7 min read
The Image Mistake That's Tanking Your Core Web Vitals
Images are the Largest Contentful Paint element on 83% of desktop pages. The specific, common mistake that turns a fast image into a slow one.
Read MoreContent Optimization
113 articles
7 min read
Why Your Hreflang Tags Aren't Working
Google ignores hreflang tags more often than most sites realize. The reciprocal-link rule, the language-code format, and the spec behind both.
Read More13 min read
GEO: What the Research Says About AI Search
What academic studies, practitioner data, and platform research say about AI citations — updated with the August 2026 ChatGPT retrieval shift.
Read More10 min read
What 99 Languages Means for Your Content Reach
Most small businesses never check whether they have organic search demand in a language they don't serve. Here's how to find that signal and act on it.
Read More10 min read
ADA Compliance and the Real Cost of Skipping Captions
What WCAG 2.1 AA, the ADA, and the Rehabilitation Act actually require for video and podcast captions, and what it costs to skip them.
Read More10 min read
AI for the Marketer Who Didn't Come From Writing
You know your customers better than any writer would. Here is the actual fix for AI-generated content that sounds generic, and it has nothing to do with talent.
Read More10 min read
AI Hallucination Is a Structural Problem, Not a Bug
Why AI tools confidently state wrong facts, what the research says causes it, and how to verify AI-generated content before you publish it.
Read More10 min read
AI Marketing Governance: Rules Before You Scale
A solo operator needs no AI governance rules. Hire one person and that changes. A lightweight framework for teams of 2-5, adapted from Copper Sun's guide for larger teams.
Read More10 min read
Testing Email Subject Lines and Preview Text With AI
Subject line testing usually assumes a big list and a real A/B testing tool. Here is a framework that works with a small list and a chat window.
Read More12 min read
AI Transcription Accuracy: What the Research Shows
BrassTranscripts built a public research index and a data-backed stats roundup instead of another vendor accuracy claim. Here's what the sources actually say.
Read More11 min read
Your Content Backlog Is Probably Audio: A Triage Guide
A folder of old podcast episodes, customer calls, and webinars is not a content pipeline problem. It's a triage problem. Here's how to sort it.
Read More10 min read
What a Brand Memory Layer Is and Why It Matters
Brand memory is a persistent store of a business's voice, facts, and positioning that AI tools draw from instead of starting cold. Here's the concept, plainly explained.
Read More11 min read
The BrassTranscripts Guide Library, Organized
BrassTranscripts runs a 150-plus-post blog. Here's a Brass-SEO reader's map to the parts on marketing, compliance, technical SEO, and content.
Read More10 min read
How to Build Your Own Brand Memory Layer
A free, low-tech version of the brand memory layer concept: one maintained document that keeps any AI tool writing in your voice, updated quarterly.
Read More9 min read
Consistent Publishing With a Small Marketing Team
Coppersun.io traced sporadic publishing to per-piece overhead, not fading ambition. Here's the framework applied to a solo content calendar.
Read More10 min read
Content Audit and Refresh: Using AI on Existing Work
Once you know a page needs a refresh, here is the mechanical part: pairing the old page with current search results and using AI to find what actually changed.
Read More11 min read
A Small Business Owner's Reading List From Copper Sun AI
Brass-SEO's curated index of coppersun.io's blog: 21 posts on solo marketing, AI citation, brand memory, craft, and responsible AI use.
Read More9 min read
Editing AI Drafts: Closing the Quality Gap
AI drafts are a starting point, not a finished piece. A curated editing checklist for closing the gap between what the model wrote and what's worth publishing.
Read More10 min read
Free AI Prompts for Working With Transcripts
BrassTranscripts, Brass-SEO's sister product, maintains a free MIT-licensed library of 122 AI prompts for turning transcripts into articles, summaries, and more.
Read More11 min read
Turning Customer Interviews Into Ad Copy That Converts
A customer interview, transcribed, is raw material for Google Ads copy that sounds like an actual buyer. Here's the extraction framework and how to run it yourself.
Read More10 min read
Human-in-the-Loop AI Marketing: What It Means
Human-in-the-loop gets used as vague reassurance in AI marketing. Here's the actual governance model, its checkpoints, and how it applies to Brass-SEO's chat.
Read More10 min read
Inside a Real AI Campaign Workflow (and Its Limits)
A walkthrough of Copper Sun AI's three-phase campaign workflow, from kickoff to FAQ content, and a candid look at what a workflow like this can't do.
