Writing on the small-business web. Issue № 01.
The writing here is derived from a private research base maintained by the studio. Each piece is published once the underlying research clears the editorial standards in sources and methodology. In practice that is one piece every four to eight weeks.
The publication date and the last-updated date are on every article. Material changes are logged in corrections.
- Search
Google search changed in 2026, and the 2019 SEO playbook is now a penalty.
Half of tracked queries now surface an AI Overview. Clicks on the organic results below collapse by 61% when one appears. Keyword stuffing — the discipline that built a generation of agency contracts — is the only intervention measured in the foundational generative-engine study that performs worse than doing nothing. Fourteen sources cited.
- Performance
The WordPress site is slow, but not for the reason the agency is telling you.
The decomposition of where the WordPress performance gap actually comes from in 2026 — hosting, page builders, plugin sprawl — and when migration is and is not the answer. Sixteen sources cited.
- Editorial
How we source the claims on this site, and what it costs us to do so.
The editorial standards drawn from the BBC, Reuters, the SPJ Code, and Wikipedia's verifiability policy. What they look like applied to an agency site.
- Search
Schema is hygiene, not a growth lever.
What Google actually said about structured data in May 2026. What Ahrefs' controlled study actually found. The disciplined version of the AI-visibility brief.
- Stack
What ownership of a website actually means in 2026.
Domain, DNS, code, content, data, hosting, analytics, customer relationships. Eight layers, and most small businesses unknowingly cede three or four of them.
- Architecture
Information architecture for service businesses with more than one thing they do.
Industries × Services, the hub-and-spoke pattern, and why audience-based primary navigation usually backfires for small operations.
- Field notes
Built to last: why most small-business sites get rebuilt every three to four years.
Orbit Media's data on rebuild cadence. The five factors that kill sites. What the survivors do differently.
Candid Creative