Digital Design by Helen Rawlinson

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Digital Design by Helen Rawlinson Digital Design by Helen Rawlinson. Digital and business consultancy services for small businesses.
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I love my Shopify in a Day product - it's one of my favourites because I encourage people to make a day or two of it - c...
19/10/2026

I love my Shopify in a Day product - it's one of my favourites because I encourage people to make a day or two of it - come to Edinburgh, enjoy the city, have a great lunch (we usually go to Piggs on the Royal Mile and it's wonderful if you like Spanish food!) but I do get a few questions about it so I thought I'd share here - some people ask what “Shopify in a Day” actually means - they're wondering if they'll walk away with a completely perfect website by the end of it.

The answer is maybe but probably not but that's ok and that's also not 100% the point. The day is about getting you to a solid, working version of your shop and, more importantly, helping you understand how it all works so you can actually run it yourself afterwards - this is the big win - you've got a day of seeing how it works, how to do things yourself, how to change things, edit things, update things as you go - there's so much to learn that it's a full on day but we get through a lot!!

For many small business owners there’s no point having a beautiful website if you don’t feel confident using it and this is a day all about building confidence and skills!

The Friday Lowdown on a Saturday (again!)!A lovely milestone to start with this week. The new Shopify build for a luxury...
17/10/2026

The Friday Lowdown on a Saturday (again!)!

A lovely milestone to start with this week. The new Shopify build for a luxury handmade dog collar and lead business has gone to final review and should be live within the next few weeks. We met up in person to walk through the whole site together, which was a real treat after weeks of working on it remotely. Watching a client click around their own shop for the first time is one of my favourite parts of the job, especially when they say lovely things as they click...

For a Scottish chocolate shop, I’ve been helping them approach the Christmas rush more strategically this year. That’s meant streamlining their Christmas page and festive shipping information, and planning how email flows, pre-orders and dedicated landing pages can take some pressure off the busiest weeks and answer customers’ questions before they need to ask. A big job but should make their lives so much easier for the next few months.

On my Website Care work with a memorial jewellery brand, two Christmas journal posts are now written and paired with newsletters to go out in the run up to Christmas and a bit of website caretaking going on too - creating new collections and planning new website navigation to improve customer experience (and conversion).

A brand new Shopify build has also got under way this week, which I’m looking forward to.

Outside client work, I enjoyed some online networking with new contacts and familiar faces. I also heard back from a graphic designer I’d referred to a client, and the client loved their new logo and branding. It’s always a good feeling when a recommendation works out well for everyone!

It’s my birthday on Sunday, so I’m taking some time away from the computer next week to celebrate. Woohooooo...

If a new Shopify build, a monthly Website Care plan or a day in Edinburgh getting your shop off to a solid, structured start with Shopify in a Day sounds useful, send me a message and I’ll reply once I’m back at my desk.

Have a lovely weekend, and I’ll see you on the other side of the birthday cake! :)

I see this a lot with really lovely brands. Everything looks great, the wording sounds nice, but you come away slightly ...
15/10/2026

I see this a lot with really lovely brands. Everything looks great, the wording sounds nice, but you come away slightly unsure what they actually do or offer (service based businesses are really guilty of this).

If someone can't quickly understand what you're selling or what service you provide, they're unlikely to dig around to find out. You don't need clever or memorable copy, you just need copy that's easy to understand.

Get that right first and then you can add your personality on top of it.

In fact - this post image might be a good example of what not to do - does it even tell you what it's about if you don't read the caption? Do you know what I'm talking about? Is it actually clear... I think I might need to go back and do this one again... Anyway, do as I say, not as I do...

12/10/2026

Being clear about who you are, what you do, who you help and where you're based gets AI reading your website, but reading your site and trusting your site enough to recommend you are two different things.

The first is freshness, because AI tools tend to pull from pages that have been updated recently, and a site that hasn't been touched in a couple of years can look unreliable even if everything on it is still true and relevant (rude!). You're probably too busy doing the work to go in and fiddle around with your site all the time, but your key pages are worth a look every few months, so get updating!

The second is consistency. If your business name, address and phone number are slightly different on your website, your Google listing, your directory entries and any other website or blog that mentions you, AI will notice the mismatch and get less confident about recommending you. I reckon it's the easier of the two to fix, since it's just glorified admin - fit it into your day when you really can't think of anything else to do!

So, this week, check when you last updated your key pages and whether your business is listed exactly the same way everywhere, and, if anything needs fixing then fix it :)

There's also an accompanying blog to this video - find it in the link in the bio or copy and paste / click the link here >>> https://www.hrdigitaldesign.com/blogs/news/the-two-things-that-make-ai-trust-your-website

Earlier this year I finished a website project for the Humbie Hub in East Lothian, a place that brings together a café, ...
11/10/2026

Earlier this year I finished a website project for the Humbie Hub in East Lothian, a place that brings together a café, post office, village shop, rural office space, art exhibitions and holiday accommodation all under one roof, and it was one of those builds where the business itself made the job a joy.

