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SEO, Core Web Vitals, and AI search
Practical, no-fluff guides on why sites underperform and how to fix them: Core Web Vitals, technical SEO, and getting cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.
How Much Does an SEO Audit Cost in South Africa? A 2026 Price Guide
South African SEO audits typically run R8,000 to R30,000-plus as a once-off, and retainers range from R3,500 to well over R60,000 a month depending on business size. Here's what drives that range, and where a fixed-price, no-retainer audit fits into it.
Why Your Business Isn't Showing Up in the Google Map Pack
Google ranks local results on three stated factors: relevance, distance, and prominence. Most businesses that don't show up are failing one of these in a specific, fixable way, not losing to a secret algorithm.
Google Business Profile vs. Your Website: Which One Actually Needs the SEO Work?
Your Google Business Profile controls the Map Pack. Your website controls organic rankings, and it directly feeds how prominent your profile looks in the first place. A fully completed profile is not the same as having done your SEO.
Your PageSpeed Score Is Green. Your Site Still Feels Slow. Here's Why.
A green PageSpeed Insights score only measures one simulated load on a mid-tier phone. Your real visitors are field data, a different report on the same page, and it decides whether you actually pass Core Web Vitals.
The Real Cost of a 1-Second LCP Delay on an Ecommerce Checkout
No study puts a precise dollar figure on one second of LCP at checkout specifically. Here is the verified data that exists, from a Google-commissioned study and independent conversion research, and why the effect is strongest closest to the sale.
Why Your Shopify Store Fails Core Web Vitals
Shopify stores fail Core Web Vitals for a short list of reasons, and the platform itself is rarely one of them: app bloat, oversized images, synchronous embeds, and a heavy theme. A priority-ordered fix guide, plus what changed at checkout in 2026.
WooCommerce Site Slow? The 5 Plugins Usually Causing It
WooCommerce inherits every WordPress performance problem and adds a few of its own. Five plugin categories that show up disproportionately on stores, plus the cart fragments AJAX call most generic WordPress speed guides miss entirely.
Shopify Liquid Render-Blocking Scripts: A Code-Level Fix Guide
Render-blocking scripts on Shopify almost always come from three places: app embeds in theme.liquid, synchronous tracking snippets, and externally-hosted fonts. A code-level fix guide covering defer/async, the Web Pixels API, and font loading.
How to Track Which Content Drives Your ChatGPT and Perplexity Citations
You cannot get a single clean number for AI citations, but you can triangulate: server logs for what got fetched, analytics for what got clicked, and citation monitoring for where you appear. A practical guide to measuring which pages drive your AI search visibility.
How to Fix Core Web Vitals on WordPress (2026)
WordPress sites fail Core Web Vitals for a short, predictable list of reasons: a heavy theme, plugin sprawl, render-blocking assets, slow hosting, and unoptimised images. A priority-ordered fix guide, plus an honest look at what a caching plugin can and cannot do.
How to Get Cited in Google AI Overviews (2026)
Getting cited in a Google AI Overview comes down to ranking well and being easy to extract. But first, what is a citation actually worth now the Overview answers searchers before they click? The honest data, and the strategy that follows from it.
Does llms.txt Actually Get You Cited by AI? (2026)
Adding an llms.txt file will not get you cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google. Here is what Google has actually said, what the crawler data shows, the one real use case (coding agents and docs), and what genuinely drives AI citations.
No, Google Did Not Lower the LCP Threshold to 2 Seconds
A rumour says Google dropped the good LCP threshold from 2.5s to 2.0s in a 2026 update. It did not. Here is what every official Google source actually says, where the claim came from, and what really matters for Core Web Vitals this year.
How to Fix INP (Interaction to Next Paint) in 2026
INP is the most commonly failed Core Web Vital. A practical, priority-ordered guide to diagnosing slow interactions and fixing them: breaking long tasks, deferring third-party scripts, and cutting presentation delay.
How to Get Your Site Cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity (2026)
A practical guide to getting your content cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews: answer-first writing, schema, crawler access, and a copy-paste llms.txt.