Field notes
Guides for every stage of your business
Start with the essentials, put the setup to work, or sort out a bill or account problem. These guides are written for business owners in Canada and the United States.
Need a starting point? Let the setup wizard choose a path. For hands-on helpers and downloads, browse tools and templates.
46 guides
Stage 01
Set up cheap
Plan the budget, own your domain, and choose the website and email setup the business needs.
Start & budget
Understand the essentials, plan the costs, and follow a practical launch checklist.
What a domain, DNS, and hosting actually are (in plain English)
The three pieces every website is made of, explained with a street-address analogy that actually holds up. Read this once and every other guide gets easier.
Updated 2026-10-07
The low-cost web presence
The complete recipe: one fairly priced domain plus free Cloudflare Pages hosting gives a small business a fast, professional website without a builder subscription.
Updated 2026-10-07
What will your online setup really cost?
Plan cash due now, first-year bills, recurring costs, and owner time with a CAD or USD calculator and workbook.
Updated 2026-10-04
Your online launch checklist for a local service business
Put the essentials in the right order, test the customer's whole journey, and delay tools you do not yet need.
Updated 2026-10-04
Domain & website
Buy the address, choose a website approach, publish it, and keep the content useful.
Buy your domain cheaply (and pick .ca vs .com)
Choosing a name, .ca versus .com for Canadian businesses, dodging the checkout add-ons, and the two settings to change right after you buy.
Updated 2026-10-07
Do you actually need Wix or Squarespace?
An honest decision guide. Builders are great products that most brochure-site owners don't need — here's the five-question test.
Updated 2026-10-07
Write your five-page business website in one afternoon
Fill in a positioning worksheet, draft Home, Services, About, FAQ, and Contact pages, then give AI useful facts instead of empty slogans.
Updated 2026-10-04
Build your website with AI (Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini)
The step-by-step process — including the exact prompt structure — for getting a professional small-business website out of an AI assistant, no coding knowledge required.
Updated 2026-10-04
Put your site online with Cloudflare Pages (free)
The full walkthrough: create a Cloudflare account, put your site online (drag-and-drop, or a free private GitHub repo that auto-publishes every change), and connect your own domain — HTTPS handled for you.
Updated 2026-10-07
Leave Wix, Squarespace, or GoDaddy: keep your domain and protect your search traffic
The exit sequence in the right order: find who really holds your domain, move it to a registrar you control before you cancel, keep your page addresses the same, and move email without a gap.
Updated 2026-10-07
How to change your hours, prices, or photos on a static site
The three ways to edit a Cloudflare Pages site after it's live — re-upload, GitHub's web editor, or an AI-assisted edit — and how to confirm the change actually went out.
Updated 2026-10-04
Website privacy, terms, and contact pages: a practical starting point
A privacy page, a terms page, and a contact page that actually works — what each one has to say in Canada and the US, written in plain language, with our own pages as the worked example.
Updated 2026-10-07
Check your website's accessibility before buying a widget
Test how customers read, contact, book, and pay. Record barriers, understand Canadian and US requirements, and know when professional help is needed.
Updated 2026-10-04
Business email
Choose between a free receiving address and a mailbox, then make sure messages arrive.
The $0 business email address (and exactly where it breaks)
Receive business email at your own domain for free, understand the separate sending requirement, and choose when a mailbox earns its fee.
Updated 2026-10-04
Set up email at your own domain, and troubleshoot missing customer messages
Choose an address or mailbox, connect the right records, and investigate quotes that bounce, disappear, or land in junk.
Updated 2026-10-04
Stage 02
Run it cheap
Help customers find you, keep enquiries moving, and connect bookings and quotes to payment.
Get found & promote
Use listings, reviews, search, AI-readable content, social media, and a useful newsletter to reach customers.
Google Business Profile: the free listing that helps local customers find you
Claim an eligible local-business listing, keep its details accurate, and ask customers for honest reviews without paying to activate the profile.
Updated 2026-10-04
Get more Google reviews: the link, QR code, and message to send
Use Google's official review link, ask at the right moment, and build a review routine without incentives or gating.
Updated 2026-10-07
Put your business on Apple Maps and Bing for free
Use the current Apple Business and Bing Places dashboards, distinguish a brand from a Maps location, and keep Canadian and US details accurate.
Updated 2026-10-04
Submit your site to Google and Bing, then measure visibility
Verify search ownership, submit a sitemap, inspect indexing, and use current Google and Bing AI reports without mistaking visibility for revenue.
Updated 2026-10-07
Social media for small business: what actually matters
Which platforms are worth your limited hours, claiming your handles before someone else does, and wiring it all back to the assets you own.
Updated 2026-10-07
Free website analytics: what to track and what to ignore
Use Cloudflare Web Analytics for five useful numbers, add Search Console context, and avoid a reporting project nobody needs.
Updated 2026-07-28
Google Business Profile suspended or won't verify? Start here
Identify the problem, prepare legitimate evidence, and use Google's verification or appeal process without making recovery harder.
