The Boostable blog
What we have actually learned.
Websites, SEO, local SEO, Square and WooCommerce. Written from what we have actually built for Australian businesses, and what the numbers did afterwards.
E-commerce · Latest
WooCommerce Cart Abandonment: How to Make Your Store Easy and Fast to Shop
WooCommerce cart abandonment starts with friction. Here is what makes a store easy and fast to shop on a phone, from Continue shopping to checkout to the emails that follow.
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18 Oct 2026
E-commerce
WooCommerce Square Sync: Keep Stock, Prices and Counter Sales in Step
WooCommerce Square sync done properly: stock, prices and counter sales stay in step, wholesale and member prices show to the right people, and promotions go out from one place.
17 Oct 2026
E-commerce
WooCommerce Pay by Invoice: How a Bank Transfer Order Reaches Square
WooCommerce pay by invoice, done properly: the invoice is created in Square, the order number is the reference, and the order updates when it's paid.
16 Oct 2026
Reviews
Can You Remove a Google Review? What Google Will and Won't Take Down
What actually gets a Google review removed: Google's real policy, how to report one, when a solicitor's letter can help, and why more real reviews beat chasing the odd bad one.
17 Sept 2026
E-commerce
What Are Square's Fees in Australia? Every Charge, in Plain Numbers
Square fees in Australia, explained with dollars: 1.6% in person, 2.2% online, what a $100 sale costs you, the hardware prices, the software plans, refunds, GST, and what changes when card surcharges end on 1 October 2026.
16 Sept 2026
SEO
Local SEO Checklist for Australian Small Business: Ten Things, in the Order That Pays
A local SEO checklist for Australian small business, in priority order. Ten free things, from verifying the profile to a page per suburb, each with Google's own rule behind it and a note on what it moves. Most of your competitors have done three of them.
30 June 2026
Marketing
Google Merchant Centre: Get Your Stock Found on Google for Free
Your stock list already exists in your POS. Google Merchant Centre puts it in front of people searching Google, Maps and the Shopping tab, for free. Here is how an Australian shop exports it, cleans it and gets it live, with click and collect on the end.
18 May 2026
Local SEO
Google Business Profile Optimisation: The Complete Guide to Ranking on Google Maps
Google Business Profile optimisation, field by field. Most profiles we audit are a third complete. This is the exact process we use to take a local business from invisible on Google Maps to the top three, with Google's own rules for every step.
21 Dec 2025
Local SEO
How to Get Google Reviews: The System That Took Fridges R Us From Zero to 740 in 18 Months
How to get Google reviews without begging or bribing. The card-and-text system that took a Sydney fridge repairer from no profile to 740 reviews in 18 months (831 today), what it did for three other trades, and Google's own rules on asking.
15 Dec 2025
Local SEO
Why Is My Business Not Showing on Google Maps? The Back-Room Fields Nobody Fills
Why is my business not showing on Google Maps? Nine times out of ten, half the profile is empty: categories, services, service areas, descriptions. Google reads those fields to decide if you're in the running. Here's what it reads, in Google's own words, and how to fill it.
24 Nov 2025
Local SEO
How to Respond to Google Reviews: Stop Putting Out Fires
How to respond to Google reviews so a bad one never looks like a crisis. Reply to every review, two sentences, one detail, and the fake one reads like another Tuesday. Google's own reply rules, the research on what replying does to ratings, and the words to use.
10 Nov 2025
Local SEO
How to Build Customer Trust Online: Say What You Know
Customers and Google trust the business that explains the job. Twenty years of trade knowledge in your head is worth nothing on a website that says 'quality service'. Here is how to build customer trust online by getting what you know onto the page, without writing a word.
7 Nov 2025
Local SEO
How to Ask for Google Reviews: Why Most Review Strategies Miss the Point
How to ask for Google reviews without a funnel, an app or a bribe. Most small businesses never ask at all. The moment to ask, the words to use, which reviews do which job, and Google's own rules on what you can and can't offer.
30 Sept 2025
Local SEO
Why Your Content Strategy Is Backwards
Trend posts are rent. Evergreen pages are an asset. The lead that cost you money this year costs nothing by year two, if you stop chasing the algorithm and start building something that lasts.
25 Sept 2025
Local SEO
How to Write About Your Business So Customers (and Google) Can Find Your Expertise
How to write about your business when twenty years on the tools counts for nothing online. Replace fluff with specifics, name the suburbs, put the three things on the first screen, and prompt reviews that say what you actually did. Google's own content guidance quoted throughout.
19 Sept 2025
Local SEO
SEO for Tree Services: What One Page Did for G&J Tree Services in Wangaratta
SEO for tree services, shown on a real business. What we built for G&J Tree Services in Wangaratta in 2025, where they show on Google today (checked September 2026, positions included), and what a single page could and couldn't do.
9 July 2025
Google Ads
Google Ads for Small Business: Why Video Beats Still Images, and How to Make One This Week
Google Ads for small business works better with a real video in it. Google's own rules on where it shows, what happens when you don't upload one, the 15-second structure that works, and how to film it on a phone.
20 Oct 2024
Web Design
Small Business Website Tips: 8 Plain Things That Make You Stand Out Online
Small business website tips that actually move the needle. A name people remember, a site built for the phone, real reviews, plain words, real photos, a clear next step, an obvious menu and the customer's own language. Google's own rules for each, and the order to fix them in.
11 Oct 2023
Web Design
SEO for Tradies: How Star Building Inspections Hit Page One
SEO for tradies, shown on a real business. A Hoppers Crossing building inspector went from a brand-new name with no online presence to page one of Google, then 4.7x the clicks when the content engine went on. Here is exactly what was built and why it worked.
