DEV Community: Daniel Fenton

How to Brief a Web Designer (and Avoid Getting Ripped Off)

Daniel Fenton — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 19:36:49 +0000

Most small business owners who've been stung by a web project say the same thing afterwards: "I didn't really know what I was asking for." That's not your fault. Web designers often speak in jargon, and without a clear brief, the whole thing can go sideways fast.

This guide will help you go in prepared, ask the right questions, and get what you actually need.

What is a web design brief?

A web design brief is a written document that tells a designer exactly what you need, why you need it, and what success looks like. Think of it like ordering a custom cake: the more clearly you describe it, the more likely you get what you want.

Without a brief, you're relying on a designer to read your mind. That's how projects overrun, overspend, and end up looking nothing like you imagined.

Step 1: Know what your website actually needs to do

Before you speak to any designer, write down what job your website needs to do. This sounds obvious, but most people skip it.

Ask yourself:

Do I need people to contact me (phone, email, form)?
Do I need to sell products online?
Do I need to take bookings or appointments?
Do I need to build a mailing list?
Do I just need to show up on Google when someone searches for me locally?

Every feature you add costs time and money. Be honest about what you genuinely need now versus what would be nice to have later.

💡 If your main goal is showing up when local customers search for you, read our guide on why your website might not be appearing on Google before you brief anyone. It'll help you ask the right questions.

Step 2: Write it down before you talk to anyone

Your brief should be a short written document you hand to every designer you approach. This protects you and makes comparing quotes much fairer.

Here's what to include:

Section	What to Write
About your business	What you do, who your customers are, where you're based
Purpose of the site	What you want visitors to do when they land on it
Pages you need	Home, About, Contact, Shop, Menu, Gallery, etc.
Examples you like	Links to 2 or 3 websites you think look good and feel right
Must-haves	Specific features you cannot do without
Budget	Your actual budget, not a vague range
Timeline	When you need it live by, and why
Who provides content	Will you write the text and supply photos, or do they need to?

Yes, sharing your budget feels awkward. But a designer who knows you have £1,500 won't quote you for a £6,000 build. It saves everyone time.

Step 3: Understand what you're actually paying for

Web design costs cover several different things, and you need to know which ones are included in your quote.

Here's a breakdown of the common components:

Design
The visual look of the site: colours, fonts, layout, and how it feels to use. This is what most people think of when they say "web design".

Development
The technical build: making the design work as an actual website. Sometimes the same person does both, sometimes not.

Hosting
The server (think of it as the land your website sits on) that keeps your site online. You usually pay for this annually. Make sure you know who controls it.

Domain Name
Your web address (e.g. yourbakery.co.uk). Again, make sure this is registered in your name, not the designer's.

Content Management System (CMS)
The tool you use to update your own website without needing a developer every time. WordPress is the most common. Ask if you'll be able to log in and make basic changes yourself.

⚠️ Some designers register your domain name and set up hosting under their own account. If you fall out or want to move, you can lose access to your own website. Always insist that domain and hosting accounts are registered in your name with your payment details.

Step 4: Ask these questions before you hire anyone

A trustworthy web designer will answer these questions clearly and without getting defensive. If someone dodges them or makes you feel silly for asking, walk away.

Can I see three examples of websites you've built for businesses like mine?
Will I own the website and all its files when the project is finished?
Who will register my domain name and set up hosting?
What platform (system) will the site be built on, and why?
Will I be able to update basic content myself, like text and photos?
What happens if I need changes after launch? Is there an hourly rate?
Is SEO (Search Engine Optimisation, which means making your site findable on Google) included, and if so, what specifically does that cover?
Will the site work properly on mobile phones?
Do you write the content, or do I supply it?
What does your payment schedule look like?

That last one matters. A fair payment structure is usually a deposit upfront, something at a midpoint, and the final payment on completion. Anyone asking for full payment before starting is a red flag.

Step 5: Understand the quote you're given

A proper quote should itemise what you're paying for, not just give you a single lump sum. If you get a one-line quote for "website design -- £2,500", ask for a breakdown.

Compare quotes on like-for-like terms. If one designer includes content writing and another doesn't, they're not quoting for the same job.

Also ask how changes are handled during the build. Most designers allow a set number of revision rounds (chances to ask for tweaks). If you don't know this upfront, small changes can rack up extra charges quickly.

Cheap isn't always bad, and expensive isn't always good. A local freelancer charging £800 might do a better job for a five-page bakery site than an agency charging £5,000. Focus on their portfolio and how clearly they communicate, not the price alone.

Step 6: Don't forget the basics that are easy to overlook

A few technical things often get missed in briefs but matter quite a bit once your site is live.

SSL certificate (the padlock in your browser bar that shows the site is secure): ask if this is included and set up correctly.
Google Analytics (a free tool that shows you how many people visit your site and where they come from): ask for it to be installed.
Google Search Console (a free Google tool that tells you how your site appears in search results): ask the designer to connect this too. If you're not sure what it does, our guide on what Google Search Console is and how to use it explains it in plain English.
Meta descriptions (the short summary text that appears under your website name in Google search results): these should be written properly for every page. See our guide on what meta descriptions are and why they matter for more on this.
Page speed: a slow site frustrates visitors and performs badly on Google. Ask how they plan to keep load times fast.

Red flags to watch for

These are signs a web designer may not be the right fit, or may not be operating honestly.

No clear contract or written agreement
Reluctance to show previous work
Pressure to decide immediately or lose a special price
Promises to get you to the top of Google with no explanation of how
Vague answers about who owns your domain and hosting
No mention of what happens after the site goes live
Being rude or condescending when you ask basic questions

Trust your instincts. If something feels off, it probably is.

Before you sign anything

Once you have a designer in mind, do a quick check on them. Search their business name alongside words like "review", "complaint", or "scam". Look them up on Companies House (companies.gov.uk) if they're presenting themselves as a registered company.

Also take a look at any websites they've built for existing clients. Load them on your phone, click around, and see if they actually work well.

If you want to understand the current state of your own website before briefing anyone, you can run a free check at website.auditmy.co.uk. It gives you a plain-English report on how your site performs, which can be genuinely useful context before you start any conversation with a designer.

💡 Once your new site is live, bookmark what Google Search Console is and how to use it so you can keep an eye on how it performs in search results over time.

A quick summary

Do This	Avoid This
Write a clear brief before talking to anyone	Going in with only a vague idea
Share your actual budget	Keeping it secret and hoping for a bargain
Ask for itemised quotes	Accepting a single lump-sum figure
Make sure domain and hosting are in your name	Letting the designer own your accounts
Get everything in a written contract	Relying on verbal agreements
Ask for a payment schedule tied to milestones	Paying everything upfront

You don't need to become a tech expert to commission a website well. You just need to go in with the right questions, a written brief, and a healthy dose of common sense. The designers who are worth working with will appreciate exactly that.

What Are Core Web Vitals and Why Does Google Care?

Daniel Fenton — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 10:00:10 +0000

What are Core Web Vitals?

Core Web Vitals are three measurements Google uses to judge how good an experience your website gives visitors. Think of them as a health check on how fast, stable, and responsive your site feels when someone lands on it.

Google officially introduced Core Web Vitals as a ranking signal in May 2021, and they are now a confirmed part of how your site is scored in search results. You can find Google's own documentation on these metrics at web.dev/vitals, which is run by Google's developer team.

Why should a small business owner care?

If your website is slow or awkward to use, two bad things happen at once. Visitors leave before they have read a word, and Google notices and quietly pushes your site further down the search results.

For a bakery, a plumber, or a boutique clothing shop, your website is often the first impression a potential customer gets. A poor experience there costs you real sales, not just clicks.

You do not need a big budget or a technical background to improve your Core Web Vitals scores. Most small business websites have a handful of common problems that are straightforward to fix once you know what they are.

The three Core Web Vitals explained

Each metric measures a different part of the user experience. Here is what each one means in plain language.

1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) — how fast does your page load?

LCP measures how long it takes for the biggest visible element on your page to appear on screen. That is usually your main photo, your logo, or a large block of text.

Imagine walking into a shop where the lights take five seconds to come on. By the time they do, half the customers have turned around and left. LCP is that exact moment.

LCP Score	What It Means
Under 2.5 seconds	Good — Google is happy
2.5 to 4 seconds	Needs improvement
Over 4 seconds	Poor — this will hurt your rankings

Common causes of a slow LCP:

Large, uncompressed images (a photo straight from your phone, for example)
A slow web hosting provider
Too many unnecessary add-ons or plugins loading in the background

2. Interaction to Next Paint (INP) — does your page respond quickly?

INP measures how quickly your page reacts when a visitor does something: clicking a button, tapping a menu, or filling in a contact form. A slow INP makes your site feel sluggish, like a touchscreen that takes a moment to register your tap.

Google replaced an older measurement called First Input Delay (FID) with INP in March 2024, making it a stricter and more accurate test of responsiveness.

INP Score	What It Means
Under 200 milliseconds	Good
200 to 500 milliseconds	Needs improvement
Over 500 milliseconds	Poor

Common causes of a slow INP:

Overloaded JavaScript (sets of instructions your browser has to run in the background)
Too many third-party tools running at once, such as live chat widgets, cookie banners, and ad scripts

3. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) — does your page jump around?

CLS measures how much the content on your page moves while it is loading. You have almost certainly experienced this: you go to tap a button and the page shifts at the last second, so you end up clicking something you did not mean to.

That is a layout shift, and it is one of the most frustrating things a visitor can encounter on a website.

CLS Score	What It Means
Under 0.1	Good
0.1 to 0.25	Needs improvement
Over 0.25	Poor

Common causes of a high CLS score:

Images without defined dimensions (so the browser does not know how much space to reserve for them)
Adverts or cookie banners that load late and push the rest of the content down
Fonts that swap in after the page has already started displaying

How does Google actually use these scores?

