The Bulletin.

Plain answers to the questions small businesses ask about websites, search and getting found.

100 entries

No. 100 Why you don't own your Google Business Profile the way you own your websiteA business manages its Google Business Profile. Google owns the platform, the rules, and the final say over what stays visible. Google Business ProfileSep 30, 2026 · 3 min No. 099 Why team photos build more trust than product shotsA photo of finished work proves capability. A photo of the actual person coming to your house is what makes hiring a stranger feel less like a risk. PhotographySep 30, 2026 · 3 min No. 098 When paid ads make sense before SEO has kicked inOrganic search takes time to build. For a business that needs leads now, paid ads can hold that gap without being a permanent crutch. Paid AdsSep 30, 2026 · 3 min No. 097 What to do about a fake negative reviewA review from someone who was never a customer is different from a real customer's bad experience, and it's handled differently too. ReviewsSep 30, 2026 · 3 min No. 096 What a website maintenance plan actually includes"Maintenance" means different things to different providers, and a business paying monthly for it should know exactly what's covered, not just that something is. MaintenanceSep 30, 2026 · 3 min No. 095 Tracking ROI on paid ads without a marketing degreeThe math behind knowing whether an ad campaign is actually worth it comes down to two numbers most business owners already have. Paid AdsSep 30, 2026 · 3 min No. 094 Signs your website host is holding your site hostageA website should be movable to a different provider whenever the owner wants. Some setups quietly make that far harder than it should be. MaintenanceSep 30, 2026 · 3 min No. 093 Review widgets vs. embedding reviews directlyA live-updating widget stays current automatically. Hand-picked, directly written reviews load faster and let you choose exactly what a visitor sees. ReviewsSep 30, 2026 · 3 min No. 092 How to write ad copy that doesn't sound like everyone else's"Licensed and insured. Free estimates. Call today." is technically true for almost every competitor too, which means it isn't actually saying anything. Paid AdsSep 30, 2026 · 3 min No. 091 How long to wait before judging a website's performanceChecking analytics the week after launch and drawing conclusions is one of the most common ways a genuinely good website gets misjudged early. AnalyticsSep 30, 2026 · 3 min No. 090 UTM parameters: a beginner's guide to tracking where traffic came fromThe messy extra text at the end of some links isn't clutter. It's what tells analytics exactly where that specific click came from. AnalyticsSep 29, 2026 · 3 min No. 089 Turning a five-star review into website contentA great review sitting only on Google is doing a fraction of the work it could be doing on the website itself. ReviewsSep 29, 2026 · 3 min No. 088 Retargeting ads, explained simplyMost visitors don't convert on the first visit. Retargeting is how a business stays in front of the ones who left without acting. Paid AdsSep 29, 2026 · 3 min No. 087 One Google Business Profile, or one per location?A business with more than one real location needs more than one profile. The mistake is either combining locations that should be separate, or splitting one that shouldn't be. Google Business ProfileSep 29, 2026 · 3 min No. 086 NAP consistency: why your name, address and phone must match everywhereA phone number that's slightly different on one directory than everywhere else seems minor. To the systems reading it, it can look like two different businesses. Google Business ProfileSep 29, 2026 · 3 min No. 085 Is video worth it for a small business website?Video can do things a photo can't, but it also costs more effort to produce well and more discipline to keep from slowing the page down. PhotographySep 29, 2026 · 3 min No. 084 How to caption photos so they help search, not just look niceA photo with no alt text or file name context is invisible to search engines and to visitors using a screen reader, no matter how good it looks. PhotographySep 29, 2026 · 3 min No. 083 How fake reviews get caught, and why it's not worth the riskBuying reviews or trading them with other businesses feels like a shortcut. Detection systems, and eventually customers, tend to notice. ReviewsSep 29, 2026 · 3 min No. 082 Domain renewal: how to avoid losing your own domainA domain is rented, not owned outright, and an expired one can be picked up by someone else within days of lapsing. MaintenanceSep 29, 2026 · 3 min No. 081 Bounce rate: when it's a problem, and when it isn'tA high bounce rate looks alarming out of context. On some pages, it's a sign the page did its job perfectly well. AnalyticsSep 29, 2026 · 3 min No. 080 Software updates: why a static site skips a