SEO Tools and Resources

To meet the web content crawlability and indexability needs of large language models, a new standards proposal for AI/LLMs by Australian technologist Jeremy Howard is here. His proposed llms.txt acts somewhat similarly to robots.txt and XML sitemaps protocols, in order to allow for a crawling and readability of entire websites, putting less of a resource strain on LLMs for crawling and discovering your website content. But it also offers an additional benefit – full content flattening – and this may be a good thing for brands and content creators. While many content creators are interested in the proposal’s potential merits, it also has detractors. But…

Roblox unveiled a new immersive video advertising format on its platform and announced a strategic partnership with Google to expand its advertising business reach. Google will roll out these ads across AdMob and Ad Manager, creating significant new revenue opportunities for publishers while giving advertisers contextually relevant ways to reach engaged audiences. Big picture. The gaming giant is introducing rewarded video ads up to 30 seconds long that offer in-game benefits, marking a significant evolution of its business model beyond traditional gaming revenue. These ad formats are designed to blend seamlessly into virtual environments – appearing as billbo…

Sick of seeing the error “Discovered – currently not indexed” in Google Search Console (GSC)? So am I. Too much SEO effort is focused on ranking. But many sites would benefit from looking one level up – to indexing. Why? Because your content can’t compete until it’s indexed. Whether the selection system is ranking or retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), your content won’t matter unless it’s indexed. The same goes for where it appears – traditional SERPs, AI-generated SERPs, Discover, Shopping, News, Gemini, ChatGPT, or whatever AI agents come next. Without indexing, there’s no visibility, no clicks, and no impact. And indexing issues…

The Google March 2025 core update finished rolling out over a 14-day period, starting on March 13, 2025, and completed about 14 days later on March 27, 2025. This March core update took about a week longer than Google’s December 2024 core update, which started December 12, 2024 and completed about 6 days later on December 18, 2024. Please understand that if a core update impacts a site, it can result in a huge change for that site’s search visibility. So, I do not want to diminish any core updates, including the March core update; those could have been really big for you or the sites you manage. Data providers on the Google March 2025 core update Semrush. Semru…

Are you controlling your paid search campaigns, or are they controlling you? If you can’t confidently articulate your smart bidding strategies, you lose conversions and credibility. True mastery isn’t just about setting up a campaign and picking a bid strategy; it’s about owning and communicating the process effectively. This guide is your roadmap to clarity and control, breaking down 2025’s Smart Bidding into actionable insights. We’ll cover key concepts, common mistakes, and actionable tips for picking the right strategy. Smart Bidding in Google Ads: AI-powered bid optimization Smart Bidding is Google Ads’ advanced form of automated bidding. …

Are you tired of your social media efforts not achieving the results you hoped for? It might be time to scale up your social media optimization efforts. Your content might be good, but you could do various enhancements to make it stand out. For instance, your content needs proper metadata for X, Facebook, and the like to appear properly on each platform. Yoast SEO can help you do this quickly. Table of contents What is social media optimization? Facebook and other social media X Use templates for social media snippets What about Pinterest? Conclusion on social media optimization Sharing your freshly written (or optimized) content on social media is important…

Microsoft Advertising will require advertisers to provide explicit user consent signals starting May 5. First communicated to advertisers a few weeks ago, this change ensures compliance with global privacy regulations while maintaining the ability to gather insights that optimize ad performance. Why we care. As data privacy concerns grow, businesses face increasing pressure to protect personal information. Microsoft’s enforcement of Consent Mode offers a way to balance privacy with performance, reinforcing trust while meeting regulatory requirements. What is Consent Mode? Consent Mode is a feature from Microsoft Advertising that respects user privacy preferen…

Google Ads will update its Unfair Advantage Policy to clarify that the restriction on showing more than one ad at a time for the same business, app, or site only applies within a single ad location. This change, staring April 14, follows recent experiments allowing multiple ads from the same advertiser in different locations on the search results page. What’s happening. Double serving now permitted: Advertisers can now run multiple ads for the same business, app, or site on a single search results page—provided they occupy different ad locations. This could potentially increase visibility and clicks for top advertisers but may also intensify competition for …

