The questions most people ask — answered.

I'm based in San Luis Obispo County and work with businesses across the Central Coast — San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, Atascadero, Pismo Beach, Morro Bay, and Santa Barbara — plus statewide and nationally.

Send me a link to your site and any current marketing, and I'll send back a written review of what's working, what's broken, and where the biggest opportunities sit! If you have any questions after looking it over, we can schedule a call to chat specifics. Start a free audit →

Project work (website builds, audits) is fixed-scope with a defined price and delivery date. Monthly work (SEO, paid ads, analytics) runs month-to-month with 30 days notice to cancel.

Pricing falls between $2,000 and $12,000, split across three tiers. Template builds ($2,000–$3,500) cover sites of up to 8 pages on Squarespace, Wix, or WordPress templates — design customization within the template, GA4 + conversion tracking wired in at launch. Standard custom builds ($3,500–$7,500) cover custom sites of up to 15 pages where the brand and design system are already in place. Larger custom builds ($8,000–$12,000) cover sites of up to 25 pages or e-commerce, brand-development work, or content production support. You get a fixed quote up front. If I'm rebuilding an existing site, I map every URL with traffic so rankings hold through the redesign. Learn more about web design →

Most SEO engagements run $750 to $1,500 per month. Single-location local campaigns sit at the lower end; multi-location or competitive markets sit higher. One-time audits are project-priced separately. SEO is a compounding investment, not an expense — pages ranking now keep earning traffic for years. Learn more about SEO services →

Local SEO for a single-location business in San Luis Obispo or Santa Barbara County typically runs $750 to $1,500 per month. Multi-location or competitive service categories cost more. The work covers Google Business Profile, local citations, location-specific page content, reviews strategy, and local schema. See local SEO for SLO →

Management fee runs $650–$1,000/mo — lower for single-platform Search-only, upper for multi-platform with creative testing and full-funnel tracking. Ad spend is separate, paid directly to Google on your account; most accounts run $500–$2,500/mo in spend depending on vertical and goals. Learn more about paid advertising →

Management fee runs $650–$1,000/mo — lower for single-platform Search-only, upper for multi-platform with creative testing and full-funnel tracking. Ad spend is separate, paid directly to Meta on your account; most accounts run $500–$2,500/mo in spend depending on vertical and goals. Learn more about paid advertising →

There's no single right number — it depends on your stage, your category, and how aggressive you want to grow. As a working frame: most businesses I work with run a combined budget across some mix of SEO ($750–$1,500/mo), paid management fee ($650–$1,000/mo), and ad spend ($500–$2,500/mo paid directly to Google or Meta). Newer businesses building demand spend more relative to revenue; established businesses with a steady customer base can spend less and lean on retention. A single percentage is shorthand, not a plan — your actual number depends on your category, growth stage, and what's already working. Start a free audit →

PPC management — covering Google Ads, Meta (Facebook & Instagram), or both — runs $650–$1,000/mo in management fee, with ad spend separate and paid directly to the platform on your account. No markup on ad spend — every dollar you spend goes to the platform. Lower end of the fee covers single-platform setups (most often Search-only Google Ads). Upper end covers multi-platform accounts with creative testing, full-funnel conversion tracking, and ongoing landing-page work. For platform-specific ranges, see How much do Google Ads cost (Q7) and How much do Meta ads cost (Q8). Learn more about paid advertising →

Most custom builds take 4 to 8 weeks from kickoff to launch, once content and branding are locked in. Simpler sites move faster; e-commerce or multi-location sites take longer. I build on WordPress, Squarespace, or Shopify so you can edit text, swap images, and add posts after launch without me.

Early movement — new pages indexing, technical fixes taking effect — usually shows in 4 to 8 weeks. Meaningful traffic and lead growth lands at 3 to 6 months, longer in competitive markets. On the Central Coast, local SEO often moves faster than national SEO because the competitive set is smaller. SEO compounds: the work done this quarter keeps producing results next year. Learn more about SEO services →

High-intent search campaigns usually produce leads within the first two weeks — people actively looking for your service click and convert quickly. The first 30 to 60 days is the learning phase while the algorithm gathers data and I tune bids, keywords, and copy. Every call, form, and booking is tracked back to the keyword that caused it, so you see exactly what's working from day one. Learn more about paid advertising →

Paid ads first if you need leads in the next 30 days; SEO first if you have 3 to 6 months of runway and want compounding returns. Most businesses do both — ads to fill the pipeline immediately while SEO builds the long-term asset that keeps producing without ongoing spend. The honest answer depends on your cash flow, your category's search volume, and how patient your business model is. Learn more about paid advertising → or SEO services →

Google Ads catches demand — people actively searching for what you sell, ready to buy. Meta catches attention — people scrolling who didn't know they wanted you yet. Google works for service categories where customers actively search (legal, medical, home services, plumbing). Meta works for discovery-driven categories (wineries, events, restaurants, lifestyle brands). Run both when your category supports both. The platform decision is about where your customers already are, not which platform is "better."

Yes, when the account is set up cleanly and the budget matches the category. The trick is matching campaign type to intent — high-intent Search campaigns work for service categories where customers actively look (legal, medical, home services, plumbing); Performance Max and Shopping work for product categories with clear margin math. A compliance-training account selling courses online closed the last twelve months at 14.7x ROAS ($416,762 in tracked sales from $28,376 in spend, completed purchases only) — above average for the category but achievable when conversion tracking and account structure are clean. Google Ads stop working when the budget is too low for the algorithm to optimize against meaningful conversion data, when the landing page can't convert, or when the account is left to autopilot. Learn more about paid advertising →

Each month covers:

• Technical maintenance and cleanup — broken links, schema, page speed, indexing
• Keyword and topic research, plus on-page content improvements
• Local signals — Google Business Profile, citations, review prompts
• AI-search optimization — direct-answer formatting, FAQ schema, citation positioning
• A written report showing exactly what was done and what moved

See the full SEO services page →

SEO ranks your site in the blue-link results. AI search optimization (called GEO or AEO depending on who you ask) gets your business cited as the answer when someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI Overviews. The underlying work overlaps — strong content, clean technical foundations, topical authority — but AI search rewards specific formats: direct answers, structured Q&A, schema markup, and cited sources. I build for both. Learn more about SEO services →

Five things matter most: structure answers as direct first sentences (AI engines extract the lead), publish FAQ pages with proper schema markup, get cited on third-party sites the AI engines already trust (industry directories, press, podcasts), keep your business facts consistent across the web (name, address, services), and make your numbers easy to extract — specific prices and timeframes get cited more than vague ranges.