whole category of riskA large share of hacked small business websites are running outdated plugin or CMS software. A site with none of that running has nothing there to fall behind on. MaintenanceSep 28, 2026 · 3 min No. 079 Should you hire a photographer, or is a phone enough?The honest answer depends on what's being photographed, not on some fixed rule about professionalism. PhotographySep 28, 2026 · 3 min No. 078 Search Console vs. Analytics: what each one is actually forThey're both free, both from Google, and both get set up together, which is exactly why people confuse what each one is actually telling them. AnalyticsSep 28, 2026 · 3 min No. 077 Image file size and website speed: what to know before uploadingA gallery of beautiful, full-resolution photos straight from a phone can quietly make a website feel broken on a slow connection. PhotographySep 28, 2026 · 3 min No. 076 How to spot a fake "your website is down" scam emailA well-crafted fake urgent notice about a domain or website problem is designed to make a business owner click before they think. Slowing down is most of the defense. MaintenanceSep 28, 2026 · 3 min No. 075 How to set up goal tracking on a contact formA form that works but isn't tracked as a conversion is invisible in every report that matters, even though it's doing exactly what it was built to do. AnalyticsSep 28, 2026 · 3 min No. 074 How much should a small business budget for paid ads?There's no universal number, but there is a minimum below which a paid ad budget usually can't gather enough data to actually learn anything. Paid AdsSep 28, 2026 · 3 min No. 073 Google Business Profile suspensions: common causes and how to avoid themA suspended profile disappears from search overnight, often without much warning, and reinstatement isn't always fast. Google Business ProfileSep 28, 2026 · 3 min No. 072 Do you need reviews on every platform, or just one?Spreading review requests across five platforms thin doesn't beat one platform done well. Where you focus should follow where customers actually look. ReviewsSep 28, 2026 · 3 min No. 071 Common mistakes that waste a contractor's ad budgetMost wasted ad spend doesn't come from a bad platform choice. It comes from a handful of setup mistakes that quietly leak budget every single day they go uncorrected. Paid AdsSep 28, 2026 · 3 min No. 070 Where to put reviews on your website for the most impactA reviews page nobody visits does less than three sentences placed where a visitor is already hesitating. ReviewsSep 27, 2026 · 3 min No. 069 What is a landing page, and why does ad traffic need one?Sending paid clicks to a general homepage instead of a page built for the ad wastes a meaningful share of the budget before the visitor even decides anything. Paid AdsSep 27, 2026 · 3 min No. 068 What is a conversion, and how do you track one on a simple website?Traffic isn't the number that matters. The number that matters is how many visitors actually did the thing the page was built to make them do. AnalyticsSep 27, 2026 · 3 min No. 067 What happens to a website if you stop paying for hosting?A missed hosting payment doesn't usually mean instant deletion, but the grace period is shorter and less forgiving than most business owners assume. MaintenanceSep 27, 2026 · 3 min No. 066 Website backups: what to ask before you assume you have oneMost business owners assume their website is backed up somewhere. Many find out otherwise only after something has already gone wrong. MaintenanceSep 27, 2026 · 3 min No. 065 Review gating: what it is and why it's against the rulesFiltering happy customers toward public reviews and unhappy ones toward a private form feels harmless. Platforms treat it as manipulation, and enforce accordingly. ReviewsSep 27, 2026 · 3 min No. 064 How to handle a duplicate Google Business listingTwo listings for the same business split reviews, confuse search, and sometimes exist without the owner ever having created the second one. Google Business ProfileSep 27, 2026 · 3 min No. 063 How many photos does a website actually need?There's no magic count. The right number is enough to cover the site's actual pages, with no single photo forced to do more work than it should. PhotographySep 27, 2026 · 3 min No. 062 Google Local Services Ads vs. Google Ads: what's the differenceThey're both from Google, both show at the top of search results, and they work in almost entirely different ways underneath. Paid AdsSep 27, 2026 · 3 min No. 061 Google Business Profile photos: what actually gets usedA profile's photo count matters less than which photos Google chooses to feature, and business owners rarely control that as directly as they think. Google Business ProfileSep 27, 2026 · 3 min No. 060 Why stock photos hurt a local business more than they helpA polished stock