Guides for Ottawa Business Owners
Straight answers to the questions Ottawa business owners actually ask us: what things cost, how to tell a fair quote from an inflated one, what the law requires of a Canadian business website, and what to fix first. Written to be useful whether or not you ever hire us.
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Pricing
- How much does a website cost in Ottawa in 2026?, The published prices of nine Ottawa agencies in one table, what each includes, and how to tell an inflated proposal from a fair one.
- How Much Does SEO Cost in Ottawa?, Retainer, project or consulting: what each model covers, what should be included, and how to tell whether you are being sold reporting instead of results.
- The True Cost of Digital Menu Boards, The whole bill, not the headline price: hardware, install, design, and the per-screen fee that runs forever. Plus what the same scope costs with us.
- What Website Maintenance Costs, and What It Should Include, Hosting is not maintenance. What real management covers, what it should cost, and the three questions that expose a padded plan.
- How Much Does Google Ads Cost in Ottawa?, Ad spend, management fee and cost per click are three different numbers. Which ones you control, and when not to run ads at all.
Hiring
- Ottawa web design agencies compared on published price, Nine Ottawa agencies, their published prices, what each includes, and whether hosting and ownership are part of the deal. Sources and dates on every row.
- How to Choose a Web Design Agency in Ottawa, Agency, freelancer or offshore? The contract clauses that matter, the questions to ask, and the warning signs worth walking away from.
- Twelve Questions to Ask Before You Sign, Twelve questions, what a good answer sounds like, and the evasions that should end the conversation.
Local SEO
- How to Rank in the Google Map Pack in Ottawa, The three map results sit above everything else and are decided by factors that mostly are not on your website. Here's what moves them.
- The Google Business Profile Checklist, The profile decides the map pack, and the map pack sits above everything else. Every field that matters, in priority order.
- How to Get Google Reviews, Legally, in Canada, Reviews decide the map pack. Incentives and gating can cost you the listing. Here is the line, and the ask that works without crossing it.
AI
- Can ChatGPT Actually Build Your Business Website?, What AI genuinely builds well, what it quietly gets wrong, and the specific point at which generating your own site stops being the cheaper option.
- What Is Generative Engine Optimization?, What is genuinely new, what is SEO with a new name, and what actually determines whether an assistant names your business.
- How to Get Your Business Cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity, Each assistant retrieves from a different index. Being cited means winning retrieval, consensus and extractability, in that order.
Compliance
- PIPEDA: What Your Website Actually Has to Do, Ten principles, and the handful of them a small business website actually trips over. Written for owners, not lawyers.
- CASL: Contact Forms, Newsletters and What Counts as Consent, Express consent, implied consent, and the two-year clock most businesses do not know is running. Plus what every email must carry.
- AODA and Web Accessibility for Ontario Businesses, Who must comply, what AA actually demands, and the six failures that account for most inaccessible small business sites.