Guides
Straight answers, before you hire anyone.
The questions business owners ask us on every first call, answered in writing, with real numbers from work you can go look at. 137 guides so far.
Google and local SEO
- Local SEO · 7 min readHow to show up on Google MapsGoogle ranks local results on relevance, distance and prominence. You control relevance and prominence: a complete, accurate Google Business Profile, steady reviews, and a website that backs both up.
- Local SEO · 6 min readHow to set up a Google Business Profile without getting suspendedYour Google Business Profile decides most of what a customer sees when they search for you on Google or Maps. Setting it up takes an afternoon. Getting it wrong, with a name stuffed with keywords or an address you don’t really work from, is the most common reason we see local profiles suspended.
- Local SEO · 5 min readHow to get more Google reviews without breaking the rulesThe businesses with the most reviews usually aren’t the best ones. They’re the ones that ask, every time, in a way that takes the customer ten seconds. Here’s how to do that, and the shortcuts that can cost you the profile or a federal fine.
- Local SEO · 5 min readHow to respond to a bad Google reviewYour reply to a one-star review isn’t really for the person who wrote it. It’s for the next fifty people who read it before deciding whether to call. A calm, specific reply usually does more for you than the review does against you.
- Local SEO · 4 min readService-area businesses on Google: hiding your address the right wayIf you drive to your customers and don’t take visitors at home, Google wants your address hidden and a service area instead. Getting this right keeps your home address off the map and keeps your profile from being suspended.
- Local SEO · 6 min readLocal SEO checklist for small businessesLocal SEO sounds mysterious and mostly isn’t. It’s a list of things that are either done or not done. Here’s the list we work from on every local site, in the order that usually makes the biggest difference.
- SEO · 6 min readGoogle Search Console for business owners: the five reports that matterGoogle Search Console is the only place Google tells you how it sees your website: what people searched to find you, which pages it has, and whether anything is wrong. It’s free. Most small businesses have never opened it.
- SEO · 4 min readHow long does SEO take to work?Some fixes show up in Google within days. Ranking for a competitive search in a bigger town usually takes months. Anyone who promises a specific position by a specific date is guessing, or planning something that can get your site penalized.
- SEO · 5 min readTown and service area pages that rank without looking like spamA page for each town you serve can help you show up there, or it can get your site treated as spam. The difference is whether each page says something true and useful about that place, or swaps the town name in the same paragraph forty times.
- SEO · 5 min readSchema markup for local businesses, explainedStructured data, often called schema markup, is a short block of code that tells Google your business name, address, hours and phone in a format it reads directly, instead of guessing from the page. It’s invisible to visitors and missing from a lot of local sites.
- SEO · 6 min readHow to get your business recommended by ChatGPT and Google’s AIWhen someone asks ChatGPT or Google’s AI for a plumber in Conway, the answer comes from what those systems can read about you: your website, your listings and your reviews. There’s no special trick. There is a lot that quietly stops them reading you at all.
- Local SEO · 4 min readBusiness listings and citations: why your name, address and phone must matchEvery directory that lists your business is a vote for what your name, address and phone number are. When they disagree, because you moved or changed numbers years ago, customers call dead numbers and Google trusts your details less.
- Local SEO · 6 min readWhy isn’t my business showing up on Google?When a business doesn’t show up on Google, the cause is usually one of a short list, and most of them take minutes to check. Work through these in order before paying anyone.
- Local SEO · 5 min readWhat decides your ranking on Google MapsGoogle says local results come down to three things: how relevant your business is to the search, how far you are from the searcher, and how prominent you are. You can’t move your shop, but you can work on the other two.
- SEO · 4 min readDoes a blog help a local business’s SEO?A blog full of “5 tips for summer” posts rarely helps a local business. A handful of pages that answer the exact questions your customers search, about cost, process and problems, often does. Write fewer, better.
- SEO · 5 min readKeyword research for a local business, without paid toolsYou don’t need an expensive SEO tool to know what your customers search. The best sources are free: what they already type to find you, what Google suggests, and what they ask you on the phone.
- SEO · 4 min readBacklinks for local businesses: the links worth gettingA link from another site to yours tells Google someone vouches for you. For a local business, a handful of real local links beats hundreds of junk ones, and the junk ones can get you penalized.