photo of a smiling model in a hard hat convinces nobody that a specific local business does good work. It just looks like every other site using the same photo. PhotographySep 26, 2026 · 3 min No. 059 What to post on Google Business Profile, and how oftenThe posts feature on a Google Business Profile is easy to ignore and easy to overthink. Neither extreme serves the listing well. Google Business ProfileSep 26, 2026 · 3 min No. 058 What an SSL certificate actually does, and why every site needs oneThe padlock icon in a browser bar represents something specific and limited. Knowing what it actually covers keeps expectations realistic. MaintenanceSep 26, 2026 · 3 min No. 057 Phone photography tips for showing off finished workA modern phone camera is good enough for every photo a small business website needs. Most bad job-site photos fail for reasons that have nothing to do with the camera. PhotographySep 26, 2026 · 3 min No. 056 How to respond to a negative reviewA one-star review isn't written for the person who left it. The reply is written for everyone who reads it afterward. ReviewsSep 26, 2026 · 3 min No. 055 How to fully optimize a Google Business ProfileA Google Business Profile with half its fields blank is still ranking against competitors who filled in every one. Completeness is most of the work. Google Business ProfileSep 26, 2026 · 3 min No. 054 How to ask for reviews without being pushyThe businesses with the most reviews usually aren't the ones that worked hardest for them. They're the ones that made asking a normal part of finishing a job. ReviewsSep 26, 2026 · 3 min No. 053 Google Analytics for small business: the reports that actually matterGoogle Analytics has dozens of reports. A small local business site only ever needs to check about five of them. AnalyticsSep 26, 2026 · 3 min No. 052 Google Ads vs. Meta ads: which one fits a small business first?The two platforms answer different questions. One catches people already searching; the other reaches people who weren't looking yet. Paid AdsSep 26, 2026 · 3 min No. 051 Call tracking: how to know which marketing brought the phone callFor a service business, the phone call is the conversion that matters most, and it's the one that's hardest to trace back to its source without a little setup. AnalyticsSep 26, 2026 · 3 min No. 050 Why a small business website should be built for phones firstGoogle doesn't just favor a mobile-friendly site. It looks at the phone version of your site to decide what your business even is. Desktop is the afterthought now, not the other way around. DesignSep 25, 2026 · 4 min No. 049 What a tree service website should includeTree work is among the most dangerous jobs in the country, by a wide margin. A website that takes that fact seriously, with real credentials and real insurance, stands apart immediately. Trade guidesSep 25, 2026 · 4 min No. 048 What a painting contractor's website should includePainting sells almost entirely on visible transformation, which plays to a website's strengths. It also carries a specific federal certification requirement most sites never mention. Trade guidesSep 25, 2026 · 4 min No. 047 What a house cleaning website should includeHouse cleaning is one of the few trades where letting a stranger into someone's home, alone, unsupervised, is the entire premise. The website's job is to answer that fear directly. Trade guidesSep 25, 2026 · 4 min No. 046 What a garage door company's website should includeA broken garage door spring is one of the more dangerous DIY temptations in home repair. That fact, stated honestly, is also one of the strongest reasons to call a professional. Trade guidesSep 25, 2026 · 4 min No. 045 Website design mistakes that cost contractors callsSome design choices look impressive in a mockup and cost real calls in practice. The image carousel is the clearest example, and the research on it goes back over a decade. DesignSep 25, 2026 · 4 min No. 044 Website accessibility basics for small businessThe federal accessibility rule that made headlines in 2024 applies to government websites, not yours. That doesn't mean accessibility is optional, or that lawsuits aren't real. DesignSep 25, 2026 · 4 min No. 043 Should a home service website have online booking?Online booking works well for some jobs and badly for others. The difference is whether the job can be priced without someone actually looking at it first. TradesSep 25, 2026 · 4 min No. 042 How to write content that answers your customers' questionsGoogle publishes the actual questions it wants content creators to ask themselves. Running a page through them, honestly, catches most of what makes content weak. SearchSep 25, 2026 · 4 min No. 041 How to find the questions your customers are askingThe best source for what to write about is data your own