YLWWeb Growth
Journal

What we learn, written down.

Notes on what actually moves a small business, from someone who runs them. Pricing, email, growth, and the things we tell every owner who asks.

Original research Half of Kelowna business websites give you no way to get in touch We audited 267 of them in August 2026. Here is what is actually broken, and which fixes are worth your afternoon. 6 min read Search and AI How a Kelowna business gets named when someone asks AI People ask an assistant for a recommendation now instead of scrolling results. Here is what actually decides whether it says your name. 5 min read Pricing What a website should actually cost in Kelowna We checked 26 Okanagan agencies. Sixteen publish no pricing at all. Here are the real numbers so you can judge a quote. 5 min read Local search The free thing most Kelowna businesses are wasting Your Google Business Profile does more work than your website on a lot of days. Most owners set it up once in 2019 and never opened it again. 6 min read Local business What Kelowna businesses actually do between October and April Summer pays the bills here. The other seven months decide whether you are still open. Some notes on the quiet half of the year. 6 min read Reputation A one star review just landed. Here is what to do in the next hour 88% of people avoid a business after negative reviews. Only about 5% of businesses ever reply. That gap is the opportunity. 5 min read Automation The jobs a small business should automate first, and the ones to leave alone Most automation advice is written by people selling software. Here is the order I would actually do it in, and where I would stop. 6 min read Money What a Kelowna small business should actually spend on marketing The honest answer is a percentage, and then a much more useful question about where it goes. 5 min read Email One email in my business earns $32 a send. Most earn thirty cents. The difference is not the writing. It is who gets it, and when. 4 min read Hard truths Businesses rarely fail because the product was bad I have watched a few go under. It is almost always one of three things, and all three are visible months ahead. 4 min read Growth Growth makes every problem in your business bigger Five things worth fixing before you spend a dollar trying to get more customers. 4 min read Profit You are probably charging too little, and your customers can tell A ten percent price rise does more for your profit than ten percent more customers. Here is the arithmetic, and the part that scares people. 4 min read Numbers The number most owners never work out, and what it changes How many of your customers come back. It decides what you can afford to spend getting the next one. 4 min read AI I use AI every day in my businesses. None of it looks like the ads. The parts that actually save time are boring. The parts being sold to you are mostly not. 4 min read

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