SEO Tools and Resources

For years, Salesforce Marketing Cloud was the safe choice. Powerful. Enterprise. Trusted. But lately, we’re hearing something different: “Our data is too tangled to activate.” “We’re locked into contracts.” “We’re stuck sending the same emails on repeat.” “Everything is Band-Aids and duct tape — I don’t know how we can move without breaking everything.” “We feel stuck.” Sound familiar? If so, this fireside chat is for you. We’ve helped dozens of brands migrate off Salesforce and into modern, composable engagement architectures built for real CRM performance. Not because it’s trendy — but because marketers needed more speed, flexibility, an…

LLMs and AI tools have transformed nearly every industry, including marketing. We’ve become accustomed to AI’s ability to: Generate text, images, and video. Summarize articles. Transcribe audio. Write code. Access webpages. But as these models evolve, their capabilities are entering a new phase with the introduction of Model Context Protocol (MCP) – a development that will also reshape how we think about search visibility. MCP allows LLMs and AI systems to connect more easily to external data sources and tools, giving organizations a new way to deliver meaningful content to both AI systems and their users. What is Model Context Protocol? …

Table of contents What are you actually paying for when building a website? Website building options Watch out for these hidden costs How Yoast saves you money (over time) Budgeting tips for small business owners Ecommerce vs. general website: does it change the cost? Final thoughts TL;DR Thinking about building a website? Whether you are a small business owner, a freelancer, or launching a side project, one of the first questions you will want answered is: how much does it cost to build a website? This is not just about curiosity, understanding your website costs early on can help you budget effectively and avoid any unpleasant surprises. The truth is that t…

Many articles detail the top-level costs of SEO. While the fee you will pay an SEO consultant or agency is part of the cost to do SEO, getting results also requires a contribution in time and effort from the business. This article will look beyond the surface at the full spectrum of costs associated with doing SEO well, enabling you to approach 2025 well-prepared for SEO success. SEO costs: The basics If you are just looking for a straightforward overview of SEO costs, several studies have answered the question. Exact costs vary depending on factors such as business size, goals, industry, geographical location, and the overall complexity of the proje…

Wikipedia was once widely considered an unreliable source. Today, however, it’s often treated as a credible reference point because of its extensive citations and collaborative editing process. It’s also one of the primary sources AI search systems rely on. Alongside Reddit, Wikipedia heavily influences the information surfaced by ChatGPT and Google. The downside to this is that Wikipedia isn’t always foolproof. Negative or outdated information often persists on certain pages for months or even years. That information is then funneled back into AI search systems and relayed to users. This creates a feedback loop where outdated or negative narratives can gain l…

For a long time, a nonprofit’s digital presence hasn’t been a “nice-to-have.” It’s the central hub for mission delivery, donor engagement, and advocacy. Many organizations struggle with the technical and strategic foundations needed to turn a website and a few social accounts into a high-performing digital ecosystem. The goal isn’t simply to “be online.” It’s to build reliable infrastructure, so your organization owns its narrative, protects its assets, and measures the impact of “free” digital efforts. Here’s a practical look at the critical elements of managing a nonprofit’s digital presence — and the common pitfalls to avoid — based on my experience helping…

AI is changing how people discover and understand brands. It’s also reshaping how they search, with users turning to tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews for answers instead of clicking through pages. They interact with synthesized summaries, not traditional results. That shift forces marketers to rethink how visibility is built. SEO still matters, but it now extends beyond on-page content or rankings. Visibility depends on how often a brand is cited, referenced, and discussed across the digital ecosystem, and how those signals are interpreted by large language models. Enter the PESO model. Long used to balance paid, e…

Pinterest attracts users who want inspiration and solutions, not passive browsing. The platform now reaches 600 million monthly active users, many of whom arrive with clear intent to research, plan, or purchase. That makes its ad formats especially valuable for marketers who want to appear in moments when people are actively looking for ideas and products. Here’s how each format works and when to consider it. Ad formats explained Pinterest Ads offers a variety of ad formats, many of which aren’t available on other social media platforms. Let’s take a look at what formats they offer and when you might want to consider using them. Carousel ads …

