SEO Tools and Resources

For over a decade, Google rewarded rankings with visits, so SEO practitioners learned to justify success with rankings, clicks, and traffic. For a long time, that proxy worked. But in B2B, it was always fragile—and now it’s collapsing. Zero-click searches siphon visits, SERP features crowd out listings, and generative engines influence early discovery with answer-first experiences. What once looked like performance is now little more than hope-based marketing. The real challenge for practitioners has never been about proving activity—it’s been about translating our expertise into outcomes the business actually cares about. Aligning with business objectives is crit…

Since its inception in 2015, the Search Engine Land Awards have recognized exceptional marketers on an annual basis — showcasing outstanding work, providing well-earned exposure in coverage and interviews, and bestowing upon them the highest honor in search. But the road between deciding to begin an application and winning the award can be a long one. Although the submission process is exceptionally streamlined — it’s never been faster or easier to apply — there’s still a story that has to be told. The way you tell that story is entirely up to you… but why not bear in mind some first-hand advice from select 2025 judges while you’re at it? Keep reading for a ro…

My SEO colleagues have a tall task on their hands, one that grows taller by the day as AI-powered search proliferates: compensating for eroding website traffic. Yes, I’m talking about zero-click search, which is taking root across AI search and LLMs like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini – and the AI Overviews creeping into more traditional SERPs. A recent report featured in these pages cites an organic SERP CTR drop between .64% and 1.41%. The smart money is on that CTR dropping as zero-click search behavior gains momentum. (Though recent Semrush data showed zero-click behavior declined slightly.) I would also bet on Google finding more ways to minimize th…

Over the course of my three-decade career, the keyword drove paid search. Today, it’s one of many signals. Strategy is what determines performance. Keywords were what you researched for weeks, then built your strategy around based on what you uncovered or hypothesized. You managed everything from bids to matched search terms to negatives and the audiences you targeted. Your career was built and measured by how well you structured around a keyword. Paid media has always been deeply tactical, with Google driving the majority of search. You were methodical about placements, audiences, bids, headlines, extensions, and keyword-stuffed URLs. This model worked. It ga…

Structured data helps search engines, Large Language Models (LLMs), AI assistants, and other tools understand your website. Using Schema.org and JSON-LD, you make your content clearer and easier to use across platforms. This guide explains what structured data is, why it matters today, and how you can set it up the right way. Table of contents What is structured data? A simple example of structured data Why do you need structured data? Is structured data important for SEO? Structured data can lead to rich results Different kinds of structured data Which structured data types matter most? Structured data for voice assistants The technical details Structured data shou…

Black Friday is peak retail season, yet many brands still lose money on Google Shopping ads for products they’ve already sold out of. The problem. Ads continue to run after items go out of stock, triggering cost-per-click charges with little to no chance of conversion. In a ShoppingIQ study of 500 global retailers, 97% continued to pay for clicks on unavailable products, often for 24 to 48 hours. Why we care. Out-of-stock ads waste budget, distort campaign performance, and confuse algorithmic learning. When clicks lead to dead ends, conversion rates drop, rankings slip, ROI falls, and future bidding becomes less efficient. Example. Argos reportedly continued t…

A three-year analysis of up to 6,000 advertisers shows that using Google’s seasonality bid adjustments during Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) consistently harms efficiency — even though the platforms keep recommending them. The big picture. Smart Bidding’s models are designed to anticipate predictable retail spikes. Optmyzr’s analysis of tens of billions of impressions across 2022–2024 found that advertisers who skipped seasonality adjustments consistently performed better on efficiency metrics. Without adjustments, Smart Bidding: Identified the BFCM conversion lift on its own Raised bids rationally Kept ROAS stable — even improving it in 2024 …

AI-powered search won’t kill the web, according to Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai. This despite the growing evidence that AI Overviews and AI Mode are cannibalizing traffic and content, according to multiple publishers and SEOs. Why we care. Google is transforming its core search product into a more conversational, AI-driven experience. Critics like the News/Media Alliance called AI Mode “theft,” while Cloudflare’s CEO said AI is killing the business model of web. Search is growing. Pichai told The Verge’s Nilay Patel that AI Overviews are fueling more and longer queries – including on Apple devices and platforms. That news about Safari traffic falling for the …

