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Google is quietly testing a new “App Labs” beta inside Google Ads, giving app advertisers early access to experimental campaign features before wider rollout. What’s new. A dedicated tab within the App advertising hub where advertisers can try limited-time experiments, provide feedback, and explore tools still in development. Why we care. Google is giving early access to experimental features in Google Ads before they roll out widely. That means a chance to test, learn, and optimize ahead of competitors. Those who adopt early can gain a performance edge and adapt faster as new tools become standard. Zoom in. Features in App Labs are not guaranteed to launch permanently. Instead, they function as short-term tests, giving Google real-world input while offering advertisers a first-mover advantage. Between the lines. This is effectively a sandbox for app campaigns — and a signal that Google wants more advertiser input earlier in the product cycle. What to watch. Early adopters may gain performance advantages by testing and adapting to features before competitors even see them. First seen. This update was first spotted by Google Ads expert – Thomas Eccel who shared spotting the update on LinkedIn. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Sometimes we love to hate serial killers, and sometimes we just kinda love 'em—a charming, sexy killer seems to be a contrast that's too juicy and entertaining for us to pass up. Late-stage capitalism, the climate crisis, and the insurance industry are far more likely to kill us, which is probably why we'd rather face the statistically less-likely threat of a cute and cunning murderer like Penn Badgley's Joe Goldberg in You, which came to a planned conclusion after five seasons in 2025. But he's not the only one! Here, we're on the hunt for series leads who are at least morally ambiguous, if not downright evil. The Fall (2013 – 2016) Jamie Dornan's sexy young serial killer Paul Spector isn't the protagonist of The Fall, strictly speaking, but he co-leads with Gillian Anderson's police Superintendent DSU Stella Gibson across all three seasons of this crime drama. Much like Joe, Paul is, outwardly, a normal guy, and a family man, whom you might not suspect of being a stalker and a serial killer of professional women in Belfast. DSU Gibson is sent from London to help with a stalled investigation that leads her on a hunt for the clever Spector through physical dangers, mind-fuckery, and bureaucratic complications. Stream The Fall on Peacock and Prime Video. The Fall (2013 – 2016) at Peacock Learn More Learn More at Peacock Chloe (2022) Erin Doherty is Becky Green, a complete nobody (at least in her own mind), who becomes obsessed with her estranged childhood friend Chloe, who died, seemingly, by suicide. Lonely Becky comes up with a completely new identity with which to infiltrate Chloe's friend group, finding her life far more fulfilling than back when she was boring ol' Becky—even kicking off an affair with Chloe's widowed husband. Turns out, though, that there was more to Chloe's life and death than most people knew, and husband Elliot might just be keeping some secrets. Stream Chloe on Prime Video. Chloe (2022) at Prime Video Learn More Learn More at Prime Video Ripley (2024) The Patricia Highsmith Tom Ripley novels have an impressive record of successful adaptations going back to the '50s, from René Clément's Purple Noon to Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley—which itself inspired Tommy Wiseau's cult "classic" The Room. Andrew Scott is perfectly cast in this series that doesn't reinvent the narrative, but gives it room to breathe over eight hours of deliberately paced neo-noir, in sumptuous monochrome, as poor, orphaned, but ambitious, Tom ingratiates himself with the wealthy Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) and his girlfriend, Marge (Dakota Fanning). His obsession with the good life soon becomes indistinguishable from his obsession with Marge and Dickie themselves, his studied nonchalance always ready to give way to everything boiling under the surface. Stream Ripley on Netflix. Ripley (2024) at Netflix Learn More Learn More at Netflix Dexter (2006 – 2013) The show that dares to ask: What if a serial killer were kind of a nice guy who mostly wants to be helpful? Michael C. Hall stars as Dexter Morgan, a Miami-based forensic technician with bloody, murderous impulses. Fortunately (usually), he's learned to focus those impulses on dismembering baddies rather than the more sympathetic innocents who typically wind up in the crosshairs of this type of killer (looking at you, Joe Goldberg). So lovable is our Dexter that he led eight seasons of this show, popping up again in New Blood, Original Sin, and the ongoing Dexter: Resurrection. Stream Dexter on Paramount+. Dexter (2006 – 2013) at Paramount+ Learn More Learn More at Paramount+ Hannibal (2013 - 2015) By 2013, it really felt as though we'd seen more than enough of Hannibal Lecter and co., a series of Silence of the Lambs spin-offs and sequels having become increasingly tiresome. Still, producer Bryan Fuller went back to the source material here, once again adapting Thomas Harris's first Lecter novel with grand, operatic style and a visual flair unmatched on network television (you're still unlikely to find more gorgeously constructed scenes of carnage). What's more, the deeper, sexier relationship between the Doctor (Mads Mikkelsen) and profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) adds some brilliant subtext as the two work together to hunt serial killers. It ended a bit too early, but the three seasons still make for a satisfying meal. Stream Hannibal on Prime Video. Hannibal (2013 - 2015) at Prime Video Learn More Learn More at Prime Video The Glory (2022) There are at least a couple of different levels to The Glory, a justifiably well-received South Korean import, rather remarkably holding together despite some wild shifts in tone. Most obviously, it's a revenge drama, with a relatively simple set-up: Song Hye-kyo plays Moon Dong-eun, an elementary school homeroom teacher who's playing a very, very long game: her school bullies are grown up now, and their kids (some of them, anyway) are now in Dong-eun's care. Right where she wants them. Smartly, the show makes clear the extent of the past violence faced by Dong-eun (much of it hard to watch), and the resulting post-traumatic stress that's consumed her life. The parents of her tormentors were all far too wealthy for the girls to face any consequences for their actions, so Dong-eun feels like she has no choice. It could have been a revenge fantasy, or a straight horror show about a woman carrying out a questionable revenge, but, while it's hard to get behind Dong-eun, it's also hard to condemn her completely. Stream The Glory on Netflix. The Glory (2022) at Netflix Learn More Learn More at Netflix Candy (2022) The real-life Candy Montgomery has been portrayed by Barbara Hershey, Jessica Biel in this Hulu miniseries and, just a year later, by Elizabeth Olsen over on HBO Max. Jessica Biel is so good here, though, that this one earns enough extra points to rise to the top of the Candy heap. In 1980, Montgomery was accused of murdering her neighbor, Betty Gore (Melanie Lynskey), following the woman's affair with Candy's husband, Allan (Pablo Schreiber). And with an axe, no less. Was it cold-blooded murder, self-defense, or a surprising combination of both? Stream Candy on Hulu. Candy (2022) at Hulu Learn More Learn More at Hulu Bates Motel (2013 – 2017) Freddie Highmore stars here as Norman Bates, the Robert Bloch character based on Ed Gein, with Vera Farmiga as his mother Norma in her pre-dessicated-corpse days. Like a lot of media spun-off from Alfred Hitchcock's seminal Psycho, it's better than it has any right to be, with impressively compelling character development and several surprises, even if we already know more or less where it's all heading. Stream Bates Motel on Prime Video. Bates Motel (2013 – 2017) at Prime Video Learn More Learn More at Prime Video The Devil’s Hour (2022 – ) Jessica Raine (Call the Midwife) joins Peter Capaldi (The Thick of It, Doctor Who) for a slightly convoluted but haunting series that throws in just about every horror trope that you can think of while still