SEO Tools and Resources

If your organic traffic is down but impressions are up, AI is likely citing your content without sending clicks. If both are down, you’re being ignored. Either way, the search behavior your marketing strategy was built on has changed, and waiting for traffic to rebound isn’t a strategy. This is the reality you’re facing in 2026. According to KEO Marketing: 73% of B2B websites saw significant traffic losses between 2024 and 2025, with an average 34% year-over-year decline. The impact isn’t evenly distributed. If your content is primarily informational, you’ve likely been hit harder, with some sectors seeing organic traffic drop 15% to 64% since AI Overviews la…

OpenAI has begun testing ads in ChatGPT for a limited set of U.S. users, with placements clearly labeled as sponsored. The platform’s internal economics suggest it’ll be available to everyone sooner rather than later. When it does, advertisers will have access to a rare new channel for demand capture. But advertisers should enter this space with their eyes wide open. For ChatGPT advertising to be successful, consumer behavior will need to change. And even if it does, ChatGPT won’t expand the advertising market. It’ll redistribute it. Why ChatGPT is moving into ads The fact that ads have arrived on ChatGPT should come as no surprise. By some estimates, a la…

Like many people, you’re worried about losing your job to AI. Where do your “old school” PPC skills fit as AI agents take over more of the work? Relax. It’s not that binary. The focus is shifting toward data and strategy. From the outside, it looks like media buying is being automated away. But let’s set the record straight: it isn’t. The role is shifting (again). I’ve been working in PPC for over 15 years, and there’s nothing to be afraid of. The real question is: are you riding the wave or being left behind? Let’s map the current PPC landscape: ad network automation and, most importantly, where PPC teams create value today — the critical skill set…

AI tools now generate 45 billion monthly sessions worldwide — about 56% of search engine volume, according to a study by Graphite.io CEO Ethan Smith. The analysis combines web traffic and mobile app usage across major AI tools and estimates AI activity equals 56% of global search usage and 34% in the U.S. Much of this growth is occurring in mobile apps such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok, and Claude. Why we care. AI is expanding discovery, not shrinking search demand. Total usage across search engines and AI assistants has grown 26% globally since 2023. In other words, it’s not SEO vs. GEO — you need both LLM visibility and traditional rankings. The …

Google has confirmed that Google Marketing Live 2026 will take place on May 20, when the company is expected to unveil its latest updates across advertising, AI, measurement and campaign automation. The date surfaced in an email received by PPC News Feed owner Hana Kobzová from the Accelerate with Google program, which invited participants to submit entries for the Google Ads Impact Awards. According to the message, winners of the awards will be announced during Google Marketing Live 2026. Why we care. The annual event has become one of the biggest announcement days for advertisers using Google Ads. Google Marketing Live is where Google typically announce…

OpenAI is updating its privacy policy with new details on ads, data usage and upcoming features across its products, including ChatGPT. The update was shared with ChatGPT users and outlines how advertising will work inside ChatGPT — and what data advertisers can and cannot access. Why we care. OpenAI’s update makes it clear that user privacy is a top priority: personal chats, histories, and details are never shared with advertisers. Ads can still be personalized using anonymized engagement signals, meaning brands can reach relevant audiences without compromising sensitive data. This approach lets advertisers measure performance safely while building trust…

Google Ads is set to enhance the viewer experience of Performance Max video ads with an innovative asset optimization feature. Leveraging advanced AI voice models, this update aims to infuse video ads with realistic voice-overs, ultimately enhancing user engagement and ad performance. Why we care. Advertisers who don’t actively opt out by March 20, will have their video ads automatically enhanced with Google’s AI voice models, changing how their ads sound to viewers without requiring any creative production work. How it works. The feature only activates on videos that don’t already contain a voice track Google’s AI selects text from advertiser-provided hea…

Buying AI capabilities to drive marketing is easy. Enabling marketing teams to actually use it independently, decisively, and at scale is far harder. The main culprit? Humans. Marketing teams have always had the same elusive goal: to move at the pace of the consumer. Responding to each customer’s needs in real time, delivering the relevant message at the right moment, and optimizing customer lifetime value to drive loyalty and ROI. The goal is not new. What is perpetually new are the AI technologies available to analyze consumer data and generate instant, personalized messaging at scale. But while technology evolves rapidly, the ability of marketing teams to harn…

