SEO Tools and Resources

President Donald The President signed an executive order approving a proposed $14 billion deal to keep TikTok operating in the U.S., with a new joint-venture company overseeing its U.S. business. ByteDance, TikTok’s China-based parent, would retain under 20% ownership if China signs off. Why we care. This deal ends a years-long national security fight that nearly got TikTok banned in the U.S., where it has more than 150 million users. For advertisers, that means continued access to one of the fastest-growing platforms for reaching younger audiences. But political and regulatory uncertainty still hangs over TikTok, leaving questions about ad budgets and brand safety. …

Table of Contents What is an SEO reporting tool? Summary: best SEO reporting tools at a glance 10 SEO Reporting tools to choose From Google Search Console (free) Yoast SEO Dashboard (free) Google Analytics (free) AgencyAnalytics (paid) Semrush (free & paid) Ahrefs (Paid) Moz Pro (free trial & paid) Screaming Frog SEO Spider (free & paid) Mangools (paid) BrightLocal (paid) Choose wisely: what to consider Turn insights into action TL;DR If you’re investing time and budget into SEO, you’ll want to know if it’s actually delivering results. That’s where SEO reporting tools come in. They take the guesswork out of your strategy by showing you what’s worki…

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…

Valentine’s Day is an interesting shopping event for ecommerce stores. Customers are looking for gifts that help express their love for one another, with flowers, jewelry, and other interesting options. It’s a great opportunity to attract and convert online shoppers. Here are some SEO tips to help make the most of your Valentine’s Day sale! Table of contents Start preparing early Optimize your product pages Create gift guides and seasonal content Focus on local SEO for delivery or pick-up Use social media and influencers Use user-generated content Run exclusive Valentine’s Day promotions Add festive details to your website Offer last-minute shopping options Track an…

Is your page not attracting the number of people you thought it would? Or are you wondering what you can improve to get your page higher up in the search results? And to get people to stay on (and come back to) your site? There are a few things you can do to give your page a better chance at performing well. In this blog post, we’ll discuss how you can determine which pages could use some extra love and what you can do to turn them into high-quality pages! It is important to realize that content quality can have a big impact on your business and online findability. Especially since Google announced its helpful content update, your rankings might suffer if you have t…

Generative AI is changing how people search. The most effective SEO strategies aren’t just AI-enhanced – they’re AI-native. Many SEO teams are moving away from manual tasks and siloed tools toward intelligent, automated systems that learn from data and scale performance across every stage of the search journey. From content creation to site architecture and real-time monitoring, AI is now deeply embedded in many winning SEO strategies. Here are 10 cutting-edge ways to leverage AI for enterprise-level SEO success in 2025 – and stay ahead in a game that’s changing faster than ever. 1. Automating SEO tasks with AI agents AI in SEO is no longer just a…

Black Friday isn’t just a sales event; it’s a battle for attention. Whenever product, price, and promotion fight for a click, visibility becomes a battle for dominance, not just survival. Are you a WooCommerce store owner pouring your energy and budget into paid ads, but not getting the required results? But what about organic traffic? That’s free traffic, compounding over time. Does it often get ignored, just when it matters most? This Black Friday, Yoast WooCommerce SEO offers a more innovative way to boost visibility in search engines. It’s built to help ecommerce teams and SEO beginners optimize product listings at scale, improve product rankings, and get their p…

Are you new to the world of PPC? If so, welcome! We’re thrilled to have you on board. A career in paid search offers exciting opportunities for growth, creativity, and making a real impact on businesses. Let me tell you, starting out in 2025 is a whole different ballgame than when I first started in PPC. In those days, we managed accounts overflowing with millions of keywords, manually adjusted bids, and navigated the platforms while learning how the web was shifting marketing and consumer behavior – all while serving our clients. This was a time before AI and automation, when text ads were static, and both searchers and marketers approached the inter…

What could be the matter if your perfectly optimized post isn’t ranking? Is the problem that your site is not on Google, or is something else going wrong? What is keeping your content from reaching that coveted #1 position? In this post, we’ll discuss many possible reasons why your page is not ranking, even though it’s optimized. We’ve divided the possible issues you might be having into four sections: Indexing and crawl issues: How to check if your site is on Google, plus reasons why your site/page might not be on Google Technical issues with your website: Is Google disregarding it because it’s incorrectly set up? Linking issues: Is your internal linking …

