Field notes & essays.
Working notes, lessons, and the occasional opinion — from building websites, software, and AI systems for real businesses.
The full archive.
Every post, in chronological order.
GDPR, CCPA, and Cookie Banners: What Actually Applies to a Small Business Site
What GDPR, CCPA, and cookie banner laws actually require of a small business website — jurisdiction, consent, dark patterns, and when you don't need a banner.
Building an Internal Dashboard for Your Business: The Honest Tradeoffs
Retool vs Metabase vs Looker vs custom — query performance, role-based access, and the moment when canned reports stop being enough for your team.
Typography on the Web: The Decisions That Shape Readability
A practical guide to web typography for service businesses: line length, line height, font pairing, fluid type, font loading, and what makes text actually readable.
Link Building for Local Service Businesses That Actually Works
Honest link building for local service businesses. Local PR, sponsorships, HARO, partnerships, niche directories, and guest posts done the right way.
Measuring Website ROI: The Metrics That Matter (and the Ones That Distract)
How to measure real website ROI: pipeline-attributed revenue, qualified leads, CAC, and the GA4 plus CRM stitch. Plus the vanity metrics worth ignoring.
The Business Case for Monitoring: Uptime, Errors, and Real User Performance
Why small businesses need website monitoring — uptime, errors, and real user performance — and how to set it up without paying for an enterprise stack.
How to Handle Recurring Payments and Subscriptions on Your Website
Stripe Billing vs Chargebee vs custom, dunning logic, proration, churn handling, and tax automation — what actually matters when you charge customers monthly.
Landing Page vs Homepage: When to Use Each (and Why It Matters)
When to send paid traffic to a landing page vs a homepage: message match, single CTA, audience temperature, and the conversion cost of getting it wrong.
Content Strategy for Small Businesses Without a Marketing Team
A realistic content strategy for small businesses with no marketing team. Pillar pages, topic clusters, publishing cadence, repurposing, and when to outsource.