website is already generating for free. Most businesses never open the report that shows it. SearchSep 25, 2026 · 4 min No. 040 What a pest control website should includePest control is regulated more tightly than most trades, and some common marketing words are legally risky here in a way they aren't elsewhere. That's the place to start. Trade guidesSep 24, 2026 · 4 min No. 039 What a landscaping website should includeLandscaping sells on what a yard looks like after the work is done, and on whether the maintenance that follows is actually spelled out. Most sites only handle the first half. Trade guidesSep 24, 2026 · 4 min No. 038 Service schema: how to mark up each serviceLocalBusiness schema describes who you are. Service schema describes what you actually sell, page by page, and most sites that bother with schema at all skip this part. SchemaSep 24, 2026 · 4 min No. 037 Service area pages: what they are and how to write themA real service area page and a doorway page look similar at a glance. The difference is whether there's anything on the page besides a swapped-in city name. TradesSep 24, 2026 · 5 min No. 036 Licensing and insurance: how to show trust on your siteA license number sitting quietly in a footer does less work than it could. Most states let anyone verify it in seconds, and that's the fact worth building the page around. TradesSep 24, 2026 · 5 min No. 035 How to write a call to action that gets calls"Get Started" and "Learn More" ask nothing of a visitor and promise nothing back. The buttons that work say exactly what happens next. DesignSep 24, 2026 · 4 min No. 034 How to test your schema with the Rich Results TestGoogle's free testing tool checks something narrower than most people assume. Knowing what it actually covers keeps you from chasing an error that isn't really one. SchemaSep 24, 2026 · 4 min No. 033 How many articles does a new website need before it ranks?There's no number, and Google's own staff have said so directly. What actually moves the needle is a different question entirely. SearchSep 24, 2026 · 4 min No. 032 Designing a website for emergency service searchesSomeone searching "emergency plumber near me" has already decided to act. The only question left is which business answers fastest, and the website is part of that answer. TradesSep 24, 2026 · 4 min No. 031 Core Web Vitals in plain EnglishThree numbers, three plain questions. Google's own thresholds for "good" are specific, free to check, and worth knowing without the jargon. SchemaSep 24, 2026 · 4 min No. 030 Contact form or phone number: what gets more leads?For most trades, this isn't really a competition. The honest answer is both, weighted toward the phone, with the form catching what the phone can't. DesignSep 24, 2026 · 4 min No. 029 What should be in a website proposal?A proposal you can hold a designer to has six parts. A proposal that's just a price on a page has one, and it's the wrong one to judge by alone. PricingSep 23, 2026 · 4 min No. 028 Trust signals: what visitors look for before they callTrust isn't one thing on a page. It's a handful of specific, checkable signals, and the research on what they actually are is more consistent than you'd expect. DesignSep 23, 2026 · 5 min No. 027 Monthly website plans vs a one-time priceA monthly plan lowers the number you see first. What it actually buys, and what happens if you ever stop paying, is the part worth reading closely. PricingSep 23, 2026 · 5 min No. 026 How to add LocalBusiness schema to a websiteThe code itself is short. What actually trips people up is where it goes, what has to match, and how to check it's working at all. SchemaSep 23, 2026 · 5 min No. 025 How long does SEO take for a new small business site?Google's own guidance is that it depends heavily on what changed and how established the site already is. For a brand-new site, that answer is closer to months than days. SearchSep 23, 2026 · 4 min No. 024 FAQ schema after Google's May 2026 changeGoogle stopped showing FAQ rich results entirely this year. The markup is still valid. Whether it's still worth adding depends on what you actually want it to do. SchemaSep 23, 2026 · 5 min No. 023 Do contractors need a blog?The word "blog" is part of the problem. What actually helps is a library of real answers to real questions, and that's a different commitment than it sounds like. TradesSep 23, 2026 · 4 min No. 022 Before-and-after photos: how to show your work onlineA before-and-after pair is the strongest proof a trades site can show. Most businesses still get the basics of presenting one wrong. TradesSep 23, 2026 · 4 min No. 021 Answer engine optimization for small businessesAEO has a real, useful meaning underneath the buzzword. For a small business, most of what it actually asks you to do overlaps with good SEO