Resources
The web, translated
into plain English.
You're an expert in your business, not in websites, and you shouldn't need to be. Everything here is written for busy owners in hospitality, trades, salons and beauty: no jargon without a translation, no question treated as silly.
The jargon buster
Fifteen terms you'll hear.
What they actually mean.
These are the words web people say as if everyone were born knowing them. Here's each one, explained the way we'd explain it across a table.
- Domain
- Your address on the internet; ours is alur.uk. You rent it for a small yearly fee and, like a good shop location, the right one is easy to say over the phone and hard to misspell.
- Hosting
- The computer your website actually lives on, running somewhere in a data centre. If the domain is your shop's address, hosting is the rent on the building itself. Bad hosting means a slow or unreliable site.
- SSL (the padlock)
- The padlock in the browser bar. It proves the connection between your customer and your site is private. Without it, browsers mark your site as "Not secure", which is not a good first impression.
- SEO
- Search Engine Optimisation: everything done so that Google confidently recommends you when someone nearby searches for what you sell. Real, slow and worth it; there's a full plain-English guide on our blog below.
- API
- How one piece of software talks to another: the waiter carrying orders between your website and your booking system, card provider or calendar. Every card payment you take goes through one.
- CMS
- Content Management System: the dashboard that lets you change words, photos and prices on your own site without touching code, like changing the specials board without rebuilding the kitchen.
- Responsive design
- One website that automatically reshapes itself for a phone, a tablet or a big screen. Most of your visitors are on phones, so this stopped being optional years ago.
- Landing page
- A page with exactly one job, usually where an advert sends people. No menu, no distractions, and one clear action: book, call or claim the offer.
- Conversion
- The moment a visitor becomes a customer: they book, call, order or enquire. A pretty website that doesn't convert is a window display for a shop with no door.
- Call to action (CTA)
- The button or line that tells a visitor what to do next: "Book now", "Get a quote", "Call us". It sounds simple, but the difference between a clear one and a vague one shows up directly in your bookings.
- Analytics
- Counting your website's footfall: how many people visited, where they came from, and what they did. It's how you know whether the website is working, rather than guessing.
- Cache
- Keeping a ready-made copy of your pages so they load instantly: the web equivalent of prepping before service instead of cooking everything from scratch for each order.
- Backup
- A spare copy of your entire website, kept safe, so that if anything ever goes badly wrong it can be restored. You hope never to need it, exactly like insurance.
- Google Business Profile
- The free Google listing with your map pin, photos, hours and reviews. For local searches it works hand in hand with your website, and claiming and updating it is some of the best free marketing there is.
- Domain email
- Email at your own address: hello@yourbusiness.co.uk instead of a personal Gmail or Hotmail account. A small detail with a large credibility signal, and it's included when you have your own domain.
From the blog
Straight answers,
slightly longer.
Why should I get a website? An honest answer for local businesses
Word of mouth hasn't died; it has moved. Someone recommends you, and the very next thing that person does is Google you. What do they find?
Read the articleWhat is SEO? A plain-English guide
SEO is everything you do to make Google confident enough to recommend you. Here is what that means in practice, and how to judge the promises that land in your inbox.
Read the articleWhat is an API? A plain-English answer
You already use APIs every day: every card payment, every online booking, every Deliveroo order. Here's what the word actually means, in the time it takes to make a brew.
Read the articleWhy Alur.ai instead of the other web designers near me?
AI can produce a decent-looking website in an afternoon now, and some firms do exactly that: prompt in, site out, invoice sent. The problem isn't the AI. The problem is what happens when you ask for your first change.
Read the articleStart your free build
What does your build look like?
Tell us what your website needs to do and we'll design it, free. Or book a call and talk it through. No pressure, no obligation, wherever you're based in the UK. And if you're near Manchester, we're happy to meet in person.
Book a 30-minute call
UK-wide, with in-person meetings for Manchester-area clients
Tell us about your build