For more than a decade, the dominant model was simple — identify a keyword, write an article, publish, promote, rank, capture traffic, convert a fraction of visitors, and repeat. But that model is breaking.  Content marketing is collapsing and rebuilding simultaneously. AI systems now answer informational queries directly inside search results. Large language models (LLMs) […]

What do conversion rate optimization (CRO) and findability look like for an AI agent versus a human, and how different do your strategies really need to be? More and more marketers are embracing the agentic web, and discovery increasingly happens through AI-powered experiences. That raises a fair question: what does CRO and findability look like […]

Google is expanding its recurring billing policy to allow certified U.S. online pharmacies to promote prescription drugs with subscriptions and bundled services. What’s happening. Certified merchants can now offer: Prescription drug subscriptions — recurring billing for prescription medications. Prescription drug bundles — combining drugs with services like coaching or treatment programs, as long as the […]

Google updated both its image SEO best practices and Google Discover help documents to clarify that Google uses both schema.org markup and the og:image meta tag as sources when determining image thumbnails in Google Search and Discover. Image SEO best practices. Google added a new section to the image SEO best practices help document named […]

If you’re not actively managing your branded search campaigns, you’re leaving money on the table and your reputation in the hands of competitors, review aggregators, and affiliate marketers.  Brand protection through PPC isn’t just about bidding on your own name. It’s a strategy that spans defensive bidding, query monitoring, ad copy testing, and reputation management […]

If your brand’s content arm has been active for a few years, I’m guessing you have plenty of material that can be revised to help you show up more prominently in AI search answers — we’ll call this AEO throughout the article. I’m getting bombarded with brand marketers’ questions about how to get AEO traction […]

Google published a new help page detailing how its Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) works — offering merchants clearer guidance on how checkout flows operate across Google properties. What’s happening. The documentation explains how UCP and its UCP-powered checkout enable a native “Buy” button that moves the transaction directly onto Google surfaces, while merchants remain the […]

For years, ecommerce ran on a simple model: Google drove traffic, and your site did the selling. Rankings, clicks, and conversion rate determined performance. That model just changed. With the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) and AI Mode, Google can now discover, compare, and complete purchases inside its own AI experiences. Search is shifting from a […]

Google Discover caught my attention in 2021, when it was driving millions of clicks a month to publishers. I underestimated how pervasive it would become.  My feed cycles through soccer, television, Baltimore news, SEO, and world events — a reminder that Discover understands users at an almost uncomfortable level. It’s not limited to one app. […]

Here’s a question every marketing leader should be asking right now: How healthy are your customer relationships? Not your campaigns, not your channels but the actual relationships.  It’s a harder question than it sounds. Most organizations have spent the last two decades building around channels.   Email had a team. Social had a team. In-store, ecommerce, […]