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Guides, insights and templates for growing businesses.

Practical, researched material on websites, search, advertising, online stores, analytics and business workflows. Written by the MarketAlong team, with sources listed on every article.

Plan with a checklist, then decide with confidence.

New guides are reviewed before publication. Meanwhile, tell us what you want to improve and we will reply with practical next steps.

Start from the service you are planning

Planning checklists

Short lists we use when scoping work. Use them to brief any provider, not only us.

Briefing a website project: eight things to decide first

Answer these before you ask anyone for a quote, and every quote you receive will be comparable.

  1. Who the site is for, and the one action you want visitors to take
  2. The pages a buyer needs to read before they enquire
  3. Who writes the copy and who approves it
  4. The platform: WordPress, Shopify, WooCommerce or a custom build
  5. Which forms, tools and systems the site must connect to
  6. Which accounts you will own: domain, hosting, analytics
  7. The launch date, and what must be ready by then
  8. Who looks after the site once it is live
Website Development

What a useful SEO audit includes

A score out of 100 is not an audit. Ask for these, whoever does the work.

  1. A check of every page Google can find, not a sample
  2. Data from Google Search Console, Google's free report on your website
  3. Findings tied to specific pages you can look at
  4. An order of fixes, most important first
  5. What needs a developer and what does not
  6. A second check after the fixes, showing what changed
SEO & Organic Growth

Questions to ask any ad agency, including us

Five answers tell you most of what you need to know before you hand over a budget.

  1. Are the ad accounts set up in our name?
  2. Is advertising spend separate from your fee?
  3. What counts as a qualified lead, and who decides?
  4. How do you check that every enquiry is counted before money is spent?
  5. What is the notice period if we want to stop?
Performance Marketing

Before you automate a workflow

Automation fixes a process you understand. These steps make sure you do.

  1. Write down the steps as they happen today, including the workarounds
  2. Mark every point where a person must approve
  3. List the systems that hold the data each step needs
  4. Decide what should happen when a step fails
  5. Start with one workflow, then measure the time it saves before adding more
AI Automation & Business Apps

Six checks before you trust your marketing numbers

If any of these fail, fix the measurement before you act on the reports.

  1. Each enquiry is counted once, not twice
  2. Thank-you pages are not counted as places people arrive
  3. Your ad platforms and Google Analytics count results the same way
  4. Your own team's visits are left out
  5. Your cookie settings match how tracking is actually set up
  6. Someone on your team can read the report without help
Performance Marketing

Before you brief a designer: six things to have ready

A clear brief saves rounds of revisions, whoever designs your brand or documents.

  1. Who the brand must appeal to, in one sentence
  2. Three businesses whose look you admire, and why
  3. Where the design will appear: website, documents, signage, social media
  4. What must stay, such as a colour or symbol customers already recognise
  5. Who approves the design, and by when
  6. Which files you need at the end: print, screen and editable source files
Branding & Creative Design

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Tell us what you want to improve. We reply with a recommended scope and a quotation.

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