Week of 10/14/26

A client asked us for a second opinion on an SEO company that had approached them. During the sales call, they started to feel pressured and noticed that the conversation seemed to be moving toward a close before much had been learned about their business.

The company had not reviewed the website, asked about their goals, looked at Search Console, or even done a screen share. Those things do not automatically mean a vendor is wrong for you, but they are good reasons to slow down and ask more questions.

Fortunately, the client had not provided payment information or access to any accounts. They trusted their instinct that something felt off, got another opinion, and didn’t commit to anything. ●

Week of 10/7/26

AI can help write website copy, product descriptions, FAQs, emails, and just about anything else. It can be a very useful starting point.

But AI only knows the context you give it. It does not automatically know which customers are most valuable, what questions people actually ask, which products matter most, or what makes your business different from the alternatives.

AI can help with the work, but you still need to bring the knowledge of your business. ●

Week of 9/30/26

Recently, we saw a website where AI-generated code had been added to make some changes. It worked, until the owner asked a simple question: “What if I want to change a price or a word?” The answer was that the person who added the code would probably need to do it.

That does not mean the code was wrong. It just changed who could easily manage that part of the site. AI can make it much easier to build something new, but it still helps to understand how the change fits into the platform and what it means for future updates.

The goal is not to avoid AI. It is to use it without giving up control of the basics. ●

Week of 9/23/26

AI has made it incredibly easy to add custom code to a website. Describe what you want, paste in the code, and suddenly you have a new section or feature.

The problem can come later. We’re starting to see small business websites where AI-generated changes work in the moment but make the site harder to maintain. Content gets hard-coded, theme settings stop controlling things, and simple updates become more complicated for the next person who has to work on the site.

We use AI all the time, and it can be incredibly useful. But it still helps to understand the fundamentals of the platform you’re working in. Before adding custom code, it’s worth checking whether the platform already has a simpler way to do what you need. ●

Week of 9/16/26

We’ll often hear, “I want to talk about SEO,” or “I need help with Google Analytics.” Those are useful tools, but they are usually only one part of the bigger question: how visible is your business on Google?

That can include your website, Google Business Profile, search results, reviews, paid ads, product listings, and whether your tracking is actually telling you anything useful.

A practical place to start is to look at where your business is showing up on Google, where it isn’t visibile, and what you can improve upon. ●

Week of 8/12/26

Selling on multiple channels can look simple from the outside. List the same products on Shopify, Etsy, Faire, or another marketplace and reach more customers.

In practice, each platform has its own description requirements, product fields, categories, image standards, and data structure. Information that works well on one channel may need to be rewritten or reorganized for another.

Multichannel selling is not just adding more places to sell. It also means maintaining multiple versions of the same product information. ●

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. ●