managing to ground things in the two lead performances. Raine plays a social worker whose life is coming apart on almost every level: She’s caring for her aging mother, her marriage is ending, her son is withdrawn, and she wakes up at exactly 3:33 a.m. every morning. She’s as convincing in the role as Capaldi is absolutely terrifying as a criminal linked to multiple killings (sometimes revealed in flashbacks) who can, seemingly, "remember" the future—shades of Silence of the Lambs, but with supernatural overtones. Stream The Devil's Hour on Prime Video. The Devil’s Hour (2022 – ) at Prime Video Learn More Learn More at Prime Video The Creep Tapes (2024 – ) Swinging back around from some of these more morally ambiguous (or at least potentially helpful) protagonists to a pure (charismatic) baddie, The Creep Tapes picks up from the two Patrick Brice-directed Creep found footage films, with writer/star Mark Duplass returning to the role of Josef, or Peachfuzz, or whatever the hell he's calling himself at any given time. Nearly an anthology, the show finds the charming, funny, forlorn-looking lead giving generally well-meaning people reasons to come and interview him on film, such that they tend to wind up documenting their own deaths. The show maintains the movies' sense of humor, as well as the constant conviction that we'd very likely be taken in by this compellingly manipulative sad-sack. Stream The Creep Tapes on Shudder. The Creep Tapes (2024 – ) at Shudder Learn More Learn More at Shudder View the full article

Google has introduced new capabilities within its new customer acquisition goals, including high-value customer bidding and retention targeting. Most Google Ads strategies still treat new customers as inherently more valuable. That assumption breaks down quickly. Not every new customer is worth acquiring, and not every existing customer is worth ignoring. Just because someone buys once doesn’t make them a customer for life. Likewise, some past buyers are far more likely to convert again than a net-new user. This is where Google’s high-value customer and retention bidding goals start to matter. How high-value customer bidding works in Google Ads Google uses predictive bidding to help determine who your high-value customers are. However, the primary signal is the customer match list you upload within your account. To make these adjustments, go to the customer lifecycle optimization section under Goals > Summary, then select Edit goal. Here, you’ll set a higher new customer value to bid more aggressively for high-value customers. Google will typically pre-populate a suggested value based on a higher LTV than your typical new customers. Review this carefully and decide how much higher you want to bid for a high-value new customer. Once you do this, Google reports that added amount as in-platform conversion value, on top of the actual value from the sale or lead. If you use a cost-per-conversion model, this discrepancy may not matter as much. However, for ROAS-based bidding, the additional value can artificially inflate your campaign’s ROAS. Google recently introduced a new column, original conversion value (found under the conversions columns section), to help separate the actual value from the additional value used to prioritize bidding. However, if you typically rely on conversion value/cost, that figure will still include the added value in its reporting. Dig deeper: Google Ads quietly rolls out a new conversion metric Your customers search everywhere. Make sure your brand shows up. The SEO toolkit you know, plus the AI visibility data you need. Start Free Trial Get started with Building and activating high-value customer audiences To help Google identify high-value customers, you’ll need to add an audience list of high-value customers. Consider what qualifies a high-value customer to you when creating this list. Did they have a particularly high average order value, or were they a lead for a higher-tier service you offer? Compile this list and upload it. You’ll need at least 1,000 active members in the YouTube or Search network for it to be eligible to serve, and we typically see match rates between 29%-62% — meaning you’ll likely need well over 1,000 for the list to become eligible. The more data you include for each record in your first-party data, the higher your match rate will typically be. An email address is the baseline, but adding email, phone, and address increases your chances of matching to a signed-in user. If you’d prefer a less manual approach, you can create and define audiences in Klaviyo and integrate them directly into your Google Ads account. Lists created from Klaviyo typically have high match rates. Once these settings are in place within the customer lifecycle optimization section, the next step is to optimize your campaigns. You can’t apply both bidding goals to the same campaign, and you wouldn’t want the same targeting or ad copy for these different customer types. Adjusting your bidding for high-value new customers is only available in Search and Performance Max campaigns and follows a similar setup. In campaign settings, expand the Customer acquisition section and select Adjust your bidding to help acquire new customers. From there, choose either Bid higher for new customers or Only bid for new customers. Either option uses your value adjustments to differentiate between new customers and high-value customers. Your ad copy and targeting should determine whether you run a campaign focused solely on new customers or one that includes both new and returning customers. Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. See terms. How to use retention goals to re-engage lapsed customers To set bidding parameters for lapsed customers, or customer retention, return to the customer lifecycle optimization within the Goals section of the account. Scroll past the new customer section to find both lapsed customers and lapsed customers (high value). These lists will only populate if you have segmented customer data to support both. It’s worth noting that, for lapsed high-value customers, Google asks for data on existing high-value customers, suggesting predictive bidding to a lookalike audience may be used here as well. Like before, Google will pre-populate a suggested value and may also suggest lists. Review these before saving to ensure the data is accurate. The additional value you add to the incremental conversion value will appear in certain columns as conversion value attributed to the campaign using this bidding model. Bidding to lapsed customers is currently only available in Performance Max campaigns and isn’t yet available across Search. In campaign settings, go to Customer retention and select Adjust your bidding to help re-engage lapsed customers. We don’t yet have a list defined for lapsed customers in the above account, which is why the message in the yellow box appeared. Because this bidding is limited to Performance Max, lapsed customers may see ads across Search, Shopping, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail, and Maps, depending on the assets used and whether a feed is included. If you’re running a campaign specifically bidding higher to target lapsed customers, make sure your ad copy and messaging are tailored to that audience. See the complete picture of your search visibility. Track, optimize, and win in Google and AI search from one platform. Start Free Trial Get started with Lifecycle bidding only works if your strategy does Lifecycle bidding only works if your inputs are sound. The quality of your customer match lists, how you define value, and how you measure performance determine whether these goals improve results, or just make them look better on paper. Used correctly, they help prioritize the customers that matter most and re-engage those worth winning back. Used loosely, they can just as easily distort your reporting and mask what’s really driving performance. View the full article

