Blog
Straight answers. No marketing speak.
What websites cost, why they fail, how local search actually works - written for owners who'd rather be running the business.
If you are still writing prompts the way you did last year, you are working too hard
Three things changed in how you brief an AI: skills replaced prompt folders, the destination beats the route, and big jobs want a specification, not a prompt.
Read the post →A workbook for the day your customer is not a person
Seventy years of marketing was packaging. When the customer is a machine it wants the spec sheet. Five exercises, one hour, and a look at what is in the box.
Read →The search work should decide the design, not the other way round
Thirty years a designer, and most websites still get built in the wrong order. Decide what the site must be found for, let that set the pages, then design it.
Read →"Write more naturally" does not work. Here is what does.
"Write more naturally" fails because the model does not know it writes unnaturally. What works: ban the tells, score your voice on scales, vary your examples.
Read →Your SEO retainer is not fixing anything, and the reason is structural
The monthly report has your logo on it and the phone has not rung. Why retainers drift towards activity, not fixes, and four questions to ask your provider.
Read →If an AI already knows it, why would it cite you?
If an AI already knows it, it has no reason to cite you. Information gain is what your page adds that was not out there, and you have more of it than you think.
Read →Guerrilla local SEO: the things a national chain cannot be bothered to do
You cannot outspend a national chain. You can do what does not scale: local groups, small sponsorships, and writing down what only someone who works here knows.
Read →If a made-up brand can get recommended, so can you
A made-up brand got recommended by ChatGPT in three weeks. You have everything it had to invent. Why the shelf is open, and the dull work that keeps you there.
Read →"AI could never write our content." "You are just using ChatGPT anyway."
"AI could never write our content" and "you just use ChatGPT" are the same objection, and both are right about something. The fix is one boring document.
Read →How many location pages is too many, and what should actually be on them?
Town pages work, and most businesses do them badly the same way every time. The test for whether a location page should exist, and what actually goes on one.
Read →Google just asked shops to hand over their FAQs. Service businesses should pay attention.
Google now takes shops' FAQs as product data and ChatGPT takes a feed. Neither reaches a service business, but the principle underneath applies to everyone.
Read →Write down where you want to be in three years, then work backwards
Most content plans are a pile. Write down where the business should be in three years, work out what would have to be true, and let the plan fall out. One hour.
Read →Somebody studied 1.4 million ChatGPT prompts. The findings are unusually practical.
Ahrefs read 1.4 million ChatGPT prompts. Half the pages retrieved go uncited, titles should match the sub-question, a readable address earns nine points.
Read →AI is saying things about your business that are not true. Here is how to fix it.
When an AI gets your business wrong, it read something. Find the source and the error goes with it. The three situations you will find, and the fix for each.
Read →Soon agents will not just read your website. They will use it.
Agents are starting to use websites, not just read them. What Cloudflare and Shopify have done, why you are not behind, and the one free thing to do this week.
Read →The EU AI Act probably does not apply to you. Do it anyway.
The EU AI Act's transparency rules landed on 2 August. Whether they reach a Lancashire business, and why to tell people they are talking to a machine anyway.
Read →Interview an AI about your own business. It is uncomfortable and it is free.
Six questions to put to ChatGPT, Gemini and the rest about your own business. Free, uncomfortable, and you finish knowing exactly what to write next.
Read →Nobody gets post any more, which is exactly why it works
Email is oversubscribed and the doormat is nearly empty, which has quietly made a printed letter more effective than it was. A biased printer's take on why the letterbox is winning back the moment it lost to the inbox.
Read →You are not building an audience any more. You are leaving evidence.
Social media used to be about building a following. There is a new reader now, and it is not human. What you post is becoming the evidence an AI reads about your business, which quietly changes what is worth posting and where.
Read →Will Google penalise you for using AI to write your content?
The short answer is no, and Google is not trying to detect AI at all. The longer answer is more useful, because there is a real thing to be careful about, and it is not the one most people worry about.
Read →I still call it SEO, and I know what that word does to people
Most people have been sold SEO once and it did not go well. I have thought about dropping the word. I am not going to. Here is what I actually mean by it, and why the boring version is the one that holds up.
Read →Your customers are not all searching the same way, and their age tells you most of it
Being everywhere is useless advice for a small business. You need to be where your customers look, and the single best clue is how old they are. How search has split by age and by the kind of question, and where that means you should show up.
Read →Your business has a calendar. Your content should match it.
