# Blog

_Practical notes on getting found — no filler, no recycled listicles._

Notes on search, AI visibility and websites that earn their keep, written for business owners rather than for other marketers. No listicles, no reposted press releases, and nothing published purely to keep a content calendar full.

## What gets written here

Mostly the questions that come up repeatedly on first calls, answered properly and once. What a custom website actually costs and why quotes vary by a factor of five. How AI search is changing what it means to rank, and what a local business should do about it in practical terms. The mistakes that show up over and over in small business websites. The full local SEO picture for a home service business, start to finish.

Where a post makes a factual claim about how Google or an AI engine behaves, it says where that comes from. Where something is an opinion or a bet on where things are heading, it says that too. The distinction gets blurred constantly in this industry, usually in whichever direction sells the service.

## The short version, if you never read another post

Fix your Google Business Profile before you do anything else, because it is free and it is the single highest-leverage asset a local business has. Get reviews arriving continuously rather than in bursts. Make sure every page on your site says something a competitor could not have written. Answer the phone. Most of what agencies sell above that line is a multiplier on those four things, and a multiplier on zero is still zero.

Questions about anything published here are welcome. Call or text (443) 521-3491, or email adam@pufferfishmedia.biz.

_Last updated: 2026-08-25_