Templates and checklists
Working documents for people running something small. All free, all ungated, and no email required. Using any of them has no effect whatsoever on whether we would list your business.
The rules attached to everything here
- Free, with no email wall or subscription service.
- No account, no download form, no 'unlock the full version'.
- No effect on register consideration. That rule is written into the entry bar, not just stated here.
- Every item on every checklist is justified by an observable failure, not by opinion or convention.
Gating a checklist behind an email address on a site whose entire argument is that listings should not be transactional would be difficult to defend, so we do not.
The templates
The findability checklist
A stranger's-eye pass over your own site: the ten things someone who has never heard of you needs in the first ten seconds. Run it in a private window with a timer. Open the findability checklist.
The one-page business fact sheet
One page holding everything anyone ever asks you for, in a public version and a private one — plus the short list of things that should never go on the public one. Open the business fact sheet.
Shopfront minimums
The seven-item floor as a working document, with the failure each item prevents written next to it. Open the shopfront minimums.
Bought-listing tells
Six checks for spotting a paid placement on any listing page in about ninety seconds, with the mechanism behind each tell. Open the bought-listing tells.
Delisting request letter
A request to send a listing site that has published you without asking, with the follow-up and escalation versions and notes on what to do when all three are ignored. Open the delisting request letter.
Which one to start with
| If you are… | Start with | Then read |
|---|---|---|
| Not sure why nobody contacts you | The findability checklist | Your homepage doesn't say what you sell |
| Building or fixing your own site | Shopfront minimums | The minimum viable shopfront |
| Tired of retyping the same details | The one-page fact sheet | How to write an about page a stranger will believe |
| Deciding whether to join a listing site | Bought-listing tells | Should you be on a directory at all |
| Listed somewhere you never agreed to | Delisting request letter | How to get removed from a directory that scraped you |
What these will not do
- They will not get you listed here. Nothing does except clearing the entry bar.
- They will not improve your search ranking, and none of them contains ranking advice. That is a different subject and this is not the site for it.
- They will not produce a number. No traffic promise, no conversion claim, no earnings figure — see the Line.
- They will not tell you what the law requires of your business. Where a legal question comes up, we point at primary sources and name the jurisdiction.
How to use a checklist properly
- Open your own site in a private window, logged out, on a phone.
- Set a timer. Ten seconds for the findability pass; the point is the constraint.
- Answer as the stranger, not as the owner. You cannot see your own page cold, which is the whole difficulty.
- Better still, hand it to someone who has never heard of your business and watch without helping.
- Fix one thing. The list is a diagnosis, not a work programme, and fixing the first failure usually matters more than fixing all of them.
Questions about the templates
Is there really no email wall?
None. No form, account, download gate, partial version, or email subscription is required.
Can I use these with my own clients?
Yes. They are published for use, including commercially, under the licence documented at the agent contract. Attribution is appreciated and not enforced with a lawyer.
Will filling one in improve my chances of being listed?
No, and the rule that nothing you buy or do here affects register consideration is written into the entry bar precisely so it cannot erode quietly.
Why is there no SEO checklist?
Because that is not this site's subject and doing it badly is worse than not doing it. What we cover is whether a stranger can tell what you sell, which is a different and more neglected problem.
Are there printable versions?
Each template page is written to print sensibly without a separate file. A checklist you cannot take away from a screen is not much of a working document.
Will there be more?
Only when something is genuinely missing and can be written from evidence rather than convention. Not to have more pages.
All templates are free and ungated. Using them has no bearing on register consideration.