Week of 8/5/26

Vendor offboarding is not that different from employee offboarding. When the relationship ends, access should be reviewed and removed from websites, social media, email platforms, advertising accounts, analytics, payment systems, and other business tools.

Without a clear process, old vendors and former employees can remain connected for years. Then leadership changes, passwords are lost, recovery emails belong to people who are gone, and the next person has to untangle accounts created several transitions ago.

Good offboarding starts with knowing what accounts exist, who owns them, and who currently has access. ●

Week of 7/29/26

Selling platforms can make it easier to list products, process orders, or handle fulfillment. They provide useful infrastructure without requiring a business to build everything from scratch.

The tradeoff is that you are working inside someone else’s system. You may have limited control over the layout, customer experience, analytics, and search data. It can also be harder to set up accurate conversion tracking for Google Ads when the sale happens on a third-party platform.

A platform can be an important sales channel. It is still different from owning the place where the customer experience and data come together. ●

Week of 7/22/26

Owning your website and digital accounts does not mean doing all the work yourself. Vendors, agencies, and employees may need broad access to manage the website, run advertising, or review analytics. The business should still remain the permanent point of control.

It is worth reviewing that access periodically. Remove people who no longer need it, confirm that recovery information belongs to the business, and make sure more than one trusted person knows where the accounts are located.

Ownership stays with the business. Access changes as the work changes. ●

Week of 7/15/26

Business owners are sometimes asked when they want to sell their company. A common answer is five years.

A year later, the answer is often still five years.

A five-year goal only means something if it changes the work being done today. Clear financials, documented systems, stronger management, and less dependence on the owner all take time to build. The future of the business is shaped by what gets worked on now. ●

Week of 7/8/26

We ran into another account access situation recently. A client invested a significant amount in a new website, only to discover they didn't have access to the platform. Now they're being asked to pay a substantial monthly fee, but it isn't clear what they're paying for. Hosting? Maintenance? Something else?

If you're investing in a new website, ask a few questions before the project begins. What platform is it being built on? Who owns the domain? Who will have the primary login? What happens if you decide to work with someone else? The answers should be clear before any work starts.

Read our blog and download the website ownership checklist. ●

Week of 7/1/26

We talked with two service businesses recently, almost back to back. One was leaving Wix for Squarespace and the other was leaving Squarespace for Wix.

It made us wonder how often the platform gets blamed when the real issues may be somewhere else. The SEO, page layout, images, calls to action, mobile experience, or basic site function may need work, but that does not always mean the whole site needs to move.

Sometimes a new platform is the right decision. Other times, the better first step is to look closely at what is already there and see what can be improved before rebuilding everything. ●

Week of 6/24/26

We saw another paid search issue this week where the campaigns were working against each other.

The same keywords were showing up in multiple campaigns at the same time, including the brand name. That can create confusion inside the account. Instead of having a clear structure, the campaigns may end up competing for the same searches, which can push costs up and make performance harder to read.

A Google Ads account should make it easier to understand what is driving results, not harder. When campaigns overlap too much, the first step is usually cleaning up the structure before making bigger decisions. ●

Week of 6/17/26

We still see unsolicited sales calls come in around website services, SEO, ads, and other marketing work. Some are normal prospecting. Others make big promises before they understand the business, the market, or what is already in place.

Be especially cautious when someone offers to “grow the business” in exchange for a commission split. That kind of arrangement can sound simple, but it often skips over the harder questions: who controls the work, how results are tracked, what happens to leads, and whether the plan actually fits the business. If the wrong person gets access or starts making poor decisions, the damage can be difficult to recover from.

If you need help with SEO, ads, your website, or another service, it is usually better to start the search yourself. Talk to a few companies, ask clear questions, and make sure the approach makes sense before giving anyone access or control. ●

Week of 6/10/26

Another Google Ads observation this week. We see a lot of different issues with paid search, and one of the simplest ones is easy to overlook.

Google Ads is often talked about in terms of budgets, bids, and settings. Those things matter, but they are not what a customer sees first. A search ad still has to earn the click, and that usually starts with making the right keywords visible in the ad copy.

If someone searches for a specific service, product, or problem, the ad should make it clear that the business is relevant to that search. Good ad copy does not need to be clever or lead with broad claims like satisfaction guaranteed. It needs to be clear, specific, and connected to what the customer is already looking for. ●

Week of 6/3/26

We’ve seen Google Ads accounts where the first move is to turn on every automation and accept whatever recommendations Google puts in front of the advertiser.

That should raise a flag. Automation can be useful, but it still needs context. A good Google Ads conversation should include questions about goals, average order value, revenue, margins, daily budget, conversion tracking, and what actually counts as a good lead or sale.

If someone is only clicking through recommendations without asking how the business works, that is not strategy. It is account management without enough information. ●

Week of 5/27/26

People often say, “I need SEO,” when they are really talking about a broader marketing problem. They might mean their website is not converting, their Google Business Profile is weak, they need leads faster, or they are not showing up in the places customers are searching.

SEO has become a catch-all word. People use it the way some people say Coke for soda or Kleenex for tissue. But SEO is only one part of a digital marketing strategy. Organic search, paid ads, local visibility, website content, and tracking are related, but they are not the same thing.

