Acceptance of Circumstances, accountability, AEO, AI Search, Being Found on Google, brand promise, community involvement, competitive advantage, Customer Service, good will creation, keeping up with trends, lead generation, Memorability, Objectives Setting, organic SEO, reputation management, sales, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, staying current, strategic planning, target audiences, Target Marketing, traditional marketing, Understanding Your Environment, User experience

Your Best Chance Of Appearing In AI Overviews? Being The Best

After reading this Linked post by Eli Schwartz, a very well-respected and well-known SEO expert, about how to appear in Google AI Overviews, the above slogan came to me. I wanted to give credit where credit is due and share how I was inspired. It all makes great sense and is in keeping with what we, as a fellow SEO expert, has been sharing in recent months, i.e., if you want a search engine to declare you as the best, or indicate less directly that your organization is the best or one of the best in its field and geography by mentioning your organization’s name or sharing a link back to your site (known as a citation), then your organization has to earn that “best” title.

We’ve already discussed ways your organization can send signals to AI engines that you are trustworthy in a number of recent blog posts, and that includes getting rave reviews from happy customers. But, ultimately, the way to get those reviews is becoming a company whose products, services, and customer service is unmatched by competitors, by demonstrating your commitment to the community/communities you serve, and by making sure you’re an “employer of choice.”

Why I’ve Got The Experience and Knowledge To Speak To What Makes An Organization An Outstanding One

Having worked since I was a teenager and until my mid-50’s for employers (and served in a number of manager and director roles), and now, for the past 12 years run a marketing agency that has successfully served more than 150 clients and received public-facing accolades (reviews), compliments and appreciation from clients, I believe I’ve got the background and experience to speak to what makes an organization stand out from competitors, and therefore, be considered “the best.” You can learn more about my corporate marketing and marketing agency background on my Our Principal and History website page.

As a life-long marketer I feel so strongly about how many of the attributes below influence an organization’s success that I’ve written about many of the below in past blog posts!

What Does It Take For Your Organization To Be The “Best” In Your Industry and Geography?

  • Treat your employees well.
    • Offer them opportunities to learn and take on new and larger roles.
    • Take the time to listen to and consider employee’s ideas to improve work productivity or process, or the products and services you offer.
    • Offer tangible and intangible benefits that they value and/or need.
    • Celebrate personal and organizational milestones and successes.
    • Offer financial incentives where, if the company does well, the employee does well.
  • Deliver exceptional, world-class service each and every day at every point of contact (EPOC) with customers. As a marketing professional with more than 35 years of experience I know first-hand how important good customer service is to success. Not only when it comes to assisting customers/clients of your organizations, but handling inquiries and leads that come into your organization respectfully, effectively, and on a timely basis!
  • Offer solid, reliable products and services that meet client expectations and needs at a reasonable, fair price.
  • Give back to your community/communities.
  • Always keep an eye on business and daily life changes and how they impact your clients — whether they be businesses or consumers — and how you can make their lives easier or respond to a challenge they are facing.
  • Always be evolving and considering what new innovative product or service you can offer.
  • Educate. Educate. Educate — make sure staff and leaders have time to stay in the know on industry changes and national, regional, and local happenings and anything else that could negatively or positively impact how they and your business does their work or the products and services you offer. Ensure they can learn from both internal and external experts. To support all of this, designate times of the week as meeting-free and learning time!
  • Encourage out-of-the box thinking by all staff and leaders!
  • Treat your clients and customers like family.
  • Take the time to walk in your clients’ and customers’ shoes. Check out this blog post about the importance of walking in your customers’ shoes.
  • Show both your clients and customers appreciation regularly. A small “thank you” goes a long way!

I’ll likely add new features and characteristics to the above list as they strike me, but I think any organization that achieves the aforementioned will succeed at being top in their field, in their particular geography!

