FAQs

When people ask me, “Do you do SEO?”—most of the time, they don’t really know what that means. SEO is made up of many different components, so I usually answer, “yes and no.” Yes, we do SEO in the sense that we implement well-known best practices. We set up the basic framework expected by search engines: page titles, subtitles, content, images, image alternative text, and the underlying structure of your website. All of this helps Google read your website accurately and understand what your site is about, so it knows where to place it in search results.

That said, just because your site is optimized does not mean it will show up at the top of Google search results. Your site can still appear on page 10, especially if there are hundreds of other websites offering similar content or services. As an example, if there are two sites both selling women’s shoes, how does Google determine which shows up first?

Now we’re talking about a popularity contest. Think of it like high school—being the most popular could mean being the funniest, the best-looking, or the most successful.  To become the most popular organically (without paying for it), you have to put in a lot of ongoing work. It’s the same online.

Google uses a highly secretive and complex mathematical algorithm to determine who appears at the top of search results. That algorithm is more protected than the president of the United States, because that algorithm is worth billions of dollars. Any person who can figure out how to be first on Google search (the most popular), ultimately makes a lot more money than the person who shows up on page 10.

The truth is that no one knows what that algorithm is and Google will never reveal it. Google, on occasion, will provide some general information but will never give away its special formula. This is why no SEO company will ever be able to tell you with 100% certainty that they can put you at the top of any Google search listing. And guess what, it is constantly changing.

There are a lot of “SEO companies” out there, many of them run by a single person calling themselves an SEO specialist—with minimal training. I’ve spent years trying to find reliable SEO services to refer clients to and found it incredibly difficult. My general feeling is that larger SEO companies are really the only viable option because you need a high volume of clients in order to test to see if specific changes will actually affect search results.

Remember Google is constantly changing their algorithm every single day.  So unless an SEO company is running real-time tests on a large number of sites, they’re just guessing. Search results also vary based on location, device, user history, and even the time of day, making SEO an insanely complex problem.

No SEO company knows for sure what works. They test theories across many websites and then try to reverse-engineer their own equation for improving search rank. The idea that a single person overseas—or even in the U.S.—can do that alone seems far-fetched to me.

And guess what, the ‘experts’ often disagree on what works.

I’ve had a lot of clients hire individual ‘SEO experts’ and each one felt like they were chasing a carrot which they never ended up getting. After seeing how much pain my clients were going through, I decided to do my own training with my staff in order to provide a higher level of SEO for my clients because a lot of them were demanding it. And to my dismay what I found with a lot of the SEO training online was that there was a major focus on trying to convince your clients that you were doing something, through extensive SEO audit reports but whether it actually helped the client in the end was irrelevant. I don’t run my business this way. And I never will.

What we do know is that Google ranks sites based on something called domain ranking and there are a lot of things that we know influence domain ranking

1. how long has your website domain been active?
2. how many pages are on your website?
3. how much text & images are on each page?
4. how often do you update the content?
5. how much traffic already comes to your website?
6. how long do people stay on your website?
7. how many other quality websites link to your site?

All of these things help improve your ranking and over time your ranking should grow. Much of these things are common sense.

Why should you not care about your search ranking? I’ve watched clients chase the SEO carrot for years — often with no real improvement in sales. My personal opinion is that you need to focus on great content. Make sure that your website actually contains information that YOU would want to read; information that is extremely valuable to YOU. This is the best way to ensure now, but also in the future, that your presence online will be valued. This method has proven successful with several clients. My clients with excellent content are now showing up in AI-generated search results—and they’re seeing conversions and sales directly from AI.

I have examples of sites I’ve built without any SEO at all outperform dramatically other sites simply because the content was very valuable to the end user. Focus on value. Quality is finally winning again. Cheap and easy are out.

Balance is everything. If you only focus on site speed, your site might be fast but unimpressive.  I’ve seen clients double their viewers (and double their hosting costs), while their sales don’t increase at all.  But if you only focus on conversion rate optimization (CRO) – how often viewers become actually customers- without promoting your site, you’ll still struggle. You need to work on everything—in proportion.

Build a resource-rich site that people come back to. Stop talking about you, start listening to your customers and answer their questions through your website.  Think like a buyer.  If you were purchasing this product/service what would you need to know to feel like you made the right choice? Wikipedia always shows up at the top of most search results. It is a great example of what Google likes. It has a lot of good information which is referenced from external sources just like you had to do back in grade school when you wrote a paper. It has examples, pictures, etc all qualifying it as a good source of information. Follow their example.

Use best practices, but don’t obsess over SEO. Google is always going to make it harder and harder to be the ‘most popular’ because their sole purpose is in making money. The harder it is, the more likely you are to pay them for Google Ads.

If you just sit back and hope people find your website, you’re dreaming. Word-of-mouth, networking, and real-world interactions matter. Again you need to sell people on YOU, not your product. My business is 100% word of mouth because I provide a high-value product and that’s all people really want.

Your site should strike a balance between Beautiful / Interesting and Easy / Predictable.

Write your content in a way that Google understands and can use that in search results.

Build your site knowing people DO NOT read websites. They skim, so if the point doesn’t jump out at you, then you’ve missed your audience.

Marketing is extremely simple. Basically it boils down to a consistent message; from how your staff answers the phone, to your website design, pricing, packaging, and even how you dress. Everything that is a part of your business, tells a story. It might say ‘we are professional, or unique, or innovative, or high-end’. People aren’t purchasing a product, they are purchasing you. You are what they are investing in. Every person is unique and your business (if it is a good one) is also unique. You might not be the fastest, or cheapest, or highest quality, but you have something unique to offer. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as that message is consistent.

