism that would allow for a more functional, thoughtful structure. Like the Mechanical Turk that appeared to play chess autonomously, it’s a fun rush to the finish line but unless you can run through multiple passes and specifically steer it (ouch, the AI credits!), it’s not quite a replacement for the knowledgable human within.
I can review what Studio Code and AI tools produce and decide whether to accept it or push back on the process. For the parts I need technical help with – building utility plugins and custom blocks – Studio Code is still a genuinely handy tool. I fix what I think it should have done differently, or, as I like to say, make it more better.
For people who don’t have a background in building websites, or knowledge of what to ask for, what gets produced is likely to create issues: accessibility failures, a plugin or theme that’s hard to maintain over time, and usability problems for anyone else who has to work with what they made.
In some ways, this reminds me of the evolution of desktop publishing. Once people could create in Microsoft Word, design opened up to everyone. There were fewer barriers to entry – which in my opinion is always good. It also introduced a lot of “bad” design, simply because people weren’t trained in the field. Comic Sans, all caps, off-brand colors, whimsical clip art, centered or fully justified text – these are the classic faux pas that make professional designers cringe. But ugly can be beautiful too. Look at thrift store paintings and found art, both of which have their own dedicated connoisseurs. What’s beautiful is that people want to express themselves, in all kinds of ways. When you don’t know the rules, there are no rules (which is something you also have to discover on your own after you learn all of the rules)!
So if people want to prompt their way through a website design, that’s not a bad thing. Maybe it becomes a kind of web design renaissance – people generating on the fly and just having fun with it.
But… as a web developer, there is a place where those rules do matter, when you are making something for public use and not just for your own amusement. So, don’t forget to review the code and push back on those assumptions.
I have been building WordPress themes for about 16 years now. I started with child themes, then builders, and then moved into custom development with Underscores. But I’ve never really delved (I think we can use this word again, right?) into plugin development. I taught myself to code in olden times, using BBEdit and Dreamweaver. I never picked up (nor was I interested in) build processes, React, tooling (gross). What I do know, and am interested in, is how the web is supposed to work for people: the conventions that we rely on, what makes an experience inclusive and accessible, and what a given use case technically requires versus opting for the shiniest solution.
With the help of AI, those years of practical experience were all I needed to start building my own plugins, first with Claude and now with Studio. There have been small utilities I’ve wanted for various sites over the years, and usually the plugin I found in the WordPress Repository often felt like overkill (a multi-tool, plus an upsell!). With Studio’s AI agent, I’ve been able to build the simple, single-purpose versions myself: an accessible promotion banner that can display on specific pages and be dismissed, a small SVG shape generator for when a design needs to be less boxy, an admin utility that alerts me when a client’s domain is about to expire, so I can send a reminder before I get the “my site is broken!” email.
I know what I want these tools to do, how I think they should do it, and what requirements to check for. Without AI, it is unlikely that I would have made it through the plugin-architecture learning curve on my own. I can do anything, but not everything, as David Allen might remind me.
This is the positive outcome of what’s happening with AI right now. But the other side of this new capacity we all have is the tendency to get caught up in the machine’s momentum and accept what gets created at “It works! (P.S. I’m clearly a genius.)”
(A)I Made This
Someone recently shared a calendar tool a volunteer had built to embed on their website. It looked polished (if a tad Design By Claude). Attractive layout, categorized events, a clever interface. They’d built it with an AI agent platform, start to finish, without writing a line of code by hand. Impressive!
I noted that font size was a bit small and then tried to tab through it with my keyboard.
It didn’t work. No focus states, no logical tab order, interactive elements you couldn’t reach. A visitor using a screen reader or navigating without a mouse would have been locked out entirely. The client had been visually wowed and both they, and the volunteer, had no idea that what they had made was completely inaccessible. Not only did this person not write the code, they didn’t really have the code, not to debug, maintain, or explain. They had a working demo hosted within an app that they didn’t own.
Making things is exciting
Look, I know the thrill of making something work with your own bare hands. I don’t want to be the kind of elitist knowledge worker that says, “Only real developers can touch code”. The whole World Wide Web is founded on universal access. Making things means exploring, testing assumptions, screwing it up. That’s how we learn.
For years, “this looks a little rough” was a decent proxy for “this was made by someone still learning, proceed with caution.” Sloppy code usually looked sloppy. But the clues that told us things weren’t working in the past are (almost) gone. What many AI tools produce is clean, conventional, reasonably well-structured code that works like magic.
From convivial tool to … weapon of capitalism?
For most of the twentieth century, things were built to be opened. You could pop the back off a radio, replace a tube, and figure out what was happening in there even if you weren’t the one who built it. Over time, that stopped being true.
The Phoebus cartel famously agreed to cap lightbulb lifespans in the 1920s specifically to keep people buying replacements. Cars went from machines that a relatively handy person could tune up in their driveway to rolling computers that lock diagnostics behind proprietary tools. Farmers had to fight John Deere for the legal right to fix their own tractors, because the software wouldn’t let anyone but an authorized dealer touch it. The right-to-repair movement exists because manufacturers found that making things un-fixable was a durable business model.
The philosopher Ivan Illich had a term for an alternative long before the advent of “smart” anything: a convivial tool, one people can understand, adjust, and repair themselves, versus an industrial tool that makes us dependent on someone else to keep it running. The internet of things pushed a lot of ordinary objects (thermostats, doorbells, light switches) into IP controlled territory. You don’t fix a smart lock. You wait for a firmware update, and hope the company still exists, or you replace the whole thing.
The web was designed to be on the convivial side of that line. View source is right there in the browser. An entire generation of self-taught developers (Hello, world!) learned by looking at how other people’s pages worked, taking them apart, and making changes. That openness is why the web, like the printing press, was able to connect people and become a defining technological and cultural force.
An AI-generated product you can’t read or maintain is problematic. In this case, it’s not that people sat down and decided to make plugins or apps un-fixable, but that’s a possible future when the barrier to producing drops at a speed well past comprehending what the heck you are doing.
Right now, a lot of AI tooling is priced like a loss leader. It’s cheap or free while companies fight for market share and habit formation. Once enough of us are building things we can’t maintain without the tool that built them, the pricing has room to move, and we won’t have much leverage. It’s not so different from the printer-and-cartridge model, or the appliance you can’t repair without the manufacturer’s proprietary part: the dependency is built in before anyone’s paying attention to what it’ll cost once we’re locked in.
And I can’t leave this section without saying it: none of this is truly free or cheap. Every plugin an AI generates for you, every draft, every image — it’s not fluffy and weightless. It’s server farms, drinking water for cooling and burning power at a scale most of us never have to look at (yet). Read more about the energy use and climate footprint of big tech.
With great power, comes great responsibility
AI has genuinely expanded what a solo developer or a small in-house team can produce. That’s a tangible benefit, an objectively good thing. Someone with no coding background can now build a tool that solves a real life problem they have without a huge budget or a developer on staff.
Between the eureka moment of “It works!” and understanding enough about how it works to be responsible for it, lies a world of complex unknowns.
As I’ve said previously about web accessibility, ignorance of the law does not grant you immunity from its rules. Whether you are a developer, a volunteer, or a business owner — if you ship it to the public, you own it. Can your product or app be maintained by you, or is “ask the AI to fix it” the only path forward when something breaks? Does it work as intended for every visitor, not just the ones who are most like you? Does it meet whatever bar the project is held to — WCAG for a government or public-facing site, HIPAA-adjacent handling for a healthcare client, basic security hygiene for anything touching user data?
Asking questions is still the strongest tool in your toolbelt
This applies whether you’re evaluating a plugin from the WordPress repository or something you built yourself with an AI assistant. Before it goes live — especially in front of the public, or anywhere near sensitive data — ask:
Can someone here actually read and maintain this code? Can a genuine human on your team open the file, understand it, and change it without starting from scratch.
Has it been tested with a keyboard and a screen reader? Visual polish tells you nothing about whether it’s usable. Tab through it. Try it with a screen reader.
What happens when the person who built it moves on? If the answer is “no one else can touch it,” you don’t have a tool, you have a liability with a deadline.
Does it actually meet the compliance bar this project requires? A government contract, a healthcare client, an accessibility commitment — these aren’t optional extras layered on top of “does it work.” They’re part of what “done” means, and AI has no idea what your project’s specific obligations are unless someone tells it, checks its work, and keeps checking.
These are the kinds of questions we ask ourselves as developers before shipping something. When AI makes it possible to sail past the friction of decision-making and still end up with something that looks finished, the burden is on us as creators to push back and do some due diligence.
Featured image: A scene from ReBoot, an awesome Canadian animated series that was briefly on TV on Rochester, NY during my youth. Characters existin the “mainframe,” a computer generated world, and had to keep the universe safe from the evil viruses known as Megabyte and Hexadecimal.
In his recent essay in NOEMA, “Why is Everyone so Sad in Tech?”, Aaron Horwath paints a picture of a wave of people taking up pottery, knitting, and old-timey analog hobbies, while confessing that they suspect the jobs they’ve built careers around might not mean much. Horwath borrows a term, “workism,” from Derek Thompson’s 2019 essay in The Atlantic, describing a generation of high earners seeking the meaning and community from work that earlier generations found in religion or vocation. This sounded eerily familiar to my own experiences as a person who makes websites for a living.
Workism (a disease I may have acquired and could still struggle with) felt like the genesis of an earlier concept, one foundational to modern capitalism, “Taylorism”.
A time to every purpose
In 1881, at twenty five years old, Frederick Taylor conducted a time study at the Midvale Steel Company plant. He stood with a stopwatch and measured how long each motion of a worker’s task took, then broke the work down into its smallest repeatable parts. This became the basis for Taylor’s management theories, and Taylorism was embraced as a “scientific management system” for optimizing worker efficiency and productivity. A worker specialized, focused on a single motion, and the “unnecessary” movement was designed out of the job. Agile, waterfall, sprint planning anyone?
At the same moment, an equal and opposite reaction was taking shape. William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement looked at the same mass production Taylor was optimizing and saw something being lost. Morris argued that the disappearance of artisan craft and quality was dehumanizing, that it severed the connection between a maker and the object they made, a connection he believed was essential to human fulfillment. He also argued that workers deserved pride in their craft and fair wages for it, and that beautiful, well made objects shouldn’t be reserved for people who could afford to commission them.
Master of my craft
Alongside mass production, growing energy demands, and a run of impressive engineering feats — suspension bridges, the internal combustion engine, the Eiffel Tower — came the professionalization of science and engineering fields. Scientists became public figures who had opinions that mattered with the credentials and associations to prove it. Modern genius was celebrated and mythologized, a cult of personality.
Industrialization and specialization created real opportunity, but they also created a new class: the person recognized as belonging to a specialized group with the authority to say what counted as correct or valuable work. That class, coincidentally, was also a white and male one. Professionalizing expertise wasn’t only about codifying knowledge, it institutionalized whose knowledge counted.
AI potentially tweaks that inheritance. Where the old expert class gatekept authority behind credentials, an AI tool hands anyone the tone of authority on demand — the confident structure, the ability to spellcheck and make grammatically correct sentences, immediate fluency in any language or topic. That sounds like democratization but we still need to be aware that the underlying judgments and information presets still come from somewhere fallible. They are built into a model trained by a small group of people, with a cultural bias for particular conclusions and meaning.
And access to knowledge is still specialized, “knowledge workers” are untouchable acolytes to the rarified world of data. Or, we thought we were, until AI threatened to take our jobs.
Here comes the sun (or not)
The epic story of industrialization is Man v. Nature (yeah, we won, good job everyone), it’s also a story about what aspects of the social fabric were subsumed by new industries and factory work: our relationship to land, family proximity, church, a legible community, a slower and shared sense of time. Telegraphs and trains (and, of course, later, phones, faxes, and the World Wide Web) collapsed the sense of time and space which had once structured how we related to each other and our intake of information.
Factory shifts collapsed something else, our relationship to the sun. Workers on night and early shifts could no longer rise with daylight and sleep at dark, so a trade sprang up to solve the problem: the “knocker-upper,”1 who walked the streets before dawn tapping on windows with a long pole to rouse people in time for a shift.
Modern life had begun to speed up our experience of time.
Whistle while you work
With this new sense of time as a resource to optimize rather than a thing to live in, being busy became a kind of evidence, proof that you were a contributing member of society, that your life had value (this belief is deeply enmeshed in our culture as evidenced in persistent rhetoric that dehumanizes people who rely on government services, or who are unhoused).
Devices and screens have taken that compulsion and 10X’d it. They’re built to be always on and always available. This intentional design feeds a specific, gamified fear of missing out: the sense that we can send one more email, refine one more process, finish one more task, and then we’ll be caught up. That feeling is an illusion, because work online doesn’t ever end. It’s self propagating. There’s no bottom or finish line.
The company store is the algorithm
If the work itself doesn’t offer meaning, what’s left is what the work can buy. A factory worker earned enough, sometimes, to shop at the company store. What we can afford with the money we’ve traded our time for starts to tell a story about our place in the world. Do we rent or own? Bike or drive? Shop at Whole Foods or Aldi? Consumption becomes a substitute for meaning and self-worth, and it also becomes the public-facing mask we identify with.
Craft against the machine
When a process can be automated, whether by an assembly line or an AI tool, the value of the experienced human hand behind that work will lose out to speed and efficiency, whether or not that speed and efficiency is genuine or only perceived.
It still takes real time to train a tool to produce something that reads as thoughtful. But eventually, the rough edges are worn away. Imperfections smoothed over. Choices that push in a different or difficult direction remain untraversed in favor of what becomes a more predictable outcome. The result is homogenous, which is the goal of a program that maximizes efficiency. A product built to be reproduced at scale was never meant to be unique or memorable.
There’s a bitter irony here, one Morris ran into himself. He wanted beautiful, well made objects available to everyone, not just the wealthy. But hand craft doesn’t scale, and his own furniture and textiles became luxury goods that only wealthy people could afford. The value of art is a weird and illogical anomaly and the distinction between what is craft and what is fine art, whose work matters, and whose is forgotten is an undecidable problem. So, back to AI –
The drawback of a friction-less experience and surface-level fluency is that the process is no longer the product. The ease of “looks good to me” is desirable because it keeps the machine running comfortably along it’s familiar track and we are rewarded with the warm glow of productivity.
Love / Hate
People have opinions about AI. Some are all in, experimenting with new tools and models, genuinely enjoying the inherent possibilities. As users, we don’t generally see the cost behind the results that are magicked up for us (the water, the labor and exploitation built into training these systems). We just get the impressive sounding answer to our request, usually in seconds. Others reject the whole premise of AI or just don’t feel they have any use for it. But, whatever our feeling around it, it’s changing us as well as the literal landscape.
In Charlotte Brontë’s 1849 novel Shirley, a struggling mill owner in Yorkshire introduces labor saving machinery to his textile mill, which leads to widespread unemployment and violent unrest — a fictionalized version of the real Luddite uprisings of 1811 and 1812. Writing a generation after the event, Brontë was looking back at what the machines had cost the community while acknowledging that progress was necessary for the industry to survive and compete.
The mill workers had experience and skills that stopped being of value the moment a machine could do approximately the same labor, faster and more cheaply.
In 2017, Jeff Bezos made comments widely read as support for a universal basic income, in the middle of a broader wave of tech leaders — Musk, Zuckerberg, and others — raising similar concerns about automation and job loss. Scott Galloway, writing in The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, read that endorsement as something closer to an admission: the person building the robot-run warehouses had already seen where the work was going, and in his vision of the future, there won’t be enough jobs left to sustain the current workforce. But to keep growing and expanding, as successful business requires, they (aka. we) need to be given credits in order to keep feeding the machine (It’s people!).
Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, Dead perfection, no more.
As a freelance designer and developer, AI has expanded what I can competently pursue on my own, when I know what I want and I know what to ask for. The value of my experience and knowledge of underlying processes and behavior inform how I work with my tool (say “Hello” Claude!).
What I keep noticing, though, watching these tools work: they trend toward a smoother, middling result. They can’t make the leap of logic that’s a little nonsensical, even absurd, that opens up a new direction entirely. That part of our conversation with AI remains for our own human discernment.
I trained as a painter, and what I learned there wasn’t really about producing finished art objects. It was about building technical fluency with materials and developing a voice so that a decision could become instinctive. The eye and hand are trained to recognize the right unplanned moment when it shows up, because it can’t be scheduled or repeated on command. Cartier-Bresson called it the decisive moment: his years in Cubism gave him the technical grounding to catch spontaneous, incompatible moments as they intertwined into something coherent, a skill his camera couldn’t do for him no matter how good the lens was. Art, science, and technology have always cross pollinated this way, as inspired thought and experimentation feeding each other. That’s the genius, the human spark, and it can’t be automated.
An AI tool is built to give you the most likely next word, the average of everything it’s seen before. Average isn’t the same as good, but it’s fast, and fast is what we’ve been trained, by a century+ of Taylorism, by devices that never turn off, by the low hum of always having one more thing to do, to mistake for “good”.
“What is adequate journalism if not great journalism?” – Bill McNeal
I could be wrong, I could be right
The concept of a “living room” evolved from the communal hearth where a family unit or tribe would convene to share their stories and connect with their past, present and future. Stick a 75″ LED screen in there and it’s now a “TV room” – the warm glow of connection shed for the blue pulse of being together, alone.
Tools don’t just do the work you give them. They generate more work in their own image. A dishwasher doesn’t save you from dishes and a washing machine doesn’t finish the laundry — they change how you perceive the cost/benefit of that work. The object intuits the demand. Give a tool the ability to generate, draft, and revise, at no apparent cost, and you won’t do less work. You’ll do more of it, faster, at a lower bar, right up until you can’t tell the difference between something you made and something that was made adequately, on your behalf, while you were busy multi-tasking.
The cost of convenience is the loss of time we shouldn’t have to account for — daydreaming while we hand wash a few dishes, taking a wrong turn that leads to an unexpected discovery, making the mistake that becomes invention.
Why is “perfection” (aka. control) a goal? Isn’t mess and disorganization more closely aligned with how we actually operate? We are not machines (or gods), we will never perfect our output because absolute control and predictability are unnatural, static, and false.
Perfection is like a supermarket banana, it’s a seedless clone that will never evolve into anything new. Doing it wrong is the experience we need.