Acceptance of Circumstances, AEO, AI Productivity Tools, AI Search, collaboration, competitive advantage, Consulting, differentiation, GEO, keeping up with trends, partnerships, relationship building, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, staying current, strategic partner, strategic planning, Understanding Your Environment

Medullar: A Safer Way for Professional Services Firms to Collaborate with AI

Guest Blog Post By Heath Anderson, Medullar

Professional services firms run on knowledge: every client engagement, advisory project, investigation, tax matter, or consulting assignment depends on the team’s ability to find the right information, apply judgment, and move quickly.

But for many mid-market firms, that work is harder than it should be. Important context is scattered across email, cloud drives, chat tools, research notes, meeting transcripts, prior deliverables, and personal folders. Teams often spend too much time searching for information they know already exists. Work gets repeated. Collaboration slows down. And when sensitive client data is involved, the pressure to adopt AI safely becomes even more complicated.

Many small-to-mid-sized firms want the productivity benefits of AI and move quickly to adopt AI tools without investigating if and how their proprietary data/intellectual property will be kept private. But, they cannot afford to treat confidentiality as an afterthought.  The crux of this problem is one that Medullar aims to solve.

This image shows a black woman, Caucasian and an Asian woman looking at and working on documents together as they sit on a comfortable-looking brown leather sofa.

Medullar is a privacy-first, secure AI collaboration platform built for professional services firms that work with sensitive information. It gives teams a safer way to bring project knowledge together, collaborate across people and tools, and use AI in workflows where privacy, permissions, and trust matters.

At the core of Medullar are secure, encrypted Spaces. A Space acts like a private project room for a client engagement, matter, deal, investigation, proposal, or internal initiative. Teams can gather relevant documents, emails, notes, research, transcripts, and other materials into one controlled environment. Access is permission-based, so only the right people can see and use the information inside.

This matters because professional services work is rarely done by one person in one tool. A consulting team may have client emails in Outlook, research in browser tabs, deliverables in Google Drive or SharePoint, notes in a meeting transcript, and key context sitting in someone’s inbox. Without a shared, secure environment, valuable knowledge stays fragmented.

Medullar helps firms reduce that fragmentation without forcing a major data migration. Its universal search tool can search across connected apps and sources, helping teams find relevant information where it already lives. That means a team can locate prior work, surface client context, and reuse institutional knowledge faster, while still respecting permissions and access controls.

Just as important, Medullar is designed for private AI interactions. Instead of exposing confidential information to general purpose, publicly trained AI models (such as large language models (LLMs)/answer engines like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity), teams can work with AI inside a governed environment. AI can help summarize, compare, draft, validate, and search across approved project context, while keeping the work scoped to the right Space and the right users.

Consider a consulting team preparing for a client engagement. Before the project begins, the team creates a secure Space for the client work. They gather relevant emails, prior deliverables, client notes, web research, meeting transcripts, and internal reference materials. Instead of hunting across multiple systems, team members can search across everything from one place. They collaborate with each other alongside their frontier AI model of choice (ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, etc.) to help summarize the current state, identify gaps, compare findings, and draft sections of a client-ready output, all without exposing sensitive client information.

The same pattern applies to advisory, accounting, tax, investigations, and legal-adjacent services firms. A team working on a due diligence review, an RFP response, a case triage, a board briefing, or a client deliverable can use Medullar to organize the work, search across fragmented knowledge, and collaborate more efficiently.

This is especially useful for firms that are large enough to feel the pain of scattered knowledge, but not so large that they can tolerate slow, complex systems. Mid-market firms need tools that improve daily work without adding unnecessary overhead.

A secure AI collaboration platform should do more than answer questions. It should help teams work together around sensitive information, preserve client trust, and turn existing knowledge into better outcomes.

This is the image of Medullar's logo which says "Medulla"r in primarily dark purple letters and has a magnifying glass at the bottom of the m in the word Medullar.

