This is the last piece in the series. 55 businesses. 728 pages of reports. Two years. Manufacturers, breweries, charities, jewellers, recruitment firms, escape rooms, a woodturner who trains veterans, a company that analyses explanted medical devices. Here’s what I took away from all of it. Small businesses aren’t bad at digital because they’re lazy They’re
Eleven RFP responses received. Scored against a weighted matrix. Three agencies on the pitch stage. The build that followed will run into the mid six figures. The selection consulting was a rounding error against it. The job was to make sure the right agency was chosen for the right reasons, and to make sure every
Before I open a browser, before I check page speeds or meta descriptions or social media accounts, I ask every business the same question: what do you actually need digital to do for you? It sounds obvious. It isn't. The answer almost always reveals a gap between what the business is asking for and what
Competitor analysis was part of 32 out of 55 audits. It was consistently one of the most valuable exercises, and the one that generated the most uncomfortable conversations. Most businesses have never looked Not properly. They've glanced at a competitor's website. They might know what their main rival charges. But they've never sat down and
An ethical recruitment firm working exclusively with ex-forces personnel came to me with what seemed like a straightforward problem: they had two websites. One aimed at employers. The other at candidates. Different domains, different designs, different content management. The logic made sense on paper: different audiences need different messages. In practice, it was a headache.
This business had the most unusual growth trajectory of any I audited. What started as a professional networking group for women in a male-dominated industry had grown into an international organisation. The founders had presented at the United Nations. Partnerships were forming across multiple countries. Membership demand was coming from places nobody had planned for.
One business I audited runs a commercial manufacturing operation alongside training programmes for military veterans and people with mental health difficulties. The same workshop, the same lathes, two completely different purposes. The digital challenge was how to present both sides without confusing either audience. Two audiences, one website A corporate buyer looking for turned wooden
One audit sticks with me because the gap between ambition and resources was wider than anything else I encountered across 55 businesses. A charity wanted to build an app connecting surplus food from shops and restaurants with families in need. Not just a simple matching service. A suggestion algorithm that would learn what kinds of
One of the 55 businesses I audited employed hundreds of people. A gaming studio. They didn't need help with their website. They didn't need SEO or social media advice. Their digital problem was something I hadn't encountered in any other audit. How do you replicate the spontaneous creative moments of an office when everyone is
From around 182 enquiries YTD to 529 across 18 months of phased, focused work. No rebuild. No rebrand. No six figure project. Online enquiries nearly tripled The starting point A site that looked fine on the surface. Search rankings were strong. Organic traffic accounted for around two thirds of all sessions. The agency’s quarterly report