What Happened

Claude accidentally leaked user information this past week by publishing private Claude conversations on Google by accidentally allowing the content to be indexed. Users on Reddit discovered that a large number of Claude conversations were showing up in Google search results. By typing a specific search into Google, anyone could pull up a list of shared Claude chats, some containing highly sensitive material.

This wasn’t an isolated incident for the AI industry. Google has previously indexed shared conversations from ChatGPT, Grok, and more.

Although Claude does keep conversations private in general, they have a feature that allows users to share their chats with other users, when the links are shared they are then able to be indexed by Google. Claude updated its robots.txt in the wake of the story breaking in order to remove the private conversations from Google search.

Indexing Issues

While Claude accidentally indexed a large proportion of private conversations, the inverse is normally true in SEO, with many users accidentally not indexing their page so content they have worked hard on, on their site, isn’t seen by users. Some common indexing issues include: 

• No index tag can often be left over from staging, dev, or a CMS default that never got flipped for production.
• Robots.txt disallow rules that block crawlers from a directory that was supposed to be public.
• Missing XML sitemaps that never got the new URLs added, so Google doesn’t know to look.
• Orphaned pages with no internal links pointing to them, making them effectively invisible to crawlers even if technically indexable.
• Canonical tags pointing to the wrong URL, quietly telling Google “index that page instead, not this one.”
• New site sections or migrations launched without updating Search Console or resubmitting sitemaps, so nobody notices the drop-off until traffic reports come back weeks later.

What this means for Marketers

Whether it’s a chatbot accidentally letting private conversations onto Google or a business unknowingly keeping its best content hidden from it, both cases come down to the same issue, nobody was actively checking what was actually indexed. Regular audits of your robots.txt, sitemaps, canonical tags, and Search Console coverage reports are the difference between catching these issues early and losing months of visibility.

If you run Google Ads campaigns on Target CPA or Target ROAS and any of them show as “Limited by
budget,” there is a change coming on 17th August that will directly affect your costs. Google is
updating the way its bidding system works for these campaigns, and for many ecommerce
advertisers, it will push actual performance closer to the targets they have set, whether those
targets were carefully considered or simply never updated. This is not opt-in. Google is applying it
automatically, and it will not adjust your targets or budgets on your behalf.

What Is Actually Changing

Currently, when a campaign is constrained by its budget, Google’s algorithm tends to buy the
cheapest conversions it can find within that cap, often delivering results well below the target you
set. A campaign with a £100 Target CPA might consistently convert at £50, simply because the
budget ran out before the system needed to reach further. After 17th August, Google will shift its
approach so that performance tracks closer to the stated target, even as budgets change. In plain
terms, your target stops being a ceiling you rarely touched and becomes the destination the
algorithm actively aims for. The change applies across Search, Shopping, Performance Max, Demand
Gen and Display campaigns.

Why This Matters for Ecommerce

For retailers running budget-capped Shopping or Performance Max campaigns that have been
quietly beating their targets, the practical effect could be a lower return on ad spend and higher cost
per conversion almost overnight. For businesses operating on thin margins, that drift can erode
profitability before it shows up clearly in reporting. Performance Max campaigns carry an additional
consideration: Google has indicated that traffic may shift between channels such as Search,
Shopping and YouTube as the system rebalances, so channel-level performance will need closer
attention in the weeks following the change.

What You Should Do Before 17th August

The first step is to pull every campaign marked “Limited by budget” that uses Target CPA or Target
ROAS, then compare actual performance against the stated target over the last 90 days. Any
campaign where actual results sit significantly inside the target is one that will move. From there,
you have three options: reset the target to reflect your real performance before the change kicks in;
raise the budget so the campaign is no longer budget-limited and can scale at your true target; or
consciously accept the drift toward target if you are comfortable with the efficiency trade-off.
Google’s Bid Target Adjustment Tool, which has been available in accounts since 6th July, allows you
to update targets based on recent performance in just a few clicks. The most important thing is to
make that call deliberately, campaign by campaign, before 17th August makes it for you.