The challenge wasn't a shortage of things to say, it was making sure all those different parts felt connected without the site becoming confusing to get around. Local residents, visitors passing through, artists, remote workers and people booking a stay all needed to find what they were after quickly, so the structure had to work as hard as the design.

We built the new site on Shopify, which surprises people sometimes since they tend to think of it purely as an online shop platform, but it gave Humbie Hub room to grow into ticket sales, an online shop and whatever comes next without needing a full rebuild further down the line.
The result feels much more like the Humbie Hub people know when they visit in person, warm and community focused, but with the clarity and structure to properly support the business behind it. Read the blog here >> https://www.hrdigitaldesign.com/blogs/news/website-design-case-study-a-new-website-for-humbie-hub-east-lothian

The Friday Lowdown on a Saturday!A lovely full week, and it started with a new client to welcome on board. I’ll soon be ...
10/10/2026

The Friday Lowdown on a Saturday!

A lovely full week, and it started with a new client to welcome on board. I’ll soon be starting a brand new Shopify build for a Scottish artist and sculptor, and I can’t wait to create a site that shows off his work properly.

The new Shopify site for a handmade dog collar business is coming together nicely too, with the main pages now ready for the client to review. Part of that was reworking their returns policy to bring it in line with UK consumer law. It’s an easy thing for small businesses to get slightly wrong, and it’s well worth checking yours before the C-period kicks off!

I also ran a full Shopify website audit for a client down in Brighton, going through the whole shop to see what’s working well and where it could work harder for them.

Away from the screen, I met up with four different women in business this week to swap ideas and talk about ways we might work together. It’s always lovely to spend time with people who do interesting jobs! And to round the week off, I went to see Professor Brian Cox on his Emergence tour in Edinburgh, a brilliant evening and a good reminder of how small my to-do list is in the grand scheme of the universe! I might even be a hologram so I'm not even sure if I need a to-do list...

If you’d like a new Shopify shop, regular Website Care to keep your site improving, or a day with me in Edinburgh building your shop together and learning how it all works with Shopify in a Day, just drop me a message, I'd love to chat! Anyhoo...sure it's time to put the stove on... Have a fab weekend :)

09/10/2026

If you sell products, October is when your website really needs to be ready to go. Clear delivery info, tidy product pages and simple checkout make a huge difference to the people who are organised and start their shopping now! Get those collections in place, put in your new call to action buttons and make sure all your hero imagery is seasonally appropriate and giving the right vibe!

A lot of people hold off on launching because something still doesn't feel quite right. There's always another page to t...
08/10/2026

A lot of people hold off on launching because something still doesn't feel quite right. There's always another page to tweak, another image to sort, another bit of copy that could probably be better. And gradually, months go by and basically your business is just languishing on the internet...

A straightforward website that's out there doing its job will always serve you better than one that's sitting in draft waiting to be perfect. You can improve it, add to it, and change things as your business grows, so don't let the pressure of getting it perfect stop you from getting it out there. Just do it!! 🙂

05/10/2026

Google finds your website and hands someone a link. AI reads your website and hands someone an answer. These are two totally different experiences.

With Google, you just needed to show up on the list, hope someone clicked it, then your own site, your great chat and fabulous imagery and branding did all the persuading. With AI, the tool has already read your site before the person sees anything, and it's decided what to tell them about you. There's no click, no second chance, no time to explain you really meant X instead of Y....

So what's the AI actually looking for when it looks at your website? It's probably slightly more complicated than this in real life but generally speaking it's four simple things. Who you are. What you do. Who you help and where you're based.

Most small business homepages don't say those four things in plain words, they imply them, or bury them under branding or a snazzy strap line which means something to a person. A person can click around and work it out, admire the photos and the vibe. AI generally can't, won't bother and doesn't care either way :( .

Just try this when you have a spare minute... Read just the text on your homepage out loud, ignoring the design, that great photo of you, the pretty colours and welcoming feeling. If a stranger couldn't tell you what you do, who you help, and where you are from that alone, that's a gap you're going to want to fill. Once your site says those four things clearly, we can start looking at what makes AI trust you enough to recommend you over the business next door and that's what we're all hoping for!! Enjoy the vid...

You can also read the accompanying blog here >>> https://www.hrdigitaldesign.com/blogs/news/the-four-things-ai-checks-before-it-recommends-your-business

Some people often come into a website project thinking a website can be turned around really quickly. Technically, some ...
04/10/2026

Some people often come into a website project thinking a website can be turned around really quickly. Technically, some parts of it can (but they're usually the really boring bits anyway).

A good website isn’t just about putting pages together. It’s about getting clear on your offer, structuring things properly, and making sure it all works for the people who are going to be using it.

The timeline usually depends on a few things…
how much content is ready and good to go at the beginning of the project
and how complex the site is - how many pages, products, apps need setting up, forms need creating etc etc.. Everything needs time.

Rushing it tends to lead to something that looks fine on the surface but doesn’t really do the job. Giving it a bit of time and space usually leads to a much better result. I'd rather we did a good job properly than go in half baked and rushed.

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