Advances in machine learning, neural networks, and natural language processing now allow systems to interpret queries with far greater sophistication. As a result, web strategists can no longer rely solely on traditional keyword-based SEO. Instead, they must consider how content satisfies user intent at a conceptual level.

The adoption of generative AI is accelerating rapidly. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has stated that more than 100 million people use ChatGPT every week, making it one of the fastest-growing consumer applications in history. At the same time, Google’s global share of search has slipped below 90% for the first time since 2015, as users increasingly turn to social platforms and large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity AI.

These tools are reshaping search from a list of ranked links into a conversational experience—one where users expect direct, synthesised answers rather than pages of results.

The Rise of AI Overviews and Zero-Click Search

Google’s introduction of AI Overviews (AIOs) in May 2024 has further accelerated this shift. AIOs are multi-sentence, AI-generated summaries that appear prominently at the top of search results and aim to fulfil user intent immediately—often without requiring a click.

Microsoft’s Bing Copilot follows a similar approach, embedding AI assistance directly into the search experience.

Together, these changes are influencing both search behaviour and user expectations. Queries are becoming longer, more conversational, and increasingly multimodal (for example, combining text and images). Perhaps most significantly, Zero-click searches continue to climb: in 2024 around 58.5% of U.S. Google searches and 59.7% in the EU ended without a user clicking through to any website, and this trend persisted into 2025 with roughly 60% of searches overall resulting in no external click as AI-driven answers satisfy queries directly on the results page.

AI-powered search systems also personalise results using search history, preferences, and behaviour, creating highly tailored responses rather than generic rankings.

This raises an important question: what does a world of zero-click search mean for traditional SERP rankings?

SEO Is Not Dead—But It Is Changing

Despite these disruptions, organic search remains the single largest driver of website traffic. Around 53% of all trackable web traffic still originates from organic search, and Google processes over five trillion searches annually. Of the searches that do generate a click, approximately 70% go to the top five organic results. Mobile devices now account for 61% of organic search visits, reinforcing the continued importance of mobile-optimised SEO.

However, click-through rates are undeniably under pressure. When AI Overviews appear, organic CTRs drop by roughly 67.8%, while paid CTRs decline by about 58%. This reflects how effectively AI summaries are answering questions directly within the results page.

In other words, visibility alone is no longer the primary goal. Influence within AI-generated answers is becoming just as important.

Fewer Clicks, Better Clicks?

A falling CTR might seem alarming, but Google’s Head of Search, Elizabeth Reid, offers an alternative perspective. She suggests that clicks originating from AI Overviews tend to be “higher quality”—users bounce less, spend more time on site, scroll deeper, and explore more sources.

If this is true, then traditional SEO KPIs need to evolve. Metrics such as total sessions or percentage of new users may decline, while downstream metrics—time on site, engaged sessions, qualified leads, and conversions—become more meaningful indicators of success.

This shift has helped drive the emergence of Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO): a discipline focused on optimising content for inclusion and citation within AI-generated responses, while blending AI-referral data with traditional SEO metrics.

The strategic question is no longer:
“How many clicks did we get?”
but rather:
“How effectively did we answer user intent—and what business outcomes did that create?”

Not All Queries Are Equal

AI Overviews do not appear uniformly across all searches. Their prevalence is highly context-dependent.

Google tends to surface AIOs most often for informational, high-trust, and non-sensitive queries—such as definitions, explanations, and FAQs—where summarisation is relatively safe. For transactional searches, sensitive topics, subscriptions, and breaking news, users are still more likely to click through to source websites.

This distinction is critical.

Rather than treating AI as a universal threat, businesses should audit their content portfolios and identify which pages are most likely to trigger AI summaries. Informational content is typically the best candidate for GEO-focused optimisation, while commercial and transactional pages should continue to prioritise classic SEO and conversion optimisation.

The Takeaway

Search is no longer just about ranking—it’s about relevance, usefulness, and authority in an AI-mediated environment.

The winners in this new landscape will be the brands that:

• Create genuinely helpful, well-structured, authoritative content

• Optimise for intent, not just keywords

• Measure success through engagement and outcomes, not just traffic

SEO isn’t disappearing. It’s evolving into something broader—where SEO and GEO work together to ensure visibility not only in search results, but inside the answers themselves.

The post A New Era of Search appeared first on Creative Sketch.