If you’ve been in marketing long enough, you’ve probably lived through a few identity crises. First, we were channel experts. Then, we became integrated marketers, growth marketers, and performance marketers. Somewhere along the way, someone added “AI” to everyone’s job description and called it a day. Now, we’re entering the era of the full-stack marketer. From where I sit — particularly as a media leader — the role is starting to look a lot like product management. This doesn’t mean you need to start writing Jira tickets for fun (though some of you already do). It means that tomorrow’s most effective media leaders won’t just optimize campaigns. They’ll own outco…

“Content is king” remains one of the most widely accepted ideas in SEO. Not everyone has agreed. Different schools of thought have always existed, with some practitioners prioritizing backlinks and others focusing on technical SEO. Content is often treated as the primary driver of search visibility. I’m not arguing that. My point is simpler: if you’ve relied on content to drive results — and earn a living — you should start doubling down on distribution. With AI search changing the game, creating great content (and, yes, building some backlinks) is no longer enough to get it seen. The more important question may no longer be “What should I write next?” but “W…

When people speak naturally, their language flows. It’s often messy, incomplete, and not especially coherent. The Google search bar, however, required something different. Users had to compress their needs into short phrases or slightly longer queries — what’s traditionally classified as short-tail or long-tail. To make that work, users stacked queries across a journey, moving through a funnel from A to B and refining as they went. In the process, users often stripped out personalized nuance to match what they believed the search engine could understand. In response, SEO professionals built systems around that constraint, grouping queries by search volume, categorizin…

The DSCRI-ARGDW pipeline maps 10 gates between your content and an AI recommendation across two phases: infrastructure and competitive. Because confidence multiplies across the pipeline, the weakest gate is always your biggest opportunity. Here, we focus on the first five gates. The infrastructure phase (discovery through indexing) is a sequence of absolute tests: the system either has your content, or it doesn’t. Then, as you pass through the gates, there’s degradation. For example, a page that can’t be rendered doesn’t get “partially indexed,” but it may get indexed with degraded information, and every competitive gate downstream operates on whatever survived t…

Google Ads is rolling out auto end screens — a new feature that appends an interactive, auto-generated card to the end of eligible video ads to nudge viewers toward a conversion. How it works. An interactive screen appears for a few seconds immediately after the video finishes playing. Content is auto-populated from campaign data — app name, icon, price, and a direct install link for app campaigns End screens appear by default on eligible ads, requiring no setup from advertisers Why we care. Advertisers no longer need to manually build post-roll calls-to-action. This feature is on by default and changes the end of your video ads — and if you’ve already…

Perplexity AI must stop using its Comet browser agent to make purchases on Amazon. A federal judge sided with Amazon in an early ruling over AI shopping bots. Why we care. The case targets a core promise of AI agents: completing tasks like shopping on a user’s behalf. If courts restrict how agents access sites, AI agents could face strict limits when interacting with logged-in accounts on major websites. What happened. U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney granted Amazon a preliminary injunction Monday in San Francisco federal court. The order blocks Perplexity from using its Comet browser agent to access password-protected parts of Amazon, including Prime subsc…

We all want media coverage. Positive coverage creates exposure, authority, trust, and often valuable backlinks. But for many people, the path to getting it is a mystery. Others believe myths about how it works. Some believe you have to be at the very top of your industry before the media will care about your story. That’s simply false. Others believe you can simply buy your way into media coverage. There’s a small degree of truth to that. You can find contributors willing to feature you (or your client) for a fee, but this blatantly violates every outlet’s contributor guidelines. You may land the feature, but editors will eventually find out. …

Starting July 1st, Meta will add “location fees” to ad buys targeting users in six countries — effectively offloading the cost of European digital services taxes onto the advertisers themselves. The numbers. Fees will match each country’s digital services tax rate: France, Italy, Spain: 3% Austria, Turkey: 5% UK: 2% How it works in practice. Per Meta’s email to advertisers — “$100 in ads delivered to Italy will cost $103, plus any applicable VAT on top of that.” The fine print. The fees apply to where the ad is delivered, not where the advertiser is based — meaning a US brand running campaigns targeting French users will pay the French rate regardle…

