#001
Using AI to plan a homepage content structure
I wanted to map out a homepage for a local trade business. Here's how a back-and-forth with Claude shaped the final layout — and where I pushed back on the suggestions.
Conversations
with AI
Real sessions from the design and development workflow — not polished outputs, but the actual back-and-forth that shaped decisions, caught mistakes, and occasionally surfaced something genuinely useful.
Featured session
You
I need to plan a homepage for a sole-trader plumber in Southport. The main goals are trust, local visibility, and getting the phone ringing. Where do I start?
Claude
Good starting point. For a sole-trader service business, the homepage hierarchy should prioritise three things in order: (1) immediate credibility — who you are, where you work, that you're contactable; (2) the specific problem you solve — not "plumbing services" but the urgent language a customer uses at 7pm; (3) a frictionless next step — a phone number that's always visible, ideally sticky on mobile.
For layout, I'd suggest: a hero with a strong headline + phone CTA above the fold, a trust bar (years experience, local area, response time), then a short services list, a social proof section, and a simple contact form.
For layout, I'd suggest: a hero with a strong headline + phone CTA above the fold, a trust bar (years experience, local area, response time), then a short services list, a social proof section, and a simple contact form.
You
The 'urgent language' point is interesting. Can you give me examples of how a customer might actually phrase the problem vs how a plumber would describe their service?
Claude
The gap is usually significant. A plumber might write: "Emergency plumbing services, boiler installation and repair, bathroom fitting."
A customer searching at 9pm might type: "boiler broken no heating Southport" or "leak under sink can't turn off water" or just "emergency plumber near me".
The trick is to lead with the customer's language in the headline and then support it with your service terminology — not the other way around.
A customer searching at 9pm might type: "boiler broken no heating Southport" or "leak under sink can't turn off water" or just "emergency plumber near me".
The trick is to lead with the customer's language in the headline and then support it with your service terminology — not the other way around.
All sessions
#002
Debugging a CSS animation that was killing CWV
A layout shift caused by a hero animation was wrecking the CLS score. Walked through the issue with AI and found the root cause faster than I expected.
#003
Writing local landing page copy that doesn't feel spammy
Location pages are a known SEO pain point. This conversation explored how to write for Southport and the North West without sounding like keyword soup.
#004
Reviewing a client brief before the first call
I fed a project brief into an AI session to surface assumptions, gaps, and questions I hadn't thought to ask. Changed how I run discovery calls.
#005
Is AI-generated copy actually usable on client sites?
A longer exploration of where AI draft copy lands — what needs heavy editing, what's surprisingly usable, and where it actively makes things worse.
// CONTENT PLACEHOLDER — Add your own AI conversations here. Each entry can link to a longer write-up, a downloadable transcript, or an embedded chat viewer.
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