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plain english, no gate
Everything we know,
written down.
16 guides on AI search, SEO, websites and domains. Written by the person who does the work, not a content team. Nothing here is gated, and nothing here is padded to hit a word count.
ai search
AI search
What answer engines actually do with your site, and what moves the needle.
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How to show up in AI search: optimising for ChatGPT and Perplexity
How to show up in AI search: allow the AI bots, add an llms.txt, and write answers plainly enough for an engine to quote. Practical AEO for small business.
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Why AI search matters now, and what it costs you to wait
AI now answers the question instead of listing your website. Why that changes who gets found, why the cost of waiting is quiet, and what to fix first.
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AEO, GEO, AIO: what the AI search jargon actually means
AEO, GEO and AIO explained without the hype. What each acronym means, how much of it is the same job as SEO, and how to spot a relabelled retainer.
search rankings
Search rankings
Where organic search value really sits, what it costs, and how not to lose it.
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The 80/20 of SEO: most of your search value is on a handful of pages
Most of your search value sits in pages you already rank with. Use Search Console to find striking-distance pages around positions 5 to 17, then lift them.
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How much does SEO cost in Australia? Real 2026 numbers
Real 2026 numbers from published Australian rate cards: credible small-business SEO runs $500 to $3,000 a month. What each band buys, the traps, and AI search costs.
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Which SEO plan is right for your business?
From Starter $390 to Dominance $5,400 a month: pick the right SEO plan in five minutes. Honest recommendations, including when to buy less.
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Do I need SEO or Google Ads for my small business?
A plain-English guide to whether your small business needs SEO or Google Ads, how they differ, what each costs, and how to decide where to spend first.
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Getting a local trades business found on Google: the basics that matter
How a Sydney trades business gets found on Google: a properly set-up Business Profile, real service and suburb pages, steady reviews and consistent details.
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Two pages on your site rank for the same search: canonical or 301?
Two of your pages rank for the same search? A canonical tag and a 301 redirect fix it differently, and 301-ing a page that still ranks costs real traffic.
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Redirect domains to main site SEO: the 2002 trick that now gets you flagged
Redirect domains to main site SEO was a 2002 trick. Today it does nothing at best and can flag you for link spam. What really happens, and what to do instead.
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Migrating a WordPress/Woo site without losing your Google rankings
Moving a WordPress or Woo site? Map every URL with single-hop 301s, watch the LiteSpeed redirect gotcha, and keep one clean robots tag to protect your rankings.
websites
Websites
What a small business site should cost, contain, and do when nobody is watching.
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504 gateway timeout, and "the website is down": how to tell what actually broke
A 504 means a proxy got nothing back from your server, which is a different fault from a 502 or a 503. A five minute triage ladder that separates DNS, host, SSL and application faults, with the actual commands.
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What is Cloudflare, and does your business website actually need it?
Cloudflare is a DNS host, a proxy and a security filter sold as one word. What the free plan genuinely includes, the four jobs businesses actually hire it for, the cases where you should not add it, the November 2025 outage as the honest counterweight, and why a .com.au cannot be registered with Cloudflare Registrar.
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Setting up Cloudflare on an Australian domain, without taking the site down
The order that decides whether this is a quiet change or an outage: capture the zone, audit what Cloudflare imported, switch nameservers with everything DNS only, get a valid certificate on your origin, then turn the proxy on. Includes the grey cloud first rule that prevents error 526, and a triage table for every Cloudflare 5xx.
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Which DNS record do you actually need? A, CNAME, MX and TXT
Nobody opens a DNS panel wanting to learn record types, they open it with a job to do. A task-first table mapping each job to the one record it needs, why your panel refuses a CNAME on the root domain, what the number beside an MX record means, and how TTL decides the speed of every change.
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Free email on your own domain with Cloudflare Email Routing
Cloudflare will forward mail on your domain to an inbox you already have, for free and unlimited. It cannot send or reply from those addresses, which decides the question for most businesses. The verified limits, the DNS it writes, and the point where you should buy real mailboxes instead.