Your navigation isn’t just a “menu of options”. It is a reflection of the structure of your website and it helps people understand the virtual space they are traversing.
A client came to me with a new site already scoped. The navigation was decided in a single internal meeting. Someone on the team sketched out headings, the owner approved, and that was that. It felt complete (it matched how the internal team thought about their content) and ready to build.
I will accept the role of the Debbie Downer, sound the “wah-wah” intro…
Good design is invisible
When navigation works, nobody notices it. A visitor who finds what they need in two clicks doesn’t think “Wow, great information architecture!” – they just find what they need and move on.
I’ve written previously about your website as a service. Let’s consider your website navigation within this framework of usability and usefulness.
Navigation has some very important jobs to do. It connects multiple things pulling in different directions: what your business wants people to do, what your users are trying to accomplish, and what search engines need in order to understand your site at all. Therefore, navigation labels need to reflect not only the information architecture of your website but also the language used by your visitors and their jobs-to-be-done.
When we make assumptions, and don’t test them, that can affect every interaction that follows (conversion rates, performance, support tickets, and sales).
The junk drawer called “resources”
Almost every website has had, at one time or another, that generic top-level heading of misbegotten origin:
“We need all of these things and we don’t know what to call them.”
“How about ‘Solutions‘?”
“Perfect!”
Generic labels are essentially meaningless and will ultimately become the final resting place for content that doesn’t quite fit anywhere. A PDF nobody categorized? Resources. A page the sales team asked for last quarter? Solutions.
A dirty magnet is a word or phrase that can mean different things to different people. It is vague and meaningless and can draw attention because it seems like it might be useful. Examples of dirty magnets include Resources; Knowledge Base; Quick Links, and Useful Links. By far, the worst dirty magnet of all is Frequently Asked Questions, which in my experience is the single worst Web design feature I have come across in more than 25 years of helping design websites.
To your users, some of these words seem to promise answers. In reality, these “dirty magnets” pull people away from the genuine scent of information. They are also some of the least-visited, worst-performing sections of a site.
Navigation should answer a task, not describe a content type
Humans like to connect things. Pattern recognition is an important survival skill helping us to navigate complex environments and adapt to new surroundings. But, we are also lazy. If there is a way for our computational brain to do less work, it will pursue the easier path. Hey, energy conservation. No judgment here.
But, when it comes to organizing content there are two pitfalls I see a lot: grouping by audience (forcing people to self-identify disrupts their task) and grouping by content type (PDF, video, white paper). These categories might make sense to your internal team, but I promise you that nobody arrives at a site thinking: “Gee, I wonder where all the PDFs are?”
People think:
“I need to compare these two options.”
“I have this specific problem right now – what do I use?”
“I want the evidence behind this claim before I commit.”
Those are tasks. A well-built navigation maps directly onto them, and treats format – PDF, video, article – as a filter inside a topic, not the top-level label itself. A university’s admissions site shouldn’t lead with “Publications” and “Videos”; it should lead with “Applying,” “Financial Aid,” and “Visit Campus,” with the brochure PDF and the video tour living inside whichever of those actually answers the visitor’s question.
Many organizations have said to me that they already know their top tasks because they’ve got search and website analytics. Search and website analytics are simply not sufficient to give you true and comprehensive insights into the top tasks. For starters, they will rarely give you insight on tasks that you have no content on.
If you think you “know,” your bias is showing. Even a well-reasoned, intent-based structure is still a hypothesis until real people try to use it.
Testing with “real users” doesn’t always need to draw from people with specific domain knowledge. If your audience is a general consumer public, general-population usability testing is fine. The more specialized your audience – clinicians, engineers, procurement officers, anyone with domain vocabulary a stranger on a train might not have – the less a general-population test can tell you.
A card sort is better suited to generating that hypothesis in the first place. Card sorts are a good place to start because they help you get a sense of the words people use and how they group navigation items.
Tree testing– checking whether people can find a specific thing inside a proposed structure – is usually the right tool once you already have a hypothesis to validate.
All you need are 8–12 people to test your menu structure. Running these exercises is painless, affordable, and can be done remotely (Lyssna is great for this).
Navigation reflects your strategy, not just your structure
Navigation might be one of the least glamorous parts of a website project, but it’s a foundational part that will impact everything else. It provides visual organization of the site as well as reflecting the state of content relationships and structure contained within it.
A task-informed structure indicates there is a clear picture of who your audience is and what they need to accomplish. Think about the tasks and the language people use when planning navigation, and you will be thinking about how your website should work and how content connects. This in turn informs your content strategy. Once you have this governance and logic in place, new content is less likely to be tossed into a junk drawer and your whole website will be easier to maintain over time.
Good design is built to serve the person using the service. If your website menu reads like a list of internal priorities instead of the handful of things your audience actually came there to do, that’s worth testing.
Featured Image: “The Story of the Emperor’s New Clothes.” Illustrated by Henry Justice Ford, The Yellow Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang, original story by Hans Christian Anderson, London, New York, Bombay: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1906, pp. 21-25.
If you have a website, it’s likely that your media library has accumulated some unoptimized files.
I recently did an audit for a small nonprofit that had been running their WordPress site for about ten years. What we found was an overstuffed digital attic: huge PNG images, videos eating up hundreds of megabytes of server space, old PDFs nobody had accessed in years, and zip archives that probably shouldn’t have been uploaded in the first place.
Up to 90% of digital data is not used. We collect. We store. We create and then don’t use. Data is the atomic structure of digital. Words, music, images, films, videos, software. It all ends up as data. Most data is like single use, throwaway plastic. What sort of society accepts 90% waste?
That’s the law of space (and time): the more space you have, the more junk you will fill it up with. Adding storage is always easier than deleting what you no longer need. But there are real costs to this seemingly infinite, intangible digital space: to your site performance, to your hosting bill, and to the environment.
Back in my day…
If you built websites in the dial-up era, you already know this story. But, let’s wax nostalgic for a minute:
File size wasn’t an abstract concern in the early days of the web. A 200 KB image on a 56k modem cost you 60-seconds and a beep boop … and your image loaded incrementally.
Choosing the wrong file format, or skipping optimization, could mean the difference between a site that worked and a page full of broken image icons.
We had three formats to choose from (and we had to walk 3 miles in the snow to get to school every day):
BitMap and GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) – were the first graphics formats supported by HTML. GIF was perfect for simple graphics, logos, quick animations, and those blinking “under construction” banners that were everywhere on the early web. Capped at 256 web-safe colors. Photographs had to be dithered if saved as a GIF and the results were always pixelated.
The JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) became the standard in 1992 and was a revelation for photographic images, introducing lossy compression that could squeeze a photo down to a fraction of its size. You chose your compression level deliberately, previewing the quality tradeoff before you committed.
PNG (Portable Network Graphics) – developed as a patent-free alternative to GIF with better quality and more colors.
Screens added another layer of constraint. Many monitors ran at 800 x 600 pixels (smaller than today’s phone screens in raw pixel count). If you sized an image incorrectly, it could overflow the screen, get clipped, or be resampled poorly. We weren’t just picking a format, we were working within a strict pixel budget.
Screen resolutions improved. Broadband arrived and storage got cheap. Suddenly, the limitations we had been working with evaporated and file size stopped feeling like anyone’s problem. The costs of our unoptimized media have became cumulative and hidden rather than showing up as a spinning progress bar.
Even if you live in a 5G world, speed matters
Broadband and fast wifi are easy to take for granted when you’re working at a desk with a new machine and a reliable connection. But we should not assume that’s the default experience of our website’s visitors.
Many people access the internet on pay-as-you-go mobile plans where every megabyte of data has a real dollar cost. Others are on older devices, slower connections, or both. The person managing your site and the person visiting it are often living in very different bandwidth realities, and designing only for the former is making a big assumption.
Page speed has direct SEO implications
Core Web Vitals are a Google ranking signal, and large images are one of the most common causes of poor scores. Mobile users on cellular connections still feel oversized images.
More data uses more energy
Files stored on a website live on servers that run 24/7, drawing electricity and generating heat that requires additional energy to cool. An old, unlinked file is still occupying storage and contributing a small share of the site’s overall resource use.
Multiply that across millions of unmaintained sites and cloud storage services and it’s part of why data centers in the US currently consume 4–5% of total national electricity, a figure that could reach as high as 17% by 2030 – thanks AI.
The big picture on file sizes
Before looking at fixes, let’s get a sense of the scale involved:
Unit
Size
What it feels like
1 KB
1,024 bytes
A short plain-text email
100 KB
~100,000 bytes
A well-optimized web image
1 – 2 MB
~1 million bytes
An unoptimized JPEG or PNG, ~1 min of MP3
5 – 10 MB
~5–10 million bytes
A larger PDF on your website
1 GB
~1 billion bytes
~200 smartphone photos, ~4 min of 4K video
Many websites I work with have been around for a few years and they are often host 10 GB or more of data. Most of that is content no one ever sees or even remembers uploading.
Is PNG making a comeback?
At first glance, PNG looks like a reasonable default; it supports transparency, it’s lossless, and it handles crisp interface elements well. These days, everything exports as a PNG — it’s the standard format for apps like Canva and Figma, screenshots, and even iOS images.
A lot of what gets uploaded to websites may not even see the inside of a photo editing tool. AI-generated PNG images go straight from the slop-machine to your website as 7MB graphics, form submitted images shunted right back up to the cloud with a single click.We take it straight to the web now, baby!
PNG may have the best PR team on the web but it’s the single biggest source of unnecessary file bloat I see in images on websites.
Remember, PNG is designed for flat-color graphics: logos, icons, illustrations with hard edges. Use it for photographs or gradient-heavy images and you can end up with files 3 to 10 times larger than necessary, with no visible quality difference.
Please, stop with the PNG files.
Use a modern image format
Format
Best for
Notes
WebP (yay!)
Photos, artwork
Best option, smallest file size at good quality
JPEG
Photos, artwork
Widely supported, solid fallback
PNG
Logos, flat graphics only
Avoid for photos, it’s HUGE
SVG
Logos, simple graphics
Ideal for logos, tiny and infinitely scalable
The target for most web images is around 100 KB (or less), aim for a hard ceiling of around 300 – 500 KB for large hero images. If an image is over 1 MB, it almost certainly needs to be optimized before upload.
When should we optimize? Before we upload!
The best time to optimize is before the file goes into WordPress (or your CMS of choice). This may feel like an extra step but it’s faster than fixing things later, and let’s be real, you probably won’t fix things later.
For individual images:Affinity Photo is now free. It’s a full-featured image editor (Canva acquired it in 2024) available for both Mac and Windows.
For batch processing images: Affinity Photo has a batch job feature (File > New Batch Job) that lets you point it at a folder, set your output format and dimensions, and convert everything at once.
On Mac, ImageOptim is another excellent free option. Drag any image or folder into the app and it compresses files in place. The Windows version requires a paid license.
Replacing existing images in WordPress
If you’ve already got oversized images live on your site, you don’t need to hunt down every page they appear on. The Enable Media Replace plugin lets you swap a file directly in the media library and automatically updates all references site-wide.
Optimizing media already in your library
SmushIt is popular but I’m personally not a fan; the configuration and dashboard is harder for clients and there’s too many paid upgrades here. Check this blog post on Dev.to for Smush Alternatives for WordPress.
Converter for Media is a nice one not mentioned but it may require some extra config by your web host and/or developer. It does a great job converting to WebP format!
Dorian Gray enjoying his attic. The painting is by Ivan Albright and can be seen at The Art Institute of Chicago.
What else is lurking in your digital attic, I mean, media library?
Images are usually the first priority, but a full media audit looks at all of the other stuff you’ve squirreled away:
Videos hosted directly in WordPress should be moved to YouTube or Vimeo and embedded instead. Video files can quickly exceed 100 MB. That’s not what your web hosting is designed for.
PDFs and documents that aren’t actively linked from a public page don’t belong in the media library. Move them to a public Google Drive folder and link from there if needed.
Zip archives almost never belong in a media library. If you see them, they’re almost certainly safe to delete.
Sort images by file size and look for anything over 500 KB. PNGs are usually the culprit.
A note on “unattached” media: because of how some WordPress themes handle images, unattached doesn’t always mean unused. Download a file before deleting it if you’re not sure.
Better digital habits start today
Like all good habits, the hardest part of a media audit isn’t the cleanup, it’s preventing the same accumulation from happening again.
Start including these habits into your digital workflow:
Check file size before uploading.
Don’t upload that PNG.
Run a batch conversion on folders of new images before upload, especially if you’re dealing with bulk image submissions.
Schedule a media library review quarterly or annually. It doesn’t take long once the initial cleanup is done.
A well-maintained media library isn’t just tidier, it’s faster for your visitors, cheaper to host, and a small but real contribution to running a leaner, greener operation overall.
Your website. When’s the last time you really looked at it? It gets updated when something breaks, redesigned when a competitor’s looks better, and handed off to whoever seems to know what they’re doing at the time.
Recently, I’ve conducted a few website audits and spoken with business owners about their newly launched websites. The issues I’ve encountered range from black-hat SEO techniques to poor relationships with existing developers and 100% of the time – accessibility issues that can only be chalked up to “did not care”. Your website is an important piece of your business. It helps you to establish your brand, build authority, and market your services. And, it makes you money.
A new website is often a large investment for a small business, somewhere between roof repairs and a new car. But, when you do it “right” your website will pay for itself. Just like researching cars and roofers, it pays to look closely at what people are promising and getting a feel for what a working relationship looks like. A good developer asks you the questions you don’t know to ask. If someone is overselling, not hearing your concerns, or never turning the questions back on you — you might get a deal, but I can almost guarantee you’ll be going through this whole process again sooner than you’d like.
I wanted to create a missing manual to help you know what questions to ask, get a rough sense of what things might cost, and to better understand what parts of the project you should own.
You should own your website
This sounds obvious. Unfortunately, it isn’t.
Some web platforms (and some developers) build your site in a way that makes it difficult or impossible to leave. If you ever want to change developers or hosting, you could lose your content, your design, and years of SEO progress.
Before you sign anything, ask:
Who owns the domain? Your domain (yourcompany.com) should be registered in your name, in an account you control, not your developer’s account.
Who controls the hosting? You should be able to move your site to a different host if you need to.
Can I export my content? Some website builders have no export function (Wix and SquareSpace for example). A migration to a more robust platform later could mean rebuilding every page.
Is this an open platform? WordPress is open-source. Your files, your database, your content – it’s all portable. Proprietary builders are usually not. They take care of the hosting and application updates for a fee but there is no easy way to migrate away from them if you need to at a later date. If the proprietary service stops working or shuts down, there goes your website.
A developer who says “don’t worry, I’ll handle all of that” without giving you access or ownership documentation should be a hard pass. It’s your website and you should always have login credentials to your own domain, hosting account, and website backend.
Sprinkling keywords like garlic salt over your generic content is not SEO
Search engine optimization is structural, it’s built into how a site is planned and coded.
Every well-built website should have a solid SEO foundation baked in from the start. That includes:
SEO strategy that is informed by content strategy and research (i.e., a plan for how content is structured and connected)
Unique page titles and meta descriptions for every page
Proper heading and page structure
Clean, human-readable URLs
Schema markup – structured data that helps search engines understand your business, location, and services
Optimized site performance (media, scripts, caching)
Don’t forget to allow search engines to crawl your site (if WordPress) and submit your sitemap to Google
SEO: one-time setup vs. ongoing work
Ongoing SEO is a different conversation from the one-time foundational work I outlined above. Keyword tracking, competitor research, content strategy, blog writing, technical audits, local citation management – this can be time-intensive work whose value compounds over time when done consistently. It can also be oversold and if Search Engine Optimization isn’t what you do every day, it can be hard to identify when a specific result is being over-promised.
A lot of businesses get locked into monthly SEO retainers without a clear picture of what’s actually being done or what results to expect. “We submit to directories and monitor your rankings” for $300 a month is often very little work. Before signing anything, ask for a specific list of monthly deliverables and how results will be measured. If the answer is vague, well, it’s probably not worth it.
Retainers for ongoing SEO work typically run $500–$1,500 per month for most businesses, depending on how competitive your market is. That’s a big investment, it should come with accountability.
Worth asking: Are my business name, address, and phone number consistent everywhere, on my website, my Google Business Profile, and online directories? Inconsistent information is one of the most common local SEO problems, and one of the most fixable.
Accessibility is a project requirement
And I will use metaphor, because we all love those, and talk about making muffins for your niece’s birthday party. And on your way there, your mom said, these were supposed to be blueberry muffins. And you forgot that, and you start to force blueberries into the muffins and they are gross.
They are not really the same as blueberry muffins; they are not melted and delicious. It’s not a good experience. By definition yes, it’s a blueberry muffin, and yes, you may have an accessible system, but it is not a good system.
Considering accessibility in your website project is simply the right thing to do. It’s mostly only hard and expensive when it’s an afterthought. Consider a public building:
According to the ADA standards for Accessible Design, “Architectural barriers are physical elements of a building that prevent movement or access for people with disabilities. For example, if the only way to get to the entrance of a business is by using stairs, those stairs are a barrier for wheelchair users.”
So, what does accessibility look like for websites and virtual spaces? People with disabilities must be able to perceive, operate, understand, and enjoy a robust experience of your content.
Making your website accessible to people with disabilities has the supplemental benefit of improving the online experience for all people – perhaps experiencing situational disabilities like bright sunlight on a screen, a broken arm, or needing glasses to read. Making your website accessible is also good for SEO. And if none of that moves you, accessibility is a legal consideration, and lawsuits targeting small business websites have been on the rise.
Signs of a site with accessibility problems:
Low color contrast between text and background
Images with no descriptive text
Links that say “click here” or “read more” with no surrounding context
No way to skip repetitive navigation when using a keyboard
Image alt text or link labels stuffed with keywords instead of actual descriptions
Navigation that relies on JavaScript
Has an accessibility overlay. These are third-party widgets that claim to “fix” accessibility automatically. They don’t. Overlays patch surface-level issues while leaving the underlying problems in place, and they can actually interfere with the assistive technology people are already using. They exist to sell a product, not to make your site accessible. Relying on one can make your website a larger target for legal action, not a smaller one. Don’t use an accessibility overlay.
Ironically, the web is actually accessible by default and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) were first compiled in January 1995. Each year, WebAIM (Web Accessibility In Mind) publishes a report on the accessibility of the top 1 million home pages. In 2026, 95.9% of home pages had detected WCAG 2 failures.