That is where Medullar fits: helping professional services firms use AI safely, find and reuse information faster, and deliver higher-quality work with less friction. Interested in learning more? Reach out today to schedule a complimentary discussion about our secure AI collaboration and productivity tool for your own small-to-mid-sized business and/or for one of your clients; or, ask our friends at Results Communications & Research to make an e-introduction on your behalf.

Acceptance of Circumstances, AEO, AI Search, Being Found on Google, Blog, Blogging, competitive advantage, content marketing, differentiation, GEO, keeping up with trends, online presence, organic SEO, pull marketing, Search Engine Optimization, search terms, staying current, Understanding Your Environment, website

Appearing In AI Prompt Results May Help Your Organization Get Prompt Results

As we’ve shared in recent AI-search related blog posts, a “prompt” is what an individual — related to their own personal needs or business-/work-related needs — enters into an answer engine/AI search engine, like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexi, Google Gemini, or Microsoft Co-pilot to gather information or complete a task related to a particular topic, question, or problem for which they are seeing a solution.

This image is a print screen of a prompt entered into Google's AI Mode search tool and the initial results that Google spit back. The prompt reads "how can I protect my parents' assets from nursing homes" and the results are in the format of content directly below the prompt and citations or links to websites on the right.

How Can Small Organizations Be Found In AI Search/Answer Engines and How Do They Benefit From It?

The AI train is moving fast, and while answer engines may not always serve up your content or a link to your website, known as a “citation,” to a prompter/searcher who is in a relevant geography in response to a prompt related to your organization’s products, services, or solutions, there will still be a number of times when your business or non-profit organization gets a mention or a citation served up to geographically appropriate prompters, i.e., individuals who are located in the geography your organization is able to serve.

So, if you’re a smaller shop, why not take advantage of this opportunity to have your content served up in lieu of a bigger brand’s content. You may not be able to compete with a bigger organization when it comes to ad spend/advertising dollars, and overall marketing budget, but producing easily understood, beneficial content is a low-cost way to help your organization be found online before, or more frequently than, bigger organizations.

Check Out These Resources To Help You Create Online Content That Helps Small Organizations Be Included In AI Prompt Results:

Why Citing Experts Supports Your Own Organization Being Cited
Do I Need To Keep Adding New Content To My Website To Continue To Be Found Online?
A Comfy-Cozy Recipe For Being Found Online That Any Level Of Cook Can Follow

Need Help Determining The Nature Of Content To Produce To Support Being Found In AI Search Engines? Or, Need Help Writing Content For Answer Engines?

To inform your future online content, our team can help you determine what prompts searchers are putting into answer engines, like Google AI tools, related to the products, services, and solutions to problems you offer. We can also help you produce website blog content related to the aforementioned. Reach out today to schedule a complimentary discussion about how your organization can be found online!

Acceptance of Circumstances, AEO, AI Search, competitive advantage, differentiation, Discussion Forums, keeping up with trends, lead generation, Making Connections, marketing best practices, Marketing Planning, nextdoor, online advertising, pull marketing, push marketing, relationship building, reputation management, sales, Search Engine Optimization, SEM, SEO, social media, social media strategy, social media voice, staying current, strategic planning, target audiences, Target Marketing, Understanding Your Environment

Looking For An Additional Way To Be Found Online? The Answer Might Be Right Next Door.

Read on to learn about both free and paid opportunities to create awareness of your organization and its products and services on the Nextdoor social media platfform!

And, keep in mind, that while your organic/free presence may only reach local consumers and businesses, your organization can purchase online advertising that can be served up to businesses and consumers throughout the U.S. And, you can choose the city or state location of individuals to whom you want your ad served up!

Free Promotional Opportunities On Nextdoor.com

If you or your organization is not familiar with, and maintaining an organic/free business page on the social media platform geared toward sharing community news and event — nextdoor.com — you are likely missing out on a free and easy way to create awareness of your organization’s products and services locally. Once you set up a business page — something our digital marketing team can help you with — and provide documentation to nextdoor.com to verify your business is legitimate, fans of your organization can start posting recommendations/reviews to your page. Plus, you can start posting updates to your nextdoor.com business page the way you do to other forms of social media and to your Google My Business Profile.