- Local SEO · 4 min readLocal SEO for businesses with multiple locationsEvery location needs its own Google Business Profile, its own page on your website, and its own details used consistently. Treat each one as its own local business that happens to share a brand.
- Local SEO · 4 min readHow to rank in a nearby town without an office thereGoogle favors businesses close to the searcher, so ranking in the next town over is harder. It isn’t impossible: it takes a page about your work there, customers there who mention it, and patience. Faking an address there is how profiles get suspended.
- Local SEO · 3 min readGoogle Business Profile posts: what to post and whether they helpPosts on your Google Business Profile show up when people look at your listing. They help those people choose you. They’re not a ranking trick, but a profile that looks active converts better than one frozen in 2022.
Websites and redesigns
- Hiring · 7 min readWhat ChatGPT couldn't see on an AI-built websiteThe site looked fine to a person. ChatGPT's crawler got 8 words of it, four of its five reviews existed only in the code, and the AI tool's working notes were still inside. Here's how to check any site in two minutes.
- Pricing · 7 min readHow much does a website cost in South Carolina?Anywhere from a monthly builder fee to well into five figures. What you're really paying for is who does the work, how much the site has to do, and what happens after launch.
- Redesigns · 8 min readHow to move off Wix without losing your Google rankingMap every old page address to its new home with a permanent redirect, copy your email records before anything moves, then tell Google. Done that way, customers never notice the switch.
- Hiring · 6 min readWhat to ask a web designer before you hire oneAsk who owns everything, how the switch from your old site works, what it costs after launch, and to see live sites they've built. The answers tell you more than any portfolio.
- Speed · 7 min readWhy your website is slow on a phone, and what to fix firstUsually it's oversized photos, a heavy page builder and too many third-party scripts. Test on a real phone on a weak signal, then fix the biggest files first.
- Care plans · 5 min readWhat is a website care plan, and what should it include?A website care plan is a monthly service where someone else keeps your website running: hosting, security, changes made quickly when you ask, your domain and email kept healthy, and someone watching how Google sees you. If you can't list what you get each month, you're paying for nothing.
- Redesigns · 6 min readWebsite redesign checklist: what to do before you startMost of the damage in a redesign happens before anyone designs anything: nobody listed the old pages, nobody knew who controlled the domain, nobody checked what Google was ranking. Here’s what to gather first.
- Redesigns · 4 min read301 redirects: how to change your website without losing GoogleWhen a page moves to a new address, a 301 redirect sends people and Google from the old address to the new one, and tells Google to carry the old page’s standing across. Skip it and every old link and every old search result leads to a dead page.
- Redesigns · 6 min readWordPress vs a custom website: which is right for your business?WordPress runs a huge share of the web and can be a fine choice. It also needs plugins, updates and attention that most small businesses never give it, which is why so many of the hacked and slow sites we see run on it. Here’s how to choose.
- Redesigns · 6 min readWix, Squarespace, WordPress or custom: an honest comparisonEvery platform can make a decent-looking site. They differ in what you pay every month, how fast the site is on a phone, how much you can change, and how hard it is to leave. That last one is the one people forget.
- Web design · 6 min readIs your website ADA compliant? What small businesses should knowWebsite accessibility lawsuits against small businesses are real, and the law for private businesses is less settled than for governments. The practical answer is the same either way: build to WCAG, fix the common failures, and skip the one-line overlay products.
- Web design · 5 min readDoes your small business website need a privacy policy?If your website has a contact form, analytics, ad tracking or online payments, you almost certainly need a privacy policy, and it needs to describe what your site actually does. Many local sites have none, or one copied from somewhere else that describes a different business.
- Speed · 5 min readCore Web Vitals explained for business ownersCore Web Vitals are Google’s three measurements of how a page feels to a real visitor: how fast the main content appears, how quickly it responds to a tap, and whether things jump around while it loads. Here’s what each means and what usually breaks it.
- Care plans · 5 min readWebsite hosting explained: what you’re actually paying forYour domain, your website hosting and your email are three different things, often bought from three different companies, and confusing them is how businesses lose their site or their email during a change. Here’s what each one is.
