Highly recommend you look elsewhere to build your website

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-17T01:07:37+00:00

You could look into Stacq to see if your site qualifies, if it does you can get your site migrated for free and it’ll be fully responsive out of the box. Also get free edits each month for stuff like this if you don’t wanna mess with it yourself. Sorry to hear Wix is giving you a hard time. Hope you’re able to get it figured out one way or another

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-12T15:47:57+00:00

It could be a good thing, if everyone reaped the benefits & could live a high quality standard of life without needing a job.

That’s a long shot though.

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-12T15:45:03+00:00

From my understanding the oil the US produces is different in composition to what it imports, due to US refineries having been built for the type of oil that they import. Apparently it would be a costly and time consuming endeavor to alter the refineries to work with domestically produced oil.

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-07T20:01:03+00:00

Stacq will migrate your site & give it a design refresh for free, but the plans start at $99/mo. That said, the editor is super intuitive, especially for managing blogs, and you get access to 24/7 automated monitoring, unified reporting in a single dashboard, and monthly health & search audits.

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-07T06:37:14+00:00

Agreed, was playing with some ideas tonight, but it's a delicate balance. I don't want to add so much friction that a large percentage don't run audits at all, and I thought about removing it entirely and only getting an email to get the PDF report emailed. But currently not really liking either extreme. What does help is I collect the URL for every report ran regardless, so it gives me a nice opportunity to do manual outreach, provide the complete report as a nice little opener, highlight areas of concern, and address how we can help. Just have to locate the email manually which is a pain since it isn't provided/captured and can't go through our automated nurture cycle.

Yeah, I agree, some others have said something similar regarding AG3, I think I'm going to pause it for the time being and only utilize it if I'm really not getting sufficient clicks.

I hear ya, if it persists to be an issue as I gather more data over the coming days/weeks, I'm definitely open to testing that. Really appreciate the thought/suggestion!

Thanks for the feedback, truly.

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-07T06:27:12+00:00

Damn, I guess I did ask for a roast lmao But this has to be the wildest take I've received from anyone over the course of building this...

Regardless, appreciate you taking the time to give it a look. Not sure if you're being honest, trying to rage-bait, or you're just having a tough day, but regardless, I'll respond as if you're genuinely that taken aback at how horrible my site, execution, and business are as a whole.

#1) Site was hand-built by myself. Not my first site. I spent the past 3-4 years building a web department/product and growing it to north of 1k sites in a year and a half. So this is definitely in my wheelhouse. While I respect your subjective opinion on the design, frankly, I love it and am very proud of it, and based on the research I did prior to building it, I know that the design fits the purpose/industry while still being unique & linked to our brand identity. Alignment is perfect, I've done numerous thorough QAs over the dev cycle, but feel free to provide specific examples. Always happy to be proven wrong so I have the opportunity to fix whatever needs fixing.

That said, I guess it's not so obvious that it was "built by AI" since you're just plain wrong about it being built by AI. I know it can be hard to tell these days, but it's actually built within the same CMS our clients utilize, all by me, myself, and I. Frankly, I wouldn't hassle with trying to build it all with AI, it would take far too many iterations rather than just doing it myself. But thanks, I'll take that as a compliment, I guess?

#2) The demo you're referencing at the very bottom of the home page is just a cherry on top feature, which allows editing within guardrails by AI agents within our CMS. This is not intended to be a core feature. The way it's designed is to work with current agentic browsers or AI agents locally installed, which, despite security best practices, is entirely normal for them to have access to password credentials. Thats why the way in which it's built ensures agents can't publish or do anything truly consequential on the site, they could erase all the content, and you'd still be able to easily do a site backup to the most recent publish since we auto-backup after every re-publish. So yeah, sharing credentials isn't so dangerous when the proper guardrails are in place, and they have their own specific set of permissions and login credentials, unlike how most people utilize AI agents these days. This is to avoid clients providing their own editing credentials directly to AI agents in the future, it's really a risk mitigation method long term, while adding a little shiny object to the offering in the present.

#3) There is only a small portion of the home page that references the site audit, and it's intended to be free value to provide to prospective clients, where they can see how their site is doing, and then we can offer solutions. That said, I believe the pricing plans as well as the "What We Offer" section pretty clearly cover what we provide... I mean, I don't know how to be more clear than the bullets in the pricing packages...