Read More10 min read
How to Interview Customers for Content That Works
The interview is the skill behind every good sales-call teardown or ad-copy swipe file. Here's how BrassTranscripts' guide says to actually run one.
Read More10 min read
Microsoft Ads Testimonials: What Actually Changes
BrassTranscripts published a guide on turning customer interviews into Microsoft Ads copy. Here's what's genuinely platform-specific, and what carries over from Google Ads.
Read More10 min read
Recording Sales Calls? Consent Laws Vary by State
Recording calls for later transcription? Consent laws vary by state. A plain-English look at one-party vs. two-party consent, and why this isn't legal advice.
Read More10 min read
Reddit Ads and Authentic Customer Language
BrassTranscripts published research on why Reddit ads written in real customer language beat polished copy, and where that language has to come from.
Read More10 min read
What Marketing Teams Get Wrong About Repurposing Audio
Repurposing audio usually means running a transcript through AI once and pasting the output as-is. Here's why that fails, and where the real fixes live.
Read More11 min read
AI Citation Research: What the Papers Say
Most GEO advice cites no sources. Coppersun.io's Research Center collects four real papers on AI citation. Here is what each one found.
Read More10 min read
What Sales Call Transcripts Reveal That CRM Notes Miss
CRM notes are a summary, filtered through what a rep remembered. A full call transcript keeps the objections, questions, and exact language a summary loses.
Read More10 min read
SEO vs GEO: What Changes When AI Reads Your Site
Coppersun.io argues SEO and GEO split on a list versus a synthesized answer. Read against Brass-SEO's own GEO framework, here's what holds up.
Read More9 min read
The 6 U's Framework for Email Copywriting
A six-criterion checklist for judging whether AI-drafted email copy is actually good, with a worked before/after example you can apply today.
Read More11 min read
The Structured Brand Brief: A Free Template
A one-time document — your voice, audience, and positioning — that keeps every AI tool you use writing like your business instead of a generic one.
Read More10 min read
How AI Ranks Content Formats Before Quoting You
Coppersun.io ranked six content formats by AI citability. See what it found, how it matches Brass-SEO's own capsule rule, and a before/after to copy today.
Read More11 min read
What 580 Transcription Jobs Reveal About Audio Use
BrassTranscripts analyzed 580 real transcription jobs: durations, speakers, file formats, and pricing. First-party production data, not a survey.
Read More11 min read
A Vendor-Evaluation Checklist for Transcription Tools
A synthesized checklist covering security, consent law, accuracy research, and pricing for evaluating any transcription vendor before you upload a file.
Read More10 min read
Why AI Recommends Some Brands and Ignores Others
Copper Sun's sister site studied why AI names one brand and skips another. Here's what it found, and how the Brass-SEO AI Citability audit checks for it.
Read More10 min read
Why Most Small Sites Never Try Multilingual SEO
Multilingual SEO looks like it needs a translation budget and a content team. The real blocker is smaller: nobody checks whether the demand exists first.
Read More10 min read
Broken Link Building: The Tactic Small Sites Skip
Finding dead links on relevant sites and offering your content as the fix converts better than cold outreach because you're solving a real problem first.
Read More11 min read
Category Page SEO: What E-commerce Sites Get Wrong
Category pages rank for the searches that actually drive traffic, yet most e-commerce sites leave them as a bare product grid. Here's what to fix.
Read More11 min read
Heading Structure: What H1-H6 Actually Do for SEO
Google has said directly that heading count and keyword-stuffed H2s don't move rankings. Here's what H1-H6 structure actually does, and why it still matters.
Read More12 min read
Internal Linking Strategy: Beyond Adding More Links
Adding more internal links isn't a strategy. Here's the framework for deciding which pages should send link equity to which, and why.
Read More13 min read
Keyword Research From Scratch: No Data, No Tools
A brand-new site has no Google Search Console history and no budget for paid tools. Here is a four-step keyword research process that needs neither.
Read More11 min read
Out-of-Stock Products: Don't Delete the Page
Deleting an out-of-stock product page throws away rankings, reviews, and backlinks. Here's the decision tree for what to do instead, and how to update your schema correctly.
Read More12 min read
Product Schema: What It Is and Why It Matters for Clicks
Product schema puts price, availability, and star ratings directly in your search listing. Here's what to add, what to skip, and how to avoid a manual action.
