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Be as good online as you are in real life.

Good businesses are often much better than the version of them people find online. Presence, an independent practice led by Mike Pinette, exists to close that gap.

Did I contact you? See what I found Found Presence another way? Ask me to look

The business you’ve built should make it through.

People don’t experience your company from the inside. They search, compare, read reviews and ask AI. What they find becomes the business they know.

InsideThe business you’ve built. The expertise, the reputation, the people.
OutsideThe business people find. Searches, reviews, AI answers.

The expertise is there. The reputation is there. But too much gets lost between the company you’ve built and the person trying to choose it.

That’s the part I’m interested in.

Before I recommend anything, I look.

I don’t begin with a list of services. I begin by learning the business and looking at what is actually happening around it.

  1. What are people looking for?

    I identify the searches and questions connected to the things you actually want to sell. Not every keyword matters. I want to know where there is real interest, and what someone needs to understand before they choose you.

    Start with the questions that matter.

  2. Where do you appear?

    I test relevant searches in the markets that matter. Where you’re visible. Where you’re missing. Which pages appear. One search doesn’t tell me much. Repeated behaviour does.

    Look for patterns, not isolated results.

  3. Who keeps appearing instead?

    The businesses competing for your customers online aren’t always the ones you consider competitors. I look at who repeatedly appears when people search for the work you want. Then I look at why.

    The same names. Again and again.

  4. What can AI understand about your business?

    I look at relevant answers, what information can be found about your business, what’s accurate, what’s missing and who gets mentioned when you don’t. I treat that as evidence, not a score to chase.

    A useful signal. Never the whole picture.

  5. Does what people find explain why you’re good?

    Visibility only gets someone through the door. They still need a reason to choose you. I look at the offer, website, proof, reviews, photography and content against the business I’ve actually learned about.

    Does this feel like the same company?

  6. What happens when someone is interested?

    I follow it through. Can they understand what to do next? Are the important questions answered? Can they reach the right person? Does the enquiry actually arrive?

    Sometimes the most valuable fix is right here.

Then I decide what matters.

I don’t want to hand you a list of everything that could theoretically be improved. There will always be more. I want to know which things are worth doing.

One search result isn’t a strategy.

One competitor isn’t a market.

A score isn’t important just because a tool created it.

I compare signals, look for patterns and keep the evidence behind what I find. I separate what I can show from what I only suspect.

If the evidence isn’t strong enough, I don’t use it.

Once we know what matters, we do something about it.

Sometimes the problem is search. Sometimes your best work is hidden. Sometimes the enquiry process is getting in the way. The answer follows the problem: research, writing, search, creative, web, content, systems. Whatever the job needs.

It either feels connected or it doesn’t. That’s how I try to look at the business too.

The work leaves a trail.

Different businesses. The same attention.

Sercosan

Northern Spain

A good regional business that had outgrown the way it appeared online.

I started by learning what Sercosan actually sold. What customers bought. What the sales team talked about. What the company knew. Then I looked at how people were finding it.

Search work led to new commercial pages, a clearer structure and better alignment between what Sercosan does and what people could find. Working closer exposed the next useful problems: scattered knowledge, disconnected enquiries, services that were hard to explain. So the work grew with the business.

Visit Sercosan
What customers need to findSearch · commercial pages · content
What happens when they doEnquiry · the right person · follow-up
What helps the business respondService knowledge · customer context · useful automation

Al Norte

Santander, Spain

Already good. Now better represented.

Al Norte already had the difficult part. A real restaurant. Good food. A clear point of view. Customers who liked it.

The job wasn’t to invent a brand story. It was to make more of the real business visible: website, search, local presence, content and photography. It didn’t need reinventing.

Visit Al Norte
Mike Pinette, founder of Presence, on the beach
Mike Pinette, founder

The person you hire stays in the room.

I spent years working in businesses where trust was earned face to face before I ever worked seriously on websites or search.

Hospitality taught me to notice people. Sales taught me to listen. Working inside businesses taught me that what sounds good in a meeting still has to work on Monday morning.

I learned the customer before the interface.

When you work with Presence, you work directly with me. I do the research. I make the work. I check it. I stay involved.

How we start.

Presence is an independent practice. You work with me, and I’d rather know a smaller number of businesses properly.

  1. Look

    I learn the business and do the research. What you sell, who buys it and what matters commercially. If I’ve contacted you first, I’ve probably already started.

  2. Show

    I show you what I think matters: the evidence, what I think it means and what I’m less certain about. Your knowledge of the business matters here.

  3. Decide

    We decide whether anything deserves doing. There may be one clear problem, several connected ones, or not enough to justify working together. That’s fine too.

  4. Do the work

    We agree what needs to happen, what success would look like and what I need from you. Then we do it.

  5. Keep going

    If the relationship makes sense, I stay involved. Researching, making, publishing, checking and paying attention as the business changes.

Something real behind the business.

I work best with established businesses where trust matters and customers take time to choose. Owners who care how their company is represented. Teams doing good work that isn’t coming through clearly enough.

Professional services · Hospitality · Health & wellness · Architecture & design · Property · Specialist B2B · Education

  • I won’t recommend work just to fill a monthly agreement.
  • I won’t quietly turn an assumption into a fact.
  • I won’t tell you everything needs fixing.

I don’t want to manufacture a more impressive version of your company. I want the real one to come through.

If I contacted you, I found something.

I’ve already spent some time looking. Not enough to pretend I understand the whole company. Enough to notice something worth showing you.

An illustrative example, not a finding about your business

Observed

An important service. Difficult to find.

Supporting observations
  • Search A Page absent
  • Search B Page absent
  • Search C Page absent
What it may mean

The service may be hard to discover. That doesn’t prove demand is being lost.

Did I contact you?

I’ll show you what I found, what I based it on and what I think it means. You can decide whether it matters.

See what I found

Opens an email to Mike. Mention your business so I can connect it to the research.

Found Presence another way?

Tell me about the business. If I see something worth showing you, I’ll send it.

This opens an email to Mike with your answers. Nothing is stored on this site.

Or write directly: mike@presencework.co