SEO Tools and Resources

You’ve probably heard the saying: Fast, cheap, or good – pick two. The concept goes something like this: If you want something fast and cheap, don’t expect it to be good. If you want it good and fast, it’s going to cost more. And if you want it good and affordable, well, you’ll need to give it time. It’s a simple way to explain how tradeoffs work in projects. In SEO, these tradeoffs are especially important to understand because you’re often creating problems that will cost more to fix later. This article looks at variations of this project management concept and how it applies to SEO. Then I’ll explain why a quality-first approach l…

OpenAI is reportedly nearing the launch of ads in the ChatGPT Android app, according to recent code findings. Meanwhile, one user says an ad has already appeared in the wild. What’s new. Early references to an ad system were found in the latest ChatGPT Android beta (v1.2025.329). Inside the APK, TestingCatalog spotted strings such as: “ads feature” “bazaar content” “search ad” “search ads carousel” These entries may suggest an ad framework under active development, likely focused on search, shopping, and product recommendation requests rather than disruptive display ads in every chat. Zoom out. ChatGPT ads will help OpenAI offset the cost of serv…

Managing budgets across multiple paid media channels is one of the most important skills in a PPC marketer’s toolkit. You’re constantly deciding how to allocate spend across channels and campaigns, how to handle big budget swings, and whether to set total or daily budgets. In an AI-driven ad platform world, campaign budgets remain one of the few levers marketers still fully control – and they deserve careful thought. Structuring your budget effectively Depending on your business model, you may have more or less input into the overall paid media budget. However, you usually have more control over how that budget gets broken out across channels and cam…

Social media now drives more traffic to small and medium-sized businesses than search, and many SMBs are beginning to track AI-generated referrals. They also see competitors showing up in AI summaries as an emerging threat, according to new survey data published today by WordStream by LocaliQ. Why we care. Small businesses now see AI summaries as an emerging and important channel. These summaries shape buyers’ early decisions and can steer them toward competing products. AI referrals have also become clear and trackable, convincing businesses that they can – and should – optimize for them. Google traffic losses rise. Forty percent of SMBs say they’ve lost traffic …

Google is rolling out Preferred Sources globally after launching the feature in the US and India last August. Plus, Google announced a new feature Spotlighting subscriptions that highlights links from your news subscriptions within Gemini and will later come to Google Search via AI Overviewa and AI Mode. Preferred Sources. Preferred sources let searchers star sources within the Top Stories section of Google Search, and then Google will use that information to show more stories from that starred source. It was in beta in June and then rolled old in the US and India in August. It is now rolling out globally. Robby Stein, VP of Product, Google Search, wrote, “We’re n…

Google Search Console appears to have fixed the month-long delay with the page indexing report just about an hour ago. The report is now showing data as early as a few days ago, which is the normal timeframe for when this report is updated. Plus, emails about indexing issues have started going out from Search Console to site owners again. Page indexing report. It shows which pages Google can find and index on your site, along with any problems. You can also submit fixes there and see whether Google confirms they worked. Site owners and SEOs were stuck, they were unable to verify their “fixes” and unable to see if new pages were being indexed and if old pages were…

For the past decade, customer journey design has assumed one thing: the customer is human. A real person. Messy. Emotional. Overloaded. Someone who needs clarity, reassurance, and a sense of progress to keep moving forward. But in 2026, that assumption no longer holds. AI agents are starting to influence how people search, compare, choose, and buy. They filter results, generate shortlists, book services, and soon may even negotiate on our behalf. While much of AI usage is still task-based, it marks a critical shift. Once AI becomes part of how information is gathered, filtered, and prioritized, it begins to shape the decisions that follow. …

Google now adds Call Assets to Vehicle Ads so shoppers can call dealers right from the ad. Why we care. Vehicle Ads already attract high-intent buyers. Click-to-call removes friction at the exact moment they’re ready to speak with a dealer. The big picture. Automotive advertising is shifting toward immediacy. Buyers don’t want more forms. They want answers, availability, and a real person. Call-enabled Vehicle Ads shorten the path from search to conversation. Between the lines. Advertisers now carry more responsibility. When the ad becomes the point of conversion, call handling, staffing, and response quality directly shape performance. Dealers that treat …