Freshness advice mostly misses the point. What matters is being there the moment your customers start looking, which means publishing weeks before the demand arrives, not during it. How to map the shape of your year and work backwards.
Read →Google has quietly put AI inside two free tools you already have
Everyone is selling paid AI tools to analyse your website. Google has quietly built AI into Analytics and Search Console, both free and both already yours, and almost nobody uses them. Here is what each one actually does, and how they differ.
Read →The customers who never knew to search for you
Keyword search only finds people who already know what to type. Now they describe a problem to AI, and the answer can end with your name, if you have written the page that connects the two. How to find the entry points you have never claimed.
Read →Your logo is a fuzzy JPEG somebody emailed you in 2011
For a lot of trades the logo is a 400-pixel JPEG with a white box round it, and nobody has the original file. It is the most visible thing on your website, it matters more on a phone than it used to, and it is a smaller job to fix than most people assume.
Read →The hidden version of your website that AI actually reads
There is a version of your site you have never seen, and it is the one AI reads to decide whether it can use you. It is called the accessibility tree, and Google has just made it matter. How to check yours in thirty seconds.
Read →You can buy links. You cannot buy a good reputation.
Everyone is writing gloomy pieces about AI taking search traffic away. Here is the more interesting read. The machines now weigh reputation over technical cleverness, and that is good news if you are the sort of business that actually does the job properly.
Read →Nearly a third of businesses have nobody in charge of getting recommended by AI
73% of teams say getting recommended by AI matters; 29% have nobody who owns it. Who should actually run your GEO, and why the honest answer is that it was never a separate job to begin with.
Read →Your Instagram captions are feeding AI, so write them properly
AI reads your social captions and uses them to describe your business to potential customers. Most captions are hashtag soup. How to write ones AI can actually cite, with a worked example.
Read →How to get your business cited by AI, with examples
When someone asks ChatGPT or Google's AI who they should use, you want to be the one it names. Ranking no longer guarantees it. The seven things that actually earn the citation, with examples you can copy.
Read →Most web designers can't answer these five questions. That's the problem.
Hiring someone to build your site means judging something you can't assess. Five questions that test who really holds the power, on your domain, ownership, fixes, year-two cost, and how you leave.
Read →The two things that will actually hold up your website (and neither of them is the website)
A site can go live in days, but two things reliably blow that timeline apart, and neither is the website. Your photos and your domain, handled honestly, including the image mistake that can cost you thousands.
Read →Your website will be live in days, not months. That isn't a shortcut.
Most agencies quote eight to twelve weeks. We do it in days. Why that's the output of thirty years condensed into a system, not a corner cut, and why hourly billing quietly punishes the person who is good at it.
Read →You are not losing work because of your website. You are losing it twenty minutes after the phone rings.
You can be top of the map pack and still lose the job if nobody answers for twenty minutes. The three ways enquiries leak away, and the near-free fixes that recover more work than most marketing.
Read →Peter's rule: make it beautiful, make the offer visible
In 1998 the sharpest marketing mind I ever met gave me one rule that has outlasted every technology since. Why beautiful gets you believed, a visible offer gets you the job, and both matter more than ever now AI is reading your site.
Read →Your website was built for a world that no longer exists
The standard way of building a small-business website was designed for a world that has quietly stopped existing. The behaviours to spot when you choose who builds your next one.
Read →Soon your customers won't be people. Get ready to sell to a robot.
Within a year or two, a chunk of your enquiries will come from AI agents checking you out before any human does. What Google announced, and how to make sure the machine recommends you, not the firm down the road.
Read →How to spot a GEO agency that is about to rip you off
AI SEO, GEO, AEO, whatever they call it this month, the pitch is always 'pay us and ChatGPT will recommend you'. Fifteen years in SEO, here are the red flags that tell you an AI-search agency is selling smoke.
Read →How to get reviews without being weird about it (and what to do when a bad one lands)
Reviews now turn on recency, not volume, and the rules changed in 2026. A plain guide to asking the compliant way, making it one tap, and handling a bad review without making it worse.
Read →If you were starting your business today, you'd build it completely differently
Bolting AI onto how you already work is the wrong move. The thought experiment that shows what an AI-first business looks like, and the one place to start.
Read →Your SEO report looks great. Has it brought you any work?
Domain Authority up, 847 keywords, every arrow green, and no clue whether any of it brought work. Most of those numbers are estimates from a simulation, not what happened at Google. Here is which ones actually connect to a customer.
