SEO Tools and Resources

Google added Query groups to the Search Console Insights report. Query groups groups similar search queries together so you can quickly see the main topics your audience searches for. What Google said. Google wrote, “We are excited to announce Query groups, a powerful Search Console Insights feature that groups similar search queries.” “Query groups solve this problem by grouping similar queries. Instead of a long, cluttered list of individual queries, you will now see lists of queries representing the main groups that interest your audience. The groups are computed using AI; they may evolve and change over time. They are designed for providing a better high level…

Many PPC advertisers obsess over click-through rates, using them as a quick measure of ad performance. But CTR alone doesn’t tell the whole story – what matters most is what happens after the click. That’s where many campaigns go wrong. The problem with chasing high CTRs Most advertisers think the ad with the highest CTR is often the best. It should have a high Quality Score and attract lots of clicks. However, in most cases, lower CTR ads usually outperform higher CTR ads in terms of total conversions and revenue. If all I cared about was CTR, then I could write an ad: “Free money.” “Claim your free money today.” “No strings attached.” …

Microsoft is officially winding down its DSP, Microsoft Invest, and naming Amazon DSP as its preferred transition partner – a move that deepens ties between the two tech giants and reshapes Microsoft’s advertising strategy. Starting Feb. 28, 2026, Microsoft will sunset Microsoft Invest as it shifts focus to its core advertising products: Microsoft Advertising Platform, Monetize, and Curate. The company says the partnership with Amazon DSP will ensure advertisers experience a smooth transition and continue achieving performance goals. Why we care. Microsoft’s move to sunset its DSP and align with Amazon DSP means advertisers who use Microsoft Invest, will need to m…

Q4 is here – and for ecommerce brands, that means the biggest sales opportunities of the year are just ahead. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas – the biggest sales events are just around the corner. To hit your targets, preparation is key. It’s not too late to act, and the opportunities ahead are huge. Use this checklist to get up to speed quickly and set your account up for success. Website and UX Review site speed Start with a website audit to identify any red flags. Tools like PageSpeed Insights can help diagnose technical issues. Encourage clients to review key pages and the checkout process on multiple devices to ensure there are no bottle…

On episode 329 of PPC Live The Podcast I speak to Jack Hepp, founder of industrious Marketing LLC, discussing the fallout and what it took to bring him back to feet after he got fired from his first PPC job. The big f-up: fired from his first agency job Jack’s defining career moment came just a year and a half into his first agency role. Despite being eager to learn, he was still new to digital marketing when a major mistake occurred. “We dramatically underspent a client’s ad budget for the month — by almost 50%,” Jack recalls. That underspend had serious consequences. The client relied heavily on Google Ads for online sales, and the missed spend transla…

The narrative in SEO right now is simple: Google’s AI Mode doesn’t send traffic. If it becomes the default Google Search experience, your website will starve for clicks. There’s one problem, though: the studies claiming “AI doesn’t send traffic” focus almost entirely on informational queries. Yes, if someone wants to know what a basal cell carcinoma looks like, AI will kill that click. But what happens when someone wants to find a dermatologist to check that mole? No one has shared a study like that yet. So we decided to fix that. We ran the first UX study focused specifically on transactional intent in AI mode. We watched 52 participants across the U.…

YouTube is rolling out new ad features for Shorts aimed at helping brands stretch their holiday marketing budgets — and capitalize on short-form video momentum. What’s new: Comments on Shorts ads: Advertisers can now enable comments on eligible Shorts ads, bringing the ad experience closer to organic content and creating new avenues for real-time audience engagement. Creator links to brand sites: Shorts creators posting branded content can now link directly to a brand’s website — giving viewers a seamless path from discovery to action. Shorts ads on mobile web: YouTube is expanding Shorts ad placement to the mobile web, adding another surface to reach viewe…