If your brand runs multiple video campaigns on YouTube, managing how often the same person sees your ads has always been more complicated than it should be. Until now, keeping an eye on reach and frequency has meant monitoring each campaign individually, which is time-consuming and leaves plenty of room for the kind of overlap that wastes budget and irritates audiences. Google has just rolled out a feature globally that changes this, and for brands investing seriously in YouTube advertising, it is worth understanding what it does and why it matters.

What Video Campaign Groups Actually Do

The new feature, called video campaign groups, allows advertisers to bring multiple YouTube campaigns together under a single shared objective, whether that is maximising the number of unique people reached or controlling how often those people see your ads in a given week. Crucially, grouping campaigns does not mean losing control at the individual campaign level. Each campaign within a group keeps its own budget, creative assets and settings. What changes is that Google now optimises delivery across all of them together, rather than each one operating in isolation. A unified reporting view comes with it, covering metrics including unique reach, average weekly impressions and overall frequency performance across the whole group.

The Numbers Behind the Feature

Google has backed the launch with data from a Meridian marketing mix modelling study, which found that an optimal ad frequency of 2.7 impressions per week produced a 19% improvement in return on investment. That figure underlines what experienced media planners already know: showing an ad to the same person too many times does not improve results; it diminishes them. Video campaign groups give advertisers a practical tool to act on that insight at scale, rather than relying on manual monitoring and guesswork.

What This Means for Your YouTube Strategy

For brands running awareness campaigns across multiple video formats or audiences, this is a meaningful efficiency gain. Less wasted spend on over-exposed audiences, better visibility into overall reach, and less time spent manually reconciling performance across campaigns. Google has also confirmed the feature will expand to Display and Video 360 in the near future, extending the same cross-campaign coordination to those buying YouTube inventory through that platform. If YouTube forms a significant part of your media mix, now is a good time to review how your campaigns are structured and whether grouping them could sharpen your results.

Keyword research is one of the most important tasks for a successful, co-ordinated SEO campaign. By understanding how your users are searching, you can specifically tailor your content around the keywords they are using to find your products and services. This helps to boost your rankings on search engines, such as Google Search, allowing your services to gain extra visibility.

However, keyword research can often be a long, detailed and painstakingly resource heavy task. Your business may have hundreds or thousands of keywords relevant to their industry, with various degrees of importance, that need identifying and collating. This is where AI comes in. AI can be used to improve keyword research workflow, allowing SEOs to quickly identify keyword opportunities to improve their content.

How it works

Most SEOs will have a preferred keyword research tool that they use in-house. Some popular examples include keyword research tools from SemRush, Ahrefs and SERanking. Here at Intelligency, we use SERanking for our keyword research. This involves manually searching for keywords, SERanking will then show you the keyword data for said keyword along with other relevant keywords that are related.

Now with ChatGPT you can connect platforms such as SERanking directly to AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT and Claude and use a prompt using AI to pull through all relevant keywords into one keyword research document, massively improving time efficiency.

You do this by using a Model Context Protocol (MCP) . This piece of software allows different AI models to talk to different software, such as SEO tools, so they understand how to extract the information you require.

Briefing to AI Agents

If you are going to use AI to help with your keyword research workflow, getting the brief correct is one of the most important steps, if AI doesn’t understand the brief precisely then it won’t pull through the correct data.

We will use an example brief to Claude to show how to successfully explain to AI how to create a precise keyword research document. For this example, we will be highlighting a brief for a dental client who wants to expand their keyword research for their various dental practices around the UK.

