Step-by-step guides a busy owner can actually follow. Marketing math, platform changes, and the one thing to do about each.
Since April 2026, Yelp's AI assistant has been recommending specific shops to customers who ask it for help — and it picks based on what's in your profile, not whether you bought an ad.
Google's Ask Maps feature launched in March 2026 and answers conversational local searches by reading your Business Profile attributes. Most shops have never filled that section in.
Google stopped creating new call-only ads in February 2026 and stops serving all existing ones in February 2027. If you run one, you have eight months to migrate before the calls stop.
The bag your customer carries home is free advertising, and most shops waste it with generic packaging. Five moves under thirty-five dollars each can fix that.
Google connected Gemini directly to Google Business Profile on June 10, 2026. The AI can now update your hours, draft review replies, and pull performance stats, but it reads only from the data already in your listing.
Starting June 1, 2026, Google changed how it paces ad budgets for scheduled campaigns. If your ads run weekdays only or business hours only, your monthly spend could be up to 38% higher with the same daily budget setting.
Meta deleted dozens of ad targeting interest categories on January 15, 2026. If you set up Facebook or Instagram campaigns before that date and haven't reviewed them, your budget is reaching a much broader audience than you think.
Meta changed how it counts click-through conversions in March 2026. Reported ROAS is down 15 to 30 percent for most campaigns. The ads probably did not get worse. The measurement got more honest.
A small addition to your website can get your shop mentioned in Google's AI Mode answers, which now handle over a billion searches a month and send 93% of users nowhere — unless you happen to be the answer.
Your small business website probably has something broken on mobile that you have never caught. This six-check audit takes 10 minutes on your own phone, no developer required.
A contact form that doesn't deliver is invisible damage. Customers try to reach you, the messages disappear, and you never know. Here is how to find out in ten minutes.
Google changed how local search works in 2026. It now rewards profiles that get regular interactions, not just ones that exist. Here is what that means for your shop this week.
The Indy 500 brings 350,000 visitors to Indianapolis on May 24. Here is the 90-minute Google Business Profile checklist that gets your shop in front of them before race week.
Service shops switch booking software, get locked into contracts, and switch again. Here is how to audit what you are paying right now, and what to ask before you sign next time.
The exact process we use to take a founder from a Figma sketch to live, paying customers in a single week. No magic — just brutal scope discipline and a few opinionated tools.