Google uses Core Web Vitals as part of what it calls its Page Experience signals. These are a collection of factors that together tell Google whether your page is a decent place to visit.

The scores come from real visitors using Chrome browsers, not automated tests. Google calls this real-world data the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX). That matters because Google is judging your site based on how actual people experience it, not a test run under perfect conditions.

If you are wondering why your site is not appearing where you expect in search results, slow Core Web Vitals scores could be part of the reason. Our guide on why your website might not be showing up on Google covers several other factors worth checking at the same time.

How to check your own Core Web Vitals

You do not need to hire a developer just to find out your scores. Several free tools will show you exactly where you stand.

Free tools you can use right now:

Google PageSpeed Insights — Go to pagespeed.web.dev, type in your website address, and it will give you scores for both mobile and desktop visitors.
Google Search Console — Google's free dashboard for website owners has a dedicated Core Web Vitals report showing your real-world scores over time. If you have not set it up yet, our guide to what Google Search Console is and how to use it will walk you through it step by step.
AuditMy Free Check — Run a free check at website.auditmy.co.uk, which flags Core Web Vitals problems alongside other common issues in one simple report.

💡 Start with the mobile scores rather than the desktop ones. Most of your customers are visiting on their phones, and Google primarily judges your site based on the mobile experience.

What can you actually do to improve?

The fixes depend on what platform your website is built on. Here are the most common starting points.

WordPress
Install a caching plugin (a tool that saves a ready-made version of your pages so they load faster) such as WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache. Also install a plugin like Smush or ShortPixel to compress your images automatically without reducing their quality.

Shopify
Shopify handles a lot of the heavy lifting for you, but themes and apps are often the culprit. Try switching to a leaner theme and removing any apps you are not actively using. Each app you add loads extra code on every page.

Squarespace or Wix
These platforms update performance automatically, so your main job is keeping images small before you upload them. Aim for file sizes under 200KB where possible. Free tools like Squoosh (squoosh.app) let you compress images in your browser before uploading.

⚠️ Be cautious about installing lots of plugins or apps in the hope that they will fix things. Too many performance tools can actually slow your site down further if they conflict with each other.

A quick summary

Core Web Vital	What It Measures	Good Score
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)	How fast your page loads	Under 2.5 seconds
Interaction to Next Paint (INP)	How quickly your page responds to clicks	Under 200ms
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)	How much your page jumps around	Under 0.1

Better scores will not just keep Google happy. A faster, more stable website means more people will stick around long enough to contact you, book a table, or place an order.

💡 Once you have sorted your Core Web Vitals, it is worth having a look at what meta descriptions are and why they matter. They are another small thing that costs nothing to fix and can make a real difference to how many people click through to your site from search results.

Start with a free check, find out what your biggest issue is, and tackle one thing at a time. You do not need to fix everything in a weekend. Small, consistent improvements add up.

How to Choose Web Hosting for a Small Business (UK Guide)

Daniel Fenton — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 10:00:10 +0000

What is web hosting and why does it matter?

Web hosting is the service that stores your website's files on a server connected to the internet around the clock, so anyone can visit your site at any time. Without hosting, your website simply does not exist online.

Choosing the wrong host is one of the most common and costly mistakes UK small business owners make. A bad host means a slow site, frequent downtime, and nobody useful to call when something goes wrong.

The main types of web hosting explained

There are four main types of hosting. Most small businesses will only ever need the first two.

Hosting Type	What It Means	Best For	Typical Monthly Cost
Shared Hosting	Your website shares a server with hundreds of other sites	New or small sites with modest traffic	£2 to £10 per month
VPS Hosting	You get a dedicated portion of a server (Virtual Private Server)	Growing businesses needing more control	£10 to £40 per month
Dedicated Hosting	You rent an entire server just for your site	Large sites with high traffic	£60 to £200+ per month
Managed WordPress Hosting	Hosting optimised specifically for WordPress, with updates handled for you	WordPress users who want a hands-off approach	£10 to £50 per month

For most UK sole traders and small shops, shared hosting or managed WordPress hosting is the right starting point. You can always upgrade later as your business grows.

What to look for when choosing a host

1. Uptime guarantee

Uptime is the percentage of time your website is actually online and accessible. You want a host that promises at least 99.9% uptime, which works out to roughly nine hours of downtime per year.

Anything below 99.9% is not acceptable for a business website. Always look for this figure on the host's website before signing up.

2. UK-based servers

Where your server is physically located affects how quickly your site loads. If most of your customers are in the UK, your server should be in the UK too.

Google's own developer guidelines confirm that server response time directly affects page speed, which in turn affects your search rankings. A server in the United States will add unnecessary loading delay for someone browsing in Bristol or Edinburgh.

3. SSL certificate included

An SSL certificate is the technology that puts the padlock icon in your browser bar and makes your web address start with "https". It is not optional. Google has flagged sites without SSL as "Not Secure" since 2018, and visitors notice immediately.

Most reputable hosts now include a free SSL certificate via Let's Encrypt, a non-profit certificate authority trusted by all major browsers. If a host charges extra for this, look elsewhere.

4. Backups

A backup is a saved copy of your entire website that can be restored if something goes wrong. Hacking, accidental deletions, and software errors are all real risks, and they happen to small business sites more often than people expect.

Look for a host that takes automatic daily backups and stores them separately from your main server. Ask specifically how far back you can restore, and whether restoration is included in the price or charged as an extra.

5. Customer support

At some point, something will go wrong. When it does, you need to reach someone quickly. Look for hosts offering 24/7 support via live chat or phone, not just a ticketing system that takes 48 hours to reply.

Check independent review sites like Trustpilot to see how real customers rate the support before you commit.

6. Renewal pricing

Many hosts offer attractive introductory prices that jump sharply when you renew. A plan advertised at £2.99 per month might renew at £9.99 per month after the first year.

Always check the renewal rate before signing up. This information is usually buried in the small print or on the pricing page under "renewal price."

⚠️ Some UK hosts lock you into long contracts of two or three years to access the best prices. Only commit to a long contract if you have read independent reviews and are confident in the service.

Recommended UK-based hosting providers to consider

These are well-established options with UK servers and reasonable reputations. This is not an exhaustive list and you should always do your own research.

SiteGround
Offers UK server locations, daily backups, free SSL, and strong customer support reviews. Slightly pricier than budget hosts but generally reliable for small business sites.

Krystal Hosting
A UK-based company with servers in London. Known for good customer service and a commitment to green energy. A solid choice if buying British matters to you.

20i
Another UK-based host with a strong reputation among small businesses and web designers. Offers generous storage and good performance at competitive prices.

Kinsta
Managed WordPress hosting with excellent speed and security. More expensive, but worth considering if your site is your primary sales channel and downtime would cost you money.

Shared hosting vs managed WordPress: which should you choose?

Choose shared hosting if:

You are just starting out
Your site is a simple brochure or information site
Budget is your main concern
You are not using WordPress

Choose managed WordPress hosting if:

Your site is built on WordPress (which powers around 43% of all websites, according to W3Techs)
You want someone else to handle updates and security patches
Your website is central to how you take bookings or sell products
You have had security or speed problems in the past

Things that can catch you out

Email hosting

Many people assume their web host also handles their business email. Some do, but not all. Check whether professional email addresses (such as hello@yourbusiness.co.uk) are included, or whether you need a separate service like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.

Storage and bandwidth limits

Storage is how much space your website files take up. Bandwidth, sometimes called data transfer, is how much data is sent to visitors each time they load your site. Most small business sites use very little of either, but watch out for hosts advertising "unlimited" resources in large text while burying fair-use caps in the terms and conditions.

One-click installs

If you plan to build your site using WordPress or a similar platform, check that your host offers a simple one-click installation process. It saves a lot of faff during setup.

How web hosting affects your Google ranking

Your hosting choice has a direct, measurable effect on how your site performs in Google search results. Page speed is an official Google ranking factor, confirmed in Google's Search Central documentation.

A slow host produces a slow site, which pushes you down the rankings and frustrates visitors who give up before your page even loads. If you are already struggling to appear in search results, your hosting could be part of the problem. Our guide on why your website is not showing up on Google covers this in more detail.

Once your hosting is sorted and your site is live, connecting it to Google Search Console, Google's free tool for monitoring your site's search performance, is one of the most useful things you can do.

A simple checklist before you buy

Before signing up with any host, run through this list:

[ ] Do they have UK-based servers?
[ ] Is uptime guaranteed at 99.9% or higher?
[ ] Is SSL included free of charge?
[ ] Are daily backups included and how far back can you restore?
[ ] Is 24/7 support available via chat or phone?
[ ] What is the renewal price, not just the sign-up price?
[ ] Are you tied into a long contract?
[ ] Is email hosting included or separate?

If you cannot find clear answers to all of these questions on the host's website, that itself tells you something.

Check your existing site before you switch

If you already have a website and are thinking about switching hosts, find out how your current site is actually performing before you move. Speed, security, and uptime issues might be hosting-related, or they might be caused by something else entirely.

You can run a free check at website.auditmy.co.uk to get a clear picture of how your site is performing right now. It takes about 60 seconds and gives you a straightforward report with no technical waffle.

💡 Once you have chosen your host and got your site running smoothly, make sure your page titles and descriptions are set up correctly too. Our guide on what meta descriptions are and why they matter is a good next step for improving how your site appears in search results.

The short version

For most UK small businesses, the right hosting choice comes down to four things: UK servers, a solid uptime guarantee, free SSL, and decent customer support. Do not be seduced by the cheapest price without checking the renewal rate and reading independent reviews.

Start with shared or managed WordPress hosting, get your free SSL certificate set up, and make sure backups are running automatically. Everything else can be refined as your business grows.

What Is Local SEO and How Do I Show Up in Google Maps?

Daniel Fenton — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 09:20:22 +0000

What is local SEO?

