The local business journal
Plain advice for people with a business to run. Make your website clearer, easier to use, and ready for the next customer.
Between July and September 2026 Google changed how your Business Profile handles reviews, edits, posts and names. Most need one small action. One needs an answer within four days.
Read the guideUseful, by design
Small changes you can put to work, and the page we would build for your trade.
Planning your site
A pay monthly website spreads the cost of a build over a contract. The monthly figure is the smallest number in the deal. The three-year total, the minimum term, the exit fee and who owns the site at the end are the ones to read first.
Planning your site
Once a website is built it costs something every year to keep online. Two lines cannot be avoided, one is free, and the rest depend on what you choose. Prices here are examples in the currency each company publishes, with the sums worked out.
Getting found
Since 1 October 2026 Meta charges per message for replies sent through the WhatsApp Business Platform, after the first 1,000 a month on each business number. The free WhatsApp Business app on a phone is not affected. Here is how to tell which one you use, and what to do.
Planning your site
Squarespace raised three of its four plans by 19 to 26 per cent in July 2026, by email, and the wholesale price of a .com domain goes up 7 per cent on 1 November. Prices here are in US dollars. Here is what each means for a small business site, and what to do before the renewal date.
Getting found
The US regulator has just fined a company whose reviews included ones written by its own staff and by customers given a discount. Google's rules say the same for every business, everywhere. Here is what is allowed and what is not.
Bookings & enquiries
India only. A small fee on UPI payments to a business above ₹2,000 was due on 15 October 2026 and has been put back until after Diwali. Most shops will never see it. A dentist, a guesthouse or a contractor may.
Getting found
Since mid-September 2026 Meta has sold monthly subscriptions for Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook, including a business bundle with a verified tick. Most local businesses can skip it. A few have a good reason to pay.
Bookings & enquiries
In the United States, Google now makes automated calls to businesses to check their details and, in some trades, to ask about availability on a customer's behalf. How to tell a real one from a scam, what to have ready, and where the setting is.
Getting found
Since 25 Aug 2026, Apple Maps shows ads in the US and Canada, and plumbers and other home trades are not allowed to buy them. The free listing, which anyone using Maps or Siri on an iPhone sees, is open to everyone and costs nothing to claim.
Getting found
Since 8 Sept 2026, searchers inside the European Union cannot filter Google's hotel results by date or see live prices, and the hotel unit has been replaced by a list of booking sites. This applies in Ireland and the euro area, not in the US or India. It is likely to shift free traffic toward commission-charging sites, unless you give people a reason to book direct.
Website basics
India's Digital Personal Data Protection rules phase in over 18 months, with a consent deadline in November 2026 and full enforcement in May 2027. Here is what a small business website needs before then.
Website basics
Europe updated its web accessibility standard in September 2026, and lawsuits against ordinary shop and service websites in the US continue. Most of what accessibility asks for is a well-built site.
Getting found
People now ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity who to call. The answer is two or three names, and most of what the tool knows about you comes from your own website.
Getting found
For many searches Google writes its own answer above the results. Here is which searches that affects, what it costs a local business, and the few things worth doing about it.
Website basics
A simple homepage check for business owners who want to make the next call, booking or visit easier.
Bookings & enquiries
A clearer route from “this looks right” to a time in your diary.
Planning your site
Gather the essentials once, so your project can start with the right information.
Branding
Your van is parked outside a job for hours at a time. Here is how to make those hours work, in four lines of text.
Getting found
Most happy customers would leave you a review. Almost none of them think of it on their own.
Branding
Branding sounds like something big companies buy. For a local business it is three decisions, made once.
Branding
Most menus are a list of everything the kitchen can make. A good one is a decision you help the customer make.
Branding
The card is not there to describe your business. It is there to be findable in a drawer in four months.
Branding
To be read from the other side of the road, by somebody who is not looking for you.
Branding
For a gardener, a plumber or a new shop, a few hundred leaflets through the right doors can still do more than the same money spent online.
Branding
A stamp card is cheap, low-tech and works well for some businesses and not at all for others. The difference is how often people come back.
Getting found
It is free, it takes an afternoon, and for most local businesses it brings in more enquiries than the website does.
Getting found
Most of your customers already have it open. The free business version turns it into something that answers for you when you cannot.
Getting found
Most people find your Instagram after they have already heard of you. It only has to answer three questions.
Getting found
The problem is never ideas. It is that the moment for posting is always the busiest moment of the day.
Café & restaurant
Nobody books a table because a website was beautiful. They book because they found the menu, believed the opening hours, and could see the room they would be sitting in.
Salon & barber
Almost nobody rings a salon during the working day any more. They decide at eleven at night, on the sofa, and they book with whoever lets them.
Dentist & clinic
Two things stop somebody booking a dentist: they are frightened, and they do not know what it will cost. A practice website that answers neither is just an address.
Shop
A shop website is not an online shop. It answers two questions - are you open, and have you got the thing - and the sale happens in the shop, the way it always did.
Guesthouse
The booking platforms are very good at filling your rooms. They are also taking somewhere between a tenth and a fifth of every night they fill, and they are not going to stop.
Gardener
Garden work is bought in bursts. A hedge gets noticed in May, a lawn in April, a clearance the weekend somebody decides to sell the house - and whoever answers first usually gets it.
Estate agent
The portals already show your houses to buyers, and they do it better than you will. What they do not do is win you the next instruction, and that is what your own site is for.
Appliance repair
A washing machine goes at eight in the morning with a full drum of wet clothes in it. Nobody researches. They search, they ring the first engineer who looks like they will turn up, and they stop.
Plumber & electrician
Someone with water coming through a ceiling does not browse. They search, they look for a number, and they ring the first trade that looks like it will pick up.
38 articles
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