Search engines like Google use complex algorithms to determine the relevance and quality of websites when users search for specific keywords or phrases. Relevance takes into account the quality of content on a website and the code behind the scenes. Building relevance means optimizing the code, and making sure the content accurately represents your business and brand. The SEO process helps websites align with these algorithms and improve their chances of ranking higher in search results.

It’s important to note that SEO is a long-term process that requires consistent effort and adaptation. Search engines continually update their algorithms, so staying up-to-date with industry trends and best practices is essential to maintain and improve search rankings.

Bounce Rate is defined as the percentage of visitors that leave a webpage without taking an action, such as clicking on a link, completion of a form, or making a purchase. It is a metric that reflects visitor engagement by showing the percentage of users who leave a webpage without interacting—such as clicking links, filling out forms, or engaging with the content in any way. A high bounce rate indicates that a site does not have relevant content for users. A low bounce rate generally means users are pleased with the site’s content. A bounce rate below 40% is typically seen as strong, while a rate above 60% could suggest that improvements are needed to better engage visitors and motivate them to continue exploring the site.

A backlink is a hyperlink on a website that points back to your website. If someone links to your site, then you have a backlinkfrom them. It is a form of citation, in which an article or post about a topic related to your service or business, refers to your website (or links back to it). Regarding SEO, backlinks are used as credibility in the eyes of search engines to measure the value of a page. Backlinks are sometimes referred to as incoming links or inbound links. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the higher your website is likely to rank in search results.

SEO is evolving rapidly, and relying on outdated tactics or assumptions can lead to misaligned strategies and unrealistic expectations. Here are some reasons why SEO strategies may fall short of business expectations:

• Lacking Goals. Without goals, reporting becomes subjective, making it difficult to determine ow much to invest in the content-driven and authority-building aspects of SEO. While goals like increasing traffic or conversions are important at the channel level, they often fall short of connecting performance to true ROI. The most impactful goals extend beyond on-site metrics—particularly for lead generation-driven marketing—by tying SEO efforts directly to meaningful, measurable business outcomes.
• Resources that are not available. Effective SEO thrives on collaboration, resulting in stronger, more user-focused experiences. Executing a successful strategy often depends on support from other key roles—copywriters, analysts, IT teams, developers, and more. Their availability significantly influences both the cost of implementation and how quickly SEO efforts can be put into action and begin driving ROI. When resource needs aren’t factored in early, it can create roadblocks that escalate over time. Poor planning and misalignment can stall progress, dilute results, and ultimately make it more difficult to prove the value of SEO as a business investment.
• Outdated Tactics. Relying on traditional search habits is no longer enough—understanding your audience’s behaviors, challenges, and how they seek solutions is critical as search habits evolve. Users may soon shift to new platforms, AI tools, or technologies that haven’t emerged yet. To stay competitive, marketers must stay agile, adapt to change, and make informed choices about when to innovate and when to optimize what’s already working—without clinging to outdated strategies.

Content marketing involves planning, creating, and distributing relevant, valuable content—such as blogs, videos, infographics, podcasts, and guides—with the goal of attracting and engaging a specific audience.

Brands and marketers conduct research to understand their ideal customers’ pain points, questions, and information needs related to their industry, products, or services. They then produce content designed to address those issues, answer those questions, and provide the needed information.

As potential customers engage with the brand, consuming and interacting with its content, their trust and affinity toward the brand will increase. Ultimately, this growing loyalty leads to the primary goal of any content marketing strategy: a sale or other profitable action that benefits the brand.

Traditional marketing uses outbound methods to push the brand’s message and products/services out to consumers. Traditional outbound marketing methods include billboards, door-to-door sales, trade shows, display ads, and print ads.

A 404 Error, or “Page Not Found,” is an HTTP status code that signals the server couldn’t locate the requested webpage—usually because the page has been deleted, moved, or the link is broken. The error occurs when website content has been removed or moved for a variety of reasons, without proper redirection. It also could mean that the intended link was typed incorrectly.

Dead links are often left for long periods of time because managers didn’t know that the linked content had been deleted or moved. Many webpages still appear in search engine results pages (SERPs) even though they aren’t available online anymore (or at least not at the specified URL).

The timeline for your website is contingent on the complexity and content. Depending on the total scope, type of organization, competitors, and objectives of the project, it can take anywhere between three to six weeks, and sometimes up to two months to complete a project. Taking the time to create excellent original content for your website (potentially including images, video, infographics, and more) is an important first step of development.

