Since launching my digital marketing agency and SEO consultancy in 2014, I’ve found the only time of the year where it really works well to take a full week off is the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Why? Because that’s the one time of year most of my clients are off the work grid too and don’t want or need me to be in communication with them.
Putting Your Mental Health and Physical Health First As A Small Business Owner
As a small business owner working out of my home office, I have far less “automatic” exercise built into my day than I did when I was commuting to various corporate marketing jobs in Boston, Cambridge, and Brookline (for my Brookline job I was able to walk to and from my job from my Brookline condo, which I adored). Commuting to work required me to take the stairs at MBTA (subway) stations, plus often walk part of the way to my office from the closest MBTA (T) station and/or take a lot of stairs to reach my office at the building in which I worked. Plus, I often did a quick lunch run to buy and bring back lunch to my office. So daily exercise was built into my daily life. Not so much now since I’m working out of my home in Braintree. A blessing is that we live in a tri-level house so there are lots of stairs to take to access various levels and rooms of the house.
Let’s face it. Exercise doesn’t just support physical health. It supports mental health by providing a means to manage stress, and if you exercise outdoors, there are so many benefits from being out in nature. Plus, exercise just provides time to step away from your computer and work!
Walking The Talk: Making Health A Priority
Being past mid-life, most of my friends and family members are prioritizing their health — both physical and mental. I’ve vowed to do the same numerous times in recent years, and I have walked pretty frequently, i.e., several times a week (particularly on the weekends), but I want and need to walk DAILY. I’ve stepped up my game (hah, hah) in recent months as far as prioritizing my walks – thanks to constant reminders from friends and accountability partners! Hey, the work will always be there, and I bring a better Gail to my client engagements and client discussions if I’m more mentally and physically healthy, right?
So, over the holiday break, I capitalized on my free time and set a goal to walk long distances during my days off. Unfortunately, I did end up needing to work the Thursday after Christmas (long story), so we’ll start with Friday of last week.
The next day I mall-walked at the South Shore Plaza with a good friend who also likes to walk regularly. We both wanted to get a good walk in after our annual holiday movie-watching activity with my twin. Mall walking provided the perfect solution since it was drizzling out. We were determined to not let excuses get in our way!
Day Three:
I walked to drop a holiday gift off at a friend’s house, and then just kept walking — visiting many of the smaller and/or less busy streets in the Highlands area of Braintree that I regularly walked during the pandemic to keep my sanity!
Day Four:
I went for a long walk around my neighborhood and stopped by the local lending library and found a book about Native Americans that I think that Jay and I will both enjoy reading! The added perks of walking around my neighborhood always include visiting this book-sharing spot, plus chatting with neighbors!
Day Five:
Jay and I visited the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton. So loved the button art display, plus the basketball related art and learning the heart-warming story behind it. We got some good steps in just going up and down the stairs at the Museum, but after walked for about an hour at DW Field Park. If you haven’t checked it out — and I hadn’t — you are missing out on a beautiful place to walk in the Greater Boston area! Gorgeous ponds, lots of ducks, geese, swans, and seagulls, and tons of shorter and longer walking paths! Plus, lots of fellow walkers to encourage one to keep moving!
Day Six:
I love a good “destination walk,” so to motivate myself to accomplish 6 for 6, I walked to my local CVS and then took a different way home than I normally would — just to force me to do some of what I call “hill work” (walking up a steep hill to strengthen my glutes, which ultimately strengthens one’s back). I always welcome carrying a small package or bag home when I walk to CVS, Stop & Shop, or some other business within walking distance of my home because I’m really trying to strengthen my upper back right now. And, the aforementioned destination walk provided an opportunity for both my legs and back to get in better shape!
Speaking of backs, I was “back at it” on the work front yesterday, but so glad my time away from my office allowed me to refresh my brain and relax a bit, but also get some physical exercise. So, I’m starting off the new work year in a better place mentally and physically.
And now, I’m really excited about the new year will bring, so bring it on!!! I wish my readers the healthiest possible new year on all fronts!
We’re going to keep this blog post short because, like most organizations during this time of year, we’ve got work to wrap up for the current year and tactics and plans to put in place for the new one — for both our client organizations and our own. Fortunately, we’ve already addressed many of the topics we’ll address in this blog post in a variety of previous blog posts, so we’re sharing those, as appropriate. So, what should all organizations be doing now to plan for the new year on the marketing front if they haven’t already done so? Read on…
How To Get Ready For A New Marketing Year, i.e., 2025!