Here is a list of dental locations from my client X. I want you to connect to SERanking and use their keyword research tool to gather relevant keyword information based around each location. Each clinic should have keywords related to its location for example:

Local

• dentist Bristol
  
  
• dentist in Bristol
  
  
• Bristol dentist
  
  
• dentist (village or town name)
  
  
• dentist (region)
  
  

Treatment + local

• veneers Bristol
  
  
• teeth whitening Bristol
  
  
• best veneers Bristol
  
  
• dentist veneers Bristol
  
  

NHS + local

• nhs dentist Bristol
  
  
• nhs appointment Bristol
  
  

General + local

• cosmetic dentistry Bristol
  
  
• emergency dentist Bristol
  
  
• dental practice Bristol
  
  

Don’t include keywords with no search volume and include other treatments and keywords outside of those listed if relevant, this is only a general idea of the keyword structure.

By using this prompt I have given Claude a comprehensive set of instructions on how to structure the keyword data it sends me. Claude sent me back other 500 relevant keywords for my sector including specific keyword data such as cost-per-click, search volume and SERP competition.

This method of using an MCP can shave hours of time off your workload, allowing you to focus on other tasks or fine tune your content using your new AI enhanced keyword data.

There is a point at which a number stops being a data point and starts being a structural fact about how the world works. Google announced at I/O in May 2026 that AI Overviews now reaches 2.5 billion monthly users. AI Mode, its full conversational search interface launched just twelve months ago, has already crossed 1 billion monthly users. Together those two surfaces mean AI-generated content is now the default search experience for the majority of the world’s internet users.

This is the moment where the phrase ’emerging channel’ stops applying. Investing in AI search visibility is no longer a forward-looking decision. It is a response to a market structure that already exists at scale.

What the numbers actually say

Google has roughly 4.5 billion total users globally. AI Overviews reaching 2.5 billion of them means that more than half of everyone who opens Google now encounters AI-generated content before they see a traditional list of links. That is not a feature used by early adopters. It is the default experience for most of the platform.

AI Mode’s growth trajectory is if anything more significant. One billion monthly users in twelve months makes it one of the fastest-scaling search surfaces in Google’s history. Queries are reportedly more than doubling every quarter since launch. Sundar Pichai’s framing at I/O was direct: queries reached an all-time high last quarter, driven by AI features rather than despite them.

The two surfaces are distinct in important ways. AI Overviews are the AI-generated summaries that appear above traditional results on the standard search page. AI Mode is a separate, full conversational search interface powered by Gemini. Research from Ahrefs found that they cite the same URLs only 13.7% of the time. Being visible in one does not guarantee visibility in the other, and the signals that earn citation in each environment are not identical.

Outside Google, the broader landscape reinforces the same direction. ChatGPT has passed 800 million weekly active users. Around 37% of consumers now begin their searches with an AI tool rather than a traditional search engine. These numbers sit alongside, not instead of, Google’s figures. The total volume of AI-mediated search behaviour is larger than any single platform’s numbers suggest.

The click problem – and why it is less simple than it looks

The number that tends to dominate conversations about AI search is the click-through rate. Semrush data suggests that 92 to 94% of AI Mode sessions end without a click to an external website. That is a real figure and it matters. But taken in isolation it tells an incomplete story.

The more important finding, which we examined in detail when Similarweb published their downstream traffic research, is what happens after someone sees your brand in an AI-generated answer. Brands appearing in AI recommendations were 2.5 times more likely to receive a site visit within seven days than comparable brands that were not mentioned. Of that downstream traffic, more than half arrived via branded search rather than direct AI referral click. The user saw the brand in an AI answer, remembered it, and searched for it later. None of that appears in standard referral analytics.

The click-through rate on AI-generated answers is low. The downstream commercial effect of AI mentions is considerably larger than that rate implies. These are different things, and conflating them leads to under-investment in a channel that is already operating at scale.

What scale changes about the decision

When a channel reaches a billion users, the question of whether to engage with it shifts. It is no longer a question of whether the audience is there. The audience is there. The question becomes what position you hold in that channel relative to your competitors.

