The field notebook
Plain answers.
Useful next steps.
For the owner who wants a website that earns its place in the business. Written by Ben Foskey.
- 01Search basics
Your Google listing and your website have different jobs
A listing helps someone find you. A website helps them decide. Here is how to make the two work together.
- 02Website basics
Five things a service-business homepage needs
Start with the questions a customer actually asks. Everything else can wait.
- 03Mobile
Check your website from the passenger seat
Your next customer will probably see your site on a phone. Here is a ten-minute test you can run between jobs.
- 04Content
Photos that explain the job, not just decorate it
A picture earns its space when it answers a customer’s question. Here is how to take and use photos that do.
- 05Local business
Write a service area that customers can use
Your coverage is a working boundary, not a list of every town in two counties.
- 06The offer
What a $500 Site Squared SRQ website includes
You see the work first. Here is exactly how the free preview and the $500 price work.
- 07Getting started
What to send before your free website preview
Twenty minutes of gathering makes the first draft much closer to right. Here is the list.
- 08Customer trust
Ask for a review without writing it for the customer
Most happy customers will leave a review if you ask at the right time, in the right way.
- 09Phone calls
A website can’t fix an unanswered phone
Before you add another contact button, plan what happens when the phone rings and nobody picks up.
- 10Website basics
Make the page lighter before making it flashier
Most slow small-business sites are slow for the same few reasons. Start with images, fonts and add-ons.
- 11Search basics
Search basics without a ranking promise
What search engines actually need from a small-business site, how long it takes and what nobody can guarantee.
- 12Ownership
Your domain, hosting and website: three different things
Know what you own, who has the keys and what happens if your web person disappears.
- 13Getting started
A launch check you can do in twenty minutes
Walk the customer path before you tell anyone the site is live. Here is the list I use.
- 14Maintenance
A monthly website check for busy owners
Fifteen minutes once a month keeps your site accurate and working. Put it next to your other routine checks.
- 15Search basics
Will AI replace your local business website?
AI is changing how people find businesses. It is also making a clear, honest website more useful, not less.