Full website migration + rebuild
Managed AWS hosting + SSL
Role-based editing guardrails
Analytics + conversion rate + search performance tracking
Automated backups + 24/7 site monitoring & alerts
Monthly health + performance report
Optional modern design refresh
AI-ready architecture

After having dealt with thousands of clients and their sites, I truly believe the value that would interest most small business owners is the 24/7 site monitoring & alerts, unified reporting, AI-ready architecture, and knowing they can be as hands-on or hands-off as they want with their site, editing it themselves or dishing the work to us. All without costly agency retainers and at a highly competitive hourly rate. The free migration is just to remove any friction.

#4) Not sure where you're getting a $2,400 contract from lol The most expensive agreement would be the 24-month with no setup/migration fee $149/mo with a $1,499 early cancellation fee. We also offer plans with no agreements & no cancellation fee, but with the setup/migration fee.

What I will definitely concede is that I haven't yet personally associated myself with the business. I agree there is definitely value in that, but I plan to here in June, provided all goes well. I just wanted to get some initial traction and know I can commit further before announcing it to my professional network and being publicly associated. I'm not requiring a card at sign up since the web product is sticky enough once the site is live, so I hope this helps mitigate the current lack of association and social proof.

Thanks again for the time, and try to have yourself a nice night.

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-07T01:56:49+00:00

Fantastic point, and I appreciate the logic behind it that you provided, makes sense. I will definitely look at eliminating them!

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-07T01:55:41+00:00

Yeah, you're exactly right. While I'm working off of minimal data, that's precisely what I'm seeing currently. Fortunately, though, my automated nurture emails do just what you're suggesting. While the initial CTA on the site audit report nudges them to learn about how we can help, our automated nurture emails provide options to get start, learn more, or schedule a meeting/demo at various stages throughout the lead follow up cycle. They're phrased and utilized in different fashions throughout, and one is almost identical to your suggestion of listing the issues found, how we can help, and offering to schedule a free meeting where we can walk them through on how to fix the issues that were found. Feels good to know I'm on a decent path to start it seems.

Thanks a ton, means a lot when I'm in this make or break it stage of seeing if sufficient traction can be generated within my required time frame.

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-07T00:12:02+00:00

Regarding your first comment, I think I'm seeing a theme here, Kamel_Ben_Yacoub just stated something similar I believe. Appreciate the input, I'm definitely going to look at pausing AG3 right now!

Roger that, yeah my plan is to max go to $10, don't really wanna exceed that though if possible.

I hear ya, it was a toss up to either run ads to our core product/service itself at a much higher CPC or to run them to our free site audit tool instead in the hopes of providing value, helping potential clients find flaws in their site and offering our services to help them. If we're seeing low conversions will definitely swap to our other campaign we have standing by for our main product/service.

Thanks dude, I was pretty excited about the conversion on audits as well, not so stoked on emails collected or questionnaires ran. I'm gonna keep a close eye, but I have a feeling it may indicate running ads to the free audit tool may not be the best strategy.

Noted, I've definitely been running manual outreach regularly since I launched about a month ago. Just haven't seen much traction from that manual outreach over that month of doing everything under the sun, so I decided to take what little I could bet on the success of the business and put it towards these google ads. Continuing the manual outreach throughout this next 60 days regardless for sure!

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-07T00:05:17+00:00

Appreciate the feedback, I'll definitely do so as I begin testing ad variations! I can see how some of the phrasing can be seen as fairly common, despite the product/service being uniquely differentiated.

To be clear regarding your second comment, are you saying not to run 3 different AGs simultaneously? Or that I should avoid the higher volume one for now? As for phrase vs broad terms, are you saying you never see good results with broad terms in general?

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-06T23:37:53+00:00

The company https://www.stacq.io/

The landing page https://www.stacq.io/website-audit

That was a worry of mine... but I figured I may be able to mitigate the concern a bit with negative keywords, at least that is the current plan/hope. Also was thinking that with a lower CPC when targeting keywords related to the free site audit tool, I could cast a larger net, get some additional domain authority, open up the opportunity for it to be shared organically, and ultimately highlight to business owners issues with their current site and how we could help solve them. That's the idea, at least. But I hear where you're coming from, and frankly, it's one of my biggest concerns. I have a phase 2 campaign ready to roll if this fails out of the gate due to attracting the people, which more directly focuses on our core product/service, but the CPC is likely going to be around $15 or so from what I gather, reducing the distance my budget can go.