Google Search is evolving beyond links and answers into a system that completes tasks, potentially fundamentally changing how users interact with the web. That’s according to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, speaking on the Cheeky Pint podcast. Why we care. Google is signaling a move from information retrieval to task execution. Search becoming agentic. Traditional search behavior is already changing and will continue to, Pichai said. “If I fast-forward, a lot of what are just information-seeking queries will be agentic in Search. You’ll be completing tasks. You’ll have many threads running.” Pichai also described a future where Google Search acts less like a…

Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified today that the U.S. government’s proposed remedies could upend how the company handles search and how users experience the web. Why we care. A judge ruled that Google illegally maintained a monopoly in search. Now, the court is deciding how to fix it. If the court adopts the DOJ’s proposals, it could reshape the search landscape. What Pichai said. Today, Pichai called the data-sharing requirements “so far-reaching, so extraordinary” that it amounts to a “de facto divestiture” of Google Search itself. Also: Pichai argued that forcing Google to share search data compromises user privacy. “People search in their most v…

More than a third of consumers – including nearly 4 in 10 Gen Z users – have ditched Google Search in favor of Pinterest’s visual-first search experience, according to a new Adobe survey. And businesses are following their lead to capture traffic and engagement. By the numbers. Thirty-six percent of consumers said they start searches on Pinterest instead of Google. That includes 39% Gen Z users. Other findings: 39% of consumers use Pinterest as a search engine. 24% of business owners use Pinterest – and nearly a quarter of those businesses plan to boost ad spending on Pinterest this year. 80% of businesses say Pinterest drives more engagement than other sea…

Google continues to lose ground among younger generations, with 61% of Gen Z and 53% of Millennials using AI tools instead of Google or other traditional search engines. That’s according to a new Vox Media survey. Why we care. We continue to see early signs that Google search may be starting to slip – from Google’s market share dropping below 90% for the first time since 2015 to other surveys indicating searchers are frustrated with search quality. Things are changing rapidly – from the rise of AI answer engines and generative engine optimization, to the growth of social platforms for discovery (e.g., TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest). Many brands and marketers are still …

The largest annual survey of PPC professionals finds the industry under growing pressure — more opaque platforms, weaker measurement, and AI tools that help but haven’t transformed the day-to-day. Why we care. More than half of practitioners (53%) say PPC is harder than it was two years ago, up from 49%. The dominant reason isn’t competition — it’s that platforms are making more decisions advertisers can’t see or override, and that gap is only widening. With 89% of digital spend flowing to just three companies, advertisers who don’t build measurement infrastructure independent of platform reporting are increasingly flying blind. By the numbers: 1,306…

On episode 328 of PPC Live The Podcast I speak to Susan Yen, PPC team lead at Search Lab, discussing everything from Performance Max pitfalls to the growing (and sometimes risky) role of AI in marketing. Susan’s biggest PPC f-up: Performance Max gone wrong Susan’s most memorable mistake came when she dove headfirst into Performance Max (PMax) campaigns too soon. At first, results looked incredible — traffic spiked, conversions multiplied, and reports looked great. But soon, the client noticed the leads were poor quality or fake. After investigating, Susan discovered that traffic was coming from low-quality placements, conversion tracking was misconfigured, and …

Are you ready to take your SEO and PPC campaigns to the next level of success? Tackle the challenges of the New Year with actionable tactics, expert guidance, and the inspiration you need to succeed at the spring edition of the SMX Master Classes — happening live online this March. In-depth training. Actionable tactics. Invaluable Q&A. This spring’s lineup features seven outstanding courses tackling core topics critical to 2025 success: Your Training, Your Way. You asked, and we listened: For the first time ever, each Master Class will take place on different days, giving you the flexibility to attend multiple classes live and customize the perf…

What would you do if you realized that you had lost 15% of your market share last month? Can your brand afford to fall behind in Google Ads, even for a week? Right now, the recent tariff shifts (taxes on imported goods) are sending shockwaves through global industries. Supply chains are strained. Pricing strategies are in flux. And consumer behavior is shifting faster than many advertisers can track. When the ground moves this quickly, visibility into your paid search market share isn’t just helpful, it’s essential. Even a few percentage points can mean the difference between leading or lagging in Google Ads. That’s exactly what Adthena’s PPC Market Share Rep…

Technical SEO extends beyond indexing to how content is discovered and used, especially as AI systems generate answers instead of listing pages. For generative engine optimization (GEO), the underlying tools and frameworks remain largely the same, but how you implement them determines whether your content gets surfaced — or overlooked. That means focusing on how AI agents access your site, how content is structured for extraction, and how reliably it can be interpreted and reused in generated responses. Agentic access control: Managing the bot frontier From a technical standpoint, robots.txt is a tool you already use in your SEO arsenal. You need to add the…

