SEO Tools and Resources

AI agents are poised to reshape how people buy online – not by helping users find where to convert, but by doing the work themselves. In ChatGPT’s Agent mode, I prompted more than 100 agentic actions – from shopping and booking travel to reserving restaurants, buying apartments, and finding jobs. A clear pattern emerged: agents are gradually edging out transactional search as they move beyond information retrieval to act on your behalf, dramatically reducing cognitive load. They handle the drudgery – searching, filtering, and comparing options to find the best fit – before handing off to a human at the decision gate, such as the point of conversion or a critic…

We’ve all asked a chatbot about a company’s services and seen it respond inaccurately, right? These errors aren’t just annoying; they can seriously hurt a business. AI misrepresentation is real. LLMs could provide users with outdated information, or a virtual assistant might provide false information in your name. Your brand could be at stake. Find out how AI misrepresents brands and what you can do to prevent them. Table of contents How does AI misrepresentation work? Different AI brand challenges Real-world examples How to correct AI misrepresentation Use AI brand monitoring tools Optimize content for LLMs Get professional help Use SEO monitoring tools Conclusi…

If you’re like me, you’ve heard plenty of talk about entity SEO and knowledge graphs over the past year. But when it comes to implementation, it’s not always clear which components are worth the effort. I’ve struggled to determine when and where entity concepts actually impact SEO, especially when time is limited. While modern search engines are semantic, traditional tactics like keyword research and link building still work well and often overlap with entity-based strategies. Through trial and error, I’ve learned when these approaches add value and when they’re just unnecessary extra work. So, for the practical SEO professional who doesn’t have endl…

Google’s pitch for AI-powered bidding is seductive. Feed the algorithm your conversion data, set a target, and let it optimize your campaigns while you focus on strategy. Machine learning will handle the rest. What Google doesn’t emphasize is that its algorithms optimize for Google’s goals, not necessarily yours. In 2026, as Smart Bidding becomes more opaque and Performance Max absorbs more campaign types, knowing when to guide the algorithm – and when to override it – has become a defining skill that separates average PPC managers from exceptional ones. AI bidding can deliver spectacular results, but it can also quietly destroy profitable campaigns …

Content has long been the fuel for SEO, and its importance continues as AI-driven search relies on rich, trustworthy information. I’ve always believed in doing the “good” and “right” things when it comes to creating content at scale – but even good things can become problems when overdone. Too often, SEO and AI visibility efforts get reduced to publishing more blogs, landing pages, or articles in the pursuit of quick wins that executives want to see. While content is critical, treating SEO as a production machine creates the illusion of progress. Activity without performance bloats sites with duplicative, commoditized, or low-value pages that both search…

Google’s AI Overviews frequently surface affiliate content without sending traffic or clicks back to publishers. The good news for publishers is that affiliate businesses do not need to rely on Google alone. To kick off the new year, here are other sources of traffic and ways to diversify income while sticking to what you do and love. These are strategies I help partners with regularly. This article was inspired by a podcast conversation about whether this was the end of affiliate marketing. It isn’t. Affiliate marketing is more than Google, and it will continue to thrive. Skool and educational platforms Skool and similar platforms let you launch a…

Most of what people are calling “AI SEO” right now is just legacy SEO with new buzzwords. AI SEO is different. When you look at how AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Mode actually source and compress information, there are things you can do that literally did not exist in the Google 10-blue-links world. This article walks through those AI SEO-only tactics, backed with real data, not wishful thinking. The context: clicks are collapsing, but answers are not You already feel this in your numbers. A few facts to anchor the conversation: Studies on Google’s AI Overviews showed click-through rates to top organic results drop by roughly 30 to …

In 2025, the SEO industry debated whether AI required a strategy shift. In 2026, we are still debating, but we are moving further into the testing and execution phase. To navigate the new search landscape, we have to kill the channel silo and let the SEO team act as the strategic quarterback for brand authority. Organic search has always been a treasure trove of insights into consumer behavior, platform changes, brand presence, and organic influence. Right now, LLMs are binging on a diet of earned media. Press releases, social media content, UGC, your website, your retailers’ sites, YouTube videos, and Reddit threads all have a huge influence on th…

