Carter Severns

I built a simple, 5-point Local SEO checklist for Houston businesses that actually moves the needle. Each step includes before/after examples and clear next steps you can implement today. Which area costs you the most visibility — GBP, reviews, citations, schema, or location pages? Download the checklist and start fixing what matters: https://wix.to/AXpB2cN 🚀 #LocalSEO #HoustonBusiness #SmallBusinessMarketing

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Most leaders still think outbound = booking meetings. But here’s the part they miss. 👇 Every single cold message you send… is branding. That “quick copy-paste DM”? That email with zero personalization? That tone-deaf sequence you forgot to QA? It doesn’t just fail to get a reply. It tells your market: 👉 You’re generic. 👉 You don’t care. 👉 You’re forgettable. And no ad budget in the world can buy that trust back once it’s lost. Your SDR isn’t just filling calendars. They’re shaping how your brand is remembered. Outbound isn’t lead gen. It’s reputation at scale. So the real question is: When your next cold message lands, what story does it tell about you?

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Most Austin businesses don’t fail at SEO because they’re bad at marketing. They fail because local search is harder than it looks. You can have: ✔️ A great website ✔️ A solid service ✔️ Happy customers And still lose visibility on Google Maps. Why? Because ranking in Austin isn’t about tricks anymore. It’s about local trust, consistency, and showing up where customers actually search. We broke down: • Why Google Business Profiles quietly hurt rankings • How neighborhood searches decide who wins • Why mobile speed and reviews matter more than ever • What actually works for Austin-first SEO in 2026 If your business should be found locally — but isn’t — this guide shows exactly what to fix. 📍 Local visibility is built, not guessed. Know more: https://lnkd.in/gZqdBskm #SearchEngineOptimizationAustin #LocalSEO #AustinBusiness #GoogleMapsSEO #SmallBusinessGrowth

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Oden has a positioning doc feature that's been quietly saving me hours on competitive audits. Let me tell you why it matters. The hardest part of a website revamp or messaging refresh isn't the writing. It's everything that has to happen before you write a single word. If you're a consultant juggling multiple clients, or a founding PMM who's basically a team of one - you know this. The "quick competitive check" somehow swallows your entire afternoon. Six tabs open, a messy notes doc, and you still can't tell where your positioning actually has room to breathe. The problem isn't effort. Manual audits are just unstructured by nature - every homepage gets read differently depending on your headspace and deadline pressure. You end up with a collection of vibes, not a usable baseline. Oden's positioning doc fixes exactly this. It audits competitor homepages through a consistent lens - same questions every time. Real ICP based on actual language. Differentiation type. Category claim. Where they're exposed. The consistency is what makes it a starting point you can actually work from. For consultants: a structured competitive baseline ready before your first client call. For founding PMMs: clarity on where the whitespace is before you touch your own homepage. It won't do the strategy for you. But it gets you to the starting line without losing two days getting there. Link in comments - go try it.

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Most agencies know just enough about Yelp to be dangerous. They understand the high level. But they miss the tiny levers that quietly drive: • CPC • Conversion rate • Lead quality • Ranking relevance We don’t guess. Our founders spent 15 years, combined, inside Yelp actually learning the system. We’ll share a few of the insights that most agencies simply don’t know. 📅 Dec 5 🔗 youngcowmedia.com/webinar

