Notes

What we know, written down.

A studio that sells search visibility should be able to demonstrate it. Everything here is researched and sourced — including the parts where the honest answer is that a popular tactic does not work.

AI search

Structured data is how machines read a business

Schema markup states in machine-readable terms what a page is claiming. The studies on whether it wins AI citations disagree with each other, and the honest reading is that it amplifies rather than causes.

15 August 20267 min read

AI search

llms.txt: the honest answer

A file that tells language models what your site is about. Google has declined to support it, the citation studies show nothing, and it is still probably worth the half day it takes.

12 August 20266 min read

AI search

What AI Overviews did to your traffic

Two thirds of Google searches now end without a click. The numbers are worse than most businesses realise, and the response that works is narrower than the panic suggests.

8 August 20267 min read

AI search

What AI SEO actually is

Generative engine optimisation, answer engine optimisation, AI SEO — three names for the same work: being found, understood, and quoted by the systems that now answer instead of listing.

4 August 20269 min read

Search

Speed is a revenue number

Site performance gets filed under engineering housekeeping. The measured effect on conversion says it belongs on the finance side of the conversation.

18 August 20267 min read

SEO or ads first?

The honest answer depends on whether you need revenue this quarter or a business that still works in three years — and on one question about your margins.

10 August 20266 min read

SEO didn't die. It moved.

Every time search changes, someone declares SEO finished. What actually happened is that the same foundations now decide whether an assistant can find you at all.

6 August 20266 min read

Building

What actually drives the cost of a project

Quotes for the same brief routinely differ by a factor of five. The variance is almost never about the number of pages, and the drivers are knowable in advance.

20 August 20266 min read

Building

Where AI automation actually pays off

Most automation pilots never reach production. The ones that do share an unglamorous pattern, and it is the opposite of what gets demonstrated at conferences.

16 August 20267 min read

Building

The real cost of a marketplace booking

Platforms take a percentage, own the guest relationship, and show your property beside forty others. The arithmetic of moving even a fraction of that business direct is better than most owners assume.

14 August 20268 min read

The studio

One studio or three vendors

Splitting build, growth, and operations across specialists looks like buying the best of each. What it usually buys is the coordination problem, transferred to you.

22 August 20265 min read

Got a question none of this answers? That is usually the one worth asking.

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