AI-generated answers about your sector are being generated right now, regardless of whether you have taken any steps to influence them. The only variable is whether your brand appears in those answers or whether a competitor does. At 2.5 billion monthly users, the opportunity cost of not being cited is measurable in the same terms as the opportunity cost of not ranking on page one of Google in 2010.

The concentration dynamic makes this more acute over time. Early data from AI search visibility research suggests that in established categories, a small number of brands capture the majority of AI citations, similar to how a small number of websites dominate traditional search results pages. Finance and industrial sectors remain more open, but healthcare, dental, beauty and consumer services are categories where brand concentration in AI answers is already developing. Getting into the answer set before the category settles is considerably easier than displacing an incumbent once it has.

What this means in practice

The scale of AI search adoption does not require a new strategy from scratch. The content and credibility work that earns AI citations is largely the same work that earns traditional search rankings, trust signals and brand authority. What changes is the priority weighting.

• Specificity over volume. AI systems compress multiple similar articles into a single answer. A page that answers one question clearly and completely is more likely to be cited than ten pages that cover the same topic at shallow depth. The content investment that works in AI search is fewer, better pages rather than more frequent publication.
• Authoritative third-party presence. AI systems weight third-party sources heavily when assembling answers. Being mentioned in trade publications, review platforms, professional directories and sector-relevant forums contributes to AI citation rates. Only 12% of URLs cited by major AI platforms also rank in Google’s top ten – meaning AI citation and traditional ranking are related but not the same, and the citation pathway draws more heavily on off-site authority.
• Entity clarity. AI systems need to understand what your brand is and what category it belongs to before they will cite it confidently. Structured data, consistent information across directories, a clear Wikipedia or Wikidata presence where relevant, and coherent messaging across your own site and third-party profiles all contribute to entity recognition. This is infrastructure work, not campaign work, and it compounds over time.
• Measuring the right things. Standard referral analytics will undercount the commercial effect of AI visibility. Branded search volume trends, direct traffic growth and brand mention monitoring across AI platforms give a more complete picture than referral click counts alone. Google Search Console’s recently launched platform properties feature is the first standardised tool that brings some of this visibility into the reporting stack most teams already use.

The point of no return

There is a useful analogy from the early years of mobile. For several years, having a mobile-optimised website was described as important and forward-thinking. Then smartphone penetration crossed a threshold, and it became table stakes. The question stopped being whether you needed a mobile site and became how quickly you could fix yours.

AI search is at or past the equivalent threshold. 2.5 billion monthly users on AI Overviews alone is not a pilot. It is not an experiment. It is the product. Businesses that treat AI visibility as something to consider later are not being cautious. They are ceding ground in a channel that is already being used by more people than almost any other discovery surface on the internet.

The good news is that the channel is not yet fully consolidated in most sectors. The brands that are easy to find, cite and trust across multiple public surfaces still have a meaningful advantage over those that are not. That window narrows as adoption continues to accelerate, but it has not closed. The number worth focusing on is not 2.5 billion. It is how many of those 2.5 billion users are asking questions your brand should be answering.

What are the best AI strategies for online performance? Lots of online businesses will now have either started or considered how they should be using the ever growing AI capabilities to improve their online performance. In this article, we will take you through what optimization for AI is, what strategies you can implement to achieve it and all the relevant metrics your business should be tracking to make sure you are up to date with the latest in search performance techniques.

What is GEO

GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation and the twin to SEO. While SEO focuses on improving search performance, GEO focuses on improving generative engine performance aka performance in AI Chatbots. This means GEO develops tactics to make it easier for chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude to discover, understand and cite your brand in their answers.

How to optimise for GEO

There are several different ways you can improve your site and content to make it more accessible to appear in AI search. 

Extractible Content – Front load descriptions in your content and make sure they are concise so that AI chatbots can easily extract definitions to use for answering users’ queries. Other structures you can use include listicles, bullet points and tables for data extraction.