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.” …

Most business owners assume that if an ad is approved by Google or Meta, it is safe. The thinking is simple: trillion-dollar platforms with sophisticated compliance systems would not allow ads that expose advertisers to legal risk. That assumption is wrong, and it is one of the most dangerous mistakes an advertiser can make. The digital advertising market operates on a legal double standard. A federal law known as Section 230 shields platforms from liability for third-party content, while strict liability places responsibility squarely on the advertiser. Even agencies have a built-in defense. They can argue that they relied on your data or instructi…

Now that anyone can use AI to generate keywords and spin up a paid search campaign in minutes, it’s easy to assume the hard work is done. But creating structured, scalable performance still requires a genuine understanding of how search works. Techniques like n-grams, Levenshtein distance, and Jaccard similarity give search marketers the ability to interpret messy search term data, apply client context, and build reliable frameworks that AI alone can’t produce. Here’s how. What n-grams reveal in PPC and SEO analysis Think of n-grams as the “n” words that make up a keyword. For example, in the term “private caregiver nearby,” we have: 3 unigrams (one …

GEO, AI SEO, AEO – call it what you like. The label doesn’t matter nearly as much as understanding the shift behind it. At the center of that shift lies one idea that explains everything: AI availability – and here’s why it matters. What is AI availability? The idea of AI availability comes from Byron Sharp, research professor at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, who introduced it in a comment on one of my LinkedIn posts. Sharp’s work underpins modern brand science and shows that growth depends on availability. Brands grow through sales, and sales grow through two kinds of availability: mental and physical. Mental availability refers to the like…

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…

As AI-powered SEO platforms evolve, they’re rewriting the economics of search engine optimization. This transformation threatens to upend the traditional agency model in three ways: Dramatically lower costs. Automate technical capabilities. Provide unbiased, data-driven decisions. Yet, this disruption might lead to industry consolidation and expansion as fewer but larger agencies emerge to serve an expanding market of SEO adopters. This article looks at how to survive the new agency economics. The economics of disruption Today’s SEO agency model typically involves monthly retainers ranging from $2,000 to $20,000, depending on the scope and co…

The shift away from fully keyword-targeted search campaigns has been building for years – but this week, it reached a tipping point. Two account managers on my team, each handling different clients in different industries, came to me with the same uneasy admission. They were leaning toward dropping some of their keyword search campaigns in favor of Performance Max. Not all of them. But some. These weren’t impulsive calls. They were data-backed decisions made after months of testing, optimization, and watching Performance Max consistently outperform keyword-targeted campaigns. Are we heading toward keywordless targeting? Not quite. But we’ve reac…

In marketing – whether digital or not – we all understand the power of a strong brand. A recognizable brand is vital for earning and keeping attention, driving trust, and building loyalty. On the agency side, this connection is clear: branding influences how we engage clients and deliver value. But how often do we consider the importance of branding within our teams? Establishing and maintaining a strong team brand is just as crucial. A well-defined team identity can foster collaboration, earn the trust of internal stakeholders, and secure advocacy for the team’s work. More importantly, it shifts the focus from individual contributions – often…

As marketing channels and touchpoints multiply rapidly, the way success is measured significantly impacts long-term growth and executive perception. Click-based attribution – across models like last-click, first-click, linear, and time-decay – remains the default. But as a standalone measurement strategy, it’s showing its age. Click metrics now carry disproportionate weight in executive dashboards, and that reliance introduces real limitations. Click-based models can still reveal valuable insights into digital engagement. However, when the C-suite bases major budget and strategy decisions solely on clicks, they risk overlooking critical aspects of …