This an image that is a print screen of what our digital marketing agency's (Results Communications & Research's) business page looks like on nextdoor.com. The image shows our logo, a description about our business, plus an image that says "SEO."

Paid Advertising/Promotional Opportunities On Nextdoor.com

In addition, nextdoor.com offers the opportunity to run display ads (image ads) that are similar to ads that you can run on other social media platforms, like Instagram or Facebook, or on discussion-forums like Reddit. We are currently testing this advertising vehicle for our own business, as well as for a client’s business, and will be sure to provide updates on our experience with the tool and the results it does or doesn’t deliver!

With answer-engine use (think ChatGPT, Google AI modes, etc.) on the uptick, it can be much harder to be found online by relevant searchers. So, maybe it’s time to get creative, think outside the box, and consider this “push” marketing activity, in addition to “pull” ones that you’ve relied on in the past. Learn more about the difference between pull and push marketing and why, particularly, with the introduction of AI, you’ll want to create and implement both a push and a pull marketing strategy.

Need Help With Setting Up A Nextdoor Business Page Or Nextdoor Paid Advertising Campaign?

Reach out today to schedule a complimentary discussion about whether or not your organization would benefit from an organic and/or paid advertising presence on Nextdoor and how we can help!

Acceptance of Circumstances, AEO, AI Search, Being Found On Bing, Being Found on Google, competitive advantage, keeping up with trends, nextdoor, online presence, organic SEO, Reddit, reputation management, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, social media, staying current

What Does Crowdsourcing Have To Do With Being Found Online and SEO? A Real Lot.

When someone “crowdsources,” their objective for doing so could be to obtain knowledge, services, or goods from a large group of people (often strangers). But, for the purposes of this blog post about being found online and SEO (search engine optimization), we’ll be focusing on the seeking out of opinions and experiences (knowledge) of others to reach a decision about something. The decision one may be trying to make might be similar to one of the following, or something all together different:

  • What type of sneakers should I buy if I plan to train for a marathon?
  • I’m thinking I’m going to buy this particular brand type of sneakers. Am I making a good/the right choice?
  • What local roofing company should I hire to replace my old roof?
  • What local estate planning lawyer should I engage to help me execute a comprehensive estate plan?
  • What stretches or exercises work best for improving a bad hip?
  • What’s a good recipe to make if you need to feed a large crowd?
  • What’s the best private elementary school near me?
  • I’m planning on holding an event at this particular venue. What are both the good and bad things I should know about it?
  • Where should I take my out-of-town guests to dinner in Boston’s North End?
  • Should I take this job offer or job interview with this particular employer?

We’ll also be focusing on knowledge crowdsourcing platforms vs. the knowledge crowdsourcing that one may conduct, or believe they are conducting (since information spit back by AI search tools is not always accurate), by simply posing a question like “who is the best family lawyer in Boston?” to an AI/answer engine like ChatGPT or Google AI Mode.

This is a rectangular image that runs vertically that has a gray background and reads in dark turquoise letters "Crowdsourcing = please, please, please share your knowledge, experience, and recommendations with me!" and includes our digital marketing agency's logo, plus the image of a young man wearing a plaid shirt and who has short dark hair and wide eyes and who is holding his hands together with a sad mouth as if he is pleading, plus the image says at the bottom, "is your organization capitalizing on this trend?"

Knowledge Crowdsourcing Platforms and SEO

As SEO experts, we keep hearing and reading over and over again that, when making a decision about which organizations’ online content to serve back in response to a searcher’s query, AI search engines/answer engines/chatbot engines are looking for signals that an organization is creditable and reputable, and where do they get those signals from, in addition to testimonials and other signs of credibility that are on the organizations’ own websites (think badges of associations your organization belongs to, certifications you’ve achieved, and backlinks from other organizations, including press/media/PR backlinks)? From platforms where people post recommendations in areas of the platform specifically designed for sharing recommendations and/or in the comments section in response to other users’ posts requesting recommendations from or posing questions to other users.

