We recently did something I’ve advised businesses to do for years. We took a serious look at our own company.
The Strategic Marketing Group has been around for more than two decades. Over that time, the work changed. The tools changed. The market changed. And eventually the way we described the company needed to change too.
So we rebuilt the website around what tSMG actually is today: a business growth company helping established local businesses become easier to find, easier to choose and harder to replace.
The new website was clear. Then we looked at the rest of the internet. That was educational.
The website had changed. The internet hadn’t.
Old business profiles still described work we had done years ago. Some emphasized websites. Others described general marketing consulting. Some reflected coaching. Some had old geographic information.
And we discovered something even better: two verified Google Business Profiles for the same company. Same phone number. Same business. Different historical information.
Nothing like auditing your own business to keep you humble.
This is not unusual
Most established businesses have accumulated a digital trail.
Think about everything you may have created over ten or fifteen years: directory listings, old social profiles, association pages, Google listings, Yelp, LinkedIn, vendor directories, local organizations, press releases, old websites, event pages, business databases.
Some were created by you. Some were created automatically. Some were created by someone who worked for you seven years ago and hasn’t thought about them since.
The result is that your business may exist in dozens or hundreds of places online. And they may not all describe the same company.
Humans notice contradictions
Imagine you’re looking for an accountant. The website says the firm specializes in small-business tax strategy. Google describes it as bookkeeping. LinkedIn emphasizes personal tax preparation. One directory shows an old address. Another has a disconnected phone number.
You may still call them. But you hesitate. Something doesn’t quite line up.
AI systems can encounter the same contradictions at scale. Before an AI system can confidently recommend a company, it needs to understand what entity it is dealing with. Who is this business? What does it do? Where does it operate? Is this the same company mentioned on these other sites? Are these records current?
Conflicting evidence makes those questions harder to answer.
Repositioning creates a temporary gap
This is especially important when a business changes direction.
Maybe you used to be primarily a website developer and now you’re a technology consultant. Maybe your dental practice added cosmetic services. Maybe your law firm changed specialties. Maybe your contractor business expanded into neighboring cities. Maybe your company moved.
You can update the website this afternoon. But changing the broader internet takes longer.
That creates a temporary authority gap. Your current website says who you are becoming. The rest of the web still documents who you used to be.
Start with the sources that matter most
You don’t need to find every forgotten listing on the internet tomorrow.
Start with the places most likely to influence customers and search systems: your Google Business Profile, your website, your major social and professional profiles, important industry directories, local business organizations, and review platforms.
Those should tell essentially the same story. Not necessarily the exact same paragraph. In fact, copying identical descriptions everywhere can look unnatural.
The facts should agree: business name, location or service area, category, major services, website, phone, and people associated with the company.
Old information isn't always bad
History is useful. If you have been in business for twenty years, you should not try to erase fifteen years of legitimate work simply because your positioning evolved. That history establishes experience.
The objective is not to rewrite the past. It is to make the present clear.
A longtime business may have done many things over the years. That’s fine. The public evidence should make it reasonably easy to understand what the business does now.
We found this out the practical way
Our own cleanup uncovered exactly the kinds of things we look for when evaluating other businesses: stale descriptions, old service positioning, duplicate business records, third-party profiles that hadn’t caught up, and reviews describing earlier parts of the business more than its current focus.
None of those meant the business itself was broken. They meant the public evidence needed maintenance.
And that’s a distinction more business owners need to understand.
Your online identity needs maintenance too
Most businesses maintain their physical operation. They update equipment. Train employees. Change menus. Replace signs. Improve processes.
Digital identity rarely gets the same treatment.
Yet customers — and increasingly AI systems — may encounter the digital business before they ever encounter the real one.
So occasionally ask a very simple question: If someone who knew nothing about my company researched it online today, would all the evidence point toward the same business?
If the answer is no, you’ve found work worth doing.
Because before the internet can confidently recommend your business, the internet first has to agree about who your business is.