Google Lens now supports the Nano Banana, the image generation feature from the Gemini app, within Google Search. Google said, “we’re bringing Nano Banana to Google Search.” Open the Google Lens feature in the Google app for Android or iOS. Then you can tap on Create mode to make an image. You can then transform an image into your ideas directly from Google Lens. What it looks like. Here is a video of it in action: Here are some screenshots: Why we care. AI search features are moving fast and these fun and creative features might help win over consumer loyalty. OpenAI, Microsoft, Perplexity and other are all trying to compete with AI and Sea…

Engineering teams usually have a quality assurance (QA) process. Without it, they risk releasing work that hurts the user experience and creates unforeseen technical issues – including major SEO problems. That’s where SEO QA comes in. Adding SEO-specific checks to existing QA protocols helps teams catch and fix issues before they go live. But this step is less common than you’d think. Too often, it’s overlooked. This article outlines what it takes to build an effective SEO QA discipline and provides a checklist SEOs and QA engineers can use to cover their bases. Why SEO QA gets overlooked Unless SEO is fully integrated with engineering, SEO-specific…

When marketing history looks back on 2025, it will mark the year AI truly hit the road. Google has used AI in search for years – RankBrain, BERT, Smart Bidding, RSAs, Performance Max, etc. But this year, it’s everywhere. From boardrooms to one-person shops, everyone’s asking how to use it and avoid being left behind. Amid the noise, facts have blurred into hype. I’ve heard it repeatedly from new clients: “SEO is dead. Don’t talk to us about SEO – talk to us about AI.” Fittingly, in this spooky season, SEO has “died” more times than every horror villain combined – yet it always comes back. AI is a true game-changer, but the hype is louder than anyt…

Headings structure your content for both readers and search engines. They help users scan a page, understand its content, and quickly locate the information they need. Search engines and AI systems use headings to interpret the topic and structure of your content. By using one clear H1, supported by well-written H2 and H3 headings, you can improve readability, accessibility, and SEO simultaneously. Table of contents What are headings? Why are headings important for SEO? Why are headings important for readers? How to use headings correctly How many H1 headings should you use? How to use H2 and H3 headings Common mistakes when using headings Headings and accessibility…

Writing strong page titles is one of the simplest and most impactful SEO optimizations you can make. The title tag is often the first thing users see in search results, and it helps search engines understand the content of your page. In this article, you’ll learn what SEO page titles are, why they matter, and how to write titles that improve visibility and attract clicks. Key takeaways Crafting a strong page title is vital for SEO; it attracts clicks and helps search engines understand your content An SEO page title appears in search results and browser tabs, serving as the first impression for users To optimize your page title, include relevant keywords an…

Marketers face AI news every day, and it’s almost impossible to keep up. AI agents are on the rise, but many are still in early development, beta testing, or lack real market adoption. So let’s skip ahead five years and look at what the future could hold. Picture this: You wake up in 2030 and check your phone. While you were sleeping, your AI agent optimized 50 campaigns, negotiated media buys with other agents, and earned $3,000 helping solve problems around the world. This isn’t science fiction – it’s where performance marketing is headed, and it may become reality soon. From scripts to personal AI assistants Today’s PPC automation still f…

Googlebot once again generated more traffic than any other crawler in 2025, according to a new Cloudflare report. It outpaced every search and AI bot as Google continued crawling the web for search indexing and AI training. By the numbers. Googlebot accounted for more than 25% of all Verified Bot traffic observed by Cloudflare. Googlebot alone generated 4.5% of all HTML request traffic – more than all other AI bots combined (4.2%). AI “user action” crawling surged more than 15x year over year, showing a sharp rise in bots that simulate human behavior. Googlebot’s crawl volume dwarfed every other AI crawler, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta. AI craw…

Does it feel like your organic traffic is disappearing? You aren’t imagining it. AI Overviews and answer engines are sidelining classic SEO results. To stay visible, brands need to adapt – fast. The good news: you don’t need to rewrite your entire SEO playbook. With a few smart tweaks, you can shift from SEO to GEO and reclaim your share of search in the age of generative AI. GEO, or generative engine optimization, focuses on entities – not just pages. That means your brand, products, services, and experts. By strengthening these signals, you increase the chances your business is cited, referenced, and recommended inside AI-generated answers and conversationa…