It may feel pretty scary to do so, but be willing to cut back on the number of social media posts you put out there in the digisphere and/or the platforms you are on if and when social media isn’t worth the time and money. Often organizations rely too heavily on this particular form of marketing because they think of it as free, but it’s likely that all of your target audiences aren’t regularly online and you are missing out on opportunities available thru other marketing activities to reach them. Learn more about the aforementioned by reading our previous blog post that helps you figure out how large of a social media presence is warranted.
Related to the bullet directly above, start gathering information about some non-digital marketing/traditional marketing activities in which you might invest in 2025 — ask about pricing, of course, but also about circulation/impressions (# of people reached), demographics of audience reached, opportunities to include a QR code in your ad, frequency of distribution/publication, and are their volume discounts for purchasing a series of ads. Ask for sample success stories, and how and when circulation/impressions information was last updated, plus how advertisers are able to determine if their advertising is effective, i.e., about results tracking available via the medium on which you are purchasing advertising. Learn more about the perks of traditional marketing and how you can assess how ads on external websites are working for you.
Give some long and hard thought to whether push vs. pull marketing (or both) would serve you best in the new year.
To summarize, figure out what’s working well for you and keep it going and/or invest more in those marketing activities in 2025, remain open to and check out new marketing opportunities, and stop investing marketing $$ and time in activities that don’t work for you, simply because it gives you some unease not having such activities in place. Perhaps, only a small pivot will be necessary!
And, related to the above, figure out what marketing data is most important for you to track, so you don’t spend time gathering and documenting stats and KPIs (key performance indicators) that aren’t relevant and/or that you can’t influence in any way/move the needle on.
Our SEO Consulting Firm Helps Clients Figure Out Where To Invest Their Marketing $$ and Time And We Can Help You!
If you regularly read our digital marketing blog, you know that I blog most frequently about two topics about which I’m particularly passionate — SEO (search engine optimization) and walking. It’s been a while since we put up a brand new walking-related post. But, as we write and post this, it’s Veterans Day, and unlike most Mondays, I was able to squeeze in a walk today during business hours. Usually, Mondays are our SEO consulting firm’s busiest day of the week because our search-engine-optimization and other-digital-marketing clients come back on the communications grid after being away from their offices over the weekend and/or we’ve got a bunch of work-related e-mails to respond to that came in over the weekend. But, with it being a federal holiday, it’s been far calmer on the e-communications front. The only e-mails we are getting today are from fellow marketing consultants! So, it felt right and perfect to squeeze in a mid-afternoon walk on a sixty-something-degree November day!
Don’t Get Out Of SEO Shape. Stay SEO Strong!
In addition to being able to walk today, from a time and workload perspective, I needed to walk. I’d been under-the-weather for about a week with a bad head cold, and I hadn’t gotten my almost-daily walk in since I became sick. That meant, I was a little bit out of shape and I walked slightly slower than usual and was able to walk less far. Like walking, whether it be related to my own business or a client’s, I’ve found it best to keep up with SEO regularly. How? By, at least twice-a-month, putting up fresh content — whether that be in the form of a blog post, new question and answer for an existing FAQ, or some other kind of updated/new content from which target audiences would benefit.
The more you stick to a schedule and stay in SEO shape, the easier it seems to be to stay on that path, and keep producing effective content that addresses the needs of your audience, i.e., helpful content. Plus, if you keep doing the aforementioned, the less likely your organization’s will slide significantly backwards in search-engine results, and the less you’ll need to invest a large chunk of time all at once to try to regain the ground you lost on the SEO front.
In addition to consistency, as we shared in this past blog post about what exercise of any kind/exercise in general has in common with SEO, search-engine optimization success requires patience. You’re not going to be able to walk or run at your desired pace from the get-go, i.e., when you first start a walking or running program. And, you’re not going to be able to go the distance you want either. You’ve got to stay patient, while continuing to move forward and achieve small successes.
Our Boston SEO Company/SEO Consulting Firm Is Here To Help!
Our team of SEO consultants is here to take your SEO journey with you every step of the way! In fact, we’ll document results to remind you where you came from, what you’ve accomplished, and what goals you should be setting next and suggested tactics to achieve them. Reach out today for a complimentary SEO discussion today!
