Articles
Notes from delivery on search, paid acquisition, automation and measurement. Written as I work rather than collected from elsewhere.
Generic content became actively expensive
Audiences recognise machine-written filler instantly, and platforms reward the engagement that filler does not earn. Publishing less and meaning it is now the cheaper strategy.
Creative became the main variable
When targeting and bidding are handled by the machine, the creative is what is left to control. It now decides reach, cost and conversion at once.
Attribution got worse, and that is survivable
Consent requirements and automated platforms mean nobody sees the full journey any more. The businesses coping well stopped chasing perfect attribution and moved to trends and lead quality.
Being cited matters as much as ranking
AI answers quote a handful of sources rather than listing ten links. Getting quoted rewards structured data, clear entity signals and content that answers a question outright.
Discovery stopped being one search box
People now ask an AI assistant, search inside TikTok, read a community thread, and only then type your name into Google. Ranking first for a keyword matters less than being present at every stop.
The marketing job moved from doing to directing
Automated bidding and asset generation removed most of the levers marketers used to pull by hand. What is left is the input, which means strategy stopped being the soft part of the job.
How search engines work: crawling, indexing and ranking explained
Search engines do three separate jobs: find your pages, store them, and decide what to show. Most SEO problems are really a failure at one specific stage, and knowing which one saves months.