Notes on content that grows a business
Practical guides on finding the right topics, writing with AI, and measuring which articles turn visitors into customers.
Why content compounds: the math behind long-term SEO growth
An ad buys visitors until the campaign ends. An article that ranks keeps sending them for years after you paid for it once. Here is the mechanism behind that claim, with the numbers that support it and the caveats that keep it honest.
Read article →What does a blog post cost? Freelancers vs agencies vs AI
The same 1,500-word article can cost $150 from a marketplace, $600 from a professional writer, four figures through an agency, or a $20 subscription plus your evening. Here's what each price actually buys.
Read article →Prompting for SEO: how to brief an AI writer like an editor
"Write a blog post about X" is not a brief, and the generic article it produces is not bad luck. Editors solved this problem decades before AI existed. Here's how to hand a model the same brief a good editor would hand a freelancer.
Read article →How long before SEO pays for itself? A payback timeline
SEO spends money for months before it returns any. Here's the honest shape of that curve, the math for finding your own break-even month, and the signals that tell you mid-wait whether you'll get there.
Read article →Optimizing content for Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini
Each AI assistant finds your site a different way — one runs its own crawler, one searches the live web, one reads Google's index. What that means for a small business site, from robots.txt to what's worth writing.
Read article →How to automate your company blog end to end
Every stage of a company blog can be automated except one. A working pipeline for topic research, drafting, publishing, and measurement — and the review step that decides whether the whole thing compounds or gets your site deindexed.
Read article →AI content detection: does Google actually check?
Google polices a pattern, not a fingerprint. What its written policies actually say, what the 2024 deindexing wave punished, and why the detection tools everyone worries about disagree with each other.
Read article →Conversion tracking for content: a beginner's setup guide
An afternoon of setup connects your blog to your signups. Here's the exact plumbing — which Google Analytics switches to flip, in what order, and what to ignore.
Read article →Will SEO die? What AI search means for content investment
The famous prediction said search volume would drop 25% by 2026. The deadline passed; searches grew. Here's what the data actually shows — and what it really changes for a small business.
Read article →Zero-click searches: winning value without the visit
Two-thirds of Google searches now end without a click on the open web. That's not the end of search value — it's the end of measuring it in visits alone.
Read article →How to get your business cited by ChatGPT
ChatGPT's citations aren't a mystery — they run on a search index you can influence, crawlers you can allow, and content habits you can copy. Here's the mechanical version.
Read article →AEO checklist: 15 fixes to get cited more by AI search
Everything from the AEO research that survives fact-checking, compressed into 15 checkboxes — ordered by evidence strength, with the folklore left out.
Read article →Why most AI content fails (and the 20% that ranks)
Google isn't hunting AI content — the data shows it can't and doesn't. What it demotes is content nobody added anything to, and the famous collapses all share that fingerprint.
Read article →AI hallucinations in blog posts: how to catch them before Google does
AI doesn't lie randomly — it fabricates in predictable places. Knowing the six danger zones turns fact-checking from rereading everything into a twenty-minute targeted sweep.
Read article →Adding first-hand experience to AI drafts (the E-E-A-T fix)
The E in E-E-A-T is the one thing no model can generate: evidence you've actually done the thing. Here's a repeatable way to get yours into every AI-assisted post.
Read article →How long should a blog post be for SEO? Forget 2,000 words
Google says word count isn't a factor, the correlation studies agree once you read them properly, and the industry has quietly stopped writing longer. Here's how to size a post instead.
Read article →How much traffic is a #1 Google ranking actually worth?
Position 1 takes about 28% of clicks and page two takes nothing — but converting that into dollars honestly requires resisting the formula every SEO tool sells you.
Read article →Free SEO: how far can you get without spending a dollar?
Further than the tool vendors want you to think — measurement, research, local visibility, and publishing are all genuinely free. Here's the full free stack and the honest wall.
Read article →SEO on a budget under $100/month: a realistic plan
A hundred dollars a month buys real SEO in 2026 — if you spend it on the right two things and accept what the budget can't do. Here's the allocation and the plan.
Read article →When to stop paying an SEO agency: 5 warning signs
Slow results aren't grounds for firing — SEO is slow. These five signs are different: they mean the work isn't happening, or isn't aimed at your business making money.
Read article →Can I do SEO myself? An honest guide for business owners
Yes — the mechanics are learnable and the tools are cheap. Whether you should depends on a different question: what your hours are worth and where the work actually gets hard.
