SEO Tools and Resources

Adobe will shut down the SEO feature in Marketo Engage at the end of March 2026, according to its February 2026 release notes. The tool will be deprecated on March 31, and you must export any existing SEO data before then. (This page includes links to the export instructions.) The SEO tile will be removed from the platform on April 1. What happened? Adobe’s Keith Gluck said deprecating low-use features lets the Marketo Engage team focus on other areas of the platform. For your SEO needs, Adobe announced in 2025 that it was acquiring Semrush, a full-featured SEO and visibility tool. (Reminder: Semrush owns Third Door Media, the publisher of Search Engine Land.…

If your law firm’s referrals aren’t converting, validation may be the problem. Referred prospects don’t go straight from recommendation to contact. They research, compare, and verify what they were told — on your website, in search results, and through AI tools. These are your highest-value leads — pre-sold through trusted recommendations and expected to be your easiest conversions. But when that validation falls short, even they lose momentum. This is the referral validation gap: the moments during online research when trust is broken rather than built. Here’s where referral validation fails and how to fix it. While this article focuses on law firms, t…

SEO has moved past shortcuts and quick wins. What drives results now isn’t just content — it’s content that earns attention, builds trust, and converts. Storytelling plays a direct role in that. Used well, it can improve engagement signals, strengthen relevance, and turn traffic into action. Here are seven storytelling techniques to apply in your business blog. 7 storytelling techniques that drive engagement and conversions Use these to shape how your content flows, from the opening hook to the final call to action. 1. Hook the reader T.S. Eliot put it simply: “If you start with a bang, you won’t end with a whimper.” Many modern authors recomme…

Walmart said conversion rates for purchases made directly inside ChatGPT were three times lower than when users clicked through to its website. Why we care. This suggests agentic commerce isn’t ready to replace traditional shopping. Sending users to owned environments still drives higher conversion rates. The details. Starting in November, Walmart offered about 200,000 products through OpenAI’s Instant Checkout. Users could complete purchases inside ChatGPT without visiting Walmart’s site. Daniel Danker, Walmart’s EVP of product and design, said those in-chat purchases converted at one-third the rate of click-out transactions. He called the experience “uns…

Perplexity’s new Comet browser for iOS defaults to Google Search. That’s because mobile queries often focus on navigation, local results, and transactions, where “Google does a much better job … than anyone else … including Perplexity,” according to Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas. Comet for iOS. It includes Perplexity’s AI assistant directly in the browser. Comet for iOS also blends AI answers with standard search results. For many queries, you’ll still see a traditional results page. You can ask questions by voice while browsing. The assistant can summarize pages, answer questions, and take actions like drafting emails. Deep Research features generate cit…

Microsoft is changing how advertisers configure automated bidding, aiming to reduce complexity while keeping performance outcomes the same. What’s happening. The platform is streamlining its bidding options by folding familiar targets like Target CPA and Target ROAS into broader automated strategies rather than standalone campaign settings. Going forward, advertisers will choose between two core approaches: Maximize Conversions or Maximize Conversion Value, with optional targets layered on top. How it works. For conversion-focused campaigns, advertisers select Maximize Conversions and can optionally set a target CPA. For value-focused campaigns, they selec…

Google is doubling down on the infrastructure behind “agentic commerce,” introducing new capabilities to its Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) while making it easier for retailers to plug in. Google says UCP — its open standard for connecting retailers to AI-powered shopping experiences — is getting new features designed to make online buying feel more like a traditional storefront, even when handled by automated agents. What’s new. The latest updates focus on making shopping via AI agents more functional and flexible. A new cart capability allows agents to add or save multiple products from a single retailer in one go, mirroring how a typical shopper builds …

Every time a new large language model (LLM) drops or Google tweaks an AI Overview, the SEO industry loses its mind. We develop this weird collective amnesia, scrambling to optimize for features that were actually mapped out in patent offices 10 years ago. We’re so obsessed with the now and the next that we’ve stopped looking at the blueprints. If you want to survive 2026, stop trying to be a futurist. Instead, be an archaeologist. To actually deliver for our clients, we need a research framework that isn’t just reactive. It has to be a balance: Look back at the foundational patents to understand the rules, and look ahead to see how AI is finally being given the mu…

