Field guides

Learn the ground before you plant.

Free field guides to the decisions behind a fast, owned website, sorted by where you are in the journey. Each one is marked New to this, Some experience or Technical, and every claim is sourced.

Not sure where to begin? Find your path Website glossary

§01Learning the ground

Understand the basics.

What the scores, terms and options mean, from first principles to the engineering detail.

Field guide 001Website speed

PageSpeed Insights explained for business owners

What Google's PageSpeed score measures, how to read it, why it changes between runs, and what to do about a low one. No jargon.

7 min readNew to this

Field guide 004Getting started

Your first business website: what you actually need

Moving beyond social media and directory listings? The essentials of a first website, the ways to build one, and how to make sure you own it.

7 min readNew to this

Field guide 007Basics

Website glossary for business owners

Plain-English definitions of the web terms you will hear from developers and platforms: hosting, DNS, Core Web Vitals, CI/CD, headless and more.

6 min readNew to this

Field guide 003AI-built apps

The production checklist for apps built with AI tools

Built something with Lovable, Bolt, Cursor or v0? What to check before real customers, payments and data arrive, in plain language.

8 min readSome experience

Field guide 010Performance

Where the milliseconds go: Core Web Vitals field notes for Next.js

Lessons from taking a store from a PageSpeed score of 41 to 98: the LCP breakdown, server response and hosting path, CSS and fonts, hydration, images and honest measurement.

9 min readTechnical

§02Weighing your options

Compare platforms and costs.

Honest comparisons for when you know something has to change and want to choose well.

Field guide 005Choosing a platform

Website builder, Shopify, WordPress or custom? An honest comparison

The four common ways to build a business website or online store, what each is good at, what to watch for, and when custom is the wrong call.

8 min readNew to this

Field guide 006Ownership

What it really costs to run a website

Beyond the launch price: hosting, subscriptions, fees, maintenance, workarounds and slow pages. How to add it up and compare options fairly.

6 min readNew to this

Field guide 002Re-platforming

Leaving WooCommerce: a plain-English migration guide

How to tell if your store has outgrown WooCommerce, your options, what data moves, and how to protect your Google rankings during the switch.

9 min readSome experience

§03Ready to decide

Choose a partner and a plan.

What to ask, what to check and what a good audit or proposal should give you.

Field guide 008Hiring

Questions to ask before you hire a web developer or agency

The questions that reveal a good fit, the warning signs to watch for, what a proper proposal includes, and how to make sure you own what you pay for.

6 min readNew to this

Field guide 009Audits

What a technical audit should examine: a checklist for technical leads

Architecture, dependencies, security, performance and delivery: the checks that turn an audit into a fix-or-rebuild decision, and what the report should contain.

8 min readTechnical

Engineering notes

Behind the build, in detail.

Our Insights articles go deeper into architecture, AI and the technical side of the work, for readers who want the engineering detail.

Read Insights

Next season starts here

Find out what your website is costing you.

Tell us where your platform is today and where you want it to go. We will review your setup, show you what is holding it back, and outline a clear path forward.

Get a free consultation Get a free speed check

Free, no-obligation consultation
Reply within one business day
Led by a principal architect