Reddit Ads is introducing a suite of new tools aimed at helping small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) streamline campaign management, optimize ad performance, and improve data accuracy. Easier Campaign Setup and Management: Campaign Import. Reddit Ads now allows advertisers to import campaigns directly from Meta in just three steps. After signing into their Meta account within Reddit Ads Manager, users can select an ad account and campaign to import, then customize it to fit Reddit’s platform. This seamless process enables advertisers to leverage high-performing Meta ads on Reddit quickly. Simplified Campaign QA. A new review page in the Reddit Ads Manager …

With the rise of AI-powered features, search engines are not just directing users to information but delivering answers directly. This shift is redefining how people interact with the web, raising questions about the future of SEO, content discovery, and digital marketing. Here’s what’s coming next. From ChatGPT to Grok 3: The breakneck pace of AI advancements The world has seen rapid and significant advances in AI technology and large language models (LLMs) within two years. Looking back just three years ago, Google’s Gemini and Meta’s LLAMA did not exist, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT was later released in late November 2022. Fast-forward to January 2…

Ever wondered why some of your ecommerce products or blog posts never appear on Google? The way your site handles pagination could be the reason. This article explores the complexities of pagination – what it is, whether your site needs it for SEO, and how it affects search in 2025. What is pagination? Examples of pagination in action. Why is pagination important for SEO? Google’s deprecation of rel=prev/next. Why pagination is still important in 2025: The infinite scroll debate. How JavaScript can interfere with pagination. How to handle indexing and canonical tags for paginated URLs. What is pagination? Pagination is the coding an…

Writing quality content should be a key aspect of every SEO strategy. But when is your content considered good or high-quality? And does quality mean the same for your users as for Google? In this article, we’ll discuss creating content and how you can make sure it hits the mark. It will require some creative writing skills. But don’t worry, you don’t have to become the next big author! By focusing on the right things, you can create high-ranking quality content that your users will happily read. What is quality content? That is the million-dollar question. Knowing how to write good content helps you get more visitors, higher conversions, and lower bounce rates. Bu…

Ad hijacking occurs when dishonest affiliates create ads almost identical to a brand’s official ads. They copy headlines, text, and display URLs so potential customers assume these ads are legitimate. In reality, these affiliates, often involved in affiliate hijacking and other affiliate program scams, send clicks through their own tracking links to earn commissions they haven’t really earned. When this happens inside an affiliate program, it’s called affiliate ad hijacking. Many hijackers use an affiliate link cloaker to hide the final redirect, preventing brands or ad platforms from seeing the trick. If someone clicks on one of these fake ads, they la…

Google concluded a 14-year legal battle over advertising billing practices, agreeing to a substantial settlement without admitting any wrongdoing. The resolution marks a significant moment in the company’s complex history of digital advertising regulations. The big picture. The lawsuit centered on allegations that Google manipulated its AdWords platform between 2004 and 2012, specifically targeting two key issues: artificially reducing advertiser discounts through Smart Pricing and distributing ads beyond advertisers’ designated geographic location. Context. Advertisers accused Google of violating California’s unfair competition law, claiming the tech giant misled…

I always ask the same hypothetical question to friends and coworkers: If you were 20 years younger with the hindsight you have, what career path would you take differently? It’s fairly easy to look back. But what’s (much) harder is to look forward in time and identify areas that will increase in value in the next few years. Here are five marketing skills I believe will only increase in value in the next few years to expand your expertise and your career path options. 1. Creative generation Everybody seems to think creativity is dying, especially since the rise of AI over the past two years. However, AI is the exact reason why I think the skill of cr…

The first core update of the 2025 year, the March 2025 core update, is now done rolling out and complete. It started on March 13, 2025 and completed about 7 days later on March 27, 2025. This update was a typical core update where Google updates its core ranking system to make search results more relevant and helpful. This update followed the December 2024 core update. It took a few months for Google to release a new core update despite expecting the core updates to be more frequent in 2025. What Google said. Google said about this core update: “The rollout was complete as of March 27, 2025.” What we saw. The initial rollout seemed to kick in within a …

Agencies are navigating a marketing world powered by AI, evolving platforms, and consumer expectations that change overnight. The pace is dizzying, but it’s also full of opportunity. When we asked marketing agencies what new trends they anticipate for the year ahead, their insights revealed a shared focus on leveraging AI to scale operations, diversifying content strategies to stay ahead of declining organic reach, and adopting tools that balance creativity with efficiency. These trends reflect where the industry is heading and how agencies are preparing to meet new challenges. We’ll unpack the key insights from over two dozen marketing agencies, explore the stra…

