The three rules I sign, and why
There are three rules on the front page of tradeeasy.uk, and I sign them. Here’s what each one says, and what in TradeEasy keeps it.
On the front page of tradeeasy.uk there are three rules, each on a yellow slip under Signed by us, and I sign them on the strip underneath.
When that page was first designed, the space had three testimonials in it, from tradespeople who didn’t exist. I didn’t have any customers to quote, and I won’t pretend anybody’s a customer. So I wrote down what I hold myself to instead.
Here they are, word for word as the front page prints them, and what actually keeps each one.
Rule 01, every word
Nothing on your website is made up. No years in business you have not done, no trade bodies you are not in, no reviews you never got.
Left to itself, AI will give you twelve years’ experience and a Gas Safe number you never had. So whenever it writes anything for your website, the rule against making things up goes with it. That’s your first website, every change you ask for in your own words, every job it writes up from a photo, and every picture you ask it to make.
The terms spell out some of what that rules out: years in business, qualifications, reviews, ratings and prices you didn’t give me. If that rule were ever left out of what the AI is told, a check would fail, and the change wouldn’t go out.
Until you add photos of your own work, some of the pictures on your website are stock photos of your trade, showing the kind of work you do.
Your editor labels every picture, so you always know which is which. A stock photo never goes on your past jobs.
AI can still get things wrong though, and you know your business better than I do. That’s what the second rule is for.
Rule 02, every change
Nothing goes on the internet until you have read it and pressed publish. Not our changes, and not the AI's.
Everything waiting to go on your website is kept as a draft, separate from the website people actually see. Publish is what moves it across, and the AI never presses it.
Ask for a change in your own words and you’ll see exactly what changed before anything goes live. And if you let me into your account to make a change you asked for, I can change the draft, and it only goes live if you told me it could when you let me in.
There are two times something reaches your website without you pressing Publish. They’re both in the terms, so I’ll say them here too.
The first time you subscribe, your website goes live with whatever you’ve got ready. The editor tells you that before you pay.
And once you switch on feedback from your customers, what they write appears without you publishing it.
Rule 03, any month
Stop paying and the site comes down, not away. Your words and your photos are still there, and so is your address.
You cancel from Billing, and you won’t be charged again. Your website stays up until the end of the time you’ve paid for, and Home shows you the day it comes down. Then it comes off.
After that, anybody who visits its address sees the same plain page as for a website that’s down for any other reason. Nobody can tell from outside that you stopped paying.
I keep it in your account until you delete the account. Subscribe again and it goes back up as it was.
What they don’t say
None of the three says a website will bring you work. Nothing’s measured that, so I won’t claim it.
If I break one
It’s just me building TradeEasy, so these are my rules, and I sign them myself: under the slips on the front page, and in my letter on the About page.
If you ever see me break one, tell me at help@tradeeasy.uk.
Thanks for reading.
