3 Things

I recently came across this question, and it’s been on and off my mind for weeks now.  If I really wanted to write about it, this blog would never end.  Since I’m a huge fan of both nuance and brevity, the cognitive dissonance is real. 

But here’s what I really want to say today: There is no one way to do something.  There isn’t even a best way.  There are best practices.  There is “we’ve always done it this way.”  There are proven methods.    But the best way isn’t The Best Way, it’s just the best way for you.  Elon Musk is famous for doing things differently and whether we like him or hate him, we really can’t argue his success.

Sometimes, we’re paralyzed to move forward because we want the best answer.  I think at times the only way to find the best answer is to find the ones that aren’t first. 

One-hundred years ago we believed things to be true that we no longer believe.  In the 1930’s “More doctors smoked Camels than any other cigarette.”  They “soothed the throat and even helped digestion”. 

It's Thursday afternoon and an email pops up from one of your favorite vintage shops featuring a new product drop with a weekend sale. You notice your kitchen sink is leaking when an email arrives from the plumber you used two years ago with a few tips for fixing leaks and their emergency service number right at the top. Or maybe your therapist has sent a short list of calming rituals for a quiet weekend at home. None of these felt like marketing. All of them were. That is the magic of a well-executed email campaign. It shows up at the right moment, with the right message, from a business that feels like it actually knows YOU. That kind of connection does not happen by accident, and for the businesses sending those emails, it is one of the most effective ways to protect and grow their customer relationships.

Consistency Is Key

Once someone is on your list, consistency is what keeps them there. That does not mean emailing every day, it means showing up regularly with content that is actually worth reading. A seasonal tip relevant to your industry, a behind-the-scenes look at how your product is made, a loyalty offer exclusive to subscribers, these are the kinds of emails people open and remember. And that matters more than most business owners realize. A customer who regularly reads your emails is far more likely to notice your social media posts, share your content with a friend, return for another purchase, and think of you first when they are ready to buy again.

Most business owners have paid for SEO at some point. Far fewer could tell you what they actually paid for, and that's not an accident. The industry has a long history of making it sound more complicated than it is, because mystery is easier to sell than methodology. If you've ever sat through a report full of acronyms and left more confused than when you started, that's a feature of bad communication, not SEO being a black box.

Google Has One Job

Give people the most useful answer to whatever they just searched for. Every update, every algorithm change comes back to that single question: is this website the right result for this person? SEO is the practice of making sure your website looks like the right answer.