Updated 2026-10-04
Your website is live but enquiries are not coming in. What next?
Run a small first-customer experiment, check where the enquiry process fails, and set a spending limit before adding more tools.
Updated 2026-10-04
Start a small-business newsletter without an expensive marketing suite
Choose for your real list size, record permission, test signup and unsubscribe, and send a useful first update.
Updated 2026-10-04
Get your website AI ready: search, crawlers, and agents
Make public business content easy for AI search, agents, and web scrapers to read. Check crawler access, Canadian and US facts, links, and evidence of discovery.
Updated 2026-10-04
Enquiries, booking & payments
Give each enquiry a next step, make booking easy, and carry a quote through to payment.
Stop losing enquiries: a simple follow-up system before you buy a CRM
Track the next action for every enquiry, set useful reminders, and know when a spreadsheet has stopped being enough.
Updated 2026-10-04
Add a contact or quote form to your website for $0
Build a useful contact or quote form with Tally, embed it safely, stop spam, and know exactly when to upgrade.
Updated 2026-10-07
Let customers book you online without another monthly bill
Set up Cal.com for one person, protect your calendar with buffers and rules, and upgrade only when team routing becomes necessary.
Updated 2026-10-04
When you actually need e-commerce (and the cheap way to take payments)
Shopify is excellent and often unnecessary. The honest ladder: payment links, then buy buttons, then a real store — each step only when the previous one hurts.
Updated 2026-10-07
Take online payments without building an online store
Choose Square or Stripe Payment Links, test the complete payment flow, and understand Canadian and US fees before building a store.
Updated 2026-10-07
From enquiry to quote to invoice to payment, without five separate apps
Keep scope, approvals, invoices, and payment records connected with a simple workflow you can hand to your bookkeeper.
Updated 2026-10-04
A customer disputed your payment: what to do next
Confirm the notice, record the processor's deadline, choose the right response, and organize relevant evidence for Canadian and US card disputes.
Updated 2026-10-04
Everyday tools
Use practical tools for QR codes, a business phone number, and your everyday work.
QR codes without the subscription
Make a permanent QR code for your business without renting it, then keep control of where it points.
Updated 2026-07-28
A separate business phone number without carrying a second phone
Compare the honest free and low-cost phone routes in Canada and the US, then test ownership, porting, texting, and emergency calling.
Updated 2026-10-04
The free small-business tools stack
A practical free-first stack for invoices, design, scheduling, marketing, CRM, photos, forms, and analytics in Canada and the US.
Updated 2026-10-04
A link-in-bio page on your own domain (instead of renting one)
Build the one-page link hub that Linktree charges for, on the domain you already own, in half an hour — and never change a printed QR code again.
Updated 2026-10-07
Stage 03
Keep it cheap
Spot bad offers, control the bills, and protect the accounts that keep your business online.
Scam Watch
Recognize misleading renewal letters, sales pitches, and promises before you commit.
That domain renewal letter is not your renewal bill
How to recognize a domain-transfer solicitation, find your real registrar, and renew safely in Canada or the US.
Updated 2026-10-07
The directory sales call: Yellow Pages in Canada, Yelp in the US
Keep the useful free listing, slow down the sales call, and require the real price and cancellation terms in writing.
Updated 2026-07-28
What a website maintenance retainer really pays for
Separate legitimate website care from vague monthly billing, then decide whether your site needs a retainer at all.
Updated 2026-07-28
SEO cold calls: the red flags before you sign anything
Recognize risky search-marketing pitches, finish the free work first, and know when paid SEO is genuinely justified.
Updated 2026-10-04
Bills, renewals & recovery
Find what you pay, cancel safely, judge software deals, and recover an expired domain.
Find what you actually pay to be online, and cancel safely
Audit renewal bills, separate annual cost from cash due, and check dependencies before retiring an unwanted service.
Updated 2026-10-04
Your website is down or your domain expired: what to do in the first hour
Work out in three minutes whether it's the domain, the DNS, or the hosting; understand the expiry clock and the redemption fee; and recover without paying anyone who called you.
Updated 2026-10-07
Is a lifetime software deal actually a saving?
Check what lifetime includes, test the exit, and calculate savings only against subscriptions you will actually stop paying.
Updated 2026-10-04
Accounts & ownership
Keep account access and ownership in the right hands, back up essential data, and practise recovery.
Lock down the five accounts that can take your business offline
Secure primary email, the registrar, hosting, Google profile, and social accounts with recovery that still works.
Updated 2026-10-07
Back up your business data, then prove you can restore it
Inventory website files, customer records, email, and invoices. Separate sync from backup, protect recoverable copies, and practise recovery.
Updated 2026-10-04
Who owns your website? The handoff checklist
Collect the domain, DNS, hosting, source, analytics, payment, recovery, and billing access your business must control.
Updated 2026-10-07