Frequently Asked Questions

The world of digital marketing is a fast-paced, ever-changing industry.

That’s why we’ve created a list of our most frequently asked questions for you, our valued clients! Browse below to learn about important marketing terms, view our how-to guides, and more!

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Reporting | Google Ads | SEO | AI Search Optimization (GEO) | Social Media | Email | Fastsites |WebID

Reporting

Every month you will receive an email with a dashboard report on your campaign’s performance.

Access your dashboard 24/7 by logging into your unique link provided by Fasturtle.

Great news! We have put together a list of metric definitions that will help you understand your report. Browse our list of marketing metric definitions.

Results from your campaign require time to build momentum as Google’s algorithm learns the best time and place for your target audience to see your ads. It can take around 3 months for your campaign to fully mature. The time it takes to see results can vary depending on the industry you are in, your budget and competition. In-depth research and thorough optimizations during the early stages of the campaign are necessary to build a strong foundation for maximized results. These manual optimizations, along Google’s algorithm learning how to optimize your ad delivery, provide amazing results and a positive return on your investment if given the time that is required.

Google Analytics is one of the most important tracking tools that we use. In order for us to be able to access data about your website to accurately track our marketing efforts through your personalized dashboard, we need to be an administrator on your account. Add Fasturtle as an administrator for your Google Analytics with these easy-to-use instructions.

Google Ads

It is possible that your campaign has reached its daily budget. Your ad schedule might also contribute to this issue if you are searching outside of peak hours. Google’s understanding of search behavior and your domain is another factor that could cause your ads to be hidden, especially if searches for your product or service are made but ads are never clicked on. Familiarity with your own domain, location and search behavior may prompt Google to assume your ad should not be listed. This is because you are likely not going to complete the action tracked in the campaign such a web form or phone call.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. By working on your SEO, we help search engines recognize your website in order to gain traffic and grow your business. Search engines “crawl” sites, looking for content to understand the purpose of the website. We use SEO strategies to drive search engines like Google to view your website as an expert in your industry, encouraging them to recommend your site to users searching terms related to your business.

The time it takes to rank on Google varies for each business and each industry, based on a variety of factors. The biggest factor is competition. If your business is in a high-competition niche, if there are a few larger or national companies dominating the market, or if your competitors have websites that have been SEO optimized for much longer than yours, it will take longer to rank. Another factor at play is your website’s starting point. If your website is ranking in slot 50 at the start of our services, it will take longer to get to the first page (slots 1-9) than it would for a website already ranking in slot 13, for example. Our clients typically see progress in their ranking within 6 months of starting our SEO services.

Local SEO includes 65+ Local Directory Listings to ensure your key business information is monitored and current, and duplicates are suppressed. Your business information is synced across all local directory listings to ensure your business name, phone, and address is accurate across the web.

Your Google My Business listing is another important part of your SEO because it allows customers to find you, learn about your services, and contact you. In order for us to perform our SEO services, we will need to be an administrator on your account. Make Fasturtle an administrator on your Google My Business account with these simple instructions.

AI Search Optimization (GEO)

AI search optimization (GEO) is the practice of structuring your content and online presence so AI tools name, cite, or recommend your business when someone asks them a question. Instead of competing for one of ten blue links on Google, you are trying to be one of the few sources the AI actually pulls into its answer.

It matters right now because buying behavior already shifted. A large share of people use AI tools as their first stop to research options and make decisions — not as an experiment. If an AI recommends three companies for a job and you are not on the list, that customer never sees you.

You still need SEO — GEO is built on top of it, not instead of it. Much of what AI engines cite comes straight from pages that already rank well on Google, so strong SEO remains the foundation.

The difference is what you optimize for. SEO gets you ranked. GEO gets you trusted enough to be the answer. That means more focus on how your content is structured, how factual it is, and how many other credible sites vouch for you. Google’s own guidance is blunt about it: optimizing for its AI features is “still SEO,” and most of the “GEO hacks” floating around do little.

AI engines weigh several signals at once when deciding who to recommend:

  • Pages that already rank well for the topic on traditional search.
  • Clear, factual content that is easy to lift a single section from.
  • Third-party mentions and citations — directories, review sites, press, and forums.
  • Authority signals that show you are a real, credible expert on the subject.