At Results Communications and Research, we often use two distinct website diagnostic tools to run website diagnostic reports for existing clients and prospective clients. These reports include:
Google Lighthouse Reports – these reports provide feedback — both an overall score for each category as well as detail on website factors, features, issues, etc. that contribute to the overall score — on the four broad categories below:
Performance
Accessibility
SEO
Best Practices
Site Auditor Reports – similar to Google Lighthouse Reports, these reports provide an overall score (but just one), but also give you all the behind-the-scenes detail, so you know what needs to be adjusted on your website, and why, to improve your score. What we love about this report is that it reports factors/issues that should be addressed into these three categories, so you know which ones are most important to address first, i.e., those that are most likely most contributing most to your site not ranking as well as it could in search engine results:
Critical – these should be addressed immediately
Error – these should be addressed after the above
Warning – these you can slowly chip away at
Why Run Website Diagnostics Reports?
If you’re a follower of our blog or a frequent visitor of our website, you know that our Boston digital marketing agency has an expertise in SEO (search engine optimization). We are super passionate about helping organizations be found on search engines for appropriate terms in relevant geographies. There are an extensive list of factors that can influence how likely Google or other search engines will be to serve your website up in search results. Ultimately, search engines want searchers to find what they need and have a good “user experience” when they visit a website that the search engine serves up in search results.
The two reports mentioned above can help you determine both SEO challenges and opportunities. We like to say, “they help you both identify issues with your website that are likely causing search engines to “ding” it and make them less eager/more reluctant to serve your site up in relevant search results, and identify missed opportunities related to being found on search.” The latter category reflects items that search engines aren’t necessarily dinging your site for, but if your website employed best practices related to them, your site would likely rank better in appropriate search results.
Examples Of SEO Challenges and Opportunities Revealed By Website Diagnostics Reports
There are a large number of factors and issues on which the above two diagnostics tools report, so the following list is far from exclusive. But, some examples of critical SEO challenges and opportunities that are revealed by the reports include:
Factors/Features That Likely Cause Your Site To Be “Dinged” By Search Engines:
Slow Site Load Speed – search engines do not like to serve up websites that are slow to load.
No Image Alternative Text Tags (Alt Tags) – search engines want site visitors to have a good “user experience,” as we mentioned above. If a site is not accessible, i.e., not able to be read by screen users used by those with visual impairment or other physical disabilities, how can the visitor have a good experience? Incorporating alt tags when you include an image on a website page or in a website blog post is just one of many factors to be addressed to ensure your website is accessible.
Pointing to internal or external website pagesthat have an http:// (non-secure) vs. https:// (secure)address. Search engines do not like to send visitors to insecure websites.
Broken links/missing pages – often pages to which website content links are removed/taken down — whether the links point to internal pages/posts or to external ones. Search engines see this as neglect and not keeping an eye on your website and will view this negatively.
Missed Opportunities That Cause You To Miss Out On Ranking Well In Search Engine Results:
Not employing SEO meta page/post title tags: we always call these “your most important piece of SEO real estate” as they are crawled by search engines and tell them for what topics/search terms to index a particular page or post on your website.
Not completing SEO meta description tags: while it’s unknown for certain how directly these tags influence how your website ranks, they indirectly do, at a minimum, since they let potential visitors know what a page of your site is all about when it is served up in search results. Ultimately, this causes your pages to have a higher click-thru rate, and Google and other search engines view sites that have more website visitor traffic as more credible ones, and therefore, ones they are more comfortable serving up in relevant searches.
Publishing duplicate website content: we won’t re-create the wheel since our most recent blog post speaks to the downfall of having too much duplicate content, but the takeaway is this: when you repeat the same or very similar content in numerous places on your website, search engines get confused and they may not serve up those pages in relevant search results, nor index that content to begin with!
Publishing content that is too short or that doesn’t contain enough true crawlable/indexable content: As we expressed in this blog post about an important Google Core Algorithm update, Google and other search engines do not like to serve up low-quality, unhelpful content. They want to serve up meaningful content that allows visitors to take action to address their particular concerns. In addition, search engines can’t crawl/index pdfs, so if a lot of a page’s content is housed in an infographic or image, that is content that search engines will not serve your site up for. Sure, you can tag the image on the back end, but it’s unlikely your tag can incorporate everything an infographic or an image with a lot of content, or a pdf, has to say.