Multi-location brands are investing heavily in content. But more content doesn’t automatically mean more growth. I keep seeing the same issue. Each individual location has a blog, and they all cover the same topics. Same keywords. Same structure. Same search intent. The goal is local visibility, but the result is often internal competition and diluted authority. Building an effective content strategy for multi-location brands requires clarity around roles. What should live at the corporate level to build authority, and what should stay local to drive relevance and conversions? Without that alignment, brands risk competing with themselves instead of winning in sear…

The Visibility Governance Maturity Model (VGMM) is about something most SEO programs lack: clear ownership, documented processes, and decision rights that keep your work from being undone by teams who don’t understand it. So how do you actually score that? Each domain uses a bank of governance questions tailored to the business. They’re not about how SEO is executed. They’re not about tools. And they’re not an audit. What VGMM questions are designed to reveal VGMM questions go to managers and the C-suite — the people who should know about governance but often don’t. Meanwhile, you (the SEO practitioner) actually know whether standards are documented, wheth…

As conversational search gains traction, the bigger question isn’t who has more users, but who can monetize them. Google enters this phase with a massive advantage: mature ad systems, deep advertiser adoption, and decades of optimization. Early AI Mode signals point to a measured rollout. The panic phase is over After a period of panic within the company, Google’s built-in advantages, coupled with massive capital expenditures, have helped it regain ground on category leader ChatGPT in LLM search. In December 2025, Google’s own code red became OpenAI’s code red. The dust will continue to settle, and analysts have different takes. But one signal stands o…

Google’s AI Overviews now appear on 14% of shopping queries, up 5.6x from 2.1% in November 2025, according to new Visibility Labs analysis. Ecommerce brands have been mostly unaffected by AI-driven click loss in Search. That seems to be changing. Why we care. As Google’s AI Overviews expand across product searches, ecommerce brands face a growing risk of losing visibility and clicks before shoppers reach standard organic or Shopping listings. The details. The analysis targeted product-intent keywords tied to results with a Shopping box, paid or organic — terms like “weighted blanket,” “mushroom coffee,” “protein powder,” and “blue T-shirts.” That produce…

Small publishers are seeing sharp traffic declines from AI search experiences, according to new data from thousands of global sites using Chartbeat analytics. The details. Publishers with 1,000 to 10,000 daily pageviews lost 60% of search referral traffic over two years, Chartbeat found. Mid-sized sites with 10,000 to 100,000 daily pageviews lost 47%. Large publishers with more than 100,000 daily pageviews were down 22%. Reality check. AI referrals aren’t replacing lost search traffic. Google Search pageviews fell 34% year over year. Google Discover dropped 15%. ChatGPT referrals rose 200% but still account for less than 1% of total traffic. …

Google is cleaning up outdated requirements in Google Ads, reflecting how legacy ad formats have evolved into newer, more automated products. What’s happening. As of March 17th, Google discontinued multiple ad format policies, including those related to form ads, image quality, responsive ads, and text ads. What changed. These requirements are being removed because the original formats have transitioned into newer campaign types and ad experiences, making the old policy frameworks no longer relevant. Why we care. This update simplifies the policy landscape in Google Ads, reducing confusion around outdated requirements tied to legacy formats. What advertise…

Visibility is no longer just about ranking. It depends on whether your content is discovered, evaluated, and selected in AI-driven search experiences. We’re kicking off our new monthly SMX Now webinar series on April 1 at 1 p.m. ET with iPullRank’s Zach Chahalis, Patrick Schofield, and Garrett Sussman on how you must adapt. The session introduces iPullRank’s Relevance Engineering (r19g) framework for executing Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) through an omnichannel content strategy. You’ll learn how AI search uses query fan-outs to discover and select sources, and how to structure content so it’s retrieved, surfaced, and cited. It also emphasizes that GEO…