Read article →The small business SEO checklist: 40 steps that actually matter
Every box here is either a one-time fix or a repeating habit — and knowing which is which is half the checklist's value. Work top to bottom; the order is the strategy.
Read article →SEO for new websites: what to do in your first 90 days
A new domain can't outrank anyone yet — but the first 90 days decide how fast it ever will. Here's the week-by-week version of doing that right.
Read article →Why your new blog post isn't on Google yet (and how to fix it)
Before you rewrite anything, find out which of the four states your post is in. Each one has a different fix, and only one of them is a real problem.
Read article →Buyer intent keywords: the 4 types and how to spot them
Two keywords with identical volume can differ a hundredfold in what they're worth, and the difference is visible in the words themselves. Here's how to read intent before you write.
Read article →What to do with underperforming blog posts
Most 'failed' posts aren't failures — they're misdiagnosed. Four checks tell you whether a post needs a refresh, a merge, a retarget, or a quiet deletion.
Read article →Diagnosing a traffic drop: a decision tree
Traffic fell. Before touching anything, run this sequence: verify it's real, date it, scope it, then match the fingerprint. Most drops are one of six patterns.
Read article →The post-signup survey: asking 'how did you hear about us?'
One optional question on your signup form catches the attribution your analytics can't see — and it costs nothing. Here's how to ask it so the answers are actually usable.
Read article →The real ROI of SEO: how to calculate it for your business
Ignore the 700% ROI claims and the decade-old close-rate stats. SEO ROI is a calculation you run with your own numbers — and it comes down to one question: how many customers a month pays for this?
Read article →SEO pricing explained: hourly, retainer, project, and software compared
The same work gets sold four different ways, and each way moves the risk somewhere else. Understanding who carries it is most of understanding SEO pricing.
Read article →Which blog posts actually drive sales? How to find out
On most business blogs, a handful of posts produce nearly all the customers and the rest produce traffic. Here's how to find out which is which — with the analytics you already have.
Read article →GEO (generative engine optimization): a practical primer
GEO is the rare marketing acronym with an actual controlled experiment behind it: researchers tested nine page changes across 10,000 queries. Three earned more AI citations, one backfired.
Read article →What is AEO? Answer engine optimization, explained for small businesses
When ChatGPT or Google's AI answers a customer's question, it names a few sources and ignores everyone else. AEO is the work of being one of the named.
Read article →How to show up in Google AI Overviews
AI Overviews cut clicks roughly in half on the queries where they appear — unless you're one of the sources cited. Here's what decides that, according to Google and the data.
Read article →How to know if your SEO is working: 7 signals that matter
Traffic is the last signal to move, so judging SEO by traffic alone means flying blind for months. Here's what to check instead, in the order it starts moving.
Read article →SEO agency vs DIY vs software: a full cost comparison
An agency charges money, DIY charges time, and software charges some of each. Comparing them on the monthly fee alone is how people end up surprised a year later.
Read article →How much does SEO cost for a small business in 2026?
Most small businesses pay between $500 and $5,000 a month, and where you land in that range has more to do with who does the work than what gets done.
Read article →Why isn't my website showing up on Google?
Work through the checks in order, starting with the one that catches most new sites: Google has never actually seen yours.
Read article →How long does SEO take to work?
Four to eight months for a new site, and here's what should be happening in each of them so you can tell progress from stagnation.
Read article →Google Search Console for beginners: the 5 reports that matter
Most of Search Console is built for problems you don't have yet. These five screens answer the questions you actually have.
Read article →How many blog posts before you get traffic?
The number matters less than the shape. Twenty articles about one subject will beat sixty scattered across ten.
Read article →Does AI-written content rank on Google?
Google's guidance is about quality, not authorship. Which moves the real question to what you do with the draft after the model hands it over.
Read article →SEO in plain English: 47 terms, defined
Every term you'll hit in your first month, defined without leaning on four other terms you don't know yet.
Read article →How to find topics your buyers actually search for
Search volume is the easy part. Here's how to weight demand against what your visitors do once they land.
Read article →Writing with AI without sounding like everyone else
A drafting workflow that keeps your product context, proof points, and voice inside every article.
Read article →Measuring content by conversions, not rankings
Attribution basics for content teams: from first visit to signup, and what to do with the data.
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