Marketing Guides and Checklists for Local Businesses and Agencies

Every guide on the site, grouped by area. Each one is written from work I do for clients, and each is labeled by type so you can tell a quick concept from a step-by-step build.

Concept

How something works and why it matters. Read these first.

Quickstart

The shortest path to a working result, usually an afternoon.

How-to

Step-by-step instructions for one task.

Tutorial

A longer, end-to-end walkthrough of a whole process.

Checklist

A reference to keep open while you work.

Best practices

The judgment calls, and what I have learned the hard way.

Local search

How customers find a local business on Google: the Business Profile, the map pack, reviews, and service-area pages that help instead of hurt. Area overview.

Guide	What it covers	Type
Set up and verify a Google Business Profile the right way	Set up a Google Business Profile that is accurate, verified, and owned by the business, plus the profile traps I find in real audits.	How-to
Find out why competitors outrank you, keyword by keyword	A repeatable method to pull real rankings for you and your rivals, diagnose why each rival wins a search, and turn the gaps into a prioritized fix list.	Tutorial
Service-area and city pages that help instead of hurt	Why swap-the-city-name pages rarely rank, how to build fewer hub pages with real local proof, and how to retire thin city pages with 301 redirects.	Best practices
Get more Google reviews without breaking the rules	How to ask every customer for a Google review, reply to good and bad ones, and stay inside Google's review policy while building a steady flow.	How-to

Websites

Planning, building, and launching a small business website that loads fast, gets found, and turns visits into calls and form fills. Area overview.

Guide	What it covers	Type
The website launch process, from intake to post-launch	The phase-by-phase process I use to build and launch a small business website without losing rankings, leads, or tracking at go-live.	Tutorial
Pre-launch checklist for a small business website	Every check to run before a small business website goes live, from placeholder facts and noindex tags to form tests, mobile, speed, and ownership.	Checklist
Build contact forms that actually reach you	How to build a website form that cannot fail silently: a small server-side handler that validates, logs, emails, and never fakes a thank-you.	How-to
The 10-minute check customers run on your business	What a customer checks before calling a local business, as a checklist you can run on yourself, with what good looks like and a quick fix for each.	Checklist

Tracking and attribution

Measure every call, form, and booking, and tie each one back to the ad, search, or post that started it. Area overview.

Guide	What it covers	Type
How marketing attribution works for a local business	The plain-language model behind tracking: how a call or form gets tied back to the ad, search, or post that started it, and where most setups lose the thread.	Concept
Quickstart: track calls, forms, and email clicks with GA4 and Tag Manager	Install Tag Manager, send form, phone tap, and email click events to GA4, mark them as key events, and verify each one before you trust the numbers.	Quickstart
Server-side tagging and first-party cookies, explained	What a server-side Tag Manager container does, why it belongs on your own subdomain, how it keeps click IDs longer, and when a small business needs one.	Concept
Send offline conversions from your CRM back to Google Ads	Save the ad click ID with every lead, mark won jobs in your CRM, and upload them to Google Ads so bidding learns from revenue instead of form fills.	How-to
Set up Consent Mode v2 and handle data deletion requests	Pick a consent model that fits your audience, send Consent Mode v2 signals through Tag Manager, gate your own tags, and handle deletion requests.	How-to
Checklist: verify a tracking setup before you trust it	A phase-by-phase checklist for proving tracking works: tags on every page, single events, real test leads, source data in the CRM, consent, and ad platforms.	Checklist

Paid ads

Set up Google Ads for a local service business so the account optimizes for real leads, then read the results honestly. Area overview.

Guide	What it covers	Type
Set up Google Ads conversion goals that optimize for real leads	Make a booked call or qualified lead the goal Google bids toward, demote soft actions, count each lead once, and remove double counting.	How-to
Read Google Ads results without fooling yourself	Which conversion column to trust, why recent days fill in late, how much data a verdict needs, and how to check ad numbers against real booked calls.	Best practices
How budgets cap a Google Ads account	The arithmetic behind Google Ads budgets: daily and monthly limits, why campaign budgets cap total spend, and how to read lost impression share.	Concept
Research competitors' ads with the Ads Transparency Center and Meta Ad Library	Find which competitors run Google and Meta ads, what they offer, and where the ads actually show, then turn the findings into openings you can use.	How-to

Lead follow-up

What happens after someone raises their hand: the CRM, the response time, and the follow-up that keeps leads from leaking away. Area overview.

Guide	What it covers	Type
Speed to lead: where leads leak between the form and the phone	Where leads leak between a form fill or call and a human reply, how to test your own path as a secret shopper, and how to set a response standard.	Concept
Build a simple CRM pipeline for a service business	Set up pipeline stages based on what the customer has done, the few fields that matter, lost reasons, and a weekly review the team will keep up.	How-to
Write automated follow-up that still sounds like a person	Build the instant acknowledgment, the missed-call text back, and a short sequence for quiet leads, with stop rules and the texting compliance basics.	How-to

Reporting

Reports a business owner can read in two minutes: how many leads came in, where they came from, what they cost, and what happens next. Area overview.

Guide	What it covers	Type
Write a monthly report a business owner will actually read	A one-page monthly marketing report: the headline result, leads by source, cost per lead, what worked, what is next with dates, and one short ask.	How-to
Present early results honestly and still earn the renewal	Write the first results report after a launch: lead with the real count, put caveats after it, explain the small start, and date the next step.	Best practices

Running an agency

The operating system behind a one-person marketing agency: offers and pricing, prospecting, sales, onboarding, delivery, and offboarding. Area overview.

Guide	What it covers	Type
Package and price agency services	Package marketing services as an engagement path with capped tiers, price floors, setup fees, value-based prices, and guarantees you can keep.	Best practices
Prospect with a real audit and a rebuilt homepage	Turn one business URL into a send-ready package: a site review, real rankings, why rivals win, a rebuilt homepage, and outreach a human sends.	Tutorial
Run a discovery call and write a proposal they can say yes to	Run a 30-minute discovery call, qualify honestly, quote along the engagement path, and send a one-page proposal that holds its price.	How-to
The Multi-Touchpoint Journey Audit method	The full method: seven journey stages, six scoring dimensions, five days of real searches, calls, and form fills, and a ranked fix list at the end.	Tutorial
Onboard a new client in the first 30 days	A 30-day onboarding plan: account access without passwords, a kickoff agenda, a baseline before changes, and a visible first win by day 14.	How-to
Daily, weekly, and monthly rhythm for a one-person agency	Run a one-person agency on a fixed rhythm: a client cap, a daily plan and close, weekly and monthly reviews, a time split, and metrics worth tracking.	Best practices
Offboard a client and hand over their data	A written offboarding checklist: final invoice, open-format data exports with a data dictionary, ownership transfers, access removal, and archiving.	How-to
Monthly billing for a one-person agency	A monthly billing routine for a solo agency: invoices that match the scope, setup fees up front, retainers in advance, and calm late-payment steps.	How-to
Write SOPs and documentation that actually run the business	How a one-person agency documents its work: when to write an SOP, the parts of a good one, a six-part change log, one master index, and safe storage.	Best practices

All guides