About John Crockett

I've spent more than 20 years in earned and owned media, working for startups and for established brands like Ancestry, Target and Thomson Reuters. Today I'm Director of SEO and AEO at Ancestry.

My focus is the part of marketing you don't rent: the content you own and the authority other people grant you. That used to mean ranking. Increasingly it means being the source an AI system cites when it answers the question for you.

I'm wary of tactics that win a quarter and lose a year. The work I care about is slower to build and harder to copy: original data, clear expertise, a site that search engines and answer engines can trust. Done well, it pays for itself again and again.

I write here about SEO, AI search (AEO and GEO), and earned and owned strategy, and I occasionally build things with AI to see what's possible.

The best way to reach me is LinkedIn or the contact form.