// THE BLOG

Playbooks from the trenches.

82 essays on SEO, GEO, brand, PR, and content. Long-form. Operator voice. No fluff. Updated biweekly.

AI Overviews and click-through rate: what the data says in 2026

Three large studies agree AI Overviews cut organic clicks, by roughly a third to more than half. Being cited inside the Overview roughly doubles your CTR.

OCT 28, 2026

STRATEGY

In-house marketing team vs agency: what each really costs in 2026

Using BLS wage and benefit data, a lean four-person in-house marketing team costs about $46,000 a month. When an agency is cheaper, and when hiring wins.

OCT 28, 2026

SEO

How much does SEO cost in 2026? Retainers, hourly and project prices

Two surveys put the average SEO retainer near $3,000 a month, yet 64% of agencies charge under $1,000. What each price band buys, and how to compare.

OCT 28, 2026

GEO

Why ChatGPT-style prompts are showing up in Google Search Console

Prompt-style queries of 10+ words were 20% of our attributable Search Console impressions, ranked at position 7 and got zero clicks. How to filter them.

OCT 28, 2026

SEO

What schema markup do top SaaS homepages use? A Cloud 100 study (2026)

We parsed JSON-LD on 92 Forbes Cloud 100 homepages: 74% mark up their Organization, 19 ship no structured data, 15 still declare a retired search box.

OCT 28, 2026

SEO

Only 23 of the Forbes Cloud 100 pass Core Web Vitals on mobile (2026 data)

Real-user CrUX data for all 100 Forbes Cloud 100 websites: 23 pass Core Web Vitals on mobile. INP is the metric that fails them; 63 miss the 200 ms bar.

OCT 28, 2026