Thinking of DIYing your website? We look at the pros and cons of creating your small business website and the things to consider from budget to platform requirements and time. We discuss the 5 steps you need to take to launch your site and we’ve included links to our website design brief and our anatomy of a homepage guide.

We’ll take you through the stats, discuss why so many newsletters fail - hint: they’re more about you than your reader and talk about how to develop a newsletter that gets results. If done well and consistently, they can be one of a small business’ most effective and profitable marketing tools.

Like your home, your small business website can benefit from a once-a-year deep clean. From removing broken links to improving page speed, clearing out the clutter, adding more white space, updating and/or removing old content and optimising for mobile - we’ll guide you through what needs to be done to improve your Squarespace site. Once complete, not only will your site make a better first impression but you’ll also see improved engagement and better conversion rates.

A call to action is a short active statement to encourage visitors to take a desired action. The action should related to your primary website goal and help move visitors closer to conversion. Learn what a call to action is, best CTA practices and ways to better match your CTAs to your visitors’ buying stage for maximum effect.

A great website starts with a great design brief. Not sure where to start? Here’s our step by step guide. We cover everything from project definition, important historical and contextual business background, target market information, SMART business goals and objectives, scoping the web pages and features, responsibilities and practical items like timeline and budget.

Blogging consistently is one of the best long-term marketing investments you can make in your business. We explain why business blogs matter, how to get started and provide checklist to use before you post. We’ve also included a peek at our Blog Creative Brief.

The best small business websites are never finished - they’re routinely added to, tweaked, updated and improved in order to increase visitor traffic and work harder to achieve your business goals. Here’s our checklist of post-launch activities to consider.

If you are like me and one of your resolutions is to blog more often and more consistently… read this article to make sure you are achieving the maximum benefits from your blogging. In Part One we review all the blog settings, provide pro-tips and a hack or two. There’s even a checklist at the end.

One of the biggest reasons small businesses falter is that they fail to plan and if you want to grow your business you need to understand where you are now, where you want to go and how to get there.

A business review is the first step in assessing your current situation and helping you plan for success. We’ll walk you through the different approaches and provide our free business review worksheet to get you started.

The question your potential clients want to know is 'Why do you exist as a company’ - what problem do you solve and why as a potential customer should I care. Too many companies start with the What which is not memorable and often a little boring. Leaving clients think ’So What?’ and worse ‘Who cares?’

Icons are a wonderful communication device. As they say, a picture is worth a 1000 words. A well-chosen icon can communicate an idea quickly, adding interest and personality to the message it’s supporting.

For me the advice came in the form of a question… and that was, how are you spending your time? Are you spending the majority of your time working IN the business or ON the business?

‘Why Ascender?’, my best friend asked. ‘Do you mean the climbing device?’

It was a good question but slightly odd coming from someone that has known me 35 years and knows I'm definitely not the great outdoors type.