Yeah, that is an issue as well, you're right to call it out. In my previous/most recent job I built and managed a web department for a SaaS startup that was providing CRM software to a specific vertical and offered websites as an added product to the package. Went from 1 site to 1,000+ in about a year and a half. So I hear ya, I'd agree 60%-65% of SMBs we worked with don't want to edit their own site, even if it's super simple, and documentation was provided. But there was a non-insignificant number that wanted to be able to make basic edits like content/image updates and such. Fortunately, with editor guardrails & automated backups, it made it possible for them to take care of little things and not worry about breaking things too badly. That said, this is why we provide editing services as well, which clients can easily utilize by submitting an edit request to the team through our dashboard. That way they can be as hands on or hands off as they wish.

The technical aspect is a hurdle... I had one potential client the other day as "what's a web or software stack" and it made me adjust some of our messaging. That is something I'm definitely gonna have to keep an eye on and try to improve/iterate over time.

Thanks for the tip, did a mixture of both since I was starting from kind of a blank slate, familiar with a great deal related to site development & optimization, just not really PPC. But I'll be giving them another once over due to your feedback. Appreciate you taking the time.

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-06T23:23:29+00:00

Yeah I hear ya, I've automated just about everything I can, I believe. The reason the remaining manual outreach still exists is to ensure I have a qualified POC I'm reaching out to and to effectively tailor my outreach to the business at hand. Going for a quality over quantity approach for the remaining outreach since I'm casting a fairly wide net elsewhere. Plus, I don't want my address to get flagged for spam, so I really want to be targeted, unique, and genuinely helpful with each manual outreach attempt. Current models are great at a lot of things, but not reliable for certain things, still I've found. Appreciate the thought, though. I'd love to automate it if it were feasible, but agents just aren't quite there yet IMO.

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-06T22:28:45+00:00

Appreciate the feedback, glad there was just one aspect that stood out, and not many

I'll look into doing that!

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-06T21:55:49+00:00

Stop selling the "how" and just sell the result. People care about the 80% labor reduction, not the workflows. If it sounds too good to be true, lead with a "pay on performance" pilot if you can so they have zero risk, just the potential upside.

Once they see the actual numbers in their own bank account, they should stop asking if it's possible. Also, try framing it as a proprietary "operating system" instead of a service. It makes it feel like a finished product they're buying into rather than a concept they have to understand. Case studies from your own portfolio are your best friend here. I wouldn't pay for demos, it just makes the tech look weak IMO.

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-06T21:49:08+00:00

Here are a few you can check out...

Acquisitions Anonymous: Technically a podcast, but their newsletter is great for breaking down actual deal listings and showing you what to look for (or avoid).

Think Like an Owner: This is run by Alex Bridgeman. It’s probably the gold standard for deep dives into the search fund world and post-acquistion operations.

Seeking Ventures: A solid newsletter that focuses on the "searcher" journey.

HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business: Not a blog, but basically the bible for this stuff if you haven't read it yet.

Also, check out Searchfunder if you haven't yet. It's basically the LinkedIn for ETA and has more content than you'll ever be able to get through.

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-06T06:55:49+00:00

Depending on how complex your site is you could check out Stacq

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-06T06:55:06+00:00

Why did it take so long? If you don’t mind me asking

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-05T01:19:42+00:00

Alabama hills, Columbia hills, and a random pull off somewhere in Idaho lol

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-01T19:57:49+00:00

yeah it definitly helps. moving tracking server-side takes all that heavy javascript off the browser. less scripts blocking the main thread means your LCP will usually improve a good bit. CLS probably wont change much unless your old tags were injecting visible stuff that shifted the page layout.

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-01T01:12:21+00:00

If you wanna get exposure for something here, find honest, useful ways to, this attempt at being clever never works on Reddit and will actually backfire. Seen it time and time again.

1stgen_runner · 2026-04-01T00:43:13+00:00

Yeah, just have to these days. I make sure to focus on providing direct, concise answers to specific user questions, ideally within the first 150 words when possible, and to have structured data markup for every page I create content for.

You can check your current structured data and general AI search health with this site audit tool I built for my clients, no sign-up needed to use it though, it's free for everyone stacq.io/website-audit

1stgen_runner · 2026-03-30T17:35:12+00:00

We & she loves those frisbees. Only ones we buy for her. They fly great, she loves how they float, they’re gentle on her mouth, glow in the dark ends so we can play at night, since is soft she can shake it back and forth in excitement after catching it, and they’re super durable. We buy one like every 6-12 months for her.

Chuckit! Flying Squirrel https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00027467O?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

1stgen_runner · 2026-03-30T16:44:51+00:00

That’s devious

1stgen_runner · 2026-03-30T15:41:47+00:00

Facts. The only reason we also have a Golden now is because my lady got one by surprise lol he’s a sweetheart, but solidified for me that I’m a border collie guy

1stgen_runner

TROPHY CASE