Articles for owners who do not have a marketing department.

Customers increasingly ask an assistant before they open a browser. Here is what actually decides whether your business gets named in that answer, and why most of it is structure rather than clever copy.

Jeff Haswell Read →

A booking process that runs on the phone quietly caps revenue at the hours someone is at the desk. Here is where that ceiling comes from, what online booking actually changes, and what it does not.

Jeff Haswell Read →

Before anyone books, they check something — whether you do the thing, whether it suits them, what it costs. How quickly that question gets answered decides more bookings than the booking form ever will.

Jeff Haswell Read →

Before a customer has used your service, the only evidence of its quality is the way you present it. Typos, placeholder logos and a broken mobile layout do not just look careless — they cap what people believe you are worth.

Jeff Haswell Read →

Customers rarely look at one business. They open a few, compare them and choose. If the sites being compared are interchangeable, the decision falls to the only differences left — price and distance.

Jeff Haswell Read →

Trades and other visible-result businesses own the most persuasive sales material there is: photographs of real jobs. Most of it never leaves the owner’s phone. Here is how to turn it into the thing that wins the quote.

Jeff Haswell Read →

Plenty of service businesses already run on regular visits — weekly, monthly, seasonal. Their websites still sell one job at a time. Presenting the plan as the product changes what a new customer signs up for.

Jeff Haswell Read →

Tax season, registration week, the first long weekend, the run-up to the holidays. Many small businesses do a large part of their year in a few weeks — and meet the rush with a site built for the quiet months.

Jeff Haswell Read →

Financial advice, counselling, legal help, childcare. Some purchases carry so much worry that the hardest part is the first contact. Sites that sell them need to make that step smaller, not just easier to find.

Jeff Haswell Read →

Catering, gift vouchers, packages, the thing regulars ask for by name. Many small businesses already offer things customers would buy online, with no way to buy them. That is usually the cheapest growth available.

Jeff Haswell Read →

A contact form that stopped sending. An expired certificate. A plugin with a known hole in it. Websites rarely fail loudly. They fail quietly, and the revenue they lose never shows up anywhere you would think to look.

Jeff Haswell Read →