Safe AI for small business
Using AI Safely In A Small Business
A practical guide to where AI belongs in a small business and where it does not: what it can see, what it can do, what you type in, and what to ask first.
Blog
Writing on websites, search and safe AI
Plain-language posts by Sam, who does the work rather than sells it. 26 posts, grouped by topic.
Safe AI for small business
Where AI belongs in a small business and where it does not. Start with the guide, then follow whichever part matters to you.
Safe AI for small business
Who Is Responsible When An AI Gets It Wrong?
Where responsibility sits when a business AI makes a mistake: wrong prices, consumer rules, supplier contracts, insurance, and the controls that reduce risk.
Safe AI for small business
How To Write An AI Policy Your Team Will Actually Follow
Why AI policies fail in small businesses, why an outright ban backfires, the six questions a policy must answer, and a one-page template you can adapt.
Safe AI for small business
Can I Use AI On Customer Data?
The UK GDPR side of putting customer data through an AI tool: processor contracts, lawful basis, privacy notices, transfers and honouring deletion requests.
Safe AI for small business
Prompt Injection, Explained Without The Jargon
Prompt injection in plain language: why the indirect kind matters most, why telling the AI to ignore it fails, and four questions to put to a supplier.
Safe AI for small business
What Happens To What You Type Into An AI Tool
Where your text goes when you paste it into ChatGPT or similar, how free and business tiers differ, where UK GDPR applies, and a five-line policy to use.
Safe AI for small business
What A Chatbot Should And Should Not Be Allowed To Do On Your Website
The useful conversation about a website chatbot is about its limits. Scope, commitments, prompt injection, data access, and handing over to a person.
Getting found
How search engines and AI assistants read a business website, and the ordinary housekeeping that helps them get it right.
Getting found
I Surveyed 88 Local Businesses. Three In Four Had A Website That Was Not Doing Them Justice.
88 independent businesses around Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent surveyed: 65 had a website not doing them justice. Anonymised dataset, CC BY 4.0.
Getting found
The Copyright Notice That Says 2001
Just under a third of surveyed local websites failed on upkeep: a stale copyright year, a leftover template page or a duplicate copy. A twenty-minute check.
Getting found
The Most Common Fault Across 88 Websites Was Heading Structure
Headings are the outline search engines, AI assistants and screen readers read a page from. Four ways they drift, a five-minute check and what good looks like.
Getting found
What Happens When A Domain Quietly Expires
Sixteen of 88 surveyed businesses had no working web address while still trading. How renewals fail silently, what else stops working, and a ten-minute check.
Getting found
Getting More Out Of Your Google Business Profile
The Google Business Profile fields that decide which searches you appear in, two sections many people miss, handling reviews within the rules, and a routine.
Getting found
How To Tell Whether Your Website Is Actually Working
Deciding what your website is for, the four figures worth watching, three that mislead on small numbers, and the one question that tells you more than any.
Getting found
What AI Search Engines See When They Look At Your Website
AI assistants read a website differently from a person. A plain look at what they can and cannot pick up, and the ordinary fixes that close the gap.
Getting found
Why Your Business Details Need To Match In Every Place They Appear
Your name, address and phone number appear in more places than you think. Here is why they drift apart, why it matters, and how to bring them back into line.
Websites that earn their keep
What a small business website has to get right before anything else, and the ordinary jobs that keep it working once it is live.
Websites that earn their keep
What A Small Business Website Actually Needs
The short list a small business website has to get right: what you do, where, a contact route that works, proof, speed on a phone, and what can safely wait.
Websites that earn their keep
Contact Forms That Go Nowhere
A contact form can fail completely while looking healthy. How forms break, a ten-minute test that catches it, and why a phone number often works better.
Websites that earn their keep
What Happens When Your Web Designer Disappears
Recovering a website when the person who built it stops answering: finding who holds the domain, the routes back to control, and what can be recovered.
Websites that earn their keep
Do You Actually Own Your Website?
Four things get bundled together as “my website”: the domain, the hosting, the content and the build. Each is held differently. The question to ask about each.
Websites that earn their keep
Why Your Website Feels Slow, And What Usually Fixes It
Website speed is mostly weight, and most of the weight is images. The causes in order of impact, how to measure fairly, and six fixes to try before a rebuild.
Websites that earn their keep
Making Your Website Work For Everyone
Where the Equality Act and WCAG sit for a private UK business, the eight things that matter most, how to check your own website, and why overlays fall short.
Websites that earn their keep
Who Is Looking After Your Website After It Launches?
The eight maintenance jobs that keep a website working, the four usual answers to who does them, what to ask before paying for a care plan, and a minimum.
Game development tools
Working in Blender and Unreal Engine with AI assistance: what it actually helps with, and where it does not.
Game development tools
What AI Can Actually Do In Blender And Unreal
Leaving AI art and music aside: how an AI assistant inside Blender and Unreal Engine helps with setup, Blueprints and import checks, and where it falls short.
Game development tools
Blender And Unreal On A Modest Computer: What AI Changes And What It Does Not
AI does not lower the system requirements of Blender or Unreal Engine, but AI denoising, upscaling and scene optimisation make a mid-range computer go further.
From the studio
How this business is actually run, written up with the specifics attached rather than the adjectives.
From the studio
What I Built To Run This Business
The tools that run the admin of a one-person software business: what each does, what building rather than buying cost, and why most should do the opposite.
From the studio
From Idea To Operation: My Journey Starting A Company From The Ground Up
One month of trading written up with the specifics attached: reaching the first invoice, five clients, three things that went wrong and what each changed.