Local SEO (Search Engine Optimisation, which simply means helping Google understand and recommend your website) is the practice of making your business visible to people searching nearby. When someone types "bakery near me" or "plumber in Leeds" into Google, local SEO is what determines whether your business appears in the results.

For most small businesses in the UK, local SEO is more relevant than general SEO. You are not trying to beat Amazon. You are trying to reach the person two streets away who wants what you sell.

Why does Google Maps matter for small businesses?

The map results that appear at the top of a Google search (sometimes called the "local pack" or "map pack") are prime real estate. They appear before most standard website results and include your business name, star rating, address, phone number, and opening hours.

Studies by BrightLocal, a respected local search research company, consistently show that over 80% of consumers use Google to evaluate local businesses. If you are not in those map results, you are invisible to a large chunk of potential customers.

Step 1: Claim and complete your Google Business Profile

Your Google Business Profile (previously known as Google My Business) is a free listing that controls how your business appears in Google Maps and Google Search. Think of it as your business's official entry in Google's directory.

If you have never set one up, or you are not sure whether someone else has already created one for you, visit business.google.com and search for your business name.

What to fill in completely:

Business name: Use your real trading name, exactly as it appears on your shopfront or invoices. Do not stuff in extra keywords.
Category: Choose the most accurate primary category (for example, "Bakery" rather than "Food Shop"). You can add secondary categories too.
Address: Enter your full UK address. If you work from home or do not want to display your address, you can set a service area instead.
Phone number: Use a local number if you have one. It builds trust.
Website: Link directly to your website homepage.
Opening hours: Keep these accurate and update them for bank holidays.
Business description: Write 2 to 3 sentences describing what you do and who you serve, in plain language.

💡 Google will post a verification postcard to your business address with a code you need to enter. This can take up to 14 days to arrive, so claim your profile as soon as possible rather than waiting until you "feel ready".

Step 2: Add photos regularly

Businesses with photos on their Google profile receive significantly more direction requests and website clicks, according to Google's own data. Photos make your listing feel real and trustworthy.

You do not need professional photography. Decent smartphone photos of your shopfront, your products, and your team are perfectly good.

Types of photos worth adding:

Photo type	Why it helps
Exterior shot	Helps customers find you in person
Interior shot	Shows the atmosphere
Product or service photos	Gives people a reason to choose you
Team photos	Builds personal connection

Aim to add at least one new photo every month. Google tends to favour active, regularly updated profiles.

Step 3: Get more reviews (and respond to them)

Reviews are one of the biggest factors in where you rank in local search results. More reviews, and higher ratings, generally mean better visibility.

The most effective way to get reviews is simply to ask. After a positive interaction, ask your customer directly: "Would you mind leaving us a quick Google review? It makes a huge difference to a small business like ours."

You can create a short link that takes people straight to your review page. Go to your Google Business Profile dashboard, find the "Get more reviews" option, and copy the link.

⚠️ Never offer discounts, gifts, or payment in exchange for reviews. This violates Google's policies and can result in your profile being suspended. It also breaks UK advertising standards rules around undisclosed incentives.

When someone leaves a review, respond to it:

Positive reviews: Thank them genuinely and mention something specific from their comment.
Negative reviews: Stay calm, apologise for their experience, and offer to resolve it offline. Never argue in public.

Responding to reviews signals to Google that you are an active, engaged business. It also shows potential customers that you care.

Step 4: Make sure your name, address, and phone number are consistent everywhere

Google cross-references your business details across the web. If your address is listed differently on your website, on Yell.com, on Facebook, and on your Google profile, Google gets confused and trusts you less.

This consistency is called NAP (Name, Address, Phone number), and most people underestimate how much it matters.

Common places to check your NAP details:

Your own website (usually the footer and contact page)
Yell.com
Bing Places
Apple Maps
Facebook Business Page
Thomson Local
FreeIndex
Checkatrade (if relevant to your trade)

Pick one format for your address and stick to it. For example, decide whether you write "Street" or "St" and use that version everywhere, without exception.

If you have not already looked at why your website might not be appearing in general Google results, our guide on why your website is not showing up on Google covers the most common reasons in plain English.

Step 5: Add local information to your website

Your website and your Google Business Profile work together. Google uses your website to confirm that your business is legitimate and relevant to local searches.

Make sure your website mentions the areas you serve. A bakery in Sheffield should have the word "Sheffield" appearing naturally on its homepage and contact page. Not forced in awkwardly, but as part of sentences that make sense to a human reader.

If you serve multiple towns or areas, a short paragraph on each is more useful than a long list of place names crammed into a footer.

💡 Adding your business's structured data (a special snippet of code that tells Google your address, opening hours, and contact details in a format it can read automatically) to your website can give you an extra edge in local search. Your web developer can add this in an afternoon, or many website platforms have plugins that do it for you. While you are looking at your site's technical setup, it is also worth reading our guide on what Google Search Console is and how to use it to see what Google already thinks of your site.

Step 6: Use Google Posts to stay active

Inside your Google Business Profile, there is a feature called "Posts" that lets you share updates, offers, events, and news directly on your listing. Think of it like a very simple noticeboard that appears alongside your Google Maps result.

Posting once a week or even once a fortnight keeps your profile looking active. A bakery might post about a new seasonal product. A plumber might post about a winter boiler check offer.

Posts expire after seven days for standard updates, so make a habit of refreshing them regularly.

How long does local SEO take to work?

Local SEO results are not instant. For most small businesses starting from scratch, expect to see meaningful improvement over two to three months of consistent effort.

The businesses that do best are not the ones who do everything perfectly once. They are the ones who keep their profile accurate, keep asking for reviews, and keep showing up. Consistency beats perfection every time.

A quick summary: your local SEO checklist

Task	Done?
Claimed and verified Google Business Profile
All profile sections fully completed
At least 5 photos uploaded
Responded to all existing reviews
NAP consistent across all directories
Website mentions your town or service area
At least one Google Post published

One more thing before you start

Before you make any changes, it helps to know where you currently stand. A surprising number of small business websites have basic issues that quietly hold back their Google visibility. Things like missing page titles, broken links, or pages that load too slowly on a mobile phone.

You can run a free check at website.auditmy.co.uk to get a quick picture of how your site is performing. It only takes a minute and gives you something concrete to work from.

If you want to write better descriptions for your pages that help both Google and your customers, our guide on what meta descriptions are and why they matter is a good next step.

Local SEO is not complicated once you understand what Google is actually trying to do. It wants to recommend businesses that are real, relevant, and trusted by their community. Do those three things well, and you give yourself the best possible chance of appearing when a local customer is looking for exactly what you offer.

What Makes a Good Website in 2026? A Plain-English Guide for UK Small Businesses

Daniel Fenton — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 04:17:12 +0000

What makes a good website in 2026?

A good website in 2026 does three things well: it loads fast, it answers questions clearly, and it earns trust. Everything else builds on those foundations.

The good news is that you do not need to understand code to know whether your website is doing its job. You just need to know what to look for and what to ask.

Speed: the one thing that affects everything else

Website speed is how quickly your pages load for a visitor. A slow site loses customers before they have read a single word about your business.

Google publishes its own speed guidelines under something called Core Web Vitals (a set of three measurements that tell you how fast and stable your pages feel to a real person). The targets you want to hit are:

Measurement	What it means	Good score
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)	How quickly the main content appears	Under 2.5 seconds
INP (Interaction to Next Paint)	How fast the page responds when someone clicks	Under 200 milliseconds
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)	Whether buttons and text jump around while loading	Score of 0.1 or less

If your site scores poorly on these, Google is less likely to show it to people searching for what you sell. Test your own site for free using Google PageSpeed Insights.

💡 Images are almost always the biggest culprit for a slow website. Save your photos in a modern format called WebP (a compressed image type that keeps quality high but shrinks file size) and you can often cut your load time in half overnight.

WordPress
Install a free plugin called ShortPixel or Smush. It will automatically compress your images as you upload them, without you having to do anything technical.

Squarespace or Wix
Both platforms now compress images automatically, but you should still avoid uploading photos straight from your phone. Resize them to no wider than 1,200 pixels before uploading.

Mobile-first: most of your customers are on a phone

A mobile-first website is one designed to work on a small screen before a large one. According to Ofcom's 2024 Communications Market Report, the majority of UK adults now browse the internet primarily on their smartphones.

If your website is hard to use on a phone, you are turning away the largest share of your potential customers. Check your own site right now by picking it up and asking yourself:

Can I read the text without zooming in?
Can I tap the buttons and links without hitting the wrong one?
Does the menu work properly?
Does the page load in under three seconds on a 4G connection?

If the answer to any of these is no, fixing it should be your first priority.

Trust signals: why visitors decide to stay or leave in seconds

Trust signals are the small things on your website that tell a visitor you are a real, legitimate business. People make a judgment about whether to trust a website within about 50 milliseconds of it loading, according to research published in the journal Behaviour and Information Technology.

The most important trust signals for a small business website in 2026 are:

HTTPS (the padlock in the browser bar, meaning your connection is secure and encrypted)
A real physical address or at least a town and county
A phone number or contact form that actually works
Genuine customer reviews, ideally pulled in from Google or Trustpilot
A clear, human photograph of you or your team
An updated copyright year in the footer

⚠️ If your website still shows HTTP rather than HTTPS in the address bar, browsers are now actively warning visitors that your site is not secure. This alone can cause people to click away immediately. Contact your hosting provider today and ask them to install a free SSL certificate (the technical term for what creates that secure padlock).

Content that actually answers questions

AI-powered search tools like Google's AI Overviews and ChatGPT are increasingly answering people's questions directly, without them clicking on a website at all. To still get found, your content needs to be the clearest, most direct answer to the questions your customers are actually typing.