Not Sure How To Run, Interpret, Or Respond To Website Diagnostics Reports?
As an SEO consulting firm who has access to Site Auditor diagnostics reports thru a subscription, we are seeing that, when we run a website thru the aforementioned diagnostic tool, if the site shares certain content in two or more places (think on different pages or different blog posts within the site), the site receives a negative search engine optimization (SEO) warning for that. That’s because of the SEO implications of having “duplicate content.” When search engines, like Google and Bing, crawl a website and run into the exact same, or pretty identical, content blocks on more than one page of/post on your site, they may not end up indexing any of those pages (and therefore, won’t serve them up for relevant search terms) because they are confused about which page they should index related to certain topics to begin with. Or, if they do index pages/posts that have identical content, both pages or posts may rank poorly because of competing with each other, or search engines just feeling confused about when to serve them up.
You really need to think of search engines as entities that file and store information and who need your help to figure out where to file particular website pages or blog posts, i.e., what topic folder they should put them in. That’s where meta page and post titles come in, and really help search engines do their jobs!
When You Should Share The Same Content On Several Pages Of/Posts On Your Website:
When it’s contact information, such as:
e-mail address
physical address
phone number
social media icons that link to your social media media profiles
When it’s critical to website visitors’ health & safety, such as:
needing to wear a mask when visiting your physical location
needing to call 911 or call a doctor in case of a health emergency vs. making a health decision based on visiting your website
When you need to include an important disclaimer, such as legal ones or ones required by a regulatory body:
before trying this, speak with your doctor
we are not medical or health professionals, or licensed xyz professionals
all users of our product/service may not experience the same results or results may vary
When You Shouldn’t Share The Same Content On Several Pages Of/Posts On Your Website:
When you’re posting detailed content/information on a particular topic (including information about your products or services, or about your organization) that is more than a couple of sentences, and particularly when it’s several paragraphs or more.
Instead Of Sharing The Same Content On Several Pages Of Your Website:
Use plug-ins, widgets, or other CMS (content management system aka website platform) capabilities that allow you to share snippets of blog posts or of content from other pages of your site. Think of it as allowing for previews of information housed in other site posts or pages without repeating/sharing the entire post or page content on a particular topic.
Need Help Identifying If There Are Any Issues Related To Your Website That Are Negatively Impacting SEO And How Your Website Ranks In Google?
As SEO consultants, we can run a couple of different diagnostics reports to help you identify current issues with your website that may be harming how high up in search-engine results your website is found for relevant search terms known as keywords, in relevant geographies. We, can, then, help you interpret the implications of the issues and possibilities for resolving them.
This may be one of our shortest, but most important blog posts. As a digital marketing agency who specializes in SEO services, we often see organizations back-burnering execution of business-critical initial or ongoing SEO tactics. We use the phrase “business-critical” because, for many organizations, neglecting implementing one-off and ongoing SEO best tactics means that they are missing out on what tends to be one of the highest sources of traffic to any website, i.e., search-engine traffic.
And, for many organizations with which we work, search-engine traffic “converts” better than any other source of website traffic, including paid search advertising (Google and Bing Ads), direct traffic (traffic from individuals who have bookmarked your site or type it directly into their browser), organic (unpaid social media posts), paid social media (Instagram and Facebook ads, etc.), and referral traffic (traffic stemming from links found on external sites, known as “backlinks.”)
Examples Of How Organizations Put Off Important SEO Work
Below are two examples of how/where/why SEO work stalls. Note that these aren’t the only reasons SEO work gets delayed, but these are the reasons/situations we witness most often in our work helping organizations rank better on Google or in other search engines. Delays could be due client capacity and staffing or just not prioritizing work properly.
One-Time/One-Off/Initial Organic Work
Not reviewing or using keyword research with which we provide our clients as part of an engagement to complete initial SEO tactics/deliverables. Often when our firm is first engaged to employ one-time/one-off SEO best tactics, our second step or first step (depending on whether we conduct an SEO audit rankings) is to provide our customers with lists of the highest-volume keywords (search terms) individuals are using to find an organization that offers the products, services, and solutions that the client does. As part of this research we employ a tool called “Answer The Public” to identify relevant questions that target audiences have. Before we can use those keywords and questions to implement other SEO best practices, we need our customers to provide feedback on which terms and questions feel appropriate and authentic to their business. But, unfortunately, often those reviews are stalled or delayed, which means other SEO work (that is dependent on the aforementioned work) can’t move forward.
