How to evaluate a marketing agency before you sign
Agency churn is highest at exactly the agencies most service businesses hire. The questions that actually predict whether one will work out, before you sign.
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Marketing insights for operators who are done guessing.
No vanity metrics, no theatre. Just what actually moves revenue for $1M–$10M service businesses: Google Ads, SEO, content, and conversion, written by the firm that installs them as one managed system.
Local link building for service businesses: earning the backlinks that move rankings
Links are the third-biggest local ranking factor, and the one service businesses do the least about. How to earn them without a national PR budget.
ReadNegative keywords: the highest-ROI 30 minutes in your Google Ads account
One in four Google Ads accounts has never added a single negative keyword. Here's the wasted spend that creates, and how to fix it in one sitting.
ReadA/B testing for service businesses: what to test first, and what to skip
Most service-business sites don't have the traffic for textbook A/B testing. Here's what to test anyway, in what order, and how to read results honestly.
ReadSchema markup in 2026: what still earns rich results, and what AI reads instead
Google killed the FAQ rich result in May 2026. Here's the schema that still earns rich results, plus the structured data AI search actually reads.
ReadCAC vs. LTV: how much you can actually afford to spend on a customer
A budget percentage tells you what you're spending. CAC and LTV tell you whether that spend makes money. The unit-economics math every service business should run.
ReadLocal citations and NAP consistency: the unglamorous SEO that compounds
Citations won't win you the Map Pack alone, but inconsistent name, address, and phone data quietly caps everything else you do. The 2026 fix, done once, right.
ReadRetargeting ads for service businesses: recovering the leads you already paid for
Even a decent service-business site only converts 2 to 4% of visitors when traffic lands on a general page. Retargeting is how you get a second shot at the rest, without paying for a new click.
ReadShould you use AI to write your marketing content?
AI can draft a blog post in seconds, but should it? What AI-written content actually costs service businesses, and the AI-assisted, expertise-led approach that still ranks and gets cited.
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