Bose Impersonation Scam: The Fake Marketing Proposal I Received
A November 2024 case study of brand impersonation, updated with clearer checks and safety advice.
First Search Digital · Insights
Practical digital advice for small businesses
Clear explanations to help you choose what to do next with your website, search visibility and marketing budget. Browse the guides by the problem you want to solve.
Written by Ciaran Clarke. Practical experience, plain-English explanations and links to source guidance where platform rules or research matter.
Marketing decisions & trust
Choose where to spend your time and budget, understand proposals and avoid expensive distractions.
SEO, Google Ads or a Better Website: Where Should a Small Business Start?
Work out whether visibility, advertising or the website is the first problem to address.
Small Marketing Budget? How to Decide What to Work on First
Choose a manageable monthly priority and leave room for changing business needs.
Digital Marketing Scams and Rip-Offs: What Small Businesses Should Watch For
Recognise inflated authority-score promises, unclear pricing and misleading reports.
How to Spot a Fake Client Enquiry or Marketing Proposal
Check suspicious approaches without putting your accounts or client information at risk.
What 11 Years at American Express Taught Me About Helping Small Businesses
How corporate experience translates into practical, affordable support for smaller businesses.
Digital Marketing Jargon Explained: A Plain-English Guide for Small Businesses
A reference for the acronyms in proposals and reports, with a worked example of the numbers.
SEO & local visibility
Help the right people find your business, assess SEO work and build a credible local presence.
What Is Tiered Link Building? How It Works and the SEO Risks
Understand link layers, question misleading guarantees and assess what a supplier is actually selling.
How to Choose the Right SEO Agency (and What to Watch Out For)
Questions to ask, warning signs to recognise and what a useful working relationship looks like.
What Does Your SEO Agency Actually Do Each Month?
Understand the work behind a monthly invoice and the evidence a useful report should contain.
Search Intent for Small Businesses: Match Customer Questions to the Right Pages
Match what customers want to understand or do with the page that can genuinely help them.
Why Isn’t My Business Showing on Google Maps?
Distinguish a missing profile from a ranking problem and check the right things first.
How to Ask for a Google Review: Links, QR Codes and a Simple Template
Create a review link or QR code and ask for honest feedback without incentives or pressure.
White Hat, Grey Hat and Black Hat SEO: Where Does Evergreen Content Fit?
Understand the risks behind SEO labels and why evergreen describes content, not a tactic.
Advertising & social media
Decide what to manage yourself, measure useful results and connect paid activity with your business goals.
Can I Manage Google Ads Myself? Training, Support or Full Management
Compare doing it yourself, learning with support and handing over campaign management.
How to Tell Whether Your Google Ads Are Bringing Useful Business
Connect clicks and conversions with suitable enquiries, customers and sustainable costs.
Google Shopping Problems? Start with Your Product Data
Investigate mismatched prices, availability, identifiers and other product-feed problems.
Should I Be Doing Social Media? Is It Actually Worth It for a Small Business?
Assess social media’s role in trust and visibility without committing to endless posting.
Websites & WordPress
Improve the route from a visit to an enquiry, protect what you own and plan website changes carefully.
Why Your Website Gets Visitors but No Enquiries
Find the weak point between the visitor, your offer, trust, contact and follow-up.
Do You Need a New Website, or Can You Improve the One You Have?
Decide whether focused repairs will do the job before committing to a rebuild.
Who Owns Your Website, Domain and Advertising Accounts?
Check control, access, licences and handover arrangements before you need to move.
Your WordPress Website Has Been Hacked: What to Do First
Limit harm, preserve evidence and agree a recovery process that addresses the cause.
Video on Your Website: Choosing Hosting That Works for Visitors and Search
Balance performance, privacy, accessibility and search when adding video to your website.
Japanese Spam in Google Results: What It Means for Your WordPress Website
Unexpected Japanese product listings in Google can point to a compromised website. Learn what to record, why hiding results is not a clean-up and how recovery should be checked.
Why Does My WordPress Website Keep Getting Reinfected?
If malware or redirects return after a clean-up, the investigation needs to look beyond the visible symptom. Here are the questions to ask about files, access, backups and verification.
My Host Has Suspended My WordPress Website: What Should I Do?
A suspended website or “Access denied” message needs a clear diagnosis. Find out what to ask your host, why unlocking files may not fix malware and how to agree a recovery plan.
AI & the changing search landscape
Separate useful opportunities from unfamiliar labels, with evidence and practical limits made clear.
How AI Overviews Are Changing Google Search: What the Research Shows
What research can, and cannot, tell us about AI answers, clicks and changing search behaviour.
SEO, GEO, AEO and AIO: Different Names, Connected Work
Untangle the terminology and see why search visibility still depends on connected work.
Practical AI for Small Businesses: What Is Actually Worth Automating?
Start with a well-understood task, check the risks and decide whether automation is worthwhile.