Ongoing Organic SEO Work
Not making time to post to one or several Google My Business Profile(s) the way organizations post to social media platforms.
Not using the keyword research and Answer-The-Public question lists mentioned in the section above to inform and write new blog posts or new questions to be housed in an FAQ, and ultimately, posting that new content to the organization’s website.
Organic SEO Tactics Often Achieve More Than Advertising Campaigns
Per the beginning of our blog post and the header above, organic SEO tactics often deliver better results than any kind of online/digital and/or print or other form of advertising. So, we encourage those who keep putting off implementing initial SEO best practices and ongoing/monthly ones to reconsider their marketing and advertising priorities. We recommend the following:
Set a deadline for implementing initial/one-off SEO best practices. These include, but are not limited to:
making sure important keywords/search phrases used by your target audiences are incorporated in page content and in behind-the-scenes meta page/post title tags
embedding your Google My Business Profile on the contact page of your website
placing in the footer of your website a statement that indicates to Google the geography where your organization is located as well as the geography you serve
Schedule two 1/2 days a month where you will:
Write and post a new blog post using keyword research and questions research
Post updates to your Google My Business Profile — these updates could provide an intro. that links back to a blog post on your site
Because one of the services my agency offers is PR — and we’ve had some decent success obtaining meaningful media coverage for some of our for-profit and non-profit clients (as documented in our Public Relations Portfolio) — of course, we reached out to The Patriot Ledger to see if they wanted to do a “then and now” story about our South Shore organization since they covered our story nine years back. We’re still awaiting news, literally and figuratively on that one, but we figured why not go ahead and share a similar version of that story on our blog using the highlights we shared with them? So, here goes…
I prefer to refer to my business as a digital marketing agency vs. a marketing consultancy because we do as much as hands-on work as we do developing & recommending marketing strategies.
Our story actually began with me launching my own WordPress website without the help of anyone else, and my officially hanging my digital marketing agency’s shingle via that site. And, if I knew as much as I know about WordPress and website development now as I knew then, I would have originally launched my site with WordPress.org (the platform that it’s on now) vs. WordPress.org, so I could use the many great WordPress plug-ins from the get-go! Or, I might also have considered Joomla instead, but owning a business and getting it right is all about the journey. And, you can’t learn what you need to learn without making a few mistakes and getting your hands dirty, right?
What’s been particularly challenging as an organization who helps others with their own marketing is, sometimes, as I’ve been known to share, “the cobbler’s kids have no shoes.” That means often we are so busy helping our clients with their marketing, we don’t have time for our own. The aforementioned said, we make every effort to have our firm’s own marketing activities (such as our website and social media profiles) serve as a shining example of how to maintain a strong online presence, and it’s great that we’ve been able to use our own business to test and try out various marketing activities — therefore, serve as a bit of a guinea pig — before we test or try something brand new with clients.
I believe and hope my story can motivate and inspire others considering opening their own business. Before, or right after I launched my business, I was told by one individual who works with entrepreneurs that 80% of female marketing consultants fail. I refused to be a statistic, and regularly told myself that during the first 5 years, which were the hardest. It takes a good five years to get the word out there and have business come to you organically/naturally thru referrals, leads, and recommendations from others — made by former co-workers and clients, existing clients, other marketing consultants and agencies, and other organizations who serve the same vertical/target audiences whom you serve.
My philosophy and dreams when I started my business have remained pretty constant and I’m pleased to report I’ve followed them. I’m particularly proud that I’ve been able to continue to offer what I believe, based on research, are very reasonable rates to small for-profit and non-profit organizations. Due to my years of experience and expertise, clients have access to the same level of knowledge and skills that they’d have access to via a larger marketing agency, but at much lower rates than what a larger agency might offer. And, because we have significant experience in both traditional marketing AND digital marketing, we can offer the majority of services a larger, full-service agency can.
The biggest lesson I’ve learned that I’d love to share with others starting a business is this: don’t think of others in your space as competitors. Think of them as collaborators – people who serve the same target audiences who may need your services.
Our Impact: Local (South Shore of Boston), National, and International
I’ve helped a number of young adults who grew up on the South Shore, or elsewhere in MA, get hands-on experience that they were able to parlay into a post-graduation job elsewhere.