Think of it as consensus. When your name keeps coming up across trusted sources, the AI has a strong reason to name you instead of a competitor.

A few things move the needle more than anything else:

  • Answer real questions directly. Write the way people ask. Lead with a short, clear answer, then back it up.
  • Add facts and specifics. Stats, numbers, dates, and named details. Vague marketing copy gets skipped.
  • Include expert quotes or original data. Publish something nobody else has and you give the AI a reason to cite you over lookalike competitors.
  • Make each chunk stand alone. AI tools grab short passages, so every section should answer one thing on its own.
  • Keep it current. Recency matters — a dated guide loses to a fresh one on the same topic.

This is not guesswork. The landmark Princeton GEO study tested nine content tactics across roughly 10,000 queries and found that citing sources, adding statistics, and including quotations lifted AI visibility by about 30–40% versus unoptimized content.

Probably not — do not lose sleep over it. Google has said flatly that you do not need llms.txt files or special machine-readable markup to appear in its AI features, because Google Search does not use them.

Some engines may treat these files differently in the future, but today they are not where your time should go. Clean site structure, fast load times, and mobile-friendly pages do far more for AI visibility.

Earning mentions on trusted third-party sites is one of the most reliable ways to get recommended by AI — and it is the part most businesses ignore. AI tools lean heavily on directories, review platforms, industry databases, reference sites, and forums like Reddit.

The practical version: get listed on the directories that already rank for your industry, keep your reviews strong, earn press or guest placements where you can, and make sure your business shows up in the “best of” lists people already trust. FT Media handles directory listing management and authority-building backlinks as part of our monthly programs, so your name shows up in the places AI already reads.

Yes — local is where this gets powerful. When someone asks an AI for “the best HVAC company near me” or “top roofer in Phoenix,” the AI looks for pages that clearly name the service and the city, plus proof like reviews and credentials.

So the basics pay off. A page that spells out exactly what you do, where you do it, your service area, and real reviews gives the AI a stronger reason to recommend you than a competitor with a thin, generic site. A consistent name, address, and phone number across your Google Business Profile, directories, and website all feed the same trust signal. Local service businesses are FT Media’s specialty — it is what we have done for HVAC companies, contractors, home-care providers, and landscapers for 25 years.

Traditional analytics will not fully show this, which is why most businesses have a blind spot here. The metrics that matter:

  • Citation rate — how often your pages get cited across the AI tools you care about.
  • Mention rate — how often your brand appears when you test a set of real customer questions.
  • Share of voice — how often you get named versus your competitors.

The simplest starting move: actually ask the AI tools your customers’ questions and see who gets named. Do it on a set schedule and track how it changes over time.

Plan on 3 to 6 months of consistent work to see meaningful movement — not a few weeks. The upside is that it compounds. A page you optimize today can keep earning citations six months from now, so the effort stacks instead of resetting.

Not at the start. ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Grok all reward the same core things: clear structure, factual content, real authority, and trusted third-party mentions. Nail those and you will show up better across all of them.

Once you are tracking results, you will notice each engine leans on slightly different sources, and you can fine-tune from there. But chasing per-platform tricks before you have built the foundation is a waste of time — especially since those results shift fast.

This is the “zero-click” worry, and it is fair. But when an AI explains your solution before someone ever clicks, it is essentially pre-qualifying them. The people who do reach out already understand what you do and arrive with higher intent.

So the visits you “lose” are not all lost. Many of them turn into a customer who was educated on your business before the first conversation ever happened.

Pick your top few money pages — the ones tied to revenue — and rewrite them to answer the real questions customers ask. Clear answers up front, specifics and proof underneath, and your service and location spelled out plainly. Then get listed and reviewed on the directories your industry already trusts.

That combination covers the biggest levers, and it is the fastest way to start earning AI mentions without boiling the ocean.

Social Media

View instructions on how to make us an administrator for Facebook and LinkedIn.

View the Facebook instructions here.

If you’re posting on a business Instagram account, as well as a business Facebook page, you can connect the two platforms to easily share one post on both. Click here to find out how!