This approach is sometimes called AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation), which simply means writing your content so that AI search tools can easily extract and quote it. The rules are straightforward:

Write a clear one-sentence answer at the top of each page or section
Use simple headings that mirror the actual question (for example: "How long does a kitchen refit take?")
Use bullet points and short paragraphs rather than big blocks of text
Include your town, county, and the specific services you offer on every relevant page

If you are worried your site is not showing up in Google at all, our guide on why your website is not showing up on Google walks through the most common reasons and what to fix first.

Meta descriptions: tiny text that does a big job

A meta description is the short paragraph of text that appears under your page title in Google search results. It does not directly affect your ranking, but it does affect whether someone clicks on your result rather than a competitor's.

A good meta description:

Is between 150 and 160 characters long
Describes exactly what the page is about
Includes your location if you serve a local area
Ends with a reason to click (for example: "Open Monday to Saturday in Bristol city centre")

If you want to understand these better, our guide on what meta descriptions are and why they matter explains the whole thing in plain English.

Accessibility: making your site usable for everyone

Website accessibility means making sure your site can be used by people with visual impairments, hearing difficulties, or motor conditions. Under the Equality Act 2010, businesses have a legal responsibility not to discriminate, and an inaccessible website can fall foul of this.

The practical steps that make the biggest difference are:

Make sure your text colour contrasts clearly against your background (dark text on a light background, or vice versa)
Add alt text (a short written description) to every image so that screen readers can describe it to visually impaired users
Make sure every page can be navigated using just a keyboard, without a mouse
Never use font sizes smaller than 16 pixels for body text

The W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.2) are the international standard here. For most small businesses, Level AA compliance is the right target.

Google Search Console: your free window into how Google sees your site

Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool from Google that shows you which search terms are bringing people to your site, whether Google can find all your pages, and whether there are any technical errors you need to fix.

Most small business owners have never logged in. Setting it up takes about ten minutes and costs nothing. If you have never used it, our guide on what Google Search Console is and how to use it takes you through it step by step.

A quick checklist: does your website pass the 2026 test?

Area	What to check	Pass or fail?
Speed	Loads in under 3 seconds on mobile
Security	HTTPS padlock is showing
Mobile	Easy to read and tap on a phone
Trust	Real address, phone number, reviews visible
Content	Each page answers a specific question clearly
Accessibility	Text is easy to read, images have descriptions
Search	Set up on Google Search Console

Where to start if you are feeling overwhelmed

You do not need to fix everything at once. If you can only do one thing this week, make sure your site has HTTPS, loads in under three seconds on a phone, and has a visible phone number or contact form. Those three things alone will put you ahead of a surprising number of competitors.

If you want to see exactly where your site stands right now, run a free check at website.auditmy.co.uk. It checks the key areas covered in this guide and gives you a clear report you can actually understand and act on.

💡 Once you have sorted the basics, come back and look at your content. A page that directly answers the question your customer is searching for will outperform a beautifully designed page that says nothing specific, every single time. Start with your most important service and write one clear, honest page about it.

A good website in 2026 is not about having the fanciest design or the most features. It is about being fast, trustworthy, easy to use on a phone, and clear enough that both a human and an AI search tool can immediately understand what you do and who you do it for.

How Do I Know If My Website Is Secure? A Non-Technical Checklist

Daniel Fenton — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 11:58:36 +0000

You don't need to be a web developer to know whether your website is safe. A few quick checks — most of which take under two minutes — will tell you whether your site is protecting your customers or quietly putting them at risk.

This guide walks you through exactly what to look for, in plain English, no technical background required.

Why website security matters for small businesses

A secure website protects your customers' data, keeps your business out of trouble with UK law, and stops hackers from using your site to spread harm. Under the UK GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation — the law that governs how businesses handle personal data), you have a legal duty to keep customer information safe. A compromised website can mean fines, reputational damage, and losing the trust of the very people you rely on.

The good news is that most small business websites share the same handful of security problems, and most of them are straightforward to fix.

The non-technical security checklist

1. Does your website address start with HTTPS?

If your website address starts with https:// rather than http://, it has an SSL certificate — a digital padlock that encrypts (scrambles) the information travelling between your site and your visitors. This is the most basic security check there is.

Open your website in a browser and look at the address bar. You should see a padlock icon and the letters https.

⚠️ If your site still shows http:// without the S, browsers like Chrome will label it "Not Secure" to every visitor. That puts people off, and it may affect how Google ranks you. Talk to your web host straight away — most include free SSL certificates as standard.

The SSL/TLS standard your certificate should meet is maintained by the Internet Engineering Task Force. Their guidance (RFC 8446) defines modern TLS 1.3 as the current secure standard. Your web host should be using this automatically.

2. When did you last update your website software?

Outdated software is the single most common way small business websites get hacked. If your site runs on a platform like WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace, there is software running underneath it that needs to stay current.

Here is what to check:

Your platform itself — Is it running the latest version?
Plugins or apps (small add-ons that give your site extra features) — Are they all up to date?
Your theme (the design template your site uses) — When was it last updated?

WordPress
Log in to your WordPress dashboard. If you see a number in a red circle next to "Updates" in the left menu, you have updates waiting. Click it and install everything. Do this at least once a month.

Wix or Squarespace
These platforms handle core software updates automatically. However, check any third-party apps you have added through their app marketplaces, as those may need manual attention.

3. Do you have a backup of your website?

A backup is a saved copy of your entire website that can be restored if something goes wrong. Think of it like the insurance policy you hope you never need.

Ask your web host or developer:

How often is the site backed up?
Where are the backups stored?
How quickly could the site be restored if it was hacked?

You want daily backups stored somewhere separate from your main website. If your host stores backups on the same server as your site, a hack could destroy both at once.

4. Are your passwords strong and unique?

Weak passwords are still behind a huge number of website breaches. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) — the UK government body responsible for cybersecurity guidance — recommends using three random words strung together as a strong, memorable password.

Check the following:

Account	What to check
Website admin login	Is the username something obvious like "admin"? Change it.
Hosting account	Does it use a unique password not used anywhere else?
Domain registrar	Is two-factor authentication (a second login step) turned on?
Email account linked to your site	Is this protected with a strong password?

💡 A password manager like Bitwarden (free) or 1Password stores all your passwords securely so you only need to remember one. The NCSC recommends this approach for small businesses.

5. Is your contact form protected against spam bots?

Spam bots (automated programs that fill in web forms) can flood your inbox with junk, or worse, use your contact form to send spam to others. This can get your website blacklisted by email providers.

Look for a CAPTCHA on any forms on your site — a small puzzle or tick-box that confirms the person filling in the form is human. Google's reCAPTCHA is the most widely used free option. If your forms have no protection at all, ask your web developer or platform support to add it.

6. Does your website have an SSL certificate that is actually valid?

Having HTTPS is a good start, but SSL certificates expire — usually every year or every 90 days depending on the type. An expired certificate will cause browsers to show visitors a large red warning page telling them the site is not safe.

To check your certificate:

Visit your website in Chrome or Firefox.
Click the padlock icon in the address bar.
Click "Connection is secure" and then "Certificate is valid".
Check the expiry date shown.

If it expires within the next 30 days, contact your host. Many hosts renew certificates automatically, but it is worth confirming this is set up correctly.

7. Are you using a reputable, up-to-date hosting provider?

Your web host — the company whose computers your website lives on — is responsible for a large part of your site's security. A cheap or poorly maintained host can leave you exposed no matter how carefully you manage your own site.

Look for a host that offers automatic malware scanning, a firewall (a security barrier that blocks suspicious traffic), and free SSL certificates. Regular automatic backups matter too. If you store customer data, UK or EU-based servers are worth seeking out for UK GDPR compliance.

Well-regarded UK hosting providers include SiteGround, Krystal, and 20i, though the right choice depends on your platform and budget.

8. Have you ever checked your site for malware?

Malware can sit silently on a website for months, stealing customer data or redirecting visitors to harmful sites, without the owner ever knowing. Google's Safe Browsing technology flags millions of unsafe pages every day — and if your site gets flagged, it will disappear from search results.

You can check whether Google has flagged your site by visiting the Google Transparency Report at transparencyreport.google.com/safe-browsing/search and entering your web address.

For a deeper scan, tools like Sucuri SiteCheck (free) will crawl your site and report any known malware or blacklisting issues.

If your site is struggling to appear in Google at all, it may be worth reading our guide on why your website might not be showing up on Google — a security issue can be one of the causes.

9. Is your website admin area protected?

The admin area is the behind-the-scenes section where you log in to make changes to your site. If it is easy to find and has no extra protection, it is an easy target.

A few simple steps make a real difference. Change the default login URL if your platform allows it — for WordPress, the default /wp-admin address is well known to hackers. Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) on your admin login, which means a hacker would need your password and your phone to get in. Also limit the number of login attempts allowed before the account is temporarily locked.

WordPress
Plugins like Wordfence or Solid Security (both have free versions) handle login protection, 2FA, and login attempt limits in one place. Install one and follow the setup wizard.

10. Do you know who has access to your website?

Over time, websites accumulate extra user accounts — old employees, previous developers, freelancers who helped with a project years ago. Every unused account is a potential weak point.

Log in to your website admin area and check the list of user accounts. Remove anyone who no longer needs access. For people who do still need access, make sure they only have the level of permission they actually need.

Your security checklist at a glance

Check	What to look for	Priority
HTTPS	Padlock and https:// in address bar	High
Software updates	Platform, plugins, and theme all current	High
Backups	Daily backups stored off-site	High
Strong passwords	Unique, complex, manager recommended	High
Form protection	CAPTCHA on all contact forms	Medium
Valid SSL certificate	Not expired or expiring soon	High
Good hosting	Malware scanning, firewall, backups	High
Malware scan	No flags on Google Safe Browsing	High
Admin area protection	2FA and login limits in place	Medium
User access audit	Only active, trusted accounts remain	Medium

What to do if you find a problem

Don't panic. Most of these issues have straightforward fixes, and your web host's support team should be your first call. If you use a developer, send them this checklist and ask them to go through it with you.

