SEO Tools and Resources

Do you think you’re able to answer the question every marketing leader dreads hearing from leadership: “Why isn’t our marketing effort doing more?” How do you even go about answering that? Let’s look at what I mean using a fictional location analytics company we’ll call Acme Area Analytics. The Acme team reviews its reports. Nothing appears broken. Campaigns are running, leads are still coming in, and performance metrics are mostly stable. Yet sales momentum isn’t clearly accelerating, and it’s hard to pinpoint why. Insights are scattered across site analytics, brand monitoring and SEO tools, CRM systems, and paid media dashboards. Each platform reflects p…

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…

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…

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…

Most SEO discussions today center on AI — from AI Overviews to ChatGPT and other LLMs — and the concern that they’re taking traffic from business websites, forcing a shift toward GEO or AEO. For the most part, that concern is valid. AI is reducing traffic for many sites, especially those that rely on top-of-funnel, informational content. But the data suggests AI may not be the biggest shift. User behavior has been fragmenting across platforms for years, and I see this play out in agency work every day. Here’s what the data shows about how search behavior is changing across platforms, and why a “search everywhere” strategy matters more than focusing on LLMs alo…

The local SEO community remains locked in a permanent debate over the “hide address” toggle for service area businesses (SABs). Most owners view this switch as a simple privacy setting. In reality, it’s a high-stakes decision that dictates how Google’s algorithm interprets your physical relevance. Does your defined service area influence where you rank? Does hiding your street address suppress your visibility in the local pack? Most importantly, does Google purge that data from its system, or does your map pin simply become an invisible anchor? These are fundamental and relevant questions of how proximity functions when you choose to go off the grid. …

Since 2021, I’ve worked on more than 350 published guest posts. In that time, I’ve refined a repeatable guest posting outreach process that consistently drives approvals without ever paying for a placement. Although guest blogging is becoming more difficult, the basics of personalized guest posting outreach remain the same. If your mindset is to create mutual value, this process will work for you in 2026 and beyond. Step 1: Build your outreach list Your outreach list is a collection of the websites you’ll email to offer guest-written content. You can build your list in several ways. The easiest way to find potential websites is by googling your niche alongs…

If you shelved your inbound strategy this past year, you can shelve your Inbound conference mugs and swag with it. HubSpot renamed its annual Inbound conference in Boston this September to Unbound. A note on the event site explains the thinking: “This evolution is our response to that reality. INBOUND is becoming UNBOUND because growth no longer fits within a single framework or function. Today, it covers marketing, sales, service, and operations across the full customer journey in an AI-driven environment. UNBOUND reflects that expanded reality and the mindset required to lead through it.” Inbound is outbound. HubSpot pioneered inbound marketing, which uses…

Jeff Dean says Google’s AI Search still works like classic Search: narrow the web to relevant pages, rank them, then let a model generate the answer. In an interview on Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast, Google’s chief AI scientist explained how Google’s AI systems work and how much they rely on traditional search infrastructure. The architecture: filter first, reason last. Visibility still depends on clearing ranking thresholds. Content must enter the broad candidate pool, then survive deeper reranking before it can be used in an AI-generated response. Put simply, AI doesn’t replace ranking. It sits on top of it. Dean said an LLM-powered system doesn’t re…

A new applied learning path from Microsoft Advertising is designed to help marketers get more value from Performance Max campaigns through hands-on, scenario-based training — not just theory. What’s happening. The new Performance Max learning path bundles three progressive courses that focus on real-world setup, optimization and troubleshooting. The structure is meant to let advertisers learn at their own pace while building practical skills they can immediately apply to live campaigns. Each course targets a different stage of expertise, from beginner fundamentals to advanced strategy and credentialing. What’s included: Course 1: Foundations Introduci…