Getting found in all the right places has always meant being early to the next major shift in search. Today, that shift is toward GEO, or generative engine optimization, and SEO redefined as search everywhere optimization. Both describe the growing need to optimize content for AI-driven discovery. If YouTube still sits in the “nice-to-have” category of your SEO strategy, you are quietly ceding visibility in both traditional rankings and Google AI Overviews to competitors. YouTube is now core search infrastructure YouTube can’t be relegated to “brand” or “social” anymore because the platform is now core search infrastructure. YouTube is the second…

Google today unveiled the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard that lets AI agents work across the entire shopping journey, from discovery to purchase to post-sale support. Additionally, Google is introducing new AI tools for retailers, including branded shopping agents and ad formats optimized for AI-driven discovery. About UCP. UCP establishes a shared language between AI agents and commerce systems, removing the need for custom integrations across agents or platforms. UCP works with existing standards (e.g., Agent2Agent, Agent Payments Protocol, and Model Context Protocol). Google co-developed it with partners including Shopify, Etsy, W…

Some advertisers are reporting that a Google Ads system tool designed for low-activity bulk changes is automatically enabling paused keywords — a behavior many account managers say they haven’t seen before. What advertisers are seeing. Activity logs show entries tied to Google’s “Low activity system bulk changes” tool that include actions enabling previously paused keywords. The log entries appear as automated bulk updates, with a visible “Undo” option. Historically, the tool has been associated mainly with pausing inactive elements, not reactivating them. What we don’t know. Google hasn’t publicly documented the behavior or clarified whether this is an int…

Today, we’re excited to welcome Yoast AI Summarize to our growing family of AI features. Just like our other AI tools, this new feature is designed to make your publishing process faster and easier by putting powerful, practical AI right where you work, in the WordPress Block Editor. Yoast AI Summarize is perfect for bloggers, content teams, agencies, and publishers who want to give readers instant value while also making sure their posts clearly communicate the intended message. What does Yoast AI Summarize do? You’ve finished drafting your post, great! But before you hit “Publish,” wouldn’t it be helpful to instantly see the core points your content is ac…

For years, SEO and PPC defined two sides of search – one focused on organic authority, the other on paid performance. Both aimed to capture traffic but often worked in silos, optimizing toward different goals. Now, that separation is ending. The rise of generative AI has redrawn the map, merging once-distinct disciplines into a single, fluid ecosystem. Search engines like Google and Bing have evolved into conversational AI platforms that deliver instant, often singular answers while seamlessly integrating ads. This shift – marked by zero-click results, conversational interfaces, and pre-packaged information – means no single strategy can guarantee…

AI Overviews, ChatGPT, zero-click results, and other recent developments have all triggered the latest wave of goodbyes to SEO. Except SEO isn’t dead. It might even be thriving. Search engines still command approximately 88% of all search traffic. But alongside this, AI usage is almost doubling. So what gives? Well, consumers don’t care about AEO versus GEO versus SEO. Or even necessarily choosing between Google and ChatGPT. They simply use both. Why the either/or narrative is dangerous The marketing world loves a good binary. But opposing search engines and AI search against one another is a false choice. These aren’t competing realities. They’r…

AI search evolves every month. This constant flux is reshaping which brands get visibility and which sources AI models trust most. We now have three months of data in the AI Visibility Index, tracking ChatGPT and Google AI Mode. The key takeaway: AI search is volatile. This is likely to be normal for the immediate future. The brands that win are monitoring and adapting to these changes in real-time. The research tracks 2,500 real-world prompts across five key verticals: Business & Professional Services, Digital Technology & Software, Consumer Electronics, Fashion & Apparel, and Finance. revealing seismic shifts in source diversity, brand mentio…

OpenAI is trying to reassure paying users after ChatGPT surfaced what looked like ads from brands like Target and Peloton – and said those prompts weren’t ads at all. What happened. Paying ChatGPT users shared screenshots of promotional-style prompts, including a message urging them to “Shop for home and groceries. Connect Target.” In response, OpenAI said those prompts were recommendations for apps built on the ChatGPT platform, with “no financial component.” Users saw a brand logo and a call to action – and drew the obvious conclusion: these were ads. Users were not pleased. One response: “Bruhhh… Don’t insult your paying users.” What OpenAI is sayi…

LinkedIn is introducing new ad innovations designed to help B2B marketers strengthen brand awareness, personalize messaging, and accelerate creative workflows — all aimed at reaching potential buyers earlier in the funnel. What’s new: Reserved Ads give marketers front-row placement in the LinkedIn feed, ensuring premium visibility, predictable impressions, and a higher share of top-of-feed attention than competitors. The format works across Video, Thought Leader, Single Image, and Document Ads, letting brands maximize creative impact. Ad personalization allows messages to dynamically adjust using member profile data like first name, job title, industry, or com…

