by Kevin Bekker | Jul 31, 2026 | Marketing Strategy
For years, ChatGPT was one of the only major platforms online with no ads at all. That changed this year. OpenAI now runs paid ads inside ChatGPT, and the price of entry dropped fast. Early on, you needed a budget in the hundreds of thousands of dollars just to get in...
by Kevin Bekker | Jul 27, 2026 | Marketing Strategy
If you run a professional services firm (a law practice, an accounting firm, a consultancy, an agency), your website has one job. Not selling anything directly. Getting the phone to ring or the contact form filled out. That’s what “lead-based” means,...
by Kevin Bekker | Jul 22, 2026 | Marketing Strategy
For years, the goal was simple. Rank #1, get the click, get the customer. That assumption still shapes how most business owners think about SEO, and it’s quietly become outdated. Someone can search for exactly what you offer, see an AI generated answer at the...
by Kevin Bekker | Jul 15, 2026 | Marketing Strategy
Most business owners assume an ad works like this. Someone sees it, they click it, they buy. In reality, that almost never happens. A person usually sees your ad, forgets about it, searches for you later, reads a few reviews, compares you to two competitors, maybe...
by Kevin Bekker | Jul 15, 2026 | Marketing Strategy
A quick note before we start. This is written in plain English, not marketing jargon. No made up acronyms, no technical shortcuts. If a business owner without a marketing background can’t follow it, I haven’t done my job. Every small business owner I talk...
by Kevin Bekker | Jul 12, 2026 | Marketing Strategy
Sandy businesses don’t need a national agency, they need someone who knows this market. I work with small businesses throughout the Portland metro area, and Sandy comes up often because it’s a market that gets treated as an afterthought by bigger agencies....
by Kevin Bekker | Jul 11, 2026 | Marketing Strategy
Google Search Console shows you a sample. Server logs show you everything. Every SEO I know checks Search Console daily. Almost none of them check their server logs. That’s backwards, and I say that as someone who spent years relying on GSC data before a...
by Kevin Bekker | Jul 10, 2026 | Marketing Strategy
Agency profitability and client results aren’t the same goal, and the gap is where corners get cut. I’ve sat on both sides of this table, inside agencies and advising clients trying to figure out why their agency relationship feels off even when the...
by Kevin Bekker | Jul 7, 2026 | Marketing Strategy
Search engine marketing can be one of the fastest ways to generate leads — or one of the fastest ways to burn through a budget with nothing to show for it. The difference usually isn’t the platform, the industry, or even the offer. It’s whether...
by Kevin Bekker | Jul 6, 2026 | Marketing Strategy
Paid ads can get you leads fast, but the moment you stop paying, the leads stop coming. Organic leads work differently. They take a bit more patience to build, but once the systems are in place, they keep generating results month after month without a growing ad...
by Kevin Bekker | Jul 5, 2026 | Marketing Strategy
A lot of business owners treat their website like a home renovation. You plan it, you build it, you launch it, and then you move on with your life. That mindset works fine for a kitchen remodel. It does not work for a website, and it especially does not work for a...
by Kevin Bekker | Jul 2, 2026 | Marketing Strategy
Cost per lead is one of the most useful numbers in marketing, and also one of the most misunderstood. Business owners often ask me what a good cost per lead is, expecting a single number they can compare themselves against. The honest answer is that it depends heavily...
by Kevin Bekker | Jul 2, 2026 | Marketing Strategy
Most businesses do not have a marketing strategy. They have a list of tactics. They run some paid ads. They post on social media. Someone updates the blog when there is time. It all happens, but none of it is connected to a plan. When I sit down with a business for...
by Kevin Bekker | Jun 16, 2026 | Marketing Strategy
One of the most common misconceptions I see when reviewing websites is the assumption that poor organic performance automatically means there is something wrong with the website. Business owners often believe they need a complete redesign, a new content strategy, or...
by Kevin Bekker | May 31, 2025 | Marketing Strategy
If you recently updated your site to WordPress 6.5 or newer, and noticed that shortcodes are no longer rendering in your page builder content — you’re not alone. This is a known issue that has affected a large number of WordPress users, particularly those using...