Having a launch timeline and staying on track is important, but creating a high-quality website that communicates your organization’s identity should take priority. In other words, the focus should be less on how quickly the site is built and more on making sure the process leads to an effective, well-optimized final product. Prioritizing quality upfront often saves time later by minimizing issues and reducing the need for rework.

There are no long-term contracts for SEO and web design projects. We serve all of our clients on month-to-month agreements.

UX (user experience) and UI (user interface) are interchangeable but interdependent terms. UI generally describes the interaction between users and computer systems, software and applications (or the visual layout and interactive components that shape those interactions). UX describes a user’s experience and how users interact with and feel about a brand, product or service as a whole.

Local SEO is the process of improving the search visibility of a business within a geographic area. Local SEO ranking factors include:

• Quality of Local Search Citations
• Domain Authority
• Click-through rate (CTR) from search results
• Keywords
• User experience (UX)
• Review Quality, Velocity and Diversity
• Backlinks

UX actually stands for user experience. UX encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products. It means providing meaningful and relevant experiences to your audience, followers, or customers. A poor user experience can drive existing or prospective customers to competitors.

Metadata (or meta data) is data that provides info on other data. In SEO, metadata is a series of micro-communications between web pages and search engines. The metadata used for SEO speaks to search engines directly from each page crawled, to communicate important information or request specific action.

Meta tags are snippets of text that describe a page’s content. The meta tags don’t appear on the page itself, but only in the page’s source code.

Every content strategy should offer clear guidance on essential aspects. Here’s a brief overview.

• Goals. Without goals, your content marketing lacks direction, leaving your efforts without a clear focus.
• Audience. Identify who needs the expertise and solutions your brand offers, and who you should be addressing through content. You must gain a deep understanding of your audience—their concerns, interests, and challenges—so your content resonates effectively.
• Platform. Your website is a powerful platform because you control the visibility of your content. We always recommend focusing on your website first – specifically, posting content on your blog or news feed. Any chosen social media platform can point back to your website. What social media platform(s) will be your focus?
• Content. Choose content topics and formats. Your best topic areas will be relevant to industry expertise and what you sell. When it comes to content types, if you’re a small brand, you likely won’t have the resources to produce polished, high-end video content. However, you can consistently create high-quality blog posts, which is where many brands begin.
• Promotion. Choose the best means of promoting your content.
• Tracking Progress. Determine how you’ll track and measure results. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) help to track performance of content marketing goals.

A content strategy framework serves as a comprehensive plan for all your content marketing activities. It outlines how you’ll create, manage, publish, promote, and sustain content to achieve your brand’s objectives.

Documenting this framework—whether in a PDF, spreadsheet, or a notepad—creates a living reference point for implementing your strategy. It’s a resource you can consistently revisit to steer all your content marketing efforts. It’s crucial to understand that your content strategy is dynamic, not fixed. It should evolve alongside your brand as you identify what works and what doesn’t.

Adjusting the strategy, including your goals, is necessary based on the insights you gain. Remember, this strategy is designed to be iterative. Content creation isn’t a one-time task; it involves producing numerous pieces over time, all guided by the framework you’ve established.

A meta description is an HTML element that provides a brief summary of a webpage. A page’s meta description tag is displayed as part of the search snippet in a search engine results page (SERP) and is meant to give the user an idea of the content that exists within the page and how it relates to their search query.

Click-Through Rate (CTR) references search ads, usually Pay-Per-Click ads, and is the number of clicks that an ad receives divided by the number of times the ad is shown:

Clicks ÷ Impressions = CTR

For example, if you had 10 clicks and 100 impressions, the CTR would be 10%. Each ad, listing, and keyword have their own CTR that can be seen listed in the account.

Social Media Management is the process of managing your online presence on social media platforms by creating, publishing, and analyzing content, and developing a strategy that’s tailored to your target audience. Managing social media also includes engaging and interacting with social media users. By creating strategic content for social media profiles, a small business can increase its social reach and build a strong brand on social media.

Social Media Marketing involves using social media platforms to promote products, services, or brands. It includes running paid social media ads, engaging with followers, and analyzing metrics to optimize campaigns.

Social Media refers to interactive technologies that enable people to share information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. Social media allows followers to comment, like, and share your brand and info with their friends and families. Social media platforms offer cost-effective marketing options where small businesses can reach a large number of people at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising channels. Additionally, targeted advertising tools on platforms like Facebook and Instagram allow businesses to reach specific demographics and tailor their messages accordingly. More importantly, it allows your followers to share what they like, dislike, and expect from you as a business. Compared with traditional advertising platforms, social media is incredibly affordable and effective. It’s also one of the only areas where small business can have an advantage over larger corporations, via personal and authentic content.