LinkedIn made some good moves last year that I’ve seen pay off for our suite of B2B clients. Now that we’re into 2026, with yearly marketing goals in focus, I’ve got some recommendations based on our 2025 learnings for you to test and leverage in the coming months. Those include: Video. Thought Leader Ads. Personalized creative. Qualified Lead Optimization. Ads duplication. Let’s put a magnifying glass on each and explain the benefits you stand to gain. LinkedIn video is a must Even though Meta and TikTok are more natural fits for video, LinkedIn isn’t immune to the video movement — particularly short-form video (between 7-15 seconds). While ha…

Optimizing your client’s TripAdvisor listing is an important part of the local SEO ecosystem, even though it’s often treated as a secondary channel. Done well, it can increase visibility, drive more qualified website traffic, and strengthen brand positioning and online reputation. TripAdvisor frequently appears in search results for tourism and hospitality businesses and often serves as a key third-party discovery touchpoint. Treating it as a strategic SEO asset — not just a review site — can create meaningful advantages in visibility, trust, and conversions. How Tripadvisor fits into the local search ecosystem TripAdvisor is a travel booking and decision-makin…

A good XML sitemap serves as a roadmap for your website, guiding Google to all your important pages. XML sitemaps can be beneficial for SEO, helping Google find your essential pages quickly, even if your internal linking isn’t perfect. This post explains what they are and how they help you rank better and get surfaced by AI agents. Table of contents What are XML sitemaps? Why do you need an XML sitemap? Do XML sitemaps matter for AI search? Adding XML sitemaps to your site with Yoast Frequently asked questions about XML sitemaps Check your own XML sitemap! Key takeaways An XML sitemap is crucial for SEO, as it guides search engines to your important pages, …

Google is leaving the door open to advertising in its Gemini AI app, with a senior executive telling WIRED the company is “not ruling them out” — a notable shift from the flat denials made just months ago. What’s changed: In January, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis told reporters at Davos that Google had no plans to put ads in Gemini. Now, SVP Nick Fox is saying otherwise — noting that learnings from ads in AI Mode will “likely carry over” to Gemini down the road. The current strategy. Rather than rushing into Gemini, Google is using AI Mode — its Gemini-powered Search product — as a testing ground for ad formats in AI experiences. Ads are kept separate fr…

For years, SEO followed a fairly predictable playbook: create valuable content, optimize it for search engines, and compete for rankings on Google. But the way people discover information online is changing quickly. Tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini are introducing a new layer between users and search engines, where answers are generated and synthesized rather than simply retrieved. In a recent episode of the Get Discovered podcast, Joe Walsh, CEO of Prerender.io, sat down with Yoast’s Principal Architect Alain Schlesser to discuss what this shift means for SEO and online discoverability. Their conversation explores how AI answer engines are reshaping the sea…

Brandon Ervin, Director of Product Management for Google Search Ads, recently discussed campaign consolidation, AI Max, and what advertiser control looks like in 2026 on Google’s Ads Decoded podcast. The conversation was serious and informed, and reflected a product team that understands advertiser concerns and is actively working to address them. But the podcast is also incomplete. The gap between what Google said and what advertisers actually experience from their sales organization is large enough to warrant a direct response. Ervin’s team is doing genuinely good work, but the platform’s structural incentives haven’t changed. Google’s evolving product is creati…

The standard agency reporting call is broken. Budgets are under extreme scrutiny, yet you still invest in vendors that celebrate arbitrary traffic gains while your sales pipeline stays flat. Optimizing for raw traffic volume is a legacy mindset that hides real commercial performance. The new mandate is to build an acquisition engine that influences buyers and protects your profit and loss (P&L) long before the transaction. To survive as a marketing leader today, you must ruthlessly challenge your internal teams and external agencies. Stop accepting reports on operational output and demand hard financial accountability: pipeline contribution, customer lifetime …

Google’s AI Overviews may be reducing traditional search clicks, but publishers still have meaningful growth opportunities in breaking news and Google Discover, according to new data from Define Media Group. Organic search clicks have fallen 42% since AI Overviews began expanding in Google Search, according to Define Media Group’s analysis of Google Search Console data across its portfolio of 64 sites. Why we care. AI-generated answers are reshaping search traffic. Evergreen content is losing clicks, while real-time news coverage and Discover distribution are emerging as stronger traffic channels for publishers. By the numbers. Across Google Search, Discover,…