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Chicago SEO & AI Search Consultant · Jonathan Thompson

Be the answer people are looking for.

Thmpsn Digital is a principal-led SEO and AI search practice in Chicago. In plain English: we make digital marketing work. Getting found, more leads and sales, and reporting tied to revenue. For businesses like yours.

Book a free 30-minute call See real results ↓

The client list is limited on purpose. Right now: two seats open.

Every inquiry gets a reply from a person, not a funnel, within one business day.

Recent clients:

  • Imageworks Mfg
  • US Casino Rentals
  • Drexel Properties
  • Darko Inc
  • Tend.cash
  • Arcade Rentals

800%organic traffic growth · real-estate management client, 6-month overhaul

68%more qualified organic leads · national rentals company, year over year

+$1Mrevenue growth in year one · 30% lift for a small business

These are results from specific engagements, not promises. Your site starts from a different place and will compound differently. The Inspection tells you what to realistically expect before you spend anything on the work itself.

What actually happened.

Three engagements · charts drawn from client analytics
Real-estate management Chicago · full overhaul · 6 months

Organic traffic up 800% in six months.

Where they started: a site Google could barely crawl, ranking for almost nothing, invisible for the neighborhoods they serve. What we did: rebuilt the technical foundation, cut the dead pages, and wrote area and service pages around what renters and owners search. The honest part: 800% growth is easier from a low base; that's exactly why the footnote above exists. The leads were real either way.

“They didn't just improve our rankings, they got us in front of our preferred clients. The ROI has been undeniable.”

National rentals company Multi-market · ongoing engagement

68% more qualified leads from organic, year over year.

Where they started: traffic that looked fine on a dashboard and converted like a brochure. What we did: stopped chasing volume, rebuilt the pages around buyers with dates and budgets, and tied every ranking bet to a form fill or a phone call. The honest part: total traffic grew modestly. Qualified leads grew 68%. Those are different numbers, and only one of them pays invoices.

Small business Year-one engagement

30% revenue growth in year one, about $1M.

Where they started: a good business that search treated like it didn't exist. What we did: the whole sequence: foundation, honest keyword picks, fewer-but-better pages, and monthly measurement against revenue instead of rankings. The honest part: the owner's operation deserves most of the credit; they could close what search delivered. We made the phone ring more.

Find your problem.

Plain words first · trade terms for whoever runs your site

Sometimes it isn't a search problem.

Most of what an SEO would sell you doesn't fix these. They usually come first, and they decide whether any of the channel work below is worth doing at all.

You can win the room and still lose the sale.

You have their attention. What's missing is something to say yes to. We build the offer they can commit to before they leave the room.

Offers offer design · packaging · sales strategy

Your prospects have to find three companies to get one answer.

One story instead of several. Which name goes on top, what each brand is for, and how a buyer moves between them without getting lost.

Positioning repositioning · brand architecture · messaging

Your best buyers never searched for you. Somebody sent them.

Often a broker, insurer, or consultant tells them to solve it. We map those relationships and work out which ones send buyers already convinced.

Channel channel strategy · partnerships · referral

You're paying more for ads and getting less back.

Make CPC meet ROI again. We find where paid earns its place, and where it's covering for something your site should do on its own.

Paid paid media · google ads · paid social

And six ways search itself goes wrong.

01

Traffic dropped, or never showed up, and nobody can tell you why.

We fix the structure underneath everything: speed, the paths crawlers follow, the pages Google never sees. You get a priced fix-list, in order of what matters.

Foundation technical seo · core web vitals · crawlability

02

You're guessing which keywords and competitors are worth fighting.

We look at what people actually search and which fights you can realistically win, including the ones you're better off leaving alone.

Intelligence keyword strategy · competitive analysis · serp mapping

03

You keep publishing and nothing ranks or converts.

Fewer pages, each built around a question your buyers ask. If a page isn't earning its place, it gets rewritten or cut.

Content content strategy · topical authority

04

AI and Google name your competitors and skip right over you.

We make your site easy for search engines and AI tools to read and quote with confidence, so when someone asks for a recommendation, you're in the answer.

Distribution structured data · ai answer optimization · local seo

05

You've got the traffic. It just isn't turning into sales.

Being found is half of it. We work on the part where a visit becomes a customer, which also tells the algorithm to send more people your way.

Conversion cro · analytics · attribution

06

It was working last year and it's slipping now.

We keep it current (refreshing content, watching the numbers, adjusting when Google changes the rules) so year two builds on year one.

Compounding content refresh · algorithm updates · maintenance

Number six is the one most agencies leave off the sheet, because it admits the work never runs itself. We'd rather tell you that now than bill you for the surprise later.

Priced up front.

Fixed fees · the number before the handshake · no hourly billing

Most engagements land in one of these four. No two businesses need the same thing, so we shape the work around yours.