30 May 2023
SEO
Google Reviews for Business: How They Actually Drive Sales
Google reviews for business do two jobs: they lift your Google Maps listing, and they make the phone ring. Here is exactly how each one works for an Australian small business, with the numbers, and the simplest way to get more of them without asking.
8 Dec 2022
SEO
How to Choose an SEO Agency Without Getting Rolled
How to choose an SEO agency, using Google's own advice on hiring one. The four red flags, the questions Google says to ask, what proper SEO costs a small business in Australia, and what you must own when you leave.
13 May 2022
SEO
Digital Marketing - 4 Reasons Why You Should Care
Digital marketing involves a variety of different techniques that are used to get the attention of people who might be interested in what you have to offer
13 May 2022
Local SEO
Service Area Business on Google: List Your Suburbs and Get Found
A service area business has no shopfront for Google to put on the map, so it ranks on what you tell it. Name every suburb on your website, match them in your Business Profile, and Google can finally show you to the customers two suburbs over. Here is how, and the mistakes that get you ignored.
15 June 2021
Local SEO
Google Business Posts: 10 Minutes a Week Gets Leads
Ten minutes a week. One real job photo. A call-now button. Your Google Business Profile looks alive while competitors look dead, and the leads follow.
28 Apr 2021
Web Design
Why Your Website Emails Are Quietly Going to Spam
WordPress sends email raw. Gmail and Apple now drop raw email. Fix with Postmark and three DNS records in fifteen minutes. Stop the letterbox dropping half your mail.
29 Mar 2021
Content
Using WordPress User Levels Toward Better Teamwork
Have you ever noticed that in the user section of your WordPress website different users have Different levels? The reason for that is so that you can get
12 Mar 2021
Local SEO
Local SEO for Small Business: How to Actually Get on Google Page One
Local SEO for small business comes down to three levers: a complete Google Business Profile, a steady stream of real reviews, and a website that names the same suburbs. Google's own rules for each, the order to do them in, and a realistic timeline.
24 Feb 2021
Local SEO
Check Your Google My Business Listing: Nine Things That Break Quietly
Wrong hours. An old phone number. A permanently closed label planted by a stranger. Your Google My Business listing changes without you, and most are broken in at least one way. Here is the ten-minute check, what to fix, and how to stop it happening again.
7 Nov 2020
SEO
What's Your Backup Plan?
Business owners sometimes ask for advice on Facebook when their sites get hacked. It's painful seeing someone tell them "Just revert to backup".
5 Nov 2020
Google Ads
Don't Lose Money on Google Ads Default Settings
The seven Google Ads defaults that bleed small businesses dry: Broad Match, search partners, display network opt-in. A twenty-minute fix worth thousands a month.
4 Nov 2020
Web Design
Is My Website Working? The Bar-Stool Test for Small Business Websites
Is my website working, or just sitting there looking nice? The bar-stool test: count the strangers who rang or filled in the form in the last 90 days. Then the five things a working site does, why most fail, and what to fix first, with Google's own numbers.
21 Oct 2020
Content
Why You Need a Content Manager
If you want people to find you online, then you need content for your website that is useful, educational or entertaining to your customers, on topics that
21 Oct 2020
Web Design
Why Where You Host Your Website Matters More Than You Think
Most slow Aussie websites are slow because the server sits in Phoenix. Server in Sydney: 0.6 seconds. Server in Dallas: 4.1 seconds. Same website. Same code.
12 Mar 2019
Web Design
How to Speed Up a Slow WordPress Website Without Paying a Dev
Ten minutes with a free plugin does most of what agencies charge two grand for. Tick the right boxes, test before and after, ship it today. Autoptimize walkthrough.
25 Feb 2019
Web Design
How Fast Does Your Website Need to Be? (Honest Answer)
Under 2 seconds on mobile is the bar. Under 0.5 is the margin. Slow doesn't lose one sale. It loses the next three because mates talk. Real 2026 numbers.
12 Feb 2019
Content
Never Forget Your Video Lines Again
Video is an excellent way to make things more interesting for your customers. It also makes for better SEO, by giving you more chances to be found, since v
1 Feb 2019
Web Design
8 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Web Designer
The questions the salesman hopes you won't ask: hosting location, who owns the domain, backup retention, post-launch plan, real client numbers. Ask before you sign.
24 Sept 2018
Content
Business Blogging Without the Typing: Talk It, Tidy It, Post It
Business blogging for people who hate writing. Dictate the story of a job into your phone, tidy it, add a photo, post it with your name on it. Why Google rewards it however it's produced, what to talk about, and the twenty-minute routine.
4 July 2016
Marketing
Increase Leads Per Dollar With a Landing Page
Who Uses Landing Pages It is most ideal to be receiving unpaid up traffic sources to your website. Say for example, when people find your site in the Googl
12 June 2016
Content
How to Save and Use Your Best Ideas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD5u8PXGYRg It can be hard to think of new topics to write about. It is vital, therefore, that when you do get a good idea,
3 June 2016
Automation
Save Time with Business Automation
You create value for the customers who use your business by doing the things you are good at, better than others. And they will pay you to do these for the
2 June 2016
Web Design
Systems Working? Vital Site Checks
No system is perfect. Things can and do go wrong. You can fix breaks and mistakes of course, and everything will be fine again. But to fix problems, you mu
1 June 2016
Web Design
Who REALLY Controls Your Site?
As a business owner, it's very important that you make sure your IT infrastructure will keep running, no matter what. Even though in a regular business sce
31 May 2016
Local SEO
How Customers Actually Find a Local Business in 2026
The thirty-second journey from tap to dial. Three slots in the Maps box. Voice search and AI now in the mix. Where a local customer actually looks in 2026.
29 May 2014
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