Read More12 min read
Topic Clusters: How to Structure Content So Google Gets It
What a topic cluster is, why unstructured blogs lose to clustered ones on competitive topics, and how to map pillar and cluster pages from scratch.
Read More13 min read
Content Maintenance AI Prompts
Eight ready-to-use AI prompts for content decay, refresh-or-delete decisions, pruning, and keyword cannibalization on an aging site.
Read More10 min read
Boundary Content: A First-Party GEO Case Study
AI engines cite the page they can quote without being wrong. Our boundary-content GEO play on sibling product BrassCoders — and what we skipped.
Read More7 min read
What AI Search Won't Cite (and Why It Skips You)
AI engines skip pages not because they rank badly, but because they can't quote them without being wrong. The citation-safety rule, and the one SEO problem Brass-SEO can't fix.
Read More8 min read
Content Pruning: When Deleting Lifts Rankings
Cutting dead pages can raise the ones that remain. What to prune, what to keep, and how to remove pages without losing link equity.
Read More7 min read
Informational vs Commercial Keywords: Which Pays
A keyword with 90 searches can out-earn one with 9,000. The difference is intent. How to tier your keywords by buyer intent and target the ones that pay.
Read More8 min read
Keyword Cannibalization: When Two Pages Fight
Two of your pages target the same query and split each other's authority. How to find keyword cannibalization in GSC and fix it by merge or canonical.
Read More8 min read
Refresh, Merge, or Delete: A Decision Tree
Every aging page has one of four fates. One flowchart, driven by GSC data, turns a vague clean up the blog into a clear per-page verdict.
Read More8 min read
The 6-Month Content Re-Optimization Cycle
Great pages don't stay great. A repeatable twice-a-year cycle for revisiting your winners before competitors overtake them, driven by GSC data.
Read More6 min read
Cited in AI Overviews but Not AI Mode? They Differ.
Only about 14% of AI Mode citations overlap with AI Overview citations. They're two separate targets. Here's why, and how to win both.
Read More7 min read
AI Shopping Agents Pick Products. Help Yours Win.
58% of shoppers now use AI for product recommendations. Here's how an AI agent decides what to suggest, and how to make sure your products qualify.
Read More6 min read
What Gets You Cited by AI: The Numbers (2026)
Quotations lift AI citation 41%, statistics 32%, sources 30%, fluency 28%. The four levers that move the needle, with the research and the fix for each.
Read More8 min read
Author Bylines and E-E-A-T: Who Wrote This?
Google weighs who wrote your content. Here is how author bylines, bios, and Person schema feed E-E-A-T, and the pages where they matter most.
Read More13 min read
How AI Shopping Agents Find Products
How AI shopping assistants source product info in 2026, what makes a product page extractable by an AI agent, and a checklist to get your products surfaced.
Read More11 min read
Do Featured Snippets Still Matter in 2026?
Featured Snippets still appear for many queries, and the content that wins them is the same content AI search cites. Here is how to win one.
Read More13 min read
Image SEO: How Google Finds and Ranks Your Pictures
How Google discovers and ranks your images: filenames, alt text, captions, file formats, compression, lazy loading, and image sitemaps explained.
Read More13 min read
Video SEO for Small Business (No YouTube Needed)
How to earn search visibility for videos hosted on your own site: VideoObject schema, video sitemaps, thumbnails, transcripts, and page-speed tradeoffs.
Read More9 min read
The Helpful Content System Is Now Part of Core
Google's Helpful Content System was integrated into core ranking in March 2024. Most coverage predates that change. Here's what the primary documentation says about HCS now.
Read More11 min read
The Guerilla Content Pipeline: GSC to Publish
A five-step content pipeline that cuts a 2,500-word blog post from 8 hours to 90 minutes. Uses Brass-SEO + ChatGPT/Claude + IndexNow. No quality loss.
Read More8 min read
Ghost SEO: What Works and What's Missing
Ghost ships with stronger built-in SEO than most platforms. The gaps are narrower than you'd think. Here's what Ghost handles and what it leaves to you.
Read More8 min read
Google Discover: How to Get Articles Featured
Google Discover sends millions of visitors a month to featured articles. Here's what gets featured, why, and how to make your content eligible.
Read More9 min read
Real Estate SEO: What MLS Sites Won't Do
Most real estate agents rely on MLS-powered IDX sites for organic traffic. Those sites don't rank for the queries that win clients. Here's what to build instead.
Read More10 min read
SEO for Coaches and Course Creators in 2026
Coaches and course creators compete on trust, not keywords. Here's the SEO setup that builds authority, ranks the offer pages, and converts cold traffic.