You can learn more about what’s been deemed “E-E-A-T” and how AI search engines look for signs of “Experience-Expertise-Authoritativeness-Trustworthiness in this “The Role Of E-E-A-T In AI Narratives: Building Brand Authority For Search Success” blog post from Search Engine Land.

Examples Of Crowdsourcing Platforms

  • Yelp – reviews of restaurant and other local business — such as contractors and personal services (think nail and hair salons)
  • Nextdoor – neighborhood social media platform
  • Reddit – discussion forum
  • Quora – discussion forum
  • Google My Business Profile Of Specific Organization (Google Reviews section)

Implications Of Crowdsourcing For Your Business/Organization

So, what are the implications of crowdsourcing for your business or organization?

  • Since some individuals seeking knowledge to support a decision they want and need to make go directly to a crowdsourcing platform to get information, you’ll want to have a positive presence on as many of the larger crowdsourcing platforms mentioned above as possible, and as appropriate for your particular industry. For example, Yelp might not make sense for your particular type of business.
  • If there are particular platforms that individuals use to recommend/rate businesses in your particular industry, you will want to ensure a favorable presence there, as well.
  • And, implementing what’s outlined in the two bullets above should provide plenty of positive trust and authority signals to search engines to encourage them to share your organization’s online content.

How To Show Up Favorably/Positively On Crowdsourcing Platforms

We mentioned above that your organization should show up favorably/positively on crowdsourcing platforms, but unfortunately what that looks like depends on the nature of the platform itself and the industry within your organization operates, and that’s why we encourage you to set up a complimentary discussion with us about how to use the current crowdsourcing trend to your specific organization’s advantage. But a common, over-arching way that all organizations can show up favorably/positively on crowdsourcing platforms is simply to encourage their customers to share positive information about them in online locations beyond the Google reviews section of their Google My Business Profile, i.e., on Yelp, Reddit, Quora, nextdoor and relevant industry crowdsourcing platforms. And, ultimately, all of this is about reputation management!

Acceptance of Circumstances, accountability, AEO, AI Search, Being Found on Google, competitive advantage, Discussion Forums, Google Analytics, Google My Business Profile, Importance of taking break, keeping a balance, keeping up with trends, making time for things you value, Marketing Planning, Objectives Setting, online presence, organic SEO, Quora, Reddit, Results Analysis, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, staying current, strategic planning, walking, website

September Strong: A Second Chance To Set & Achieve Goals For The Year

If my memory serves me correctly, I’ve written about the second “new beginning” that September offers each of us each year on my own blog or that of a client. I love the fact that September provides a second start to any year and a chance to begin any kind of project you’d been hoping to get to earlier in the year, and to revisit goals — whether they be personal- or work-related ones. There’s still four full months to accomplish something you’ve always wanted to, or at least make a lot of headway toward achieving that accomplishment, so let’s agree to not start thinking another year is already behind us!

Since I own and run a digital marketing agency, the fall and early winter work goals I’m going to discuss below are marketing-related, but obviously, your work goals could pertain to any area of your organization, such as employee satisfaction and retention, new technology implementation, or expense reduction.

Marketing Goals For Q3 & Q4

Here’s some marketing goals you might want to complete in September, October, November, or December:

Personal (Health) Goals For Q3 & Q4

Since everything one does in life ends up positively or negatively impacting their mental and/or physical health, every personal goal ultimately is a wellbeing/wellness/health goal. For example, if you enroll in a class this fall or winter, it may cause you to gain knowledge to support a professional goal, but it also will likely make you feel more optimistic and improve your emotional wellbeing.

