Questions to Ask Before Hiring Anyone to Touch Your Website
The questions to ask before hiring a freelancer, agency, or developer to work on your website, covering ownership, process, and red flags.
AlvinInsights
Notes from the work
Practical writing on site speed, SEO, conversion, and AI automation. Everything here comes out of problems we've actually run into on client projects, written so a business owner can act on it.
Alvin
Migrating to Shopify Without Losing Your Search Rankings
How to migrate to Shopify without losing your search rankings: redirect mapping, content preservation, and post-launch monitoring that actually works.
Alvin
The "AI Dependency" Panic: Why It Looks Exactly Like the 1990s Internet Scare
Why today's AI dependency panic mirrors the 1990s internet skepticism, backed by real data on the Google Effect and the calculator problem.
Alvin
AEO/GEO Readiness: How to Get Cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews
How to optimize your site for AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, and get cited instead of ignored.
Alvin
When to Rebuild vs. Fix Your Existing WordPress Site
How to tell whether your WordPress site needs a full rebuild or just a targeted fix, with a clear decision framework.
Alvin
CRO Without A/B Testing: What Low-Traffic Sites Should Do Instead
CRO without enough traffic for A/B testing: heuristic review, session recordings, funnel analysis, and other methods that actually work at low volume.
Alvin
How Much Should Website Maintenance Actually Cost?
What website maintenance should actually cost, broken down by tier, and the questions to ask before comparing prices.
Alvin
What "Technical SEO" Actually Means (And What It Doesn't Cover)
What technical SEO actually means: crawlability, site structure, schema, and speed, and why it is not the same as content strategy or backlinks.
Alvin
ACF vs. Hardcoded Content: Why It Matters for Who Can Edit Your Site
ACF vs. hardcoded WordPress content: what each approach actually costs, and why it decides whether you can edit your own site later.
Alvin
Theme, Custom, or Headless Shopify: How to Actually Decide
Theme, custom Shopify, or headless: a plain comparison of what each option actually means, what it costs, and how to pick the right one for your store.
Alvin
Freelancer, Agency, or Studio: What Actually Changes When You Hire Each One
Freelancer, agency, or studio: a plain comparison of who actually does the work, what happens when things go wrong, and how to choose based on your project.
Alvin
Why Your PageSpeed Score Says 95 But Your Site Still Feels Slow
A high PageSpeed score doesn't guarantee a fast-feeling site. Here's why lab data and real user field data disagree, and which one matters more.
Alvin
My WordPress Site Just Broke After an Update, Now What?
A WordPress site broke after an update? Here's what to check first, how to recover, and how staging-first updates prevent it next time.
Alvin
Why your website gets slower every year
Websites slow down gradually as plugins, scripts, and images pile up. Here's how to check your own site in five minutes, and what actually fixes it.
AlvinMore articles are on the way.
Tell us what you're building.
We keep it small and hands-on. You're talking directly with the people building your site, not a sales rep.