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: I have a question that might be suitable for “ask the readers.” When has someone reached out to you with a request to network that was compelling and made you actually want to respond? I’ve seen a lot of stories of bad networking on here — people asking vague questions, not seeming to know what they want, or reaching out with a request to “network” that’s obviously a veiled inquiry about a job. What does genuinely good networking look like? I’d love to hear from readers about requests they were happy to respond to or people who actually impressed them in a networking conversation. It’s especially helpful to hear examples of good networkers who were entry-level in their fields. Readers? The post what does good networking actually look like? appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

The United States’ advanced manufacturing future may have an unexpected limiting factor: a dire shortage of welders. While venture capital has placed big bets on a cutting-edge future of data centers, defense tech, and robotics, actually making the physical devices remains a challenge without finding the right talent to melt, fuse and repair metal. The American Welding Society projects that the country will need more than 320,000 new welding professionals by 2030, which means hiring about 80,000 new welders every year. Path Robotics believes the future of America’s manufacturing workforce will be augmented with torch-wielding robots. The Columbus, Ohio-based company, which is about to make a foray into the shipbuilding industry with Rove, a new welding robot mounted on the back of a Boston Dynamics’ quadruped, was born in 2018 from the founders’ frustration when they tried to start a custom vehicle company with their father, a family business that struggled to grow with a shortage of skilled labor. Demand for their ATVs and motorcycles wasn’t the issue; it was finding enough help to get the work done on time, and welding was one of the toughest roles to fill. “It was four grueling years seeing what it was truly like to try to stand up a U.S. manufacturing company, and it was extremely tough and ultimately ended with failure,” said Andy Lonsberry, CEO of Path Robotics who co-founded the firm with his brother Alex. “It gave us a deeply rooted passion and understanding for how difficult it truly is to be a small to medium-sized U.S. manufacturing firm, and that experience has stuck with us.” Andy LonsberryAlex Lonsberry The new Rove robot, a mobile version of the company’s massive, fixed welding cells—huge robotic arms attached to an industrial-strength torch—has a level of mobility and balance that make it ideal for settings like shipyards, where a traditional human welder needs to bounce around the site, and often lean or bend over to make welds a few feet off the ground or scaffold. It’s basically a torch mounted on top of the famous dog-like Boston Dynamics robot, with a hose connected to a fuel source. Once it saunters into place, the device’s robotic arm stretches into position, a laser scans the welding site, and then a torch ignites and closes a seam. It can make precise welds due to the company’s Obsidian AI system, which utilizes extensive training and testing—including practice on Path’s own training ground—to allow welding robots to adapt and move. Training an AI system to weld requires extensive data, says Lonsberry; there’s no room for error when the wrong connection can ruin a project. Instead of fixed, assembly-line style operation, or doing one motion a million times, Lonsberry says their technology seeks to do a million different moves one time each. “Robots have been involved in manufacturing for 50 years,” said Lonsberry. “But that’s mainly been in automotive, where they’re doing the same motion over and over again. In addition to the company’s recent entry into shipbuilding (autonomous marine vessel company Saronic will be among the first to receive the new robots, which will officially hit the market in 2027 after beta testing) Path also sees a future for Rove in industries like AI data centers, in electrical energy infrastructure, and heavy construction, all unstructured construction environments with lots of variability. So far, Path has raised roughly $341 million, and employs more than 150 people at its Columbus headquarters, according to PitchBook. Path’s fixed welding tech has also already a number of smaller firms across the Midwest thrive, including Millerbernd, a heavy-duty steel fabricator in Minnesota, Maystele, a Wisconsin company that does custom metalwork for data centers and other clients, and Indiana’s Deister, which works in the aggregate and mining industries. For Lonsberry and his brother, it’s about tapping into what he calls “tribal knowledge” of welding skills and manufacturing know-how while building up a new generation of small businesses. “People always ask why didn’t we go to Silicon Valley, that’s where the talent and genius is,” said Lonsberry. “For us, we want to build a company for manufacturing, with manufacturers, with them directly. We want to learn about their biggest pain points. We want to be a drive away versus a flight away. We want to be obsessed with, like, their actual outcomes. Yeah, so that’s why we decided to stay here.” View the full article

For digital nomads, logging on to work from a cafe, co-working space, hotel lobby or airport lounge is a way of life. Remote working has been made possible by reliable high speed internet and turbocharged by the pandemic. For some remote workers, that includes working from somewhere other than their home, perhaps because their company doesn’t have a physical location in their area, or because they don’t have an ideal home office setup. Working in public, however, doesn’t come without privacy and security risks. Here’s a quick reminder of precautions to take: Read the rulebook Hybrid or fully remote working is the norm for many jobs, so it’s a good idea to check for guidance from your employer on what’s expected when working away from the office. Many companies and organizations have internal guidelines including best practices for working in public, or even offer privacy and confidentiality training for staff. Some discourage working in crowded public places like coffee shops because of data privacy risks. The British government spells it out in guidance for staff working with classified documents. “These environments can present additional risks, including being more freely accessible to people without the appropriate clearance and need-to-know.” If you’re planning to travel and work, some employers might also have rules forbidding staff from working from certain countries. Think visually Cafes and co-working spaces are often busy with strangers, most of whom will be minding their own business. But it’s still a good idea not to leave yourself exposed. Try to find a secluded place to sit to prevent others from seeing what’s on your screen, even if it’s by accident. It’s harder for someone to “shoulder surf” if you’ve got your back to a wall. To make it even harder for prying eyes, get a screen privacy filter. This is a thin film that has tiny louvres to prevent anyone from seeing your screen when looking at it from an angle. Be wary of the Wi-Fi It’s so tempting to log on to that free Wi-Fi network in the airport lounge or hotel lobby so you can check your email. But cybersecurity experts advise against it because the risks are high. Avoid a public Wi-Fi network that doesn’t need a password, because any data sent over it is vulnerable to theft or manipulation, the National Security Agency warns. Even if a Wi-Fi network requires a password, that doesn’t mean the data will be encrypted, the NSA says in a cybersecurity tip sheet. The agency warns about a number of cybersecurity risks involving public Wi-Fi. One possible danger is a rogue network that tricks people into joining. “A malicious actor can set up a fake access point, also known as an evil twin, to mimic the nearby expected public Wi-Fi, resulting in that actor having access to all data sent over the network,” the NSA says. Instead, use a mobile hotspot, which is more secure because it uses your cellphone signal to create a mini wireless network. Most iPhones or Android phones can do this. For even more security, use a VPN, or virtual private network. This is software that encrypts data traffic and routes it through private tunnels to secure servers to prevent anyone from being able to read it. Companies usually provide them for staff. If not, you can sign up for one yourself. Don’t forget the obvious measures There are other common-sense measures you can take in public. Beware of your surroundings. Sitting in a public place with a laptop in plain sight could make it an attractive target for thieves. If you need to leave your spot to go to the restroom, take your devices with you. Avoid having private conversations in public. If you’re on a noisy train car or in a busy hotel lobby talking on a Zoom call about a sensitive project, it might be tempting to raise your voice to make sure you’re being heard. But you can never be sure if anyone is eavesdropping. “In public areas be aware of whether you can be overheard by any unauthorized individuals, such as members of the public, or smart listening devices,” the British government’s guidance warns. Is there a tech topic that you think needs explaining? Write to us at onetechtip@ap.org with your suggestions for future editions of One Tech Tip. —Kelvin Chan, AP Business Writer View the full article