Origins

With 2 years of college behind me, at The London College of Print, I started work at my parents’ own print business, where they showed me how hard work, coupled with self-employment can really pay off. After a few years, I then needed to spread my wings and landed a position at a great design company, Sheppard Day, in London Victoria. I stayed for 5 and ½ years, working for Peter and Keith, our two exuberant and flamboyant bosses, alongside some brilliant people and having some great times in the big smoke! A place I would also meet my lovely partner of 20 years, Mel. Every employee of the company always said that if someone were to write The Sheppard Day chronicles, it would make for an interesting read!

Setting Out

After leaving Sheppard Day, again to gain experience and develop my skills further, I worked for a small firm in Clerkenwell for a short time before freelancing for a number of great companies, including Masius (since rebranded), Goodge St and The Workroom, Angel Islington, run by Brigid,  a resolute character with crystalline insight.

During this time, I was learning web design and development and had the feeling the sector was going somewhere, so I decided I’d like to set out alone and run my own web design business. If I’d only bought shares in Google around this time too 💰💰💰 At this point, I was living in a 1-bed flat in Shortlands, Kent, with an interloper who has stuck with me ever since 😘

Tech

I first started developing websites, back in 2005, using Adobe Flash, which provided great flexibility and ease of use but lacked when it came to SEO and content management, especially for the client. This was when I started my ‘journey’ learning Drupal (v4), when documentation was scarce but the relative simplicity of the system was good.

Drupal gave the clients and I a fantastic framework to develop websites that were more than just brochure wear, and within a short space of time I was building larger scale ecommerce and membership sites with growing complexity.

A special mention goes to Richard Latteman, who I met at a local business networking event in 2008. The Bromley Business Club was lacking numbers and Richard had decided to take on the role of chair of the club. Within a short space of time I’d designed and built a new club website and was doing my bit to help promote the club. Sadly Richard, only very recently, passed away suddenly, but like most people, I remember him as a really good guy who was always willing to share knowledge and help others. I wasn’t that confident promoting my business initially and so Richard was a great inspiration.

Growth

Since starting out in 2005 I have worked for a lot of fantastic clients, and some for the majority of this time including, Tracey Barr, Hall of Names, Platform 365, i-Publishing Consultants and Image Innovations amongst others.

Drupal development is still part of my portfolio but WordPress has taken over as the main development tool of choice, with it’s great page builder and UI. SEO has changed in this time, but the fundamentals are still present, although AI is having an affect in every aspect of the business. Developing native apps for Android and Apple devices provided really interesting, complex, but satisfying results.

Mel and I moved from Shortlands to Herne Bay, had our first child Ruby who’s now 11, and then moved to our current house in Winchcombe, and had our second daughter Cleo, now 9 years of age.

Plans

The web development sector is healthy but learning new software and tech has, and always will be crucial to providing clients with the best solutions possible. Here’s to the next 20 years!

The post Celebrating 20 years of trading! appeared first on Creative Sketch.

What is Bitwarden?

Bitwarden is a trusted, open-source password manager. Instead of keeping your login details scribbled on a sticky note or saved in your browser, Bitwarden stores them in an encrypted vault. This vault is accessible across devices, so you can securely log into your website whether you’re at your desk or on the go.

Key features include:

• Strong, unique passwords generated automatically

• Encrypted storage for all your logins

• Cross-device syncing on desktop, mobile, and browser extensions

• Team sharing options for businesses and website teams

Why Use Bitwarden for Website Logins?

Your website’s admin login is the gateway to everything — content, customer data, even payment details if you run e-commerce. Using Bitwarden ensures:

• Every login uses a long, complex, and unique password

• You don’t have to remember or write down credentials

• Passwords are stored securely, reducing the risk of a data breach

Instead of relying on memory, you let Bitwarden fill in strong credentials for you.

Adding 2FA for Extra Protection

While Bitwarden makes sure your passwords are strong and unique, you can make your website logins even safer with two-factor authentication (2FA).

2FA requires a second step when logging in — usually a code from an app like Google Authenticator, Authy, or Bitwarden’s own authenticator. That means even if someone did get your password, they still couldn’t access your site without the second verification step.

For example:

1. You log in with your strong password from Bitwarden.

2. You enter the one-time code from your authenticator app.

3. Only then do you gain access.

This extra layer is essential for WordPress, Drupal, or any CMS where admin accounts are a prime target for hackers.

