The 48-Hour Expert: What a Web Designer Sells When AI Builds the Site
AI made the build fast, so web designer Matt Blake sells research. Here's how he learns a local client's market in 48 hours, and how to do it yourself.
By Ben Senescu
Matt Blake is a web designer on the Isle of Wight who builds sites for local businesses (designaway.co.uk). AI coding agents now build a client site in a fraction of the time a WordPress build used to take, so Matt puts that time into something more valuable to his clients: SEO research. He uses OpenSEO with his AI agent to learn each client's local market. In his words, "within 48 hours, I can become an expert on their business, an expert on their customers."
If you build sites for local businesses, you may be looking for ways to give clients more than the site itself. Here's why Matt chose OpenSEO, how he runs that research, and what it has given him and his clients.
From building WordPress sites to researching the client's market
Matt has built websites for local businesses for years, mostly on WordPress. Over the last year, coding agents like Claude Code and Codex got good enough to build his client sites as fast static sites, which also takes hosting, backups and security updates off his plate.
That freed up most of the time a build used to take, and Matt decided to spend it on SEO. His clients are local businesses that have never paid an SEO consultant and don't have time to learn it themselves. Knowing what their customers search for, and who shows up when they do, is something they can't easily get anywhere else.
Why he chose OpenSEO for local client research
He picked OpenSEO for two reasons.
The first is MCP. OpenSEO's MCP server brings keyword and ranking data into the chat where he already works with his agent. He described it as the key data you'd otherwise pay about $100 a month for in an SEO tool like Semrush.
The second is local search volume, the feature he likes most. National volume isn't much use to a cafe on an island. In OpenSEO's keyword research you can set a city, county or region for each seed.
How he researches a local business in 48 hours
One research chat per client
For each client he starts one big chat with his agent and gathers everything there: what the business does, who its customers are, and the OpenSEO data. OpenSEO's project setup skill saves the business details so the agent starts from them each time. At the end of the chat he can lay out the opportunities for the owner.
Local search volume for the client's area
He runs the Keyword Research skill on what the business sells and what its customers look for, with volume for the client's area. That shows which searches have real demand nearby, not just nationally. The small, specific searches matter most here; long-tail question mining covers how to find them.
Checking who ranks in local results
Then he checks who ranks for those searches locally, in Google results and on Maps. The Local SEO skill does this and compares Google Business Profiles, and local SEO for service businesses walks through it on a real business. On the island the competition is often thin, which gives him his pitch to the owner: "No one else is making any effort. So if we put a little bit of effort in, your site's gonna do really well."
Selling content instead of WordPress upkeep
On WordPress his ongoing work was hosting, backups and security checks. Static sites don't need that, so the ongoing conversation can be about content: new pages picked from the research, with analytics and OpenSEO reports to show what's working. A weekly SEO report is an easy way to send that to a client.
Results: a research plan for each client within 48 hours
- New clients get a research plan within about 48 hours: which searches have local demand, who ranks for them now, and which pages to build first.
- His ongoing client work is shifting from WordPress maintenance to content picked from that research.
Matt is also exploring whether WordPress designers want help making the same move. If that's you, connect with him on LinkedIn.
Takeaways
- When AI makes the build fast, research is worth selling. Local search data shows an owner what their customers already look for.
- Use search volume for the client's area, not national numbers, and check who ranks there. Thin local competition is often the pitch.
- Keep all of a client's research in one place, so the opportunities come out of one conversation.
- Without WordPress upkeep, the ongoing work can be content chosen from that research.