Read More10 min read
SEO for Law Firms: 3 Pages That Win Clients
Most law firm SEO advice is blog-heavy. The pages that actually win clients are different: practice area, location, and attorney profile. Here's what each one needs.
Read More9 min read
SEO for Trades: Local + Service Pages Win
Plumbers, electricians, HVAC techs, roofers — the SEO playbook is the same. Local-first, service pages by type, reviews as the moat. Here's the full setup.
Read More10 min read
Where to Put the Preferred Sources Button
Three button placements that convert and two that don't. Plus the copy and A/B test methodology for getting more readers to add you as a Preferred Source.
Read More8 min read
B2B SEO: Why Comparison Pages Outperform
B2B buyers spend most of their research time comparing options. Comparison pages convert better and rank for higher-intent queries. Here's the playbook.
Read More8 min read
Squarespace SEO: Working Around the Limits
Squarespace ranks fine for some queries and badly for others. Here are the platform limits that cause the gap, the workarounds that help, and when to switch.
Read More8 min read
Shopify SEO: 7 Settings That Move Rankings
Shopify ships with sensible SEO defaults, then buries the seven settings that actually move rankings. Here's what to find, where they live, and what to change.
Read More7 min read
WordPress SEO Without Yoast: What You Need
Most WordPress SEO advice tells you to install Yoast or Rank Math. Here's what those plugins actually do, what WordPress provides natively, and what you can skip.
Read More8 min read
Title Tags and CTR: What the Public Data Shows
Public research on how title tag changes affect click-through rate from Google Search Console. What lifts CTR, what doesn't, and how to test on your own.
Read More12 min read
Why ChatGPT Cites Some Pages and Skips Others
Two pages on the same topic, similar word count, similar Google rankings. ChatGPT cites one and ignores the other. Here's what the research says about why.
Read More14 min read
AI Overviews vs Featured Snippets: What Changed
AI Overviews are multi-source AI syntheses. Featured Snippets are single-source extracts. Both still exist — here is what changed and how to win each.
Read More12 min read
Original Data SEO: Real Results from a Case Study
We published two data-driven posts from real production records. Here's the methodology, what the data showed, and why no competitor can replicate it.
Read More9 min read
Content Length and AI Citations: What Data Shows
Does longer content get cited more by AI systems? What the research says about word count, structure, and how AI chooses what to quote.
Read More12 min read
Why Expert Quotes Boost AI Citations by 41%
Princeton's GEO research found expert quotes drove the largest single-factor citation lift. What counts as an expert quote, what doesn't, and how to add them to your content.
Read More9 min read
Schema Markup and AI Search: What Research Shows
What published research says about whether schema markup helps AI systems like ChatGPT and Perplexity cite your content.
Read More13 min read
Finding Content Gaps Without a $200/Month Tool
How to find keywords you rank for but have no dedicated page about. A step-by-step GSC method, a free AI prompt, and the faster way.
Read More16 min read
I Have Keywords but No Content Ideas. Now What?
How to turn a keyword spreadsheet into a content plan. Manual workflow, intent grouping, prioritization framework, and a free AI prompt.
Read More9 min read
7 GEO Myths That Waste Your Time
Seven common misconceptions about Generative Engine Optimization, debunked with research from Princeton, practitioner studies, and platform data.
Read More10 min read
The 30-Minute Content Refresh Using GSC Data
Step-by-step workflow for finding underperforming pages in Google Search Console and refreshing them in 30 minutes. What to fix and in what order.
Read More10 min read
Part 1: Answer Capsules: The Content Trait LLMs Cite Most
New research shows 72.4% of blog posts cited by ChatGPT share one structural trait. Here is what it is, why it works, and how to add it to your content.
Read More9 min read
I Asked the AI What to Do Next for My SEO
After fixing my site's SEO problems, I used three dashboard buttons to plan what's next. AI Traffic, Content Gaps, and SEO Playbooks led the way.
Read More11 min read
Use Google Search Console to Find Blog Post Ideas
Your next blog post idea is already in your Google Search Console data. Five ways to find topics your audience is searching for and what to do next.
Read More10 min read
I Asked Brass-SEO for Blog Post Ideas
I read a guide about finding blog ideas in GSC. Then I asked Brass-SEO the same questions. What took five filters in GSC took one sentence in chat.
