Glad to hear that! All the usual behind the scenes complexity, but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and we're getting a lot of wonderful feedback from visitors about Whitby itself too, which is fab.

Turned out it was a dodgy #MySQL query in a cron job. It had worked fine with my staging data - but the real-world data caused issues.

A friendly reminder to test with real data, people.

And a reminder to myself to double check my MySQL queries and always presume they're badly optimised 🤓

At £19 MRR I'm not so sure, but it's a start 🤓

Also, you might get to see the most amazing views (the photo is from Simon's back door), and meet really interesting people.

#customerservice

Don't get precious about your job title. Don't pigeonhole yourself too soon. Be accommodating, flexible and customer-focussed. Be empathetic and listen well.

You never know where these connections will take you.

In these days of AI customer service bots, actually turning up at someone's house, solving their problem and making a real, human connection is worth its weight in gold.

But when I started working in IT with Dave and Phil, nearly twenty years ago, I immediately recognised the importance of a rural business actually serving the local community.

"Don't you have enough web work?"

Yes, plenty.

"Don't you find IT support boring and frustrating?"

Yes, sometimes.

A few weeks ago I installed a Ring doorbell for another retiree whose children were concerned about her wellbeing, and to avoid her having to navigate the stairs too often.

When I mention this kind of work to people who only know about my web development work they're often surprised.

In the end it was a matter of finding the right combination of capital letters and numbers in one of the many passwords which had been written down years ago. No technical wizardry there, just trial and error.

If you want to chat about customer journeys, SEO, content architecture, or some other aspect of e-commerce web development please get in touch.

#ecommerce #sales #marketing #seo

For context, on this project I'm working alongside a marketing agency, supporting their work by providing SEO and content architecture support to a B2B business within a Shopify website.

My advice to other freelancers? Read widely, understand the value your work adds to other people's businesses and demonstrate it by communicating clearly. Talk to people in different fields. Learn. Connect.

Employees? Do the same, and don't be afraid to step out of your lane from time to time.

Web developers are a vital cog in the world of e-commerce, but those who're solely focused on the nuts and bolts of development often fail to understand the impact they could have on customer journey by approaching their work differently.

On the other hand, employees sometimes have limited scope and a lack of business experience. This isn't a bad thing, but it needs managing carefully in order to ensure their potential is being maximised.

As a freelancer I've learned to connect the dots in other peoples' businesses. I understand who my clients' ideal customers are, what they are looking for and how to communicate the value offered by my clients through web design, structure and content in a way that builds trust and converts.

If you're building some software (especially as a solo founder) then let people use it as soon as you're able, and ideally real users (not just your mum). You'll smash through the bugs so much quicker.