Journal
News & notes
Short articles from Mike at Orcel, newest first. Ask me to go deeper on any topic in a workshop or engagement.
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Automation: human approvals before money-moving workflows fire
From Mike at Orcel (April 2026): Automation: human approvals before money-moving workflows fire—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Structured data for FAQs: helpful results without overpromising
From Mike at Orcel (March 2026): Structured data for FAQs: helpful results without overpromising—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Mobile nav patterns that keep tap targets large and readable
From Mike at Orcel (February 2026): Mobile nav patterns that keep tap targets large and readable—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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A/B testing: statistical noise and when to stop an experiment
From Mike at Orcel (January 2026): A/B testing: statistical noise and when to stop an experiment—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Content pruning: retiring posts without orphaning internal links
From Mike at Orcel (December 2025): Content pruning: retiring posts without orphaning internal links—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Redirects after mergers: preserving authority for Orlando acquisitions
From Mike at Orcel (November 2025): Redirects after mergers: preserving authority for Orlando acquisitions—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Monitoring uptime: synthetic checks plus real user metrics
From Mike at Orcel (October 2025): Monitoring uptime: synthetic checks plus real user metrics—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Backup and restore drills: the hosting exercise clients skip
From Mike at Orcel (September 2025): Backup and restore drills: the hosting exercise clients skip—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Choosing fonts: licensing, subsetting, and CLS on slow networks
From Mike at Orcel (August 2025): Choosing fonts: licensing, subsetting, and CLS on slow networks—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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SVG icons at scale: sprites, inline, and caching tradeoffs
From Mike at Orcel (July 2025): SVG icons at scale: sprites, inline, and caching tradeoffs—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Chat widgets: third-party scripts and interaction to next paint
From Mike at Orcel (June 2025): Chat widgets: third-party scripts and interaction to next paint—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Privacy policy updates: what changed after newer state laws
From Mike at Orcel (May 2025): Privacy policy updates: what changed after newer state laws—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Design systems: when Figma tokens actually reach the shipped CSS
From Mike at Orcel (April 2025): Design systems: when Figma tokens actually reach the shipped CSS—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Email deliverability: SPF, DKIM, DMARC in plain language
From Mike at Orcel (March 2025): Email deliverability: SPF, DKIM, DMARC in plain language—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Load testing before a Central Florida product launch goes viral
From Mike at Orcel (February 2025): Load testing before a Central Florida product launch goes viral—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Dark mode on marketing sites: tokens, contrast, and component debt
From Mike at Orcel (January 2025): Dark mode on marketing sites: tokens, contrast, and component debt—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Sitemaps and indexation: news sites vs evergreen marketing pages
From Mike at Orcel (December 2024): Sitemaps and indexation: news sites vs evergreen marketing pages—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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WordPress multisite: when one network beats many installs
From Mike at Orcel (November 2024): WordPress multisite: when one network beats many installs—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Print-to-digital: QR campaigns that land on fast mobile pages
From Mike at Orcel (October 2024): Print-to-digital: QR campaigns that land on fast mobile pages—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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API rate limits: backoff strategies customer portals rely on
From Mike at Orcel (September 2024): API rate limits: backoff strategies customer portals rely on—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Blog cadence vs quality: what I recommend for lean marketing teams
From Mike at Orcel (August 2024): Blog cadence vs quality: what I recommend for lean marketing teams—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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404 hygiene: soft 404s, retired services, and redirect chains
From Mike at Orcel (July 2024): 404 hygiene: soft 404s, retired services, and redirect chains—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Cookie consent: balancing marketing tags and measurable analytics
From Mike at Orcel (June 2024): Cookie consent: balancing marketing tags and measurable analytics—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Git branching for agencies: protecting production with release tags
From Mike at Orcel (May 2024): Git branching for agencies: protecting production with release tags—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Video backgrounds: when to kill the hero loop for LCP
From Mike at Orcel (April 2024): Video backgrounds: when to kill the hero loop for LCP—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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PDF lead magnets: accessible downloads and thank-you page tracking
From Mike at Orcel (March 2024): PDF lead magnets: accessible downloads and thank-you page tracking—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Internationalization basics when Orlando companies test export markets
From Mike at Orcel (February 2024): Internationalization basics when Orlando companies test export markets—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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CRM sync pitfalls when sales edits deals during webhook replay
From Mike at Orcel (January 2024): CRM sync pitfalls when sales edits deals during webhook replay—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Performance budgets before the design comp is approved
From Mike at Orcel (December 2023): Performance budgets before the design comp is approved—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Local landing pages: one strong page vs many thin city clones