For the last few years, copywriting has been quietly written off. Not with outrage. Not with ceremony. Just sidelined. Replaced. Automated. Words – the core material of SEO, landing pages, ads, and persuasion – were demoted during the traffic rush and later the AI gold rush. Blog posts were generated. Product descriptions were bulked out. Landing pages were templated. Content teams shrank. Freelancers disappeared. And a convenient narrative emerged to justify it all: “AI can write now, so writing doesn’t matter anymore.” Then Google made it worse. The helpful content update, followed by AI Overviews and conversational search, didn’t just …

In 2023, I said that creator-led content marketing would shape the future of search. Two years later, that future has arrived – faster and more broadly than expected. In the past year alone, adoption has surged among consumers and, in turn, brands. The conversation has grown bigger, faster-moving, and more complex than I initially imagined. Today’s users no longer just “Google it.” They discover and trust information through: TikTok videos. Reddit threads. YouTube Shorts. Instagram Reels. Community forums. Google has adapted, integrating user-generated content and lived experiences directly into its search results via feat…

As a Google Ads practitioner, you probably spend the bulk of your time optimizing Search, Shopping or Performance Max campaigns. That makes sense — the Google SERP is the foundation of Google Ads. But there is a big opportunity sitting right inside your Google Ads account that too many advertisers are ignoring. I’m going to go ahead and declare it: Demand Gen is the most underrated campaign type in Google Ads, and that has to end. If you’ve been hesitant to test Demand Gen, or if you tried it once and “it didn’t work,” let this be your sign to add it to your strategy in 2026. Demand Gen offers a fundamental shift in how we can use Google’s ecosystem to drive growt…

A $4 million Shopify brand recently showed me an SEO audit it received six months earlier – 127 pages, 53 action items, and a $12,000 price tag. Since then, the company has updated page titles and meta descriptions and added a few blog articles – 12 recommendations in total. The remaining 41 were not even scheduled. This is not an execution issue. It is a model issue. This article explains why the traditional audit-plus-retainer approach consistently underdelivers for ecommerce brands. It also outlines a focused alternative designed to capture measurable revenue in 30 days rather than six months. The retainer trap: Why traditional SEO contracts dilute…

Major SEO platforms, such as Ahrefs and Semrush, along with agencies like Seer Interactive and other leading companies, have released substantial studies that appear to offer definitive answers. But a closer look reveals something else entirely: nearly every possible narrative about AI search impact has a “study” to support it. The more I examined the data, the clearer a more uncomfortable truth became – no one has the definitive answer, and the numbers can be sliced to validate almost any storyline. The core consensus that isn’t really consensus At first glance, the major studies agree on fundamentals. Ahrefs reports that top-ranking organic results …

In 2025, Google is removing reviews at unprecedented rates – and it is not accidental. Our industry analysis of 60,000 Google Business Profiles shows that deletions are being driven by a mix of: Automated moderation. Industry-wide risk factors. Increased enforcement against incentivized reviews. Local regulatory pressure. Together, these forces have significant implications for businesses and local search visibility. Review deletions are on the up globally Data collected from tens of thousands of Google Business Profile listings across multiple countries by GMBapi.com show a sharp increase in deleted reviews between January and July 2025. …

A strong Google review strategy is one of the most effective – and accessible – ways to boost your local SEO. Unlike other ranking signals that may feel out of reach, reviews are something business owners can actively influence. And their impact is only growing. Google reviews play a major role in map pack rankings, and yet many businesses still underestimate just how much they matter. By consistently earning new, high-quality reviews and keeping the momentum going, you can dramatically improve your local visibility and stay competitive in your market. Learn how to build and manage a Google review strategy that works in 2025 – helping your business grow,…

In mid-September, many SEO professionals began noticing unusual drops in Google Search Console (GSC) data. Impressions were down, average positions shifted, and the number of reported queries changed overnight. This wasn’t the result of a ranking update but a reporting change – one that redefines how we interpret GSC visibility data going forward. What happened to GSC impressions The drop traces back to Google’s quiet decision to stop supporting the &num=100 parameter, which allowed tools and crawlers to retrieve up to 100 results per query. Once support ended, those extra data points disappeared – and with them, many of the impressions and posit…