Done right, a proposal helps a project manager establish credibility, close clients, acquire funding, and secure the necessary support and approval for projects to be implemented. The post Free Project Proposal Templates (+ Industry Examples) appeared first on project-management.com. View the full article

The short answer: Digital transformation fails in most small businesses not because the technology is wrong, but because employees were never truly brought along. The software is the easy part. The people are the hard part, and they’re also the most important part. Here’s what small business owners consistently get wrong about digital transformation and how to fix it: Why Do Digital Transformation Efforts Fail in Small Businesses? The most common reason digital transformation fails in small businesses is not poor technology selection or inadequate training. It’s the gap between what leadership wants the technology to do and what employees are actually willing to embrace. There’s a term for this in enterprise software: shelfware. It refers to tools that have been purchased but never meaningfully used; put another way, subscriptions quietly accumulating while workflows stay unchanged. Small businesses are not immune. In fact, they may be more vulnerable, precisely because they lack dedicated IT or change management resources. In fact, about 53% of SaaS licenses are never used, according to data from AppVerticals When a 15-person business adopts a new project management tool and six months later only three people are using it consistently, that’s not a failed implementation. It’s a failed transformation. The operational improvements never materialize. The team works around the system rather than within it. In almost every case, the root cause isn’t the tool. It’s the failure to bring people along. Why Do Employees Resist New Technology at Work? When employees push back on new technology, it’s tempting to attribute it to stubbornness or a lack of tech-savviness. In reality, resistance is almost always rational. People resist when they don’t understand why a change is happening, when they had no say in it, or when past experience has taught them that new systems create more work, not less. The most common reasons employees disengage from digital transformation: Lack of context. “We’re switching to this new system” without explanation generates compliance at best. Employees who don’t understand the goal of a change have no reason to invest in it. Fear of displacement. In an era of accelerating AI adoption, many employees quietly worry that the “efficiency” a new tool delivers will come at the cost of their role. That fear rarely surfaces in a conversation, but it shapes behavior. Change fatigue. For employees who have lived through multiple waves of “this new system will change everything,” skepticism is a learned response. When every quarter brings a new platform, the rational move is to wait and see if this one actually sticks. No input, no investment. People support what they help create. When a tool is selected and rolled out without employee involvement, there’s no sense of ownership. It’s something that was done to them, not with them. How Can Small Businesses Improve Employee Buy-In for New Technology? Employee resistance isn’t something that lingers forever. It’s the product of the brute force by which transformations are typically approached. But when companies are mindful of how they bring employees onboard, resistance melts away. Here’s what actually works: 1. Involve employees before you’ve already decided Before selecting a new tool, ask your team which parts of their work consume the most time and produce the least satisfaction. Let their answers shape what you’re looking for. This surfaces insights you likely wouldn’t have identified yourself and creates shared purpose in whatever comes next. 2. Frame the benefit in their terms, not yours “This will improve our operational efficiency” is a leadership metric, not an employee motivation. “This will save each of you about two hours a week on status updates” is a benefit people can feel. Translate every business case into a personal one. 3. Find and empower your internal champions In every team, there are one or two people who are naturally curious about new tools and willing to figure things out. Identify them early, give them extra support and early access, and let them become the peer resource for everyone else. Adoption driven by a trusted colleague moves faster and sticks better than a mandate from leadership. 4. Celebrate visible wins early and publicly Momentum is fragile in the early stages of any transformation. Find the person or team whose work visibly improved because of the new system, and make that story public within your organization. Success stories are more persuasive than any training deck. What Leadership Behaviors Make or Break Digital Transformation? No amount of thoughtful employee engagement will matter if leadership sends a contradictory signal. When a leader announces that the team is moving to a new platform and then continues to manage everything through email and spreadsheets, the message is clear: this doesn’t really apply to me. The most effective leaders in digital transformation are visible users of the tools they’re asking their teams to adopt. They ask questions in the new system. They review dashboards in the new system. They do their work in the new system. That visibility signals that the change is real and permanent. Beyond visibility, psychological safety matters enormously. Employees need to feel that admitting confusion about a feature, or that a tool isn’t working for them, won’t reflect poorly on their performance. When feedback is welcomed and acted on, employees stay engaged. When it’s ignored, they go quiet and work around the system. Finally, set realistic time horizons. Meaningful digital transformation takes 12 to 18 months at minimum. Leaders who set that expectation clearly, and measure progress patiently, will see fundamentally different outcomes than those who expect a tool to transform a team in 30 days. The Bottom Line The technology available to small businesses today is remarkable. But that capability only translates into results if the people inside the business are genuinely using the tools, trusting them, and building their workflows around them. That kind of adoption doesn’t happen because of a subscription or a launch announcement. It happens because leadership laid the proper groundwork, which includes involving employees before decisions were made, communicating personal benefits at every level, and anointing champions across the organization who can lead the adoption charge, including senior executives. Digital transformation is ultimately a human project. The technology is the easy part. Before your next software purchase, try this: ask every person on your team to name the one thing in their workday that consistently slows them down or drains their energy. The answers will almost certainly change what you think you need to buy. Further Questions About Employee Buy-In for Digital Transformation How long does digital transformation take for a small business? Meaningful digital transformation typically takes 12 to 18 months for small businesses. This includes the time needed to select the right tools, onboard employees, refine workflows based on real use, and build genuine habits around the new systems. Organizations that expect transformation in 30 to 60 days consistently underestimate