You know your small business should be active on social media. The harder question is: How active?

Here’s the practical answer: Most small businesses should aim to post on social media two to three times per week. However, the number of posts isn’t the most important part of your strategy.

The goal isn’t to post as often as possible. It’s to maintain an active presence that helps potential customers understand, recognize, and trust your business.

You can run an excellent small business and still be practically invisible online. That’s the problem SEO solves. SEO for small businesses isn’t simply about chasing the top position on Google. It’s about making sure the reputation you’ve built offline is accurately represented online, where new customers are actively researching their options.

Pull up your business's website and try something that's surprisingly difficult: Pretend you know absolutely nothing about your company.

Would your website give you enough information and confidence to take the next step? For a lot of small businesses, the answer is probably no.

Here’s what your website should actually sound like.

It’s a common misconception among small business owners that the longer you’ve been in business, the better you should rank on Google. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t rank local businesses based on seniority.

If your small business isn’t ranking well, it doesn’t necessarily mean Google has decided your competitor is a “better” business. More often, Google simply has stronger signals that another business is a better result for that particular search.

Understanding those signals is the first step toward improving your Google Maps ranking for your small business.

Small businesses spend a lot of time thinking about how to stand out, but there's one competitive advantage that's hard for another business to copy: becoming the trusted voice in your market.

That's why businesses that educate customers, answer difficult questions honestly, set realistic expectations, and consistently deliver on their promises can have an advantage over competitors making bigger claims.

Here's what becoming a trusted authority actually looks like and how that trust can turn into a real business advantage.

Google Ads can be one of the fastest ways for a small business to get in front of people who are actively searching for what they offer. It can also be one of the fastest ways to spend money without getting much back.

That does not necessarily mean Google Ads is a bad fit for the business. Paid advertising works best when the rest of the business is ready to support the demand it creates.

So, should your small business stop running Google Ads? Here are the biggest signs it may be worth considering.

Delegation is part of growing a small business. Marketing is one of the most natural areas to delegate. But there's an important difference between delegating your marketing work and delegating ownership of your brand.

So, what marketing tasks should a small business owner never completely delegate?

Hiring a marketing agency is a big decision for a small business.

The challenge is that marketing agencies can look very similar from the outside: So how do you tell the difference? You ask better questions.

Before hiring a marketing agency for your small business, here are some of the most important questions to ask, what to listen for in the answers, and why those answers matter.

For many small business owners, pricing conversations become frustrating fast. And usually, the issue isn’t the service itself. It’s the marketing.

In this article, we’ll break down why some small businesses get trapped in price competition, how marketing shapes customer perception, and what successful businesses do differently to attract customers who value more than just the cheapest option.

If you own a small business, your Google Business Profile may be one of the most important marketing tools you have. That might sound dramatic, but for local businesses, it’s true.

In this article, we’ll break down how your Google Business Profile impacts SEO, common mistakes small businesses make, and simple ways to improve your local visibility online.

If you own a small business, you’ve probably searched for your services on Google and wondered: “Why can’t I find my website anywhere?”

In this article, we’ll break down the most common reasons small business websites rank poorly on Google, simple SEO wins you can implement yourself, and the more advanced strategies marketing agencies use to improve long-term visibility.

The truth is, not every business needs premium marketing. If you're just getting started, a lower-cost option may be exactly what you need.

But if you're expecting marketing to consistently generate leads and help grow your business, it's important to understand what separates inexpensive marketing from a more strategic investment.

If you own a small business, chances are you’ve asked yourself this question before: “How much should I actually be spending on marketing?” And if you’ve looked online for answers, you’ve probably seen completely different opinions everywhere.

The truth is, there’s no universal number that works for every small business. At Larison Media, we’ve seen one thing over and over: The businesses that grow consistently usually aren’t randomly spending money on marketing. They understand their numbers.

The fastest-growing small businesses in 2026 aren't necessarily spending the most money. They're not always the largest companies in their markets. And they're certainly not relying on the same marketing strategies that worked five or ten years ago.

Instead, they're adapting to changes in how people research, buy, and build trust.

If you're wondering what these businesses are doing differently, here are the biggest marketing trends we're seeing among companies that continue to grow year after year.

Will AI-generated content actually help your business rank on Google and attract more customers?

The businesses seeing the strongest marketing results today aren't choosing between AI and human-written content. They're learning how to use both strategically. Let's look at what works, what doesn't, and how small businesses can use AI without sacrificing the trust that ultimately drives leads, sales, and long-term growth.

If you're a small business owner considering paid advertising, you've probably asked this question: Should I invest in Facebook Ads or Google Ads?

The challenge is that there isn't a universal answer. The right platform depends on your business model, your goals, your target audience, and where your business is in its growth journey.

In this article, we'll break down how Facebook Ads and Google Ads work, what each platform requires to be successful, and which tends to perform best at different stages of business growth.

For most small business owners, referrals feel like the ultimate sign that you're doing something right. It's the kind of growth every business wants.

But here's a question many business owners never stop to ask: If your customers love working with you so much, why aren't they referring more people?

Let's look at why your best customers may not be referring more business, and what you can do about it.

As a small business owner, you're not in business to collect followers. You're in business to generate leads, acquire customers, increase revenue, and grow profitably.

The problem is that many marketing reports focus on vanity metrics (numbers that look impressive but don't necessarily translate into business growth). While these metrics can provide useful context, they often distract business owners from the numbers that truly matter.

Let's break down the most common marketing metrics businesses track, what they actually mean, and which numbers deserve your attention if you want your marketing to drive real results.

There’s a particular kind of optimism that shows up when a business decides to start blogging.

It usually sounds like, “We should write more content.”

Which is not wrong. It’s just incomplete. Because the real question isn’t how much you write, it’s what you write about.

If you’ve ever run Facebook or Instagram ads for your business, you’ve probably had this thought at some point:

“Are we spending enough… or just wasting money?”

And usually that question shows up right after you’ve put some budget in, waited a bit, and didn’t see the kind of results you were expecting.

That’s where most frustration with Facebook ads comes from. Not because they don’t work. Because they work differently than people expect.