Microsoft is rolling out the new and updated Bing Places for Business. “Today, we are excited to announce the launch of the new Bing Places for Business experience —an evolution shaped by deep user research, thoughtful design, and a commitment to help business owners thrive in local search,” the company announced today. What is new. Microsoft updated the overall design and layout for Bing Places, moved the domain name, improved the import process and added a recommendation tool. Microsoft said the updates “move simplifies access, improves trust, and aligns Bing Places with the broader Bing ecosystem.” They also moved from www.bingplaces.com to www.bing.com/forbusi…

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…

Google rolled out version 22 of the Google Ads API, introducing new automation and AI-powered tools designed to help advertisers build, optimize, and scale campaigns more efficiently. What’s new. The v22 update adds several key features across campaign types: Generative AI for asset creation: A new AssetGenerationService (beta) lets advertisers automatically generate text and image assets using generative AI. Smart Bidding Exploration: Advertisers using Target ROAS strategies on Search can now retrieve time-segmented diversity metrics to better understand bid performance. Demand Gen campaigns: Expanded support for automated asset generation and additional b…

Microsoft is now testing a Google-like redesign of search ads in Bing, grouping multiple sponsored links under a single “Sponsored results” label and adding a “Hide” button that collapses the entire ad block. Driving the news. Sachin Patel spotted the Bing test in the wild and shared screenshots and video showing the new layout. In the test, only the first sponsored result carries an ad label, while subsequent ads appear unlabelled underneath it. Users can tap “Hide” to collapse the entire set of ads, then “Show” to reveal them again. How it works. The structure groups ad units in a way that can blur the distinction between organic and paid content. By collaps…

It’s clear to me that the current “LLM situation” is untenable. These platforms are offering a very expensive set of products with relatively unlimited access. At the same time, you have content creators and publishers in a state of panic as decreased traffic has become the norm. Add to this that platforms ranging from Google’s AI Mode to ChatGPT lack clarity on how to monetize their products, and it becomes clear we’re kicking a can down the line, and sooner or later, all bills come due. The LLMs providing such broad access at no cost are unsustainable long-term. Content publishers offering their content to LLMs for free without traffic or other compensati…

PPC is getting tougher – and it’s not just because of competition. Click-through rates are falling, costs are rising, and once-steady campaigns are harder to keep profitable. The real shift is structural. Zero-click searches are changing how paid search works. How search moved beyond the blue links For years, PPC operated in the “blue link economy,” where every click represented a chance to win a conversion. Now, Google’s results pages are crowded with AI Overviews, featured snippets, and knowledge panels that answer questions before a user ever leaves the SERP. For searchers, that feels fast and convenient. For advertisers, it means fewer clicks –…

Google is rolling out two key updates to Performance Max (PMax) campaigns — adding Waze ad inventory for store goal campaigns and introducing channel performance reporting for greater visbility. Why we care. Advertisers using PMax for store goals in the U.S. can now reach drivers directly on Waze through “Promoted Places in Navigation” pins — no extra setup required. The integration automatically optimizes existing assets for store visits or sales, arriving just in time for the holiday travel season, with a global rollout planned for 2026. Search partner comes to Channel reporting. PMax campaigns are also getting enhanced channel performance reporting, allowin…

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…

Google has removed its long-standing unified pricing rules in Google Ad Manager, once again allowing publishers to set different price floors for Google demand versus other programmatic buyers. What changed. Publishers can now set bidder-specific floor prices in Ad Manager. For example, one buyer can be required to bid at least $5 while others compete at a lower $2 floor. Google has also rebranded “unified pricing rules” as simply “pricing rules.” The backstory. Before 2019, publishers often set higher floors for Google to counterbalance its data advantage. That flexibility disappeared when Google mandated uniform pricing across exchanges — a move later scrutinize…

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…