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How much should a small business website cost?
An honest guide to how much a small business website should cost in Australia, what drives the price, and how to tell a fair quote from an overpriced one.
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SEO consultant Sydney: what a good one does and what it costs
What a consultant does that a retainer does not, what it costs, how to tell a real one from a reseller, and what you should get in the first 90 days.
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Local SEO in Sydney: what actually moves you up the map pack
Proximity, prominence and relevance, what Google Business Profile really controls, and why spun suburb pages stop working.
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Ecommerce website design in Sydney: what an online store really costs
WooCommerce, Shopify or a payment link, what genuinely costs money in a store build, and when not to build one at all.
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Web design in Parramatta: what it costs and what local actually buys you
Sydney's second CBD, without second-CBD agency rates. What city firms quote, what local proximity does for search, and a four-point check before you sign anything.
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A website for tradies that makes the phone ring
What a trade website actually needs, what it does not, why most of them fail, and what it costs. Includes a one-minute check you can run on your own site from your phone.
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AI SEO services that get you quoted, not just ranked
What AEO and GEO work actually involves, what it costs, how visibility in AI answers is measured, and what nobody can honestly promise you.
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A Sydney WooCommerce developer who runs the server too
Why WooCommerce stores get slow, what actually transfers when you move off Shopify, GST and Australia Post setup, and who should not choose WooCommerce at all.
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Wix vs Squarespace vs GoDaddy vs Shopify vs a built website
Every Australian price in one table, checked September 2026, every GST basis labelled, and which row fits which business.
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Alien Web Design vs Wix: the Australian prices compared
Wix Business is $477 a year including GST. Cheaper than a build for 21 months, then dearer every month after, and never yours.
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Alien Web Design vs Squarespace: the Australian prices compared
Squarespace Business is $744 a year. Why year one is a wash whichever way the GST falls, and why year three is $1,275 apart.
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Alien Web Design vs GoDaddy: the Australian prices compared
GoDaddy is cheapest at the entry tier and we say so. The tier that is a wash, the row that is not like for like, and what the $99 a year includes that GoDaddy charges for.
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Alien Web Design vs Shopify: the Australian prices compared
Shopify Basic is $504 a year plus fees. We build on it when you need it. Four questions to tell whether you do.
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Website redesign cost in Australia: the real 2026 numbers
What a redesign actually costs, why it is priced differently from a new build, the five things that move the number, and when fixing beats redesigning.
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What pages does a small business website need?
A plain-English guide to what pages a small business website actually needs, what each one is for, and the pages that quietly waste your money.
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Improve PageSpeed on WordPress: the fixes that matter
How to improve PageSpeed on WordPress by impact, not by warning count. The three fixes that move Core Web Vitals, the ones that waste a weekend, and why.
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Your contact form "works", but does the email arrive? (the Microsoft 365 junk trap)
A contact form can show success and still lose the lead, because Microsoft 365 quietly junks the email. How to test end-to-end and fix SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
domains
Domains and DNS
Buying and pointing names without paying the lazy-renewal tax.
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Transferring a domain in Australia, including the .au rules that actually apply
A .au transfer is not a .com transfer. What the authorisation code really is and the format auDA requires, why the widely repeated 60 day lock appears nowhere in auDA's rules, and why transferring never moves your website or email.
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How to change DNS records and nameservers, without killing your email
A nameserver change replaces your whole DNS zone, including the MX records your business email depends on. What to capture first, when you do not need to change anything, and verified panel steps for the Australian registrars people actually use.
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DNS propagation: what it actually is, and why "48 hours" is usually wrong
Propagation is cache expiry, not a broadcast. What TTL really controls, the trick that makes any planned change land in five minutes, and how to check with dig instead of guessing.
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Buying a domain name in Australia: what it should cost, and the traps
What a domain name should cost in Australia, who must be the registrant, and the renewal and ownership traps that catch small businesses. Plain-words guide.
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