~$~/the-nines.md65 entries
field notes — taken to the nines
The Nines.
Take it to the nines. Plain-spoken posts on what’s actually working in marketing — and what isn’t. Written by senior practitioners. Drawn from live client engagements. Nothing wallpapered, nothing half-finished.
~/the-nines/the-nine-acquires-smartsource-solutions.md
NEWS3 min
The Nine acquires SmartSource Solutions.
The Nine has acquired SmartSource Solutions — a credit union technology firm with 20+ years as a CUSO and nearly 300 credit unions served. Same team, same products, now backed by an AI-native agency.
~/the-nines/blake-coward-joins-the-nine.md
NEWS2 min
Blake Coward joins The Nine as Director of New Business.
The Nine adds a Director of New Business — Blake Coward brings the experience of building and running his own agency, and a track record of pushing new AI technologies into how client work actually gets done.
~/the-nines/the-nine-effect.md
PLAYBOOK5 min
The Nine Effect: a playbook for marketing that actually pays off.
Most marketing budgets get spent before anyone can tell you what worked. That's the problem the Nine Effect was built to solve.
~/the-nines/seo-audits.md
SEO6 min· draft
Why most “SEO audits” don’t change anything.
PDFs full of red checkmarks aren’t strategy. Here’s what actually moves rankings — and what to ask before you sign anything.
~/the-nines/kill-bad-campaigns.md
PAID4 min· draft
The case for killing your worst campaign today.
Half of every paid budget we audit is funding campaigns nobody’s defended in months. Here’s how to tell which ones to cut.
~/the-nines/credit-union-growth.md
STRATEGY7 min· draft
What credit unions get wrong about digital growth.
Member-experience awards don’t show up in your funnel. The fix isn’t a bigger budget — it’s a different system.
~/the-nines/threads-app-for-ecommerce.md
ECOM7 min
Threads for ecommerce: the honest read.
Threads is no longer a novelty platform. It's the most underpriced ecommerce social channel in 2025 — and the playbook is different from anywhere else.
~/the-nines/rebrand-with-seo.md
SEO8 min
Rebranding without tanking your SEO: a domain-change playbook.
A new name, a new look, a new domain. Done wrong, the rebrand resets your search equity to zero. Done right, it barely registers as a blip.
~/the-nines/website-design-for-roofing-companies.md
DESIGN5 min
Website design for roofing companies.
A roofing site has to convert in two completely different modes — the homeowner with a tarp on their roof and the one shopping a $30k re-roof. Here's how we build for both.
~/the-nines/how-to-start-a-brand.md
STRATEGY7 min
How to start a brand.
Most brand launches die in the logo phase. Here's a practical sequence — strategy, identity, voice, system — that gets you from zero to launched without spending a year on it.
~/the-nines/website-design-for-plumbing-companies.md
DESIGN4 min
Website design for plumbing companies.
Plumbing leads are mostly emergencies, mostly mobile, and mostly decided in under a minute. Your site has to win that minute.
~/the-nines/verify-google-business-profile.md
STRATEGY7 min
Verifying your Google Business Profile, the boring-but-critical guide.
Verification is the gate to local search visibility. Here's how to get it done in 2025 — including what to do when Google asks for video.
~/the-nines/website-design-for-electrical-companies.md
DESIGN4 min
Website design for electrical companies.
Electrical work is split between high-stakes emergency calls and big-ticket upgrade projects — panel swaps, EV chargers, whole-home generators. The site has to do both.
~/the-nines/seo-citations-healthcare.md
SEO8 min
SEO best practices for citations and references in healthcare content.
In healthcare, your citations are part of the trust signal — to readers, to Google, and increasingly to the AI engines deciding whether to surface you at all.
~/the-nines/website-development-for-security-companies.md
DEV5 min
Website development for security companies.
Security buyers don't shop on aesthetics. They shop on credibility and response time. Here's how to build a site that proves both, fast.
~/the-nines/website-launch-dns-access.md
DEV7 min
Website launch day, without the DNS panic.
