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Lisa Freeman

Lisa Freeman

Lisa Freeman is a web strategist, founder of 18a and fractional Technical Director.

She started her career over 20 years ago as a coder and now is primarily a “communication bridge” between developers (or tools) and clients, explaining complicated web decisions in easy to understand ways.

Join her weekly newsletter to stay up to date with her latest web explainer blog posts and helpful tips for understanding your website.

Articles by Lisa Freeman

browser network tab

How do you find the third-party scripts slowing your website down?

Long forgotten scripts and plugins being served from other websites can slow your site down without you knowing. This is how you fix that.

Website speed performance optimisation

How do you speed up a website that’s weighed down by big images and video?

What you actually need to know and do to make your images more suitable for your website.

Feed the machine - SEO for restaurant chains

E-E-A-T for restaurants: how do you show Google (and AI) you’re worth recommending?

If you’ve spent any time in SEO conversations, you’ve probably come across the term E-E-A-T. It stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness – and it’s basically the framework Google uses to decide whether your website content deserves to be put in front of people. And increasingly, it’s what AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity […]

ChatGPT ads

ChatGPT ads: What we know 3 months on (May 2026 update)

I wrote about ChatGPT ads just as they were beginning to surface 3 months ago - here's what we know now.

Google Core Updates March 2026

What Google’s March 2026 core update actually means for your website

Google is getting better at telling the difference between content that was created because it's genuinely useful, and content that exists purely to rank. And it is much less tolerant of the latter than it used to be.

Structuring your emails for AI

AI is reading your emails first

AI now sits between you and your newsletter subscribers. Here's how to make sure AI passes the message on...

Google reviews - the rules have changed

Google’s updated review rules: what you need to know (and what to do about it)

If you’ve been asking customers for Google reviews – and you absolutely should be – there are some updated rules from Google that are worth knowing about. Nothing too scary, but a few things that might make you rethink how you’re asking. Let me walk you through what’s changed, share a couple of bits that […]

Google search console

5 really useful things you can do with Google Search Console data

There's an enormous opportunity with Google Search Console to really get the best results from things that are very nearly working for you already.

Why we built SiteVitals at exactly the right moment – and what smart investors are confirming about that.

I watched a reel recently where Charlie Weavers-Wright, a venture capitalist, was explaining why investors have stopped chasing AI application layer startups. What he said mapped almost perfectly onto the thing we’ve spent the last few months building. The LLM wrapper problem The argument he was making is this: the tools that do little more […]

Is your website actually yours?

Over the past decade, hosted platforms like Shopify and Squarespace have become incredibly popular. They’ve made it possible for almost anyone to launch a website or an online store without needing to understand servers or code. That convenience has been transformative. Designers can build and sell websites more easily, small businesses can launch stores in […]

API vs MCP

API vs MCP – what’s the difference and when would you use each?

If you’ve been spending any time in the world of AI tools lately, you’ve probably started hearing the term MCP being thrown around. And if you already know what an API is, you might be wondering how MCP is any different – or whether it’s just a fancy new word for the same thing. It’s […]

Do you need to be polite to AI?

How much does AI actually cost – and should you say please?

Someone asked me this week how much AI tokens cost. And the honest answer is: it depends. Which I know is a frustrating answer, but bear with me - it's actually quite interesting once you understand what's going on under the hood.