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My First ever Logo Design wasn’t for a Business
Written By tricklowe
A marketing & sales strategist with over 25 years experience in web design, SEO, branding, and graphics design, amongst many other skills. I help businesses grow and thrive, getting more calls, leads, and conversions from their website, and much higher rankings on Google.
February 26, 2025
- When it comes to how your Local business gets found online, the top 3 positions on Google take 68.7% to 75.1% of all clicks (source: https://numeroagency.co.nz/blog/percentage-of-google-search-traffic-goes-to-top-3).
- Only 25% of users look past the first 3 results(source: https://aioseo.com/seo-statistics/).
- 80% of U.S. consumers search for local businesses weekly, with a significant majority of these searches, around 60% or more happening on mobile devices. (source: https://www.soci.ai/blog/local-seo-statistics/)
- Roughly 76% of users who search for something local on their smartphone visits the store within 24 hours. (source: https://thesearchinitiative.com/local-seo)
If your local business can’t be found, your potential local business customers are already going somewhere else. That business is walking away from you, because they can’t even find you.
TL;DR
We built a local magazine website in Menifee with local SEO integrated from day one.
In less than 90 days, it hit position 1 on Google and outranked the City of Menifee.
That visibility helped turn a small digital blog into a print magazine now reaching 5,000 homes. If local SEO did that for a magazine, imagine what it can do for your business.
What if Local Customers Came Looking for Your Business?
Sure, you might be busy now, and maybe you have some jobs lined up… …but what if the next few jobs (or 2-3 jobs a month) came to YOU, without you going out and hunting for them, or paying for ads?
What if you only do the jobs you wanted to do? Or, jobs closer to home, so you can get more of your time back?
Local SEO is the system of designing your local business website, optimizing your Google Business Profile, and a few other things. Doing this makes them load faster, easier to use, and easier for Google to understand and recommend to the right people, in the right places. Your website then ranks higher in your area when your local customers are searching for you.
Can you imagine what a difference it might make to get your business to position 1 on Google in less than 90 days?
Would you get more bookings? Make more money? What would that look like for you?
Instead of guessing the outcome, let’s take a look at what it did for our client, a local lifestyle magazine business in Menifee….
…We recently developed a blog website for a local digital lifestyle magazine in the City of Menifee, California. This blog produced some really amazing results within a short space of time for them.
Within less than 90 days after building the website, the blog outranked even the City of Menifee on Google, and dominates local search results in the entire Menifee, Murrieta, and Temecula area.
Here’s how we did that…
Meeting the Owner of the Digital Magazine Blog
When I first met Heather Lipson from The Menifee Experience, I already could tell she was going to build something pretty big. Her passion and enthusiasm for her digital lifestyle magazine project was simply infectious.
I could tell Heather absolutely loved what she was doing, and that goes a long way for me. Heather’s blog also actually had a lot of pretty good local content.
I first met Heather at one of her Zoom meetings for her facebook group. We hit it off, and shortly after, she invited me to do a quick presentation on Local SEO at one of her in-person meetings.
When I got to the meeting there were 6 people there (Heather and I included), but something felt really good about it.
I also met Charlie Allen that day, a local creative who was extremely passionate about branding for local businesses. By the way, I’d sincerely highly recommend Charlie for any branding work you might need. He does amazing work.
His website is here: https://www.charlieallendesign.com
Although it was a ‘small room’, something felt different about this experience.
Designing The Menifee Xperience Blog
A couple months later, Heather decided to hire us here at Shared Graphics to redesign her blog. She built the first version herself. When things started moving fast, she knew it was time for a professional upgrade, with a more polished look.
She was also working with Charlie Allen for the branding, and had a mood board ready with the aesthetic / colors in mind. At this point we were able to start designing and building the blog pages. We started to develop the new website with the on-site Local SEO already built in, without the branding, while Charlie worked on the new logos, etc.
The project took a few weeks, but we were able to put together something pretty awesome.
Pull the slider on the image below back and forth to see the before and after...
The Menifee Experience Web Design Project Before / After
Dynamic Web Design Built for Local SEO From Day One
For this project, having a good energetic vibrant look was essential.
We also wanted to make this as easy as possible for someone blogging, to create amazing professional blog posts each time. So, we put together dynamic blog pages with a really professional, magazine style look.
The blog posts being ‘dynamic’, means they automatically load in the images, headline, and text from the blog post, into a page design, every time it loads.
So, whenever Heather designs a new blog post, she just adds everything in the normal way on the blog post side. The blog post automatically assembles itself whenever a reader clicks on the link to the post.
We also made each category page for the website have its own look and feel, as well as dynamically loading in the appropriate blog posts into the category page.
The end result is a website with very few pages, that’s extremely easy to manage. It’s easy to make changes to this digital magazine that either instantly apply across the entire website, category, or many blog posts, by only making that change once.
This set up is perfect for any blogs with a lot of content.
Dynamic Blog Category Page Pulling in Blog Content Automatically
Great Web Design + Great Branding become a Super Power
Right when we were getting towards the end of the digital magazine blog design, we were ready for the branding, and the last few tweaks to make this thing perfect.
We sat in with the branding presentation with Charlie Allen Design Co, and we were impressed with his work! He was able to communicate the brand message perfectly, with a great visual strategy, that tied in with what we had designed from the moodboard.
The result for the overall aesthetic of this digital magazine website came out playful, professional, energetic, enthusiastic, and vibrant. Everything the magazine is about, and everything Heather exudes. We’re super proud of the results.
The look and feel of the website represents the area, the feeling of the magazine, and the growing business community behind it, perfectly.
