Ownership
Who actually owns your website?
If the person who built your site disappeared tomorrow, could you still reach the domain, hosting and files? Here is how to check, and what a bad quote reveals.
Stuart Nelsen · Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Nine notes on websites.
Ownership, search, cost, AI, platforms and maintenance, written for small-business owners who would rather have a straight answer.
Search
What a search engine actually reads
A visitor sees design and photographs. A search engine starts with labels in the page, then checks whether the business information around the web agrees.
AI and websites
Building your own website with AI
The tools can help you plan, write and code a site. They can also produce something that looks finished while basic parts remain untested or invented.
Design
Your homepage has one job
Choose the action the page exists to produce. Colour and photographs matter, but they work underneath that decision rather than replacing it.
Platforms
Squarespace, Wix, WordPress or plain HTML?
The right platform depends less on the sales page and more on who maintains it, who holds the files and what happens when you want to leave.
Planning
Five things to gather before you build
A website build moves quickly when the real source material exists. These five things matter more than choosing a template on the first day.
Ownership
Do you need a website if you have Facebook?
A Facebook page is useful rented ground. A website costs something to start, but gives the business control over its address, presentation and files.
Costs
What a website costs in a year
The build price is only one number. Here are the recurring lines, what can genuinely cost nothing, and where a small site can become needlessly expensive.
Maintenance
Change your site without breaking it
Safe editing is not about knowing every line of code. It is about making one reversible change at a time and checking the live result deliberately.