- Hiring · 5 min readDo you actually own your website?Plenty of business owners find out they don’t own their website only when they try to leave: the domain is in the designer’s account, the site is on their server, and the contract says the design is licensed, not sold. Here’s what to check.
- Pricing · 5 min readHow much does social media management cost?It depends almost entirely on who makes the content. Posting things you send in costs little. A plan where someone plans the month, shoots photos and video at your business, writes the posts and publishes them costs more, and is what actually moves the needle.
- Redesigns · 5 min readChanging your business domain name without losing Google or emailA domain change done carelessly can drop your Google traffic and break your email for weeks. Done in order, with every old page redirected and the old domain kept for years, most businesses come through it fine.
- Web design · 4 min readHow to choose a domain name for your businessThe best business domain is usually your business name, as a .com, short enough to say over the phone and spell without help. Then register it properly, in your own name, so it never becomes somebody else’s.
- Care plans · 4 min readWebsite backups: what a real backup plan looks likeMost small business owners believe their website is backed up. Fewer know where the backups are, how old they are, or whether anyone has ever restored one. A backup you can’t restore is a comforting rumor.
- Care plans · 4 min readWebsite maintenance checklistWebsites don’t break all at once. A plugin falls behind, a form stops sending, the hours go stale, a domain renewal card expires. A short routine catches all of it before customers do.
- Web design · 4 min readPhotos for your website: real beats stockCustomers can spot stock photos, and they trust businesses that show their real people and work. Good real photos also need to be sized properly, or they’re the main reason a site is slow on a phone.
- Web design · 4 min readContact forms that get filled in, and actually reach youA contact form fails in two ways: people don’t fill it in, or they do and the message never reaches anyone. Most businesses only ever think about the first.
- Pricing · 5 min readHow much does cybersecurity cost for a small business?Small business cybersecurity ranges from free settings you can turn on today to tens of thousands for a large penetration test. For most local businesses, the protection that matters most costs less than their phone bill.
- Web design · 4 min readDoes a small business still need a website?Yes, for almost every business that wants new customers. Your Google profile and social accounts belong to platforms; your website is the one place you control, and it’s what Google, maps apps and AI assistants read to decide what you do and where.
Marketing and social media
- Marketing · 4 min readDoes your website’s call button ring the right phone?The number on your website and the number your call button dials are two separate things, and nobody checks the second one. This month we found a local site whose call button dials a placeholder, one that dials the number from the template it was built on, and one that rings a different office. Here’s the two-minute check.
- Marketing · 5 min readThe things your website forgot to deleteEvery website builder ships with sample pages, placeholder text and test content, and a surprising amount of it goes live and stays. Here’s what we found on local business sites this month, and a ten-minute way to find your own.
- Marketing · 4 min readIs your website still promising things that ended?This month we found a local contractor whose website promises federal energy tax credits on fifteen pages. Those credits ended on December 31, 2025. Old offers don’t expire on your website on their own; here’s how to find yours.
- Marketing · 5 min readFacebook page or a website: does your business need both?Yes, most businesses need both, and they do different jobs. Facebook is where people already are; a website is the one place online you own, that Google ranks, and that can take a booking or a payment. Here’s where a Facebook-only business loses customers.
- Marketing · 4 min readWhat every small business home page needsMost people decide in a few seconds whether to stay on your site, and most of them are on a phone. Your home page has one job: tell them what you do, where, and how to reach you, before they scroll.
- Marketing · 5 min readHow to write your website so customers actually callThe best website copy sounds like the owner answering the phone on a good day. It uses the words customers use, answers what they’d ask, and tells them exactly what to do next.
- Marketing · 5 min readHow often should a local business post on social media?For most local businesses, three or four good posts a week on the one or two platforms your customers use beats daily posting everywhere. The posts that work show the real place, the real people and what’s happening this week.
- Marketing · 5 min readShort video ideas for local businessesYou don’t need a camera crew. You need the first second to make someone stop scrolling, a phone held vertically, and something true about your business. Here are ideas that work for local businesses, and how to film them.
- Marketing · 5 min readInstagram for local businesses: setup and postingInstagram is where a lot of people check a local business before they visit: does it look busy, does it look good, is it open. A well set-up profile answers those in a few seconds.
