Notes from the shop

Plain, useful notes on building and growing an online shop — no hype, no jargon, no invented numbers. Written by the person who does the work.

Field Notes

Business owner reviewing a pre-ads checklist beside a laptop before launching paid advertising.

Five checks before you spend £1 on ads

Paid ads amplify what your site already does. Five quick checks — clarity, one next step, honest tracking, email capture, and the margin sums — before you spend a pound...

Five checks before you spend £1 on ads

Paid ads amplify what your site already does. Five quick checks — clarity, one next step, honest tracking, email capture, and the margin sums — before you spend a pound...

Independent shop owner updating Google Business Profile details and taking storefront photos for local search.

Google Business Profile: the highest-return hou...

For any business serving a local area, one free listing routinely out-earns whole budgets. The one-hour Google Business Profile setup, done properly — plus the ten-minute monthly habit.

Google Business Profile: the highest-return hou...

For any business serving a local area, one free listing routinely out-earns whole budgets. The one-hour Google Business Profile setup, done properly — plus the ten-minute monthly habit.

Laptop showing Google search results and analytics dashboard with handwritten SEO notes for a small business.

SEO foundations for small UK businesses — what ...

Five foundations do most of the SEO work for a UK small business — technical basics, honest page titles, Google Business Profile, genuinely useful pages, and measured patience. Plus the...

SEO foundations for small UK businesses — what ...

Five foundations do most of the SEO work for a UK small business — technical basics, honest page titles, Google Business Profile, genuinely useful pages, and measured patience. Plus the...

Small business packing bench with laptop showing welcome, abandoned-checkout and post-purchase email examples.

The three emails every online shop needs before...

Welcome, abandoned checkout, post-purchase: the three automations every shop needs before campaigns or growth tactics — what each does, and why they come first.

The three emails every online shop needs before...

Welcome, abandoned checkout, post-purchase: the three automations every shop needs before campaigns or growth tactics — what each does, and why they come first.

Laptop showing an ecommerce product page review with product-page conversion checklist beside it.

Why your product page isn't converting — seven ...

When a product page underperforms it's almost always one of the same seven problems. Here they are in the order to fix them — photos and clarity first, speed last.

Why your product page isn't converting — seven ...

When a product page underperforms it's almost always one of the same seven problems. Here they are in the order to fix them — photos and clarity first, speed last.

Laptop displaying a homepage during a five-second clarity and conversion test

The five-second homepage test (and how to pass it)

Show a stranger your homepage for five seconds. If they can't say what you sell, who it's for and what to do next, here's how to fix it — usually...

The five-second homepage test (and how to pass it)

Show a stranger your homepage for five seconds. If they can't say what you sell, who it's for and what to do next, here's how to fix it — usually...

Is something not working in the shop?

Start with the symptom. You do not need to know whether the answer is Shopify, CRO, Google Ads, Meta Ads or something else.