If you want a quick overall picture of how your site is doing, you can run a free check at website.auditmy.co.uk — it takes under a minute and gives you a report you can share with your developer or host.

It is also worth connecting your site to Google Search Console, a free tool from Google that shows you how your site is performing in search and flags any security issues Google detects. Our guide on what Google Search Console is and how to use it walks you through the setup in plain English.

💡 Once your security is in order, take a look at the other basics that affect how your site performs online. Our guide on what meta descriptions are and why they matter is a good next step for any small business owner who wants their site to work harder for them.

The bottom line

Website security is not a one-time job. It is more like locking up your shop at night — something you do regularly, not just once. Set a reminder to run through this checklist every three months, keep your software updated, and make sure someone is keeping an eye on your backups.

You do not need to understand the technical details to keep your site secure. You just need to ask the right questions and act on what you find.

What Is DKIM and How Do I Set It Up? A Plain-English Guide for UK Small Businesses

Daniel Fenton — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 14:25:58 +0000

What Is DKIM?

DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is a security standard that proves an email genuinely came from your business and hasn't been tampered with in transit. Think of it as a wax seal on a letter: it tells the recipient that the message is authentic and hasn't been opened or altered along the way.

Without DKIM, anyone can send an email that appears to come from your domain (your web address, such as yourshop.co.uk). Fraudsters do this constantly to scam your customers, and it can push your legitimate emails into spam folders too.

Why should a small business owner care?

If you send emails from your own domain, whether that's order confirmations, newsletters, or quotes, DKIM affects whether those emails actually land in inboxes.

Here is what happens without it:

Your emails are more likely to be flagged as spam
Scammers can impersonate your business by spoofing (faking) your email address
Your customers could receive fraudulent emails that look like they came from you
Your sender reputation (how trustworthy email providers think you are) gradually declines

Setting up DKIM takes around 15 to 30 minutes if you know where to look. This guide walks you through it step by step.

DKIM works best as part of a trio of email security settings. The other two are SPF and DMARC. You do not need all three today, but DKIM is a very solid place to start.

How does DKIM actually work?

DKIM uses two matching keys (codes), one private and one public, in a system defined by internet standard RFC 6376.

Your private key lives on your email server and signs every outgoing email invisibly
Your public key is published in your domain's DNS records (DNS stands for Domain Name System, which is the internet's address book that points people to your website and email)
When an email arrives, the recipient's email server checks your public DNS record to verify the signature matches

If the signature checks out, the email passes. If it doesn't match, or there's no signature at all, the email looks suspicious.

You never actually see any of this happening. It runs behind the scenes automatically, once you've set it up.

Before you start: what you will need

What you need	Where to find it
Access to your domain's DNS settings	Your domain registrar (e.g. 123 Reg, GoDaddy, Namecheap)
Access to your email platform	e.g. Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Mailchimp
About 20 to 30 minutes	A quiet moment and a cup of tea

💡 Not sure who manages your domain? Search your inbox for the original registration confirmation email, or check your bank statements for a payment to a domain provider.

Step 1: Generate your DKIM keys

Your DKIM keys are generated by your email sending platform, not by you manually. Most major platforms do this automatically and simply ask you to copy a DNS record and paste it into your domain settings.

Here is how to find your DKIM key in the most common platforms:

Google Workspace
Go to your Google Admin console at admin.google.com. Click Apps, then Google Workspace, then Gmail. Select Authenticate Email and choose your domain. Click Generate New Record and leave the settings on their defaults. Google will show you a DNS record to copy.

Microsoft 365
Log in to the Microsoft 365 Defender portal at security.microsoft.com. Go to Email and Collaboration, then Policies and Rules, then Threat Policies. Select DKIM and choose your domain. Toggle DKIM on. Microsoft will display two CNAME records (a type of DNS entry that points one address to another) for you to add to your DNS.

Mailchimp
Mailchimp sets up DKIM automatically when you authenticate your domain. Go to Account, then Domains, and follow the steps to verify your sending domain. Mailchimp will give you DNS records to add.

Zoho Mail
Go to the Zoho Mail Admin Console, click Domains, and select your domain. Choose Email Authentication, then DKIM. Click Add Selector, accept the default settings, and Zoho will generate the DNS record for you.

Step 2: Add the DNS record to your domain

Once you have your DKIM record from your email platform, you need to add it to your domain's DNS settings. This is where most people feel a little nervous, but it's simpler than it sounds.

Log in to your domain registrar (where you bought your domain)
Find the DNS management area, sometimes called DNS Zone, DNS Settings, or Manage DNS
Add a new TXT record (a text-based DNS entry used for verification purposes)
In the Name or Host field, paste the selector your email platform gave you (it usually looks something like google._domainkey)
In the Value or Content field, paste the long string of characters your email platform generated
Set the TTL (Time to Live, which controls how quickly the change spreads across the internet) to the default, usually 3600 or Auto
Save the record

⚠️ DNS records are case-sensitive. Copy and paste them exactly as shown by your email platform. Do not retype them manually, as a single wrong character will cause the whole thing to fail.

Step 3: Verify that DKIM is working

DNS changes can take anywhere from a few minutes to 48 hours to spread across the internet, though most take effect within an hour or two.

Once you've waited a short while, go back to your email platform and look for a Check Status or Verify button. Most platforms will confirm whether DKIM is now active.

You can also test it for free using these tools:

MXToolbox DKIM Lookup at mxtoolbox.com/dkim.aspx
Mail Tester at mail-tester.com, which lets you send a test email and get a full report
Google Admin Toolbox at toolbox.googleapps.com

Common problems and how to fix them

Problem	Likely cause	Fix
DKIM shows as not found	DNS has not propagated yet	Wait an hour and check again
DKIM verification fails	Record copied incorrectly	Delete the record and re-paste it exactly
Multiple DKIM records conflicting	Old records left behind	Delete outdated DKIM records for the same selector
Platform says DKIM is active but emails still go to spam	Other issues at play	Check SPF and DMARC settings too

If your emails are still ending up in spam folders after setting up DKIM, other factors may be involved. Our guide on why emails go to spam covers the full picture in plain English.

What about DMARC?

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) is the third piece of the email security puzzle, after SPF and DKIM. It tells receiving email servers what to do if an email fails your DKIM or SPF checks, for example, reject it or send it to spam.

You don't need to set up DMARC today, but once your DKIM is working, it's the natural next step. Our guide on what DMARC is and how to set it up walks you through it clearly.

A quick summary

DKIM proves your emails are genuinely from you
It works using a digital signature checked automatically by receiving email servers
You generate the key in your email platform, then add one DNS record to your domain
The whole process takes under 30 minutes
It helps your emails reach inboxes instead of spam folders
It protects your customers from scammers pretending to be you

Check your current email setup for free

If you're not sure whether DKIM, SPF, or DMARC are already set up on your domain, or set up correctly, you can run a free check at website.auditmy.co.uk. It checks your domain and gives you a plain-English summary of what's in place and what's missing, with no technical knowledge required.

💡 Once DKIM is live, take five minutes to check your SPF record too. The two work together, and having both in place significantly strengthens your email security. Our guide on SPF and stopping emails going to spam is a good next read.

Sources: RFC 6376 (DKIM Signatures), Google Workspace Admin Help, Microsoft 365 Defender documentation, NCSC Email Security Guidance for small organisations.

What Is SPF and How Do I Stop Emails Going to Spam?

Daniel Fenton — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 09:57:20 +0000

What is SPF?

SPF stands for Sender Policy Framework. It's a simple technical rule you add to your domain (your website address, like yourbakery.co.uk) that tells email providers which computers are allowed to send email on your behalf.

Think of it like a staff list on your front door. When an email arrives claiming to be from you, the receiving email provider checks your SPF record — a short line of text stored in your domain settings — to see if the sender is on the list. If they're not, the email gets treated with suspicion and often lands in spam.

Why does this actually matter for my business?

If you send invoices, booking confirmations, or newsletters, whether those emails actually reach people depends partly on whether you have SPF set up correctly.

Without SPF, your emails look suspicious to providers like Gmail and Outlook, even if you wrote every word yourself. The inbox providers have no way to verify the email genuinely came from you.

This is not just a problem for big companies. Small businesses sending from platforms like Mailchimp, Squarespace, or even a basic cPanel (the control panel many web hosts use to manage emails) are affected just as much.

How does SPF actually work?

SPF works by checking a public record stored in your domain's DNS (Domain Name System, the internet's address book that links your domain name to the correct computers).

Here is the basic process, step by step:

You send an email from your business address, say hello@yourbakery.co.uk.
The recipient's email provider looks up your SPF record in your DNS settings.
It checks whether the computer that sent the email is listed as authorised in that record.
If it is authorised, the email is allowed through normally.
If it is not listed, the email may be marked as spam, rejected entirely, or flagged as a potential forgery.

The SPF record itself looks something like this:

v=spf1 include:mailgun.org include:_spf.google.com ~all

You don't need to write that from scratch. Your email platform will give you the exact text to copy and paste.

What happens if I do not have SPF set up?

SPF is not legally required, but without it you are making your emails much harder to deliver reliably.

Here is what can go wrong:

Emails land in spam. This is the most common symptom. Your customers may never even see your messages.
Scammers can impersonate you. Without SPF, it is much easier for fraudsters to send emails pretending to be from your address. This can damage your reputation with customers.
Email providers penalise you over time. Repeated delivery failures can reduce your sender reputation (a score email providers give your domain based on how your emails behave), making future emails even less likely to arrive.

For more on the wider causes of poor email delivery, have a read of our guide on why your emails are going to spam.

How do I check if SPF is already set up?