A developer who dismisses accessibility as unnecessary is another hard pass.
Content is strategy, not filler
A lot of websites have content created for SEO “reasons” – pages packed with marketing phrases no one reads, that don’t answer real questions, and won’t help anyone make a decision.
Good website content:
Speaks directly to the person reading it
Answers the questions your customers have
Is organized around what users need, not your internal org chart
If a site is full of keyword phrases that don’t read naturally or that no one is actually searching for, or a blog with generic posts disconnected from your core services, that’s what I like to gently refer to as a “missed opportunity”. There’s no sustainable benefit to this short-sighted approach, and over time it costs you credibility.
Search engines have always been able to glean context. They are not only looking for keyword matches, but checking whether the surrounding content actually supports them. They’re getting better at understanding entities and at identifying low-quality content. When an AI Overview answers a question at the top of the results page, thin content gets passed over twice: once by the algorithm deciding what to cite, and once by the user who already got their answer.
Google has even patented the ability to generate a page on the fly when it can’t find a good enough result to send someone to. Whether or not that feature ever ships widely, the intent is clear: if your content isn’t genuinely useful, the search engine would rather write the answer itself than point people to you.
Red flag: A developer who never asks what questions your customers are trying to answer? Nope. If content isn’t part of the early development conversation, your site won’t be built to support it.
Two websites is one too many
If you have ever moved, rebranded, or switched developers, there is a chance more than one version of your site is still live. Maybe an old domain still resolves. Maybe a contractor set up a second site and never took it down.
Having two active domains splits your SEO authority. You could be competing against yourself without knowing it.
Ask your developer: Do I have more than one active domain? If so, is the old one properly redirecting to the new one?
So, how much is this going to cost?
It can still feel like the Wild West out there. You might see $500 or $15,000 for what sounds like the same thing. The price difference isn’t about the deliverable. Pricing is about whether the person building your site knows what questions to ask before they start, what to test before they launch, how to measure whether it’s working, and the level of ongoing support they offer.
Anyone can build a website. Not everyone will build one that is designed around what you need it to do, who it’s for, and what should happen when someone lands on it. Without that strategic planning, you’ve got a pretty presence, not a website that works for your business.
With that in mind, here’s a realistic (although still guess-timated) range for what different levels of development complexity might cost:
Simple brochure site — $2,500 – $5,000 Static pages, standard contact form, no dynamic content. A home page, an about page, a services overview, and a contact page. The content does not update often and nothing connects to anything else. May or may not have a blog – but it should be easy to scale up when needed.
Site with some custom functionality — $4,000 – $7,000 Adds a content management system so you can publish posts, case studies, or updates without touching code. Maybe some custom development work is included.
Fully custom professional site — $7,000 and up Some businesses have content that needs to work together, not just sit on separate pages. Designing this kind of site means figuring out the relationships between content before anything gets built. What connects to what? What information repeats across every service? What 3rd party services need to integrate? That design and planning work is what separates a site that scales well from one that becomes difficult to manage six months after launch.
National / international business website or e-commerce — $10,000 and up Booking systems, client portals, payment processing, membership functionality, online stores, anything that connects your site to an external system adds complexity in setup, testing, and ongoing maintenance. Every integration is a dependency that needs attention over time.
Keep in mind, a website is also a deductible business expense. A useful question before you get a quote isn’t just “how much will this cost?” It’s “what will this do for my business, and how will we know if it’s working?”
Pricing is hard
Pricing is always a learning process for business owners and web developers are not an exception. There’s no standard process or rate. Some developers charge by the hour, others quote a flat fee for the full project, and many use value-based pricing. All are legitimate pricing methods.
Flat project fees are easier to budget for. You know what you are paying upfront. The tradeoff is that scope needs to be clearly defined (and it often is not). If and when the project scale changes, the price usually does too. The challenge here is that the flat project fee is always going to be a guess. An informed guess based on past experience and initial conversations but still a guess. There are a lot of unknown unknowns that surface once you get to work and that can lead quickly to scope creep.
One way to handle this is to ask for a discovery phase: a low-commitment starting point where the developer gets a fuller picture of what the project actually involves before a full scope is written. A good discovery engagement ends with a clear option to continue or walk away. Either way, you come out of it with documented findings you can hand to the next developer if the relationship isn’t the right fit.
Hourly billing is more flexible, especially for ongoing work, smaller tasks, or projects where the full scope isn’t clear yet. It also tends to surface problems earlier, because you’re reviewing work in smaller increments rather than waiting for a fixed deliverable.
Rates vary by experience, specialty, and region. As a general reference point, experienced independent web professionals typically charge $85–$150 per hour. Agencies often charge more, with some of that covering account management and overhead.
Some developers (like me) offer a prepaid hour block or time bank. This is a set number of hours purchased at a slight discount, drawn down as needed. For ongoing support or small updates that don’t justify a full project quote, this can be a practical middle ground. It also gives you a low-stakes way to start a relationship before committing to a larger project.
Post-launch website costs
Just like any major purchase, a website comes with ongoing costs. Hosting, maintenance, and domain renewal are the three most common ones people forget to budget for.
Maintaining your new website
You’ve made it through your website project and have successfully launched your brand new website. Congrats!
Now that your site is live, it still needs ongoing attention. I like to compare your living website to a garden. It needs maintenance, pruning back old content, planting new content where it makes sense. And, technical site maintenance is what keeps your site secure, up to date, and recoverable if something goes wrong. Proprietary platforms like Squarespace and Wix handle much of the technical maintenance for you, which can be a selling point. The trade-off is flexibility and ownership, which is worth understanding before you choose a platform. In this case, we’ll talk about maintenance for a WordPress powered website:
What is typically included:
Platform and plugin updates. WordPress and its plugins release updates regularly. Skipping them creates security vulnerabilities. Someone needs to apply those updates, check that nothing broke, and keep backups current.
Backups. A good maintenance plan includes regular automated backups stored offsite. If something goes wrong like a bad update, a hack, an accidental deletion you can restore quickly.
Security monitoring. Websites are targeted by automated bots constantly. Monitoring catches problems before they become serious.
Uptime monitoring. If your site goes down, you want to know before a customer calls to tell you.
Basic support. Content updates or changes, quick questions answered. Ongoing technical help when you need it. Training if requested.
What maintenance does not usually include:
New pages or major design changes
SEO work or content strategy
Writing new posts or copy
Rebuilding something that breaks due to a major platform or plugin change
A basic WordPress maintenance plan from a reputable provider typically runs $40 – $100 per month. This can also vary by site complexity too. If you run an eCommerce website with hundreds of products, that’s more to maintain and troubleshoot. If you need more hands-on or custom support, budget more.
Website Hosting
Your website files live on a server. That server costs money. Hosting is billed separately from your developer’s fees and is usually paid annually.
Shared hosting (sites share server resources): $100 – $300/year. Adequate for most sites.
Managed WordPress hosting (faster, more secure, less to manage on your end): $200 – $600/year.
Not all hosts are equal. Cheap hosting is cheap for a reason: oversold servers, slower load times, minimal support, and security that gets less attention than it should. Page speed affects both user experience and search rankings, and a slow host is one of the hardest problems to diagnose after the fact because everything else looks fine. Paying a little more for a reputable host is, as the saying goes, a no-brainer1.
Your developer might host your site as part of their service, which can be convenient. Make sure you understand the terms. Can you take your site elsewhere if you part ways? Is the account in your name? Ask before you commit.
Renew your domain name with your registrar
Your domain name, yourcompany.com, is something you rent, not own. It needs to be renewed annually, usually for $15–$20+ a year. Miss the renewal window and your site goes down. Most domains have a grace period of around 30 days after expiration where you can renew at the normal price. After that, recovery gets expensive. Registrars typically charge a redemption fee that can run $50–$200 or more. Wait long enough and the domain goes to auction, where you may be bidding against someone who noticed it lapsed and wants it. Be sure to check your registrar’s specific terms. Your domain name registrar may also be your website host, but not always.
One of the most common panicked calls a web developer gets: “My website is gone, something is broken.” In many cases, the site is fine, the domain just lapsed because the renewal notice went to an old email address, or the credit card on file expired, or the client forgot which registrar they used when they first set everything up years ago.
Before your website project wraps, confirm: where is your domain registered, what email address is on the account, and is auto-renew turned on? Write it down somewhere safe – and test your login.
Service agreements: what is reasonable?
Most web professionals will ask you to sign an agreement before starting work. That is normal and protects both sides.
Reasonable:
A project agreement that outlines scope, timeline, payment schedule, and what happens if the scope changes
A maintenance agreement that is month-to-month or annual, with clear cancellation terms
Language that confirms your ownership of the domain and content regardless of what happens
Watch for:
Long-term contracts with no exit clause. A developer confident in their work does not need to lock you in for two or three years.
Automatic renewals with no advance notice. You should be notified before any contract renews, especially if pricing is changing.
Contracts that give the developer rights to your domain or content. Your domain and your content are yours, always.
Vague deliverables. If the agreement says “website design and development” with no further detail, you have no recourse if what is delivered is not what you expected. Scope should be specific.
A simple question to ask before signing: If I decide to leave, what happens? Can I take my website with me? If the answer is unclear, it is worth requiring that be defined in the terms before you commit.
What a good, ongoing client-developer relationship can look like
The best client-developer relationships don’t feel like a transaction every time you need something. At their best, they should feel like having someone who knows your site as well as you do and who will tell you when something needs attention before it becomes a problem.
That might mean:
A quarterly check-in to review traffic, rankings, and any issues
Proactive suggestions when something on the site needs attention
Help thinking through a new service page or seasonal content
Someone available when something breaks, without emergency rates
A good maintenance plan plus a few hours of support each month can go a long way.
Not sure where your site stands?
A website audit is a good place to start. I look at your site’s structure, SEO, accessibility, and content — and come back with a specific list of what’s working, what isn’t, and what to fix first.
AI writing tools promise to save time and make content creation easier. When we prompt AI with a question, it might even say “Thinking…” and then provide a comprehensive, 3,000 word response that sounds reasonable. But is it really thinking as we understand that activity? No, it isn’t, and it’s easy to forget that because its really good at language patterns.
As ChatGPT might put it, the critical truth is that AI is just a predictor of patterns. It can’t verify facts or evaluate quality. The human in charge must provide good input, apply critical judgment, and edit ruthlessly.
AI tools might just be the worst thing ever
In Star Trek, a simple program instructed “food synthesizer” evolved over time into an all-purpose “replicator”. The replicator could parse a verbal request and generate an appropriate object from its database of known patterns (with some restrictions). Science fiction imagined this as a perfect solution to scarcity, satisfying our wants and needs should we merely make our wishes known. But, there are always consequences right? Friction matters. All things are not equal. Without obstacles, characters can’t grow and stories become predictable.
Writers for the later versions of the show hated this plot device:
“Replicators are the worst thing ever. Destroys storytelling all the time. They mean there’s no value to anything. Nothing has value in the universe if you can just replicate everything, so all that goes away. Nothing is unique; if you break something, you can just make another one. If something breaks on the ship, it’s “Oh, no big deal, Geordi [LaForge] can just go down to engineering and make another doozywhatsit.” Or they go to a planet and that planet needed something: “Oh, hey, let’s make them what they need!” [The writers room] just hated it and tried to forget about it as much as possible.” – Ron Moore, writer/producer, Star Trek: TNG and DS9
Unlike science fiction stories, AI does have real world consequences.
First, there’s the exploitation and bias inherent in training AI. Lacking considered design to prevent harms, AI has tragically resulted in suicides, racial profiling apps, abusive content, and porn. We’re subject to AI sprinkles on most products and services, whether we want them or not. Constant, imperceptible nudges to our decision-making around what shows to watch, what purchases to make, what opinions to hold.
And then, there’s the water.
“Each time a model is used, perhaps by an individual asking ChatGPT to summarize an email, the computing hardware that performs those operations consumes energy. Researchers have estimated that a ChatGPT query consumes about five times more electricity than a simple web search.” – MIT News, “Generative AI’s Environmental Impact”
This isn’t just about the electricity needed to power the data centers either. Immense quantities of water, often in desert regions (because computers like it dry), are required to keep these hard-working mega-computing centers cool.
As AI becomes embedded within our daily transactions, our work, and the internet of things, it’s tempting to imagine we can escape this maddening world. Turn off our computers, quit our jobs, trade in our cars for horses, and start a commune with our friends … I mean, we could, but it’s unlikely that most of us will exit the thrum of modern life completely. Do we know how mechanical things actually work anymore?
My point is, let’s try to use AI with a better understanding of the tool rather than as a magical fix or truth-telling machine.
Language generators will always generate more language
Language is powerful. Humans rely on language to know the world around us, to communicate, to understand, to influence, and to describe our thoughts and emotions.
When we talk to AI, it is easy for us to be swayed by its authoritative confidence, even when it is completely wrong (or just slightly misleading). In our minds, language creates mutual understanding and builds trust.
AI is designed to satisfy this human desire to connect. By being responsive to our needs, it’s cementing our investment in its output. Left unchecked, this tool will keep going well past the point of usefulness. This means you need to be the fact-checker, the quality controller, and the BS detector.
As a human, I want to use AI, so I don’t have to do [X]
Ok, that’s an oversimplification. Commercial AI tools have a lot of useful, low risk applications like transcribing and structuring meeting notes, building relational databases, or helping us plan a menu or exercise routine.
Using AI isn’t always about the fastest way to get something done either. Anyone who has tried to create with AI knows it can be a prolonged and tedious process. AI can be a boon to progress but, like any intern-level coworker, it needs guidance and regular quality checks in order to produce a good result.
I’ve experimented with AI design and UX tools, writing and coding, and the AI that now seems bolted on to every service. I’m going to focus now on AI as a writing partner because that’s the most common use case for many of my clients (and myself).
Don’t believe everything you read
The patterns of AI writing are recognizable across LinkedIn posts, website content, emails, contracts, and documentation. When left to its own predilection for black and white comparisons, a self-assured tone, and general blandness, AI writing has acquired the personality traits of that extrovert acquaintance whose stories you strenuously avoid at parties.
When we make a request, AI tools aren’t “thinking” about our question and they aren’t searching the web for the most accurate answer. They are gearing up to generate the word patterns that form the most likely response.
At first glance, content appears in order. On a more careful read we may spot grandiose statements and verbose language that isn’t actually saying anything.
Your AI-writing partner is a sociopath and it simply can not restrain itself. It’s function is to produce patterns of words that sound like a genuine response – and to keep you talking to it.
Garbage in, garbage out
If you type a vague request, don’t expect useful output. Providing AI resources and specificity will help you to develop higher quality content that sounds like you and is actually helpful.
Here is some groundwork that you can do to improve your collaboration with AI tools:
Create your writing guidelines
Build a reference document that defines your writing standards.
Include your target reading level, tone descriptors (professional but approachable, no-nonsense, conversational), and sentence structure preferences.
This is a living document, add to it to make it better.
This can also be super detailed – it’s really just guidance for AI and not meant for people to follow.
On your own, without AI, draft an outline of what your article will cover – these can be single words, directions, or snippets of ideas.
This framework is incredibly helpful in preventing AI from going off on a 4,000 word tangent. You’re also giving AI some tips about how you talk.
If you use Google, ask Gemini to do a preliminary review of your outline and make some suggestions for improvement without handing AI total writing control from the start.
I recommend supplying a forbidden terms list. This helps you stop the marketing jargon, unnecessary qualifiers, hard sell language, and industry buzzwords you want to avoid.
Watch out for: solutions, comprehensive, robust, actually, really, very, it’s important to note, utilize, synergy, truth, the hard truth is
Prefer plain language like: use, tools, complete (delete unnecessary qualifiers)
Give examples of the language that you do want: the words your clients use, plain language alternatives to technical terms, and brand-specific terminology.
There’s also bias in how we make requests. We tend to ask leading questions or frame prompts in ways that push the AI toward answers we expect. By providing more specific guidelines, we can mitigate this and give AI tools meaningful limitations.
Be more specific: crafting better AI writing prompts
“Write a post about [topic]” will give you a generic blog post number 47,892. It’s not likely adding anything to the conversation which means it’s not going to produce any measurable results for your website.
A good prompt includes several key elements:
Role and context: Define who the writer is and what expertise they have.
Audience: Describe who’s reading, what they care about, and their knowledge level.
Purpose: State what the content should accomplish.
Constraints: List your requirements and restrictions. Specify tone, length, what to include, and what to avoid. This is where your forbidden words list becomes useful.
Format: Define structure, heading levels, and any specific requirements.
With specific prompts and project knowledge, you’ll spend less time going back and forth with AI trying to follow it’s mindless regurgitation of words, and more easily guide it to cover the right topics and speak to the right audience.
Getting meta: use AI to improve your prompts
You can also use AI tools to make your writing prompts better. Start with your first attempt, then ask it to: “Review this prompt and suggest improvements to make it more specific. What’s unclear? What assumptions am I making? What details would help?”
Direct AI to be a critical expert (for example a content strategist). You’ll get more insightful feedback that doesn’t uniformly pat you on the head and claim you are a genius.
Save prompts that generate good results. Over time, you’ll develop templates for your most common content types.
Please do your own SEO research before writing your outline
Most of us blog because it serves an SEO function and helps establish our topical expertise. While AI can help with content creation, it can not do your SEO strategy for you. AI tools don’t know what keywords matter for your business, what terms people are searching for, or what you’re trying to achieve with a particular article – unless you give it that data.
Ask AI to “optimize this article for SEO” and you’ll get terrible advice: stuff more keywords in, add more headings, make it longer. The tool wants to please you, sometimes to a fault.
Do your keyword research first. Use Google Search Console to see what terms people actually use to find content like yours. Look at the questions your clients ask. Check what’s already ranking for the topics you want to cover.
Give the AI clear direction. Instead of “Optimize for SEO,” try: “I’m targeting these keyphrases [researched list]. The primary audience is [X] and [Y] who have the following pain points [A, B, C]. Include [focus keyword] in the title, first paragraph, and first H2 heading. Use related terms naturally in the body. Keep keyword density under 2%.”
Even if you’re not an SEO expert, you can improve AI recommendations by being specific about your target keywords, understanding your audience’s actual search behavior, and pushing back when suggestions feel off. Trust your knowledge of what your clients need over generic optimization “advice”.