As I shared in this blog post about why I’ll always feel like a cancer (sarcoma) patient, I deal with chronic digestive issues on a daily basis because of past cancer treatment. I also have had chronic neck muscle mobility and pain issues since my late 20’s. Unfortunately, the neck trouble all started when I was working as a research associate at Fidelity Investments and going to graduate school at Boston University at night. I used to regularly carry a heavy bookbag of notebooks and books on the T (subway) to and from the University for many years. Post graduation, and ever since then, I’ve suffered from neck troubles.

I’ve already taken steps this summer, and plan to continue them thru the rest of Q3 & Q4, to improve the above two situations by:

This is the image of a small bronze colored Degas ballerina statue who has her shoulders back and arms behind her and who is wearing a ballet tutu and ballet slippers.
Degas Ballerina Statue That Provides Reminder About The Need to Maintain Good Posture While On Computer!

In addition to the above, I’m using the hashtag #SeptemberStrong with friends and family to encourage them to stay well and for us to cheer each other on, and I’m identifying situations and people that are unnecessarily and excessively anxiety-producing (in some cases, toxic) and steering clear of them!

Reach Out For Help On Your Q2 & Q3 Goals!

Whether you want or need a free wellness cheerleader, or you need help with business/work goal setting and achievement — particularly marketing goals — I’m here to support you, so reach out today! I love being an accountability partner on both the work and wellness fronts! And, be sure to check out our Keep Up The Fight page to encourage you to keep on plugging related to your goals! We totally got this, right?

Acceptance of Circumstances, Being Found On Bing, Being Found on Google, competitive advantage, keywords, marketing best practices, organic SEO, Search Engine Optimization, search terms, SEO, website

When You’ve Exhausted Your Starters, Let Your SEO Bench Step In

Anyone who’s interacted with me in a lot in the last five years knows that I’m a huge Boston Celtics fan. I started watching them during the pandemic and while they were playing in the “bubble.” I got hooked pretty quickly, and the rest is history. By the way, I also like the Boston Bruins and the Boston Red Sox , and have enjoyed watching both of the aforementioned teams for many years.

In fact, the Red Sox had my sports heart way before the Celtics did. But, since it’s still 2025 NBA playoff season, and my beloved Celtics recently endured a lot of hardship in the form of injured/ill players (which definitely played a role in their NBA Championship journey ending far sooner than fans hoped or expected), my sports-related analogy will be basketball-related vs. hockey- or baseball-related.

When To Bring In the SEO Back-ups: H2, H3, and Other Sub-headers

Anyone who knows SEO best practices and commonly accepted SEO wisdom knows it just makes good SEO sense to include high-volume keywords and questions in your public-facing website page and post titles, which usually take the form of what’s known as an “H1 header.” An H1 header is the first heading that appears in any website post or page. In the case of this blog post our H1 header is “When You’ve Exhausted Your Starters, Let Your SEO Bench Step In.”

Let’s say you’ve employed the above SEO tactic already, along with these other commonly known and respected SEO best practices, such as:

And, the above aren’t taking your site to where you want and need it to be, i.e., higher up in search-engine results for search terms and questions regularly entered into search engines by target audiences. Maybe, it’s time to give the players who get less play time, more play time! Call them what you will — the bench, the scrubs, the B team, etc. — these non-starters might be exactly what you need to help you score some SEO baskets, including 3 pointers!

This image was taken from Loge seats at a Boston Celtics game and shows the TD North Bank stadium packed with fans, but also the Celtics' players out on the court and the jumbotron.
Last Regular Season Celtics Game At TD Bank Garden, Boston

What Is An H2, H3, H4, etc. Header?

At Results Communications & Research, we like to refer to any headings that are used on a website page or in a blog post and aren’t the first/main header on the page as sub-headers. These are headers that appear below the primary header on the page, tend to be smaller in font size than the main header, are formatted as an H2, H3, H4, etc. header and are often used to break up and/or introduce content — making it easier for both readers and search-engines to consume/absorb the content that appears below the sub-header. The “What Is…” header directly above is formatted as an H3 header, and the “When To” header above that as an H2 header.

