A small studio by choice.

Gianfranco and Barbara Viasetti.

We are not a web agency with departments, account managers and a new person appearing at every meeting.

We are father and daughter.

The Studio

The people you speak to are the people who think about the problem, write the pages, examine the search market and remain responsible for the result.

That makes us smaller than many alternatives.

It also makes it difficult for a project to disappear between roles.

Gianfranco - before the web.

Gianfranco Viasetti

Gianfranco Viasetti began working in sales and marketing in the 1970s, including thirteen years at Xerox.

Xerox was famous not only for copiers, but for the discipline of its sales and marketing training.

It taught him to ask questions before presenting solutions.

To distinguish a feature from a benefit.

To listen for the real objection.

To understand that a sale is often lost long before the customer says no.

In 1986, he left to work independently.

His first idea was logical, original - and almost a complete failure.

The flop that taught the first rule.

Gianfranco knew office technology: copiers, fax machines, word processors, printers, personal computers and productivity software.

Independent technology consultants were doing well in the United States.

Nobody in Brescia appeared to offer the same service.

He would be the first.

He advertised, received attention from local newspapers, attended trade fairs and spent a year visiting companies.

He found only a handful of clients.

The answer he heard repeatedly was simple:

"Why should I pay you for independent advice when the Olivetti or IBM dealer gives me advice for free?"

The service may have been valuable.

The market did not yet value it.

That failure became one of the principles he later wrote in La Magia di un Antico Segreto:

Start with the market, not with the product.

It is still the first rule of every website project.

We do not begin by deciding what we would like to build.

We begin by asking whether the right people want what the client hopes to sell.

Then came the web.

In 1997, Gianfranco began creating websites.

The medium was new.

The questions were familiar.

Who is the customer?
What does that person want?
Why should the promise be believed?
What is preventing a decision?
What makes this offer different?

Many website creators came from graphics or programming.

Gianfranco came from selling, marketing and teaching.

That difference shaped the work.

The website was never merely a digital object.

It was a conversation with a potential customer who happened to be reading alone.

One hundred books. Three of his own.

Over the years, Gianfranco studied the great American writers on advertising, direct marketing, persuasion and positioning.

Eugene Schwartz
Gary Halbert
John Caples
Claude Hopkins
Robert Collier
David Ogilvy
Rosser Reeves
Robert Cialdini
Al Ries and Jack Trout

Their work was not copied like a collection of formulas.

It became a way of seeing the decision behind the page.

Gianfranco later wrote three books about copywriting, including The Art of Writing to Be Found and to Sell Online and Offline and the shorter guide offered on this site, The Magic of an Ancient Secret.

The ancient secret was the word.

The modern lesson was that the word had never stopped working.

Barbara - the second pair of eyes.

Barbara Viasetti

Barbara Viasetti has worked beside Gianfranco for more than ten years.

She specialises in the exacting details of on-page SEO: the relationship between a search, a page, its structure and the language that allows Google to understand its relevance.

Clients often mention her patience, precision and ability to turn a strategy into pages that can be found.

Where Gianfranco may begin with the market, the offer and the argument, Barbara keeps the architecture honest.

The work passes between them until the page makes sense both to the person reading it and to the systems that must first discover it.

They do not agree automatically.

That is useful.

A page that survives two demanding readers is usually stronger for the third.

We have a rule for our own writing.

if a sentence could appear on the website of any web agency, we delete it.

This immediately removes a surprising amount of language:

Innovative solutions.
Passion for excellence.
The customer at the centre.
Tailored digital experiences.

The phrases are not necessarily false.

They are simply too available to mean anything.

We would rather tell you that Gianfranco once spent thousands of late-night messages teaching a woman in Florida who was not his client.

Or that he advised Stefano three times not to buy a website.

Or that many pages created more than a decade ago are still doing their job.

Specific truth is more persuasive than polished language.

Who should contact us?

You may be a good fit if:

you are a professional, skilled tradesperson or local service business;
your customer must trust a person before making contact;
you want to be found for meaningful searches, not merely collect visits;
you are willing to discuss what customers need, not only what you want the website to look like;
you value clear writing, verifiable evidence and excellent performance;
you prefer a website designed to last rather than one designed to follow the current fashion;
you want honest advice, including the possibility that the answer may be "do not build it".

Who probably should not?

We may not be the right choice if:

your priority is to reproduce a website you have seen elsewhere;
you want movement, effects or visual spectacle regardless of their purpose;
you need a complex e-commerce platform, portal or application;
you want a guarantee before allowing us to study the competition;
you are looking for the cheapest quotation rather than the least wasteful decision;
you want somebody who will agree with every initial idea simply to win the project.

This is not an attempt to appear exclusive.
It is an attempt to avoid the wrong project for both sides.

Frequently asked questions.

Do you work only in Brescia?

No. Studio Viasetti is based near Brescia, in Castel Mella, but the work is carried out remotely. Clients are located throughout Italy and, occasionally, abroad.

Who writes the website copy?

We do, in collaboration with the client. You remain the authority on professional terminology and factual responsibility. We are responsible for making the content clear, persuasive, structured and easy to find.

How much does a website cost?

Projects currently range from approximately EUR 300 for a focused one-page website to EUR 3,000 for a more competitive, multi-page project with substantial research and copywriting. We propose the amount of work the objective requires rather than forcing every client into the same package.

Do you charge a monthly SEO fee?

No recurring fee is charged simply to preserve the on-page positioning work already included in the website. Later pages, strategic changes or new work are agreed separately when they are genuinely useful.

Can you guarantee first place on Google?

No honest professional controls Google. We can show many first-page results, study the difficulty of a project, explain what we believe is achievable and refuse work when the probability is too low. Evidence is not the same as a guarantee.

Do you use artificial intelligence?

We use modern tools when they help with research, checking or development. The judgement, positioning, final words and responsibility remain human. A page should never sound as though nobody cared who would read it.

Can I begin with one page?

Yes, when the search market and the objective make one page a sensible solution. Other pages can be added later. Simplicity should be a strategic decision, not merely a budget compromise.