A practical guide for small business owners who want to be harder to confuse, harder to oversell, and able to tell whether the work they pay for is actually helping.
Website redesign
Prepared for: your business
Example document. Supplier and figures are illustrative.
Before you pay for a redesign, an SEO retainer, ads, a CRM or AI, find the problem that actually limits the business.
Twenty-eight chapters on websites, measurement, search, advertising, sales, email, AI, automation and hiring help, written to make you harder to confuse and harder to oversell.
23 worksheets and checklists keep your own numbers beside every decision.
Nobody writes down what has to be true before the money works. The book gives you that line for each purchase, with the chapter and worksheet that answer it.
SEO growth retainer
Prepared for: your business
“I have seen advertising continue while a store had no usable payment option at the final checkout step. It took about a month to find the problem.”
Elvis Meisters, from the Introduction
You do not need to become a specialist. You need to know enough to choose the next step and to judge the people you pay.
The book is not a 28-step checklist. Pick the situation closest to yours and it routes you to the chapter and worksheet to open first.
Find the next constraint that matters, define the evidence that would show it is fixed, and only then add more complexity.
Before you buy a click, decide what that click is supposed to do. Can the customer understand the offer, complete the next action, and get a response?
Set the website's primary job first: calls, enquiries, bookings or sales. Then decide whether it needs an improvement or a rebuild.
Find where customers stop: traffic fit, page clarity, trust, forms, checkout and response handling. Fix observable problems before testing ideas.
Control means more than someone being able to log in today. It requires a named business owner, limited delegated access and a documented recovery route.
Define outcomes before choosing analytics: enquiries, qualified leads, new customers, sales and collected revenue.
Map each search need to the right page, main offer pages before extra articles, and set realistic expectations about time and competition.
Choose a bounded task with a clear finish line and a result you can inspect. Know where each important fact came from before you use the answer.
Each chapter ends in a decision, a record or a test you can run on your own business.
And the evidence that would show it is fixed, written on a single page before anyone is paid.
Ch. 1 · R01Work out contribution, acquisition cost, ROAS and payback from your own numbers, then set a stop rule.
Ch. 2 · R02Register who owns what, who can recover it, and remove access when a supplier leaves.
Ch. 3, 4 · R03, R04Plan pages, proof and the next action, then test forms, bookings and checkout before launch.
Ch. 5 to 8 · R05 to R08Build a small dashboard that reconciles platform reports with what actually came in.
Ch. 9 to 11 · R09 to R11Map searches to pages, check local profiles, and run paid tests with a budget, a boundary and an end date.
Ch. 12 to 18 · R12 to R16A lead register, a pipeline with owners and next actions, and email that supports sales.
Ch. 19 to 21 · R17, R18Bound the task, keep approved inputs beside the output, and define acceptance evidence before work starts.
Ch. 24 to 26 · R19 to R21Six files, ready the moment you pay: the book in every common format and the Companion Toolkit in two.
Plus the resources page, kept current so the book never goes stale.
| File | Format | Size |
|---|---|---|
| The book, screen edition210 pages, linked contents | 2.0 MB | |
| The book, print copyThe same pages, ready to print at home | 2.0 MB | |
| The book, e-readerApple Books, Kobo and most readers | EPUB | 0.3 MB |
| The book, KindleSend to Kindle or load on your device | EPUB | 0.3 MB |
| Companion Toolkit, workbookSTART HERE plus 23 worksheets, formulas included | XLSX | 64 KB |
| Companion Toolkit, printable48 pages, portrait and landscape | 1.1 MB | |
| 6 files: 28 chapters, 23 worksheets | 5.7 MB |
Real pages from the finished edition, page numbers included.
Twenty-three worksheets that keep the evidence beside the decision. Keep unknowns marked as unknown: a blank field is better than a confident number with nothing behind it.