As the creator of any blog post or website page content, you will have to decide when to use H2 headers vs. H3 headers, etc. If a sub-header feels more like a sub-header of another sub-header, then it should use a header format that is lower in the header hierarchy (with H1 being 1st in the hierarchy).

Why Use H2, H3, H4 Sub-headers?

The reason to let the sub-headers take a chance at improving SEO game results is because they provide additional and new headings/headers for search engines like Google to crawl. This means they provide more detail and/or more opportunities for you to re-share previous information with search engines so they know what a website post or page is all about and when to serve it up in search results. It’s just one more way to make it easier for search engines to quickly and easily identify and understand when it should serve up a particular website post and page in response to a particular search query.

We’ll Always Bring Our A Team To Any Clients’ SEO Game

Regardless of encouraging you to clear your SEO header bench, we’ll always bring our A team, i.e., our starters, to any SEO discussion or engagement with you, so schedule a complimentary discussion of your marketing challenges and opportunities with us today!

Being Found on Google, competitive advantage, Google My Business Profile, keywords, marketing best practices, online presence, organic SEO, pull marketing, Search Engine Optimization, search terms, SEO

Are You Making These 3 Mistakes Related To Your Google My Business Profile?

As part of our organization’s organic SEO (search engine optimization) services, we ask to have access to a client’s Google My Business Profile, or at least have a chance to review the behind-the-scenes information/set-up with our SEO clients via a Zoom call where they access and share their Google My Business Profile dashboard.

Whether you want to think of it as a mistake or a missed opportunity, here’s three Google My Business capabilities you may be missing out on to get your organization ranking better locally on Google (remember, Google is more likely to serve up your Google My Business Profile vs. your website) for “near me” or “city/town” terms) :

  1. Providing Google with 20 services areas. Make sure you capitalize on these. And, remember, the further out your business is physically from the geography in which a searcher is searching on relevant terms, the less likely Google is to serve up your Profile, so keep any service areas you add to your Profile within a two-hour drive of your physical office, and ideally far less than two-hours.
  2. Identifying up to 10 business categories. You need to pick a primary category — a category of business that best describes your products and services, but you can pick 9 additional “secondary” categories. Right now, there are over 4,000 business categories in Google My Business from which you can select. And, Google keeps adding to the list, so even if you don’t see a category that fits a particular product or service you offer now, you should revisit your Profile information every 3 months or so to see if there are any new categories you can select that are appropriate to your business.
  3. Providing specific product or service lists underneath your various business categories that employ keywords (search terms) on which your target audience(s) may be searching. See example below where we listed our SEM (paid SEO/Google and Bing Ads) and organic SEO services under our primary business category.
This image shows information you can see within your Google My Business Profile dashboard. It shows an example of service listings that have been added under a primary business category in Google My Business. The primary business category says "Marketing agency" and underneath it there are service listings for "Local and Global (Organic) SEO and "SEM/Paid Search."

We Can Help You Optimize Your Google My Business Profile

Reach out today to learn more about our local SEO services! And, learn about another Google My Business best practice!

AI Search, Being Found On Bing, Being Found on Google, Bing Ads, competitive advantage, digital marketing agency, Google Ads, Google My Business Profile, keeping up with trends, marketing best practices, Marketing Planning, Microsoft Ads, organic SEO, Post-COVID-19 Marketing, post-pandemic marketing, pull marketing, Search Engine Optimization, SEM, SEO, social media, social media strategy, social media voice, strategic planning, Understanding Your Environment, website

Does SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Still Work?

As we’ve explained in numerous spots throughout our website, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the practice of ensuring your organization is found online for relevant search-engines searches in relevant geographies. But a huge mistake in 2025, and beyond, would be to only focus on your website and Google My Business Profile being optimized to be found by appropriate searchers/target audiences, as shown in the image below.

