CGL Marketing

CGL Marketing I’m Carla, a small business marketing consultant helping Bay Area service businesses simplify marketing with clear strategy and practical support. Message me.

From content and local visibility to social media and ads, I help you focus on what matters. I support small business owners, solopreneurs, and local nonprofits in the Bay Area who want to show up online — without getting overwhelmed in the process. I’m Carla Gerardu-Low, and I help make digital marketing feel doable. From social media and branding to content strategy, local SEO, and Google Ads, I share simple ways to connect with your audience and grow with confidence. You’ll find thoughtful, down-to-earth marketing support designed for the real challenges (and wins) of running a small business.

Last month, Google announced a new generative AI report coming to Google Search Console. I went looking for it in my acc...
09/24/2026

Last month, Google announced a new generative AI report coming to Google Search Console. I went looking for it in my account.

Nope, don't have it yet.

But while I was there, I did something I should honestly do more often - I looked at the actual search queries where my website is showing up. Here's what I found:

“How to show up on Google.”
“What is local SEO.”
“SEO and AEO for small businesses.”
“Prioritize your marketing.”

Kind of a fun little rabbit hole.

I help small businesses make their marketing and content clearer and easier to find. SEO and AEO are part of that, but they're not the whole point.

Seeing these searches was a nice sign that the content I'm putting out there is helping Google understand what my business does and who it's for.

Funny how sometimes the useful marketing insight isn't in the newest feature. It's just sitting in the data you already have.

A good marketing idea doesn’t automatically deserve a spot at the top of the list.That can be hard to remember when advi...
09/22/2026

A good marketing idea doesn’t automatically deserve a spot at the top of the list.

That can be hard to remember when advice is coming from everywhere. A seminar, an AI conversation, a friend, or an article can all send you off in a new direction.

Sometimes the idea is worth pursuing. It’s just not the most important thing right now.
That’s where strategy comes in.

Wrote more about it in the new post. Link in the first comment 👇

Clarity is underrated.You know that moment when you’re standing at a coffee shop trying to remember the difference betwe...
09/17/2026

Clarity is underrated.

You know that moment when you’re standing at a coffee shop trying to remember the difference between a cortado, a flat white, and a cappuccino? ☕️

Then I saw this menu. Oh. Now I get it.

When you work with your products or services every day, it’s easy to forget that your customers don’t. You know what everything means. You know the differences. To you, it’s obvious.

To them, it's a wall of options and a stranger waiting to take their order.

Sometimes you're just too close to your own thing to see what's confusing about it.

Ever feel like marketing turns into a game of whack-a-mole?You hear about something you should be doing, so it moves up ...
09/15/2026

Ever feel like marketing turns into a game of whack-a-mole?

You hear about something you should be doing, so it moves up the list. Then another idea pops up. And another.

The problem isn't necessarily that any of those ideas are bad. The harder question is whether they're more important than everything else you could be doing right now.

That's exactly what the new post is about: putting new marketing ideas into context instead of automatically adding them to the top of the list.

Link in the first comment 👇

Technically, very effective advertising.I walked past this sign, laughed, stopped to read the whole thing, and took a pi...
09/10/2026

Technically, very effective advertising.

I walked past this sign, laughed, stopped to read the whole thing, and took a picture.

Which is when my marketing brain kicked in. It got my attention. It got me to stop. I read it. I remembered it. And now I’m sharing it with you.

I mean... the sign did its job.

Not sure I’d recommend the strategy for every business, though.

AI search is changing how people find and evaluate businesses. But I don't think the answer is rewriting your website fo...
09/08/2026

AI search is changing how people find and evaluate businesses. But I don't think the answer is rewriting your website for AI.

Your site still needs to work for the humans who visit it. What's changing is that the same information may also help AI tools understand your business before someone ever clicks through.

For small businesses, that just means being clear about what you do and intentional about how you say it.

More on the blog. Link in the first comment.

Summer may be winding down, but there’s still time to enjoy a long weekend. Wishing you a relaxing and happy Labor Day!
09/07/2026

Summer may be winding down, but there’s still time to enjoy a long weekend. Wishing you a relaxing and happy Labor Day!

I run Google Ads, and sometimes the hardest part isn't the ad. It's getting Google to understand what you actually want ...
09/03/2026

I run Google Ads, and sometimes the hardest part isn't the ad. It's getting Google to understand what you actually want it to measure.

I ran into this recently when I realized a potential conversion wasn't being tracked. Was it an important one? Maybe. But we couldn't know because we weren't measuring it.

So I set it up. Google Tag Manager, then Google Analytics, then... stuck. After more troubleshooting than I care to admit, it turns out I didn't have the right permissions. Once that was fixed, the conversion finally showed up in Google Ads.

Frustrating, yes. But I enjoy the challenge of figuring it out.

Here's the bigger point though: ad platforms can only work with the information you give them. Before you decide whether your ads are working, make sure you're actually measuring what matters to your business.

AI Overviews are changing what happens between a Google search and someone actually landing on your website.You don’t ne...
09/01/2026

AI Overviews are changing what happens between a Google search and someone actually landing on your website.

You don’t need to rewrite your whole site because of it. But the information already there may be doing more work before someone visits, whether you planned it or not.
For small businesses, the real question is simpler: does your website clearly say what you do, who you help, and why someone should pick you?

I wrote more about what that means for your website and AI search.

Link in the first comment.

Do you talk to your devices?I've been using ChatGPT Voice to practice my Dutch. My Dutch is abysmal. I get words wrong, ...
08/27/2026

Do you talk to your devices?

I've been using ChatGPT Voice to practice my Dutch. My Dutch is abysmal. I get words wrong, my grammar is off, and sometimes I just stop mid-sentence because I can't find the word I need.

Somehow it still figures out what I'm trying to say.

That got me thinking about how differently we talk to technology now. For years, we learned how to phrase things for search engines. Short phrases. The right keywords. Now we're just talking, messy and full of context, changing direction halfway through a thought. Technology is just getting better at keeping up with us.

So what does that mean for your business? Keywords still matter, but don't just think about what people type into Google. Think about what your customers actually ask you on the phone or in an email. Those questions are probably already telling you what belongs on your website.

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Oakland, CA

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