You don't need to log in to anything complicated. There are free tools that will check your domain in seconds.

Two reliable options:

MXToolbox SPF checker (mxtoolbox.com/spf.aspx) is a free, widely used tool. Type in your domain and it will tell you whether an SPF record exists and whether it looks correct.
Google Admin Toolbox (toolbox.googleapps.com) is Google's own checker and is particularly useful if you use Google Workspace (Google's paid suite of business tools including Gmail, Docs, and Drive) for your email.

Type your domain into either tool and look for a line starting with v=spf1. If you see one, you have an SPF record. If you see nothing, or an error, you need to add one.

How do I set up SPF?

SPF is set up by adding a TXT record (a plain text entry) to your domain's DNS settings. This is usually done through your domain registrar (the company you bought your domain from, such as GoDaddy, Namecheap, 123 Reg, or similar).

The exact text you need depends on where you send your emails from. Your email platform will tell you what to copy and paste.

Google Workspace
Go to your domain registrar's DNS settings. Add a new TXT record. In the value field, paste: v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all
Save and allow up to 48 hours for it to take effect.

Microsoft 365
Add a TXT record to your DNS with this value: v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com ~all
Microsoft's own setup guide walks you through this step by step in their admin centre.

Mailchimp
Mailchimp handles sending from its own servers, so you need to add their authorised servers to your SPF record. Mailchimp's help pages give you the exact include: value to add.
If you also send from Google or another provider, you can combine them: v=spf1 include:servers.mcsv.net include:_spf.google.com ~all

cPanel Hosting (most small business hosts)
Log in to your hosting control panel. Go to Zone Editor or DNS Zone Manager. Add a TXT record for your domain with the value your email provider specifies. If in doubt, ask your host's support team. They do this every day.

⚠️ You can only have one SPF record per domain. If you use multiple email services — Google Workspace for your main email and Mailchimp for newsletters, say — you must combine them into a single SPF record. Two separate SPF records breaks SPF entirely and can make things worse than having none at all.

The difference between SPF, DKIM, and DMARC

You may have heard these three terms mentioned together. They work as a set, and understanding how they relate to each other helps.

Term	What It Does	Analogy
SPF	Confirms which servers are allowed to send email for your domain	The staff list on the door
DKIM	Adds a digital signature to each email to prove it has not been tampered with	A wax seal on a letter
DMARC	Sets the rules for what happens if SPF or DKIM checks fail	The manager who decides what to do if the seal is broken

SPF is the right place to start, but if you want proper protection, all three should be set up. Our guide on what DMARC is and how to set it up covers that next step in plain English.

Common SPF mistakes to avoid

Having two SPF records. As mentioned above, this breaks things. Combine everything into one record.
Forgetting to include all your sending services. If you send from your website contact form as well as Gmail, both need to be listed.
Using -all instead of ~all at the end. The ~all ending (called a soft fail) is more forgiving and recommended for most small businesses. The -all ending (hard fail) can cause legitimate emails to be rejected if anything is slightly misconfigured.
Not checking after making changes. Use MXToolbox again after any updates to confirm everything looks correct.

A quick summary

To pull it all together:

SPF is a record in your DNS that tells email providers who is allowed to send email from your domain.
Without it, your emails are more likely to land in spam or be used by fraudsters.
You set it up by adding a TXT record to your domain's DNS, using the text your email provider gives you.
You can only have one SPF record, so combine all your services into a single line.
SPF works best alongside DKIM and DMARC.

If you are not sure where things stand with your domain right now, you can run a free check at website.auditmy.co.uk. It checks your SPF record along with a range of other factors that affect how your business appears online, and it takes about thirty seconds.

💡 Once your SPF is sorted, the next step is setting up DMARC, which gives you control over what happens when someone tries to fake emails from your domain. Read our guide on what DMARC is and why it matters to see how straightforward it can be.

SPF is defined in RFC 7208, published by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the body responsible for core internet standards. Google's email sender guidelines, updated in 2024, now require SPF authentication for anyone sending significant volumes of email to Gmail accounts.

Can AI Chatbots See Your Website? What is llms.txt and Do You Need One

Daniel Fenton — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 13:05:15 +0000

AI is changing how people find businesses online

Not long ago, finding a local bakery or a reliable plumber meant typing something into Google and clicking a link. That still happens millions of times a day. But something else is happening alongside it.

More and more people are asking AI assistants like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's Gemini their questions directly. Instead of a list of links, they get a written answer. And that answer often pulls information from websites just like yours.

The question is: can these AI tools actually read your website properly? And should you do anything about it?

What does an AI chatbot actually do?

Think of an AI chatbot as a very fast researcher. It has been trained on enormous amounts of text from across the internet, including business websites, blogs, and news articles. When someone asks it a question, it draws on everything it has read to give an answer.

Some AI tools also browse the web in real time, pulling fresh information from websites as people ask questions. Either way, your website content could end up shaping the answers these tools give.

If your website is clear and well-written, an AI tool is more likely to represent your business accurately. If it is confusing or poorly structured, the AI might get things wrong, or ignore you entirely.

So what is llms.txt?

LLM stands for Large Language Model, the technical name for the type of AI behind tools like ChatGPT. An LLM is a sophisticated programme that has learned to understand and generate text by processing vast quantities of written material.

llms.txt is a simple text file you can add to your website. It sits quietly in the background and acts as a plain-English guide for AI tools, telling them what your website is about, which pages matter most, and how to understand your content.

Think of it like leaving a note on the door for a delivery driver. The driver could eventually figure out where to leave the parcel, but a clear note makes everything faster and more accurate.

llms.txt is not an official standard backed by a big organisation like Google. A developer called Jeremy Howard proposed it in September 2024 and it has been gaining traction since. Not every AI tool looks for it yet, but a growing number do.

How is this different from robots.txt?

You may have heard of robots.txt, a file that tells search engines like Google which pages on your site they can and cannot look at. llms.txt serves a different purpose.

robots.txt is about permission. It says "you can look here, but not there."

llms.txt is about clarity. It says "here is what we do, here are our most important pages, and here is how to understand us."

The two files sit happily side by side on your website. They are not in competition.

What does an llms.txt file actually look like?

This is where people often expect something complicated. In reality, it is just a plain text file with a few simple sections.

A basic llms.txt for a bakery in Leeds might look something like this:

# Greenfield's Bakery

> A family-run bakery in Leeds specialising in sourdough, celebration cakes, and gluten-free pastries. We offer local delivery and wedding cake consultations.

## Key Pages

- [About Us](https://www.greenfieldsbakery.co.uk/about)
- [Our Menu](https://www.greenfieldsbakery.co.uk/menu)
- [Wedding Cakes](https://www.greenfieldsbakery.co.uk/wedding-cakes)
- [Order Online](https://www.greenfieldsbakery.co.uk/order)
- [Contact](https://www.greenfieldsbakery.co.uk/contact)

That is genuinely it. A short description of your business and links to your most important pages. Some businesses add more detail, but even something this simple is better than nothing.

Do you actually need one?

Honest answer: right now, it is not essential. Most small businesses in the UK do not have one, and they are not immediately losing customers because of it.

But the way people search for businesses is shifting. AI-powered answers are becoming part of everyday life. Getting ahead of this now, while it is still straightforward, makes more sense than scrambling to catch up later.

A basic llms.txt file takes about twenty minutes to create. It costs nothing. And it puts a clear, accurate description of your business in front of the AI tools that growing numbers of your potential customers are using.

If you are already thinking about your wider online visibility, it is also worth reading our guide on why your website might not be showing up on Google, since many of the same principles apply.

How to create your llms.txt file

Here is a straightforward process, even if you have never done anything like this before.

Step 1: Open a plain text editor
On a Windows PC, use Notepad. On a Mac, use TextEdit (make sure it is set to plain text, not rich text).

Step 2: Write a short description of your business
One or two sentences. What do you do, where are you based, what makes you different?

Step 3: List your most important pages
Your homepage, your services or products page, your contact page, and anything else a potential customer would want to see.

Step 4: Save the file as llms.txt
Exactly that name, all lowercase.

Step 5: Upload it to your website's root folder
This is the main folder where your website lives. If your site is at www.yourbusiness.co.uk, the file should end up at www.yourbusiness.co.uk/llms.txt

How you upload it depends on your website platform.

WordPress
Log into your hosting control panel (often called cPanel) and use the File Manager to upload llms.txt to the public_html folder. Alternatively, ask your web host to do it for you.

Squarespace
Squarespace does not currently allow direct file uploads to the root folder. You may need to speak to a developer or use a workaround via Squarespace's custom code settings. This is one situation where a quick email to your web designer is the easiest path.

Wix
Wix also has limitations here. The simplest approach is to contact Wix support or use a Wix app designed for custom file hosting. Check the Wix app market for "file hosting" options.

Shopify
In your Shopify admin, go to Online Store, then Themes, then Actions, and select Edit Code. You can add files here. If this feels daunting, your theme developer or a Shopify expert can do it in minutes.

💡 Once your file is live, check it by typing your website address followed by /llms.txt into a browser. If you can see the text you wrote, it is working. While you are at it, setting up Google Search Console gives you a much clearer picture of how both search engines and AI crawlers are interacting with your site.

What about AI tools that scrape without asking?

Some AI companies send automated programmes called crawlers or bots to read websites without any invitation. You can block specific AI crawlers using your robots.txt file if you would rather they did not use your content.

Common AI crawler names you might see in your server logs include GPTBot (OpenAI), ClaudeBot (Anthropic), and PerplexityBot. Adding a "Disallow" line to your robots.txt for any of these will stop them reading your site.

⚠️ Blocking AI crawlers means those tools will not include your business in their answers. For most small businesses, being visible is more valuable than blocking access. Think carefully before you block anyone.