Below 222%, each attributed sale loses money. The ad plan above targets 400%, so check what that assumes. p. 18
A first-order teaching model from Chapter 2. The full R02 sheet adds fixed costs, CAC and payback.
| Code | Worksheet | Chapters | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | R01 | Priority and offer brief | Ch. 1, 27 |
| 7 | R02 | Budget, CAC, ROAS and payback calculator | Ch. 2, 16, 17, 22 |
| 8 | R03 | Asset and recovery register | Ch. 3 |
| 9 | R04 | Data inventory and compliance questions | Ch. 4, 24 |
| Code | Worksheet | Chapters | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | R05 | Platform and software comparison | Ch. 5 |
| 11 | R06 | Website and page brief | Ch. 6, 7 |
| 12 | R07 | Proof and rights log | Ch. 7, 14, 18, 19 |
| 13 | R08 | Launch and transaction test sheet | Ch. 8 |
| Code | Worksheet | Chapters | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14 | R09 | Measurement plan and metric dictionary | Ch. 9 |
| 15 | R10 | Tracking QA, reconciliation and scorecard | Ch. 10, 28 |
| 16 | R11 | Conversion diagnosis and experiment log | Ch. 11 |
| 17 | R12 | Keyword, competitor and page mapping | Ch. 12 |
| 18 | R13 | SEO and Search Console inspection sheet | Ch. 13 |
| 19 | R14 | Content brief, update plan and calendar | Ch. 14 |
| 20 | R15 | Local profile and review-process checklist | Ch. 15 |
| 21 | R16 | Paid campaign readiness and test brief | Ch. 16, 17, 18 |
| Code | Worksheet | Chapters | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22 | R17 | Lead register, pipeline and referral handoff | Ch. 19, 20, 23 |
| 23 | R18 | Email and retention plan and QA | Ch. 21 |
| 24 | R19 | AI task brief and verification sheet | Ch. 24 |
| 25 | R20 | Automation specification and failure-test log | Ch. 25 |
| 26 | R21 | Freelancer / agency brief and handover audit | Ch. 26 |
| 27 | R22 | 30/90-day plan | Ch. 27 |
| 28 | R23 | Quarterly and annual review | Ch. 28 |
The most useful lessons in my work did not come from a perfect campaign or a clever tool. They usually came from something basic being wrong.
I have worked on a project where we struggled to explain clearly what the business was selling. I have watched ads keep running while checkout was broken. I have reviewed AI-generated work that invented statistics and described client services that had never been supplied.
None of that proves a universal rule. It does show why online growth work needs to begin with inspection rather than assumption. So the book is built on one principle: find the next constraint that matters, define the evidence that would show it is fixed, and only then add more complexity.
The first-hand examples are limited to what I actually experienced or observed. Hypothetical examples are labelled. Anything that changes quickly is treated as something to recheck, not a permanent rule.
Elvis
Something else? Ask me directly.
The book as a PDF for screen reading, a print copy of the same PDF, an EPUB for most e-readers and a Kindle-ready EPUB. The Companion Toolkit comes as an editable Excel workbook and a 48-page printable PDF.
No. Chapter 1 has a section called Starting from zero, and the first four chapters deal with the offer, the budget, account ownership and customer data before any website decision. You can use the book to decide what the minimum useful online presence is, and to avoid buying more than that.
Yes, possibly more so. Chapter 26 and worksheet R21 cover how to brief outside help, define acceptance evidence before work starts, and audit the handover. Several chapters give you the questions to ask about work you are being sold.
No. There is no universal software stack in the book. It explains how to compare options on total cost, integrations, permissions and exit. Current tool suggestions live on the resources page, which is kept up to date separately so the book does not go stale when a product changes.
No, and the book says so. Start with the chapter closest to the problem you can actually observe. If the problem is unclear, begin with Chapters 1 to 4. Use the worksheet that matches the decision you are making.
It is written for small businesses in general. Where a rule depends on jurisdiction, such as privacy, consumer rights, email consent or tax, the book tells you what to check locally rather than pretending one answer fits everywhere.
No. It is educational material. Where a decision has legal, financial, security or privacy consequences, the book tells you to verify current facts and use a qualified professional when required.
The book is a digital download delivered immediately, so all sales are final once the files are available to you. You can read the Introduction and Chapter 1 free before buying. If a file is damaged or will not open, get in touch and it will be fixed or replaced.
Not yet. The book is digital only for now. If a print edition becomes available it will be announced on the updates page.
One redesign, one retainer or one month of untested ads costs far more than this book. Read it first, then decide what to buy.
Secure checkout by Paddle, our reseller and merchant of record, who handle payment and VAT. The final price for your country is shown before you pay. Your personal download link arrives by email within a minute. Digital download: all sales are final once the files are available to you. Terms of sale.