Start here

The Inspection

Scaled to fitfree to $3,500 · credited toward any build

How findable you are across Google and the AI engines, ending in a written verdict on whether the work is worth doing at all. The first look costs nothing.

  • Prioritized, priced fix-list
  • Search & AI visibility readout
  • A straight go / no-go, in writing
Compact

The Overhaul

Fixed scope6 weeks · quoted in the Inspection

For smaller operations: we clear what's blocking you, build the foundation, and show whoever runs your site how to keep it going.

  • Hands-on fixes, done by the principal
  • Handover docs a human can read
  • A follow-up check at 30 days
Ongoing

The Service Contract

Quarterlyrenewable · priced to scope

For growing companies: a plan that builds quarter over quarter, with monthly reporting tied to revenue rather than dashboard metrics.

  • A quarterly plan, executed
  • Reporting tied to revenue
  • Renews when results justify it
Embedded

The Resident Engineer

Advisoryalongside your in-house team

We work with your people on audits, priorities, and vendor decisions, with the stated goal of training them to not need us.

  • An advisor inside your team
  • Help hiring & vetting vendors
  • The goal is our own obsolescence

Why publish a price? Because you shouldn't need a sales call to learn whether you can afford us. The Inspection usually costs less than one month of what you're already spending on ads. If it says the work isn't worth doing, that's the verdict you'll get, in writing, before you owe anything else.

When this won't work.

Read before you hire us · we'd rather lose the deal than the reference

It won't make payroll this month.

Search builds slowly. If you need revenue in weeks, ads will get you there faster, and we're glad to help point them in the right direction. Come back once the pressure is off.

It won't invent demand that isn't there.

Some products just don't get searched for. The Inspection checks the real demand data up front, so if nobody is looking, you find out before you've spent anything serious.

It won't fix a business that's already full.

If you can't take on more work, more customers just means more people you disappoint. Sort that out first. This will still be here when you're ready.

It won't run itself.

Search needs upkeep like anything else you rely on. Anyone selling "set it and forget it" SEO is really selling you a repair bill down the road.

If it isn't worth building, the Inspection says so before you owe us anything else.

Who you're working with.

Principal-led, on purpose

I'm Jonathan Thompson. My first career was more than fifteen years in ministry, concentrated in language study. I came to search marketing by way of web development, and landed at Orbit Media Studios as an optimization strategist working across SEO and conversion.

Digital marketing is a communication problem wrapped in machine infrastructure. Persuasion, and reaching the people worth persuading, is the through-line from the first career to this one. Now that AI systems sit in the middle, answering questions and recommending businesses and products, understanding the machinery is an advantage many in this field don't have.

The clients I liked best, owner-operators with real businesses, were the ones big agencies serve worst: juniors on the account, retainers that outlive results, reports nobody reads.

Thmpsn Digital is principal-led on purpose. You get quality work and a direct number, not delegated tasks and meager results. When a project needs more hands (development, PR), we bring in people we trust and stay accountable for the result. When it's the wrong fit entirely, you get the name of someone better suited, free.

Jonathan Thompson, principal of THMPSN Digital
Jonathan Thompson · Principal · Chicago, IL

The fair questions.

Asked by real prospects · answered the same way here
Is a small practice enough for what my site needs?

For the work on this page, yes, and often better. SEO engagements fail from diluted attention, not headcount: the person who diagnoses your site should be the person who fixes it. Where a project genuinely needs more (a development sprint, digital PR, photography), we bring in specialists we've worked with and manage them, and you'll see that in the priced plan up front. If your situation truly calls for a large agency team, the Inspection will say so, and we'll recommend a good one.

What happens if the numbers don't move?

First, the Inspection exists to catch that before you spend real money. If the demand isn't there, the verdict says so in writing. If we do the work and a bet misses, you'll see it in the monthly report in plain numbers, along with what we're changing. We can't guarantee rankings; no honest person can. But you will never wonder what happened or wait for a quarterly deck to find out.

Do you use AI to do the work?

Yes, where it's a power tool: research, data crunching, drafts we then rewrite. No, where it's a liability: publishing machine-written pages at scale is exactly the pattern Google and the AI engines are learning to ignore. The strategy and the words that ship are ours. That's what you're paying for.

How fast will I see results?

Honest answer: technical fixes can move things in weeks; content and authority take months; AI-search visibility falls in between and is moving fast. The Inspection gives you a realistic timeline for your site. If you need results faster than search can deliver, we'll say so and point you at ads instead.

Free 30-minute call · no deck · no obligation

Find out where you actually stand.

Book a free 30-minute call. We'll look at how you're showing up in Google and the AI answers, live while we talk, and tell you honestly whether there's enough here to be worth pursuing, and where we'd start if there is. If it isn't worth it, we'll say so on the call.

The form goes straight to us, not an inbox team. One reply, within one business day.

What happens next: we reply within one business day with a calendar link. If we can already see this is not a fit, you will get an honest note saying so and a pointer to someone better suited.