The bigger picture

llms.txt is a small thing. But it reflects a genuine shift in how people find information online. Search engines are embedding AI into their results. Standalone AI assistants are fielding questions that used to go to Google. Voice assistants are getting smarter.

The businesses that do well in this environment will be the ones with websites that are clear, accurate, and easy to understand, whether the reader is a human, a search engine spider, or an AI language model.

If you are not sure where your website stands right now, you can run a free check at website.auditmy.co.uk. It gives you a straightforward report on what is working and what might need attention, with no technical knowledge required to understand the results.

Adding an llms.txt file is one small, free step in the right direction. Twenty minutes of your time now could mean your bakery, your shop, or your service business gets mentioned accurately the next time someone asks an AI assistant for a recommendation in your area.

That seems like a reasonable investment.

How to Get Your Website on Google: A Plain-English Guide for UK Small Businesses

Daniel Fenton — Sat, 30 May 2026 12:41:59 +0000

You've built your website, paid someone to set it up, or spent a weekend doing it yourself. But when you type your business name into Google, nothing comes up. Or worse, a competitor appears where you should be.

This happens to thousands of small businesses across the UK. The good news is that getting onto Google is not mysterious, and most of it is free. Let's go through it properly.

First, does Google even know your website exists?

Google works by sending out automated software called crawlers (think of them as little robots that wander around the internet reading web pages and reporting back). If a crawler has never visited your site, Google has no idea it exists.

The fastest way to check is simple. Open Google and type site:yourwebsiteaddress.co.uk replacing that with your actual address. If results appear, Google knows about you. If you see nothing, you have some work to do.

Tell Google your website exists

The most reliable way to do this is through a free tool called Google Search Console, a dashboard Google gives you to see how your site is performing in search results and to send Google your web pages directly.

Setting it up takes about ten minutes. Go to search.google.com/search-console, sign in with a Google account, and add your website. Google will ask you to verify (prove) that you actually own the site. The easiest method is usually adding a small piece of code to your site, or connecting through Google Analytics if you already use that.

Our guide on what Google Search Console is and how to use it walks you through the whole setup if you want the full picture.

Submit a sitemap

Once you're inside Google Search Console, you want to submit something called a sitemap. That's an XML file, which is just a list in a specific format, that tells Google every page on your website and how they connect.

Most website platforms create this automatically. Look for a URL ending in /sitemap.xml by typing your web address followed by that. For example: www.yourbakery.co.uk/sitemap.xml. If a page of text appears, that is your sitemap. Copy that URL and paste it into the Sitemaps section of Google Search Console.

WordPress
Install a free plugin called Yoast SEO or Rank Math. Both automatically create and update your sitemap. Once installed, find the sitemap link inside the plugin settings and submit it to Google Search Console.

Wix
Wix creates a sitemap for you automatically. Go to Google Search Console, click Sitemaps, and enter sitemap.xml as the path. Wix handles the rest.

Squarespace
Squarespace generates a sitemap automatically at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. Submit that URL directly in Google Search Console under the Sitemaps section.

Make sure Google can actually read your pages

Here's something that catches a lot of people out. Sometimes a website is accidentally set to "disallow crawling", a setting that tells Google's robots to go away and not read anything. This can get switched on during a website build and never turned off.

Inside Google Search Console, use the URL Inspection tool to test your homepage. It will tell you whether Google can reach and read that page. If it says the page is blocked, that is likely your problem.

⚠️ If your web developer built your site and handed it over, ask them specifically whether crawling is enabled. It is a common oversight that can keep you invisible on Google for months.

Give Google something worth showing

Getting into Google's index, the giant database of web pages Google stores and searches through, is only step one. The next question is where you appear when someone searches for what you offer.

Google ranks pages based on how relevant and useful they are. If your bakery website just has your name and a phone number, Google has very little to work with. You need to give it content.

Each page should clearly describe what you do and where you do it. Your homepage might say something like "Freshly baked sourdough and celebration cakes in Norwich, delivered Tuesday to Saturday." That tells Google exactly what you offer and who you serve.

💡 Think about the phrases your actual customers use. They probably search "birthday cake Norwich" not "artisan confectionery Norfolk." Write like they talk.

Local search is your best friend

If you run a physical shop or serve a specific area, local SEO (search engine optimisation, meaning the work you do to help your site appear in relevant searches) is where you will see the quickest results.

Set up a free Google Business Profile at business.google.com. This is the box that appears on the right side of Google when someone searches for a local business, showing your address, hours, photos, and reviews. You do not need to rank highly in regular search results to appear there. It runs alongside your website.

Fill in every section of your Google Business Profile completely. Add real photos. Ask happy customers to leave reviews. This alone can put you in front of local people who are ready to buy.

Sort out the basics your site needs

Google takes a few technical factors seriously when deciding whether to show your site. None of them are complicated.

Your site needs to be secure. Look at your web address. It should start with https:// not http://. The "s" stands for secure, and Google actively prefers secure sites. If yours starts with http, speak to your web host, the company that stores your website, about getting an SSL certificate, a small file that enables that secure connection. Most hosts provide these free now.

Your site needs to work on a mobile phone. More than half of all searches in the UK happen on a phone. If your website looks broken or tiny on a mobile screen, Google notices and ranks you lower as a result.

Your site needs to load quickly. A page that takes more than three or four seconds to appear loses visitors, and Google knows this. Large uncompressed images are the most common cause of slow pages for small business sites.

If you are not sure whether your site has these issues, run a free check at website.auditmy.co.uk. It checks these fundamentals in seconds and gives you a plain-English report on what needs attention.

💡 If your site keeps appearing and disappearing from Google results, or you have done all of the above and still cannot be found, read our guide on why your website might not be showing up on Google for a deeper look at what might be going wrong.

Be patient, but not passive

Once you have done the above, Google typically takes anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to index your pages. New websites can occasionally take longer.

Do not sit and wait without checking. Go back into Google Search Console every week or two. Look at the Coverage report to see which pages have been indexed and whether any errors have come up. If a page shows an error, click on it to see what the problem is.

Building up your presence in search results is gradual. A three-year-old website with good content and a few links pointing to it from other sites will outrank a brand new one almost every time. Start the work now so that in six months you are in a much better position.

A quick checklist to get started

Type site:yourdomain.co.uk into Google to see if you are indexed
Set up Google Search Console and verify your site
Find and submit your sitemap
Set up or claim your Google Business Profile
Check your site starts with https://
Test your site on a mobile phone
Make sure each page clearly describes what you do and where

None of this requires technical expertise. It requires a couple of hours and a bit of persistence. The businesses showing up at the top of Google are not necessarily the best at what they do. They are the ones who made sure Google could find them and understand them.

Now you know how to do the same.

How to Write a Robots.txt File for Your Small Business Website

Daniel Fenton — Sun, 17 May 2026 10:00:22 +0000

What on earth is a robots.txt file?

Imagine you run a bakery and a journalist turns up wanting to photograph everything. You might say, "Yes, photograph the front of house, but please don't go into the kitchen or the staff room." A robots.txt file does exactly that for your website. It is a small text file that tells search engine robots [automated programmes that crawl and read websites] which pages they are allowed to look at and which they should leave alone.

Every time Google, Bing, or any other search engine wants to index [add to its list of searchable pages] your website, its robot visits your robots.txt file first. It reads the instructions, then behaves accordingly.

Robots.txt is not a security measure. It is a polite set of instructions, not a lock on the door. A well-behaved search engine will follow it. A badly behaved one might not. Never rely on robots.txt to hide sensitive information.

Why does this matter to your business?

If your robots.txt file is missing, wrong, or set to block everything, Google simply cannot index your website properly. Fewer people find you when they search for what you sell.

This is one of the most common reasons a small business website disappears from search results without any obvious explanation. If you have ever wondered why your website is not showing up on Google, a misconfigured robots.txt file is often the culprit.

Getting this right takes about ten minutes once you understand what you are doing.

Where does the file live?

Your robots.txt file must always sit at the root [the top level, main address] of your website. That means it should be accessible at a web address that looks like this:

https://www.yourbusiness.co.uk/robots.txt

Try that now with your own web address. Type your website address into a browser, add /robots.txt at the end, and press enter. If you see a page of text, you already have one. If you see a blank page or an error, you need to create one.

What does a robots.txt file actually look like?

Here is the simplest possible robots.txt file, the one that most small business websites need:

User-agent: *
Disallow:

That is genuinely it. Two lines. Here is what each part means.

User-agent: refers to which robot you are talking to. The asterisk [the star symbol] means "everyone" or "all robots." So User-agent: * means "this instruction applies to all search engine robots."

Disallow: tells the robot which pages it cannot visit. When you leave it blank after the colon, it means "there is nothing off limits, you can look at everything." This is the right setting for most small business websites.

💡 If your robots.txt file currently contains Disallow: / with a forward slash after the colon, you have accidentally blocked every search engine from your entire website. Change it to Disallow: with nothing after the colon as soon as possible.

When would you want to block something?

There are a few cases where telling robots to stay away from certain pages actually makes sense.

Login pages, thank-you pages that appear after a purchase, and internal search results pages are not worth Google indexing. They do not help customers find you, and a site cluttered with low-quality indexed pages can work against you in search rankings.

Here is how you would block specific pages:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /thank-you/
Disallow: /login/
Disallow: /search-results/

Each Disallow: line blocks one folder or page. The forward slash before the page name matters. Do not leave it out.

⚠️ Never block your CSS [the files that control how your website looks] or JavaScript [the files that make your website interactive] files. Google needs to see those to understand your site properly. An older piece of advice used to suggest blocking them, but that guidance is well out of date.

A note about sitemaps

A sitemap [a file that lists all the pages on your website, a bit like a contents page] is a separate file from robots.txt, but the two work well together. You can point robots towards your sitemap by adding one line at the bottom of your robots.txt file:

User-agent: *
Disallow:

Sitemap: https://www.yourbusiness.co.uk/sitemap.xml

This helps search engines find all your pages more quickly. If you are not sure whether you have a sitemap, try visiting your web address followed by /sitemap.xml and see what comes up.