- Marketing · 6 min readGoogle Ads vs Facebook ads for a local businessGoogle Ads reach people who are already searching for what you sell. Facebook and Instagram ads reach people who aren’t searching yet but fit your customer. Most local businesses with an urgent, searched-for service should start with Google.
- Marketing · 5 min readEmail newsletters for small business: worth it?An email list is the one audience a platform can’t take away from you. For restaurants, shops and anyone with repeat customers, a short monthly email is often the cheapest marketing they do. It has rules, though, and ignoring them lands you in spam.
- Marketing · 5 min readHow much should a small business spend on marketing?There’s no single right number. A sensible approach for a local business is to fix the free things first, pay for the few things that compound (a good website, reviews, consistent posting), and only then add ad spend you can measure.
- Marketing · 5 min readStarting a business? Your first ten steps onlineDoing the online setup in the right order saves months of fixing it later. Most of these steps are free, and every one is easier on day one than in year three.
- Marketing · 4 min readSetting up a Facebook business page the right wayA lot of local customers, especially over 35, still check Facebook for hours, events and whether a business is real. A complete page with the right details and a few recent posts does that job.
Security
- Security · 8 min readYour website got hacked. Here’s the first hour.Don’t delete anything, don’t panic-reinstall, and find out which of three things actually happened: the website was changed, the domain was taken, or an email account was. Each has a different fix. Here’s the order we work in.
- Security · 6 min readYour host says PHP 7.4. Here’s what that means and what to ask.PHP is the software most small-business websites run on, and old versions stop getting security fixes on a schedule. In October 2026 we rechecked a batch of Grand Strand sites: five were on versions with no fix for this month’s critical PHP flaws. Updates won’t solve that. Here’s what will.
- Security · 5 min readWho actually owns your domain? A five-minute check.Your website, your email and half your Google presence depend on one domain, and it lives in an account somewhere. If you can’t log in to that account yourself, you don’t really control it. Here’s how to check in five minutes.
- Security · 5 min readIs your contact form sending customer data in the clear?Every form on your site is a promise to the person filling it in. This month we found a local form sending entries over an unencrypted connection, and a credit application asking for Social Security numbers with no privacy policy anywhere on the site. Here’s how to check yours.
- Security · 5 min readFake “new bank details” emails to your tenants and ownersA tenant gets an email that looks like it came from you: we’ve changed banks, please send this month’s rent here. They pay, you don’t get it, and now it’s your problem. Here’s how it works and how to shut it down.
- Security · 8 min readHow closing attorneys stop wire fraud before the money movesA buyer gets an email from your firm with new wiring instructions, wires the down payment, and the money is gone. We checked eight Grand Strand law firm sites in October: five let anyone send mail as the firm, and none of the eight warned clients about wire fraud anywhere we looked. Here is what to change.
- Security · 6 min readWhy your business email lands in spam, and why anyone can send mail as youThree small records on your domain decide whether Gmail trusts your mail and whether a scammer can send an invoice from your address. Most of the local businesses we check are missing at least one. Here is what they are and how to check yours in a minute.
- Security · 8 min readWhat we found checking 54 local business websitesThis month we checked 54 local business websites from the outside, using only public information. One in five published their own admin usernames. Nearly one in five ran software with known, unpatched security holes. Here's what we looked at, why it matters, and how to check your own.
- Security · 6 min readWhen an old web address lapses, someone else can pick it up. Here’s what we’ve seen and how to check yours.Every web address you’ve ever used, and every one your web designer linked to, is still sitting in a footer, a Facebook page or a directory somewhere. When one lapses, anyone can buy it and decide where your customers land. This month we found three Grand Strand businesses with exactly this problem. Here’s what happened and how to check your own.
- Security · 4 min readWhy your website says “Not secure” and how to fix itBrowsers show “Not secure” when a page isn’t served over HTTPS, or when a secure page loads pieces over plain HTTP. It scares customers away from forms and checkouts, and it’s almost always cheap to fix.
- Security · 7 min readHow to set up DMARC, step by stepDMARC is the DNS record that tells Gmail and Outlook to refuse email pretending to be from you. Turning it on carelessly can block your own invoices and newsletters. Turning it on in this order doesn’t.