Read More14 min read
How a Long-Tail Keyword Became a Blog Post
A customer found a 15-word search query in Bing. Brass-SEO cross-referenced their GSC data, designed a content strategy, and produced a ready prompt.
Read More7 min read
How Long Should a Blog Post Be in 2026?
The honest answer: it depends on what the searcher needs. How to determine the right length based on intent, competition, and topic.
Read More8 min read
E-commerce SEO: Finding the Products Google Doesn't Show
Product pages with zero impressions. Category pages cannibalizing each other. How to use your search data to find the e-commerce SEO gaps you're missing.
Read More9 min read
Podcast SEO: Measuring What Actually Works
You transcribed your episodes and published the posts. Now how do you know if they rank? How to use GSC and GA4 to measure podcast content SEO.
Read More7 min read
Turn Audio and Video Into SEO Content
Google can't listen to podcasts or watch videos. Transcripts turn your audio content into indexable text that ranks. Here's the full workflow.
Read More11 min read
Meta Descriptions: The 160 Characters That Sell Your Page
Meta description templates and an AI prompt to write yours in 160 characters. Before-and-after examples, common mistakes, and 5 rules that get clicks.
Read More8 min read
Your Page Is Indexed but Nobody Finds It. Now What?
Google indexed your page but it gets zero traffic. The gap between indexed and ranking is where most small business pages get stuck. How to close it.
Read More10 min read
I Rewrote 10 Title Tags. Here's What Happened to My Traffic.
I changed the title tags on 10 pages and tracked results in Google Search Console for 8 weeks. Some improved dramatically. Here's what I learned.
Read More9 min read
Internal Linking: The Free SEO Tactic You're Ignoring
Most small business sites have almost no internal links. This free tactic helps Google discover pages, passes authority, and keeps visitors.
Read More9 min read
My Blog Gets Traffic but No Customers. What's Wrong?
Your blog gets traffic but nobody buys. The problem is usually a mismatch between search intent and your offer. Here's how to diagnose and fix it.
Read More9 min read
Schema Markup: The SEO Trick Hiding in Your HTML
Schema markup tells search engines what your page is about in their language. Which types matter for small businesses and how to add it.
Read More10 min read
How to Audit Your Content: Keep, Fix, or Delete
More content isn't always better. Some pages hold back the ones that could rank. A practical framework for deciding what to keep, improve, and remove.
Read More9 min read
Brand Mentions Matter More Than Backlinks
Backlinks used to be the only off-site SEO factor. Now Google and AI systems also track how often people mention your brand, even without a link.
Read More9 min read
Link Building Without Cold Emails
Backlinks still matter, but cold emailing for links isn't realistic for most small businesses. Five strategies that work by creating things people link to.
Read More10 min read
Your Competitors Rank Higher. Here's How to Find Out Why.
When a competitor outranks you on Google, there's usually a specific reason. How to investigate their pages, compare them to yours, and close the gaps.
Read More8 min read
Duplicate Content: The SEO Problem You Don't See
Many websites have duplicate content without realizing it. Here's what it is, how to find it, and how to fix it before it hurts your rankings.
Read More10 min read
Striking-Distance Keywords: Your Easiest SEO Wins
Keywords ranking in positions 11 to 20 are just one push away from page 1 of Google. Here is how to find them and what to do once you have.
Read More9 min read
Is Your AI Content Helping or Hurting SEO?
Google doesn't penalize AI content for being AI-written. It penalizes low-quality content regardless of how it was made. Is yours helping or hurting?
Read More12 min read
How to Write Title Tags That Get Clicks (Not Just Rankings)
Your pages might rank on Google but still get ignored. Before-and-after title tag examples show how small wording changes increase click-through rate.
Read More10 min read
E-E-A-T: What Google Checks Before Ranking You
Google evaluates every website on Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Here is what each one means and how to improve yours.
Read More9 min read
Topical Authority: Why One Post Isn't Enough
Google favors sites that cover a topic thoroughly. Here is why writing five focused posts on your specialty beats fifty random blog posts for SEO.
Read More9 min read
How to Get Cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity
AI tools cite websites when answering questions. Getting cited means free traffic from a growing channel. What makes them choose your site over others.
Read More11 min read
What Keywords Should I Target?
How to find the right keywords for your business using data you already have. Covers keyword types, Google Search Console data, and a practical strategy.
Read More5 min read
Content Optimization AI Prompts
Ready-to-use AI prompts for title tags, meta descriptions, and content gap analysis. Improve your existing content for better search visibility.
Read More