Uploading a video on Facebook is simple and a great way to give your audience a visual representation of your company or a particular product or service. Use this link to follow step-by-step instructions on uploading a video to Facebook.

YouTube has become an important marketing tool for companies to upload informational videos, and also take advantage of advertising videos that will play as users select other videos. Here are some easy to follow instructions on uploading a video to your YouTube account.

We produce original material that is optimized for multiple platforms and structure each post for each network, including changes to the post’s length, image resolution, and hashtag usage.

On our Business and Growth programs, you can select up to 4 social media networks from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. If your plan has 12 posts and you use all 4 networks, 48 versions will be published. If you use 3 networks, you’ll get 36 variations created.

We create unique social media content that establishes your company as an authority in your industry, designed to increase social media interaction. All content has supporting copy and captions as well as scroll-stopping, captivating original graphics made uniquely for you.

For each platform, we will adjust the captions, images, and hashtags. On all 4 platforms, the content’s subject will remain constant.

No, we focus on creating high quality posts with original copy and graphics.

Our team consists of qualified, highly talented marketers with years of expertise in social media content.

Yes! As part of the onboarding process we ask for any assets you might have (such as logo, brand colors, or images).

No, at this time we do not offer this service.

We will research and learn about your industry to ensure we are creating content that is relative to your niche. Our team has had success managing a wide range of industries, with everything from real estate to data centers to e-commerce.

Absolutely! You can use our scheduler tool at the same time as us to have additional posts sent out.

Email Marketing

Use Contact Contact’s comprehensive guides and tutorials for step-by-step walkthroughs of all features and options.

To get help, log in to your Constant Contact account to see options for chat, email, or self-paced guidance.
Fastsites

Our step-by-step help guide covers all the how-to steps for making updates to your Fastsite. Tip: Search by topic, like “images” to see all the related articles for that topic!

You are welcome to send any requests, questions, or changes directly to our web team using our handy Website Support ticket link.
WebID

Real-time data and reporting can be accessed 24/7 from your WebID Dashboard.

Through the installation of a tracking pixel code on your website, WebID facilitates integrations with several data providers to identify users in real-time as they browse around your site.

Anonymous visitor identification involves several processes such as deterministic data providers (like cookie-based identification) and followed by probabilistic data providers (such as IP and fingerprint technologies). This site visit data is subsequently transformed into the lead you receive.

No. Your website visitor information will never be given to a third party. The site visit information gathered is solely for your use.

You can set this preference when you launch your WebID campaign. For B2C campaigns, you can choose to receive the name, mailing address and email address of identified web site visitors. For B2B campaigns you’ll receive the name, company, personal LinkedIn URL, and email for your visitors.

Yes. Name and address data is verified using 3rd party services to confirm that the address is deliverable. When the email address is available, that is also verified as active using 3rd party services.

The default option is to re-send data on repeat visitors every 30 days, but this can be extended up to 90 days, or disabled completely if desired.

The WebID visitor identification service is only available in the United States and will only identify visitors browsing your site in the US.

Yes. You can filter and exclude site visit data on key pages visited in addition to integrated geo filter controls using state or zip code.

Yes. WebID can seamlessly suppress your existing customers from a list you provide including email address, full name and mailing address.

The WebID data can be used to market to your identified website visitors across multiple marketing channels, including display advertising, social media direct mail and email marketing. 

Yes. There are no legal restrictions in the United States which limit how direct mail is sent or how data for direct mail sends is collected.

Yes. In the United States, the CAN-SPAM Act allows email to be sent to any user, so long as each email provides a mechanism for the user to opt out from future email.

International privacy rules like the GDPR and CASL do not apply to the WebID service because it solely operates in the United States. While certain states in the US are starting to pass state-level privacy legislation, like California’s CCPA, to date these restrictions have been centered around notification of data collection and the ability for users to opt out and/or purge data collected.  As no personally identifiable information (PII) is being collected, use of the WebID service likely does not require any additional steps to be taken outside of the ones that you are currently following for legal compliance. However, your privacy policies should be reviewed to ensure proper disclosure of the use of third-party data collection services.

We have taken proactive steps to ensure WebID service continuity by layering in highly vetted probabilistic match partners to ensure ongoing quality data collection and coverage in the event of browser updates such as these.

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