ACS Creative

10/12/2026

Cybersecurity Awareness Month spotlight: our branding, marketing, and website work for Merlin Cyber. See how we helped a security company stand out from a sea of padlocks and circuit boards.



https://www.acscreative.com/portfolio/merlin-cyber/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=q4-2026-social&utm_content=2026-10-12

10/09/2026

It's Cybersecurity Awareness Month! The simplest way to protect your WordPress site is to keep it updated. Old plugins and outdated PHP are the most common way in for attackers. Our maintenance plans handle updates, backups, and vulnerability patching so you don't have to think about it.

https://www.acscreative.com/website-design/website-maintenance-and-hosting/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=q4-2026-social&utm_content=2026-10-09

10/08/2026

llms.txt is the file everyone in AI search is talking about, and almost nobody can say what it actually does.

Short version: it is a one-page plain-text summary of your website written for AI models instead of browsers. It takes an hour to set up, costs nothing, and no major AI provider has committed to reading it yet. We deployed it on our own site and a few client sites and found one plugin problem that quietly made the file invisible. Here is what it does, what it does not, and how to add one to WordPress.

Read more here: https://www.acscreative.com/insights/what-is-llms-txt/

10/07/2026

Quick test: ask ChatGPT to recommend a business like yours in your town. Did it name you? Our free guide walks you through 30 questions to try across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, and Google AI, plus what to do with what you find.



https://www.acscreative.com/insights/ai-search-visibility-audit/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=q4-2026-social

10/07/2026

Schema Markup for AI Search: The Five Types That Matter for a Local Business

For a local or regional business, five schema.org types do most of the work for AI search visibility: LocalBusiness (or its specific subtype), Organization, Service, FAQPage, and Person for the people behind the business.

Together they tell AI systems what you do, where you do it, who does it, and what questions you answer. Everything else is optional until those five are complete and accurate.

Read more at https://www.acscreative.com/insights/schema-markup-ai-search/

10/05/2026

Our new website, 40 years in...

Forty years in, we took our own advice and rebuilt acscreative.com from scratch. New custom WordPress theme, faster pages, clearer services, and a lot more about the Maryland, Northern Virginia, and DC communities we work in.

Come take a look and let us know what you think!



https://www.acscreative.com/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=q4-2026-social

10/01/2026

Does AI recommend your business? A 30-query audit you can run yourself

To find out whether AI assistants recommend your business, run the same 30 customer-style questions across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, and Google AI Overviews, record which businesses each one names, and note the sources it cites.

A step-by-step method for checking whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, and Google AI Overviews recommend your business, and what to do about the results.

09/29/2026

We test PageSpeed on every site we audit, and the pattern is consistent: business owners either ignore the score entirely or chase 100 for its own sake. Both miss the point.

Here is what the number means, why it matters, where the real gains are, and what the numbers look like on the site we launched yesterday.

What a Google PageSpeed score actually measures, why the field data behind it affects rankings, conversions, and ad costs, and what usually fixes a low score.

09/08/2026

Why AI-Generated Websites All Look the Same (And Why That Should Worry You)

We noticed it the way you notice a song you have heard too many times. One of our designers was reviewing a batch of new competitor sites for a client in the home services space, and about four tabs in, she stopped and said, “Wait, did I already open this one?”

https://www.acscreative.com/insights/ai-generated-websites-all-look-the-same/

06/30/2026

How Much Does a WordPress Website Cost for a Small Business?

For most small businesses in the Maryland, Virginia, and DC area, a professional WordPress website is a few-thousand-dollar investment for the initial build, plus a smaller recurring amount each year for hosting, maintenance, and support.

The real number comes down to scope: how many pages you need, how custom the design is, whether you sell online, and what has to keep working after launch.

Anyone who hands you a flat price before learning what you actually need is guessing.

https://www.acscreative.com/insights/how-much-does-a-wordpress-website-cost-for-a-small-business/