Stop letting AI make your marketing decisions
AI can support marketing implementation, but experienced marketers must guide strategy, evaluate work and stay accountable for results.
Topic: Decision-making
What you lose when AI starts handling your conversations and decisions
A polished AI answer can hide missing context, flawed assumptions, and recommendations no one has properly questioned.
How to use kill criteria to make better SEO decisions
Don’t let sunk costs keep your SEO roadmap on autopilot. Set expectations and thresholds that make resource allocation easier to defend.
Are you building software instead of doing marketing?
Your team doesn't need to build every AI workflow. Decide what to automate in-house, buy from a vendor, or outsource.
The availability heuristic: 7 ways Google Ads can steer your decisions
What gets your attention in Google Ads can influence where you spend, what you change, and how you judge performance. Here's what to watch.
AI works best when it removes work, not judgment
AI becomes risky when you delegate judgment. It becomes an “easy button” when you delegate tedious, repetitive, and mundane work.
How to win the gatekeeper’s ‘Yes’ with stakeholder co-citation gap analysis
To get cited in AI answers, stop writing for keywords. Map buyer-role evidence gaps, find the missing gatekeeper, and build the evidence.
Why next-question intent matters for AI search visibility
Many pages answer the query but stop short of the decision. Next-question intent helps create more useful content for users and AI systems.
How to make SEO reports more actionable
Turn keyword research, audits, and technical findings into clear recommendations stakeholders can prioritize and execute.
Delegation search: Why users outsource decisions to AI
From travel planning to product research, users increasingly seek confidence, recommendations, and a faster path to action.
The delegation boundary: How AI decides which brands win
AI assistants shape recommendations, purchases, and transactions, forcing brands to compete for algorithmic confidence, not just clicks.
The PACT framework for PPC: How to move beyond ‘it depends’
Not all PPC questions are equal. Learn how to match your response to the question type using process, data, context, and trade-offs.
A smarter way to approach AI prompting
Prompts describe tasks. Rubrics define rules. Here’s how rubric-based prompting reduces hallucinations in search and content workflows.
Your next customer might not be human: Designing journeys for people and AI agents
AI agents increasingly filter options and shape shortlists before people ever engage, shifting where visibility and influence are earned.
B2B vs. B2C: Key differences & marketing tactics
Learn the differences between B2B and B2C to refine your marketing and drive more sales for your business.
Resources
A collection of powerful resources to shape agency perspectives, strengthen process frameworks, and drive smarter business decisions in search marketing.
10 non-marketing books every SEO should read
Transform your SEO approach with diverse knowledge. Explore these non-marketing books that offer invaluable lessons.
3 Ways To Prioritize Your Global Search Marketing Efforts To Maximize ROI
I was pleased to be part of a great panel at SMX London on prioritizing your search marketing efforts. It included SEO veterans Mikkel deMib Svendsen of deMib.com, Julia Longdon of ContentMango and Dave Davies of Beanstalk. For me, this was an extremely useful session with a huge hidden ROI benefit for search marketers not […]
Hunch Tweaks Home Page, Focuses On Recommendations
Hunch has announced what it calls a “streamlined and simplified” home page, but the changes really reflect a slight change in focus, too. When the site launched last year, we referred to Hunch as a “personal decision maker;” Hunch itself used the term “decision engine.” The new home page, though, presents a change of emphasis; […]
Research: Fear Explains Irrational B2B Purchase Behavior
Here’s a common experience for anyone who sells products and services to businesses. A prospect is moving toward becoming a customer, and then inexplicably becomes unresponsive. Why? B2B buying is not a rational process. That straightforward yet profound conclusion makes reading The BuyerSphere Project by Search Engine Land Just Behave columnist Gord Hotchkiss worthwhile.
Search: Where Does It Go from Here?
If there’s one thing that both Google and Microsoft agree on, it’s that search isn’t solved yet. Google’s vice president of search product and user experience Marissa Mayer has said: We’re all familiar with 80-20 problems, where the last 20% of the solution is 80% of the work. Search is a 90-10 problem. Today, we […]
The Long Tail of Paid Search Account Effort
If you spend enough time sitting at your desk in summer, you can go slightly insane. That aside, daydreaming sometimes leads to back-door observations, studies show. Glancing out the window, it’s evident that it takes a lot of resources and coordination to run a neighborhood. Schools, crossing guards, street sweepers, garbage collection, public pool maintenance, […]
How Search Marketing Made Me a Fantasy Football Champion
Okay, so it’s not curing polio or splitting the atom, but winning my fantasy football league this year was a fairly rewarding experience. Week after week, I racked up the points and left my circle of friends in the dust. My secret? Search marketing training.
Human Hardware: Risk vs Reward, Expressed Through Search
We are emotional creatures. In fact, we are the most emotional creatures on the planet. Emotions are what cause us to act. The very word emotion means “to move” in Latin. Emotions move us to action. They cause us to avoid danger and pursue pleasure. They propel us to genetic propagation and steer us from […]
Taking Care Of Business By Taking Care Of The Customer: Five Tips For Local Search
Keep the needs of consumers at the forefront. In my last couple “Locals Only” columns, I’ve mentioned the importance of this in passing, and this month I’m dedicating this space to expanding on this notion and offering specific tips. Much of what is said and written about the emergence and growth of local search focuses […]
Just Imagine: Local Search Without Maps
Imagine a local search site without maps. Sounds outrageous, doesn’t it? Most local search sites are dominated by maps. Google, Ask, and Live even begin my experience with a big map of North America. Correct, yes, but now what? Many sites incorporate technically impressive features to make their maps even more elaborate. But imagine taking […]