Related to the above, I’ve had the great fun and pleasure of working with my nephews, my brother, my brother-in-law, and my late sister-in-law on various client projects.
I’ve also met with a number of college or graduate school students looking to pick my brain about careers in marketing and learn from me – including one in my neighborhood who found me thru a Google search! Yes, because early on I recognized I needed to create a Google My Business Profile for my own business to be found by local, relevant searchers and this is something I regularly help my clients with now!
I’ve given a large number of pro bono hours to nonprofits as part of a totally free consulting/volunteer situation or discussion, or as part of their paid arrangement with me. I’ve had a number of very interesting local nonprofit clients, including ones in the faith-based space, arts and music space, ones serving vulnerable populations, ones serving individuals with special needs, and one providing financially challenged teens the opportunity to serve vulnerable teens abroad, and more! Some have an international impact.
One of my specialties is helping nonprofits apply for a Google Nonprofit Ad Grant. I, then, often stay on and manage the Grant for them – $120,000 in free Google Search advertising annually. I can explain more.
I also have a number of for-profit clients on the South Shore, but my client base is national and I have had clients in New Orleans, CA, Texas, and more!
I’ve served over 120 for-profit and non-profit organizations in the 10 years I’ve been running my digital marketing agency/SEO company.
I had no idea when I launched my business that I would become an expert in something that I only had very little knowledge of at the time when I launched my business – search engine optimization (SEO). Many of my referrals for or sub-contracted work come from other agencies, marketing consultants, and website designers who need to pull someone into their client work/project who knows how to get websites and Google My Business Profiles ranking well in Google via organic and paid search (Google Ads) SEO activities. I’ve become a self-taught SEO expert and very proud of it. I just read and watched everything I could get my hands on, took Google Ads certification classes, and attended free webinars. I still do that daily as Google’s Search Engine will be switching to an AI one, and I’m already helping my clients be proactive about that and prep for it (Google SGE).
As indicated above, while I do sub-contracted or referred work for other agencies, marketing consultants, and website designers, many of my clients are my own clients, and I usually have a plate of about 12 – 15 clients for whom I’m doing ongoing, digital marketing work for on a monthly basis, plus also juggling several one-off/one-time clients at the same time. At any given point in time, I’m normally doing work for about 17 – 25 clients with the help of some fabulous interns and associates, as they were/are available.
I’ve given a number of free workshops for SCORE and other organizations serving entrepreneurs, and I’m a SCORE volunteer and have provided tons of free advice to entrepreneurs by meeting with them on a complimentary basis. And, related to all of this, I’ve had a blast partnering with fellow marketing experts to give presentations that address multiple marketing areas of expertise! Thank you! You know who you are!
I’m a data geek and SEO geek and proud of it. I’m a huge data slicer and dicer and that’s what separates me from a lot of others in my space. I always say I won’t encourage clients to start or continue with marketing activities that don’t make sense for them based on what data is showing. I consider myself to be my clients’ accountability partner, and I’m not afraid to give tough love when I need to. I’m not afraid to voice a different opinion than other marketers. If I think something isn’t going to work, or isn’t working, I speak up.
I’m also proud that my marketing agency survived our recent COVID-19 pandemic and was extremely proactive about providing helpful insights from the very start of the pandemic for marketers to appropriately respond to the pandemic/pivot, such as these blog posts about using paid ads during the pandemic and how to make sure your social media presence wasn’t offensive and was relevant.
I give back significantly to the community. I was involved with the Braintree Relay For Life Committee for a while, and now, I do a number of charity walks in addition to all the other beneficial work I mentioned above.
Our Focus On Health & Wellness
If you’re a regular reader of our blog, you’ll know that I’ll throw in a good blog post about walking once in a while. You can use the categories search tool/drop-down menu to search on “walking” to see the various walking topics about which I’ve written.
Since my corporate marketing days, I’ve always loved to share health & wellness tips — whether they be with fellow employees as part of an internal communications role, or with members of a health plan I worked for, and from the get-go with Results Communications & Research, I’ve aimed to inspire those with health (and other challenges) to never give up, and keep fighting via my “Keep Up The Fight” website page. And, I recently put up a new blog post about an invisible disease with which many health warriors who have battled or are battling other forms of illness have to contend.