E-E-A-T – Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. These are core principles of SEO that carry over into GEO. If AI chatbots view you as credible they are more likely to use your content, so make sure to build your trustworthiness, by creating strong pillar content.

Natural Language – It may sound counter-intuitive to write for humans when trying to rank in AI chatbots, however AI uses natural language processing. Trying to game the system using methods such as keyword stuffing will see your content penalized.

Digital PR – AI is trained on sources from all over the web therefore making sure your website is relevant and mentioned heavily within your industry will help to appear in AI chatbots and increase your E-E-A-T.

What AI metrics to track

Once you’ve optimised your site for GEO, you need to make sure you are tracking, measuring and analysing your data to see if your content is creating the desired outcomes, if not you may need to readjust your strategy. There are a few different key metrics to monitor to make sure your AI performance is on track.

AI Citations – AI Citations refers to the total amount of times your brand has been mentioned in AI, when tested across enquiries in different AI chatbots such as AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and more.

Share of Voice – Share of Voice is a competitor metric which determines how much you are mentioned in AI compared to your competitors. This determines who has the biggest reach in your industry in terms of AI, you can do this by tracking competitor citations and comparing to your own in terms of citations.

Sentiment Tracking – Sentiment tracking is a manual data tracking method where you investigate the citations of your site on AI platforms and see how you’re described. This lets you know if your brand identity is being represented properly in your content.

AI Referral Traffic –  Using GA4 you can see how much of the traffic of your site is coming to you through AI, with over 30% of users now using AI for initial enquiries, it should be an ever-growing traffic source.

Making sure you optimise your content for AI and use in depth analysis to make informed decisions about what is working and how to tailor your approach. This will improve your brand’s presence online as more and more users are moving toward using AI to answer their search queries.  

As we look back on 2025, it has been a year defined by learning, growth and reflection. Like any business journey, there have been challenges along the way, but these moments have helped shape our approach and strengthen the way we work. More importantly, the year has been filled with opportunities, progress and achievements that have moved the business forward and supported the work we deliver for our clients.

Throughout the year, our team has celebrated a wide range of successes, from personal milestones to collective achievements. Each win, no matter the size, has contributed to the momentum of the business and reinforced our focus on delivering thoughtful, effective marketing solutions.

We launch our PPC services

One of the standout developments of the year was the launch of our PPC services. Our co-director, Liam, took a bold step in early 2025 by expanding his skill set and introducing a new offering for our clients. This addition has allowed us to provide more comprehensive and well-rounded marketing support, helping clients optimise their campaigns and achieve stronger results. Expanding into PPC has strengthened our ability to support growth and deliver joined-up strategies.

Matthew passes his apprenticeship with flying colours

Another proud moment came when our SEO executive, Matty, completed his multichannel marketing apprenticeship with an impressive first. This achievement is a testament to his hard work, dedication and commitment to developing his expertise. His success reflects the value we place on continuous learning and professional development within the team.

Becoming finalists in the Yorkshire Post Business Awards

In September, we were honoured to be nominated as finalists for the Yorkshire Post Micro Business of the Year award. The evening at the Royal Armouries was a chance to celebrate alongside some of Yorkshire’s most inspiring businesses. While we did not take home the award, the experience itself felt like a win and a moment of genuine pride for the team.

Celebrating Together: A Festive Team Experience
As the year drew to a close, we took some time to celebrate together outside the office. Our team headed to Manchester for a live Crystal Maze experience, tackling physical and mental challenges together. The day was a testament to the collaborative spirit and strong team relationships we’ve built throughout the year. It was a fun and memorable way to wrap up 2025, reinforcing how much we value connection, support and shared achievement.