Over the last few years, AI has upended many aspects of our world, including search. The rise of generative AI threw many of us for a loop. If you’re one of them, still scrambling to make sense of this new normal, you might be wondering: what matters most in SEO now? The answer may surprise you. It isn’t fancy new tricks – it’s mastering the fundamentals that drive traffic and rankings. As AI answer engines, like ChatGPT search and Google AI Overviews, become part of everyday life, they’re changing how people interact with search. But at their core, these tools rely on some principles that have guided SEO for years: A strong technical fo…

Using transition words in your writing can help you enhance the readability of your content. They help your text flow and show readers the relationship between phrases and paragraphs. That’s why the readability checks in Yoast SEO provide feedback on your use of transition words. But what are transition words, and why are they so important? And how should you use them? Table of contents What are transition words? Why you should use transition words Types of transition words Why are they important for SEO? What does the transition word check in Yoast SEO do? How to improve your usage Conclusion What are transition words? Transition words like ‘and’, ‘but’,…

Has your organic traffic looked like this over the past couple of years? I’ve evaluated a handful of global websites negatively impacted by core updates related to page experience, helpful content, and spam. This specific site is a large enterprise global site with multiple subdomains and millions of orphaned pages without proper URL structure. If you’re an SEO professional seeing an impact like this on your organic traffic, you may want to read on. Many websites struggle with buried content, missing internal links, and a lack of logical hierarchy. The good news? You can optimize your site architecture and give users and search engines the…

Are all Google Ads conversions created equal? Let’s say a $500 sale and a $50 sale both land in your lap: do you treat them the same? If not, you need to test Maximize Conversion Value, one of the four Smart Bidding strategies in Google Ads. We’re going to cover: What is Maximize Conversion Value bidding? What’s the difference between Maximize Conversion Value and Maximize Conversions? Should you use Maximize Conversion Value bidding? What’s the difference between Maximize Conversion Value and Target ROAS? Do you need a Target ROAS with Maximize Conversion Value? When can you use Maximize Conversion Value bidding? Tips for optimizing y…

Bring your Shopify products to life in Google searches. Highlight product variants that shoppers care about—color, size, pattern, material and audience demography—and watch your clicks and sales soar. Why you and your customers will love it Attract more shoppers Make it easier for Google to show exactly what customers are searching for. Stand apart Richer product details and search snippets help you outshine competitors. Confidence and clarity Easily check your structured data in the Schema tab—no more confusion. No extra cost Available immediately for all Yoast SEO for Shopify users. Here’s how to try it: To access the Yoast …

With the rise of AI-powered search and steady increases in monthly LLM referral traffic, many of our SEO clients are asking how they can improve their visibility and brand sentiment in AI responses. One of the biggest challenges, though, is that most marketing teams don’t have a dedicated generative engine optimization (GEO) budget or team members with the bandwidth to fully support large-scale AI search optimization initiatives. The good news? There are several strategies that can benefit both your traditional SEO and AI visibility. These optimizations can help make your content digestible for search engines, relevant for AI-generated responses, and mor…

LinkedIn released automation updates that could help advertisers leverage advanced forecasting, automation, and insights to streamline ad creation and maximize ROI with new levels of efficiency. The big picture: The new Media Planner helps you forecast ad performance before launch. Ad Duplication and Dynamic UTMs simplify campaign creation and tracking. Marketing Overview, Measurement Insights, and AI-driven Performance Digest provide deeper measurement capabilities. What’s new: Media Planner. Forecast ROI before you launch What it does. Helps you test different audience segments, placements, and budgets to predict campaign outcomes. Key ben…

Email is more than just a communication tool. It serves as the backbone of first-party data, identity resolution, and personalized marketing strategies — all essential for success in today’s privacy-first, omnichannel landscape. In this new white paper from AtData, Is Email Dead? Exploring the Evolution and Vitality of Email, readers will find a data-backed look at why email continues to deliver — and how both brands and agencies can leverage it to power better targeting, engagement, and ROI. It covers: Why email remains one of the most cost-effective, high-impact tools in the marketing stack How validated, enriched email data supports identity resolution and …