Notes from the studio
Blog
Process explainers, case studies from the portfolio, and the occasional note about what's actually working in 2026 small-business web design.
May 7, 2026 · by Connor
Indexing your unique and priority pages first
Why your service-area template pages should not get the same crawl budget as your About page — and how we wire sitemap priorities so Google indexes the work that actually moves the needle.
May 6, 2026 · by Connor
How we approach SEO
A no-magic walkthrough of the SEO work we ship on every site — schema, sitemap, robots, semantic HTML, Core Web Vitals, AI-friendly crawling. The full stack, in plain language.
May 5, 2026 · by Connor
How we ship a custom website in two weeks
A look inside the studio process — discovery call, fast build, launch and measure. No pitch deck, no upsell, no ten-day delays for a checkbox change.
May 4, 2026 · by Connor
What makes someone book a discovery call?
After eight sites and a year running this studio, here is what actually moves a visitor from browsing to booking. Spoiler: it is not "AI-powered."
May 4, 2026 · by Connor
Case study: rebuilding mod585.com from Lighthouse 82 to 94
Why we rebuilt Monroe Overhead Door on a repo-per-site Shape B pattern, and the +12 mobile Performance lift that came with it. Same domain, no downtime.
May 3, 2026 · by Connor
AI is the engine, not the brand
Why we stopped leading with "AI-powered" and started leading with "fast, hand-crafted, satisfaction guaranteed." A note on automation as a velocity tool, not a marketing claim.
May 1, 2026 · by Connor
Why service-area pages fail (and how to make them rank)
Three failure modes turn well-meaning service-area pages into Google’s idea of doorway pages. The discipline that fixes all three is dull, unglamorous, and works.
Apr 25, 2026 · by Connor
Should you let ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude crawl your site?
A short decision framework: when to allow AI crawlers (almost always), when to block (almost never), and how to be explicit in your robots.txt without breaking regular SEO.
Apr 15, 2026 · by Connor
Why most small-business sites score in the 40s on mobile
Four culprits drag mobile Lighthouse into the 40s on almost every small-business site we audit. The fix is mostly about removing things, not adding them.
Still here? Let's talk about your site.
Book a 20-minute discovery call. We will tell you honestly whether a rebuild is worth it — and if it is, what tier fits.