- Security · 5 min readSPF “too many DNS lookups”: what it means and how to fix itAn SPF record can trigger at most ten DNS lookups. Go over, and receiving servers treat SPF as broken for every message you send, often without anyone noticing until mail starts landing in spam.
- Security · 6 min readBusiness email compromise: how it works and how to stop itBusiness email compromise is the scam where a criminal gets someone to send money by email: a fake invoice, a changed bank account, an urgent request from the boss. It’s one of the costliest crimes the FBI tracks, and it mostly works on small businesses with no process.
- Security · 5 min readTwo-step sign-in: which accounts to protect firstTwo-step sign-in stops most account takeovers, and most small businesses have it on some accounts and not others. The order matters: one unprotected email account can reset the passwords on everything else.
- Security · 4 min readPassword managers for small teams: why and how to startMost account takeovers start with a password someone used somewhere else, leaked years ago in another company’s breach. A password manager makes every password unique without anyone having to remember them.
- Security · 5 min readHow to spot a phishing email aimed at your businessThe phishing emails that work on small businesses aren’t the ones with bad spelling. They look like an invoice from a supplier, a shared document from a client, or a warning from Microsoft. Here are the ones we see and the signs that give them away.
- Security · 4 min readDomain renewal letters and fake invoices: don’t pay theseOfficial-looking notices to “renew” your domain often come from a company that isn’t your registrar. Pay one and you may move your domain to them at a much higher price, or pay for nothing at all. Here’s how to tell the real ones apart.
- Security · 5 min read“This site may be hacked”: how to get Google’s warning removedGoogle shows a hacked warning when it finds spam pages, injected links or redirects on your site that you didn’t put there. Customers see it right under your name. It comes off after you clean the site and ask Google to look again.
- Security · 6 min readWordPress security checklist for small business sitesMost hacked WordPress sites we see weren’t attacked cleverly. They ran a plugin with a published flaw, an old version of PHP, or an admin account with a reused password. This checklist closes those doors.
- Security · 6 min readWebsite security headers explainedSecurity headers are short instructions your server sends with every page, telling the browser how to protect the visitor: always use HTTPS, don’t let other sites frame this page, don’t run scripts from strangers. They’re free, and most local sites are missing them.
- Security · 5 min readPenetration test vs vulnerability scan: which do you need?A scan finds known weaknesses automatically. An assessment has a person check and explain them. A penetration test tries to use them to get in, with your written permission. Most small businesses should start with the middle one.
- Security · 5 min readCyber insurance applications: the website and email questionsCyber insurance applications ask yes-or-no questions about two-step sign-in, backups, email protection and updates. Answering yes when the truth is no can give the insurer a reason to deny a claim later. Here’s how to get to an honest yes on the parts that face the internet.
- Security · 5 min readSomeone changed your Google Business Profile: how to get it backIf your Google listing suddenly shows a different phone number, website or owner, someone has either suggested edits Google accepted or taken over the profile. Customers are calling them, not you. Act the same day.
- Security · 6 min readBusiness email hacked? What to do in Microsoft 365 and Google WorkspaceA hacked business mailbox is rarely just a mailbox. The attacker may have read months of mail, set rules to hide replies, and emailed your customers. Lock it down first, then find out what they saw and sent.
- Security · 5 min readBusiness Instagram or Facebook hacked: how to get it backA hacked business account can post scams to your followers, run ads on your card, or vanish entirely. Recovery is faster the sooner you start and the more proof you have that it’s yours.
- Security · 4 min readQR code scams and your businessScammers print QR code stickers and put them over real ones: on table menus, parking meters, flyers and even mailed letters. Customers who scan them land on a fake payment or login page with your name on it.
- Security · 4 min readDNSSEC explained for business ownersDNSSEC adds a signature to your domain’s DNS records, so computers can tell the answers really came from your domain and weren’t forged along the way. It’s worth turning on for most business domains, carefully.
- Security · 4 min readWhen an employee leaves: the account and access checklistIn small businesses, access spreads quietly: the manager knows the Instagram password, the bookkeeper logs into the bank, the old office manager registered the domain. The day someone leaves is the day to take it back, nicely and completely.
