Free chapters
Four chapters, free and in full
Not extracts, not a summary — the complete chapters as they appear in the guide. They are the four we are asked about most, and they are the ones that cost people money when they get them wrong.
Part one — Building the site
The legal minimum in Canada
Most small business sites are in breach of at least one of these, and the anti-spam penalties are not theoretical.
Chapter 14 · about 3 minutes
Part two — Taking payments
Tax, without guessing
The area people most want to skip, and the one with the least forgiving consequences.
Chapter 23 · about 4 minutes
Part one — Building the site
Getting mail at your own domain
An address at your own domain does more for how seriously you are taken than any design decision — and there are two ways to break it that look like nothing.
Chapter 3 · about 3 minutes
Part one — Building the site
Launch
The list to work through before you go live, including the ones people only discover they missed afterwards.
Chapter 15 · about 3 minutes
What is not here
These four are the rules. The other thirty-nine are the work.
Every chapter above tells you a rule you have to comply with. None of them helps you choose what to build on, structure your pages, write a word of your copy, wire up a checkout, or keep the thing running afterwards — which is most of the job, and what the rest of the guide is.
They are free because they are the ones worth being right about whether or not you ever buy anything from us.