How to Get Started

1. Install Bitwarden: Sign up for a free account and install the app/browser extension.

2. Add Your Website Logins: Save your website’s admin login into your Bitwarden vault.

3. Enable 2FA: Go into your website’s security settings and enable two-factor authentication. Pair it with an authenticator app.

4. Use Daily: Let Bitwarden autofill your logins and generate strong new passwords when needed.

The Bottom Line

If you manage a website, protecting your login details isn’t optional — it’s critical. By using Bitwarden for password management and enabling 2FA on your site, you dramatically reduce the risk of being hacked.

Strong passwords + Two-Factor Authentication = A safer website.

The post Why You Should Use Bitwarden and 2FA to Secure Your Website Logins appeared first on Creative Sketch.

As the lead of the website development project, as part of i-Publishing Consultants, we worked closely with the PKF team and the designers to understand what they were trying to achieve with the rebrand and how best this could be integrated into the site.

From the outset it was clear they wanted a quicker more dynamic website, working smoothly on desktop and mobile devices. The site would continue to use the open source system WordPress, but we chose to build a block theme, utilising the latest WordPress functionality. These themes are built for the newest features coming to WordPress that allow you to edit and customise all parts of your site.

The new website uses the Gutenberg editor and it’s powerful page builder, with blocks and patterns easily accessible on the backend, ready to be dropped into the page, edited and/or dragged into position. We created a number of patterns that allowed PKF to add banners, differing headers, column content, a variety of video styles, slideshows and more.

The end result is a fast, responsive website, utilising the refreshed brand identity, giving PKF Littlejohn an agile page building experience and their customers an exciting, content rich environment to discover their services and product offerings.

Visit the new PKF Littlejohn website

The post Responsive Website With An Agile Page Builder appeared first on Creative Sketch.

In order for a page to rank it needs the following basic SEO components:

• A keyword or phrase
• Placement of that keyword or phrase within
  • the page title
  • SEO title
  • description
  • URL
  • page copy
  • h1 heading and h2 sub-headings
  • image alternative text

SEO Keyword Research

You may think you already have a keyword or phrase in mind but is it what people are actually searching for? Keyword research is the bedrock of your Search Engine Optimisation strategy and the best places to start are via Google Ads keyword planner or the Moz keyword tool. These keyword tools provide valuable information such as search volume, the number of monthly searches for a keyword, a difficulty rating, how easy or hard it is to rank for the keyword, along with suggested alternative keywords that you might not have thought of.

Does your keyword or phrase need to be targeted at a certain location or place? This is called localisation and should be part of your keyword research.

Placement Of Your Keyword

Now you have researched your keyword, found one that has a reasonable volume of searches and is not too difficult to rank for, you can now start to add it to your page.

To start with your keyword should be within these key places:

• the page title
• SEO title
• description
• URL (slug)

The Yoast SEO plugin is helpful when it comes to optimising your page and, as per the preview below, you can see where I have used the keyword ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ within these 4 areas:

Search Engine Optimised Page Content

The elements above are all things that are within the page code or appear in the search engine results pages. Next we need to use our keyword within the content the user will see on the page itself, within the:

• page copy
• h1 heading and h2 sub-headings
• image alternative text (Alt text)

Your page copy needs to contain at least 300 words, with your keyword and synonyms used throughout. But there is a balance needed between a page written for ranking alone and one written for the end user. Google’s algorithms know when a page has been over optimised and the Yoast plugin does a good job of telling you if the keyword density of a page is too great, so don’t over do it!

When creating your page the software you use will employ a theme to style how it looks and should, if setup correctly, use the appropriate headings for your page title, an h1 heading, and allow you to add h2 headings throughout your page.

When adding an image to the page you should have the option to add Alternative Text (Alt text) to your image, as per the screen grab below. This text is used by screen readers, for blind or partially sighted users, and search engines, to describe the image to the user.

You can review your page code by going to View > Developer > View Source within Chrome to check all of the above are in place correctly.

All our website packages come with basic SEO and advanced SEO is available at a set monthly fee. Do contact us if your website requires Search Engine Optimisation.

The post Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Basics appeared first on Creative Sketch.

Rebrand

The new logo design needed to incorporate the different aspects of acupuncture, that go back thousands of years, with a contemporary look and feel.

Affordable Web Design

This design package, using one of our website templates, gives you a brand-new site for a fraction of the costs of a bespoke design. Giving you a unique website along with the ability to update it yourself, an SSL certificate to protect the site and visitors to it, email and hosting.