From Mike at Orcel (November 2023): Local landing pages: one strong page vs many thin city clones—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Migrating DNS: TTL planning before cutover day
From Mike at Orcel (October 2023): Migrating DNS: TTL planning before cutover day—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Hosting: why I separate application logs from CDN access logs
From Mike at Orcel (September 2023): Hosting: why I separate application logs from CDN access logs—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Internal dashboards: tables, filters, and export without Excel chaos
From Mike at Orcel (August 2023): Internal dashboards: tables, filters, and export without Excel chaos—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Form spam in 2025: honeypots, Turnstile, and server-side validation
From Mike at Orcel (July 2023): Form spam in 2025: honeypots, Turnstile, and server-side validation—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Image pipelines: AVIF, responsive srcset, and design handoff
From Mike at Orcel (June 2023): Image pipelines: AVIF, responsive srcset, and design handoff—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Central Florida B2B: case studies that rank without sounding generic
From Mike at Orcel (May 2023): Central Florida B2B: case studies that rank without sounding generic—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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WordPress security: least-privilege roles and forced 2FA for admins
From Mike at Orcel (April 2023): WordPress security: least-privilege roles and forced 2FA for admins—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Passwordless auth: passkeys and what existing users experience
From Mike at Orcel (March 2023): Passwordless auth: passkeys and what existing users experience—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Staging environments that mirror production TLS and redirects
From Mike at Orcel (February 2023): Staging environments that mirror production TLS and redirects—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Orlando tourism seasonality: content calendars that match search demand
From Mike at Orcel (January 2023): Orlando tourism seasonality: content calendars that match search demand—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Why I still ship plain HTML emails for critical account notices
From Mike at Orcel (December 2022): Why I still ship plain HTML emails for critical account notices—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Schema for events: promoting workshops without spammy markup
From Mike at Orcel (November 2022): Schema for events: promoting workshops without spammy markup—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Zapier vs Make: choosing automation glue for small ops teams
From Mike at Orcel (October 2022): Zapier vs Make: choosing automation glue for small ops teams—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Next.js App Router: what I watch when migrating legacy React apps
From Mike at Orcel (September 2022): Next.js App Router: what I watch when migrating legacy React apps—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Orange County nonprofits: donation flows that survive traffic spikes
From Mike at Orcel (August 2022): Orange County nonprofits: donation flows that survive traffic spikes—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Seminole County home services: call tracking without muddying NAP data
From Mike at Orcel (July 2022): Seminole County home services: call tracking without muddying NAP data—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Dr. Phillips restaurants: online ordering embeds and mobile performance
From Mike at Orcel (June 2022): Dr. Phillips restaurants: online ordering embeds and mobile performance—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Lake Nona medical-adjacent sites: HIPAA-minded hosting checklists
From Mike at Orcel (May 2022): Lake Nona medical-adjacent sites: HIPAA-minded hosting checklists—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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When a headless CMS is overkill for a five-page marketing site
From Mike at Orcel (April 2022): When a headless CMS is overkill for a five-page marketing site—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Winter Park storefronts: mapping seasonal promos without breaking SEO
From Mike at Orcel (March 2022): Winter Park storefronts: mapping seasonal promos without breaking SEO—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Webhook reliability: retries, idempotency keys, and dead-letter habits
From Mike at Orcel (February 2022): Webhook reliability: retries, idempotency keys, and dead-letter habits—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Search Console coverage errors that quietly hurt Orlando directories
From Mike at Orcel (January 2022): Search Console coverage errors that quietly hurt Orlando directories—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Elementor builds: where custom blocks still pay off
From Mike at Orcel (December 2021): Elementor builds: where custom blocks still pay off—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Stripe checkout vs hosted invoicing for Central Florida professional services
From Mike at Orcel (November 2021): Stripe checkout vs hosted invoicing for Central Florida professional services—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Accessibility fixes that also lift Core Web Vitals scores
From Mike at Orcel (October 2021): Accessibility fixes that also lift Core Web Vitals scores—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Kissimmee service-area sites: avoiding duplicate content across neighborhoods
From Mike at Orcel (September 2021): Kissimmee service-area sites: avoiding duplicate content across neighborhoods—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Why I default new products to TypeScript and strict mode
From Mike at Orcel (August 2021): Why I default new products to TypeScript and strict mode—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Local SEO: when your Google Business Profile deserves its own landing page
From Mike at Orcel (July 2021): Local SEO: when your Google Business Profile deserves its own landing page—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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WordPress caching patterns I use for hospitality brands near I-Drive
From Mike at Orcel (June 2021): WordPress caching patterns I use for hospitality brands near I-Drive—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.
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Page experience update: what Orlando retailers should measure first
From Mike at Orcel (May 2021): Page experience update: what Orlando retailers should measure first—notes for teams in Orlando and Central Florida, with patterns that scale for remote clients.