Internet consultant in SEO, local search, social media, WordPress and civiCRM.

What an internet consultant does for your business

March 14, 2022 by

As your internet consultant I achieve results by deploying the latest technology, solving problems, and usually both.

As Internet technologies and practices evolve, it’s increasingly difficult to find competent vendors, or the training your team needs to optimize your firm’s online presence. This includes website development, search optimization, social media community management and various digital marketing opportunities. As your Internet Consultant, I’ll help develop your online presence so that all of the elements work together in synergy,  thus achieving ongoing results and perpetual growth. I can train and lead your in-house team, or provide fully managed services by my team. Important areas of focus include:

  • Your digital-internet footprint (it’s size and shape is critical)
  • Mobile friendly websites (you website performing on mobile devices)
  • Social Media (how to deploy G+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)
  • Your primary & secondary keyword matrix (there is a science to it!)
  • SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
  • Local Search (ranking on Google & Bing maps)
  • Growing reviews (the secret sauce)
  • Technology selection (web & email tech, server side and local)
  • WordPress, Drupal, or other? (selecting the right platform)
  • BlackHat vs. WhiteHat (even the good guys make costly mistakes)
  • Pay-Per-Click (do you know how much you’re really paying per click?)
  • Social Media Marketing (yes, it works!)
  • Server logs and statistical analysis (a wealth of info often overlooked)
  • Reputation monitoring (know what they’re saying about your brand?)
  • Eval & training your in-house team (getting a second opinion)
  • Ecommerce (is a 24/7 Internet storefront right for you?)
  • Copy writing (unique & relevant copy for your Internet Footprint)
  • Search engine warfare (winning in an extreme competitive situation)
  • Avoiding costly mistakes (link farms, shills, and the Sand Box)
  • Technology for your non-profit (using civiCRM to grow your org.)

Optimizing and improving any one of these important areas of your internet presence can make a significant improvement. Better yet, as your internet consultant I can insure this entire list is optimally considered and functioning in synergy for your organization. If you have in-house personnel, let’s give them the training they need to be effective. Or if you hire my team you will get the expertise required to develop a dominant internet presence.

Take the first step to getting results that inspire engagement. Request a contact, or fill out my needs analysis form. Let’s purposefully design (or redesign)  your internet presence to achieve lasting and growing results.

Written by

Filed Under: main

Top Reasons to Hire Internet Consultant Don Powell in 2021

June 4, 2021 by
Here are the top 9 reasons to hire Don Powell as your internet consultant in 2018

These points apply to small businesses, professional practices, large corporations, municipalities, non-profits and religious organizations. I use “business” to describe them all.

1. Mobile Responsive Upgrade
In 2021 virtually every website should now be fully mobile responsive. I have been using the term “mobile first,” as more people are now using mobile devices to access the internet than they are using desk-top computers. And now Google is officially using the term “mobile first” to convey how they are indexing your website. If your website doesn’t perform beautifully on mobile devices, that this is the most important next step in online development. Mobile responsiveness is now a key element in your search rankings, and critical component in giving people a good experience as they visit your website.

2. Technical Internet Footprint Audit
Most businesses have accumulated a sizable online presence. This happens whether purposeful effort is made, or no effort is done. Your internet footprint grows as though it has a mind of it’s own, yet few know of its size and shape. A thorough audit will identify problem areas so that corrective action can be taken, and discover opportunities to exploit.  It’s not uncommon to discover a mess of things made over the years by various vendors and the business itself. An internet audit should be done every year or two to insure a clean and accurate online presence.

3. Strategic Website Audit
How long has your website been sitting without updates and upgrades? Or how long has old outdated pages been accumulating on your server? An old stale website that people see says much about your business, but outdated pages and other content can be a significant detriment to Search rankings and overall performance. A strategic website review incorporates an evaluation of your website as it’s seen, and the accumulation of files on your server.

4. Social Media Strategy
Having a Facebook is not a strategy. All to often businesses end up using their social media as another platitude rich advertisement platform, or as a customer service portal. Neither will generate the buzz you seek or deserve. I will help create an effective social media strategy that your team can own and operate, or my team can be your Community Manager and operate your social media on your behalf.

5. Growing your Internet Footprint and Reviews
Regular expansion of your online presence, and growing reviews will leave your competitors in the dust. This is the elusive magic sauce, but it must be done using “white-hat” techniques. All too often well intentioned Internet marketers engage in practices that are harmful due to inadvertent “black-hat” techniques. As your internet consultant I will make sure your Internet footprint exists in a state of perpetual growth using safe practices.

6. Statistical and Operational Review
Having an effective strategy involving your Internet presence must include complete understanding of your digital history and command of the present in terms of your website server statistics, social media metrics, and overall online history. My research and analysis tools often uncover nuggets of gold presenting opportunities which have been hiding in plain sight. I know how to find them. I also often uncover problems, inaccuracies and errors that sometimes are inhibiting your business in ways you never knew.

7. Social Media Monitoring
Knowing what’s being said about you and your business in social media is very important. A negative review left without rebuttal or response will fester like an infected wound, and glowing happy mentions are opportunities not to be ignored. As your Internet consultant or Community Manager I will make sure problems and opportunities are addressed immediately.