The human spark: apply the critical thinking that AI can’t
“Not all content marketing is thought leadership. In fact most of it is not. True thought leadership takes a position on a topic, and the reader can agree or disagree. If the topic is something they can’t disagree with, it isn’t thought leadership.” – Andy Crestodina, Orbit Media, The AI-Driven Content Strategy
Human experience develops our own pattern recognition abilities, informing insights and connections. You might realize that three separate client conversations from the past month all circle around the same underlying issue. Or, you’ll go for a walk and suddenly conceive an elegant solution to a thorny problem.
Where AI tools follow linear paths based on their training data, human thinking makes intuitive leaps, pulls in relevant context from seemingly unrelated areas, and finds the through-line that ties distinct ideas together. That’s good content!
Even if you rely on AI for your content writing, judgment calls remain entirely human work: deciding what to keep, what to revise, and what to scrap. Writing is editing, not word count.
Making AI output sound (more) human
AI-generated content has tells. Generic connector phrases appear constantly: “it’s important to note,” “the hard truth is,” “critically,” “the reality is” – UGH. It’s ironic (and also a kind of creativity negging?) that AI is so obsessed with convincing us of hard truths and critical realities.
Read content aloud, you’ll immediately hear the false notes.
Delete unnecessary connectors and qualifiers.
Variety’s the spice of life2. Vary sentence structure and length.
AI will keep generating text if you let it. Knowing when to stop is a human skill.
AI writing tools can be useful when you understand their limitations. They help you get past the blinking cursor on a blank page and speed up technical aspects of writing like correcting grammar and spelling errors.
Don’t hand the entire writing process to the AI. Always start with your own outline or structure and revise in stages. Trying to fix everything at the end is harder because the quantity of content will be overwhelming and lack priority.
Remember, it is your human expertise, judgment, and understanding of your audience makes your content valuable.
And maybe, don’t let AI be the first tool in your toolbox.
Are you using AI writing tools in your content marketing?
I’m curious if you are using AI to help you with creating or optimizing content. What have you learned along the way? What has been a challenge for you? Are you all-in or hesitant to use AI?
Stop the World, I want to Get Off was a 1961 musical, followed by a film in 1966. The title is a recurring cry from Littlechap whenever life becomes overwhelming, symbolizing a desire to escape the chaos, responsibilities, and emptiness of modern life. ↩︎
William Cowper, an 18th century poet wrote “Variety’s the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavour” in his 1785 poem The Task. ↩︎
The first recorded statement of the concept was Abraham Kaplan’s, in 1964: “I call it the law of the instrument, and it may be formulated as follows: Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.” ↩︎
Humans tend to favor the things we enjoy and that we have learned to be successful at. If blogging feels like “Ugh, I have to write this,” try reframing it: “I want to document what I know so I can stop explaining it repeatedly.” Moving from obligation to choice will make the work feel less like a burden and more like building something useful that will benefit you (and your readers).
Business blogging that supports your work
The value of genuine expertise has increased in direct proportion to rise of generic content (affectionately termed, “AI slop“). Most informational queries (think “how-to” or compiled “best of” articles) are answered in AI overviews.
You’d do better to focus your efforts on content that AI can’t easily create:
Answers to questions you’ve been asked. Look through your email. Check your last few client calls. What did people ask? What did you explain? Write that.
Content based on your experience. Not “10 Tips for Better Time Management” but “Here’s what I learned managing three major projects and a why I’ll never do that again.”
Your take on industry developments. Not hot takes for the sake of being controversial, but “Here’s how this new regulation affects my clients” or “I’ve been watching this trend for three years, here’s what I’m seeing.” You have context others don’t.
The stuff no one else is saying. Every industry has conventional wisdom and biases. If you know something that contradicts or offers new perspective on standard advice (and you can back it up with your experience), that’s valuable content.
Deep dives into specific problems. Better to thoroughly address one specific challenge than superficially cover ten related topics.
Consistency over frequency
How often should you publish on your blog? It depends…
But for the sake of having a goal, let’s say: 1-2 solid posts per month is realistic for most small businesses. That’s enough to build a library of content over time without making blogging your entire job.
What matters more than frequency:
Consistency over time. Better to publish monthly for two years than weekly for two months before burning out.
Quality over quantity. One genuinely helpful 1,500-word article beats five rushed 400-word posts that don’t say anything.
Strategic focus. Writing about topics that support your business goals, not just filling space.
Some months you’ll do more. Some months you’ll skip entirely because you’re busy. Totally acceptable.
Gaps in the content resume: when you stop blogging (and start again)
I stopped blogging in 2018.
Not because I didn’t think it was valuable. I stopped because I’m a company of one and at the time I was running two businesses, a gallery and my web design agency. Finding four hours (my minimum) to write a quality article while managing client work, admin tasks, gallery events, and life stuff was physically impossible.
This fall, I started writing again. And I remembered that I really enjoy writing. For me, it’s an active exploration that deepens my own understanding of a topic.
I accept that publication schedules can be flexible. I’m sharing on LinkedIn and BlueSky (getting a little dopamine hit when a few people “like” or share). I’m not trying to become a influencer (gross, Gen X person here) or build a following. I do want to develop a backlog of articles that support my authority and expertise (and link back to my service pages).
If you’re not a writer: video and audio can be a big advantage
Nearly everyone adds pictures. But a minority are adding contributor quotes and videos. A small percentage add audio or publish podcasts. The less common the element, the more likely it is to correlate with performance. Greater efforts drive greater impact.
If talking feels more natural than writing, record yourself. Answer a common client question on video. Explain a concept on audio. Embed the media on your post and include a transcript.
You sound like yourself. When you’re talking, your authentic voice comes through. No fighting with how to phrase things or what sounds “professional enough.” You just explain it the way you’d explain it to a client.
It’s (maybe) faster. Recording a 10-minute video or audio explanation takes 10 minutes. Writing a 1,500-word article takes hours. If you edit your videos, there probably won’t be much time savings though.
It’s highly shareable. Video clips work well on social media. Audio can become podcast episodes. The transcript becomes your blog post. One recording, multiple formats.
Always, always include a transcript. You may be creating awesome video or audio content but if you don’t include a transcript, you are missing a key opportunity and doing an accessibility fail. Search engines can’t watch videos, they need text to understand and index your content. Transcripts make your videos accessible to people who are deaf, hard of hearing, or who prefer reading. Transcripts also help visitors quickly scan for information rather than watching the entire video. Learn more about what media needs a transcript.
Making blogging more manageable (not perfect)
The internet is full of blogging advice that assumes you have a content team, unlimited time, or that “growing your platform” is your primary business goal. Blog posts are supposed to support your business, not become the work itself.
The best advice I can give you is to just start writing (or recording). Don’t get stuck in the analytical mind of comparison and judgment. This is a process and you’ll be reviewing how articles perform over time, so don’t overcomplicate your work. We’re not aiming for perfection.
Perfect is the enemy of good (and done).
Voltaire (mostly)
Write what you know. Writing 101! Look at questions you’ve answered in calls or meetings this month. Write about those. Follow your own curiosity and dig deeper than the superficial answers.
Write the way you talk. If you write like a corporate press release on your blog, people will lose interest. Use plain language, keep it relevant to your reader, avoid jargon.
Repurpose and reuse. One blog post can become an email newsletter, several social media posts, a resource to send prospects, or an answer to forum questions in your industry.
Batch your writing when possible. Some people write better if they draft three posts in one session, then edit them later. This can be a handy way to block out 1-2 days a month and get all of your writing and scheduling done.
Hit publish, wait for applause…
Crickets.
Even great content doesn’t magically attract readers. Be deliberate about getting it in front of people. If you loathe self-promotion, remember that sharing your content is about sharing your expertise – not trying to “sell” yourself. You’re building your authority and engaging authentically with your community and audience.
Share it directly with people who need it. When someone asks a question your blog post answers, send them the link. When you see a relevant discussion in a professional group, share it (if it’s helpful, not promotional).
Email it to your list. If you’re not building an email list, start. Even a small list of people who want to hear from you beats hoping Google sends you traffic someday.
Link your posts together. Linking is the magic glue of the interwebs. When you write something new, go back and add links from older related posts. This helps readers find more of your content and helps search engines understand what you’ve written about.
Use social media, but don’t depend on it. Share your posts there, yes. But remember those platforms want to keep people on their platforms, not click away to your website. Social media is for brand visibility and conversation, not traffic (usually) – though it can have some relevance in AI search results.
Reference your own content in other contexts. Speaking at an event? Mention your blog post on that topic. Answering questions in industry forums? Link to your relevant content.
Don’t obsess over analytics
So you’ve started blogging. You’re sharing posts on social media. How do you know when it’s working?
Track the basics in Google Search Console
Which posts are getting impressions in search
Which keywords people are using to find you
Which posts are getting clicks (and which aren’t)
Check Google Search Console maybe once a month. Try not to obsess over this data. Look for patterns. Notice which topics are getting traction. Capitalize on what works and keep experimenting.
Pay attention to direct responses
Are people mentioning your posts in conversations?
Has anyone sent you a question that references something you wrote?
Are prospects coming to calls having already read your content?
Which posts get engagement (comments, shares, saves)?
Are people asking follow-up questions?
Qualitative signals matter as much as traffic numbers. On LinkedIn and BlueSky, engagement matters more than views. A post that sparks three meaningful conversations is more valuable than one that gets 1,000 views and no response.
Give it time before judging results
3-6 months minimum before you’ll see any significant search patterns
At least 10-15 posts before you can see patterns in what resonates
A year before cumulative impact
The metric that matters most: Are you getting more qualified inquiries from people who found you through your content?
This, again, isn’t just about posting any old content – it’s about creating unique and useful content that has the potential to rank and includes a compelling call to action. It’s critical to do keyword research if you are serious about crafting content that will match the intent of those long-tail search queries and result in conversions.
What you won’t see: Overnight success. Viral hits (probably). Thousands of daily visitors (for most small businesses, volume is less important than getting in front of the right people at the right time).
Frequently Asked Questions
Does blogging help small businesses grow?
Yes, but not overnight. Blogging helps you answer common questions, demonstrate expertise, and get found by people searching for your services. Over 6-12 months of consistent publishing, you should see more qualified leads finding you through search and better conversion rates from prospects who’ve read your content first.
What are the best topics for a small business blog?
Case studies from your work. “How we helped [type of client] solve [specific problem]” shows your expertise in action. Change names if needed, but share the specifics.
Behind-the-scenes content. How you approach projects, what your process looks like, the tools you use and why. This humanizes your business and helps prospects understand what working with you would be like.
Opinion pieces grounded in experience. Your perspective on industry trends, based on what you’re seeing with your clients or in your market. This is where your unique value shows up.
Problem-solution posts. “Here’s a challenge my clients face and how I help them address it.” Practical, specific, and demonstrates your expertise without being promotional.
Local or niche-specific content. If you serve a specific geographic area or industry, write about topics relevant to that audience. You won’t compete with national sites, but you don’t need to.
How do I promote my blog if I don’t have a big audience?
Share posts directly with people who need them – send links when someone asks a question your post answers. Build an email list (even a small one). Link your posts together. Share on social media without depending on it for traffic. Reference your content when speaking at events or participating in industry discussions.
Is it better to have a blog or focus on social media for my business?
Both serve different purposes. Your blog is the one place online you control – it builds long-term search visibility and demonstrates expertise. Social media is for conversations and visibility, but platforms want to keep people there, not send them to your site. Use social media to share your blog content, but don’t depend on it as your only marketing channel.
Do I need technical skills to run a business blog?
Basic writing for the formatting knowledge is helpful, but most business blogs need simple technical optimization: clean URLs, compressed images, alt text, and proper heading structure. If you can format a document and upload images, you can create a blog. You can also record video or audio and get it transcribed if writing isn’t your strength.
Can I benefit from blogging without a dedicated marketing team?
Most successful small business blogs are written by the business owner. You already have the expertise – blogging is just documenting what you know and answering questions you’ve already answered dozens of times. Start with what you know, write in your own voice, and publish consistently. You can do it!
I want to create videos but where should I upload them?
YouTube is usually the better choice for most small businesses. It’s free, handles all the technical stuff (encoding, streaming, mobile optimization), and YouTube itself is the second-largest search engine. Videos on YouTube can show up in both YouTube and Google search results, giving you two chances to be found.
Hosting video directly on your site can slow down your pages and require more technical management. For most small businesses, embedding YouTube videos on your blog posts gives you the best of both worlds: your content lives on your site with the transcript, but YouTube handles the video infrastructure.
How do I create a transcript of my audio or video content?
Tools like Descript, Otter.ai, or even YouTube’s auto-captioning can handle transcription. Clean it up a bit (remove the “ums” and false starts), add some paragraph breaks and headings, and you have a blog post.
Rev.com has pretty accurate AI transcription, you can also connect Zoom to Fathom or use it’s AI transcription tool. Google it – there’s tons of options.
Need help developing a content strategy that fits?
Let’s talk about what blogging for your business could look like.
Need help or have a question? Leave me a comment or send me an email. I’m always happy to discuss content strategy and answer any questions you might have.
Email scams are common because they work. They cast a wide net, are easy to implement, and they exploit common fears like missing a domain expiration date or receiving a warning of a fraudulent charge. These emails usually include real logos, brand colors, and even the required unsubscribe footers that appear to link to a corporate headquarters. If you’ve ever hesitated over an email or felt uncertain about a renewal notice, trust your instincts.
When scams succeed, the damage is real:
You could lose access to your website
Your domain could be transferred without your knowledge
Financial information could be stolen
Your email could be compromised, enabling further fraud
If you’re not certain where your domain is registered or which services renew when, don’t panic. A little organization and an audit of your online security habits will help protect you from most threats. I’ll show you how to recognize the patterns and verify what’s real.
Phishing emails and texts: the most common threat
You’re likely inured to the well-known Nigerian Prince email requesting advance funds in exchange for a reward – but that just means scammers have become more sophisticated. Phishing emails trick you into revealing sensitive information or making fraudulent payments by impersonating real companies you do business with:
Domain registrars (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Google Domains)
Manufactured urgency – “Your account will be suspended in 24 hours” or “Immediate action required” are classic pressure tactics.
Mismatched sender addresses – The display name says “GoDaddy Support” but the email comes from [email protected]. Notice the missing “d”? That’s intentional.
Suspicious links – Hover over any link without clicking. If it doesn’t go to the official domain (like godaddy.com), it’s fake. Watch for variations like godaddy-renew-support.com or godaddy.secure-login.net.
Poor quality control – Legitimate companies proofread. Scammers often don’t. Look for odd spacing, grammatical errors, or inconsistent branding.
Unexpected attachments – Real service providers rarely require you to download files to verify your account.
Check the full sender address — not just the display name
Hover (don’t click!) over links — see where they actually go before clicking
Log in manually — open a new browser tab and go directly to the official website
Compare with previous emails — search your inbox for legitimate messages from that company
Ask someone — your web designer, IT person, or a tech-savvy colleague
What NOT to do:
Don’t click links in suspicious emails
Don’t reply to the message
Don’t call phone numbers listed in the email
Don’t download attachments
Don’t enter passwords or payment information from an email link
If you aren’t sure, STOP. Verify through official channels.
Timing matters: holiday email scams
Scammers know when you’re distracted. Phishing attempts spike around major holidays -Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s – when business owners are juggling personal commitments and may not scrutinize emails as carefully. They’re also aware of business cycles: end-of-quarter deadlines, tax season, and the chaos of Q4.
An “urgent domain renewal” email that arrives December 23rd isn’t coincidence. Someone is betting you’ll click quickly to clear your inbox before heading out for the holidays. During busy periods, be extra skeptical of anything demanding immediate action.
Phishing doesn’t stop at your inbox. Scammers still use postal mail, and these letters can be remarkably convincing. I’ve received official-looking notices with urgent language like “Final Notice” and “Domain Expiration Warning,” complete with professional formatting and what appears to be an invoice.
These letters are designed to look like legitimate renewal notices. But read the fine print. Often they are authorizing a domain transfer, not a renewal. Pay their “invoice” and you’ve just agreed to move your domain to their registrar, often at inflated prices with auto-renewal you can’t easily cancel.
How to protect your website and your business from fake renewal scams
Know your registrar Where is your domain actually registered? GoDaddy? Namecheap? Squarespace? If you’re not sure, look it up at ICANN’s domain lookup tool.
Log in directly Don’t trust renewal dates in emails or letters. Sign into your actual registrar account and check there.
Ignore unfamiliar companies If you’ve never heard of them, you don’t do business with them.
Enable auto-renewal Most registrars offer this. It prevents your domain from accidentally expiring while eliminating the pressure tactics scammers rely on.
Copyright infringement scams
This phishing tactic targets website owners with fake copyright infringement claims. These emails claim you’ve used an image without permission and demand immediate payment or proof of licensing.
A client received an official-looking email from “COPYTRACK” alleging unauthorized use of an image on their website. The email stated the image belonged to a photographer (with a legitimate-sounding name) and demanded proof of license or a settlement payment. Luckily, they recognized it as a phishing attempt.
The email may include:
Professional formatting and legal language
Specific image filenames or URLs from your actual website
A deadline creating pressure
Settlement amounts ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars
Many business owners can’t immediately recall the source of every image on their website, especially if someone else built the site or if it’s been around for years.
How to verify copyright claims
Real copyright enforcement happens, but scammers imitate the process. Here’s how to tell the difference:
Don’t panic or pay immediately — legitimate copyright claims follow a formal legal process, not email demands with tight deadlines
Research the company — search for “[company name] + scam” to see if others have reported it
Verify the image claim — use reverse image search (Google Images) to check the image’s actual source and licensing
Check your image sources — if you purchased the image from a stock photo site, locate your receipt or download history
Consult a lawyer — if you believe the claim might be legitimate, speak with an attorney before responding or paying anything
Red flags for fake copyright claims
Demands for immediate payment via email
Threats of lawsuits with unrealistic timelines
Requests to pay directly to individuals rather than through legal processes
No official legal letterhead or case numbers
Pressure to settle before “lawyers get involved”
If you receive a copyright claim and aren’t certain about your image licensing, reach out to your web designer or the person who built your site. They should be able to help you trace where images came from and whether you have proper licensing.
