I'm a digital marketing professional with more than 20 years' experience in marketing, advertising and client account management. That includes over three years advising small businesses on their digital marketing at Hibu, a US-based digital marketing company. 

I founded Proof & Presence Marketing to address what I saw as a growing need (and frustration!) among small businesses: completing the practical, ongoing  work of keeping their online presence accurate, useful and credible. 

That means better website content, clear evidence of expertise, well-managed customer reviews, and attention to how a business is represented across the internet. 

A business's online reputation should reflect the quality of its work. Having worked with many small local businesses to strengthen their digital presence, I've seen how much difference this attention can make.

My approach is straightforward: start with what you have, identify what needs improving, and make it work harder.

Marketing and digital tools will change fast, but understanding how people buy is consistent over the ages. Keeping the human element in marketing is critical to sucess.  You don’t need a marketing degree. You just need to keep in mind these four things.

My philosophy: 

• Know who you are talking to, and how.
  Be clear about the people you want to reach, what your audience needs to understand, and where they will look for you.

• If it works, do more of it.
  Pay attention to what is genuinely producing visibility, enquiries, and sales and then invest more time, effort and resources deliberately and intentionally in it.

• You hit what you aim at.
  Decide what success looks like before you start. Clear aims make marketing easier to judge and improve.

• Give people—and AI—a reason to believe you.
  Being visible is not enough. Your experience, expertise, evidence, and reputation need to be clear wherever customers and AI systems find you.

I believe good digital marketing should be understandable. I use clear, straightforward language and avoid unnecessary jargon. And because digital marketing has its own vocabulary, I've put together Digital Marketing Terms Explained as a handy reference. 

What I've always enjoyed most about working with small businesses is getting to know the people behind them, understanding what they do well and finding practical ways to make that more visible.