8. We are Team Players
You may have a good relationship with your digital vendors, or employ in-house personnel to manage your website, digital marketing and social media. Having an outside expert come in and evaluate their job performance and critique their work can be a recipe for trouble if an inclusive approach is not used. My method is to engage and support your team, to empower them with new information and techniques to help them be more effective. If they are truly deficient beyond reasonable measure, I will subtly report this back to the executive (he or she who hired me).

9. Accurate Google Ranking Analysis and Monitoring
Just because you see your website ranking well doesn’t mean everybody else sees the same results. The fact is that Google serves up customized results, and your searching history will effect the results you see. I will give you an truly unbiased appraisal, and set up ongoing monitoring with accurate results.
Written by

Filed Under: consultants blog

Social Media – simple strategy for success

June 2, 2021 by

All too often I see businesses and organizations set up their Facebook page and Twitter account, recruit some friends and contacts, and put some links on their website. Sometimes they advertise these new social media spaces on banners, business cards, and more. Unfortunately, most owners and administrators have no idea what to do next.

Some stick with the mission, being driven by media hype and peers, and manage to accumulate some friends and followers. But very few actually evolve their social media to a mature source of new business. Among the many reasons for this is a lack of an effective strategy. Here are some simple pointers that will help form a social media strategy:

  1. Invest a little each day. Half the game is just showing up, and this is especially true in social media. Fifteen minutes to half an hour each day is a minimum requirement. If this is too much, find someone in your organization to manage your social media (or hire my team!)
  2. Never use social media to publish specials or pitch your business. Large brands and established social media accounts might get away with this, but almost always this turns people away.
  3. Focus your efforts and attention on your friends and followers. Like and comment on their material and get to know them. Let them know you are interested in them on a social level. Big events like college graduations and marriges might earn a card in the mail.
  4. Your published material on social media should be interesting and/or entertaining. Funny pictures or events surrounding your business is good, so long as there is no sales pitch involved. Material unrelated to your business is fine too.
  5. Find other groups and businesses in your area to join, friend, follow, etc. Engage with their social media, and get to know their friends.

The point of social media is to get to know as many people as possible, and get as many people to know you as possible too. When the need arises for your particular product or service they will come to you. Let them make the first move!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Beyond SEO (Search Optimization)

June 1, 2021 by


Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a term that was once used to describe something done to your website (on site). While on site SEO remains an important part of your ranking scores, there are many other things that go into the modern ranking given by Google, Bing, etc. These other factors include inbound links, but not all inbound links are of equal value. Quality and relevancy are critical factors. I would rather have one good quality link to my website, from a website with content relevant to my own, than 100 links from dubious sources. Inbound links, or sometimes called backlinks, are just the beginning when it comes to SEO.

While traditional SEO remains important, we need to look beyond to a much broader perspective I call your Internet footprint. As your consultant or service provider, I will make sure your website is incredibly on site optimized, as well as part of your overall synergistic strategy. I will show you how to set in place a policy of building good quality inbound links and citations creating powerful and winning search optimization strategy.

Filed Under: consultants blog, main

Mobile Responsive – your website viewed on the go

May 30, 2021 by


With the huge growth in Internet access by mobile devices, businesses must consider how they are being seen and interacted with across many platforms. Website developers have to change the way they are thinking, and start developing for the mobile device first.

Mobile responsive is represented by a website that rearranges itself based on the particular device that is viewing it. This is somewhat different than a plugin or separate application that serves up a scaled down or redesigned version of the website’s content. For example, have a look at this website on your mobile device. Notice how the content is the same as seen on a desktop computer, except it is just presented in a more useful layout with the same graphics re-sized to fit proportionally.

With a mobile responsive website, you get to retain your branding and graphics. And you only need one version of your website sitting on the server serving up your content to what ever device comes calling.

Not every application or need is best served by a mobile responsive website. Some have special needs where a plugin or custom app is the perfect choice. Your Internet Consultant (that’s me) will evaluate your needs and help select the right method to serve up your important content to the growing mobile market.

Request a contact, or get started on your needs analysis form today!

Filed Under: consultants blog, main

Your internet footprint

May 28, 2021 by

Internet footprint: Every place where your website address, business name & address, phone, email and several other unique identifiers exist and can be found and indexed by major search engine spiders. This includes content throughout most of your social media spaces.

Is isn’t long before the accumulation of all this unique identifying information begins to form what I refer to as your Internet Footprint. With a little forethought and strategy this footprint can exist with purpose and have a significant effect on search, social media, local search, branding and more.

One of things Google does very well is to aggregate data from many sources. As you internet consultant I will help to craft a strategy with specific attention to the size, shape and content of your Internet footprint. This is an important foundation in achieving your goals and intentions with your Internet efforts.

Google is not the only reason we care about your Internet footprint. Other information gatherers in both the commercial and government sectors are gathering data about you and your business. So whether we know it or not, regardless if we like it or not, our internet footprint will continue to grow as long as there is an Internet.

Your Internet footprint can work against you too. Many Internet marketing, SEO and reputation management firms use aggressive tactics which ultimately lead to a spammy looking footprint. Growing too fast, use of link farms, and other Black-Hat techniques can severely damage your presence in the eyes of Google, Bing and Yahoo.

If you don’t have a regular attention paid to your presence online, you could be suffering from negative reviews and not know about it. Regardless of how much effort you place in customer service and quality of products or services, someone could write a negative review(s).

I advise and consult on how to turn your Internet footprint into an asset, and get lasting benefits from it’s purposeful and strategic design.

Filed Under: consultants blog, main
Google Places+
Translate »