Security best practices
Keep records organized
Maintain a simple document (offline) or password manager entry with:
Domain registrar name and login
Hosting provider and login
Email/workspace provider
Renewal dates for each service
Official support contact information
Important: If you’re keeping this information in a document (rather than a password manager), store it offline. Keep it in a physical notebook, a printed document in a secure location, or on an external drive that’s not connected to your computer. If your computer is compromised, any document saved on it, including password lists, can be accessed by attackers.
Using a password manager is absolutely critical these days (see FAQ below). It includes end-to-end encryption and storage in an encrypted data vault. Only YOU have the master password to this vault, which acts as your decrypt key. This is not stored anywhere. Password managers also notify you of data breaches and allow you to bulk change login details. Saving passwords to your browser does not secure your password and should be avoided.
Use multi-factor authentication
You may think this is a pain to do. Yes, it is another step – but it’s the lesser evil here. What’s worse: a teeny, tiny extra step to secure your access or dealing with ransomware that has hijacked your entire device? Enable 2FA for domain registrar, hosting, and email accounts. Even if someone gets your password, they can’t access your account without the second factor. Most services support authenticator apps like Google Authenticator, Authy, or the built-in authenticators in password managers like 1Password and Bitwarden.
Back it up!
Backups aren’t just for web developers. If things do go south, you need a way to recover. Use Time Machine if you’re on Mac, or a third-party backup service like Backblaze, Carbonite, or IDrive. Regular backups mean that even if your website is compromised, you can restore it without paying ransom or losing years of work.
Absolutely not. Never click links in suspicious emails.
If you receive an email that might be legitimate but you’re not sure, here’s what to do instead:
– Open a new browser tab – Type the company’s official website address directly (like godaddy.com or bluehost.com) – Log into your account there – Check your account dashboard for any real notifications or issues
If there’s a genuine problem with your account, you’ll see it when you log in directly. The email link is never necessary and clicking it when it’s a phishing attempt can:
– Install malware on your computer – Take you to a fake login page that steals your password – Track that your email address is active (leading to more spam) – Start a download you didn’t intend
When in doubt, never click. Go directly to the source instead.
How do I know if an email is spam or legitimate?
Check three things: the sender’s actual email address (not just the display name), where links go when you hover over them, and whether the message creates artificial urgency. Legitimate companies don’t threaten to suspend your account in 24 hours. When in doubt, don’t click anything in the email—go directly to the company’s website and log in there. If there’s a real issue, you’ll see it in your account dashboard.
What should I do if I think I clicked a phishing link?
Change your password immediately for any account that might be affected. If you entered payment information, contact your bank or credit card company. Enable multi-factor authentication if you haven’t already. Monitor your accounts closely for the next few weeks. If the phishing attempt targeted your domain or hosting account, contact your provider’s support team directly and let them know what happened.
Run a full virus scan immediately. If you’re on Windows, use Windows Defender (built-in) or other antivirus software. Mac users also need antivirus protection! I recommend Bitdefender but there are other security options too. Don’t assume you’re safe just because nothing seems wrong. Malware often runs silently in the background.
After scanning, change passwords for important accounts from a different device if possible, or at minimum after confirming your computer is clean. If you downloaded and opened an attachment, disconnect from the internet until you’ve completed a scan.
How can I check if my email has been compromised?
Visit haveibeenpwned.com and enter your email address. This free service checks if your email appeared in any known data breaches. If it has, change your password immediately. And change it on any other accounts where you used the same password. This is why password managers and unique passwords for each account matter.
Cybercriminals often obtain email addresses through data breaches, public sources, or purchased databases.
If your email shows up in multiple breaches or you’re concerned about your personal information being widely available online, consider using a data removal service like DeleteMe or Incogni. These services scan data broker sites (the companies that collect and sell your personal information) and submit removal requests on your behalf. While they can’t remove everything, they significantly reduce your digital footprint and make it harder for scammers to target you with personalized phishing attempts. These services typically cost $100-200 per year and handle the tedious work of contacting dozens of data broker sites.
Keep in mind: data removal services focus on legal data brokers, not the dark web or illegal data dumps. They’re preventive tools that reduce your exposure to future scams, not emergency response for active fraud.
Should I report spam and phishing emails?
Yes. Most email services have a “Report Spam” or “Report Phishing” button. Using it helps improve filters for everyone. Learn more about how to protect yourself and report phishing emails to the Federal Trade Commission at ReportFraud.ftc.gov or report them at [email protected] (an address used by the Anti-Phishing Working Group). If the email impersonates a specific company (like your hosting provider), forward it to their abuse or security team, most have a dedicated address for reporting phishing attempts.
If you got a phishing text message, forward it to SPAM (7726).
What’s the difference between a domain registrar and a hosting provider?
Your domain registrar is where you registered your domain name (like GoDaddy or Namecheap). Your hosting provider is where your website files actually live (like Bluehost or SiteGround). Sometimes they’re the same company, but often they’re not. Scammers exploit this confusion by sending fake renewal notices that mix up these services. Knowing which company handles what makes suspicious emails easier to spot.
How often should I check my domain and hosting renewal dates?
Check at least twice a year, and always enable auto-renewal with a valid payment method. Most registrars send legitimate renewal reminders 30-60 days before expiration. If you suddenly get a “final notice” for a domain that isn’t expiring for months, it’s almost certainly a scam.
Should I use a password manager?
Yes. Password managers are one of the most effective security tools available, and they’re easier to use than trying to remember dozens of passwords. They generate strong, unique passwords for every account and store them securely. Popular options include 1Password, Bitwarden, and Dashlane.
If you reuse the same password across multiple sites and one of those sites gets breached, scammers can use that password to access your other accounts. A password manager solves this by creating a different complex password for each site—passwords you’ll never need to remember or type.
Most password managers also store other sensitive information securely (credit cards, secure notes, software licenses) and can alert you if any of your passwords appear in known data breaches. Many of these services have free versions or a small annual cost – well worth it for the security and convenience.
How do I secure my WiFi network?
I’m so glad you asked! An unsecured WiFi network is an open door for attackers who can intercept your data, access your devices, or use your connection for illegal activity.
Start with these basics: change your router’s default admin password (never leave it as “admin/admin”), use WPA3 encryption (or WPA2 if your router doesn’t support WPA3), and create a strong WiFi password that’s at least 12 characters long.
Don’t broadcast your network name to neighbors. You can hide your SSID in your router settings. If you work from home or handle sensitive business information, consider setting up a separate guest network for visitors so they’re not on the same network as your business devices. Finally, keep your router’s firmware updated. Manufacturers release security patches regularly, and outdated firmware is a common vulnerability.
If you’re not comfortable accessing your router settings, your internet service provider can often help you configure these security measures.
Protection starts with preparation
Where there is opportunity, there will be exploitation. Learn the patterns scammers use, keep your accounts organized, and pause when something feels threatening or demands immediate action.
Auto-renewal on domains to eliminate expiration pressure
Backup your data
Security is about creating barriers to entry, making yourself enough of a challenge that scammers move on to easier targets. With these practices in place, you’re no longer low-hanging fruit.
If you aren’t sure about a renewal notice, need to sort out your domain and hosting accounts, or need help implementing security practices, reach out.
If you aren’t a writer, creating blog posts can feel like a chore. And when a task is not something we want to be spending our time on, it’s easy for that task to fall to the wayside.
Maybe you’ve started to use AI writing tools to fill the gap, or you have a marketing team or intern cranking out posts for your website and social media. Still, the content you create isn’t attracting the traffic and conversion results to match the effort invested.
Tell me again why I need to write blog posts?
Blog content can serve your overall marketing strategy by meeting people where they are in their decision-making process.
Build trust and awareness for your brand
Reach potential customers searching for solutions to their problems
Target niche audiences with specific questions and needs, allowing you to compete for more achievable keywords
Repurposed for social media, your content can be shared across channels, provoke discussion and debate, all of which helps surface your content in both traditional search engines and AI search
Companies that blog regularly generate 67% more leads than those that don’t. But to see these results, your blog posts need more than just regular publishing, they need strategic improvements.
Google and other search engines seek fresh, useful, timely content. Yes, a lot of informational queries are now answered in AI overviews. That’s not necessarily bad – if it satisfies the intent of the search query.
When you position yourself as a subject matter expert, with a thoughtful and unique perspective, dynamic blog content begins to gain traction. “Yes,” you say “but there’s so MUCH content being created every day, how can my post stand out and make it into the top 10 SERPs?”
Avoid common blogging mistakes: “Them’s table stakes”
Technical flaws, generic content, and incompleteness can undermine your credibility and make it harder to appear in search results. I’ll walk you through 13 common blogging mistakes that prevent your content from reaching its full potential.
Ready to implement these fixes?Download my free Blog Post Checklist at the end of this article to keep these 13 improvements handy every time you publish.
Content strategy and planning
1. Random posts with no content strategy
Publishing random blog posts whenever you have time leads to inconsistent results. Without a clear content strategy, your blog becomes a collection of unrelated articles that don’t build on each other or serve your business goals. Having a plan means front-loading some discovery work which, you may argue, you don’t have time to do. But, if you have time to do it wrong … I think you see where I’m going with this.
Your content strategy helps you to maintain clarity of purpose with firm boundaries around what makes sense for your business. Don’t waste time following the lead on trending topics. Find the content gaps in your industry, add your own angle, and offer a unique perspective that ties back to your business and what you do best.
Develop your content strategy:
Define your target audience and their pain points
Brainstorm topic clusters around your main services or expertise
Whittle it down to core topics you can commit to writing about
Plan content themes for each month or quarter
Develop a content calendar to maintain consistency – if you can manage 1 post a week, that’s great, but pick a schedule that works for you (be realistic)
Topic clusters can work particularly well for business blogs and build that E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness) signal Google loves. Develop a comprehensive pillar post on a core topic, with supporting posts that dive deeper into specific aspects, shows search engines (and readers) the depth of your expertise.
2. Writing for your business instead of your audience
Many business blogs focus on telling: company news, product updates, and internal achievements. Rather, we should be showing our expertise by crafting content around the topics readers care most about.
As a small business, you are more likely to have direct access to your customers than larger organizations. You have first-hand knowledge of real customers problems and questions. That’s content which can provide unique value to readers in showing (not telling) your understanding of, and solutions to, customers’ real-life challenges.
Plan first. Then write for your audience:
Think about the questions your customers ask most often
Research those topics to discover what other published, ranking content exists and what gaps you might be able to explore
Focus on benefits to the reader, not features of your business
Before writing any post, ask: “What’s in this for my reader? How does this help them?” If you can’t answer that clearly, reconsider the topic.
3. Skipping keyword research
You might have a fantastic idea that you would love to write about. But great ideas without planning … will disappear like tears in rain. In order to compete, you must consider audience intent (you got this, this is your business!) and the words that real people use to describe their problems.
Keyword research should inform your topic choice, not be pinned on blindly like a donkey tail after the fact. Use free tools like Google Keyword Planner, AnswerThePublic, or Google Trends to find keywords and run your own Google search analysis to discover what people are actually searching for.
Understanding the search volume around your keywords is another aspect to consider. If the keywords you are optimizing for have no traffic, well – they won’t result in any clicks if no one is searching for those terms. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) doesn’t have to be complicated, but ignoring it is an opportunity lost.
Essential SEO practices for every blog post:
Research keywords before writing
Include your primary keyword in the page title, first paragraph, and variations throughout the content (be cool, keep it natural)
Use descriptive headings (H2, H3) that include related keywords
Write compelling meta descriptions (155-160 characters with your keyword and a call to action) – these blurbs can encourage clicks when your post appears in search
Add internal links to other relevant posts on your site
Include external links to authoritative sources – “be helpful”
Optimize images with descriptive filenames and alt text, and size them for web use
Focus on creating content for humans first, then optimize for search engines. Keyword stuffing and other manipulative tactics will hurt your rankings. Learn more about SEO fundamentals from Google’s own documentation.
4. Trying to cover everything in one post
Trying to cover everything in a single blog post often results in surface-level content that doesn’t provide real value. A comprehensive article on a specific, narrow topic is fine – but you want to avoid the generic 101 overview.
Narrow your focus, stand apart from the crowd:
Choose one specific problem to solve per post
Break broad topics into a series of related posts
Target one primary keyword per post
Provide actionable advice readers can implement immediately
Link between related posts to create topic clusters
Approximate length of an article: 1,500 – 2,000 words (more if this is a comprehensive or pillar page)
Instead of a “Complete Guide to Vegetable Gardening,” break it up into separate posts like “When to Plant Tomatoes in Your Region” and “How to Prevent Common Tomato Diseases”.
Tip: Create an editorial calendar around this series of articles and connect it to an email list specific to this topic. You can use these articles to create a drip campaign in email and social channels.
Writing & formatting
5. Formal, dense content distances readers
Using flowery words and complex sentences doesn’t impress readers and may repel the very people you’re trying to attract.
If you make your content easy to read, you aren’t ‘dumbing down’, you are opening up your information to anyone who wants to read it. You are making it accessible.
Online readers prefer conversational, easy-to-digest content that feels like it’s written by a real person. Dense paragraphs and complex language make your content harder to read, especially on mobile devices.
Engage readers with conversational content:
Write like you’re talking to a friend
Use short paragraphs (2-3 sentences maximum)
Ask questions to engage readers
Use contractions and casual language when appropriate
6. “Walls of text” without formatting and structure
Large blocks of text are intimidating and difficult to read, especially on mobile devices. Structural elements (like headings and lists) help readers scan and process information and get to the content they care about more quickly.
Reader-friendly post structure:
Include headings each new topic and subtopic, approximately every 200-300 words
Consider adding videos or other multimedia when appropriate
Structure helps machines (AI and Google) better understand and serve your content. Why would you want to make it harder for these tools to connect you with your potential audience? Take the time to add meaningful structure to your posts.
7. Treating blog posts like advertisements
Nobody visits your blog to read sales pitches. Readers come for helpful information and solutions to their problems. Blog posts that focus primarily on promoting your products or services will drive readers away.
Let people see you as human. Be real. Ask yourself, Who would you rather see at your door, a friend or a door-to-door salesman?
Focus on solving reader problems, not selling solutions
Share industry insights and best practices
Provide actionable tips readers can use immediately
Tell stories and share case studies (without heavy promotion)
Mention your products naturally when they’re truly relevant
When you do promote your services, try to make it feel natural and helpful rather than a hard sell.
8. Skipping the proofreading and editing process
Writing is editing. Unclear writing, as well as typos and grammatical errors, can undermine your credibility as a trusted expert. Through editing, you’ll connect loose threads and find deeper themes to develop. You can tighten up unclear messaging and maybe even discover a new angle you hadn’t thought of before.
Even after you hit publish, you can always come back and make changes to your web content. Step away from your writing for a day or two, you’ll catch so many things you missed: awkward phrasing, logic gaps, unnecessary repetition – and moments of inspiration that, on reflection, serve only your burgeoning writers ego (guilty!).
Help your inner blogger emerge with an editing workflow:
Write your first draft, then step away for a few hours (overnight if possible)
Check that your main points are clear and well-supported
Verify all links work and statistics are accurate
Have someone else review important posts
Investing ONE hour in refining and editing your content shows readers you value their time.
Technical optimization (pre-publish checks)
9. Long, unedited URLs confuse readers and Search Engines
Long, convoluted URLs like “yoursite.com/blog/2024/03/15/this-is-a-really-long-title-about-our-latest-product-announcement-and-why-you-should-care” hurt both search rankings and user experience. And you definitely want to avoid keyword stuffing in URLs.
Search engines prefer concise, descriptive URLs. People are more likely to click on and share short, readable URLs. It’s all about trust and meeting expectations.
Lead with your primary keyword (the main thing people are searching for). In the example below, “marketing strategy” is the primary search term, with “small business” being the qualifier.
Long and confusing:/how-to-choose-the-best-marketing-strategy-for-your-small-business-in-2024
Optimized:/marketing-strategy-small-business/
Removing the date also makes this evergreen content that you can improve and add to over time.
Clean up your URLs and keep them human-readable:
Keep URLs under 60 characters when possible (3-5 words)
Include your main keyword
Remove unnecessary words like “and,” “the,” “of”
Use hyphens to separate words
Edit the default URL WordPress creates
Don’t keyword stuff or create misleading, “clever” URLs
10. Oversized images l o a d i n g . . .
In the digital world, three seconds is an eternity. A single uncompressed image may be several megabytes, causing your blog post to load slowly, even on good internet. “So long mobile users and people on slow networks and older devices…” you whisper to yourself as you upload a 3MB PNG image exported from Canva to your latest post.
Page speed directly impacts both user experience and search rankings. Google considers speed a ranking factor, and users expect pages to load in under three seconds. Many free tools like TinyPNG or built-in WordPress features can automatically optimize your images without noticeable quality loss. My favorite tool is ImageOptim.
Optimize images before you upload them:
Compress images before uploading (aim for under 100KB when possible)
Use the more modern and compressed WebP and AVIF formats if available
If you can’t, use JPG for photos and PNG for solid graphics – using PNG for gradient images will 10X the image size (I’m looking at you and shaking my fist in an agitated manner, Canva!)
Resize images to the maximum display size needed (most blog content areas are 800-1200px wide – not 4000px)
11. Missing alt text on images hurts accessibility and SEO
Alt text (alternative text) describes an image for people who can’t see it visually. Don’t exclude visitors with visual impairments, people on slower connections, and people using reader mode from fully experiencing your content.
Alt text can also help search engines understand your content. When search engines can’t “see” your images, they also miss important context about your content.
Alternative text should always be used when images convey contextual meaning. This also applies to images posted to your social media channels and used in your newsletter.
How to write effective alt text:
Describe what’s actually in the image
Keep it under 125 characters
Include a relevant keyword IF you can do it naturally, but recognize that this is not the purpose of alt text and you should not use this as a place to stuff keywords
Don’t start with “image of” or “picture of”
Skip alt text for images that are purely decorative
12. Missing calls to action leave readers without a next step
A blog post without a CTA is like giving a great presentation, dropping the mic and walking offstage. Your audience may be left in awe, but they are probably not taking that next step to subscribe to your email list or contact you about your service. Obstacles to action generate inaction.
Guide readers toward the next step, whether that’s subscribing to your newsletter, downloading a resource, or contacting your team.