the human side of change. What is ‘shelfware’ and why does it matter for small businesses? Shelfware refers to software that has been purchased but never meaningfully used. For small businesses, this is a particularly costly problem, both financially and culturally. Financially, it means paying for capability that delivers no return. Culturally, failed tool rollouts erode employee trust in future change initiatives, making the next transformation harder before it even starts. Should employees be involved in selecting new business software? Yes, and the earlier the better. Employees who participate in the selection process are significantly more likely to adopt and consistently use new tools. Beyond improving adoption rates, involving employees often surfaces practical constraints and requirements that leadership wouldn’t have identified independently. It’s both a better process and a better outcome. This article, "Why Small Business Employees Are the Best Digital Transformation Strategy (and its Biggest Obstacle)" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Google has confirmed a bug with the Google Search Console performance reports that specifically impacts “Job listing” and “Job details” search appearance filter. Starting April 16th Google had an issue logging this data. So Google is reporting zero clicks and impressions for these jobs reports. What Google said. Google wrote: “A logging error is preventing Search Console from reporting impressions and clicks for “Job listing” and “Job details” Search appearance types from April 16, 2026 onward. We’re working to resolve this issue. This issue affects data logging only.” Complaints. We first began noticing the complaints trickling in earlier this week, with several SEOs posting their concerns across social media. @rustybrick Seems there is a bug in GSC where impressions and clicks for Google jobs traffic is being reported 0 since 16th, but traffic is still coming in via google_jobs_apply UTMhttps://t.co/0Ed28Jvzdj— Max Peters (@maxjpeters) April 20, 2026 Why we care. If you noticed a drop in overall impressions and clicks, and then you dig in and find zero data from the job listings and details – then do not worry. This is a Google logging bug and it is on Google’s side. Google is still likely listing your job listings and sending traffic but it is not being tracked properly in Search Console right now. View the full article

Value, quality, and effectiveness—not cost savings—should define success. Accounting ARC With Liz Mason, Donny Shimamoto, and Byron Patrick Center for Accounting Transformation Go PRO for members-only access to more Center for Accounting Transformation. View the full article

Value, quality, and effectiveness—not cost savings—should define success. Accounting ARC With Liz Mason, Donny Shimamoto, and Byron Patrick Center for Accounting Transformation Go PRO for members-only access to more Center for Accounting Transformation. View the full article

The President official Michael Kratsios says Chinese entities stealing from American labsView the full article

Most enterprise SEO strategies die in slide decks. Beautiful presentations, airtight data, and solid recommendations, all collecting dust because nobody bought in. I’ve watched it happen at companies with eight-figure marketing budgets. I’ve also watched a single SEO insight convince a company to create an entirely new business unit and make a multimillion-dollar investment. The difference had nothing to do with the quality of the SEO work. I’ve spent 17 years finding out what it actually comes down to. Let me walk you through how to build an SEO strategy that gets the attention it deserves. The two ways enterprise SEO strategies fail Before I get into what works, let me talk about the two failure modes I see again and again. Leadership expects SEO to work like PPC The founder, CMO, or whoever the decision-maker is often doesn’t come from an SEO background or have experience standing up a successful organic program. Many come from performance marketing. They expect SEO to behave like PPC: invest money on Tuesday, see results on Wednesday. When it doesn’t, they deprioritize the channel, which creates a death spiral. Less investment leads to worse results, which “confirms” their bias that SEO doesn’t work. SEO gets stuck in a silo This one’s on us. SEO leaders who get too deep into the technical weeds, who can’t translate their work into business language, and who never get a seat at the table because they’re speaking a language nobody else in the room understands. They become consultants shouting into the void instead of strategic partners influencing decisions. Both failure modes share the same root cause: a disconnect between what SEO can deliver and how the organization thinks about growth. Your customers search everywhere. Make sure your brand shows up. The SEO toolkit you know, plus the AI visibility data you need. Start Free Trial Get started with Lead with narrative, back with data Most SEO leaders get this backwards. They walk into a meeting with the CEO armed with 40 slides of data: crawl reports, keyword rankings, and technical audits. Leadership doesn’t have time for that. They’re juggling a hundred priorities, and your data dump just became background noise. Start with the story instead: “Here’s the narrative.” “Here’s the opportunity.” “Here’s what I need from you to take us from A to B, and here’s how we’ll get there.” Then bring in the data to support the narrative. The higher you go in your SEO career, the more critical it is to be a listener first. Before I present anything to a new CEO or CMO, I invest time in understanding their leadership style, the organization’s macro challenges, and what the top three enterprise goals are. Not SEO goals — enterprise goals. Then I frame every recommendation through that lens: “As an enterprise, our goal is X. Here’s how this recommendation gets us there.” When you do that, friction disappears. Nobody can argue against working toward a goal they already signed up for. One tactic I’ve found consistently effective is anchoring conversations in competitor intelligence. Every CMO, every C-suite executive, cares deeply about competition. When I show them, “Here’s what competitor A has been doing for five years, and here’s the market position it earned them. I’m not asking for five years, but I need a year, and that’s being five times more efficient than they were,” the conversation shifts. You’re no longer justifying SEO’s existence. You’re helping them win a competitive battle they already care about. Retrofit your goals into their OKRs Here’s the cross-functional playbook that has worked for me across multiple enterprises. Your success at an enterprise depends on two teams: creative and engineering. But they have their own goals, their own KPIs, and their own OKRs. If you show up with a list of SEO requests, you’re just another stakeholder creating tickets. Instead, I start by genuinely understanding what each team is trying to achieve — and I mean actually understanding it, not assuming. In my first month at any new company, I schedule 30-minute 1:1s with the leads of every team I’ll need to work with: product marketing, engineering, creative, brand, and analytics. I ask three questions: What are your top two OKRs this quarter? What’s the biggest thing slowing you down? What does a win look like for you by year-end? I don’t mention SEO once in those conversations. By the end of that listening tour, I have a map: Product marketing wants revenue and retention. Engineering wants development velocity. Creative wants engagement metrics. Brand wants consistency. I know exactly how to position every SEO recommendation as a solution to something they already care about, in their language, toward their goals. In my previous role, I worked closely with a product marketing manager on naming a new feature. My research showed that thousands of prospects were searching for a specific term every month. Instead of framing it as an SEO recommendation, I said: “If you name this feature to match what people are already searching for, you’ll get free brand mentions, natural anchor text, and on-page relevance from day one. That directly hits your acquisition and retention target.” He got it immediately. That’s not an SEO win; it’s a product marketing win that SEO data