If you’re looking for a new website design, at an affordable price, do get in touch, we’d be happy to talk you through the process.

Testimonial

“Excellent service – efficient, innovative, friendly – with endless knowledge and expertise! Highly recommended.”

Ric Malkinson, Owner Acupuncture Cheltenham

View the Acupuncture Cheltenham website

The post Affordable Web Design & Rebrand appeared first on Creative Sketch.

You can see the full list included with this package on the above link but in brief this allows you to choose from one of our pre-existing website designs, which we take and customise to your branding e.g. logo, colours, fonts, imagery and text. The designs are responsive/mobile ready, include 5-10 pages and an SSL certificate for security.

Using one of our pre-designed templates businesses can get to market quickly, gain customers and get on with day-to-day business. You’re not held back by constantly telling customers your website is coming soon and please check back soon for more info! The Nextpath website and email was up and running with a matter of days.

We also designed the Nextpath logo in good time for the business launch:

We helped the business get online quickly and continue to manage the website and email system with on-going updates and support, that comes with the website package.

Testimonial

“Richard has been most helpful in establishing and enhancing our online presence and branding. He created a visually appealing website for Nextpath, and implemented a number of customised features to improve its functionality, with great appreciation for the urgency at which this needed to happen. An example of this is the Careers Page, which Richard adapted to meet the needs of our company. Richard also looked after the graphic design of our company logo and stationary and again achieved designs that are visually appealing and separate us from the crowd. Summarising, Richard delivered an excellent product and service, meeting the brief, and we would highly recommend his work.”

Chantal Fay – HR Manager, Nextapth Limited

The post Quick To Market With SME Extra Package appeared first on Creative Sketch.

Part of this redesign was a small design iteration of their logo, replacing the sun icon with the standard letter ‘o’, whilst also beefing up the colour scheme:

Before

After

The new web design incorporates a lot more movement and animation giving the site more life and a better user experience. We also had to find a way to highlight their many service offerings in a simple but effective way, something we achieved with the use of icons near the top of the homepage:

Platform 365 don’t have a dedicated sales team and so needed a way to capture new business leads quick and easily. We decided to put a simple form directly into the homepage to save users time and to capture vital data immediately:

To promote their most in-demand content we created a 3 column area to catch the users attention and drive them to the content from across the site:

The redesign has proved a great success with positive feedback from their customers.

“We’ve worked with Richard and his team for over 10 years, due to their reliable and professional approach to their work plus innovative design eye. The recent redesign of our website was to coincide with an office move and increase in our service levels to our clients. This meant the new design was going to be crucial in focusing our marketing to current and future clients.

 

Richard worked closely with us and was quick to grasp what we were trying to achieve. The new design is dynamic and eye catching, whilst at the same time clean and uncluttered, allowing our key services to be brought to the fore.

 

We’ve had nothing but compliments from customers on the new website redesign. The site really does a great job in promoting our services and we can’t recommend Richard and all those at Creative Sketch highly enough.“

Mark Willis – Director, Platform 365

The post Corporate Website Redesign appeared first on Creative Sketch.

Lesley already had a logo but needed branding and web design services to highlight her Colonic Hydrotherapy and Nutritional therapy treatments, based out of two clinics in the heart of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

We decided to go with WordPress as the base system, which allows for quick and easy editing for website admins. On top of this we designed a fully responsive theme that uses some beautiful photography of a dandelion, along with complimentary colours to the supplied logo.

“Creative Sketch have been fantastic throughout. They really listened and understood what I wanted. They’re highly talented and knowledgeable, very responsive and efficient, and a really friendly service to boot! I’m so happy with my new website and can’t recommend Creative Sketch highly enough.”
Lesley Painter, owner – Dandelion Nutrition & Health

All the best with your new business Lesley, I’ve already heard good things from my partner, who visited you for colonic hydrotherapy and thought the treatment was of great benefit.

The post Start-up: Dandelion Nutrition & Health Launches In Cheltenham appeared first on Creative Sketch.

Atticus Media Consultancy are a digital communications and broadcast news consultancy based in Scotland delivering tailored, creative and professional services.

The honeycomb represents the industrious bees that form a collective, working together for a successful outcome, the bees being the members of the Atticus Media team.

In addition to the logo and website we also designed business cards, printed at our locally digital printer and shipped to Nathan in Scotland.

The post Atticus Media Consultancy Launches appeared first on Creative Sketch.