I always ask my clients one question, ‘why should I buy this from you?’ They typically give me a very honest answer and that answer is the main focus for the entire website. I had one client tell me they had unparalleled customer service. And I said, great, then you have to make sure that message comes across in everything you do, from your invoicing, to your staff. At that point, the business owners gave each other a sideways glance and after some probing explained they had one person on their staff who had been with the business a long time, but was often impatient with customers. They realized that even though the rest of their business provided great customer service, the lack of consistency undermined their entire credibility. I told them, right, you don’t have to be good at everything, but you do have to be great at something. And if this person is keeping you from being great, you’ll never have good marketing, no matter how much money you throw at it. And that’s the truth.

Be smart. Focus on what actually works. You already started your business and have customers so what made them purchase your product or service? Ok, so keep doing more of that. There was an article I read many years ago talking about how one non-profit helped a 3rd world country improved the health in poor communities. They tried everything (with no result), except for what was ALREADY working.  They looked at those in poor communities who already had good health and used what THEY were doing to help others. And it was miraculous how much it changed the community. Same with your business, none are the same, so take a look and see what already is working.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. If you think doing paid Google Ads to boost your traffic is all you need to do, then you are setting yourself up for disaster. I’ve seen it. If you think your organic search results is the only thing that matters, again disaster. I’ve seen that too. Stop thinking that Google is your best friend. It is a useful tool but in the end, its only goal is to get you to spend more money. So do a little of ALL of the follow:

I often get clients just by going shopping or taking up a new hobby; that is meeting people. People LOVE doing business with someone they’ve met because they already feel what you are like. Feeling is the majority of what drives our decisions. People go with their gut, and if you are honest and good, they will feel that. You don’t have to do much selling at all. Plus, people will tell those they know about you too.

Flyers, business cards, post cards, etc. Have something that summaries what you do, and why I should give you my money. If you can clearly answer those questions people feel calm, because in the end that is all they really want to know. Having paper to distribute demonstrates to your customers that you are 1) professional and legitimate 2) forces them to hold onto something as a reminder of your business later on.

I have FB, Instagram, Linked-in, Google Business profile, etc. Do I spend much time on ANY of these. No. But I have them all and occasionally I post things so anyone who does see them will know I’m legit. Because I’ve had these accounts for so long, it also demonstrates to my customers that I’ve been in business for a long time, which adds value and credibility.

Again a website demonstrates you are legit and much like a store front, it is a reliable place someone can go to get the answers they need about your products or services. Website’s don’t need to be fancy or large, just ACCURATE. If you have inaccurate information, that can kill a potential customer much faster than a boring website, because you are trying to BUILD TRUST with them and how can you if they can’t trust your website. That is the equivalent of going into a shop and your staff providing inaccurate information to your customers. They probably won’t ever be coming back. Being helpful is the other thing a website should provide. Again, much like a physical shop, if the staff goes out of their way to be helpful while you are trying to decide on your purchase, you tend to want to buy it more. It is the same with websites, if the information you provide is simple, clear with pictures and graphics to help explain things, then guess what, people internally say ‘thank you, that was exactly what I was needing’.

Custom websites have their advantages. The code is simple because it only contains that which is necessary for your site so the website loads very fast. Google likes it and users like it. It also comes with some major disadvantages. Building a custom website is like building a custom car, if your mechanic ever leaves, you are screwed because a new mechanic, and in this case, a new web developer is going to want to rebuild your site from scratch. Websites contain thousands of lines of code and no developer wants to tinker under the hood trying to figure out what the heck someone else did. It might take them just as long to figure it out, as it would to start from scratch, because they would build it differently. The other major disadvantage is that any time you want to update your site, you’ll need to pay your web developer because it won’t have a very easy backend user experience. Most clients don’t want to dig through code trying to figure out how to make a simple change. Lastly, custom websites are built for a fixed experience; that is if your business grows and changes, your custom website will have a harder time expanding with you, without costing you more.

Now to be clear, when I say template or theme, I do not mean the thousands of cheap, pre-built, pre-designed website templates you can purchase where you simply change out a few images and text and call it good. What I’m talking about is the software behind that.

I use Avada Theme (Fusion Builder) which is a piece of software that is extremely robust, flexible and as a designer gives me just about everything I’d want to create a beautiful website from scratch. It also has a great backend user experience so I can easily teach my clients how to make simple changes without having to pay me to do it for them. Also because Avada is a well-known software, if my clients ever want to leave me, they can easily find another website designer who can take over where I left off without having to rebuild. Using Avada, saves hundreds of hours of time because a lot of things are already in place. For example, the ‘responsive’ nature (what it looks like on mobile) is already set up so I only have to refine the mobile experience, not start from scratch.

Whereas with a custom site, all that work has to be hand coded. The main, and in my mind the only disadvantage is in performance. Theme websites will always run slower (unless you purchase other software like Nitropack) because they have a lot more going on – translated they have a lot more code.

A lot of websites are built custom for the sole purpose of keeping you hostage where you can’t leave your developer without also loosing your website investment. I teach my clients how to be completely independent. I want them to use my services because it is faster, more cost-effective, and will keep their website healthy for the long-run, not because leaving will mean a major disaster for their website and business. I make sure my clients know how to protect themselves. For example, no company should ever own your domain name – that’s like letting someone else hold your car or home title.