- Security · 7 min readSmall business cybersecurity checklistMost small businesses get hurt online through a short list of gaps: a reused password, email anyone can forge, a domain nobody watches, a website nobody updates. Here’s the checklist we use, in the order that closes the most risk first.
- Security · 5 min readWhat does a cybersecurity company do for a small business?“Cybersecurity” covers very different jobs: keeping office computers patched, watching a network for intruders, protecting a website and email domain, testing defenses. Knowing which you need saves you paying for the wrong one.
- Security · 4 min readWebsite security monitoring: what it is and what it should catchMonitoring is the difference between finding out your site was hacked from an alert ten minutes later, or from a customer six weeks later. Good monitoring watches more than whether the site is up.
- Security · 5 min readSigns your website has malware or has been hackedHacked sites rarely announce themselves. Attackers want the site to keep working for you while it works for them, so the signs are subtle and often only visible on a phone, from Google, or to strangers.
- Security · 5 min readThe Japanese keyword hack and the pharma hackTwo of the most common hacks don’t break your site at all. They add thousands of spam pages in Japanese, or about pills and replica goods, that only Google sees. You find out when your search results fill with junk.
- Security · 5 min readCard skimming on websites: how online stores get hitOnline card skimming is code slipped into a store’s checkout page that copies card numbers as customers type them. The store keeps working normally, so it can run for months. The best defense is a checkout where card numbers never touch your page at all.
- Security · 4 min readLook-alike domains and typosquattingDMARC stops anyone sending email from your exact domain. It does nothing about yourbusines.com, yourbusiness.co or your-business.com. Those look-alikes are how many invoice scams reach your customers.
- Security · 4 min readBrute force and credential stuffing: why your login gets attackedIf your website’s login page is public, bots are trying passwords on it right now. It’s not personal and it’s not rare. With two-step sign-in and a few limits, it’s also almost harmless.
- Security · 4 min readWhat is a web application firewall?A web application firewall sits in front of your website and blocks requests that look like attacks. It’s a useful layer, especially for sites that are hard to keep updated. It doesn’t replace updating them.
- Security · 3 min readDDoS attacks and small business websitesA DDoS attack floods a site with traffic until it stops answering. Small businesses are rarely targeted on purpose. When it does happen, a site served through a modern network usually rides it out without anyone noticing.
- Security · 5 min readWhat is a CVE? Vulnerabilities, severity scores and CISA’s listWhen you hear about a CVE, it’s a numbered, publicly recorded security flaw in some piece of software. The number tells you which flaw; the score tells you how bad it could be; CISA’s list tells you whether criminals are already using it.
- Security · 5 min readSOC 2 explained for small businessesSOC 2 is an audit report showing that a company that handles other people’s data runs it securely. Small businesses meet it in two ways: a client asks them for one, or they ask a vendor for one. Either way, it helps to know what it actually proves.
- Security · 6 min readHIPAA and your practice websiteA practice website becomes a HIPAA question the moment it collects health information: an appointment request with a reason for the visit, an intake form, a patient portal. The site, the form tool and the hosting all become part of how you protect it.
- Security · 5 min readRansomware: the first steps and who to callIf your computers show a ransom note, the first hour matters. We don’t handle ransomware on office computers ourselves, so this is the honest version: what to do right now, and who to call.
- Security · 5 min readData breach notification in South CarolinaSouth Carolina, like every state, has a law requiring businesses to notify people when certain personal information is breached. If you suspect a breach, the facts you collect in the first days decide what you’ll need to do.
- Security · 4 min readIs Wix or Squarespace secure?Hosted builders patch their own servers and platform, which removes the biggest risk of a self-hosted WordPress site. They don’t secure your login, your domain, your email or what your forms collect. Those are still yours.
By industry and season
- Industries · 5 min readWhat a restaurant website needsPeople open a restaurant’s website to answer three questions: what’s on the menu, are you open, and how do I get a table or order. A site that answers those on a phone in five seconds beats a beautiful one that doesn’t.