Provide that logical next step:
“Download our free [relevant resource] to get started”
Natural mentions like “If you need help with [challenge], here’s how we approach it”
“Get weekly tips like these delivered to your inbox”
“See our complete guide to this [topic]”
Need help creating an effective content strategy?See how we can help your business blog reach more customers.
Post-publication: don’t forget to share your work (and make it shareable)
Lucky 13. Publishing without promoting your content
Hitting publish doesn’t mean you’re finished. I know, crafting that great blog content took a lot out of you. But creating the content is only half the battle. If you don’t actively promote your posts, they may never find their intended audience. Content promotion extends your reach and helps drive brand awareness as well as more traffic to your website.
Content promotion strategies:
Share on your business social media accounts (share snippets from your article, multiple times over several weeks) – if creating a post on LinkedIn, let the first comment be a link to the actual article.
Include recent posts in your email newsletters
Engage with industry communities and forums where your audience is
Reach out to people mentioned in your post
Repurpose content for different platforms
Add social sharing buttons to your post to make sharing easy
How do I know when I’ve made it? Andy Crestodina of Orbit Media Studies has a lot of great content around marketing strategy and analysis, here’s one on measuring content performance.
I see better blogs in your future…
To recap, do these things:
Pre-writing research (keyword research, topic validation)
Create SEO-friendly URLs
Optimize images
Write engaging content that speaks to your audience
Promote your posts
Focus on providing real value to your readers. You may not skyrocket to international acclaim and Google’s coveted Top 10 results overnight, but over the next 3-6 months, ceteris paribus, you might just become noticed as a trusted expert.
Get your free better blog post checklist
Ready to put these fixes into action? Download the Blog Post Checklist – Keep it next to your desk or bookmark it in your browser. Before you hit publish, run through the checklist to catch common blogging mistakes before they go live.
Search engine optimization (SEO) can feel overwhelming for small businesses. You know you need to do it, but where do you start?
Why is SEO important for small businesses?
When potential customers need what you offer, they search online. If your business doesn’t show up in those search results, you’re invisible to them.
SEO helps small businesses get found by people actively looking for their services. Unlike paid advertising that stops working when your budget runs out, SEO builds long-term visibility. When you rank well for the right searches, you’re there 24/7, capturing customers with commercial intent who are ready to hire someone.
Trust is everything
Appearing in organic search results signals legitimacy. People trust businesses that rank naturally more than they trust ads.
This is why having your own website is essential. You can’t rely on Facebook or social media to represent your business. While social media content may appear in AI search results, it won’t build authority for your business. Your website is the only digital property you control, and it’s what search engines use to understand and rank your expertise.
Not every keyword is worth chasing
The most popular “head” terms are dominated by major corporations and high-authority sites that small businesses simply can’t compete with. The intent around those terms can also be ambiguous. A local search engine marketing strategy can help you turn popular head search terms into achievable ranking goals, better positioned to convert a view into a click. Let’s look at how to find the specific searches you can rank for that bring you the right customers.
Understanding search intent
The secret to optimizing SEO for small businesses is understanding search intent. What does the person typing that search actually want?
Google’s entire business depends on providing the best possible answer to every search query. If people get poor results—low-quality, keyword-stuffed content that doesn’t actually help them—they’ll stop using Google. So Google has gotten very good at understanding what searchers want and matching them with content that genuinely answers their question.
This means your job isn’t to trick Google with keywords. Your job is to create content that is the best fit for what the person searching needs. When you understand their intent and provide the right answer, Google will begin to trust your pages and reward you with better rankings.
Search intent typically falls into these categories:
Informational intent: The searcher wants to learn something or understand a concept. They might search “what is instructional design” or “how does SEO work.” They’re not ready to hire anyone—they’re gathering information.
Commercial intent: The searcher is actively looking for a service or product. They might search “instructional design services near me” or “affordable SEO consultant.” These people are ready to make a decision.
Navigational intent: The searcher wants to find a specific website or page. They know where they want to go.
Your service pages need to match commercial intent. Your blog posts can capture informational searches and guide readers toward your services. Navigational is generally your home page (brand) or an AI result—people likely know where they want to go and just need a link to get there.
Why broad keywords don’t work for small businesses
Let’s say you want to rank for a broad term like “instructional design.” When you Google it, what do you see? Probably an AI definition to start with, then Wikipedia in the top three results. Maybe a university or another major publication after that.
That’s not an accident. Google understands that most people searching this term have informational intent. They want basic information, not a service provider. They want the definition and so the AI result or Wikipedia link make sense. Google gives users what they want (and so should you!).
There’s another layer to how search ranking operates: authority.
The authority challenge
Head keywords are intensely competitive. High-authority sites like Wikipedia, major universities, industry publications, and established corporations dominate these rankings. They’ve earned Google’s trust through years of quality content, thousands of backlinks, and proven expertise.
Your small business website simply isn’t in the same weight class. And that’s okay.
Trying to outrank Wikipedia for “instructional design” is like a local gym challenging a national fitness chain on day one. You’re not going to win, no matter how good your content is.
When you write the best possible article on “creating accessible e-learning modules for healthcare compliance training,” you’re competing in a much smaller arena. You can actually rank. You can actually help people. And those people are much more likely to become your clients.
Each time you rank well for a specific search, Google notices. You’re proving your expertise in your niche. Google starts to trust you for broader topics related to your specialty.
This is how small businesses compete: not by going head-to-head with giants, but by owning specific corners of expertise that serve real customer needs.
Specific keywords can better match intent
The more specific the search term, the clearer the intent becomes:
Broad search: “instructional design” (ambiguous, informational intent, high competition)
Specific search: “instructional design consultant for healthcare training” (commercial intent, lower competition, higher conversion)
When you target more specific keywords (longer keyphrases with five or more words) you attract people who know exactly what they need. They’re closer to hiring someone, and your content matches their intent perfectly. These longer searches also have significantly higher conversion rates because the searcher has already narrowed down their needs.
To recap, when you target specific, long-tail keywords, you:
Face less competition
Attract people who are closer to hiring someone
Match the exact solution searchers need
Build Google’s trust in your expertise
As you rank for these specific terms, Google sees you as an authority. Your site gains credibility in your niche. Over time, this opens doors to ranking for broader terms, if those broader terms serve your business goals.
Search traffic trends
33% of all clicks go to the #1 search result
17% of clicks go to the #2 result
90% of people never click to page two of results
The top three results capture most of the traffic
This is why long-tail keywords are so powerful for small businesses. You might not get the massive search volume of broad terms, but ranking #1 for a specific search that perfectly matches your service is far more valuable than ranking on page 3 for a high-volume keyword that brings the wrong audience.
Speak your customers language, and you’ll match their searches
Start with the simplest tool you already have: Google itself.
Search for the terms you want to be found for. Pay close attention to:
Auto-suggest phrases: What does Google suggest as you type? These are real searches people are making.
Sites currently ranking: Who’s on page one? Are they high-authority sites like Wikipedia or major publications?
Ads at the top: Multiple ads often mean high competition and commercial intent.
If you see lots of high-authority results or many ads, that keyword is probably too competitive. Add more words to your search phrase to make it more specific and targeted. For example, instead of “instructional design,” try “instructional design for manufacturing training programs.”
This specificity improves the likelihood you can actually rank.
As you research, ask yourself:
What keywords have the best traffic potential that you can realistically rank for?
What words do your ideal clients use when they search?
What problems are they trying to solve?
The answers won’t be those broad head keywords. They’ll be the specific phrases your target customers actually type.
This is where matching the language people actually use becomes critical and why keyword research is important. You need to understand not just what you call your services, but what your customers call them.
Check Google Search Console to see the actual queries people use to find your content. These real searches reveal the exact words and phrases that bring visitors to your site. Pay attention to the language customers use when they talk to you or ask questions: in emails, phone calls, or consultations. They often use different terminology than industry professionals do, and those are the phrases you should target.
If your customers say “help with employee training videos” but you only optimize for “instructional design services,” you’re missing the connection. Speak their language and you’ll match their searches.
Optimizing your service pages
Your service pages are critical for local search engine marketing. These pages have commercial intent. Your visitors are actively considering hiring someone. Make them actionable and easy to navigate with these essentials:
Reflect your current expertise. Does each page show what you want to be known for now? Update content that no longer matches your goals.
Speak your client’s language. Use the exact words and phrases your customers use, not clever marketing copy or internal lingo.
Show your work. Connect your portfolio or case studies to each service page. People want proof you can deliver.
Balance information with action. Service page visitors need enough information to make a decision, but they’re here to take the next step. Don’t bury them in details.
Include clear, compelling calls to action. Make it obvious what to do next. “Schedule a free consultation,” “Get a custom quote,” or “See how we can help” should be easy to find and act on.
Keep it clean and scannable. Single-column layouts with clear sections work best. Cut the fluff and keep only what serves the searcher’s needs. Use headings, short paragraphs, and white space to guide the eye.
Crafting good content that supports your business goals
Writing content is hard. It’s often difficult to step back and objectively write about your own services while keeping your content accessible, using the right keywords, and making sure you speak to real customer pain points. Writing for the web is different than writing a business document or a brochure. It requires a different approach to structure, language, and purpose.
AI tools can help with this process, but they don’t provide a one-stop solution. Now, instead of a blank page being the problem, I am seeing weak, generic content that doesn’t demonstrate real expertise. I also see highly over-optimized content using keywords suggested by AI tools, not research.
Don’t make bad content like this:
Generic, AI-generated content with no editing. If you’re publishing AI content without adding your unique perspective, experience, and voice, it’s just noise. Search engines are getting better at identifying generic content.
Keyword-stuffed content that doesn’t sound human. Some businesses use AI to generate “optimized” content crammed with keywords, but it reads terribly and doesn’t help anyone. Google sees through this and will penalize you and possibly un-index your page.
Content that reads like a Mad Libs book. If your service page could describe any company in your industry, it’s not going to rank well. Specificity and authentic expertise are always going to beat marketing fluff.
Instead, spend time crafting content that people want to read:
Tighten up existing content to be more concise and focused on one clear topic per page.
Pull detailed points into separate blog posts that target long-tail keywords. Each post should dive deep into one specific aspect of your service area.
Link strategically. Connect your blog posts back to your main service pages. When you write about a specific topic, link to the service page where visitors can take action. This helps readers find what they need and tells Google which pages are most important on your site.
Create internal pathways. Related blog posts should link to each other, building a web of connected content that keeps visitors engaged and demonstrates your expertise across related topics.
Focus each page on one search intent. Don’t try to answer every question on every page. Match the content to what that specific person wants to accomplish.
Interested in how I can help you to optimize existing content or work with you develop a high-performing website? Reach out to request a complimentary call.
SEO is an ongoing process
Rankings change constantly. Search trends evolve. AI-powered tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews are changing how people find information.
Small businesses are better able to adapt to constant change, to shift strategy and service focus to meet new demands. Do this for your search engine marketing too.
Make a habit of reviewing your keyword performance. Use Google Search Console to understand: What’s working now? What’s changed since last quarter?
Update content as your services evolve. Your expertise grows, make sure your website reflects it.
Monitor what your competitors rank for. The competitive landscape shifts. Stay aware of who’s ranking for your target terms.
Adapt to how your customers’ search habits change. This includes traditional Google searches and emerging AI search tools.
Double down on what AI can’t replicate. AI can spew generic content, but it can’t duplicate your unique experience, case studies, and proven results. Quality content that demonstrates real expertise (and uses good page structure like headings, lists and FAQ content) matters.
Finding your niche and optimizing for the right search terms isn’t a one-time task. It’s an ongoing process that pays off when you stay committed to serving your specific audience and understanding what matters most to them.
Your next steps
Audit your current service pages—do they reflect what you want to be known for?
Research the specific phrases your ideal clients actually search
Target long-tail keywords you can realistically rank for
Create content that matches your searcher’s intent
Look for internal linking opportunities
Track your progress and adjust as needed!
Remember, small business SEO isn’t about ranking #1 for the most popular keywords. It’s about being the best answer for the right searches, the ones that bring you ideal clients who are ready to work with you.
Have a question about SEO for your small business?Contact me.
If you are feeling overwhelmed by the possibilities of online marketing, don’t overlook the humble eNewsletter and the advantages of direct marketing. A regular newsletter to clients can create a solid foundation for you to grow your audience and your business.
Evolving from bulk email to newsletter service
If you have been sending bulk emails out from your personal account, it may be time to graduate to an eNewsletter service.
Many mail clients will block the receipt of mass emails from private accounts as spam. If you attach large graphics or PDFs these may or may not be displayed – or even opened.
An eNewsletter can be plain text or HTML (formatted words and pictures), the latter being more popular, and is emailed to your contact list. An eNewsletter service provider also has its own tools so that your missives are not marked as spam (although they may be labelled “promotions”).
Reporting tools are also useful to track your campaigns and see whether people open, click, or forward.
There is a slight learning curve to using some of the online publishing tools but once you complete your first newsletter you will have a template for successive mailings.
Newsletter formats that work: examples to learn from
Video newsletters with extended reach
Some of the most effective newsletters go beyond traditional text and images. Paul Boag, a UX Expert and Consultant, is both efficient and engaging in his approach to content marketing. Creating video content, podcasts, and online courses he repackages and distributes this unique content across multiple channels. Drip campaigns to email subscribers, chunked content supplied to LinkedIn and other social media, and repurposed blog posts with searchable transcripts. This strategy offers multiple benefits:
Accessibility: Transcripts make content available to hearing-impaired users and those who prefer reading
SEO value: Searchable text content helps with search engine visibility
Content multiplication: One piece of content serves newsletter subscribers, blog readers, and search traffic
Flexible consumption: Recipients can watch, read, or skim based on their preference
This approach transforms a simple newsletter into a content marketing system.
Targeted drip campaigns
Beyond regular newsletters, consider using email communication in targeted drip campaigns. These automated sequences can nurture specific segments of your audience:
New client onboarding: A series of emails introducing your services and setting expectations
Seasonal reminders: Automated campaigns tied to industry-specific busy periods
Follow-up sequences: Post-consultation or post-project emails that encourage referrals or additional services
Drip campaigns allow you to provide personalized, timely information without manually sending individual emails.
But … I don’t have anything to say!
To make the prospect of newsletter writing less daunting, try jotting down some ideas throughout the month. Commit to one morning a month to write it and send a test email to yourself and a friend to check for errors. It won’t be the great American novel, just a few paragraphs to remind people that you are still out there providing useful services.
Take advantage of events, workshops, a seasonal change or holiday to send a note to your contact list.
Keep it simple
Email newsletters should be tailored to the busy person’s inbox with one or two key items for their immediate attention. Craft an email newsletter that speaks to the needs of your audience:
Write your own content: There are some services that generate industry-specific content but they also sound generic. You know your clients and you know your business, trust your own voice.
Keep it simple: Avoid creating an email that is too long to be shown in full when received. Edit and curate so that your reader does not have to do this work.
Include a call to action: Whether you want people to contact you, visit your website, or download a resource, make it clear and obvious.
Include contact information: Always provide a link to your website and your contact information.
Writer’s block: breaking through the blank page
When staring at an empty newsletter template feels overwhelming, AI and writing tools can help jumpstart your ideas.
Answer The Public for discovering what questions your audience is asking
Google Trends for identifying timely topics in your industry
The 5-minute head start: Ask an AI tool to create a rough outline based on one idea you’ve jotted down. Use that structure as your starting point, then add your personal voice, specific examples, and local insights that only you can provide. AI can help with the first draft, but your personal experience and voice are what make the newsletter valuable to your specific audience.
Stick to the main points that you want to communicate and save the extra content for the next, regularly scheduled email blast or blog post. Follow up any event announcements with a phone call or postcard to let people and clients know that they are important to you.
Building relationships through readership
There’s a difference between accumulating new subscribers and cultivating engaged readers.
Active readers vs passive followers
Passive followers consume your content but remain silent. They may open emails, but they don’t respond, engage, or take action. While these subscribers have value, they represent missed opportunities for deeper connection.
Active readers engage with your content in meaningful ways:
They reply to your emails with questions or comments
They forward newsletters to colleagues who might benefit
They click through to read full blog posts or case studies
They respond to calls-to-action, whether that’s scheduling consultations or downloading resources
They provide feedback that helps you improve your services
Strategies to cultivate active engagement
Ask questions: End newsletters with genuine questions about your readers’ challenges or experiences. “What’s your biggest obstacle with [topic]?” invites response better than “Contact us if you have questions.”
Share behind-the-scenes content: People connect with people, not perfect brands. Share brief insights about your process, lessons learned from recent projects, or honest reflections on industry changes.
Create conversation starters: Reference current industry discussions or pose thoughtful questions about trends affecting your audience’s work.
Acknowledge responses: When readers do reply, acknowledge their input in future newsletters (with permission). This shows other subscribers that you’re listening and encourages more engagement.
Offer exclusive insights: Give newsletter subscribers content they can’t get elsewhere such as: your perspective on industry developments, early access to resources, or invitations to subscriber-only events.
The relationship dividend
Active readers become referral sources, case study participants, and loyal clients who stick with you through market changes. They provide the feedback that helps you refine your services and understand your market better.
A smaller list of engaged readers will consistently outperform a large list of passive subscribers when it comes to business growth and client acquisition.
Email marketing strategy: frequency and timing
Once a week, once a month, quarterly, whatever works for you as long as you stick to the schedule. Consistency builds trust and keeps you top-of-mind with your audience.
If you have a special event or workshop between mailings, send out an invitation or reminder notice about one week in advance. Consider these timing strategies:
Regular newsletters: Monthly for most service businesses
Event announcements: One week advance notice
Drip campaigns: Varies by purpose (daily for short sequences, weekly for longer nurture campaigns)
Seasonal communications: Tied to your industry’s natural rhythms
Choosing an email newsletter platform
Selecting the right email marketing platform depends on your budget, technical comfort level, and business needs. Here are a few options with their strengths and limitations:
Best for: Small businesses wanting simplicity without sacrificing features
Pros: Intuitive drag-and-drop editor, generous free plan (up to 1,000 subscribers), excellent deliverability, built-in landing pages, affordable pricing that scales well, automation features that are easy to set up
Cons: Template selection smaller than some competitors, fewer advanced integrations than enterprise platforms
Best for: Small businesses wanting email + SMS marketing in one platform
Pros: Very generous free plan (up to 300 emails/day, unlimited contacts), includes SMS marketing, transactional email capabilities, good automation features, excellent deliverability, includes basic CRM features
Cons: Daily sending limits on free plan can be restrictive for larger campaigns, interface can feel cluttered with all the features, phone support only on higher tiers
Best for: Absolute beginners who want extensive resources
Pros: User-friendly interface, robust free plan (up to 500 contacts), extensive template library, tons of tutorials and support content
Cons: Becomes expensive quickly as list grows, pricing jumps significantly after free tier. Personally, I find this platform increasingly hard to use and confusing post Intuit acquisition.
