Plain-English articles on the decisions that matter for small businesses online.
Written for owners, not other agencies. No jargon. No fake urgency. Just the stuff that actually works.
From the journal
How to get your business to show up in ChatGPT results.
People are asking AI assistants who to call for your type of work. The businesses showing up in those answers didn't get there by accident. Here's what they did.
StrategyFive signs your website is costing you leads.
Most business owners assume their website is neutral. If it's not actively bringing in work, at least it's not hurting anything. That assumption is usually wrong.
StrategyDo you actually need a $15,000 website?
Most owners don't. Here's the test we use to figure out whether a Foundation site or a full Growth engagement is the right call.
SEO"Near me" is the only search term that matters for local business.
Most local-SEO advice is written for national brands. Here's what actually moves the needle for a single-shingle business in a small town.
OperationsThe one tool that replaced six for a North Georgia trades shop.
How a single CRM plus a custom dashboard cut a custom millwork owner's weekly office work from 14 hours to five.. and gave him his Sundays back.
BrandWhy PDA doesn't use em-dashes.
It's a small thing. But the language a business uses is the easiest signal of whether a human or a content mill wrote it.
BrandWhat "Public Displays of Appreciation" actually means.
Why we don't call our case studies case studies.. and why every story on our portfolio page has the client, not us, at the center.
StrategyHow to know when Foundation isn't enough.
A simple checklist for when it's time to step up from a one-page site to a full Growth engagement. Spoiler: most businesses don't need to.
StrategyHow $85/month came to be.
The unit economics behind our Foundation-tier package. Not a loss leader, not a race to the bottom. Here's what it costs to run a custom site honestly.
StrategyWhy we offer a year-one results guarantee.
The PDA Guarantee says: if we don't generate qualified lead value worth what you've paid us in year one, we work for free until we do. Here's the math behind it.
OperationsWhen NOT to automate something.
Most workflow tools sell you on "if you can describe it, you can automate it." The honest version: if it doesn't already work manually, don't automate it.
SEOWhat AI search means for a one-truck business.
ChatGPT and Google's AI overviews are quietly rewriting how customers find local businesses. The good news: most of what you should do is the same.
Our mantras
Understand the business first, build second.
Build-first agencies sell you what they already know how to make. We start with who you actually are.
Mantra 02Honesty over hype.
Sometimes that means telling you the thing you were about to buy is a waste of money.
Mantra 03Slow down to go further.
Businesses that try to do everything at once usually end up redoing all of it.
Mantra 04Own your digital ecosystem.
Too many small businesses build their whole presence on rented land. Don't be one of them.
Mantra 05Start small, scale selectively.
Prove the small thing works. Then scale only the parts that earned it.
Mantra 06Sustainable systems over quick wins.
A quick win that locks you into a dying platform isn't a win. It's a debt with a delayed due date.