WebFX

MCP. If you've seen this acronym floating around your feed lately and thought "I should probably know what that is," you're not alone. Let's break it down. ✨ MCP stands for Model Context Protocol. It's an open standard created by Anthropic (the company behind Claude) that gives your AI tools a common language to speak with the rest of your tech stack. Here's the problem it solves. Right now, many AI tools operate in a silo. Your AI assistant can chat with you out of the box, but it can't pull a report from your CRM, check your ad performance, or look at your analytics unless someone builds a custom connection for each one. And every new tool means another custom integration. That's complex. 😵 MCP simplifies that by creating one standard way for AI tools to connect to your company's tech stack. Instead of building a unique integration for every combination of AI tool and data source, you have one connection that works across the board. Think of it like hiring a translator who speaks every language in the room. Instead of needing a separate translator for every conversation, one person handles it all. That's basically what MCP does for AI. So what does this look like in practice? Say you're a marketer (which you probably are if you're reading this post 😉). With MCP, your AI assistant could pull your latest campaign data from Google Ads, cross-reference it with lead data in a CRM, and draft a performance summary, all without you toggling between five different tabs. MCP adoption has been fast, too. OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft have all gotten behind MCP, and major CRM players like Salesforce and Nutshell are building with it. 📣 The big question: Why should you care right now? Because the companies that (safely and securely) connect their AI tools to their actual business data are going to move a lot faster than the ones still copy-pasting between platforms. You don't need to become an MCP expert overnight. But understanding what it is and where it's headed puts you ahead.

The wait is over — ChatGPT has officially launched its self-serve ad portal, meaning businesses can now have ads appear in front of the leading AI tool's audience. ChatGPT Ads Manager is currently available to U.S.-based businesses, as well as OpenAI partners. Ads will appear in front of Free and Go tier users in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. If your company wants to start advertising with ChatGPT, you'll have to go through the sign-up process, which includes a verification of your business. The verification process may take time, especially with current demand levels. But once you're in, you can start creating campaigns. Get all of the details on this new launch and more on our website (link in the comments)!

Meet Rachael — Susquehanna University grad, communication all-star, and expert digital marketer. In her role, Rachael serves as the main point of contact for her clients and their digital marketing strategies, ensuring that they see growth from their WebFX partnership. Whether managing SEO, AI SEO, or PPC campaigns, she loves diving into all things marketing. What does Rachael love most about her role? 🗣️ "The opportunity to work with and create meaningful business impact for clients in diverse industries located across the country." Get to know more about Rachael right here. 👇

Is third-party or first-party content better for your brand's AI visibility? We can answer that question with another question: Why not both? More on that in this quick AI pro tip from Breanna.

Not every social media post should sell something. Sometimes, it should feature a very good dog. Say hello to Lilah 👋

What if the reason your brand isn't showing up in AI-generated answers has nothing to do with your content quality and everything to do with how that content is structured behind the scenes? AI models need to be able to interpret your content before they cite it. That's the role structured data plays. Schema markup is a type of structured data that helps AI systems understand what your content is about and who's behind it, translating it into a format machines can interpret. 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 When AI models can interpret your content accurately, the results can be significant. Your brand doesn't just show up in a list of results. It becomes part of the AI answer. That gives you visibility directly inside the user's AI interaction, which tells users and algorithms your content is trustworthy. You get qualified traffic when users click to learn more and long-term brand credibility from consistently appearing in authoritative AI outputs. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗼 There are several schema types you can add to your website to improve your AI performance: 👉 Article, NewsArticle, and BlogPosting — for establishing content type, authorship, and E-E-A-T credibility. 👉 FAQ and HowTo — for surfacing clear answers and step-by-step instructions in AI responses. 👉 Product, Offer, and Review — for appearing in shopping-related AI results and product comparisons. 👉 Organization and LocalBusiness — for improving brand accuracy and mention consistency across AI platforms. 👉 Person and Author — for connecting expertise and identity to your content, helping AI cite thought leaders. 👉 Dataset and ResearchStudy — for content that references original data, benchmarks, or statistics. Once you have your schema types chosen, you need to ensure that it's implemented in an accurate, complete, and consistent way. Schema.org offers a tool to help you validate the schema on your website, so that's a great place to look when you're in the quality control phase. In addition, align your schema type with the intent of each page and pair your markup with clear headings, descriptive metadata, and internal links that reinforce meaning for AI models. 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘁'𝘀 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 Structured data is only going to get more important and more integrated into the platforms and tools you use every day. If your content isn't structured, it's invisible to the systems shaping the next era of search. The brands that treat structured data as an AI visibility strategy, and not just a technical SEO checkbox, are the ones that will lead in this new landscape. Want the full breakdown of how to use structured data in the AI era? Find the link to our blog post in the comments. 🔽

AI doesn't read your website the way a person does. Understanding that is the key to showing up in AI search results. When a person visits your site, they read your copy, get a feel for your brand, and form an impression. To AI, your website is just data. Every word, every page, and every mention of your brand across the web is a datapoint. AI processes those datapoints mathematically. ✖️➗ This may not seem like it's relevant to your business, but it really, truly is. 👉 AI is increasingly the thing deciding which brands get surfaced when someone searches for a product or service. And even if the people in your audience don't have a preferred AI tool, they likely interact with AI Overviews or other AI integrations within the technology they use every day. When someone asks "who are the best plumbers in Phoenix" or "what's the best CRM for small teams", the AI draws on the full picture it's built of your brand across every source it can find. If that picture is clear, you're more likely to get recommended. If not, you get overlooked. That means the way you present your brand online has never been more important. Not just on your website, but everywhere. 🌐 More on how to optimize your brand for AI on our blog. Link in the comments!

We're curious. When you want to learn something new, where do you most often go? There are so many places to get information. Tell us your favorites!

If April showers bring May flowers, does adapting to April's trends bring May dividends? Get caught up on the latest digital marketing happenings in this edition of CTRL + FX. Full version on our blog (linked in the article)!

Apple Maps may look a bit different starting this summer. 🍎 Apple is planning to introduce sponsored placements within Apple Maps, starting in the U.S. and Canada. Businesses will be able to show up as promoted results when people search for things like home services, hotels, auto repair, or healthcare providers inside the app. Ads will likely appear in two places: in the search results and within a "Suggested Places" feature that recommends businesses based on what's trending nearby and a user's recent searches. So, what should your business do right now? The biggest step you can take before Maps ads are live is to make sure your company information is complete up to date. Apple Business, a new all-in-one management platform, can help you keep track of your company details and ensure that the people who reach you are getting the right information. Claim your locations, update your hours and categories, upload photos, and make sure your listing is accurate. Apple uses this information to power how your business appears across Maps, Siri, and other Apple services. Beyond that, it's a good time to audit local SEO fundamentals like NAP consistency, local citations, reviews, and location schema. We broke down everything we know so far on our website. (Link in the comments)