Our Thank You
My digital marketing agency/SEO company and I would have never made it this far without all the help of great collaborators, cheerleaders (friends, family, my husband Jay, and other fellow small business owners), and most importantly, our clients who looked to us for expert marketing guidance and assistance. We have many clients with whom we’ve served as an outsourced marketing department for years, and we thank you for your faith in us! We’ve so enjoyed being a part of your business family! We also thank those who we haven’t had the opportunity to work with for as long as some of our long-term clients, but have enjoyed or are enjoying being a part of your organization’s success story.
What’s Next
I don’t know what the future holds for Results Communications & Research, but I’m excited about what’s to come! And, I know I will continue to try to give back as much as possible with the platform that this fun, educational, and interesting business provides!
Want To Benefit From The Marketing Services Of A Digital Marketing Agency/SEO With A Long Tenure And Who Gives Back?
Since our blog here at Results C & R focuses on marketing, but still covers one of our passions — walking — once in a while, we’ve been giving some thought to how we can combine two of our favorite topics in one blog post. Therefore, we’ve been noodling what walking and SEO have in common. And, here’s what we’ve come up with.
Staying In Shape and SEO Both Require Consistency
As it should, regularly posting content that is helpful and relevant to the target audiences your organization serves continues to greatly support your website and Google My Business profile being found and ranking well on Google. We recommend putting up new, fresh contentat least twice a month. The aforementioned can take the form of a new blog post, a relevant FAQ, or some other type of website page. You can also support ranking well by simply updating existing content, including blog posts. The same goes for walking, or whatever exercise or athletic activity (or a combination of several) you choose to do to get and stay in shape. Exercising regularly and consistently is the only way to get and stay in shape.
Staying In Shape And SEO Both Require Patience
Unless they have an SEO expert on their internal team who has advised them otherwise, many organizations believe — until they meet with an organization like our Boston SEO company — that after implementing a few on-page and off-page SEO tactics on their website, that their site will immediately start ranking/be found on the first page of Google. As we discuss in this blog post about what to know before you engage someone for SEO services, that’s just not a realistic expectation, particularly if your organization’s marketplace is a very competitive one and you have competitors who effectively employ SEO tactics to support ranking well. It’s a slow, long climb to go from NOT ranking well in search results to ranking on the first two pages of Google for desirable, high-volume terms used by your target audiences to find someone who offers the products, services, and solutions to problems you do, and it requires great patience.
We’ve found the same goes for staying in shape. It takes time to build up stamina to walk or run longer and longer distances, or to walk or run faster. The key to success is to remain patient and slowly increase the distance you walk and the speed/pace at which you walk. The same analogy applies to other forms of exercise, of course!
Our Founder’s Twin, Audrey Snow Barresi, who regularly raises money for various charitable organizations through running and walking in various cause athletic events. She’s a wellness warrior who inspires others to stay well, while giving back big-time!
Staying In Shape And SEO Are Both Life-long Games
Staying in shape and ranking well/being found on Google are both long games, as we explained above, but also life-long games. In addition to it taking you a while to get to where you want to be, if you don’t keep up with your regular, ongoing exercise and continue to implement tactics on your website to support SEO (and particularly the tactic of regularly adding fresh, relevant content to your site), you’re going to eventually forfeit any forward motion/gains you’ve made.
Staying In Shape And SEO Often Require Support From A Partner
Whether it be sticking to an exercise routine or related to obtaining an athletic goal (like completing a marathon), or staying on track with executing SEO best practices; sometimes, you just need an accountability partner to keep you motivated to stay the course.
The team at our Boston SEO company is always here to serve as a cheerleader and accountability partner related to continuing to rank well/be found on Google. But, we’ll also gladly cheer you on related to your walking goals and other health initiatives! So, reach out today or use our calendar app to schedule a complimentary discussion about your challenges and opportunities. We’re “cheer” for you!
A former manager of mine used to say I was a great “bird dogger.” Believe me, it took some painful lessons to realize that just because I assumed co-workers were moving time-sensitive/critical-path work forward, it didn’t mean they were. Sometimes, particularly when you are just starting out in the corporate work world, you need to get “bitten” a few times, to acquire and employ new skills.
Getting back to the bird dogging. At our Boston-area digital marketing agency and SEO company, we believe that any and all marketing agencies and marketing consultants should serve as both strategic partners and accountability partners. Read on to learn why it’s so critical to sales, marketing, and SEO success, and to assess whether or not your marketing agency or consultant serves as both types of partners.