Google today released the December 2025 core update. Google said this core update “Today we released the December 2025 core update.” This is the third core update of 2025, and the fourth overall update in all of 2025. Google previously had the August 2025 spam update, before that was the June 2025 core update and before that was the March 2025 core update. Google also wrote: “Released the December 2025 core update. The rollout may take up to 3 weeks to complete.” Google added on LinkedIn, “this is a regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites.” Core updates happen multiple times per year. C…

News executives expect search referrals to drop by more than 40% over the next three years, as search engines continue evolving into AI-driven answer engines, according to a new Reuters Institute report. That shift is squeezing publisher traffic and accelerating a move away from classic SEO toward AEO and GEO. Why we care. Google’s AI Overviews and chatbot-style search are changing how people get information, often without clicking through. SEO visibility, attribution, and ROI models built on old playbooks are breaking fast. What’s happening. Publishers expect search traffic to nearly halve. Survey respondents forecast search engine traffic down 43% within three y…

AI-powered search isn’t coming. It’s already here: Google’s AI Overviews now reach 2 billion monthly users. ChatGPT serves 800 million users each week. Perplexity processed 780 million queries in a single month. As rankings and clicks matter less, citations matter more. Businesses now need content that AI engines trust and reference when answering questions. That’s the role of AI content optimization. Want to see where you stand? Get a free GEO audit of your website in under 60 seconds. What is AI content optimization? Generative engine optimization (GEO) adapts digital content and online presence to improve visibility in AI-generated answers.…

Between a teetering economy and AI tools rapidly replacing entry-level roles, marketing careers – and many others – can feel increasingly unstable. There is a silver lining for those willing and positioned to look for it. In marketing, it’s this: professionals who can adapt, think critically, and integrate AI thoughtfully into their work can accelerate workflows, sharpen strategy and targeting, and spend more time on initiatives that drive meaningful impact. It’s still early in the AI era, but more than a decade as a marketing leader has made certain patterns clear. Across my own team and the in-house teams we work with, some PPC marketers are better pos…

Google has introduced “Personal Intelligence” in the Gemini app as a beta which allows Gemini to give you a more personalized response by connecting across your Google ecosystem, including Google Search, Gmail, Photos, and your YouTube history. Google said this is “Launching as a beta in the U.S., this marks our next step toward making Gemini more personal, proactive and powerful.” This will also be coming to Search in AI Mode soon, Google told us. While Gemini could already retrieve information from these apps, with Gemini 3, it can now reason across your data to surface proactive insights. Here is how it looks. Here is a video of how it works: Avai…

Customer lifetime value (CLV) is often treated as a static metric. In practice, it is shaped by how different types of customers behave – and churn – over time. One of the most important dynamics to understand is the “shakeout effect,” where early churn removes lower-value customers from a cohort, leaving a smaller, more stable group with higher engagement and more predictable purchase behavior. This article takes a closer look at the shakeout effect in CLV analytics, why it happens, and how marketers should account for it when evaluating churn, retention, and long-term profitability. What is the shakeout effect in the context of CLV analytics? Imagine…

Marketers can now set a total budget for a campaign over a defined period. Google automatically optimizes spend to fully use the budget by the campaign’s end date. The feature, earlier only available for Performance Max, is now available Search and Shopping campaigns, reducing the need for daily adjustments. Why we care. Managing budgets for short-term campaigns — like product launches, sales events, or promotions — hasn’t been easy. Marketers often tweak daily budgets manually to avoid overspending or underutilizing spend. Google’s new campaign total budgets, now in open beta, aim to solve that. Big picture. The update lets campaigns run confidently without overs…

Over the last 12-18 months, the rhetoric across Search Engine Land has shifted. There’s now broad agreement that people don’t just “Google” to discover brands anymore. Audiences are finding brands on TikTok, researching on Reddit, watching YouTube, and increasingly asking AI to summarize everything for them – determining whether a brand is found or ignored. Discoverability is no longer about ranking first on a single platform. It’s about showing up consistently across the touchpoints that make up your audience’s search universe, wherever decisions are actually being made. In this new landscape, two tactics are quietly doing much of the heavy lifting…