Half of all 'last-minute' launch issues are DNS or access permissions that should have been sorted weeks earlier. Here's the checklist we run for every site.
~/the-nines/website-design-for-hvac-companies.md
DESIGN5 min
Website design for HVAC companies.
HVAC traffic is brutally seasonal and brutally local. The site that books the first August heatwave is the one that already had its summer landing pages live in May.
~/the-nines/best-erps-for-shopify.md
ECOM9 min
Best ERPs for Shopify, by the size of the operation.
There is no single best ERP for Shopify. There is a best ERP for *your* operation right now — and a different one waiting once you cross your next revenue tier.
~/the-nines/metrics-that-matter-b2b-manufacturing.md
STRATEGY7 min
The metrics that actually matter for B2B manufacturing sites.
Sessions and bounce rate look good in a slide deck. They don't tell you whether the dealer network is filling its pipeline. Here's what we track instead.
~/the-nines/website-design-for-moving-companies.md
DESIGN4 min
Website design for moving companies.
Moving is a high-anxiety, high-trust purchase. Here's how to design a site that books moves instead of triggering Yelp panic.
~/the-nines/ai-tools-for-content-writing.md
AI8 min
AI content tools, after the hype curve.
Most teams are either over-relying on generative AI or refusing to use it. The right answer is in the middle, and the workflow matters more than the tool.
~/the-nines/content-distribution-services.md
CONTENT10 min
Content distribution: the half of content marketing nobody budgets for.
Most marketing teams spend 80% of their effort producing content and 20% distributing it. The teams that win flip that. Here's the distribution system we run, and where AI lets us push reach without burning the brand.
~/the-nines/website-design-for-construction-companies.md
DESIGN5 min
Website design for construction companies.
Construction sites don't sell jobs the way trade sites do — they qualify them. The right site filters out the tire-kickers before your PMs spend an hour on the phone.
~/the-nines/optimize-content-for-seo.md
SEO7 min
How to optimize content for SEO without hollowing it out.
The trick is writing for humans first and structuring for machines second. Do it in the wrong order and you end up with content that ranks for nothing because it sounds like nothing.
~/the-nines/website-design-for-saas-companies.md
DESIGN5 min
Website design for SaaS companies.
SaaS sites have one job — turn organic traffic into trials, and trials into paying customers. Here's what an actually-converting SaaS site looks like in 2025.
~/the-nines/ai-seo-tools.md
AI8 min
AI SEO tools, ranked by what they actually move.
Most AI SEO tools sell content volume. The ones worth paying for help you understand intent, fix structure, and ship faster than your competitors.
~/the-nines/b2b-manufacturing-conversion.md
STRATEGY8 min
Sealing the deal: conversion strategies for B2B manufacturing sites.
Manufacturing buyers don't fill out a form because the CTA button is orange. They fill it out because the path from spec to quote is shorter than your competitor's.
~/the-nines/website-design-for-manufacturing-companies.md
DESIGN5 min
Website design for manufacturing companies.
Manufacturing buyers don't fill out hero forms. They download spec sheets, compare capabilities, and email procurement. Your site has to win that quiet, technical funnel.
~/the-nines/what-is-search-engine-marketing.md
SEO7 min
Search engine marketing in 2025: what it is now, what it used to be.
SEM used to mean Google Ads. Now it means showing up in organic, paid, and AI answers — usually in that order of effort, sometimes in that order of importance.
~/the-nines/website-design-for-demolition-companies.md
DESIGN5 min
Website design for demolition companies.
Demolition is a permitting and safety business as much as a wrecking business. Here's how to design a site that wins commercial bids without scaring off residential.
~/the-nines/website-design-for-land-clearing-companies.md
DESIGN4 min
Website design for land clearing companies.
Acreage, equipment, and turnaround time. That's the pitch. Here's how to design a land clearing site that gets the right call on the first try.
~/the-nines/omnichannel-content-strategy.md
CONTENT10 min
Omnichannel content strategy: one story, many surfaces, one system.
