Rizen
Notes from the field: plain writing on websites, local search and the business side of running one, from Perryopolis for Pittsburgh, the Mon Valley and Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Of the hosted builders, Webflow is the one we would point a small business toward. Here is the honest case for it, and the case where it is the wrong choice.
People now ask Google, ChatGPT and their phone for a recommendation and get a paragraph, not ten links. Here is what that means for a local business and what actually moves the needle.
Google measures how your site feels to load on a real phone and uses it as a ranking signal. On rural cell service that signal is brutal. Here is what it measures and what to fix first.
Most church websites are controlled by one member who set it up years ago. When that person moves, gets sick, or gets busy, the site freezes. Here is a better arrangement.
The person on your site has a problem and is comparing three firms. What decides which one they call, and what the Pennsylvania rules mean for how you say it.
A DIY builder costs a few hundred a year. A professional build costs a few thousand once. Here is the honest arithmetic, including the cases where the builder is the right call.
Schema is a short block of code that tells Google exactly what your business is, where it works, and when it is open. Here is what it does, what it does not do, and what a contractor actually needs.
Most of your website traffic is on a phone, much of it on a Saturday night or a Sunday morning. Three things have to work perfectly there, and none of them are complicated.
The visitor already needs you. Something on the page talked them out of it. Seven things that do that on trade websites across the Mon Valley, and the plain fix for each.
Someone new to town is on your website on a Saturday night, deciding whether to come tomorrow. Here is what they are looking for, and where most church sites hide it.