The Team: who writes this almanac and how its picks get made

Merrimack Valley Almanac is an independent guide to online marketing for small New Hampshire businesses. This page explains who puts it together, what we read and check before we point a reader anywhere, and what we will not claim about ourselves. It is written for the owner who has to pay for marketing help and wants to know what a proposal actually promises. Nothing here is a story about a job we did or a visit we made, because we have done neither for any business we recommend. Instead you will find the method, the checks and the limits, set out so you can test each one. If a claim on this site cannot be checked, we would rather leave it out than dress it up.

Why a guide that points somewhere should show its method

A recommendation is only worth as much as the reasoning behind it, so we keep that reasoning in view. We are an independent guide to how online marketing gets bought. We are not a marketing firm, we do not run campaigns for anyone, and we do not audit anyone’s website. What we do is read the public material on a subject, compare it with what providers put in writing, and set the results out where you can test them yourself. The people who read this guide are mostly deciding, not browsing, so we try to answer the question in front of them without padding. When the public material is thin or disagrees with itself, we say that rather than picking the answer that sounds best.

The reader this guide is for is a small business owner who has to pay for online marketing and wants to know what a proposal promises. The method behind our buying guide is on the Tech Explained page, so this page does not repeat it. Here is one outside talk on the same subject, from Google Search Central, for a reader who wants a second voice before trusting ours. It covers how a small business approaches SEO in plain terms, which is the same ground our buying guide starts from. Watch it with a proposal open beside you, and note which of its points your provider has already answered.

What we read before we point anywhere

A hand sketching a keyword plan on a whiteboard in blue marker — A keyword plan drawn by hand. In a first meeting, ask a provider to show you the plan behind their proposal, in whatever form they use.

A video editor at a dual-monitor workstation cutting a promotional clip — Video work is a separate job from search work. A proposal that bundles the two should say which hours go to which.

What this site is made of, counted

These three figures are counted from this site itself, and from nothing else. They are not survey results, and they do not describe the subject of marketing in general. The first is the number of pages in this guide, each built to answer one question a buyer of marketing asks. The second is the number of sections on this page, each built around one thing a reader can check for themselves. The third is the one video embedded here, which comes from Google Search Central and is named on the page where it appears. We picked these counts because they are the ones we can state without guessing.

10: Pages in this guide, each answering one question a buyer of marketing asks.
4: Sections on this page, each built around one thing a reader can check.
1: Video embedded on this page, from Google Search Central.

The questions a careful reader asks about our picks

How does a business end up on one of our pages?

It has to earn the mention on something a reader can check. That means what the business says it offers, what its customers say in public, and what its own work shows, each of which a reader can look up without relying on us. A claim we cannot point to a source for does not get written, even when it would make a page read better. If a business is on one of our pages, the reason should be on the page too, in plain words. Readers are free to disagree with that reason, and we would rather hear the disagreement than have anyone trust us blindly.

Have we hired, used or tested the businesses we mention?

No. We have not hired, used or tested any business we point readers toward, and nothing on this site says that we have. A recommendation from us is an opinion built on public evidence, and it is written as an opinion, not as first-hand experience. We do not describe a meeting, a phone call or a finished job that we did not have. If a reader wants first-hand experience, the honest route is to ask the business for references and speak to those clients directly. Our part is to make sure the questions worth asking are on the page.

What will we never claim about ourselves?

We will never give years of experience, counts of past work, certifications, memberships, awards or a founding date. None of those are facts about this guide, so none of them appear here, and we do not borrow them from anyone else. Each one is a claim a reader could ask us to prove, and we have nothing to prove it with. If you spot one anywhere on the site, a correction is welcome, and the Reach Out page explains the ways to send one. Corrections are how a small guide like this one stays honest about what it is.