Creartful AIInsights
Insights on search, AI and the tech behind marketing.
Practical articles on SEO and AEO, structured data, MCP and AI workflows, commerce, analytics and site performance. Written from published guidance and our own work, with no promises nobody can keep.
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Each article ends with the questions people ask us about it. The terms we use are defined in the glossary on the FAQ page.
AEO and SEO · 3 min
What is answer engine optimization?
What answer engine optimization covers, what Google says about AI Overviews, and what an honest AEO program does and does not promise.
Read the articleAEO and SEO · 3 min
Writing answer-first content.
How to write pages that answer the question first: where the questions come from, how to structure the answer, and how to keep your brand voice while doing it.
Read the articleSchema · 3 min
Structured data that matters for search and AI answers.
Which schema.org types matter for most businesses, the rule that structured data must match the visible page, and how to keep markup accurate as products and details change.
Read the articleAnalytics · 3 min
Reading Search Console, GA4 and Merchant Center together.
What Google Search Console, Google Analytics 4 and Google Merchant Center each show, and five marketing questions you can only answer by reading them together.
Read the articleAnalytics · 3 min
How to track AI referral traffic in GA4.
A step-by-step way to separate visits from AI assistants in Google Analytics 4 with a custom channel group, what the numbers can and cannot tell you, and how to use them.
Read the articleCommerce · 3 min
Product feeds for Google Shopping and AI answers: a checklist.
A practical Merchant Center feed checklist: required attributes, matching price and availability, identifiers, variants and apparel details, and how the feed relates to AI shopping answers.
Read the articleCommerce · 3 min
Agentic commerce: getting a store ready for AI shopping agents.
What agentic commerce means for an online store, what AI shopping agents need to read accurately, and the practical steps that prepare a catalog without chasing every new protocol.
Read the articleCommerce · 3 min
Shopify SEO basics that still matter.
The Shopify SEO basics that matter most: collection and product structure, duplicate product URLs, titles and descriptions, structured data in themes, apps and speed.
Read the articleCommerce · 3 min
Email and SMS built from your live catalog.
How to build email and SMS campaigns from live product data: which flows benefit, how catalog sync works, what to check before sending, and where CRM segments come in.
Read the articleAEO and SEO · 3 min
Local SEO for service businesses: the profile and the pages.
How Google ranks local results, what to keep consistent between your Google Business Profile and your website, and how location pages and local markup help search and AI answers.
Read the articleMCP and AI · 3 min
MCP for marketers, explained.
A plain-language guide to the Model Context Protocol for marketing teams: what a connector is, read and write access, official and community connectors, and how to connect tools safely.
Read the articleMCP and AI · 3 min
Why AI-assisted marketing needs a person on belay.
Why AI-drafted marketing work needs human review, what a reviewer checks, and how to design a review step that keeps the speed of AI without its mistakes.
Read the articleTech and performance · 3 min
Core Web Vitals in plain words.
Largest Contentful Paint, Interaction to Next Paint and Cumulative Layout Shift explained in plain words, with the thresholds Google uses and the fixes that usually move them.
Read the articleAI agents · 4 min
AI agents or workflows: which does your task need.
The difference between an AI workflow and an AI agent, when each one fits, and why the simplest option that works is usually the right place to start.
Read the articleAI agents · 4 min
Scoping an AI agent pilot: one job, one measure.
How to scope a first AI agent pilot so it gives you a clear answer: one job, a set of real test cases, one measure, draft-only mode and a go or no-go decision.
Read the articleAI agents · 4 min
Keeping AI agents safe: access, approvals and prompt injection.
The guardrails every business AI agent needs: least access, approval before actions, treating outside content as untrusted, testing and logging.
Read the articleAI agents · 3 min
Agent Skills, explained for business owners.
What Agent Skills are, how they let Claude follow your brand rules and processes, and why writing your know-how down once pays off across every AI task.
Read the articleAnalytics · 3 min
Search Console’s new AI reports: what they show and what they don’t.
Google added generative AI performance reports to Search Console in June 2026. What they measure, what is missing, and how to read them alongside GA4.
Read the articleAEO and SEO · 3 min
Do you need llms.txt? What Google actually says.
What llms.txt is, what Google says about special files and markup for AI Overviews, and where your effort is better spent.
Read the articleStrategy · 4 min
What a useful website audit should include.
The ten sections a useful website audit covers, from Core Web Vitals and AI answers to accessibility and tracking, and how to tell a real audit from an automated scan.
Read the articleStrategy · 4 min
Questions to ask before you hire an AI marketing agency.
Eight questions that separate a careful AI marketing partner from a risky one: review, ownership, measurement, promises, costs, data access and what happens when you leave.
Read the articleMCP and AI · 4 min
How we review AI drafts, step by step.
The exact review steps every AI draft goes through before it reaches a client site, store or inbox: brand rules, facts, claims, links, a person, and a log.
Read the articleStrategy · 3 min
What to automate first in your marketing.
A simple way to choose your first marketing automations: frequent, rule-based, low-risk tasks with data you already have, ranked by time saved and risk.
Read the articleAEO and SEO · 4 min
Turning customer questions into answer-first pages.
How to collect the questions your customers actually ask and turn them into clear, answer-first pages that help people, search engines and AI assistants.
Read the articleMCP and AI · 3 min
Writing a brand file AI can follow.
What to put in a brand file so AI drafts sound like your business: voice, vocabulary, claims you never make, facts that must be right, examples and approval rules.
Read the articleInsights by email
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Practical pieces on search, AI answers, commerce and the tech behind marketing. Pick the topics you care about.
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