Blog
Learn about web design, SEO, and AEO for the digital age.
SEO
Schema markup is hidden code that tells Google and AI engines exactly what your page is about. It powers rich results and helps you get cited. Here's the plain-English version.
Core Web Vitals are Google's three speed-and-stability scores. They affect your ranking and whether visitors stick around. Here's what they are and how to pass them.
AEO
SEO gets you ranked in Google's links; AEO gets you cited in AI answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews. They overlap a lot — and yes, you want both.
Local SEO
If you serve a local area, local SEO is the highest-ROI marketing you can do — it puts you in front of people searching for exactly what you offer, right when they're ready to buy.
Whether you're a developer showcasing a project or an agent winning listings, a real estate website has to do two things: present property beautifully and capture serious leads. Here's how — drawn from sites I've built in the industry.
A law firm website has one job: turn a stranger with a legal problem into a booked consultation. That takes trust, clear next steps, and ranking for the practice areas you serve.
A Toronto restaurant website has three jobs: show the menu, make booking or ordering effortless, and rank when locals search nearby. Here's how to nail all three.
Pricing
A custom-coded website typically costs $2,000–$8,000+ CAD, depending on pages and features. You pay more up front than WordPress — but hosting is cheap and there are no plugin subscriptions.
A WordPress website typically costs $1,000–$3,000 CAD to build for a small business, plus ongoing hosting and plugin costs. The software is free — a live WordPress site isn't.
Platform
There's no single best website platform — the right one depends on your budget, how much you'll edit the site yourself, and how much design and performance control you need. Here's how the six main options compare.
AI assistants like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Claude are increasingly the first place people go to when they have a question. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is how you make sure your business is cited in the answer they give.
A small-business website in Toronto typically costs $1,000–$8,000+ CAD, depending on how it's built and how much custom work it needs. Here's where the money goes.