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I’ve seen a lot of posts lately asking whether SEO is dead and if we should all be optimizing for ChatGPT instead. And while that debate can be fun to follow, I think it’s missing something more important. Most B2B companies I’ve worked with don’t have a search problem. They have a visibility problem. Not because their product isn’t great, or their marketing team isn’t smart, but because they’re thinking in channels instead of journeys. What’s our SEO strategy? What’s our paid plan? How are we doing on LinkedIn? Meanwhile, their buyers are out there doing what people actually do. They ask around. They read reviews. They search ChatGPT. They scroll LinkedIn to see if your company seems legit. They dig through Reddit or YouTube or some niche comparison site. All of that happens before they even consider filling out a form. And honestly, a lot of companies just don’t show up. Not in the forums. Not in the search results. Not in the conversations. Even when they have something really good to offer. That’s the real challenge. Not whether SEO is still worth it, but whether anyone can actually find and trust you when it matters. So here’s the takeaway I’ve learned: Before you build a channel strategy, build a visibility strategy. Figure out where your buyers are already looking when they’re in research mode and show up there in a real and helpful way. That might mean rethinking what counts as “marketing,” and that’s okay. You don’t need to be everywhere. But you do need to be somewhere that matters. And don’t worry, I will be writing more about optimizing for GEO another day. - Five years, a lot of projects, and even more lessons. I’m sharing one a day for five weeks, things I’ve learned from building momentum with early-stage teams. Follow along if you’re building something too.

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🔥 Hot take 🔥 While most of the marketing world is talking about websites becoming less important due to AI, I'm here to tell you - your website is quickly becoming the MOST important place in your GTM stack. Yep, you heard right. "The website is dying...long live the website!" 😉 It's true that buyers don’t show up to websites primarily to learn anymore. AI, communities, and peer conversations have taken over the education phase. Instead, they arrive informed, opinionated, and already comparing options. This means that when someone lands on your site, the question isn’t “can we teach them?” It’s “can we help them decide?” It also means that your website is your best source of first party intent data - but that data is only useful if you can act on it, NOW. That shift is what we mean at Sequel.io when we talk about "The Rise of the Intelligent Website." An Intelligent Website doesn’t just publish content and wait. It responds to engagement in real time. It treats webinars and live video as decision moments, not campaigns. And it uses what buyers do **while** they’re engaged, not days later in a report, to shape what happens next. This is the movement we’re leaning into at Sequel.io, and on February 11, we’re opening up the conversation in our live event on The Rise of the Intelligent Website. Join us on February 11 and be amongst the first to hear: ⭐ How the role of the website is changing ⭐ What marketers need to be doing now to adjust their website strategies ⭐ How webinars can unlock access to powerful first party intent data that you can use to dynamically shape the buyer journey ⭐ What Sequel is doing to meet the moment, including announcements about some first-of-their-kind innovations that will unlock massive value for marketing teams This isn’t a “feature tour.” It’s a look at where the category is headed and what marketers need to start thinking about now if they want to stay ahead of how buyers behave in 2026. There are a lot of marketing "thought leaders" out there calling out the death of websites. DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE. Your website isn't dying - it’s job is changing. The question is whether your tech stack and strategy is changing with it. That's the real question 👆 we'll be addressing on February 11. Hope to see you there! Link to register: https://lnkd.in/eAkPS2H8 #intelligentwebsite #webinars #kathleenhq

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Stop Guessing, Start Ranking! 🚀 Tired of missing out on local customers in Texas? Your buyers are searching for you right now. Here’s how to turn those searches into real, high-quality leads using Local SEO. 👇 The 60-Second Local SEO Game Plan: ✅ Claim & Optimize Your Google Business Profile Accurate NAP (Name, Address, Phone) Right categories + high-quality photos Regular posts & Q&A ✅ Target Local Keywords “Service + City” (e.g., “Plumber Dallas TX”) Capture commercial & transactional intent ✅ Optimize Your Website City-specific landing pages Local schema markup Mobile-friendly & fast ✅ Build Local Trust Get & respond to reviews Secure local backlinks & partnerships ✅ Track What Matters Map & search impressions Calls, directions, form fills Lead quality & conversion rates Local SEO isn’t just about visibility—it’s about being found by people ready to buy. Found this helpful? ✅ Save this post for later! 🔔 Follow me for more actionable SEO tips. 💬 DM me for a deeper dive into local lead generation. #LocalSEO #LeadGeneration #GoogleBusinessProfile #SmallBusinessMarketing #SEO #DigitalMarketing #TexasBusiness

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