Practical advice on web design, SEO, WordPress, and growing your business online. Written by Kim and Chuck from real project experience, not recycled content.
Most business websites in Iowa fail for the same handful of reasons, and none of them are mysterious. The layout buries the point. The navigation makes visitors work. The site takes six seconds to load on a phone in Marshalltown. Good web design is not decoration; it...
By Chuck Hersey, Owner & Technical Lead at Team 218 A business spends $5,000 building a WordPress site. It launches well. Six months later, it’s still fast and looking good. Nobody budgets for year-two plugin conflicts when they’re excited about launch...
By Kim Hersey, Partner & UX Lead at Team 218 Shopping for a WordPress care plan feels a lot like buying insurance. You’re comparing things you hope you never need, using terms you’re not sure mean what you think they mean, from companies whose prices...
By Chuck Hersey, Owner & Technical Lead at Team 218 Your site is showing a Google warning. Or your host suspended the account. Or a client texted you asking why your website is redirecting to a pharmacy. If your WordPress site was hacked, you’re in the right...
By Kim Hersey, Partner & UX Lead at Team 218 You opened your own website on your phone last week and watched the spinner go. You didn’t time it, but it felt long. Long enough to make you wonder what your customers think when they land on a slow WordPress...
Iowa Businesses Cited in AI Search: What They Have in Common When we run GEO audits for Iowa businesses, we query ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews with the same questions their customers ask. Some Iowa businesses appear. Most do not. The ones that appear...
GEO vs SEO: What’s Actually Different, What’s Shared, and Why Iowa Businesses Need Both Every Iowa business owner I talk to asks some version of the same question: is GEO a replacement for SEO, or is it something extra? The short answer is neither. GEO is...
How to Test If Your Iowa Business Appears in AI Search (And What to Do If It Doesn’t) The fastest way to know whether your Iowa business has a GEO problem is to ask the same questions your customers ask in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google, and see what comes...
What Is RAG, and Why Does It Determine Who Gets Cited in AI Search? When someone asks ChatGPT “who does web design in Iowa City” or asks Google’s AI Overview “best local SEO company in Des Moines,” the answer they get is not made up. It...
I Got Burned by My Last Web Designer. Now What? If dealing with your web designer feels like being at a used car lot where everyone’s smiling but nobody’s giving you a straight answer, you’re not alone. Getting burned by a bad web designer is more...
Slow WordPress website? Here’s what’s causing it: plugin bloat, cheap hosting, bad images, and why it gets worse without someone managing it.
We write about this stuff because we do it every day for Iowa businesses. If your website isn't ranking, isn't converting, or just needs help — start with a free audit.
