Notes on brand, web and search.

Writing about the work

These articles are written for the people who commission websites rather than for other designers. Each one answers a single question in full: what a maintenance plan should contain, how to brief a logo, what has to be technically correct before a website launches, and how the two common ways of commissioning a website differ. They are the same answers we give in a first consultation, set down once so that they are available before the conversation.

New articles are published as part of the studio's own Ongoing SEO programme, which is the same service we deliver for clients: a monthly cycle of content, on-page work, technical monitoring and reporting, reviewed each quarter against objectives agreed in advance. Publishing our own work to that schedule is the most honest demonstration of it we can offer.

What we write about

Brand identity: what an identity system comprises, how a logo is briefed and developed, and how guidelines are written so that they are used rather than filed. Websites: how a project is scoped, which platform suits which business, what is handed over at the end, and the difference between a managed website and a standalone one. Search: the technical foundation a new website needs, what structured data does, and what an ongoing programme can and cannot promise. Maintenance: what a plan should include, how plans are chosen, and what a monthly report should tell the person responsible for the business.

Nothing here is a ranking promise, a growth-hacking claim or a list of tools. The articles describe how the work is actually done, including the parts that are unglamorous: redirect maps, backup restoration tests, form delivery checks and the reading of a Search Console report.

Who these are for

The reader we have in mind owns or runs a business and is responsible for its website without being a specialist in any part of it. They are deciding whether to rebuild or repair, whether a maintenance plan is worth the money, what to send a designer before a logo project, or why a new site is not being found. Those are the questions the articles answer, in the order a person actually meets them.

Each piece is written to stand alone: no prior article is assumed, terms are defined where they first appear, and every recommendation states the condition under which it holds. Where a decision genuinely depends on circumstances we cannot know, the article says so and sets out what to weigh rather than pretending to a single answer.

The studio publishes nothing that requires an email address to read, runs no pop-ups, and does not gate any of it behind a form. If an article is useful, it has done its job; if it leads to a conversation, better still.

Following the articles

New articles appear on this page and in the feed at /feed.xml, which any reader can subscribe to without an email address. We do not run a newsletter and do not add enquiries to a mailing list. If an article raises a question about your own website, the contact page is the place to ask it; we answer within one working day.

How the articles are written

Each article is planned against a group of real search queries, written to answer them completely rather than to reach a word count, and reviewed against what we would actually say to a client. Nothing is generated and left unread. Where an article describes a process the studio follows, it describes the process as it is, including the parts that are constraints rather than selling points: what a maintenance plan does not cover, what SEO cannot promise, what a standalone handover leaves the client responsible for.

Articles are revised when the underlying practice changes, and the publication date is kept accurate. If something here is out of date or wrong, writing to hello@walkupdigital.com is the fastest way to get it corrected.

Using anything here

Everything published on this page may be quoted, linked to and used as the basis of a decision without asking us first. A checklist may be taken into a meeting with another supplier; a brief template may be sent to a designer who is not us. The articles are written to be useful on their own terms, and a business that reads one, acts on it and never becomes a client has still had something of value from the studio.

What we ask in return is only accuracy: if a passage is reproduced, reproduce the condition attached to it. Most of the advice here holds because of a qualification, and an unqualified version of it is usually wrong.

New pieces appear roughly four times a month while the programme runs, and the archive stays online at its original address. Nothing is removed to make room for newer work.