Google is updating how it attributes conversions in app campaigns, shifting from the date of the ad click to the date of the actual install. What’s changing. Previously, conversions were logged against the original ad interaction date. Now, they’re assigned to the day the app was actually installed — bringing Google’s methodology closer in line with how Mobile Measurement Partners (MMPs) like AppsFlyer and Adjust report data. Why this helps: It should meaningfully reduce discrepancies between Google Ads and MMP dashboards — a persistent headache for mobile marketers reconciling two different numbers. Google’s default 30-day attribution window meant many co…

Google’s page indexing report within Google Search Console is missing a block of data earlier than December 15th. It seems like some sort of reporting bug that is impacting all users. Google has not yet commented on the reporting issue but again, it is widespread and impacting everyone. What it looks like. Here is a screenshot from Vijay on X but you can see it yourself by checking your page indexing report: Why we care. I’d check back in a day or two to see if this data returns or if Google posts a notice about the issue. Right now, no one is able to access that data, so everyone is in the “same boat.” Google will hopefully fix the data, and you can…

The web has strong opinions about what “AI-written” content looks like, and even stronger ones about what’s supposedly wrong with it. Scroll any content marketer’s LinkedIn feed, and you’ll find confident claims that em dashes and other AI “tells” signal bad, automated writing. The problem with these debates is that they often confuse taste with performance. What counts as “bad writing” will always be subjective. But if the goal for content marketers is to communicate clearly and compete in the information marketplace, the practical question should be: which LLM habits actually turn readers off? To find out, we analyzed a large dataset of content marketing pages t…

Google Discover runs on a structured, multi-stage pipeline with hard publisher blocks, strict image requirements, freshness decay, and heavy experimentation shaping what users see, according to new SDK-level research by Metehan Yesilyurt. Why we care. Google Discover can drive massive traffic, but it often feels unpredictable. This research gives you a clearer view of how your content qualifies, gets ranked, or gets blocked — and where things can break before ranking even begins. The details. Yesilyurt analyzed observable signals in Google’s Discover app framework and mapped a nine-stage flow. Google: Crawls and understands your content. Reads key meta tag…

Here’s a question every marketing leader should be asking right now: How healthy are your customer relationships? Not your campaigns, not your channels but the actual relationships. It’s a harder question than it sounds. Most organizations have spent the last two decades building around channels. Email had a team. Social had a team. In-store, ecommerce, service, each with their own stack, their own metrics, their own version of success. And from the inside, it looked like progress. Every team was hitting their numbers. But from the customer’s perspective it felt like dealing with multiple companies wearing the same logo. Marketing sends a “We miss you!” em…

In November 2025, Yoast announced a collaboration with NLWeb, an open web protocol developed by Microsoft designed to simplify building conversational interfaces for the web. Today, we are proud to introduce the first major result of that work: Yoast SEO Schema Aggregation. This is an opt in feature that brings your website’s structured data together in a clearer and more consistent way. By choosing to enable it, you can help search engines and intelligent agents better understand and use your content. If you want to see which schema types are available for your WordPress setup, our schema overview explains what is included across different product plans. Br…

Google is rolling out VRC Non-Skip ads, expanding how brands reach connected TV audiences on YouTube. What’s happening. VRC (Video Reach Campaign) Non-Skips are now live globally in Google Ads and Display & Video 360. The format is built specifically for the living room experience, ensuring ads run as non-skippable placements optimized for connected TV (CTV) screens. Why we care. YouTube has become the No. 1 streaming platform in the U.S. for three consecutive years, making the TV screen a critical battleground for brand budgets. With guaranteed, non-skippable delivery, advertisers can ensure their full message reaches viewers in premium, lean-back environment…

For more than a decade, the dominant model was simple — identify a keyword, write an article, publish, promote, rank, capture traffic, convert a fraction of visitors, and repeat. But that model is breaking. Content marketing is collapsing and rebuilding simultaneously. AI systems now answer informational queries directly inside search results. Large language models (LLMs) synthesize known information instantly. Information production is accelerating faster than distribution capacity. Public feeds are already saturated. The cost of producing content has fallen to nearly zero, while the cost of being seen has never been higher. That changes everything. Here’s a…