Multichannel is having content on every channel. Omnichannel is having every channel reinforce the same story. The difference is the entire reason your content program either works or doesn't.
~/the-nines/website-design-for-concrete-companies.md
DESIGN4 min
Website design for concrete companies.
Concrete is bought on photos and reviews, in that order. The site that wins shows real work, real neighborhoods, and real estimates without a ten-minute phone call.
~/the-nines/ai-tools-for-web-development.md
AI9 min
The AI tools that actually shipped our last ten builds.
Cursor, Claude Code, and the unglamorous middleware that makes the difference between AI-assisted and AI-dependent. A field report from our dev team.
~/the-nines/improve-your-digital-marketing.md
STRATEGY7 min
Five honest ways to improve your digital marketing this quarter.
Skip the trend list. The teams that compound are the ones that keep doing five unsexy things well — and stop doing the things that quietly waste budget.
~/the-nines/cold-calls-to-clicks-manufacturing-leads.md
LEADGEN7 min
From cold calls to clicks: modernizing lead generation in manufacturing.
The dealer rep with the rolodex isn't coming back. Here's how to rebuild the inbound pipeline manufacturers used to take for granted.
~/the-nines/ai-tools-for-web-design.md
AI8 min
The AI tools we actually use to design websites.
Forget the demo reels. Here's the short list of AI design tools that have earned a permanent slot in our workflow — and the ones we keep uninstalling.
~/the-nines/website-design-for-asphalt-companies.md
DESIGN4 min
Website design for asphalt companies.
Asphalt is seasonal, capital-intensive, and split across two very different buyers — homeowners and property managers. One site has to convince both.
~/the-nines/website-design-for-utility-contractor-companies.md
DESIGN5 min
Website design for utility contractor companies.
Utility contracting is a B2B sale built on procurement. Here's how to design a site that wins RFPs and pre-qualifications, not Google Ads clicks.
~/the-nines/content-production-services.md
CONTENT10 min
Content production: how we ship the work, not just the brief.
Production is where most content programs die — slow approvals, voice drift, briefs that translate into seven different things across seven different writers. Here's how we run it, and where we let AI do the heavy lifting without letting it touch the parts that matter.
~/the-nines/importance-of-good-web-design.md
DESIGN6 min
Good web design is the cheapest sales rep you'll ever hire.
A site that loads fast, reads cleanly, and respects the visitor's time will out-sell a beautiful one that doesn't. Aesthetics are the floor, not the ceiling.
~/the-nines/website-design-for-paving-companies.md
DESIGN4 min
Website design for paving companies.
Paving sites have to load fast, look heavy, and book estimates without a phone call. Here's how we build the sites that actually do the work.
~/the-nines/website-design-for-landscaping-companies.md
DESIGN5 min
Website design for landscaping companies.
Landscape is a portfolio business. The website is the portfolio. Here's how to build one that books design consults instead of mow estimates.
~/the-nines/email-newsletter-strategy.md
CONTENT6 min
An email newsletter strategy that doesn't bore your audience.
A newsletter isn't a digest of your blog. It's a relationship. Here's how to build one people actually want in their inbox.
~/the-nines/what-is-a-website-audit.md
STRATEGY7 min
What a website audit is — and what most of them miss.
A real website audit looks at three layers, not one. Most reports stop at the surface and never reach the conversion math underneath.
~/the-nines/website-design-for-pressure-washing-companies.md
DESIGN4 min
Website design for pressure washing companies.
Before/after shots are 80% of the sale. Here's how to build a pressure washing site that turns scrolls into bookings — fast.
~/the-nines/ecommerce-website-content.md
ECOM7 min
Ecommerce content that actually moves carts.
Product pages don't fail because the photography is bad. They fail because the content underneath answers the wrong questions.
~/the-nines/website-design-for-excavation-companies.md
DESIGN4 min
Website design for excavation companies.
Excavation buyers are GCs, developers, and homeowners pricing a serious dig. The site has to communicate equipment, capacity, and reliability before anyone reaches for the phone.