- Industries · 6 min readMarketing a bar or nightclubBars sell tonight. The people deciding where to go are on their phones an hour before, checking who’s playing, what the specials are and whether the place looks busy. Everything you post should answer “why here, tonight?”
- Industries · 5 min readContractor websites that get callsHomeowners searching for a contractor are often in a hurry and always nervous about who they’re letting in the house. A contractor site that wins the call shows the work, proves you’re licensed and local, and makes calling one tap.
- Industries · 5 min readWhat a dental practice website needsNew patients pick a dentist on three things: do they take my insurance, can I get in soon, and do I trust them. A dental site that answers those clearly, and keeps patient information safe, does most of the marketing on its own.
- Industries · 6 min readWhat a law firm website needsPeople looking for a lawyer are often scared or stressed, and they’re comparing several firms on a phone. A firm site that explains each practice area plainly, shows the attorneys, and makes the first contact easy and safe wins the consultation.
- Industries · 6 min readVacation rental websites: taking direct bookingsAirbnb and Vrbo bring guests, and take a cut from you and the guest. A direct booking website keeps repeat guests and referrals for yourself. It has to feel as safe to book as the big platforms, or guests won’t risk it.
- Industries · 5 min readWebsites for wedding vendors: what couples look forCouples compare a dozen vendors in an evening, on a phone, often together on the couch. The vendors who get the inquiry show real weddings, give a sense of price, and make asking about a date take thirty seconds.
- Industries · 4 min readWhat a church website needsMost people visit a church’s website before they visit the church. They want to know when services are, what to expect, where to park and whether they’ll feel welcome. Members want events, the livestream and a way to give.
- Industries · 4 min readHurricane season: keeping your website and Google listing currentWhen a storm is coming, customers check Google and your website to see if you’re open, closed or coming back. Businesses that update both quickly keep their customers informed and keep Google’s information right.
- Industries · 5 min readOff-season marketing for a beach town businessOn the Grand Strand, summer pays the bills and the off-season decides whether the year was good. The businesses that do well between October and April market to the people who are still here, and use the quiet months to fix what summer didn’t leave time for.
Around here: the Grand Strand, Charleston, Columbia, Charlotte
- Around here · 5 min readMarketing to Coastal Carolina students in ConwayConway has two calendars: the county seat’s, and Coastal Carolina’s. A business near campus that plans around the semester, and around the fact that a big share of its audience is new every August, does far better than one marketing the same way all year.
- Around here · 5 min readNorth Myrtle Beach rentals and charters: getting ready for the seasonNorth Myrtle Beach makes its year between Memorial Day and Labor Day, and most of those bookings happen months earlier, from a phone in another state. The work that fills July gets done in February.
- Around here · 5 min readHow tourists find Myrtle Beach businesses before they arriveA family from Ohio plans their Myrtle Beach week on a couch in Columbus, searching “best seafood in Myrtle Beach” and “things to do in Myrtle Beach.” Once they arrive, they search “near me” from the hotel. A tourist business needs to win both searches.
- Around here · 4 min readMurrells Inlet restaurants: winning the “where should we eat” searchOn a summer night along the MarshWalk, a lot of dinner decisions are made on a phone, standing on the boardwalk, comparing three places a few doors apart. The restaurant whose listing answers the questions fastest gets the table.
- Around here · 4 min readOpening a business in Carolina Forest? Your address and GoogleCarolina Forest isn’t a city, so your mailing address says Myrtle Beach (or Conway), and a brand-new building may not be on the map yet. Both trip up new businesses on Google. Here’s how to get it right from the start.
- Around here · 5 min readLocal SEO across the Charleston areaIn the Charleston area, ten miles can be a bridge and a traffic jam away. Customers think in sides of the river, and Google’s local results lean the same way. A business that wants customers across the water has to give Google a reason.
- Around here · 5 min readColumbia game days and Fort Jackson graduationsColumbia has visitors that arrive on a calendar you can look up in advance: football Saturdays at Williams-Brice, and the families who come in for Fort Jackson’s basic training graduations. Businesses that plan for both get found by people who don’t know the town.
- Around here · 4 min readFort Mill and Rock Hill businesses: marketing across the state lineA business in Fort Mill or Rock Hill is in South Carolina, a few minutes from customers in North Carolina, and many of its customers work in Charlotte. Google, your listings and even your checkout have to handle both sides of the line.