Google will begin enforcing a minimum daily budget for Demand Gen campaigns starting April 1, 2026. What’s happening: The Google Ads API will require a minimum daily budget of $5 USD (or local equivalent) for all Demand Gen campaigns. The change is designed to help campaigns move through the “cold start” phase with enough spend for Google’s models to learn and optimize effectively. The update will roll out as an unversioned API change, applying across all buying paths. Technical details: In API v21 and above, campaigns set below the threshold will trigger a BUDGET_BELOW_DAILY_MINIMUM error, with additional details available in the error metadata. In API v2…

Google’s Liz Reid, VP and head of Search, drew a clearer line between Google Search and Gemini but said it’s still unclear whether the products will converge, diverge further, or be superseded. The big picture. Reid said Search is an information product focused on helping people connect with the web, while Gemini is centered more on assisting with productivity and creation. She added that the boundaries are fluid, especially as AI products evolve quickly and agentic experiences reshape how people use the internet. What she’s saying. In short, Reid said Search and Gemini share technology but have different product “north stars.” They could overlap more over time, b…

OpenAI is backing away from putting checkout directly inside ChatGPT. Instead, purchases will shift to retailer apps that connect to ChatGPT, The Information reported. Why we care. ChatGPT aims to be more than a discovery engine. Right now, though, product discovery inside ChatGPT is gaining traction faster than purchases. That suggests AI-powered shopping is only influencing the consideration stage (at least for now), not driving conversions. What happened. OpenAI had planned to let shoppers buy products directly from listings in ChatGPT search results. Instead, an OpenAI spokesperson said that Instant Checkout is moving to Apps, where purchases happen inside con…

Buyers ask a question. You answer it clearly. That’s the premise behind the “They Ask, You Answer” (TAYA) framework, and it holds up in AI-driven discovery. In theory, it’s simple. In practice, teams struggle to anchor their approach and get started. The result is predictable: generic questions that produce generic content. That’s a problem, especially as AI shifts search behavior from short queries to more detailed, contextual questions. The difference comes down to the questions you choose to answer. And that’s where a simple concept makes a big difference: buyer personas. The problem with generic questions Odds are, you and many of your competitors have …

Local SEO has a visibility problem, but it’s not where most teams think. It’s not about rankings for “near me” or service keywords. It’s everything that happens before that moment, when customers are trying to figure out what’s wrong, what it means, and whether they need help at all. That gap is why so much high-intent demand slips through the cracks. Service-first site structures miss real search behavior Most local service websites are built the same way: a homepage at the top, then service pages, and often location pages underneath. It’s a good, clean structure, and it makes sense because it mirrors how the business thinks. You offer drain cleaning, fu…

A new Google Merchant Center update changes how e-commerce sites must handle out-of-stock products, with direct implications for product approvals and ad performance. What’s happening. Google now requires that out-of-stock products must still display a buy button, but it can no longer be active or hidden. Instead, the button must be visibly disabled and appear grayed out. In other words, users should be able to see the button, but not click it. This marks a clear shift from common practices where retailers either left the “Add to Cart” button clickable or removed it entirely. Both approaches are now non-compliant. How it works. In practical terms, the requ…

The numbers tell a story that most agency owners already know in their gut: AI anxiety is rising fast. In 2024, 44% of digital marketing agencies viewed AI as a significant threat to their business model. Just one year later, that number jumped to 53%, according to SparkToro’s annual State of Digital Agencies survey of hundreds of agency owners worldwide. But here’s what makes this particularly painful: agencies aren’t just watching AI disrupt their industry from the sidelines. They’re actively using it themselves, automating tasks, reducing costs, and hoping to improve margins. All while their clients are doing the exact same thing, using AI to justify slashing …