Read →The hard part of AI content isn't ranking, it's sounding human
AI can write copy that ranks. The hard part is making it sound like you, not like every other AI. How to strip the tells and teach it your voice.
Read →The one page that turns AI into your best salesperson
Google switched off FAQ rich results in 2026, but a plain FAQ page is now one of the best things you can build for AI search. Why, and how to write one that recommends you.
Read →Google just published its AI guide, and it says you've been sold things you didn't need
Google published its official AI-search guide in 2026, and it quietly says you have been sold things you do not need. What actually works, and what to stop paying for.
Read →How fast should your website be?
Faster than it probably is. A slow site loses visitors and rankings at once. What fast enough means, what makes sites slow, and how to check yours for free.
Read →You might not need a website yet
A web designer telling you to hold off. If you are rushed off your feet on word of mouth, there are cheaper wins first. When a website actually earns its place.
Read →Who owns your website?
You paid for your website, but do you own it? The domain, the site, your Google listing. How to check in ten minutes, and why it only bites when it is too late.
Read →How to choose the best web designer in your area for your business
An honest comparison of the four ways to get a website built - freelancer, agency, DIY builder, subscription - and the questions that force the truth out of any of them.
Read →A Facebook page is not a website, and AI is the reason why
A Facebook page used to be enough. Not any more. When people ask Google or AI who to use, they read websites, not locked-in social feeds. Why you need a site you own.
Read →Your website has three jobs. Everything else is decoration.
Before the nice design, your website has three jobs: be found, be believed, and be easy to ring. Get them in that order or the polish is just an expensive way of being invisible.
Read →What puts people off making an enquiry (and what it quietly costs you)
The friction that loses ready customers before you ever see them: slow replies, slow sites, thin reviews. The real, sourced data on what each one costs, and the simple fixes.
Read →Your dead social media account is costing you work
Google is now putting your social feed on your Business Profile, right where customers check you out after an AI recommends you. Why a dormant account reads as a dead business, and what to post instead.
Read →Let Google tell you which keywords to target on your Business Profile
A free 20-minute Google Business Profile tip: pull the exact search terms Google already logs for you, add them to your services, and mirror them with pages on your website.
Read →The Google review rules changed in 2026, and most businesses missed it
How you're allowed to collect Google reviews changed in 2026, and Google now strips offending ones with AI. What you can still do, what gets reviews deleted, and how to stay compliant.
Read →The boring profile field AI is now reading
For years your Google Business Profile description did nothing for rankings. Now AI reads it to decide what to say about you. How to rewrite it plainly, with three before-and-after examples.
Read →Google just made social media measurable, and almost nobody has noticed
Google Search Console now shows real search data for your Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube posts. What it means, why it matters for getting named in AI answers, and how to set it up in two minutes.
Read →What actually moves the needle on your Google Business Profile
The handful of things that genuinely move a Google Business Profile up the local map: your category, reviews, and the boring bits most businesses skip.
Read →Is blogging dead in 2026? Not if you sell something
'Is blogging dead?' Not if you sell a product or service. The three reasons your blog isn't working, plus the 2026 tactic (fan-out and schema) almost nobody's using yet.
Read →What your business will look like a year from now
INKON's founder on where business is heading: AI given the keys to do the work, a Business Brain it runs on, and the graft handed off so you get your time back.
Read →Do you need WordPress? What the plugin treadmill really costs
Most local business websites run on WordPress, a page builder and a stack of plugins - and pay a monthly fee just to stop it all breaking. Here's what that treadmill actually costs.
Read →From Letraset to AI: thirty years of putting businesses in front of customers
Printing plates at fifteen, Harrods by 2001, two Google penalties survived. INKON's founder on thirty years of getting businesses noticed - and what that means for yours.
Read →The first reply wins: why speed beats price for local enquiries
Most local jobs go to whoever answers first, not whoever quotes lowest. What the response-time research means for a small business - and how to be first without living on your phone.
Read →How to get your business to show up on Google in your town
The five things Google actually checks before it shows a local business - and the order to fix them in. No jargon, no tools to buy, written for owners not marketers.
Read →How much does a website cost for a small business in 2026?
Real numbers, not "it depends": what small business websites actually cost in the UK, what drives the price up, and how to avoid paying for things you don't need.
Read →Why your website isn't getting you enquiries
Five reasons local business websites fail to produce enquiries - and the one fix most businesses never think to make. Plain-English diagnosis you can run yourself today.
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