Each area has its own requirements. Hiring an SEO company may help with one part of the problem, but it may miss other pieces that affect whether people can find you, trust you, and contact you. ●

Week of 5/20/26

A common pattern we see is a business owner trying to manage Google Ads on their own. Sometimes they have enough knowledge to get started, but not enough time to keep checking the account, questioning the recommendations, or knowing which changes are worth making.

The harder cases are the accounts that have been left on autopilot. A few broad recommendations get applied, automation takes over, and the spend keeps moving without much thought behind it. That does not always mean the account is broken, but it usually means someone needs to slow down and look at what is actually happening.

You do not always need a full agency setup and management. For many small business owners, a few hours of practical advice can help bring clarity to your Google Ads account and spend. From there, you can make the decision to manage yourself with guidance or hand it off to an expert. ●

Week of 5/13/26

We ran into another passwords and access situation recently. A client needed website changes made, but didn’t have access to their own website, hosting account, or domain login information. Everything had been set up through a third party years earlier, and turns out they never had the credentials in their possession.

Fortunately, we were able to recover everything and get the accounts back under the client’s control. But situations like this can become catastrophic if the wrong person controls your core digital assets and suddenly becomes unreachable.

Your website, domain, hosting, analytics, and business profiles should ultimately belong to you. We’ve talked about this before, but want to really emphasize the point that vendors and employees can be given access, but ownership and primary control should stay with the business. ●

Week of 5/6/26

A situation came up around platform fit. Someone started selling a few products on a simple site, and it worked at first. Over time, the needs changed. Inventory grew, orders picked up, and the limits of the platform became more obvious.

We walked through the options. Could the current site be improved with better design, forms, or integrations? In some cases, that is enough. In others, the gap is functional. Things like inventory management, checkout flexibility, or backend workflows are hard to patch together. Moving platforms usually means new URLs, which can be redirected, but it still introduces risk to existing search visibility if not handled carefully.

It comes down to whether you are stretching a tool beyond its purpose. If the core needs no longer fit, a move can make sense. If not, improving what you have is often the better path. ●

Week of 4/29/26

This came up in a review this week. Everything looked fine on the surface, but Search Console was showing two versions of the same site. One with www, one without. Both live, both getting indexed.

The site had a canonical set to the non-www version, which is the right idea. But the www version was still accessible, and there were no clean redirects forcing everything to one place. That creates mixed signals. The site is saying one thing, but behaving another way. Google tends to follow what actually happens, not just what is declared.

The fix is simple. Pick one version and make everything resolve to it. One site, one path, one set of signals. ●

Week of 4/22/26

Most of the time when someone says they need more “AI marketing,” they’re not lacking AI. They’re lacking the basics.

You’ll see it quickly. No real SEO. No consistent content. No clear path from traffic to conversion. But the focus is on tools that promise to automate everything. It sounds like progress, but there’s nothing solid underneath it.

AI can speed things up, but it doesn’t fix weak fundamentals. It tends to amplify whatever is already there. If the foundation is unclear, it just creates more noise, faster. The work is still the same. Get the basics in place, then use AI to build on top of it. ●

Week of 4/15/26

When you’re starting out, it’s common to worry about getting too much demand. People ask what happens if too many customers show up at once, or how they’ll keep up.

In reality, that kind of growth rarely hits all at once. Interest tends to build over time as your work gets seen and your reputation develops. You adjust along the way. You figure out capacity, hiring, and processes as things evolve.

If demand does increase, it usually means what you’re doing is working. Focus on doing the work well today and let growth meet you where you are. ●

Week of 4/8/26

A client recently made a change based on feedback from one person. It added complexity to their process and more work to their day-to-day. The intent was good. They didn’t want to ignore the feedback.

If one or two people raise a concern or have a request, it’s worth noting. It’s not always worth changing everything to accommodate it.

A better approach is to document the feedback and look for patterns. If it keeps coming up, that’s a signal. Until then, it’s just one data point. ●

Week of 4/1/26

There’s a lot of focus on backlinks in SEO, and they still matter. Links help validate authority, trust, and relevance. That hasn’t changed.

What is changing is how that authority gets recognized. Search and AI systems are pulling from across the web, not just individual pages. They’re looking for consistency. The same signals showing up in multiple places.

It’s less about how many links point to your site and more about whether the internet consistently recognizes you for a topic. Mentions, profiles, listings, citations, and content across platforms all contribute to that picture.

Links still matter, but they’re part of a broader footprint. The shift isn’t from SEO to something new. It’s from building links to building presence. ●

Week of 3/25/26

There’s a lot of talk right now about “showing up in AI,” as if it’s separate from SEO. From what we’re seeing, it isn’t.

The fundamentals still matter. Clear topics. Useful content. Strong structure. Descriptive headings. Real expertise. A site that’s easy to understand. If anything, AI-driven search makes those basics more important, not less.

What may be changing is how people interact with search. AI tools summarize answers, surface fewer links, and rely on information pulled from across the web. That makes your broader presence matter more, not just your website. ●