Website & Growth
Website and growth decisions
How to budget for a website, what a monthly fee should cover, who should own what, and how to decide between buying a site and subscribing to one.
7 guides
What WCAG 2.1 AA actually requires, and why it matters for your website
An educational walkthrough of WCAG 2.1 AA, what the ADA does and doesn't say about business websites, and how to judge a vendor's accessibility claims. Not legal advice, and no compliance is ever guaranteed.
9 min read
What you own, and what transfers, on a website subscription
Website as a service means a monthly membership instead of a one-time build. Here is what you own throughout, how a transferable website works after the fact, and a fair comparison to buying a site outright.
6 min read
What a website management fee should cover
Website upkeep, a maintenance plan, and a managed growth membership are three different things at three different price points. Here's a plain scope comparison, the real Summit prices, and the questions worth asking any provider.
7 min read
Agency, in-house, or hybrid: how to decide who runs your marketing
A fair comparison of hiring in-house, contracting an agency, and a hybrid model, covering the real cost of each, how capability breadth differs from capacity, and the questions worth asking before committing to any of them.
6 min read
The website security basics every small business should fix first
Most attacks on small business websites are automated bots looking for the easy target, not a determined hacker. HTTPS, multi-factor authentication and tested backups close off the majority of that risk, in that order.
8 min read
How to set a marketing budget for your small business
A practical process for setting a marketing budget: start from what growth you need, check it against margin, allocate it across channels on purpose, and revisit it every quarter instead of guessing at a single percentage.
8 min read
How to read an SEO quote without guessing at price benchmarks
SEO pricing varies too widely by scope to reduce to a single number. Here's how to judge what a quote is actually buying, what genuinely changes the cost, and how to compare two proposals that look nothing alike.
8 min read