~/the-nines/brand-authority-aligned-storytelling.md
CASE STUDY9 min
Case study: building brand authority through aligned storytelling.
A client came to us looking for more leads. The real problem was that nothing they published sounded like the same company twice. Here's how we rebuilt the narrative — and what it did to the funnel.
~/the-nines/content-strategy-deep-listen.md
CONTENT6 min
Deep listening: the content strategy nobody writes down.
Most content briefs start with what the brand wants to say. The good ones start somewhere else — with what the audience already feels but can't quite name.
~/the-nines/website-design-for-lawn-care-companies.md
DESIGN4 min
Website design for lawn care companies.
Subscription mowing, one-off cleanups, and seasonal upsells all live on the same site. Here's how to design one that books all three without confusing anyone.
~/the-nines/website-design-for-tree-service-companies.md
DESIGN5 min
Website design for tree service companies.
Storm calls don't wait for a slow site. Here's what a tree service website actually needs to convert — and what a partner should know before they touch it.
~/the-nines/social-media-marketing-for-business.md
STRATEGY6 min
What social media marketing actually means for a business.
Posting consistently isn't a strategy. Here's what social actually does for a business — and where it stops paying off.
~/the-nines/why-marketing-audits.md
STRATEGY7 min
Why a marketing audit is the cheapest growth move you can make.
Most teams plan the next campaign before they understand the last one. An audit forces the math — and usually finds 20% of spend doing nothing.
~/the-nines/content-auditing-services.md
CONTENT10 min
Content auditing: how we figure out what's working before we touch anything.
Most content audits are just inventories with traffic numbers next to them. Ours are decision documents — keep, kill, rewrite, merge — backed by AI-assisted analysis on the parts that used to take humans weeks.
~/the-nines/what-is-content-strategy.md
CONTENT6 min
What content strategy actually is — and what it isn't.
Content strategy is not a calendar. It's a set of decisions about what you'll say, who you'll say it to, and what you expect to happen because you said it.
~/the-nines/industry-conference-playbook.md
STRATEGY8 min
The industry-conference playbook: a step-by-step guide.
A booth and a stack of business cards is not a strategy. Here's how we run conference programs for clients so the spend actually pays back.
~/the-nines/what-ecommerce-means.md
ECOM7 min
What ecommerce actually means for your business.
Adding a *Shop* button isn't a strategy. Ecommerce reshapes operations, content, support, and how you think about the customer.
~/the-nines/email-marketing-services.md
STRATEGY6 min
What you should actually expect from an email-marketing program.
If your agency's monthly email report is a screenshot of open rates, you're paying for theater. Here's what real email work looks like.
~/the-nines/what-to-expect-after-launch.md
DEV6 min
What to expect after your website launches.
The day a site goes live is the start of the work, not the end. Here's what the next 90 days actually look like.
~/the-nines/the-masters-brand.md
NEWS5 min
The Masters: a brand unlike any other.
Augusta National doesn't market the way the rest of sports marketing markets. The discipline of *what they refuse to do* is the brand. Here's what every client we work with can learn from it.
~/the-nines/inc-5000-list.md
NEWS4 min
The Nine Digital joins the Inc. 5000 list.
An archival note: making the Inc. 5000 was a milestone, but the real story is what the growth curve actually cost — and what it bought us.
~/the-nines/executive-team-changes.md
CULTURE4 min
Exciting changes in the Nine's executive team.
An archival post on a round of leadership shifts — promotions, role expansions, and a clearer division of responsibility across the senior team.
~/the-nines/welcoming-steve-pyfrom.md
CULTURE3 min
Welcoming Steve Pyfrom.
An archival post welcoming Steve Pyfrom to the Nine. Shipping more senior leadership into the operations seat changed how we ran the business.
~/the-nines/google-partner-agency.md
NEWS4 min
Recognized as a Google Partner agency in Search, Display, and Video.
An archival note: how earning Google Partner status across Search, Display, and Video changed what we could promise paid clients — and what the badge actually means.