enabled. This approach transforms you from a requestor into a force multiplier. You’re helping them hit their goals. Now they want to listen to you. Case study: Turning a sales insight into an SEO-driven business strategy The best example I can give of enterprise SEO that drove real business impact came from a conversation I wasn’t even supposed to be part of. Back in 2021, FreshBooks, my previous employer, was competing against a much larger incumbent, QuickBooks. Think David versus a Goliath with two times the feature set and more than a hundred times the budget. During a cross-functional meeting, I heard the director of sales mention that they were losing prospects at the finish line. The reason was that small business owners would get excited about the product, but ultimately defer to their accountant’s recommendation. And the accountants were all loyal to the incumbent. This was a business problem, but I saw a search-driven solution. I proposed building a professional accountant directory on our domain — a searchable database of FreshBooks certified partner accountants organized by city. (The approach was inspired by two concepts: Eli Schwartz’s product-led SEO framework and Ross Simmonds’ idea of building an SEO moat: something only your brand can do.) The domain already had strong authority. Keyword research showed significant search volume for terms like “accountant near me,” “bookkeeper in [city],” and similar local queries across hundreds of markets in the U.S. and Canada. The strategy was a triple win. Small business owners would find a vetted professional. Accountants would get qualified leads, and because our site outranked their own websites in their local markets, they had a strong incentive to join the program. For every accountant we onboarded, we’d gain multiple end customers they managed. It also addressed churn: freelancers who grew their businesses and hired accountants were leaving for the competitor. A partner accountant ecosystem would keep them. I built the full business case with sizing data, the potential to scale from low triple-digit partners to more than 10,000, and presented it up the chain: director of performance marketing, VP of marketing, and CMO. Each approved it. We hired an agency and spent six months building it. Did the directory launch? Not in its original form. Halfway through the build, the company recognized the strategic importance of the accountant channel so clearly that they created an entirely new business unit, invested multimillions in the accounting product line, and eventually built something much larger than what I’d originally proposed. That’s what a strategy that drives real organizational change looks like. The SEO insight didn’t just get approved; it fundamentally reshaped the company’s thinking about an entire market segment. Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. See terms. Why AI visibility makes cross-functional alignment non-negotiable Everything I’ve described — the narrative framing, the OKR retrofitting, and the cross-functional listening tour — used to be a competitive advantage. Now it’s the minimum requirement, because the AI visibility shift has made cross-functional alignment a survival skill, not a leadership style. We started tracking traffic coming from LLMs separately. What I found was revealing: conversion rates from LLM-referred traffic were four to six times higher than traditional organic. Users arriving through AI-assisted search had already done their research inside the LLM. They were arriving with high intent and ready to act. But here’s the challenge: roughly 85% of the sources that LLMs cite when generating responses about your products and services are third-party sites. If you want to influence what AI says about your products, you can’t do it alone. You need alignment with affiliate teams, PR, brand, product marketing, and even legal. I essentially did a roadshow internally, went to every department, and explained (with data): Customers are making buying decisions inside LLMs now. If we want to control the narrative about our brand and products in these AI-generated responses, every team needs to be on the same page. The affiliate team needs to know which third-party sites to prioritize. PR needs to think about how press coverage feeds into AI training data. Legal needs to understand the implications. All of our content, not just SEO content, needs to be optimized for how LLMs process and cite information. In the old world, you could publish content, build links, and win at SEO in relative isolation. That world is over. Enterprise SEO in the AI era requires the same cross-functional alignment I’ve been describing throughout this article, but now it’s not just a competitive advantage. It’s survival. Your first 30 days: Show, don’t tell If you’re stepping into an enterprise SEO leadership role for the first time, or inheriting a function that’s been siloed and undervalued, here’s the approach I’d recommend. Understand your product-market fit from the inside. Sit with finance, analytics, and data teams. Identify which customer cohorts deliver the best unit economics: ARPU, MRR, and LTV. Most SEOs never get this visibility, and it’s the single biggest unlock for building a strategy that leadership actually cares about. I call it the “know thy numbers” strategy. Nail down your ideal customer profile (ICP) with product marketing. Understand who the ideal customer is, where they are, and what content they’re looking for. Do an honest competitive assessment. What’s working, what’s not, and where are the gaps? Find one low-effort, high-impact win and execute it immediately. Show is 10 times more important than tell in enterprise SEO. Early wins build credibility. Once leadership sees tangible impact, they become more open to listening. The more they listen, the more you can educate, and the less friction you face. See the complete picture of your search visibility. Track, optimize, and win in Google and AI search from one platform. Start Free Trial Get started with Mindset over tactics Building an enterprise SEO strategy that drives real business impact isn’t about having the best technical audit or the most comprehensive keyword research. It’s about building an organization that thinks about search as a foundational growth lever. That means being a listener before you’re a presenter. It means speaking in business outcomes, not SEO jargon. It means helping your cross-functional partners hit their goals first, and baking SEO into their success. It means being willing to follow an insight wherever it leads, even if it ends up bigger than anything you originally proposed. The accountant directory I pitched was a six-month SEO project. The outcome was a multimillion-dollar business unit. That’s what happens when the organization believes SEO is worth investing in, because you’ve shown them why. View the full article

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web. We are seeing Google volatility get heated again...View the full article

UK oil major lost two votes at its annual shareholder gathering over climate disclosures and electronic meetingsView the full article