Using a professional email service isn’t just about features, it’s about legal protection. Laws like CAN-SPAM (US), CASL (Canada), and GDPR (EU) require specific elements in commercial emails:
Clear sender identification
Easy unsubscribe mechanisms
Physical business address
Honest subject lines
Professional email platforms automatically include these compliance features and maintain required unsubscribe processes. Sending bulk emails from your personal account can violate these laws and also impact your email deliverability.
DNS configuration
To ensure your emails reach inboxes instead of spam folders, you’ll need to configure DNS records for your domain:
SPF records tell email servers which IPs can send email for your domain
DKIM records add digital signatures to verify email authenticity
DMARC policies protect against email spoofing and improve deliverability
Most email platforms provide step-by-step DNS setup instructions. This technical setup is required and will improve your email deliverability and protects your domain’s reputation.
If you’re new to email marketing, start simple. You can always migrate later as your needs grow.
Consider growth: Look at pricing tiers for larger subscriber counts. Some platforms become prohibitively expensive as your list grows, while others offer flat-rate pricing.
Integration needs: Ensure your chosen platform integrates with your website, CRM, or other business tools you currently use.
Deliverability matters: Research recent deliverability rates and reputation. The most beautiful newsletter means nothing if it lands in spam folders.
Test before committing: Most platforms offer free trials or free tiers. Test the interface and features with a small list before making a long-term commitment.
Measuring newsletter success
Another advantage to moving away from those bulk emails sent from a personal account, modern email marketing platforms provide valuable insights into your newsletter performance:
Open rates: How many people are reading your subject lines
Click-through rates: Which content resonates with your audience
Unsubscribe rates: Whether your frequency or content needs adjustment
Forward rates: How often recipients share your content
Use this data to refine your approach and improve engagement over time. Happy mailing!
Subscribe to my newsletter for monthly articles like this in your inbox.
Building a successful coaching or consulting practice starts with your expertise. Your website can serve as a helpful resource that introduces your work, builds your brand, and signals your authority and expertise. A thoughtful online presence is key to helping potential clients understand your value and approach.
Why your coaching website is your most important marketing tool
More professionals are offering coaching and consulting services than ever before. Trends driving this growth include the rise of online coaching, increased demand for personal and professional development, and the diversification of coaching niches. All of which means potential clients often have many options when seeking help. A professional (not Facebook) online presence gives your prospect a way to learn about your approach and determine if you might be a good fit for their needs.
Your own website gives you complete control over how you present your work and expertise. Unlike social media platforms where your content must compete against opaque algorithms, your website is a finely tuned environment where you own the content, the presentation, and the experience. This builds stronger credibility than scattered posts across platforms you don’t control.
Most importantly, your website will appear in search results when potential clients are looking for solutions, and establish the trust and authority critical to building your business.
Essential elements of a successful coaching website
Clear messaging about your coaching niche
The biggest misstep coaches (and any new business venture) can make is trying to appeal to everyone. Ironically, it’s tough to follow our own good advice. You may coach your clients to focus on a specific audience or outcome, but when it comes to your own messaging, think narrowing down feels risky. “I help people reach their potential” or “I coach anyone who wants to improve their life” sounds inclusive but actually attracts no one. Potential clients need to feel that you address their unique concerns and they need to understand the specific benefits they will gain from working with you.
When in doubt, be more specific. Consider something like “I help overwhelmed executives develop leadership skills and work-life balance” or “I work with women entrepreneurs launching their first business.” Honing in on a more specific group and challenge helps the right people recognize themselves in your messaging while naturally filtering out those who aren’t a good fit.
Creating content that shows your coaching expertise
Content creation allows you to showcase your coaching philosophy and give potential clients insight into how you work. When people can see examples of your thinking and approach to common challenges, they begin to trust you and can imagine what it would be like to work with you as their coach.
Focus on addressing questions that come up frequently with your coaching clients. Share insights from your coaching experience (while maintaining confidentiality), frameworks you use in your coaching sessions, and your perspective on challenges specific to your coaching niche.
Don’t worry about giving away your “secrets” through content. Sharing your methodology helps to build trust. People want to understand your coaching approach before committing to work with you. Regular content creation also positions you as a thought leader in your coaching specialty.
How professional coaching website design can help build credibility
When someone is considering hiring a coach, they’re making a significant personal and financial investment. A professional, well-organized coaching website helps build the confidence they need to take that step.
Position yourself as an expert by highlighting your real-world experience that’s relevant to your coaching niche. Did you lead teams before becoming a leadership coach? Did you successfully launch a business before coaching entrepreneurs? Did you navigate your own career transition before helping others do the same? This lived experience often provides more credibility than formal certifications alone.
This includes having a website that functions well across all devices, using consistent branding that reflects your coaching personality, and maintaining professional communication throughout your site. Details like working contact forms, clear navigation, and professional photography contribute to an overall impression of reliability and attention to detail. All qualities potential coaching clients want to see in their coach!
Essential coaching website tips
Making the right first impression on your homepage
Your consulting website homepage should immediately communicate what type of coach or consultant you are and who you can help. A clear headline that addresses your ideal coaching client’s primary challenge or goal is a great way to start. For example, “Leadership Coaching for Overwhelmed Executives” or “Life Coaching for Career Transitions.” Follow this with a brief explanation of your coaching approach and clear next steps for interested visitors.
Consider including client success stories, coaching certifications, or results in a visible area of your homepage. This social proof helps visitors feel more confident about exploring your coaching services further. A brief video introduction that allows potential clients to get a sense of your coaching personality and communication style can also be highly effective and set you apart from other consultants in your niche.
Building trust and connection on your About page
In any service-based industry, you are the product. People want to understand your background, coaching credentials, and what led you to coaching before considering your services.
Consider framing your content development with the question every potential consulting client has: “Can this coach help me?” Share your experience with clients similar to them and how your background relates to their challenges.
Frame service offerings within a bigger picture
Some coaching websites list features instead of benefits: “Weekly 60-minute sessions,” “Email support between sessions,” “Personalized action plans.” While these details matter, potential clients care more about what they’ll achieve through coaching. You’re selling your expertise and an aspirational goal, not a productized “session.”
Changing your framing to a value-based approach also helps you focus pricing around the transformation you provide rather than hourly rates or fixed deliverables, positioning your coaching as an investment in results rather than a commodity service.
Should I show my coaching rates?
You may find that you struggle with whether to display coaching prices. Price is likely a top consideration when choosing to work with a coach or consultant. Clear pricing answers one of the main initial questions clients have, improving likelihood of conversion and speeding up the decision-making process.
On the other hand, if your services vary widely by client or project scope, displaying a fixed price can set wrong expectations and create more confusion or pushback. Offering price ranges or starting prices can help orient visitors without overcommitting to fixed fees. In general, I recommend experimenting with pricing. The great things about web pages is they aren’t print. So, test out some pricing structures and see what works best.
Just ask: coaching testimonials and client results
Don’t be afraid to ask for testimonials. People genuinely want to help others who have made a positive impact on their lives. If you feel awkward, consider these approaches for getting coaching testimonials:
During your regular check-ins when clients share wins, “That’s awesome! Can I share that result?”
Send a follow-up email 2-4 weeks after coaching ends
Request specific feedback: “What was most valuable?” “What changed for you?”
Make it easy by providing a simple form or asking just a few specific questions
You can also include a request for feedback on your email signature or in your newsletter footer
Satisfied coaching clients are a tremendous resource and can be your biggest advocates. Plus, authentic testimonials with specific details and outcomes create valuable content that search engines recognize as trustworthy, helping your coaching website rank better for relevant searches.
Consulting articles and resources help establish your expertise
A regularly updated coaching blog serves multiple purposes: it improves your website’s search engine visibility, provides value to potential clients, and demonstrates your ongoing expertise in your coaching niche.
Create content that answers questions or objections that you frequently encounter in your work.
Write about real concerns – this can help you develop authority around long-tail keywords that support your core services.
Consider offering free resources with a prompt to subscribe to a newsletter. These can provide immediate value while giving interested visitors a sample of your coaching approach and a reason to stay connected with your work.
Coaching contact & client intake
It may seem obvious but these interactions are often overlooked. Your contact page should make it simple for potential coaching clients to reach out while also beginning the client qualification process.
If you offer free discovery calls (which many coaches do), explain what potential clients can expect from these conversations. Be clear about the purpose: is it to determine mutual fit, provide immediate value, or both? Help them prepare by suggesting they think about their goals and what they hope to achieve through coaching with you.
Need help with your coaching website?
Whether you are looking for a redesign, starting from scratch, or in need of a few updates – I can help. Request a complimentary call:
Understanding how people search for coaching services
Effective SEO for coaches starts with understanding how your ideal clients search for coaching and consulting services. This boils down to search intent. People searching for problems expect helpful content and solutions, while those searching for specific services expect to find providers and pricing. Websites that match their content to how their audience actually searches will rank better and attract more qualified visitors.
Are people searching for “business coach” or “life coach”? Or, are they approaching their search from a problem-solution mindset? Research the language your potential coaching clients use to describe their challenges.
“How to get promoted at work” (executive coaching)
“Starting a business while working full time” (entrepreneurship coaching)
“Confidence coaching for women” (life coaching)
“Leadership training for new managers” (leadership coaching)
“Career change at 50” (career coaching)
Make sure to include long-tail keywords that reflect specific challenges in your content as well as broad coaching terms. “Leadership coaching for introverted managers” is a long-tail, specific key phrase that can help support and inform queries around a head term like “leadership coach.” Over time, this approach builds topical authority and helps you rank for both specific problems and general coaching searches.
The web is made of links. Internal linking between related pages helps search engines understand your content structure and connects visitors to relevant, useful content. Linking to external, authoritative websites is also good (when you are providing more useful, relevant information). Don’t forget to link your articles back to their related service pages!
Creating coaching content that ranks in search results (yes, you can use AI)
With the help of AI, we no longer have to stare at a blank page tapping our pencil and wondering what to write about. AI is so good at producing thousands of words! And, Google has said that it will reward high-quality content, however it is produced, so it’s not cheating…
Although AI can be a helpful tool, it’s important to understand it’s limitations as well as its strengths.
Search engines reward website content that consistently provides unique, useful, relevant content to a matched search query. AI can help you generate ideas and drafts but it is even more important to craft your own unique voice, to push your LLM of choice to be critical, provide clarification, and to question its eager assumptions. Prompting AI is a bit like “programming in prose“. In the end, LLMs just make patterns of words. They aren’t really connecting ideas and they don’t understand or remember what they’ve written (fingers crossed / yet).
That’s still your job.
Thought Leadership Content
Thought leadership content demonstrates your expertise by sharing unique perspectives on industry challenges and emerging opportunities. AI systems and search engines increasingly recognize and reward original insights, personal experiences, and professional commentary that can’t be replicated by automated content generation.
Share your take on industry developments, challenge conventional wisdom when you have evidence from your coaching practice, and ask better questions that help others think differently. This type of authentic, experience-based content builds authority and trust that generic information cannot match.
Building your coaching website: ready to start?
Start by establishing a clear messaging about your coaching niche, draft essential pages and services that reflects your consulting style.
Focus on one area at a time rather than trying to perfect everything simultaneously. Is it good enough? Hit publish.
Remember that your coaching website should evolve with your practice. What works for a new coach building credibility differs from what works for an established coach expanding into group programs or online courses.
The investment you make in your coaching website today will help you build the coaching or consulting business that supports your life in the future, rather than letting the ups and downs of business dictate what comes next.
A strategic, professional coaching website doesn’t just showcase your services. It becomes your most effective business development tool, attracting your ideal clients and positioning you as the clear choice when people are ready to invest in personal and professional development.
Reach out to me to discuss any questions you have or comment below!
You’ve probably heard that social media is essential for business success. Mantras like “Social media is free marketing” or “If you’re not on social, you don’t exist” have acquired the common familiarity of truthiness1.
Marketing (and SEO) myths persist partly because confident proclamations tend to be louder than nuanced analysis, and ‘you must be on social media’ sounds more authoritative than ‘it depends on your specific situation.’
Think about what people are doing on Facebook today. They’re keeping up with their friends and family, but they’re also building an image and identity for themselves, which in a sense is their brand. They’re connecting with the audience that they want to connect to. It’s almost a disadvantage if you’re not on it now.
Mark Zuckerberg
We may have a president who is a horrible person, live on a planet ready to eviscerate itself like a sea cucumber, all while eagerly embracing the tools of our oppressor in a rapidly unfolding AI hellscape, but we do still have free will, damn it. People have been “connecting with their audience” and building relationships long before Facebook2 existed: through phone calls, letters, face-to-face meetings, hollering, and countless other means. The real connector isn’t Facebook. It’s you. Your relationships, your expertise, your service, your authentic presence in the world. A platform doesn’t create connections, people do.
So, why this FOMO-driven pressure to embrace social media in order to become a more successful business? Successful businesses may be on social media, but that doesn’t mean social media made them successful. Marketing agencies sell social media services. Social media sells your data. Without businesses and users creating posts, sharing updates, and engaging on their platforms, these companies don’t make any money. Every piece of content you create is unpaid labor that generates billions in ad revenue for them.
More insidiously, these platforms encourage us to think from the outside-in. If we accept the malformed notion that we are ‘brands’ performing for an audience instead of people exploring what genuinely matters to us, we feel compelled to produce content for external validation rather than pursuing our deeper human interests and questions. This addiction to external metrics (likes, shares, comments) disconnects us from our authentic selves and the meaningful relationships that actually sustain a business and our own mental health.
Businesses can thrive without Meta platforms like Facebook and Instagram, or X (formerly Twitter). Remember, you own your content. Aligning your marketing with your values can only create stronger, more sustainable connections with your audience in the real world.
The always on myth of social media
The pressure we feel to “be everywhere” is an intentional, designed aspect of social media. In reality, the majority of sales and lasting customer relationships for small businesses come from owned channels3: your website, email marketing, word-of-mouth referrals, and direct engagement.
While social media can surface your business to new audiences, the perceived risk of leaving may be much greater than any actual business impact. My point isn’t that everyone should quit social media immediately. Rather, we can approach these platforms as consumers making informed choices instead of people standing in line at a grocery store that only sells one brand of canned meat.
Are your social media followers becoming customers? Or are you spending hours creating content that gets lost in the infinite scroll?
The ethical case for conscious platform choices
Beyond business metrics, there’s a deeper question: Do you want your business to support platforms that don’t share your values?
Platform ethics
The concept of ‘platform ethics’ is something of an oxymoron. These are corporations designed to maximize profit, not moral entities (ie. people) with genuine ethical frameworks. Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has recently faced significant scrutiny for allowing AI chatbots to engage in inappropriate conversations with children, with internal guidelines that permitted “romantic or sensual” interactions with minors. This policy was approved by Meta’s legal, engineering, and ethics teams before being quietly removed following media exposure.
Similarly, X has seen significant content moderation challenges since Elon Musk’s takeover. Research found that X “fails to act on 99% of hate posted by Twitter Blue subscribers,” with only 1 out of 100 reported hate speech posts being removed after four days.
Platforms like X, Facebook, TikTok, et al. also use AI-driven algorithms that can perpetuate bias, amplify misleading information, and manipulate user behavior. In a capitalist society, the consumer is the product, and the prioritization of engagement and profits over user wellbeing is not wholly surprising. But, it is still a little bit disappointing.
What this means for your business
When you create content for social platforms, you’re not just building your audience. You’re also contributing to systems that may conflict with your values. For therapists focused on mental health, artists creating meaningful work, or retailers building trust-based relationships, this misalignment can be particularly troubling.
“Does social media work for my business?” isn’t the right question. On deeper analysis we should be asking ourselves, “Do I want to build my business on a foundation I don’t believe in?”
“But what about my followers?”
This is often the biggest concern when considering stepping back from social media. You’ve spent time building an audience, won’t you lose all that effort?
If you do have thousands of followers, that’s YOUR audience. They’re following YOU, not the platform. Consider what a difference it would make if you directed that cultural influence toward channels you can control and/or aren’t actively amoral. Think of changing platforms like a little Spring Clean; you’ll lose some bots (and maybe some real followers) but you can start fresh and align your presence with platforms that don’t promote a toxic stew of ignorance.
Self-assessment selfie
73% of small businesses worldwide aren’t sure their current marketing strategy is working.4
Are you actually getting meaningful engagement right now? If you have 500 followers and get 2 likes per post, what are you gaining from that platform?
If your posts regularly get few likes, minimal comments, and rarely convert to actual business inquiries, you’re already not reaching your audience there. Your time as a small business owner is one of your most valuable assets. Spending hours crafting social media content that reaches a handful of people and generates zero sales is a poor ROI.
Please, like me
You might have 1,000 followers but only consistently reach 30 – 50 people per post. Meanwhile, an email list of 200 engaged subscribers can generate more in actual business.
2025 marketing benchmarks show average email marketing conversion rates for B2C hovering between 2.8% and 8%, depending on industry and campaign quality. Social media conversion rates are generally lower, often around 1–3% on average.
72% of consumers prefer to receive branded communications by email versus only 17% via social media.
Remember when you learned as a child that your real friends will like you for who you are? The people who value your work will find other ways to stay connected when you provide clear alternatives:
Announcing your transition: Let your current audience know where they can find you (your website, email list, alternative platforms)
Offering incentives: Provide exclusive content or resources to encourage people to join your email list
Maintaining relationships: The connections that matter most—your actual customers and genuine supporters—will follow you to platforms that better serve both of you
Your website as a source of truth
Owned channels (website, email, direct messaging) provide brands far greater control over content, customer journey, and engagement than paid or social media platforms. Unlike social media posts, your website content:
Builds SEO value over time
Provides complete control over user experience
Creates a professional, trustworthy presence
Serves as a comprehensive resource for your audience
Email marketing
Email newsletters create direct, personal relationships with people who actively chose to hear from you. This owned channel is:
Less vulnerable to external platform changes
More reliable for reaching your actual audience
Ideal for nurturing long-term customer relationships
Measurable and controllable
Good, ol’ website content
Blog posts, resources, and educational content on your own site build authority and attract customers through search engines. Well-structured content on your own site, like detailed FAQs, how-to guides, and comprehensive resource pages, becomes increasingly valuable as AI search tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI overviews pull from authoritative sources to answer user questions. When your content is properly organized and answers real questions your audience has, it positions you as the expert source that AI systems reference and recommend.
