Practical guides on web development, SEO, and AEO/GEO

Custom web development means designing and building a website or web app from source code on a framework like React, rather than assembling one from a template builder (Wix, Squarespace) or a CMS theme (WordPress, Webflow, Shopify). It gives full control over performance, structure, and functionality, at the cost of a longer build and higher upfront investment than a template.

WordPress suits content-heavy sites that need frequent blog publishing. Webflow suits marketing sites that need a fast, visually-built launch. Shopify suits standard product catalogues that don't need bespoke logic. Custom development suits businesses that need specific functionality, are planning to scale, or want a codebase they fully own rather than one tied to a platform's fees and constraints.

A custom marketing or corporate website typically takes 4-8 weeks from kickoff to launch. A custom web app or e-commerce storefront with integrations typically takes 8-16 weeks. Timeline depends far more on how much content and review is needed than on the raw number of pages.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the practice of structuring a website and its content so search engines can crawl, understand, and rank it for relevant queries. It has three practical layers: technical SEO (can the site be crawled and rendered fast), on-page SEO (does each page clearly target a topic with the right metadata and content), and local SEO (does the business show up for near-me and city-specific searches).

An SEO audit is a structured review of a website's crawlability, on-page signals, content, and technical health to find what is blocking search visibility. A useful audit produces a prioritized list of fixes, not just a score. Ours checks status codes, canonical accuracy, title and description length and duplication, schema validity, sitemap correctness, and Core Web Vitals across every indexed URL.

Core Web Vitals are three metrics Google uses to measure real-world page experience: LCP (Largest Contentful Paint — how fast the main content loads), CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift — how much the page jumps around while loading), and INP (Interaction to Next Paint — how quickly the page responds to a click or tap). Google's 'good' thresholds are LCP under 2.5s, CLS under 0.1, and INP under 200ms.

AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is the practice of structuring content so AI-powered answer tools — like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and voice assistants — can extract a clear, direct answer from it. In practice, it means leading with a concise answer, usually 40-100 words, immediately under a heading, before the supporting detail follows.

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the practice of structuring content so it is more likely to be surfaced and cited inside AI-generated answers, such as Google's AI Overviews or Perplexity's generated summaries. It overlaps heavily with AEO but focuses specifically on generative, multi-source summaries rather than single, direct-answer responses.

SEO optimizes for ranking in traditional search results. AEO optimizes for being the direct answer an AI assistant reads out or quotes. GEO optimizes for being cited inside a generative, multi-source AI summary. They aren't competing strategies — the same well-structured, factual content tends to perform across all three, because all three ultimately reward clear, trustworthy, well-organized information.