A thank you to our clients

None of the progress we’ve made in 2025 would be possible without the trust and collaboration of our clients. Working alongside such passionate and ambitious businesses has been a constant source of motivation for our team. Each partnership has challenged us to think smarter, be more creative and deliver meaningful results. As we look ahead to 2026, we’re excited to continue building these relationships, supporting our clients’ growth and achieving even more together.

Looking ahead

As we move into the next year, we carry forward the lessons, confidence and motivation gained in 2025. We are excited to continue building on this momentum, supporting our clients and creating even more reasons to celebrate in the year ahead.

Well, we’ve successfully tallied another year of brilliant celebrations as a team, this time making our way over to Manchester to enjoy the festivities! Taking the team back to an intensely nostalgic environment, The Crystal Maze live experience.

Fuelling the day’s activities

We kicked things off exactly as any great day should—with an incredible meal at Society Manchester. This vibrant food hall delivered a buzzing, festive atmosphere, paired with an impressive line-up of food traders offering cuisines from all corners of the globe.

The team wasted no time getting stuck in, tucking into irresistibly sweet and tangy hoisin bao buns before moving on to freshly prepared tinga tacos. Each dish delivered an explosion of flavour, keeping energy levels high and appetites fully satisfied before we shifted gears and prepared ourselves for some serious gaming ahead.

Let the games begin

With spirits high, we arrived at the Crystal Maze and immediately embraced the competitive energy in the air. Greeted and hyped up by the incredible game actors, the team was ready and raring to go as we entered the medieval zone to begin the challenge.

Our abilities were well and truly put to the test, with tasks designed to evaluate our knowledge, skills, and physical capabilities—alongside challenges layered with mystery and problem-solving. Without giving too much away for future participants, the experience proved to be an outstanding team-bonding exercise that had everyone fully engaged from start to finish.

We’re proud to say we emerged from the Crystal Maze dome with an impressive 78 points, sitting a solid 13 points above the average group score—despite securing just six crystals along the way.

Cheers to another exceptional year

We carried our Crystal Maze victory forward to the ever-popular Mulligans, where the team enjoyed a well-earned pint of Guinness, followed by some dancing to a fantastic live band. Once again, everyone had the chance to fully immerse themselves in an atmosphere filled with laughter, celebration, and well-deserved relaxation.

Our Christmas party always serves as a moment to reflect on the year gone by—a year defined by achievements, client wins, and challenges successfully overcome together as a team. This celebration was no exception, rounding off another exceptional year for Intelligency in the best possible way.

What is an emoji?

An emoji is an emoticon on a phone’s keyboard which allows a person to communicate, rather than typing a message visually. The word emoji is Japanese; it’s a portmanteau combining e, which means picture, and moji, which translates to character.

Where do emojis originate from?

Emojis were initially brought into existence in the late 90s in Japan, their design simplistic, utilising characters and letters to create faces. These early iterations of emoji allowed people to have a more nuanced form of communication, with emotion and tone being easily communicated through the inclusion of an emoji.

How have emojis evolved?

Since their advent, emojis have quickly flourished and evolved from simple character combinations to clean, branded icons which various phone companies release as part of their device keyboard.

1988

The first instance we see of the emoji was in Japan on the Sharp PA-8500, an electronic device described as an electronic pocket assistant. The device would be used to manage admin tasks, which include setting dates in calendars, for note-taking, and other tasks like filing contacts.

1997

By the mid-nineties, the first set of emojis for mobile phones was released on the Japanese-made SoftBank J-phone. The owners of this model of phone were able to access a set of 90 emojis, of which the emote which inspired the now iconic poo emoji was included.

1999

Almost a decade after a gentleman named Shigetaka Kurita developed a 176-character emoji Keyboard in 1999. Kurita was a developer for i-mode, a platform for internet use created by DOCOMO, a leading mobile carrier in Japan.

The purpose of the invention was to simplify communication through a set of symbols which would help to convey a message. The emojis were 12 by 12px and were embedded onto a keyboard similarly to the characters of the alphabet.

