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. ●

Week of 3/18/26

Before writing a blog post, it helps to have a few keywords in mind. Not to force the writing, but to give it direction.

When you know the phrases people might search for, it’s easier to stay focused. The title, headings, and structure tend to align naturally with the topic instead of drifting into something broader or unrelated.

Thinking about keywords first also makes the post more helpful for SEO, because it increases the chances that your content matches what someone is actually searching for. ●

Week of 3/11/26

Not all website traffic is the same. Some traffic is passive. Your brand shows up in a feed, an inbox, or an ad while someone is going about their day. They weren’t looking for you. You’re creating demand. Other traffic is active. Someone searches for exactly what you offer. The intent is already there.

Both can work. But if time or budget is limited, start where intent is highest. Make sure you show up when someone searches for what you do, and measure what actually turns into revenue.

Traffic matters. Intent matters more. ●

Week of 3/4/26

There’s an assumption in eCommerce that you have to offer free shipping. We don’t see it that way. Free shipping isn’t a requirement. It’s a strategic decision.

If you’re in a highly competitive category where multiple sellers carry the same product, you may need it to stay in the game. In other cases, especially when what you sell isn’t ubiquitous, charging for shipping can make sense. You can also use a minimum order threshold, but that number shouldn’t be arbitrary. It should be based on your margins, shipping costs, and average order value.

Understanding the free shipping equation requires looking at your data, your competition, and your unit-level economics. Otherwise, you’re not making a strategic decision. You’re just giving margin away. ●

Week of 2/25/26

We spent time with a client recently talking through SEO. Website changes. Content adjustments. The broader shifts happening with search and AI. At the end, they asked the most direct question: “If I do all of this, will Google rank my site higher?”

The honest answer is maybe. No one can guarantee rankings. You don’t know if something will move the needle until you test and measure it. But one thing is certain: if you make no changes at all, you’re guaranteeing that nothing improves. SEO isn’t certainty. It’s iteration.

Be cautious of anyone who promises specific rankings or overnight results. Search doesn’t work that way. ●

Week of 2/18/26

Keeping good records is one of those habits that’s easiest to form early and hardest to fix later. Tracking income, revenue, expenses, receipts, and mileage as they happen, or at least once a week, takes very little time when it’s routine. Accurate books lead to dependable numbers, and dependable numbers create a solid foundation for better decisions.

It’s easier to keep up than to catch up. ●

Week of 2/11/26

I told someone they should raise their prices because they weren’t even getting keystone. They asked what keystone meant.

When we started our eCommerce store in 1999, keystone was a common way retailers priced products purchased from distributors. It simply meant pricing at roughly double the wholesale cost. That logic makes sense as a starting point for retail, although it isn’t applied the same way to wholesalers selling direct.

Today, people don’t talk in those terms as much. The same idea shows up as gross margin, contribution margin, markup, or whether something clears a 2x. The language has changed, but the pricing conversation is still about margins and sustainability. ●

Week of 2/4/26

When explaining Google Ads to clients, we sometimes use a simple analogy: a filing cabinet. The account is the cabinet itself. Inside it are drawers, which represent the campaigns. Within each drawer are hanging folders, the ad groups. And inside those folders are the individual pages, the keywords and ad copy.

Cabinet → Account
Drawers → Campaigns
Hanging Folders → Ad Groups
Content in the Folders → Keywords & Ad Copy

It’s a simple way to visualize how campaigns are organized. Once that structure makes sense, it’s easier to have clearer conversations about what’s happening and why. ●

Week of 1/28/26

While working through URL mapping recently, we noticed something that tends to build up quietly over time: redirect chains. Pages get consolidated, URLs change, new content replaces old content, and before long one redirect points to another, which points to another. Nothing is broken, but things aren’t as clean as they could be.

It’s worth taking a look every so often. Long redirect chains slow things down, dilute signals, and make it harder for search engines and users to land where you actually want them to go. Cleaning them up is rarely urgent, but it’s part of good site hygiene. A little maintenance here keeps your structure clear and prevents small issues from compounding later. ●

Week of 1/21/26

In Great by Choice, Jim Collins talks about “firing bullets before cannonballs.” The idea is simple: start small. Test, experiment, and learn before committing big resources. A “bullet” is a small, low-cost, low-risk effort, something you can try without throwing your whole business off course. Once you know what hits the target, that’s when you fire the cannonball. For small businesses, it’s a reminder that focus and testing matter more than bold, blind leaps. ●

Week of 1/14/26

Maintaining access to your digital assets matters more than most people realize. Your website, Google Business Profile, analytics, domains, and financial tools should always be owned and controlled by you. That means creating the primary account yourself and then adding users with the right permissions, rather than sharing usernames and passwords with vendors or employees.

