We build websites for small businesses in Oklahoma City. Now we are going to write about it.
This blog is not a content marketing exercise. It is the set of answers we find ourselves giving on the phone every week, written down once so we can point people at them. If you are deciding whether to hire someone, build it yourself, or leave the site you have alone for another year, that is who this is for.
What you will find here
Short, specific posts. Mostly these three things:
- Local SEO that actually moves. What gets a business into the map pack in Oklahoma City, what does nothing, and how long each takes.
- Design decisions with a reason behind them. Why a page is laid out the way it is, and what it costs you when it is not.
- Honest numbers. What we changed, what happened, and how long it took. Including the times it did not work.
What you will not find is a monthly roundup of industry news, or a post explaining what a website is.
The thing most sites get wrong
Here is the one worth starting with, because it costs more than every other mistake combined, and it happens before anyone opens a design tool.
Most small business websites are built to describe the business. They open with who we are, how long we have been doing it, and what we value. All of that is true, and almost none of it is what the person on the other end typed into Google.
Nobody searches for a family owned company committed to excellence. They search for roof repair near me, or emergency plumber Edmond, or how much does a new HVAC system cost in Oklahoma. Those are questions. A website that earns its keep answers them in the first screen, in the same words the customer used.
Your homepage is not a brochure. It is the answer to a question someone just asked out loud.
This is why we start every project with the search terms before the layout. It is not glamorous, and it is the single highest-leverage hour in the whole build. Get it wrong and you end up with a site that looks expensive and never appears when someone needs you.
What is next
Next up we are writing about the map pack: what Google actually uses to decide which three businesses appear above the fold on a local search, and which of those levers a small business can realistically pull.
If there is something you want covered, tell us. We would rather write the post you actually need than guess.