A few weeks later, I was talking with Heather, and she was SO EXCITED. She showed me something that surprised even me…
Number One Position on Google in Less Than 90 Days
was in a Google Meet with Heather, when she told me to Google the term ‘Menifee Lifestyle Magazine’.
When I did, I saw the website we’d published less than 90 days earlier, was already in position 1 on Google. It was doing so well, The Menifee Xperience website outranked the City of Menifee. In position 3, was the Facebook page for the magazine, so The Menifee Xperience had 2 out of the top 3 results.
Today is 6 months since we designed this website. If you Google ‘menifee lifestyle magazine’ today, The Menifee Experience appears in the first 4 organic search results. It also appears in the Google Maps Pack 3. This gives them 5 positions on page one of Google.
If you Google ‘menifee magazine’, they are 3 of the top 5 results.
In short… The Menifee Experience now dominates Google search results.
Okay, so that sounds pretty good, right? But, what does being ranked in the top search results mean for the magazine, really?
That kind of visibility doesn't just drive web traffic. It builds credibility. It attracts sponsors. It turns a digital magazine into something people want to be part of. And that's exactly what happened next…
The Menifee Xperience Print Magazine
May 2026 marks the launch of the very first issue of The Menifee Xperience Magazine, the free print edition local lifestyle magazine going out to 5,000 Homes in Menifee this month.
Supported by a community of local businesses and entrepreneurs, The Menifee Xperience magazine is a vibrant lifestyle magazine not just full of ads, but news about new restaurants, local experiences, events, and more.
They held the launch party at the Iron Brewing Company… many local people and businesses showed up to support it. There was live music, local vendors, and a great atmosphere.
When I got to the event, I was AMAZED by just how many local businesses have gotten behind the magazine.
I was witnessing Heather’s amazing vision become a reality. This idea had grown from a room of just 6 people, into a full blown magazine event party with hundreds of people in less than 12 months! It blew my mind!
The Menifee Chamber of Commerce also honored Heather at the launch for building the city’s first ever lifestyle magazine.
It was a really amazing event to have been a part of!
The energy, enthusiasm, love and support from the local business owners and sponsors involved, really felt like a family, growing together.
Before you get too excited… NO, I’m not taking any credit for this all being because we built an awesome website for them. We DID do that. But, it was Heather’s amazing work, enthusiasm, and passion for the project, that REALLY made it all happen.
It’s also a great opportunity for any local business owners to grab exclusive advertising, before the slots are all taken.
Exclusive Advertising to 5,000 Homes in Menifee
Right now, the very first print version of The Menifee Experience is already in 5,000 homes in Menifee.
The coolest thing about it, is it’s not just a coupon book.
The magazine is high quality, has lifestyle articles, recommendations for restaurants, as well as news and information about upcoming events, and a lot more.
It’s a local magazine that's 100% worth reading, keeping on your coffee table. Great for going through to come up with ideas for things to do, and read about local events.
The Menifee Experience is 100% about promoting local businesses, and offers EXCLUSIVE advertising.
So, if you’re a plumber, electrician, or local service business owner, and advertise with the Menifee Experience magazine, they will not let another business advertise in the magazine to compete with you.
This is a really great opportunity to grab some great local advertising at a great price!
If you’re a local business owner interested in advertising in The Menifee Experience Magazine, CLICK HERE
Frequently Asked Questions About Local SEO
How long does it take to rank a local business website on Google?
A local business website can rank on the first page of Google in as little as 90 days when it is built with local SEO integrated from day one.
Results vary depending on competition, location, and how well the site is optimized, but businesses in mid-sized local markets like Menifee, Murrieta, and Temecula can see significant ranking improvements within 60 to 90 days.
What is local SEO web design?
Local SEO web design is the process of building a website specifically structured to rank in local search results on Google.
This includes optimizing page titles, meta descriptions, headings, schema markup, and content around location-based keywords so that Google knows what to recommend you for. This ranks you higher on Google, and gets you cited and recomended in AI search results.
This is so that nearby customers find the business much easier when they search for your service nearby.
Can a new website outrank an established website on Google?
Yes. A new website built with strong on-site local SEO can outrank older, established websites that are not properly optimized.
In this case study, a newly designed Menifee magazine website outranked the City of Menifee's own website within 90 days of launch.
What does it mean to dominate Google search results?
Dominating Google search results means a business appears in multiple positions on page one. This includes organic listings, the Google Maps 3-Pack, additional site links, and Ai search results on ChatGPT, Claude, and the Google AI overviews.
The Menifee Experience holds 5 positions on page one of Google for their primary search terms.
How does Google Maps ranking help a local business?
Appearing in the Google Maps 3-Pack puts a local business in front of customers who are actively searching for that service in their area.
Studies show that 76% of people who search for a local business on their phone visit or contact that business within 24 hours.
Exclusive Advertising to 5,000 Homes in Menifee
Right now, the very first print version of The Menifee Experience is already in 5,000 homes in Menifee.
The coolest thing about it, is it’s not just a coupon book.
The magazine is high quality, has lifestyle articles, recommendations for restaurants, as well as news and information about upcoming events, and a lot more.
It’s a local magazine that's 100% worth reading, keeping on your coffee table. Great for going through to come up with ideas for things to do, and read about local events.
The Menifee Experience is 100% about promoting local businesses, and offers EXCLUSIVE advertising.
So, if you’re a plumber, electrician, or local service business owner, and advertise with the Menifee Experience magazine, they will not let another business advertise in the magazine to compete with you.
This is a really great opportunity to grab some great local advertising at a great price!
If you’re a local business owner interested in advertising in The Menifee Experience Magazine, CLICK HERE
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