PR measurement often breaks down in practice. Limited budgets, no dedicated analytics staff, siloed teams, and competing priorities make it difficult to connect media outreach to real outcomes. That’s where collaboration with SEO, PPC, and digital marketing teams becomes essential. Working together, these teams can help PR do three things that are hard to accomplish alone: Show the connection between media outreach and customer action. Incorporate SEO – and now generative engine optimization (GEO) – into measurement programs. Select tools that match the metrics that actually matter. This article lays out a practical way to do exactly that, witho…

Have you ever faced a critical media campaign error? You’re not alone. We’ve all been there. A budget that burns out in hours instead of weeks, a missing pixel that breaks tracking… And no one notices… until it’s too late. The consequences? Real. Costly. Stressful. Trust damaged. These aren’t strategic failures. They’re operational blind spots and they happen even in the best teams, with the best tools. Digital is full of setups and moves fast. Errors and risks aren’t exceptions, they’re systemic. So ask yourself: Is your media operation truly safe? If your answer isn’t a clear “yes,” it’s time for a game-changer. 1. The hidden risks behind every campaign …

Does schema markup really benefit AI search optimization? Some suggest it can 3x your citations or dramatically boost AI visibility. But when you dig into the evidence, the picture is far more nuanced. Let’s separate what’s known from what’s assumed, and look at how schema actually fits into an AI search strategy. How schema fits into AI search now Search is shifting from surfacing a SERP with blue links to AI Overviews, generative answers, and chat‑style summaries that collate content in addition to links. To get your content to appear in this model, your site has to be understood as entities — singular, unique things or concepts, such as a person, place,…

SEO agencies are perfectly positioned to expand their services to include website management. The connection between SEO and site maintenance is clear: both prioritize keeping websites fast, functional, and optimized for search engines. Tasks like improving load times, fixing errors, and maintaining security align with what SEO agencies already do. By offering website management alongside SEO, agencies can build new revenue streams, potentially including reselling site hosting. Unlike project-based SEO work, site management creates opportunities for ongoing, predictable income through recurring service plans. This is a strategic way to grow your business and…

Agentic AI is increasingly appearing in leadership conversations, often accompanied by big claims and unclear expectations. For SEO leaders working with ecommerce brands, this creates a familiar challenge. Executives hear about autonomous agents, automated purchasing, and AI-led decisions, and they want to know what this really means for growth, risk, and competitiveness. What they don’t need is more hype. They need clear explanations, grounded thinking, and practical guidance. This is where SEO leaders can add real value, not by predicting the future, but by helping leadership understand what is changing, what isn’t, and how to respond without overreacting. …

You know SEO improves traffic, authority, and trust. What we don’t talk about enough is how a strong SEO foundation can help other channels, including PPC. This practical case study will show you how performance marketing scales in a high-consideration B2B medical device market and how getting SEO fundamentals firmly in place enables paid media to deliver at scale. B2B medical device marketing breaks most performance playbooks Marketing a premium pelvic floor chair has little in common with selling SaaS tools or consumer products. This is a high-ticket medical device with a long sales cycle and a strong reliance on medical expertise. Buyers include doctor…

Conversion signals are disappearing from your marketing data, and it’s probably costing your business money. Ad blockers, aggressive privacy laws, cookie deprecation, and a host of other converging factors have combined to mask significant conversion data, costing businesses up to $203 million in revenue annually, according to one Deloitte study. For most brands, the path from discovery to purchase is no longer clear. This signal decay is more than an annoying data quirk. Left unchecked, it can make it harder for new customers to discover your brand. Most marketers don’t realize they’re making decisions based on incomplete data. Instead, they see top-of…

AI search visibility in beauty is increasingly shaped before a prompt is ever entered. Brands that appear in generative answers are often those already discussed, validated, and reinforced across social platforms. By the time a user turns to AI search, much of the groundwork has been laid. Using the beauty category as a lens, this article examines how social discovery influences brand visibility – and why AI search ultimately reflects those signals. Discovery didn’t move to AI – it fragmented Brand discovery has fragmented across platforms. AI tools influence mid-funnel consideration, but much discovery happens before a user enters a prompt. The signals…

When a website migration goes wrong, the consequences can be a devastating loss of organic traffic and revenue. But what happens when the damage isn’t immediately visible? What if Google is silently deprioritizing your content, page by page, until your traffic has evaporated? This is the case study of how a multinational media organization lost 90% of its traffic following a domain migration, and how addressing a seemingly harmless technical issue — soft 404 errors — helped unlock suppressed traffic potential across 13 country-specific domains. While this case study examines events from 2021–2023, the lessons learned remain timeless and directly applicable to any …