Social platform alternatives
Decentralized platforms
Unlike Meta or X, which can change algorithms, policies, or even shut down overnight based on corporate decisions, decentralized platforms distribute control across multiple servers and communities. This means your content isn’t sold for ads, more transparent governance, and the ability to maintain your connections even if one server goes down.
Mastodon offers open-source, decentralized social networking focused on authentic conversations without ad-driven algorithms.
Bluesky provides a user-friendly alternative designed around user control and data ownership.
Creative networks
Tumblr touts itself as a creative haven for artists and writers, with less platform interference and more “old internet energy”, although moderation continues to be a challenge.
Authority-building platforms
LinkedIn allows you to publish longer-form articles that can establish professional authority, and can provide meaningful professional connections for service-based businesses, especially when used for genuine networking rather than constant posting.
Reddit communities offer opportunities to share expertise and build credibility in niche areas through genuine participation.
Local and direct engagement
Networking events, partnerships with complementary businesses, and community involvement often generate more qualified leads than social media ever could.
The medium is the message and the message is YOU
Is there an authenticity cap on social media and brand interactions with people or are corporations corporeal enough for audiences to suspend their disbelief?
In the 1964 publication “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man,” communication theorist Marshall McLuhan describes the “content” of a medium as a juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind. The medium itself shapes and controls “the scale and form of human association and action”.
What does your audience need and want from a business like yours? I would suggest that it’s not being on brand that appeals but the personal, authentic, and useful expertise you have to share.
As individuals and small businesses we have much more flexibility to respond directly to client needs and adapt to trends. We are in an excellent position to gain a local advantage through social networking if we take the time to cultivate our readers5.
Podcasts, YouTube channels, email newsletters, and your own blog let you cultivate audiences without the accessibility, permanence, and visibility problems that come with creating content for platforms you don’t own. Your blog post from 2019 is still findable and useful; your Facebook post from 2019 is buried in an algorithmic graveyard.
Alternative platforms can help you connect with audiences and demonstrate expertise, but they still don’t replace building authority on your own domain where you have complete control. I’m not just saying this because I build websites. I say this as a content creator who believes in the intellectual copyright I have on my own work. When you post your ideas or art to social media, you’re essentially leasing that away. You are giving platforms the right to use, modify, and profit from your work6 while hoping their algorithm decides to show it to (the right) someone.
Case study: me
As someone who helps businesses build their online presence, I made some of these changes myself in 2024. I closed my X/Twitter account and, while I initially missed some professional connections, I quickly found them, and often better interactions, on LinkedIn, BlueSky and in Slack communities.
Leaving Facebook was an easy decision. Despite maintaining a business page there for years, no one interacted with my content except my mom (thanks Mom!).
I still have Instagram because it connects me with other artists and arts professionals. I’ll be exploring Tumblr to see if I can build a similar creative community on a platform with less problematic roots.
Did leaving those platforms result in a drying up of new business leads? Nope. I’m more focused on the channels that actually work and enjoying writing articles again. Bonus: I am wasting less time scrolling through ads that target me as a woman of a certain age.
There’s a whole world outside that walled garden
Consider where you want to spend your time and who you are spending it with.
Dip a toe in. Pause a social media account for one month. See if it impacts your business in any meaningful way.
Audit your current results. Which platforms actually drive business? Which align with your values?
Invest in owned channels. Strengthen your website, start an email list, create useful, original content you control.
Test alternative platforms. Try engaging in niche communities or values-aligned networks relevant to your industry.
As your owned channels grow, you can step back from platforms that don’t serve you.
You’re the fuel, not just the feed
As you consider your social media channels and whether they’re actually benefiting your business, invest that same critical thought into your website and email marketing. These two channels belong to you and will benefit from your care and attention.
Truthiness is a term coined by Stephen Colbert to mean something that is believed to be true because it sounds accurate, not due to any evidence. Synonyms: ignorant assertion, bald-faced lies. ↩︎
Which, let’s not forget, was created to rate the attractiveness of classmates and quickly pivoted to become a “student directory” when it received criticism. ↩︎
“Having an established web presence correlates to higher revenue businesses: 66% of businesses with no website have revenues of $100,000 or less; of businesses with a website, 45% have revenues of $100,000 or less.” – Small Business Majority, 2023 Report↩︎
Readers being an audience that is actively engaged vs a follower who is a passive consumer. ↩︎
Meta’s financial success relies almost entirely on user-generated content to keep people engaged, gather behavioral data, and sell targeted advertising at massive scale. Their business model turns every user’s post, like, and interaction into valuable ad inventory, resulting in well over $100 billion of annual revenue purely from ads placed around content people create for free. ↩︎
You’ve just finished tweaking your meta tags, optimizing your H1s, and crafting some valuable long-form content. You hit “publish,” sit back with your coffee, and move on to the next project.
A few weeks later, you’re reviewing your monthly performance report and notice something strange: your traffic looks fine, but your clicks have dropped significantly.
Welcome to the new frontier of search, where AI writes the summaries, answers the questions, and sometimes doesn’t even need to send users to your site.
So what does that mean for your SEO strategy? Let’s walk through what’s actually changing and what you can do to stay visible when helpful robots are running the show.
AI and Traditional Search
AI is reshaping how search engines interpret and serve your content. Instead of simply pointing people to your site, both search engines and AI platforms are increasingly providing direct answer to queries—often using content from your site to do it.
Google blends generative AI into how it understands user search intent, ranks results, and serves features like AI Overviews. Meanwhile, standalone AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude are becoming alternative ways people search, sometimes skipping traditional search engines entirely.
What’s happening:
Fewer clicks, even when you rank #1.“Zero-click” searches are now common, but they often represent a better user experience. When someone gets the answer they need immediately, that’s still a touchpoint with your brand—especially if AI draws that answer from your site.
Traditional SEO fundamentals matter more, not less. Generative AI models rely on structured, well-formatted content to understand and surface accurate answers. Semantic HTML, clear heading hierarchies, and schema markup help AI understand the relationships between your topics and key information.
The audience of “humans and Google” is expanded to include “humans and machines.” AI summarizes, interprets, and repackages your content, so the clearer and more valuable it is, the more likely it is to be surfaced in AI-generated results.
Local and transactional searches still drive action
When someone searches “emergency plumber in [your town],” “custom birthday cake [your city],” or “therapist accepting new patients near me,” they need to take action locally. AI can provide the basics, but it can’t complete transactions or bookings (yet).
Your Google Business Profile is your secret weapon
A complete and up-to-date Google Business Profile has more impact on local discovery than trying to rank nationally for broad topics. Make sure your address, photos, hours, services, links, and reviews are current and comprehensive.
Is there a local event that is related to your business? Or perhaps a local cause or organization that can be tied in to an About page? For example, you could highlight local community connections through partnerships, board memberships, volunteer experiences, or other aspects of local life that are meaningful to you.
If applicable to your business, content like “Best venues for small weddings in [your county]” or “What to expect from physical therapy after a car accident” can leverage your insider knowledge and local expertise in ways that big publishers can’t match.
The key is avoiding what I call the “vanity SEO trap”—chasing broad, high-volume keywords that won’t drive local business. Optimize for what people in your area are actually searching for: services, needs, and location-based solutions.
Get cited: structure content that AI will love
The most actionable strategy for any business now is creating content that AI can easily pull from and attribute. This requires some attention to how you format and present information.
Lead with direct answers. Don’t bury key information in long paragraphs. Start sections with clear, concise responses: “Yes, we offer evening appointments” or “Our deep cleaning service takes 3-4 hours.” When AI encounters this structure, it can easily extract and cite your answer.
Embrace structured formats. Think FAQs, how-to guides, numbered lists, and tables. These formats help both humans and AI quickly find and use your information. For example, a therapist might create content answering “What should I expect in my first therapy session?” with clear, step-by-step information.
Create comprehensive topic clusters. AI understands topics and relationships, not just keywords. Build one comprehensive guide supported by specific pages—like a “Guide to Therapy Services” pillar page with dedicated pages for different conditions or treatments. Link strategically between related content to show AI the depth of your expertise.
Use schema markup and structured data. This helps AI understand your content context, especially for local businesses. Rich snippets displaying hours, pricing, and reviews can appear directly in search results even when users don’t click through to your site.
Google Business Profile strategy
Your Google Business Profile isn’t just a listing, it’s your primary tool for appearing in AI overviews, voice search results, and local pack listings where most local discovery happens.
Post regularly with purpose
Aim for 2-3 posts per week that answer common customer questions, share service updates, or highlight your expertise. These posts appear directly in search results and map listings, giving you visibility even in zero-click scenarios.
Optimize for mobile and “near me” searches
Over 80% of local searches happen on mobile, and your Business Profile is often the first thing potential customers see. Complete profiles with current information significantly improve your visibility in these critical searches.
Use the Q&A section strategically
Encourage satisfied customers to ask and answer questions about your services. You can also seed this section with common questions you receive, providing clear answers that AI can surface in search results.
Building authority that AI recognizes
AI doesn’t just regurgitate content—it makes quality judgments about which sources deserve to be cited. Your goal is becoming one of the chosen few by demonstrating expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T).
Display credentials prominently
For professional services, clearly show licenses, certifications, years of experience, and professional affiliations. AI systems are increasingly sophisticated at evaluating these trust signals.
Create content that demonstrates real experience
Share case studies (with appropriate privacy protections), lessons learned, and behind-the-scenes insights that only someone with hands-on experience could provide. Generic advice that sounds like it could be written by AI won’t stand out.
Keep content fresh and updated
AI tools favor recently updated pages. Regular updates signal that your information is current and reliable.
In an AI-driven search world, being the most helpful, accurate, and locally relevant source wins…
Get the free Local SEO Action Checklist.
Measuring success in the AI era
Traditional metrics like organic traffic and click-through rates don’t tell the complete story anymore. Focus on these indicators instead:
Brand mention tracking. Monitor when your business appears in AI-generated summaries or featured snippets, even without clicks. Tools like Google Alerts can help track brand mentions across the web.
Local engagement metrics. Phone calls, direction requests, and form submissions from your Google Business Profile often matter more than website visits for local businesses.
“Near me” search visibility. Track your rankings for location-based searches in your service area. These searches typically have higher commercial intent.
Question-based keyword performance. Monitor how you rank for queries that start with “how,” “what,” “where,” and “when” related to your services, as these are prime targets for AI summaries.
Don’t be discouraged, your human expertise is more valuable than ever
The future of SEO isn’t about outsmarting algorithms, it’s about showcasing your unique knowledge and experience in ways that both people and AI can easily understand and share.
Your website, content, and local expertise matters. Success now means being the most helpful, authoritative voice in your field and location. So, grab a towel, go forth and make your content clear, helpful, and true to your business.
Questions about implementing these strategies on your website? I help local businesses like you create websites that speak to your audience and perform well in today’s search landscape. Reach out for a free consultation – I’d love to help you get more qualified leads for your business.
If your therapy website only converts 2-3% of visitors into client inquiries, the solution isn’t more expensive Google Ads or chasing “therapist near me1” keywords. It’s conversion rate optimization (CRO)—turning more of your existing website visitors into actual clients. This approach provides measurable results without constantly increasing your marketing budget.
Most therapy practice owners fall into the same trap: thinking more visitors automatically equals more business. This leads to constantly increasing Google Ads budgets or hiring SEO agencies promising “10x more website traffic.”
But, if your website converts poorly, more traffic just amplifies your problem. You’re paying more money for the same conversion rate.
Top-performing therapy websites convert 15-25% of visitors into inquiries. Small, strategic improvements to your existing site can dramatically increase conversions without spending another dollar on traffic.
A sustainable approach focuses on maximizing the value of visitors you already have. This means optimizing your intake process, improving trust signals, and creating clear pathways for potential clients to take action.
Note: Email marketing for healthcare providers significantly outperforms other channels—achieving an 11.4% conversion rate2 compared to just 4% from paid search and 5% from social media marketing.
3 Trust-building tips critical for therapy practices
Mental health clients face unique barriers—anxiety about seeking help, concerns about stigma, and fear about confidentiality. Your website must address these concerns before focusing on conversions.
1. Establish professional credibility
Staff bios with photos: Show education, certifications, and specializations with relaxed, approachable headshots
Credentials prominently displayed: License numbers, education, professional associations
HIPAA-compliant contact forms instead of email addresses
Clear service descriptions for specific approaches and areas of specialization
2. Trust signals & social proof
Professional associations: APA, state licensing boards, specialty certifications
Google reviews integration: Display star ratings and recent feedback – respond to reviews, especially any negative ones
3. Address mental health stigma directly
Empathetic language: Avoid clinical jargon, use warm, understanding tone
Normalize seeking help: “Therapy is a valuable tool for anyone navigating life’s challenges”
Emphasize confidentiality: Include prominent privacy statements and non-judgmental messaging
Conversions in mental health marketing aren’t just about sales. Mental health clients often face barriers like anxiety or fear about asking for help, so your website becomes the first place to establish a relationship based on acceptance and understanding.
Readability directly impacts your conversion rate—and the data proves it. Pages written at a 5th to 7th-grade reading level achieve a 10.8% median conversion rate, while complex language significantly reduces conversions. In fact, as the reading level increases, the median conversion rate drops exponentially. At the 10th to 12th-grade level, the conversion rate drops by a whopping 55.6%.
Simple content fixes that boost conversions
Replace clinical jargon with everyday language—swap “anxiety disorder” for “feeling anxious or worried.” Keep sentences under 20 words and use active voice. Structure content with emotional benefits in headlines like “Feel better starting today” rather than clinical descriptions.
Use warm, action-oriented language
“We’re here to help” vs. “We provide therapeutic interventions”
“Schedule your first session” vs. “Initiate therapeutic consultation”
“You” and “we” instead of “patients” or “clients”
It’s not too simple, it’s more clear
People seeking mental health support are often anxious, overwhelmed, or in crisis. Dense, clinical language creates barriers when they need clarity.
This isn’t oversimplifying—it’s meeting people where they are. Plain language helps search engines understand your content3 and benefits all readers, especially those under stress.
Design pages that help anxious visitors take action
Emergency resources: Crisis resources for immediate needs
Multiple CTA placement: Header, middle of content, footer
Mobile optimization for crisis
Mobile optimization is critical for therapy practices since more than 60% of all Google searches now happen on mobile devices. Mental health searches often occur during moments of crisis or high anxiety when immediate help is needed, increasing the need for speed.
Load in under 3 seconds: Anxiety increases with wait time
Large click-to-call buttons: Make phone contact obvious and easy
Simplified forms: Minimize fields, use dropdowns for service selection
Clear visual hierarchy: Visitors need to know where they are and how to get help
People will scroll4, but they need clear signals about where they are on the page and easy ways to convert at multiple points in their journey. Structure your pages with clear visual hierarchy and place multiple contact opportunities throughout—phone numbers in the header, contact forms mid-page, and scheduling links in the footer—so visitors can easily reach out whenever they’re ready to take action.
Apply psychological principles to reduce barriers
1. Reduce decision anxiety
Clear service categories: Organize by issue (anxiety, depression, relationships)
Therapist matching: Help visitors choose the right fit
No-pressure language: “Explore whether therapy is right for you”
2. Build emotional connection
Empathetic headlines: “You don’t have to face this alone”
Warm imagery: Peaceful, calming visuals
Personal stories, therapist profiles
Hope-focused messaging: Recovery and growth are possible
3. Address common concerns
FAQ section: Cost, insurance, confidentiality, what to expect
First session explanation: Reduce unknown anxiety
Telehealth options: Convenience and comfort of home
Flexible scheduling: Evening and weekend availability
Measuring what matters
Testing and clear measurement are the only reliable ways to know if your optimization efforts actually work. Without proper tracking, you’re making changes in the dark and potentially hurting conversion rates while thinking you’re improving them. Before testing anything, establish some baseline metrics.
Essential baseline metrics:
Form submissions: Contact forms and appointment requests
Phone calls: Use call tracking to see which pages generate calls
Email inquiries: Monitor secure contact methods
Actual appointments: Track from inquiry to scheduled session
Performance factors that impact conversions:
Page speed: Fast loading is crucial for anxious visitors
Image optimization: Compress therapy office photos and staff headshots
Mobile testing: Use real devices, not just desktop browser testing
Test and measure, and let data—not assumptions—guide your optimization decisions.
Ready to stop chasing quick fixes and start building sustainable practice growth?
Get the free Therapy Practice CRO Checklist and start improving your website conversion rates today.
Building long-term results through conversion optimization
The temptation to chase quick SEO wins—buying multiple domains, generating AI content, or constantly increasing ad spend—is understandable when you need clients now.
But sustainable practice growth requires a different approach: treat your website as a dynamic presence that grows stronger through consistent improvement, testing, and refinement.
While competitors exhaust budgets chasing the latest marketing trick, practices that invest in conversion optimization develop lasting competitive advantages. Focus your energy on quality content, authentic client relationships, and systematic testing.
This approach may seem slower initially, but it creates compound returns that outpace any quick fix.
If you have questions about your website content strategy, SEO, or are wondering where to start – reach out and ask. I’m happy to schedule a complimentary call or run a free website audit on your site to identify key improvements that are worth your time!
“Therapist Near Me” Keywords: Mobile-First Reality – The phrase “therapist near me” is primarily a mobile-focused search query driven by location-based intent rather than content optimization. When someone searches “therapist near me,” Google almost always returns local results with Google Business Profile listings. Success with these searches depends heavily on local SEO factors like Google My Business optimization, location schema markup, and consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) citations across directories—not on cramming “therapist near me” into your website content. With over 60% of Google searches now coming from mobile devices and 46% of all searches having local intent, these queries are won through local authority signals and proximity to the searcher, not keyword density on your pages. ↩︎
