What “editorial quality” actually means for a small business website.
The phrase gets thrown around. Here's what we hold a site to before we let it ship — typography, photographs, layout, voice — and why most builders settle for less.
Themesmith
Themesmith
In this issue
A quarterly periodical from the dispatch desk — opinion, process, craft, and case studies on building, hosting, and tending small business websites at editorial quality.
The phrase gets thrown around. Here's what we hold a site to before we let it ship — typography, photographs, layout, voice — and why most builders settle for less.
The architecture is the brief. A small dental practice doesn't need a homepage — it needs a booking page, a treatments page, and a directions page. Notes on resisting the homepage default.
Stock libraries are death; phone-camera shots in the workshop are gold. A working note on getting honest imagery onto a small business site without an art-director on the line.
A quarterly editor's note. What shipped, what we're working on, what the first cohort taught us. Honest, short, with the kettle on.
The case for restoration over from-zero rebuilds — when the brief is still good, the brand is still good, the customer history is still good, and the only thing failing is the wrapper.
Project rates punish small briefs and reward bloated ones. Per-page rates are cleaner, fairer to the customer, and easier to plan around. Notes on a pricing model that rewards restraint.