Until a few years ago, schema helped search engines extract basic facts and display visual enhancements like star ratings and sitelinks. However, in the AI-driven search world, schema plays a different and fundamental role for local SEO, helping Google and other AI systems understand who you are, what you do, where you operate, and how confidently your information can be reused. Improving rankings isn’t as relevant. Now, schema helps reduce confusion for Google and reinforces your business as a stable, trustworthy local entity across traditional search, local packs, AI Overviews, rich results, and external AI platforms. Let’s dig into how schema helps local S…

You’ve probably heard developers talk about the DOM. Maybe you’ve even inspected it in DevTools or seen it referenced in Google Search Console. But what, exactly, is it? And why should SEOs care? Let’s take a look at what it is, why it’s important, and how to best optimize it. What is the DOM? The Document Object Model (DOM) is a browser’s live, in-memory representation of your webpage. It acts as the interface that allows programs like JavaScript to interact with your content. The DOM is organized as a hierarchical tree, similar to a family tree: The document: This is the root of the tree. Elements: HTML tags like <body>, <p>, and <a…

Is your website traffic dropping, leaving you unsure of what went wrong? Every day without action means more lost rankings, leads, and revenue. This article outlines a seven-step framework to help you analyze the causes of your traffic drop and create an SEO plan to fix it. What’s causing your traffic to decline? Some website owners hope for a quick fix to restore traffic, but our analysis shows most drops are caused by one or more of the following: Changing search intent. User experience issues. New ads or Google SERP elements. Algorithm updates. Technical issues. Content changes Backlink decay. To fix the ranking drop and regai…

Search behavior is no longer just people typing keywords into Google. It’s people asking questions and, in some cases, outsourcing their thinking to LLMs. As Google evolves from a traditional search engine into a more question-and-answer machine, businesses need a robust, time-tested way to respond to customer questions. AI changes how people research and compare options. Tasks that once felt painful and time-consuming are now easy. But there’s a catch. The machine only knows what it can find about you. If you want visibility across the widest possible range of questions, you need to understand your customers’ wants, needs, and concerns in depth. That’s wh…

Big brands have a blind spot. They talk about “brand health” while ignoring what users are actually asking about their products – on Google, in AI answers, and across search data. Meanwhile, all the signals are right there in the SEO stack. Questions like “Is Gatorade actually good for you?” aren’t just keyword opportunities. They’re warning signs. And if you know how to read them, they expose major gaps in brand trust and positioning. The brand audit hiding in your SEO tools I sent a client a 100+ page audit evaluating their brand (to be fair, there were a lot of screenshots), and their first question was, “Where did you get this data?” It w…

If you’re still just copy-pasting prompts into ChatGPT to write ad copy, you’re missing the real opportunity – using the ChatGPT API to automate repetitive, time-consuming tasks inside your Google Ads workflow. At my agency, we’ve used GPT-4o in scripts, Google Sheets, and custom-built apps to solve real problems – from Shopping feed cleanup to search term waste audits to performance reviews across entire accounts. This article shows you how to set up the API, use it safely and efficiently, and apply it to high‑impact PPC workflows. Step 1: Get access to the ChatGPT API To use GPT in your own scripts or applications, you’ll need access to the OpenAI API. T…

Over the past decade, I’ve reviewed hundreds of resumes, conducted countless interviews, and led numerous technical tests for SEO candidates. Along the way, I’ve met many exceptional professionals — but I’ve also noticed a recurring pattern of common interview mistakes that can hold even the most talented candidates back. Below are 11 common mistakes I’ve observed in SEO interviews — and how you can easily avoid them. 1. Projecting arrogance instead of confidence Confidence is great! While imposter syndrome is common in SEO, it’s important to maintain realistic confidence in your skills and experience. However, there is a fine line between projecting conf…

Marketing mix modeling (MMM) is having a moment in marketing measurement. As privacy regulations limit user-level tracking, marketers are turning to it for reliable, cross-channel measurement. (We love it at my agency – MMM analyses often lead to smarter budget allocation with significant downstream impact.) But as adoption grows, so do execution errors and misconceptions about what MMM can and can’t do. Despite its strategic potential, it’s often misused, misinterpreted, or oversold – leading to costly mistakes and credibility loss from unrealistic expectations. MMM isn’t a black box. To produce meaningful insights, it demands context, strategy, iteratio…