Google is testing a homepage that swaps the classic Search button for AI shortcuts and an AI Mode button. We explain what AI Mode does, why more searches now end without a click to your website, and what still earns your business a citation: real expertise, good reviews and accurate information.
Two nearly identical Facebook ads, with the same wedding story and AI-generated dinner photo, ran under two different companies. That’s the extreme end of canned marketing. This post also looks at the more common version, corporate content libraries that agents and offices send out under their own names, and why content only you could write does more for you.
Some of the best marketing doesn’t look like marketing at all. Teaching free classes, volunteering, donating to silent auctions and having coffee without counting the RoI all build the kind of trust that turns into referrals, sometimes years later. Here’s why networking works better when you stop treating every conversation like the start of a sales funnel.
Most small businesses don’t struggle because of a bad product. They struggle because people can’t find them, don’t understand them or aren’t nudged to act. We break growth down to three pieces (a website that converts, visibility where it counts and consistent messaging) and show how each one supports the others.
Google doesn’t hand out an EEAT score, but it uses Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness to decide which sites deserve to rank. Here’s what each letter means for a small business, using a bathroom remodeler as the example, and why photos of your actual work and honest reviews do more for you than piling on keywords.
Some of the businesses outranking you in Google’s map pack may not exist at all. Ghost listings, lead-generation fronts and keyword-stuffed names grab urgent calls meant for real local companies and leave your neighbors with surprise charges and no recourse. Here’s how to spot them and the slow, documented process Wild Iris uses to get them removed.
Some weeks at a marketing agency feel more like running a fire station. This short post lists one real week of surprise jobs, from recovering a lost non-profit Instagram account to reviving a website knocked out by outdated plugins, and none of it was on the calendar when Monday started.
The Valentine’s post goes up the day before, and the back-to-school sale launches after school has started. Sound familiar? Published mid-summer on purpose, this post explains calendar holidays versus seasonal rhythms like ski or tax season, how to build a seasonal marketing calendar, and why disappearing in your slow season means reintroducing yourself every year.
Post something worthwhile and the comments can swallow your whole week. After a client asked how to keep that from happening, we laid out a different approach for each platform. Turn comments off on Nextdoor, leave them on for Facebook and Instagram where they boost your reach, and on Reddit, spend as much time commenting as posting.
You’ve seen the “Sponsored” results on Google and the ads from strangers in your Facebook feed. Here are the basics of Google Ads, social media ads, display, retargeting and video ads, when paying for visibility makes sense for a small business, and what paid ads can’t fix on their own.
Visitors form an opinion of your business in five to ten seconds, before they read a word. This post sticks to graphic design basics (your logo, typography and color) and explains how they tell people whether you look established or new, premium or budget, and when it’s time to bring in a professional.
A polished website, social media that looks like another company, and a different logo on the sign than on the business card. Customers may not call it inconsistent branding, but they feel it and trust you less. We break brand consistency into visuals, voice and messaging, and show how a one-page style guide and a quick self-audit close the gaps.
You don’t need unlimited resources. You need to make the resources you have work harder.
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