Marketing Insights: Strategy, Trends, and Actionable Advice

Dive into the latest in B2B growth marketing, from HubSpot tips to SEO best practices and strategic planning. We share our expertise to help you turn marketing insights into business results.

The AEO Magic Bullet. Same as it ever was.

It's been the same since at least 2019. That is when I published the first version of this piece. Now everyone cares about visibility again, but this time in AEO. ... or AI optimization...AI visibility. Whatever they're calling it this month, the ask is identical: give me the simple trick that turns my historical organic rankings into 2026 traffic and citations. I've got the answer. I published it in 2019, and almost nobody wanted it then either.

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Conversational Search: Drive AI Conversations On and Off Your Site with Real SME Content

I don’t really search for answers anymore. I have a conversation instead. I ask, it answers, I push back, it sharpens, and somewhere in that back-and-forth I land on what I actually wanted. In my own setup, ChatGPT is my answer engine and Claude is my workhorse. Once you catch yourself working that way, a marketing question expands. I’ve stopped asking what phrases my clients rank for. I ask what conversations our heroes are having with their AI and search engines. Does my client’s content deserve to be part of the conversation? The fundamentals are the same as traditional SEO; but the behavior and interfaces have changed. That shift changes the job of SEOs and SEO agencies. We’re no longer only optimizing pages for isolated keyword phrases. We’re trying to understand the full conversation a buyer has while they research, compare, challenge, refine, and decide. Peer recommendations are now the most trusted source of information at 73%, compared to 55% for vendor sites — and by the decision stage, 63% of buyers ask peers about pricing versus just 28% who ask the vendor. The brands that win will be the ones with useful, expert answers across that whole conversation.

AEO vs SEO: Is Search Engine Optimization Dead, or Just Wearing a New Name?

There’s a debate running through every marketing team right now: SEO is dead, and a brand-new discipline called AEO — Answer Engine Optimization — has taken its place. Or the opposite: nothing has really changed, AEO is a buzzword, and good SEO still wins. Here’s the uncomfortable, useful truth. Both camps are right. In one sense, the SEO most people picture is over. The ritual of typing a phrase, getting back a page of ten blue links, and clicking one result is fading fast. AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and assistants like Claude increasingly answer the question before a single click happens. In another sense, this is exactly where Google has been heading for twenty years. An AI-generated answer is just one more layer on top of the same human behavior that has driven search the entire time: a person asks a question, or a series of questions and a machine tries to hand back the best response while they’re still looking for it. If you understand that pattern, the “SEO vs AEO” argument stops being a crisis and starts being a roadmap. It’s worth noting Google itself frames this as continuous: its own guidance on optimizing for generative AI search is an extension of SEO fundamentals, not a separate rulebook.

Personas Are Broken. Search Has Evolved. Your Customer Is the Hero.

The “dirty little secret” of SEO and AEO in 2026? Google and the other search engines are still chasing the same one they’ve been chasing since Day One: What does the searcher actually want? Which results are most likely to give them a helpful answer? Did those results truly deliver value? Back in 1999, when I got my start in SEO — writing meta tags by hand — it was almost all about SEO best practices, code structure, and technical execution. All three of those things still matter today. But algorithms have gotten way smarter about rewarding content that actually serves people rather than content that just follows checklist tricks. They’ve gotten better at ranking the sites that deserve to be in the top five, not the ones with the sneakiest tactics. Over 25+ years in online marketing and as President of PIC (formerly Pittsburgh Internet Consulting), I’ve seen evolutions like this a few times. What started as SEO 1.0 became inbound, became content strategy, became AEO alongside search — but at the end of the day search still asks the same three questions above every time. At PIC, we believe that while SEO and AEO are distinct optimization tracks right now (with about 80% overlap), within a couple of years it’ll just be Search Optimization again. Users won’t consciously choose between “organic” or “AI results.” Those interfaces will look the same and serve the same end user intent. And if your content doesn’t help your audience succeed in their mission, it won’t perform well in either. That’s where our Hero Mission Strategy® comes in.

HubSpot for Small Businesses: The Ultimate Guide

Running a small business in 2026 is no joke. You’re wearing half a dozen hats, juggling endless to-do lists, and, if we’re honest, sometimes just hoping nothing falls through the cracks. That’s where HubSpot for small business comes into play. It’s designed to take a heap of your marketing, sales, and customer service headaches and shrink them down to size without needing several different platforms. Jumping into a new system can seem overwhelming, especially when you’re already busy. Maybe you’ve heard about HubSpot but wonder if it’s worth it for your shop, agency, or local business. Is it just for big brands, or does it really offer tools designed for business owners like you? In this guide, I'll break down what HubSpot is, the features that matter most for small business, and how it stacks up against other options. We'll cover updated 2026 pricing, setup tips, real-life success stories, and integrations that make life easier. Plus, I'll throw in expert advice from PIC's 12+ years as a certified HubSpot partner. Ready for some clarity and practical steps? Let's get into it.

Best B2B HubSpot Agency: How to Find the Right Partner for Your Business

If you’re running a B2B company, you probably know how exhausting it can be to manage your marketing, sales, and CRM all at once. That's where a specialized B2B HubSpot agency steps in. These agencies don't just help you get up and running on HubSpot. They understand B2B challenges and tailor each decision to help you attract, nurture, and convert the right clients. In this guide, we'll break down what makes the best B2B HubSpot agencies, the services they offer, and how partnering with one can take the stress out of optimizing your sales pipeline. You’ll also get tips for choosing the right agency, a short list of leading firms in 2025, and answers to common questions, so you’re ready to make a smart decision.

Create XML Sitemap: Free Spreadsheet XML Sitemap Generator

I've been doing SEO for 15 years and its always changing. One thing that never changes is that often the tools you find to "make your life easier" are built in a way that is too complex for small to medium sized businesses OR the tool doesnt have the flexibility you need. One area where this has come into play is generating an XML sitemap for Google. Which is why I had someone on my team build this simple XML sitemap generator for excel.

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Marketing Funnel or Flywheel?

Hubspot Tries to Reinvent “Inbound Marketing” as “Growth Marketing” Is the Funnel Broken? Hubspot believes the Flywheel is Better. The basic case that Hubspot is making by shifting themselves and their agencies to a flywheel rather than a funnel comes down to two primary points:

Inbound Marketing is a Team Sport, Don't Go It Alone

When I started doing web marketing in 1999, internet marketers were very much on an island all by themselves. We were trying to convince web developers and business owners that the web had a ton of potential and if they invested in us and in the website, people would come. Back then all learning had to be done independently and internet marketing experts were reading people like Matt Cutts, Danny Sullivan and the late, great Eric Ward. In those early days, content marketing didn't exist, social media was a pipe dream and pay per click had not been invented.