Why Your Marketing Agency Must Be A Strategic Partner
Whether you’re a small business owner with no marketing staff and you’ve outsourced your marketing strategy and/or your hands-on marketing work to a marketing agency or consultant, or you’re a mid-sized business that has a small in-house marketing team, it’s likely you and your team are far too busy to stay on top of cutting-edge marketing tactics and tools. Particularly as pertains to digital marketing, available opportunities/tactics change constantly, and there are such a large number of broad digital marketing categories (as indicated on our digital marketing services website page), that it would be impossible for you and your team to be experts in all available digital marketing topics, like SEO, social media advertising, Google Ads, etc.
I’ve mentioned this numerous times in blog posts and on Results C & R’s website pages, but when I launched my digital marketing agency and SEO company in 2014, I launched it with this tagline and philosophy: “Maximizing Results Through Research-Supported Marketing.” I always say I will never encourage an existing or prospective client to begin or continue with a marketing tactic that doesn’t make sense for them, based on secondary or primary data. That’s why I regularly ask prospective clients to let me look at their Google Analytics data before they engage me for work, and that’s why, for many of my clients, I track their digital marketing KPIs on a monthly basis and review results with them. Then, we talk about implications and what tactics we’ll put in place/what steps we’ll take to try to move the sales, inquiries, engagement, etc. (conversions) needle by the next time we meet. Often, it’s tiny steps, but steps we think make sense even if they only lead to slow progress as far as conversions go. Progress is progress, right?
Ask Yourself The Following To Determine If Your Marketing Agency Is A Strategic Partner:
Does your marketing agency document the above results/analysis and meet with you and your team regularly to review implications?
Does your marketing agency try to learn on your dime — therefore, are they charging you for the time they spend on educating themselves on a new marketing tactic, tool, or opportunity? They shouldn’t.
Does your marketing agency let you know if there is something you aren’t doing right and/or could be handling better on the marketing front, regardless of whether they are doing work for you related to it?
Does your marketing agency let you know when they don’t think a particular marketing tactic/opportunity is the right fit for your organization?
Does your marketing agency only recommend services they themselves offer, or will they recommend services/opportunities from which you’d benefit, even if it means they need to collaborate with/pull in another expert or strategic partner or refer you to somebody else?
Is your marketing agency regularly recommending new possible marketing opportunities to you?
Related to the above bullet, do you get the sense that your marketing agency wants to use you as a “guinea pig” to try out the latest-fad marketing activity or tool, even if it might not be the right fit for your organization? If so, that’s certainly not a win-win situation!
Why Your Marketing Agency Needs To Be Your Accountability Partner
So, here’s the questions you should ask to determine whether or not your marketing agency or consultant is a true accountability partner and the real tie-in to bird dogging reference at the beginning of this post.
If your marketing agency needs you to review something or provide information to move their work for you forward, do they reach out regularly for status updates and to remind you to ensure critical deadlines are met?
Does your marketing agency send you an e-mail after a meeting documenting what work you or your team are responsible for completing before your next meeting?
When your marketing agency senses that you are unable (for a variety of reasons) to review documents, provide information to inform their work for you, or complete hands-on work yourself, do they reach out and offer to help or to talk you thru what’s needed via a phone or Zoom call? Do, they do the aforementioned on a timely basis so that time-sensitive deadlines and deliverables are met?
I was talking with fellow marketing consultants this week and shared this famous line from the movie Jerry Maguire related to effective client-agency relationships, i.e., working collaboratively to move work forward, both successfully and efficiently: “Help Me, Help You.”
Does Your Marketing Agency Act Like Part Of Your Team?
Ultimately to determine if your existing marketing agency or marketing consultant or a prospective one is the right fit, in addition to the strategic-partner and accountability-partner questions above, you should ask yourself, does my agency treat me with respect and like a partner. Do I feel like my agency is as committed or even more committed than I am to my organization’s success? Does may agency feel like part of our team, and in some ways like family? Meaning, they’d do anything for you to help you succeed and only want the best for you?
I hope and believe that clients or prospective clients asking themselves any of the many questions outlined above arrive at answers that make them confident that the Results C & R team is both a strategic and an accountability partner and that we have our clients’ best interests are at the heart of everything we do!