The SEO industry has evolved dramatically over the past decade, but the pace of change is about to accelerate even faster as we approach 2026. With the rise of AI-generated search, multimodal experiences, privacy-first regulations, and the blending of SEO with user experience and brand, the skillset required of an SEO professional is transforming radically. Today’s best practices won’t be enough tomorrow. This article explores the core SEO skills you must master by 2026 to stay competitive, drive results, and prepare your career for the future. 1. Strategic thinking: Moving beyond tactics SEO is no longer a series of isolated tactics like link building …

After 12+ years in SEO, selling to hundreds of clients – from small businesses to global brands – I’ve learned what works when it comes to landing and retaining SEO clients. While every client is unique, there are clear strategies that consistently lead to success. This article tackles my best advice for winning new SEO clients, along with insights from top industry professionals. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to scale, these proven tactics will help you build a strong client pipeline. 1. Start small When building your SEO business, you can go after big clients (“whales”) or smaller ones (“rabbits”). While whales bring higher revenue,…

We’re celebrating 15 years of Yoast, and we can’t celebrate without offering some SEO insights. So, here are 15 SEO essentials to focus on in this year and beyond. Whether you are a beginner or an SEO expert, these tips will help you focus on what’s important right now. In collaboration with our Principal SEO, Alex Moss Table of contents 1. Embrace AI-powered SEO tools 2. Optimize for zero-click searches 3. Invest in video content 4. Improve e-commerce SEO 5. Prioritize local SEO 6. Improve user experience (UX) 7. Participate in SEO communities 8. Optimize for AI discovery 9. Focus on content pruning 10. Implement structured data markup 11. Keep focusing on mobi…

It’s frustrating. You put time, energy, and a lot of hope into a webpage. But it just won’t rank. Your competitors’ pages are ranking well, even though (subjectively) they’re worse. Yours deserves to be top of Google. So, why isn’t it? Figuring out the levers to pull to get your content to the top of Google isn’t quick, but it can be done. Identifying the problem The key to identifying why your page isn’t ranking is to systematically rule out the other possibilities. For this, you’ll need data, industry context, and a methodical approach. Firstly, you need to verify if the page is not ranking at all versus not ranking well. This is key. If a pa…

If your loyalty strategy still revolves around points and perks, it’s time for an update. Consumer allegiance is no longer built on convenience alone—it’s driven by alignment. Shoppers are scrutinizing your brand’s ethics, your data practices, and your follow-through. And younger audiences aren’t shy about walking away if you miss the mark. AtData’s white paper, Beyond the Purchase: The Future of Consumer Behavior in 2025, outlines the real drivers of brand trust and retention in a post-personalization landscape. Based on emerging data and behavioral trends, it shows how to evolve from transaction-first to values-led—and still deliver measurable growth. Inside you’ll …

The PPC landscape in 2025 shifted faster than ever, with updates arriving at a pace unmatched in the industry’s 20-year history. At SMX Next, a panel of industry experts broke down what’s working, what’s failing, and what advertisers should prepare for in 2026 and beyond. The state of PPC The panelists agreed that 2025 marked a major shift, especially in how quickly Google responded to advertiser feedback. Ameet Khabra, founder of Hop Skip Media, called the year “interesting” and said he was genuinely surprised by Google’s willingness to listen to advertisers, especially on channel reporting for Performance Max. “It was really cool to see the people wh…

You don’t need a site redesign to improve performance. Sometimes, small changes—like a different headline, image, or layout tweak—can have a measurable impact. This free guide offers 26 practical A/B testing ideas that digital marketers can use to boost clicks, signups, sales, and more. You’ll find test examples for: CTA buttons and placement Product detail pages and image choices Homepage layouts and messaging Checkout friction and cart recovery Each idea comes with a brief explanation of why it might work—so you’re not testing blind. Whether you’re in search marketing, ecommerce, or CRO, this is a great resource to help you spot opportunities a…

SEO is at an inflection point due to the rise of LLMs as search platforms. This has led to a lot of contradictory information about how we should approach LLMs and whether we should even continue to call their optimization “SEO.” As a consequence, I’ve been dedicating much of my day-to-day as an SEO consultant to clarifying countless questions about AI search, many of them coming directly from decision-makers. I’ve helped them establish AI search optimization roadmaps that make sense, are realistic, and are cost-effective based on each company’s context and current SEO process. My goal: to avoid fundamental AI search optimization mistakes triggered by misinformati…