A marketing plan is a vital blueprint for your business, outlining specific goals and strategies to achieve them. It helps you target the right audience with precise messaging, allocate your budget effectively, and measure performance through key metrics. Without a solid marketing plan, your efforts can become unfocused, leading to wasted resources and missed opportunities. Comprehending its components and significance can transform your approach, but how do you create one that truly works for your business? Key Takeaways A marketing plan is a strategic document outlining marketing goals and engagement strategies to achieve business objectives. It includes market research, SWOT analysis, and defines the marketing mix for effective audience targeting. A marketing plan establishes measurable goals and KPIs to track performance and ROI. It enables tailored messaging through audience segmentation and adapts to market changes for sustained growth. A solid marketing plan enhances credibility with investors, showcasing organizational skills and growth potential. Understanding the Marketing Plan When you develop a marketing plan, you’re creating a strategic document that not just defines your marketing goals but likewise outlines the specific strategies and tactics you’ll use to engage your target audience effectively. Comprehending the elements of a marketing plan is vital. These elements include a clear identification of objectives, which helps focus your efforts, and market research findings that provide insights into consumer behavior. A SWOT analysis, identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, is fundamental for informed decision-making. Moreover, a defined marketing mix guides your outreach efforts, ensuring you utilize the right channels and tactics. Importance of a Marketing Plan A marketing plan plays an essential role in guiding a company’s marketing strategies, aligning them with broader business objectives. Comprehending the importance of a marketing plan can transform your business operations. It provides a clear direction and guarantees that every marketing effort is purposeful. Establishes measurable goals and KPIs for tracking performance. Identifies the target audience, allowing for customized messaging that boosts engagement. Facilitates effective budget allocation, improving ROI on marketing activities. Regular assessments of your marketing plan enable you to adapt your strategies based on market changes, guaranteeing you remain relevant. Types of Marketing Plans When you’re crafting your marketing strategy, comprehension of the various types of marketing plans is essential. Annual marketing plans set the stage for your entire year, whereas social media strategies focus on how to engage audiences through specific platforms. Both types serve different purposes, but together they help you create a cohesive approach to reaching your goals. Annual Marketing Plans Annual marketing plans serve as a critical framework for businesses aiming to achieve their marketing goals over the course of a year. These plans outline specific objectives, strategies, and budgets, ensuring all efforts align with overall business aims. A well-structured annual marketing plan includes: A detailed timeline of campaigns and initiatives for effective scheduling KPIs to measure performance and make adjustments as needed Market research and competitor analysis to refine marketing approaches Social Media Strategies Effective social media strategies are essential for businesses looking to improve their online presence and connect with target audiences. Social media marketing plans focus particularly on advertising and promotional content designed to engage users effectively. These plans emphasize timely and relevant content, as outdated promotions can harm your brand’s credibility. A well-structured social media marketing plan includes clear campaign objectives, target demographics, and a detailed content calendar to guide your posting schedule. To measure the effectiveness of your social media strategies, track engagement rates, follower growth, and conversion rates. Continuous evaluation and adaptation are important since audience preferences can shift quickly, requiring real-time adjustments to maintain relevance and effectiveness in your marketing efforts. Key Elements of a Marketing Plan A well-structured marketing plan is crucial for any business aiming to achieve its goals, as it outlines the strategic direction for reaching target audiences. Comprehending the key components of a marketing plan can greatly improve your efforts. Clear, measurable objectives based on consumer research to align campaigns with business goals. A SWOT analysis to assess strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, shaping targeted strategies. Detailed content outlines for campaigns that specify media types, promotional tactics, and audience engagement methods. Additionally, identifying brand competitors helps you differentiate your business and fill market gaps. Establishing specific targets for campaign performance, like key performance indicators (KPIs), allows you to evaluate success and refine future marketing efforts effectively. Steps to Create an Effective Marketing Plan Creating a marketing plan involves several systematic steps that help guarantee its effectiveness and alignment with your business goals. First, gather necessary documents like financial reports and market data to inform your plan’s development. Next, conduct a thorough market situation analysis, identifying threats and opportunities through a SWOT analysis. Then, clearly define measurable marketing objectives with specific time frames to promote accountability. After that, set an extensive marketing budget, including a 25% flexibility margin for adjustments. Finally, continuously monitor performance using KPIs and analytics tools to assess your campaign’s effectiveness. Measuring Success and Performance Even though measuring success and performance in your marketing efforts might seem intimidating, it’s vital for comprehending how well your strategies are working. To effectively assess your campaigns, focus on key performance indicators (KPIs) like: Advertising spend Sales figures Conversion rates Regularly evaluating these metrics allows you to identify which tactics yield the best results. This process helps you make informed adjustments to your strategies, ensuring that your marketing plan remains relevant to consumer behavior and market trends. Furthermore, a well-defined marketing plan provides benchmarks for future campaigns, facilitating continuous improvement and optimization. Aligning the Marketing Plan With Business Goals Measuring success in marketing provides valuable insights, but it’s equally important to align those marketing efforts with your business goals. A clear marketing plan definition helps guarantee that your marketing strategies contribute directly to your organization’s overarching objectives, creating a unified direction for all departments. By aligning your marketing plan, you can set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals that facilitate tracking progress. Comprehending company goals allows your marketing team to tailor campaigns, improving customer engagement and satisfaction. In addition, a marketing plan reflecting business objectives aids in efficient resource allocation, directing budgets to initiatives that yield the highest return on investment. Regularly reviewing and adjusting your marketing plan guarantees agility, enabling you to respond effectively to market changes. Attracting Investors With a Solid Marketing Plan To attract investors, you need a marketing plan that clearly outlines your business’s growth potential and strategic direction. By demonstrating a strong comprehension of your target market, competitive environment, and unique advantages, you bolster your credibility in their eyes. Furthermore, including measurable objectives and strategies for customer acquisition shows investors that you’re prepared to tackle challenges and achieve success. Demonstrating Growth Potential When crafting a marketing plan, demonstrating growth potential is crucial for attracting investors who want assurance of a company’s viability. A well-defined marketing strategy plan outlines your business direction, showcasing your comprehension of the target market and measurable objectives. This increases your credibility and reassures investors of your commitment to growth. Consider including these elements: Competitive analysis: Highlight your advantages over competitors. Audience segmentation: Show how you target specific customer groups effectively. Performance metrics: Detail how you’ll measure success and adapt strategies. Enhancing Credibility With Investors Investors are more likely to back your business if you present a solid marketing plan, as it clearly outlines your strategic direction and growth potential. A well-crafted marketing plan boosts credibility by detailing your target audience, strategies, and expected outcomes. It shows investors you’re organized and proactive. Parts of a Marketing Plan Importance for Investors Executive Summary Provides a concise overview Market Analysis Demonstrates comprehension of the market Marketing Strategies Outlines how to reach your audience Objectives and KPIs Sets measurable goals for success Financial Projections Shows potential return on investment Frequently Asked Questions What Is a Marketing Plan and Why Is It Important? A marketing plan outlines your