The nature of the designs ranged from practical communication tools like a gas station emoji, to more emotionally expressive icons, which were there to imply any emotion which couldn’t be interpreted through just text, providing emotional subtext.

2009-2010

In the early 2000s, the rapid succession of brands and companies alike wanting a piece of the emoji pie led to a contentious petition, which had begun 3 years prior. This began the process of the Unicode Consortium assigning different standardised codes to emojis. The Unicode Consortium are a non-profit organisation that standardises software and data internationally.

The proposal given to the Unicode Consortium contained 625 new emoji designs. The proposal was quickly accepted, and these emojis became available to use for those with internet access.

2011

By 2011, emojis really were going global with the release of the Apple emoji keyboard, populated with over 470 emojis for users to select from and create with.

2014

Then came the origin of World Emoji Day, which was officially observed on the 17^th of July. Interestingly, the date was selected in line with the date displayed on the emoji calendar.

Our take on the Emoji

With the handy help of ChatGPT, we were able to get a sense of how our logo could look if it were to be integrated into the IOS keyboard.

It’s been almost 40 years since the first emoji was created and being used, and now there are 3,790 emojis in the Unicode standard. Emojis are even utilised in marketing on email campaigns, social media content and even in blogs like this one here.

We’re really intrigued to see how emojis continue to evolve, expand in their catalogue and ultimately how they will allow us to express ourselves and enhance the content we create. We’d love to know what your favourite emoji is!

Do I need to research when copywriting?

Research is a critical step in the process of content creation, whether it’s finding inspiration whilst ideating or gathering statistics that will inform your discussion. Having research materials can majorly benefit you and the quality of your content.

Research is so important. Eugene Schwartz famously said that effective copywriting is 80% research and 20% writing, showing just how much groundwork goes into crafting the perfect message.

What does research help with?

It ensures you can understand a subject, create well-informed and factual content, and gain insight into how others approach the same topic. You’ll start to notice how others structure similar content and where gaps exist, giving you the chance to identify niches or perspectives that make your own content stand out.

The bottom line: why research is critical

Research transforms assumptions into intelligence, helping you understand who you’re speaking to, what they care about, and how they think. It’s the difference between shotgun messaging and sniper‐targeted persuasion. Skipping it risks wasting resources—and worse, selling nothing.

Are there different types of research?

Yes. There are three core types of research that support content creation:

Primary Research is the process of collecting data for yourself. It allows you to directly ask the audience for their response, usually through polls, interviews, or focus groups. It’s useful when you want tailored, specific insights to shape your message.

Secondary Research can be internal or external. Internal research involves analysing historic data or reports your business already holds, while external research draws from sources like studies, quotes, statistics, infographics, or reputable articles. These materials help reinforce your message with context and credibility.

Tertiary Research summarises information from both primary and secondary sources. While it doesn’t offer deep analysis, it’s useful for quick referencing or to confirm key terms. Examples include encyclopedias, dictionaries, and thesauruses.

What is the best approach to researching?

As you begin the process of ideating, this is the perfect moment to start exploring. Your topic—and your eventual content—can end up being strongly shaped by what you discover during this phase.

If you’re unsure whether a subject will resonate with your audience, this is the time to dig into audience research and validate its relevance. Once you feel confident in your idea, widen your scope. Look beyond search engines—use books, research journals, industry publications, and competitor content. Diversifying your sources strengthens your perspective and helps you avoid generic or outdated information.

When your topic is set, you can move into keyword research. At this point, your focus shifts to identifying core and supporting keywords, along with long-tail variations that help optimise your content for searchability and audience intent.

Final Thoughts

Good copy doesn’t begin with writing—it begins with listening, observing, and investigating. Research is what turns creative instincts into strategic decisions. By building your process around it, you’re not just producing content—you’re crafting content with purpose.

So before you write, take time to explore. You might just uncover the insight that transforms your next piece from ordinary to unforgettable.