Last month, I asked ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini the same question about three of my clients: “Who is [Brand Name] and what do they do?” Two out of three got it wrong. Wrong services. Outdated office locations. One even suggested a competitor as a better alternative. Here’s what makes that more than a curious mistake. What today’s AI errors reveal about brand visibility AI-sourced traffic jumped 527% year-over-year from early 2024 to early 2025. While that growth is real, it’s growing from a very small base. Most sites still see AI referrals representing less than 1% of total traffic. But when half the AI-generated descriptions of your brand ar…

A BrightEdge study found that 68% of brands across industries are changing their search strategies to catch the GEO wave. That’s a big number, but hardly surprising – you’d have to have lived under a rock for about three years (since ChatGPT launched in late 2022) to miss the current. Still, many B2B marketing leaders I speak with haven’t fully grasped the shape of the opportunity – what GEO can do for their brands and where it falls short. There’s no question that AI search/GEO/LLMO – whatever you call it (there’s no consensus yet) – is critical to a holistic organic strategy. But leaning on them too heavily exposes gaps competitors can exploit. Thi…

Regulated industries have long faced heightened scrutiny in organic search. This is where “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) first took hold. AI Overviews and LLMs like ChatGPT have intensified that scrutiny, expanding both the audience and the consequences. Accuracy and credibility have always mattered for SEO success in regulated sectors, but in today’s AI-driven search environment, the bar is significantly higher. Experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) are not optional for regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, government, and education, which sit squarely within Google’s YMYL territory. In this new search lan…

PPC advice in 2025 leaned hard on AI and shiny new tools. Much of it sounded credible. Much of it cost advertisers money. Teams followed platform narratives instead of business constraints. Budgets grew. Efficiency did not. As 2026 begins, carrying those beliefs forward guarantees more of the same. This article breaks down three PPC myths that looked smart in theory, spread quickly in 2025, and often drove poor decisions in practice. The goal is simple: reset priorities before repeating expensive mistakes. Myth 1: Forget about manual targeting, AI does it better We have seen this claim everywhere: AI outperforms humans at targeting, and…

AI hasn’t killed search – it’s just made winning organic traffic more complex. As AI interfaces and evolving search behaviors change the landscape, SEO now requires more than just foundational tactics. The demand for information is as strong as ever, but with zero-click searches, AI-driven recommendations, and surging platforms, securing visibility in 2025 takes a more strategic, data-driven approach. The current state of search: Key trends shaping strategy Leading SEO strategy at an agency, I’m constantly fielding, “With AI everywhere, how do we adapt our approach to organic?” Rather than speculate, I’ve consolidated the recent data I’m sharing with c…

Advances in AI search are opening a new chapter, with consumers exploring Google alternatives. ChatGPT has hit a new milestone of 300 million weekly active users. Perplexity has grown to serve 100 million queries per week. Google’s global market share trended below 90% for the first time since 2015. The rapid rise of AI search platforms brings significant opportunities and growing challenges. On one hand, brands can boost visibility and drive demand like never before. On the other hand, they face new hurdles, such as copyright concerns, increasing infrastructure costs, and the ongoing challenge of measuring ROI. Despite shifts in search interf…

Consumers are increasingly using AI tools — not Google — as their first source of information. This is driven by frustration with traditional search and rising expectations that AI will play a much larger role this year, according to a new report from Eight Oh Two, an SEO and PPC marketing agency. Why we care. AI isn’t replacing search, but it’s reshaping where search begins, how people discover brands, and which options they consider. A hybrid journey is emerging: AI delivers the first answer, and traditional search confirms it. Brands now need consistency across both or risk losing credibility when users cross-check. As more consumers turn to AI, visibility, trust, …

The holiday season is make-or-break for email marketers. With inboxes bursting from October through New Year’s, even your most dazzling email content could disappear into spam folders if your deliverability isn’t solid. Mailbox Providers (MBPs), such as Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook, receive an overwhelming volume of emails during peak seasons. Their systems work harder to protect their users and reward senders who follow best practices with more reliable inbox placement. The good news? You can stay ahead with a few strategic steps. Here are four essential tips to boost your email delivery rate and ensure your campaigns reach the inbox this holiday season. 1. Un…