Website migrations are one of the most challenging aspects of SEO. No matter how much experience you have in technical SEO, how detailed your plan is, or how thorough your checklist may be, unexpected issues can still arise. That’s why post-migration monitoring is just as crucial as the migration itself – especially in the first month when hidden problems are most likely to surface. This article tackles some of the most surprising post-launch errors I’ve encountered, along with practical tips on how to identify and resolve them before they cause serious damage. Random 404 pages This issue drove me crazy. It’s a nightmare for SEO testing because it skew…

In an era where efficiency is key, many businesses question the time and resources spent on technical SEO audits. However, cutting corners in this critical area can lead to incomplete insights and missed opportunities. Let’s dive into why technical SEO deserves a firm investment in both human effort and time, starting with the often-overlooked challenge of crawl time. Crawl time: The primary hindrance Reducing human resource time in your SEO or digital marketing department by cutting technical SEO may be unwise. Why? The primary factor behind the time taken for audits is crawl time. With today’s complex web architectures, this is inevitable.…

If you’re managing multiple campaigns for your brand or your clients, you know how hard it is to scale landing page creation without sacrificing performance. This guide breaks it down—with real examples, tactical insights, and repeatable strategies from a designer who helped generate 14.8 million conversions using Unbounce. Inside, you’ll get: 5 high-performing landing page designs from SaaS, education, and entertainment industries Conversion-driven tactics you can apply to your own campaigns Smart tips for building faster, designing for mobile, and increasing results without reinventing the wheel Whether you’re designing in-house or outsourcing to …

Chinese ecommerce giant Temu was a dominant force in paid acquisition across Google, Meta, and other platforms – until mid-April, when it abruptly halted all U.S. advertising. This was a stunning move from one of the internet’s most aggressive spenders. Temu’s sudden absence opened up a flood of ad inventory – and with it, new questions: Who won? Who lost? And what does it say about market dynamics? The impact on the digital ad ecosystem was immediate and profound, based on research by Mike Ryan, head of ecommerce insights at Smarter Ecommerce. Catch up quick: Over three days in April, Temu’s Google Shopping impression share collapsed, signaling a total …

Temu completely shut off Google Shopping ads in the U.S. on April 9, with its App Store ranking subsequently plummeting from a typical third or fourth position to 58th in just three days. The company’s impression share, which measures how often their ads appear compared to eligibility, dropped sharply before disappearing completely from advertiser auction data by April 12. The timing coincided with the The President administration’s hardened stance on Chinese imports, raising tariffs to 125% while maintaining a more moderate approach to other trading partners. First seen. Mike Ryan, head of ecommerce insights at Smarter Ecommerce, shared this news on LinkedIn…

The AI engine pipeline has 10 gates between your content and a recommendation: Discovered. Selected. Crawled. Rendered. Indexed. Annotated. Recruited. Grounded. Displayed. Won. Confidence at each gate multiplies, which means your worst gate sets your ceiling, and a single near-zero anywhere in the chain drags the whole result down with it. That dynamic leads to a simple rule. The “Straight C” principle: in any multiplicative system, the weakest stage sets the ceiling for the entire system, and the highest-leverage fix is always the near-zero, not the near-perfect. Brent D. Payne nailed it in Sydney in 2019: “better to …

SEO didn’t stand still in 2025. It didn’t reinvent itself either. It clarified what actually matters. If you followed The SEO Update by Yoast monthly webinars this year, you’ll recognize the pattern. Throughout 2025, our Principal SEOs, Carolyn Shelby and Alex Moss, cut through the noise to explain not just what was changing but why it mattered as AI-powered search reshaped visibility, trust, and performance. If you missed some sessions or want the full picture in one place, this wrap-up is for you. We’re looking back at how SEO evolved over the year, what those changes mean in practice, and what they signal going forward. Key takeaways In 2025, SEO shifted its focus…

AI search measurement in 2026 looks a lot like paid media in 2008. Everyone can see the impressions. Almost nobody can defend the revenue. Agencies are slapping AI visibility dashboards onto retainers, clients are writing checks, and CFOs are starting to ask the question that always ends a hype cycle: Prove it. Here’s the hard truth. Citation share, presence rate, and AI Overview appearance counts are the new domain authority. They look defensible in a slide. For 95% of the agencies selling them, they aren’t connected to pipelines in any rigorous way. What I lay out below is a five-layer framework for measuring GEO performance that you can actually defend. No…