The VDT Sites Blog
Straight answers about websites.
No jargon, no fluff. Practical advice on web design, pricing, and SEO for small business owners.
What to Look For in a Good Web Designer (From Two People Who Are One)
Choosing a web designer is hard precisely because every option looks polished. Here are seven checks that cut through it, and yes, we expect to be judged by them too.
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Wix Alternatives: What Small Businesses Actually Move To
Most people looking for a Wix alternative are not shopping, they are stuck. Here is what each of the real options is actually good at, including the ones we do not sell.
How Long Does It Take to Build a Small Business Website?
Once we have your content, three to four days is realistic for a small business website. The part nobody tells you is that the timeline depends more on how fast you reply than on how fast anyone builds.
Do I Need a Website If I Already Have Instagram or Facebook?
Plenty of local businesses run entirely on a Facebook or Instagram page, and for some of them that's genuinely fine. Here is where it stops being fine, and why.
How to Get Your Site to Show Up on Google: 10 Essential Tips for Beginners
You search your own business name and your website isn't there. Before you spend a dollar on ads or SEO, here is how to find out whether Google can even see your site, and what to do next.
How Much Does a Website Cost in Canada?
One company quotes $500, another quotes $15,000. Here is what a website actually costs in Canada in 2026, in Canadian dollars, and what actually matters when you pay for one.
Why we write these
Most of what gets written about small business websites is written to sell something. The result is a lot of articles that talk around a question instead of answering it, because the honest answer would be inconvenient for whoever is publishing.
These are the questions we actually get asked, on the phone, by people running real businesses on Vancouver Island. What a website should cost. Why theirs is invisible on Google. Whether a Facebook page is genuinely enough. We answer each one the way we would answer it in a conversation, including the parts where the answer is that you probably do not need to hire anyone.
If you have a question that is not covered here, send it to us and we will answer it directly. Ask enough times and it becomes the next article. Get in touch, see what we do, or read what our clients say.