Michael DeVault

Imagine performing a Google search for your business and it comes up with five competitors—all of which have dozens of glowing Google reviews. If you’re like a lot of small businesses I’ve worked with, chances are you didn’t have to imagine. You just had to remember. I call it “review envy.” Getting positive reviews on…

Going with a cheap WordPress hosting provider shouldn’t mean sacrificing the features you’ll need to keep your site secure, deliver a good user experience, and ensure your data is safe. We compared dozens of hosting options based on price, features, security, and more. The cheap WordPress hosting solutions below offer the features and support you…

Carving out your position in a crowded market requires positioning your brand to stand out from the competition. Brand positioning is a vital part of your marketing strategy and especially for your brand identity. To help inspire you, we’ve singled out 10 of the best brand positioning examples from around the world. What Brand Positioning…

Owning a franchise gives you a jump-start on branding and operations. However, that’s not to say there aren’t still things you need to do for your business to succeed. Franchise marketing is still something you’ll need to do, from building brand presence to growing your customer base and generating leads and sales. Here are 11…

Creating a local marketing strategy is a critical step to helping your business grow and flourish. With an effective marketing plan, you’ll be able to identify and connect with potential customers, build a strong brand, and convert leads into sales. Download the marketing plan template below and use it as you walk through the steps…

Local marketing is a core component of building a successful small business, and it can be done affordably. Reaching local customers takes a unique focus and knowledge. To help you succeed with your local marketing strategy, we unpack 13 of the best methods for getting the word out about your small business, from deploying direct…

Keyword research is a critical component of achieving high rankings in the search engine results pages (SERPs) on Google and Bing. The best keyword research tools help you identify which keywords to use in your content to rank higher without breaking the bank. We compared dozens of apps to find the best options for gaining…

Local advertising is an effective way to boost brand awareness and attract customers in a specific locale. It allows you to target nearby prospects based on the audience of the medium used (e.g., newspapers or radio stations) or to use ad targeting tools to put your advertisements directly in front of your ideal customers. With…

Squarespace is known for sleek templates and a beginner-friendly interface. Its tools are fairly well-rounded, but online ordering, appointment booking, and membership sites cost more, and integrations are limited. The best Squarespace alternatives fill these gaps with cheaper plans, more robust features, and integrations. Click the links below to visit provider sites or keep reading…

Wix is a popular, beginner-friendly website builder. It offers a wide range of built-in and third-party features, including artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and offers the most design customization of any site builder. Intuitive tools, design freedom, and built-in AI sets Wix apart and, as our Wix website builder review establishes, it is the best website…

Squarespace is a popular website builder, but the number of Squarespace extensions on their app marketplace is fairly low. To help you get more from your business website, we rounded up a list of the best Squarespace plugins you can integrate easily to go beyond the site builder’s native features. Read up on the plugins…

A web content management system (CMS) is software used to build and design a website, create and edit pages, organize content, upload media assets, and optimize the site for search. There are dozens of CMS platforms available, from WordPress to Wix. Below, we explain more about the different types of CMS solutions available for building…