Software, stores and booking
- Apps · 6 min readWebsite or app: which does your business actually need?Most businesses need a website, not an app. An app earns its cost when customers use it often, need it on their lock screen or offline, or when it's the product you sell.
- Online stores · 7 min readShopify or your own online store?A hosted platform is the fastest way to start selling. A custom store pays off when your products have complicated options, the monthly and app fees add up, or you want the checkout to work exactly your way.
- Booking · 6 min readHow online booking and deposits work on your own websiteA booking system shows real availability, takes a deposit through your own payment account, sends reminders and lands on your calendar. You can rent one from a booking app or build it into your site.
- Software · 6 min readHow much does custom software cost for a small business?Custom software is priced by what it has to do, not by the page. A tool one office uses to replace a spreadsheet is a very different project from a customer portal with payments and an app. Here’s what moves the number.
- Software · 5 min readWhen should a small business build custom software?Most small businesses should not build custom software. Some should, and they usually know it already: someone spends hours a week copying data between tools, customers keep calling to ask what an app could tell them, or the business does something no product does well.
- Software · 5 min readCustomer portals for small businessesA customer portal is a private part of your website where each customer signs in to see their own things: documents, invoices, appointments, the status of their job. It replaces a lot of phone calls and emails with attachments.
- Online stores · 5 min readHow a local business can start selling onlineYou don’t need to become an online retailer to sell online. Many local businesses do best with a small online catalog, local pickup, and a checkout that charges the right tax, on their own website.
- Online stores · 5 min readHow to accept payments on your website safelyThe safest way to take card payments online is to never let a card number touch your own website. Modern payment processors handle the card entirely, and your site only hears that the payment succeeded.
- Software · 5 min readShould your small business website have an AI chatbot?An AI chatbot can answer the same ten questions at 2 a.m. and book appointments while you sleep. A badly set-up one invents prices and policies, slows the page down, and leaves you responsible for what it said.
- Apps · 5 min readHow much does an app cost for a small business?An app is two products: what’s on the phone, and the system behind it that stores data, sends notifications and takes payments. Most of the cost, and most of the ongoing work, is the second one.
Servers and private AI
- Servers · 5 min readNAS or server: what a small office actually needsA NAS is a server that only does files and backups, and for a lot of small offices that is all they need. You need a full server when the same box also has to run practice or accounting software, record cameras, or host AI on your own files.
- Servers · 6 min readDoes your business need its own server, or is the cloud enough?If everything you use runs in a browser and the subscriptions don't hurt, you don't need one. You do when the files are too big or too private for a cloud drive, when your practice software has to run on site, when cameras need a recorder, or when you want AI on client files that can't leave the office.
- Servers · 6 min readWhat is a private AI server, and who needs one?A computer in your office, with an AI accelerator, that runs language models locally. Staff get a chat window and a search box over your own documents, and nothing they type or upload goes to anyone else's computer. It's for firms whose files can't leave the building: law, medical, accounting, anyone with a regulator.
- Servers · 5 min readHow to back up a small office server: the 3-2-1 ruleKeep three copies of anything that matters, on two different kinds of storage, with one copy off site that can't be changed or deleted. Then restore something every month to prove it works. Most office backups fail on the last two.
- Servers · 6 min readWhat a managed server costs for a small businessA built, installed office server runs from the mid four figures to low five figures depending on the job, and $149 to $399 a month to be watched, patched, backed up and fixed. The hardware is the smaller half of the real cost; the attention is the rest.
- Servers · 5 min readHow much storage security camera footage needsA 1080p camera recording continuously uses roughly 20 to 40 GB a day depending on its settings; eight cameras for a month is in the 5 to 10 TB range. Motion-only recording cuts that a lot. The recorder that came with the cameras usually has one unprotected drive and a few days of room.
- Servers · 6 min readRansomware and the practice server: what actually stops itIt gets in through email or a remote-access tool, finds the server that holds the schedule, charts and images, encrypts it, and wipes any backup it can reach. What stops it: a locked-down server, remote access only through a private connection, and an off-site backup the attacker can't touch, tested every month.
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