articles
Field notes from the studio.
Digital growth guides for trade and industrial services, importing and manufacturing guides for Australian businesses, and notes on how we design and engineer — written from practice, not from the content calendar.
digital growth
Get found. Get chosen.
SEO or Google Ads: which should a trade business fund first?
Rented clicks arrive this week; owned rankings compound. The arithmetic — and the crossing pattern.
reviewsGoogle reviews for trades: the engine that earns them honestly
Reviews decide the call before your site loads. The engine that earns them — without buying one.
paid socialFacebook and Instagram ads for trades: creating demand you can count
Search captures demand; social creates it. The boost-button trap — and ads measured in booked work.
organic socialSocial media for trades: pass the inspection, skip the theatre
The feed is an inspection, not a stage. Prove you're real, recent and good — by doing less, better.
lifecycle emailEmail for service businesses: four sends that pay, zero newsletters
Four sends that pay: follow-up, close, reminder, reactivation. Revenue already in your records.
call trackingCall tracking: how the phone finally enters the marketing report
The phone call finally enters the marketing report. Number swapping, plainly — and the consent line.
redesignsThe redesign that didn't crater: keeping rankings through a rebuild
Relaunch traffic falls for mechanical reasons. The inventory, the redirect map, the parity checks.
diy or agencyDoing your own digital marketing: when it works, when it costs you
Plenty of owners should run their own marketing. The honest split — and the mentored middle path.
vetting agenciesHow to choose a digital agency — and the flags that say walk
Guaranteed rankings, hostage accounts, reports without work. The questions that expose them early.
ai searchWhen customers ask AI instead of Google: what changes, what doesn't
Assistants answer and cite; they don't list links. What's real, what's oversold — the durable play.
local seoLocal SEO for trades: how the map decides who gets the call
The map pack takes the call. How it decides who's in it — and how to earn your place.
websitesThe trade website's one job: turn a search into an enquiry
Thirty seconds, on a phone, often on site. What the visit needs — and what quietly kills it.
paid searchGoogle Ads for trades: paying for the right clicks
Most wasted spend is structural. Fence the campaign and the budget starts buying enquiries.
measurementWhich jobs came from where? Measurement for service businesses
Attribution for phone-call businesses is hard, not hopeless. The join is the whole game.
industrial seoIndustrial SEO: ranking for buyers, not browsers
Traffic is a vanity metric when the buyer takes months. Rank for the specifying engineer.
importing guides
Import smarter.
Sea or air? The freight decision, decided properly
The cost gap is large enough to change a product's viability. Decide it with maths, not panic.
duty & ftaChAFTA in practice: the paperwork that deletes your duty
The free-trade rate isn't automatic. It's paperwork — done before the ship sails.
finding factoriesHow to find a manufacturer in China — the process that works
Fairs, marketplaces, referrals, agents — the channel matters less than the process behind it.
marketplacesImporting from Alibaba to Australia: DIY or use an agent?
The honest fork: when Alibaba alone is enough, and when it quietly isn't.
freightChoosing a freight forwarder for China–Australia shipping
The forwarder is your logistics department. Choose one like you'd hire one.
economicsWhy is it cheaper to manufacture in China — and when isn't it?
It's not labour. It's the ecosystem — and sometimes the answer is still 'make it here'.
comparisonChina vs Vietnam for manufacturing: an honest comparison
The headline says diversify. The category data says it depends — here's on what.
checklistYour first order from China: a step-by-step checklist
The whole journey in one list, each step linked to its full guide.
trade fairsThe Canton Fair, explained for Australian buyers
Which phase to attend, how to work the halls, and how contacts become a vetted shortlist.
marketplaces1688.com for Australian buyers: the honest guide
Why the prices beat Alibaba.com — and the catches that come with a domestic marketplace.
incotermsFOB, EXW and DDP in plain English
Who owns risk on each leg, and how to choose per shipment rather than by habit.
landed costWhat importing from China really costs, landed in Australia
The full anatomy of a landed cost — and the mistakes that flatter the spreadsheet.
manufacture
Make it properly.
Supplier red flags: the vetting signals that predict trouble
Most sourcing disasters announced themselves early. Here's what the announcements look like.
negotiationMOQ isn't a law: negotiating minimums with Chinese factories
Minimums move when you understand why they exist — and worry when they move too easily.
qualityHow to evaluate a factory sample, before it costs you a container
Calipers, not vibes: the checklist that turns a nice sample into a production standard.
product pathsWhite label, private label or custom: which product path?
Fast, cheap and defensible: the three paths let you pick two.
toolingTooling: what you're paying for and what you own
The most misunderstood line on the quote — and the one with an ownership clause attached.
paymentsStaged payments: the leverage structure of a China order
Payment structure is quality leverage. Spend it deliberately.
lead timesLead times from China: what's real and what's optimism
A lead time is five clocks running in sequence. Optimism only quotes one of them.
ip protectionProtecting your IP when manufacturing in China
First-to-file, NNN agreements, tooling ownership and the protections that actually work.
studio notes
How we think.
How to brief a design firm so the quote means something
A good brief isn't a spec. It's the problem, honestly told.
cost driversWhat does product design actually cost?
Numbers vary wildly because scope does. Here's what actually moves the budget.
medicalUsability evidence: designing the file, not just the device
The device and its usability file should come out of the same loop.
roboticsWhy operators trust some robots and not others
A robot earns trust the way a colleague does — by being predictable and honest.
instrumentsModernising instrument software without losing its operators
The redesign that ignores muscle memory ships a training problem.
connectedOTA updates: the feature that decides your device's lifespan
A connected device without a safe update path has a shelf life, not a lifespan.
energyDesigning energy hardware for the truck roll you won't need
Every avoided truck roll was designed in months before the product shipped.
visualizationProduct photography vs CGI: when to shoot, when to render
Shoot the truth you have. Render the truth you've engineered.
engineeringDesign for assembly: the cheapest cost reduction available
Unit cost is mostly decided in CAD, long before the negotiation.
choosing a firmTen questions to ask before hiring a design partner
Ask all ten. The pauses tell you more than the answers.
studio notesWhy good products die in handoffs
The most dangerous moment in a product program isn't a failed test. It's a file transfer.
strategyThe discovery sprint: cheap certainty before expensive tooling
Two to four weeks of structured evidence is the cheapest insurance hardware money can buy.
researchField research beats focus groups for technical products
Technical products fail in context — and context never attends a focus group.
industrial designCMF is engineering: materials that survive year three
Colour, material and finish are lifecycle engineering wearing nice clothes.
human factorsDesigning for gloved hands: beyond the percentile table
The anthropometric table says the handle fits. The double nitrile glove disagrees.
engineeringThe unglamorous distance: design freeze to first article
Programs rarely die at the concept review. They die between freeze and first article.
engineeringSimulation belongs inside the loop, not after the failure
Analysis that arrives after the review isn't engineering. It's a post-mortem with colour plots.
software & hmiDesign the fault state first: HMI for a device's worst day
Products are judged in their worst five minutes. Most interfaces are designed for the demo.
computationalGenerative design that ships starts with constraints
The hard part was never generating options. It's encoding the truth they must obey.
visualizationRender what you can build: product CGI as an honesty test
Every render is a promise someone else has to keep. Accuracy is a brand claim.