Gray image with turquoise lettering that reads "Particularly With The Intro. Of AI Search, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Efforts Need To Focus On ALL Your Digital Properties, Presences, and Assets Not Just Your Website!!! These Include, but are not limited to: Organic Social Media, Profiles/Posts Google My Business Profile Discussion Forums, Like Reddit and Quora Infographics Residing Anywhere Online Online Advertising: Search & Display Branded Images Videos Your Website." The image also contains the logo of our SEO consulting and digital marketing agency, Results Communications & Research.

If you’ve been regularly reading our blog or, simply, just reading whatever you can get your hands on related to SEO, you know that search engines’ focus since the 2020 pandemic has been on answering (by providing other organizations’ answers to) questions that searchers have related to a particular topic, product, service, or solution. Search engines care less and less about the source and format of that content, and they’ll snag content from just about anywhere on the internet if it answers a question in a manner that is easily understood/is absorbable, and that allows readers to take action/the next step.

Is SEO Dead? Does SEO Still Matter?

The answer to the above is “no way!” In fact, just the opposite, although some digital marketing experts are saying it is, or are reluctant to use/expand the SEO acronym or search engine optimization phrase to describe maximizing your opportunities for all and any digital assets, presences, or properties to be served up in search-engine results vs. just an organization’s website, Google My Business Profile, and paid search/search-engine ads (think Google and Bing ads).

Hey, right now in this time of constant change on the SEO front, no-one really is the one true expert or SEO guru, so we’re going to take our stand vs. following the crowd or one expert, and say that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is about making sure all your digital assets, presences (think social media posts and presences and discussion forum presences) and properties serve you well related to being found online for the right search terms, questions, and topics in relevant geographies.

Let’s Chat About What SEO Means In This New Era And How Your Organization Can Plan and Respond To It!

We always love a complimentary discussion of for-profit and nonprofit organization’s digital marketing challenges, so schedule a discussion with our SEO consulting firm today!

Acceptance of Circumstances, accountability, Being Found On Bing, Being Found on Google, competitive advantage, Google My Business Profile, online presence, organic SEO, pull marketing, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, SEO tags, strategic planning, website

A Body In Motion Stays In Motion

My blog title is a quote I plan to use this year to inspire myself as well as others — on both the work and personal fronts. You can see I’m already adhering to it on the personal front related to keeping a daily exercise routine going. But, what does it mean related to the SEO work I do for clients and for the SEO clients themselves?

Like Many Other Marketing Activities, SEO Should Be An Ongoing One

I’ve said countless times in meetings with clients and prospective clients that SEO is not a “one and done activity.” Slow, but steady progress is made on the “being found on Google” (and other search engines, of course) front if one keeps at it, as we reinforce in our blog post about why SEO needs to be a constant marketing activity vs. a one-off.

Many organizations get the ball rolling on their SEO — often in conjunction with launching a brand new website or in conjunction with revamping an existing one — but then, don’t keep the momentum going. I refer to the SEO work that gets done at the time of a new or revised website launch as “initial SEO” work. But, for-profit and non-profit organizations often lose site of the fact that they are going to need to continue to implement the following SEO tactics, on an ongoing basis, in order to ensure they make steady, positive progress as far as how their website ranks in search engines for relevant terms used by desired target audiences:

This is a powder blue square image that reads "A Body In Motion Stays In Motion" and lists Issac Newton and the source of the quote and also includes an image of a number of brightly colored marbles with the one in the front that is featured/stands out more and the image also contains the logo of our SEO consulting firm, Results Communications & Research.

Non-Website SEO Tactics

In addition to the above ongoing website-related tactics, as part of an ongoing SEO strategy, organizations should execute the following:

Get Customized/Personalized Help From An SEO Consultant

The above list of ongoing SEO tactics to implement is not inclusive and all of the tactics cited may not be appropriate for each & every organization. Schedule a complimentary discussion of your organization’s specific SEO needs today!