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Notes from building 31 websites for UK trades

Written by Seb and Luca after each build: what ranked, what converted and what it cost.

Twenty-two articles on websites, ads, CRM and AI, written after real client jobs, with the figures included.

FeaturedLead Gen · 30 May 2026 · 9 min read

Email marketing for UK trades: the £40 list that out-earned £4,000 of ads

Trades treat email like a 2010 newsletter. Run properly, the list you already own outperforms cold paid traffic at a fraction of the cost.

By Luca Planchais Read the article

Strategy · 26 May 2026 · 8 min

The Bath advantage: why a local studio outpaces a London agency for UK SMBs

A London agency charges three times the price for the same playbook. Here is what proximity, accountability, and a smaller stack actually buy you.

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Strategy · 22 May 2026 · 8 min

The hidden cost of free website builders: a 12-month TCO breakdown

"Free" website builders cost more than a custom build by month nine. The maths is uncomfortable but consistent.

Read the article

Strategy · 18 May 2026 · 8 min

Local SEO for tradesmen in 2026: GMB, schema, reviews, in that order

Three things move the needle on local search in 2026. Everything else is decoration.

Read the article

Lead Gen · 15 May 2026 · 7 min

How to pre-qualify a lead in 8 questions without losing them

Most trade businesses waste 60% of their quoting time on leads that were never going to buy.

Read the article

Ads · 13 May 2026 · 10 min

Meta vs Google ads for UK trades: what we'd run with £1,500/month today

A real allocation, real creative direction, real expected outcomes. The plan we would actually deploy on Monday with that budget.

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Build · 11 May 2026 · 6 min

The 1-page brief that gets a website built fast (steal this template)

The reason most website projects take eight weeks instead of two is the brief. Here is the one page we ask every client to fill in.

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AI · 8 May 2026 · 8 min

AI receptionist vs human receptionist: when to flip, and when not to

AI voice agents are good enough to take real bookings now. They are also still bad in specific ways. Here is the honest decision tree.

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Build · 6 May 2026 · 10 min

Squarespace, Wix, WordPress, custom: what UK trades should actually pick in 2026

Four platforms, one decision, real money on the line. An honest comparison from someone who has built sites on all four.

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Strategy · 4 May 2026 · 8 min

Why "we don't need a CRM" is the most expensive sentence in your business

A spreadsheet and a memory is not a system. Here is what leaks, and what it costs.

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AI · 2 May 2026 · 9 min

AI follow-up vs traditional CRM: an honest cost comparison for UK trades

A trade business with 100 leads a month — what it costs to work them by hand, by CRM, and by AI.

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AI · 30 Apr 2026 · 7 min

The 5 prompts every UK SMB owner should run on Claude this week

Five copy-paste prompts that produce something useful in the first ten minutes.

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Strategy · 8 Apr 2026 · 7 min

Why your renovation website isn't booking jobs (and how to fix it)

Most UK renovation sites are brochures. Here is what a booking engine looks like instead.

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Build · 2 Apr 2026 · 9 min

The 24-hour website: how AI compressed our build time without compressing the brand

A standard agency build is six to twelve weeks. Ours is a day. Here is exactly what changed.

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Ads · 24 Mar 2026 · 11 min

Meta ads for UK bathroom fitters: what we learned spending £40k

A year of paid social across three renovation clients, condensed into what actually works.

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Strategy · 15 Mar 2026 · 6 min

The case for £500 websites done right

A £500 website is not a worse £5,000 website. It is a different product.

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AI · 8 Mar 2026 · 8 min

Booking a site visit in 60 seconds: AI follow-up, explained

Lead-to-booked-visit speed is the single biggest variable in conversion. Here is our 60-second flow.

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Lead Gen · 26 Feb 2026 · 7 min

Your CPL is wrong (and the metric that actually matters)

Cost per lead is the number every agency reports and the wrong one to optimise.

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Strategy · 14 Feb 2026 · 8 min

GoHighLevel vs HubSpot for trade businesses: a 2026 take

Two CRMs that look similar at a glance and do not behave similarly in a trade business.

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Build · 4 Feb 2026 · 7 min

Conversion design isn't pretty — it's premeditated

Beautiful is a side effect. Every section on a converting site exists to move the visitor one step.

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Case Study · 22 Jan 2026 · 10 min

How we filled a renovator's diary in three weeks (Innova case study)

New site, new ad creative, new follow-up flow — and a diary full of site visits.

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AI · 8 Jan 2026 · 9 min

AI-powered SEO: building for AI-search and Google in 2026

Half of search traffic now starts inside an AI tool. Here is how we build sites both engines love.

Read the article