The Journal

Notes on getting found, chosen & grown.

Practical, no-jargon writing on web, local SEO, AI search, and photography for Bay Area small businesses. New articles are publishing soon.

Coming soon

Local SEO

How Bay Area service businesses show up in the Google map pack

The 3 levers that actually move local rank — and the ones agencies oversell.

AI Search

Getting your business recommended by ChatGPT and AI Overviews

What llms.txt, schema, and review signals do for AI answers.

Web

Why your small-business site should be fast before it's fancy

Core Web Vitals, mobile, and the conversions hiding in load time.

Photography

Storefront & team photos that make a small business look established

A simple shot list any local business can book in an afternoon.

Want a topic covered, or have a question about your own site’s search visibility?

Ask Joey