We’ve seen what happens when this step is skipped. An employee sets up a profile and leaves. A developer controls the website login. Suddenly the business owner can’t make changes to their own properties. Even if you need someone to walk you through setting things up properly, it’s worth the effort. A little structure on the front end prevents a lot of friction later. ●

Week of 1/7/26

There’s a difference between advising from theory and advising from experience. A clean framework or a sharp slide deck can look good on paper, but it doesn’t execute itself. Strategy only matters if it can survive real-world constraints, tradeoffs, and follow-through.

We’re consultants, but we’ve also built, grown, and closed a multimillion-dollar business. We’ve been inside the work, not just adjacent to it. And we still are, whether that’s running digital ads, digging into data, supporting fractional finance, or coaching through real decisions. The value isn’t in the recommendation alone. It’s in knowing what actually works and doing the work when it needs to be done. ●

Week of 12/31/25

As the new year approaches, a lot of people start thinking about what kind of work they actually want to be doing. Not just what they can do, but what will be satisfying and sustainable over time. That kind of clarity rarely comes from setting louder goals. It usually comes from slowing down and taking a more honest look at yourself.

We often come back to three simple questions: Who are you, and how are you naturally wired? What are you genuinely good at? And what kind of work holds your attention without forcing it? When you look for patterns across those three areas, you start to see where your time and energy are best spent. We recently walked through this framework in a YouTube video and put together a practical guide to help work through it step by step for anyone who wants a structured place to start. ●

Week of 12/24/25

Some business owners get emotionally attached to their inventory. Maybe it was supposed to be a hit, or maybe they feel like it just cost too much to let go at a loss. But inventory that doesn’t move is tied-up cash. When you look at what’s on your shelves, don’t just see products; see money sitting still. Even selling at break-even or a small loss frees up cash you can use for better opportunities or to pay the bills. ●

Week of 12/17/25

You don’t have to run off in every direction chasing the latest trend or getting pulled into someone else’s hype. Most micro and small businesses are already doing more with less. That’s the real world. What matters is getting good at the fundamentals, the parts of your business that don’t look glamorous or exciting, but actually move things forward. The steady work. The basics. Ignore the noise. Be brilliant at the basics. ●

Week of 12/10/25

Working with a client recently, we noticed something subtle but important in Search Console: two different pages on their site were essentially synonymous. Google saw them as the same topic, which meant the pages were competing with each other instead of reinforcing a clear signal. Impressions were split, rankings were weaker, and nothing was technically broken, it just wasn’t clear which page should win.

It’s a good reminder to check your own Search Console. Are your core pages indexed? Are multiple URLs showing up for the same searches? Are you creating unintentional competition inside your own site? Sometimes the issue isn’t more content. It’s clearer content. ●

Week of 12/3/25

When people hear “eCommerce,” they usually think of online stores shipping boxes like Amazon, Shopify, or Etsy. But that’s only part of the picture. eCommerce isn’t just about selling physical products. It’s about doing business online. Payments, marketing, data, customer interactions...it’s all part of it. ●

Week of 11/26/25

Categories matter more than most business owners realize. If you choose the wrong category in your Google Business Profile, Google may classify you incorrectly, sometimes as a national brand, and you’ll lose visibility in local results. In worse cases, it can trigger a suspension.

We’ve helped a lot of small businesses recover suspended profiles, and the process is rarely simple. A few minutes of care on the front end saves weeks of unnecessary headaches later. ●

Week of 11/19/25

A checking account balance never tells the full story of your small business finances. A low number can spike anxiety and a high one can feel comforting, but neither gives you the real financial picture. To understand the health of your business cash flow, you have to look at what’s coming next: upcoming expenses, expected revenue, and the timing of both. Strong cash-flow management isn’t about the balance you see today; it’s about the context behind it and what your money is doing over the next weeks and months. ●

Week of 11/12/25

When we first start working with a small business owner, we go after the low-hanging fruit. The easiest, most obvious next step. Not the big, shiny project that eats time and energy. The simple operational action that actually moves the business forward today. Do the first easy thing. Then the next. Momentum doesn’t start with a grand plan, it starts with clearing what’s already within reach. You’ll be surprised how far that gets you. ●