Once you have your sitemap sorted, submitting it directly through Google Search Console is a smart next step. It is a free tool from Google that shows you how your site is performing in search results.

How to actually create or edit the file

This depends on what platform your website is built on. For most popular platforms, you either do not need to touch robots.txt manually, or there is a simple settings panel that handles it for you.

WordPress
If you use an SEO plugin like Yoast or Rank Math, go to the plugin settings and look for a section called "Tools" or "Edit robots.txt." You can edit the file directly from there without touching any code. If you do not have an SEO plugin, you can use a free plugin called "WP Robots Txt" to manage it.

Wix
Wix generates a robots.txt file for you automatically. You can customise it by going to your Wix dashboard, clicking Settings, then SEO Tools, then Robots.txt. Be careful here as the interface can be a little confusing. If in doubt, leave the default settings in place.

Squarespace
Squarespace does not let you fully edit robots.txt on most plans. It generates one automatically. On higher-tier plans you have more control. If you are on a basic plan and need changes made, contact Squarespace support directly.

Shopify
Shopify controls your robots.txt file for you and does a reasonable job by default. You can edit it using Liquid [Shopify's own template language] in your theme files, but this is best left to a developer unless you are confident. For most small shops, the default is absolutely fine.

Custom or bespoke website
If your website was built by a developer, ask them to check the robots.txt file for you. Share this article with them and ask them to confirm the file matches what is described here. You should not have to pay much, if anything, for a quick check like this.

The most common mistakes to avoid

Blocking the whole website with Disallow: / is the biggest one, and it happens more often than you would think. It is usually left over from when the site was being built and the developer did not want Google indexing a half-finished website. They forgot to change it before launch.

The second most common mistake is having no robots.txt file at all. Search engines will still crawl your site, but you lose the ability to guide them, and some robots may slow down when they cannot find the file they expect.

Typos and formatting errors are the third problem. Robots.txt is very literal. A space in the wrong place or a missing forward slash can make an instruction meaningless or cause unintended blocking.

💡 After making any changes to your robots.txt file, run a free check at website.auditmy.co.uk to see whether search engines can still reach your key pages. It takes about thirty seconds and flags the most common problems in plain English. You might also want to read our guide on why your website might not be showing up on Google while you are at it.

A simple robots.txt file for most small businesses

If you want a safe, sensible starting point that works for the vast majority of small business websites, here it is:

User-agent: *
Disallow:

Sitemap: https://www.yourbusiness.co.uk/sitemap.xml

Replace the web address in the sitemap line with your actual address. Save the file as a plain text file called robots.txt with no other words in the name. Upload it to the top level of your website. That is all there is to it.

This file says: every robot is welcome, nothing is off limits, and here is where to find the full list of pages. Simple, honest, and effective.

One last thing

Robots.txt sits quietly in the background doing its job when it is right, and causing real problems when it is wrong. Most small business owners never think about it, which is exactly why checking it is such a useful quick win.

Ten minutes today could be the difference between your website appearing in search results and sitting invisible while your competitors take the customers you should be getting.

What Are Meta Descriptions and Why Do They Matter for Your Website?

Daniel Fenton — Fri, 15 May 2026 11:15:50 +0000

What are meta descriptions and why do they matter?

If you have ever searched for something on Google and read the short snippet of text under a website's title before deciding whether to click, you have already encountered a meta description. That little paragraph is doing a surprisingly important job.

Understanding what it does, and how to write a good one, can genuinely improve how many people choose to visit your website. You do not need to be technical to get this right.

So what exactly is a meta description?

A meta description is a short piece of text that sits in the background code of your webpage. You cannot see it on the page itself, but Google reads it and often uses it as the summary text shown beneath your link in search results.

Think of it like the blurb on the back of a book. The title might catch someone's eye, but the blurb is what convinces them to open the cover. Your meta description does the same job.

Here is a real-world example. Imagine you run a bakery in Bristol called Flour & Stone. Your homepage might appear in Google like this:

Flour & Stone Bakery, Bristol
Award-winning sourdough and freshly baked pastries made every morning in Clifton. Order online or visit us on Whiteladies Road.

That second line? That is the meta description at work.

Does Google always use what you write?

Not always. Google will sometimes rewrite your meta description if it decides something else on your page is more relevant to what someone searched for.

That said, writing a good one still matters. When Google uses it, you want it to be clear, accurate, and persuasive. When Google rewrites it, having well-written page content to draw from gives you a better chance of ending up with something decent.

Google rewrites meta descriptions roughly 60 to 70 per cent of the time, according to various studies. That is not a reason to skip writing them. It is a reason to make sure your page content is just as clear and well-written as your description.

Why do meta descriptions matter for your business?

Here is the honest answer: meta descriptions do not directly affect how high you rank in Google. Google has confirmed this. Writing a brilliant meta description will not push you to the top of the results.

What they do affect is whether someone clicks your link once you appear in those results. This is called your click-through rate [CTR, meaning the percentage of people who see your link and actually click it].

If your description is vague, dull, or missing entirely, people will scroll past you even if you are sitting at the top of the page. If it speaks directly to what someone is looking for, they are far more likely to choose you over a competitor.

For a small business, every click matters. You are not competing with a marketing budget the size of a department store's. A well-written meta description is a free, practical way to make your listing work harder.

What happens if you do not write one?

If you leave the meta description blank, Google will pull a random chunk of text from your page to use instead. This is almost never ideal. It might grab your navigation menu, a cookie policy notice, or some other text that makes no sense out of context.

This happens to more small business websites than you might think, and it makes listings look unprofessional and unhelpful. It is entirely avoidable.

If you are not sure whether your pages have meta descriptions, or whether they are any good, a free check at website.auditmy.co.uk will flag missing or poorly written ones across your site in seconds.

How long should a meta description be?

Aim for between 140 and 160 characters [a character is a single letter, space, number, or punctuation mark]. Google typically cuts off anything longer than that with an ellipsis, meaning your carefully written sentence gets chopped mid-thought.

Shorter is fine too, but anything under about 100 characters might feel a little thin. Think of it as roughly two short sentences.

💡 If you are unsure how long your description is, type it into a free character counter tool online. Search for "character counter" and paste your text in. You will see the number instantly.

How to write a good one

You do not need to be a copywriter. You just need to answer two questions clearly: what is this page about, and what is in it for the person reading?

Here are a few simple principles to follow:

Be specific. "Welcome to our website" tells nobody anything. "Fresh sourdough bread baked from scratch every morning in Bristol, available to order online" tells them exactly what they need to know.

Match the page. Your meta description should describe what is actually on that specific page, not your whole business. Your About page description should be different from your Shop page description.

Include a natural nudge. Phrases like "order online", "book a free consultation", or "see our full menu" give people a reason to click. Keep it natural though. Nobody wants to feel pressured by a sentence.

Use words your customers use. If people search for "gluten-free birthday cakes Bristol" and you offer that, say so plainly. Do not swap plain language for something that sounds impressive but means nothing.

Where do you actually add a meta description?

This depends on what platform your website is built on. On most popular platforms, you do not need to touch any code.

WordPress with Yoast SEO or Rank Math
Open the page or post you want to edit. Scroll down below the main content area and look for the SEO plugin section. You will see a field labelled "Meta description" or "SEO description". Type your text in there and save the page.

Squarespace
Open the page editor and click the settings cog icon for the page. Look for the "SEO" tab at the top of the settings panel. You will find a "SEO Description" field there. Fill it in and save.

Shopify
Go to your Online Store, then Pages or Products depending on which page you are editing. Scroll to the bottom of the edit screen and look for the "Search engine listing" section. Click "Edit website SEO" to expand it. The description field is there.

Wix
In the Wix editor, click on the page you want to edit, then go to Page Settings, followed by the SEO tab. You will find the meta description field there. Fill it in and click Done.

If your website was built by a developer and you are not sure how to access this, drop them a quick message and ask them to add or update the meta descriptions on your key pages. It is a small task and should not take long.

Which pages should you prioritise?

If you have a large website, do not feel you need to fix everything at once. Start with the pages that matter most to your business.

Your homepage is the obvious first stop. Then think about any page you actively want customers to find: a menu page, a services page, a contact page, your most important product pages.

If you have a blog or news section with lots of older posts, those can wait. Focus where the impact will be felt first.

A quick word on duplicate descriptions

One mistake that catches a lot of small business owners out is using the same meta description across multiple pages. Maybe someone copied and pasted the homepage description everywhere when the site was built.

Google does not penalise you for this the way it might for duplicated page content, but it is still a wasted opportunity. Each page is a chance to tell a different, specific story to a potential customer.

If you have been wondering why your website is not showing up on Google, duplicate or missing meta descriptions are often one of several small issues combining to hold a site back.

Keeping an eye on how things are going

Once you have written your meta descriptions, it is worth checking how your pages perform in search results over time. Google Search Console [a free tool from Google that shows you how your site appears in search] lets you see which pages people are clicking on and which are being ignored.

If a page is showing up in results but getting very few clicks, that is often a sign the meta description is not doing its job. Our guide on what Google Search Console is and how to use it walks you through getting set up without any technical knowledge required.

💡 Once you have sorted your meta descriptions, run a free check at website.auditmy.co.uk to see if there are any other quick wins on your site. It checks for missing descriptions, slow loading times, and a handful of other common issues that affect small business websites.

The bottom line

Meta descriptions are not magic, and they will not fix a broken website on their own. But they are one of the simplest, most overlooked improvements a small business can make.

They cost nothing. They take ten minutes per page once you know where to look. And they make the difference between someone scrolling past your listing and someone clicking through to buy from you.

That is a pretty good return for a couple of sentences.