you should be doing anyway. SearchSep 23, 2026 · 5 min No. 020 9 signs your website is costing you customersA website doesn't have to be broken to be losing you work. These nine signs are quiet, and most businesses don't notice them until they're pointed out. PricingSep 23, 2026 · 5 min No. 019 LocalBusiness schema for contractors: which type to useSchema.org has a specific type for plumbers, electricians, roofers and more. Using the generic LocalBusiness type instead is the most common mistake. SchemaSep 22, 2026 · 5 min No. 018 How to write a services page that ranksGoogle's own guidance on titles, headings and links is more specific than most advice you'll read. Here is how to apply it to one service page. TradesSep 22, 2026 · 4 min No. 017 How to get your business recommended by AI assistantsMore people are asking ChatGPT and Gemini for a local recommendation instead of searching. Here is what the current research says actually earns the mention. SearchSep 22, 2026 · 4 min No. 016 How many reviews do customers need before they trust you?There is a real threshold where customers start ruling businesses out. Recent survey data puts a number on it, and on how a business is allowed to collect reviews. TradesSep 22, 2026 · 5 min No. 015 How long does it take to build a small business website?A custom small business site typically runs a few weeks to two months. What actually determines where you land in that range has less to do with code than you'd think. PricingSep 22, 2026 · 5 min No. 014 Google Business Profile vs your website: what each one doesA free Google Business Profile and a website do different jobs. Confusing them is why some businesses skip a website, and why others neglect their profile. SearchSep 22, 2026 · 4 min No. 013 Click-to-call: why your phone number belongs in the headerA phone number that isn't a real link costs you calls you'll never know you lost. Here is how to do it right, including the accessibility rule most sites miss. TradesSep 22, 2026 · 4 min No. 012 12 questions to ask a web designer before you hireA good designer will have clear answers to all twelve. A vague answer to any one of them is worth pausing over before you sign. PricingSep 22, 2026 · 4 min No. 011 What to put on a contractor's homepageMost visitors decide in the first screen whether to call or leave. Here is what has to be there, in what order. TradesSep 21, 2026 · 5 min No. 010 What pages does a contractor website need?Most contractor sites need fewer pages than agencies sell, but the ones they need have to do specific jobs. Here are the pages, in order of importance. TradesSep 21, 2026 · 5 min No. 009 What an HVAC website should includeHVAC gets two very different visitors: someone whose system just quit and someone planning a replacement. The site has to work for both, in every season. Trade guidesSep 21, 2026 · 6 min No. 008 What an electrician's website should includeHomeowners let electricians into their walls and panels, so trust and safety carry more weight here than almost anywhere. Here is what the site needs. Trade guidesSep 21, 2026 · 5 min No. 007 What a roofing website should include, and the deductible wording to keep off itRoofing is one of the few trades where common website wording can break the law. Here is what the site should show, and the deductible language several states now prohibit. Trade guidesSep 21, 2026 · 6 min No. 006 What a plumbing website should includePeople visit a plumber's website stressed and often standing in water. The site should get them to a call fast, then earn trust with plain pricing and real photos. Trade guidesSep 21, 2026 · 5 min No. 005 Website builder vs custom website: an honest comparison for a small businessA builder like Wix or Squarespace is the right call for some businesses and the wrong one for others. Here is how to tell which you are. PricingSep 21, 2026 · 5 min No. 004 How much should a small business website cost?A small business website costs anywhere from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands. What you get for the money varies more than the number does. PricingSep 21, 2026 · 5 min No. 003 Do I own my website? Domain, hosting and code, explainedOwning a website is really three separate things: the domain, the hosting and the code. Here is how to check who holds each one. PricingSep 21, 2026 · 6 min No. 002 What is schema markup, and does a small business need it?Schema is a short block of code that tells search engines and AI assistants what your business is. It takes an hour to add and does not guarantee rankings. SearchSep 18, 2026 · 4 min No. 001 Why a designer should ask for your own photosStock photos make every small business site look the same. Your own images, even imperfect ones, do more work than a polished stranger. DesignSep 14, 2026 · 4 min