Google is expanding how inventory appears in Google Ads Search campaigns, giving automotive advertisers a more visual, product-rich format directly in text ads. What’s happening. Google Ads now supports vehicle feed integration on Search ads, allowing advertisers to pull inventory from Google Merchant Center and enhance existing text ads with details like make, model, price, and images. How it works. Vehicle listings appear as clickable assets alongside standard Search ads, either below or beside the main text. Users can click through to a specific vehicle detail page or a broader landing page, depending on the interaction. Why we care. This update lets automo…

When technical issues hold your SEO program back, progress stalls. Yet technical SEO remains a top priority for leading SEOs and Google, and a key factor correlated with rankings in Backlinko’s 2026 Google ranking factors report. One of the biggest hurdles for in-house SEO programs is the lack of resources to implement changes to the website. Up to 67% of respondents cite non-SEO dev tasks as the biggest reason technical SEO changes can’t be made, according to Aira’s State of Technical SEO Report. This is costing businesses an additional $35.9 million in potential revenue each year, seoClarity estimates. When you can’t do everything, focus on the techn…

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…

For many advertisers, a 30-day click attribution is the default conversion window setting in Google Ads. Once that’s set, it’s rarely revisited. But what if your customers convert within a week, or even two days? One of my clients, a DTC retailer in an intensely competitive industry, has an average conversion window of 2.2 days. Yet we were optimizing campaigns using a 30-day click window, which meant conversions were credited weeks after the initial interaction. This muddied the waters when assessing the true incremental impact of different advertising efforts, especially when trying to capture that impulse-buying behavior. With that in mind, we transitioned the …

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 …

YouTube is experimenting with a format that keeps ads visible even after users skip — potentially reshaping how advertisers think about skippable inventory. What’s happening. YouTube is testing a sticky banner overlay that appears once a user skips an ad. Instead of the ad disappearing entirely, a branded card remains on-screen until the viewer actively dismisses it. How it works. After hitting “skip,” users return to their video as normal, but a persistent banner tied to the original ad stays visible within the player, extending the advertiser’s presence beyond the initial skip. Why we care. This test from YouTube creates a way to maintain visibility even…

Google is incrementally improving metric visibility in Performance Max, giving advertisers more insight into how creative choices — particularly video — impact performance. What’s happening. Google Ads has introduced a new “Ads using video” segment within Performance Max channel performance reporting, allowing advertisers to break down results based on whether video assets were included. Why we care. Marketers can now compare performance across placements that used video versus those that didn’t, offering a clearer view into the role video plays across Google’s automated inventory. It helps answer a key question in an automated environment: whether investi…

Google is expanding Personal Intelligence across AI Mode, Gemini, and Chrome in the U.S., moving it beyond beta into broader consumer use. Why we care. Personal Intelligence pushes Google further into fully personalized search, using first-party data like Gmail and Photos. That makes results harder to replicate, rank against, or track — especially in AI Mode, where outputs may vary based on user history, purchases, and behavior. The details. Personal Intelligence now works across: AI Mode in Google Search (available now in the U.S.) Gemini app (rolling out to free users) Gemini in Chrome (rolling out) How it works. Users can connect apps like Gmail …

Although Google continues to test ads in AI Mode, users who connect apps to enable Personal Intelligence won’t see ads — and that isn’t changing right now, a Google spokesperson confirmed. What’s happening. Google has been testing ads inside AI Mode in the U.S. Early results: users find these business connections “helpful,” per Google. But there’s a clear carveout: no ads for users who opt into app-connected, highly personalized experiences. The details. Google today expanded Personal Intelligence in AI Mode as a beta to anyone in the U.S., allowing Gemini to generate more tailored responses by connecting data across its ecosystem, including Google Search…

Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone said AI-powered search — especially Google’s AI Mode — is putting the open web’s core traffic model at risk and argues AI search engines must send users back to publishers. “I think that the LLMs are one big reason that they’re under threat, with AI Mode in Google being the biggest challenge.” “Those publishers deserve [traffic], and we’re not going to have the content to consume to give great answers if publishers aren’t healthy.” Why we care. Many websites are seeing less traffic from answer engines like Google and OpenAI — and I think it’ll only get worse. So it’s encouraging to see Yahoo trying to preserve the “search sends traffic” m…