goals, strategies, and budget for reaching potential customers. It’s essential since it helps you identify your target market, allowing for customized messaging that resonates. By setting clear, measurable objectives, you can track performance and optimize resources. Conducting a SWOT analysis reveals your strengths and weaknesses, guiding your competitive positioning. Regular evaluation through KPIs guarantees your marketing efforts align with business objectives, driving growth and long-term success. What Is a Marketing Plan and Why Is It a Company’s Most Important Document? A marketing plan’s essential since it serves as your roadmap for achieving business goals. It outlines your objectives, strategies, and target audience, ensuring everyone’s aligned and accountable. Why Do Firms Need a Marketing Plan? Firms need a marketing plan to establish clear, measurable objectives that align with their overall business goals. By conducting a SWOT analysis, you can identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, allowing for customized strategies. A marketing plan guarantees efficient budget allocation and effective campaign monitoring against established KPIs. It likewise improves team alignment by providing a roadmap, reducing brainstorming time, and assuring consistent efforts, finally positioning your firm better for attracting investors and securing funding. What Is the Main Goal of the Marketing Plan? The main goal of a marketing plan is to define clear, measurable objectives that align with your business strategy. It helps you target and engage your audience effectively. By detailing strategies and tactics, it sets a roadmap for achieving goals like increased sales or brand awareness. Furthermore, it establishes key performance indicators (KPIs) for monitoring effectiveness, ensuring resource allocation is efficient, and maximizing return on investment during enhancing organizational alignment across teams. Conclusion In conclusion, a marketing plan is crucial for guiding your business’s strategies and achieving your marketing goals. By outlining your target audience, budget, and performance metrics, you can adapt to market changes effectively. Comprehending the types of marketing plans and their key elements helps you create a robust strategy that aligns with your overall business objectives. Furthermore, a solid marketing plan improves your credibility with potential investors, making it an important tool for growth and success. Image via Google Gemini This article, "What Is a Market Plan and Why Do You Need It?" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

A marketing plan is a vital blueprint for your business, outlining specific goals and strategies to achieve them. It helps you target the right audience with precise messaging, allocate your budget effectively, and measure performance through key metrics. Without a solid marketing plan, your efforts can become unfocused, leading to wasted resources and missed opportunities. Comprehending its components and significance can transform your approach, but how do you create one that truly works for your business? Key Takeaways A marketing plan is a strategic document outlining marketing goals and engagement strategies to achieve business objectives. It includes market research, SWOT analysis, and defines the marketing mix for effective audience targeting. A marketing plan establishes measurable goals and KPIs to track performance and ROI. It enables tailored messaging through audience segmentation and adapts to market changes for sustained growth. A solid marketing plan enhances credibility with investors, showcasing organizational skills and growth potential. Understanding the Marketing Plan When you develop a marketing plan, you’re creating a strategic document that not just defines your marketing goals but likewise outlines the specific strategies and tactics you’ll use to engage your target audience effectively. Comprehending the elements of a marketing plan is vital. These elements include a clear identification of objectives, which helps focus your efforts, and market research findings that provide insights into consumer behavior. A SWOT analysis, identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, is fundamental for informed decision-making. Moreover, a defined marketing mix guides your outreach efforts, ensuring you utilize the right channels and tactics. Importance of a Marketing Plan A marketing plan plays an essential role in guiding a company’s marketing strategies, aligning them with broader business objectives. Comprehending the importance of a marketing plan can transform your business operations. It provides a clear direction and guarantees that every marketing effort is purposeful. Establishes measurable goals and KPIs for tracking performance. Identifies the target audience, allowing for customized messaging that boosts engagement. Facilitates effective budget allocation, improving ROI on marketing activities. Regular assessments of your marketing plan enable you to adapt your strategies based on market changes, guaranteeing you remain relevant. Types of Marketing Plans When you’re crafting your marketing strategy, comprehension of the various types of marketing plans is essential. Annual marketing plans set the stage for your entire year, whereas social media strategies focus on how to engage audiences through specific platforms. Both types serve different purposes, but together they help you create a cohesive approach to reaching your goals. Annual Marketing Plans Annual marketing plans serve as a critical framework for businesses aiming to achieve their marketing goals over the course of a year. These plans outline specific objectives, strategies, and budgets, ensuring all efforts align with overall business aims. A well-structured annual marketing plan includes: A detailed timeline of campaigns and initiatives for effective scheduling KPIs to measure performance and make adjustments as needed Market research and competitor analysis to refine marketing approaches Social Media Strategies Effective social media strategies are essential for businesses looking to improve their online presence and connect with target audiences. Social media marketing plans focus particularly on advertising and promotional content designed to engage users effectively. These plans emphasize timely and relevant content, as outdated promotions can harm your brand’s credibility. A well-structured social media marketing plan includes clear campaign objectives, target demographics, and a detailed content calendar to guide your posting schedule. To measure the effectiveness of your social media strategies, track engagement rates, follower growth, and conversion rates. Continuous evaluation and adaptation are important since audience preferences can shift quickly, requiring real-time adjustments to maintain relevance and effectiveness in your marketing efforts. Key Elements of a Marketing Plan A well-structured marketing plan is crucial for any business aiming to achieve its goals, as it outlines the strategic direction for reaching target audiences. Comprehending the key components of a marketing plan can greatly improve your efforts. Clear, measurable objectives based on consumer research to align campaigns with business goals. A SWOT analysis to assess strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, shaping targeted strategies. Detailed content outlines for campaigns that specify media types, promotional tactics, and audience engagement methods. Additionally, identifying brand competitors helps you differentiate your business and fill market gaps. Establishing specific targets for campaign performance, like key performance indicators (KPIs), allows you to evaluate success and refine future marketing efforts effectively. Steps to Create an Effective Marketing Plan Creating a marketing plan involves several systematic steps that help guarantee its effectiveness and alignment with your business goals. First, gather necessary documents like financial reports and market data to inform your plan’s development. Next, conduct a thorough market situation analysis, identifying threats and opportunities through a SWOT analysis. Then, clearly define measurable marketing objectives with specific time frames to promote accountability. After that, set an extensive marketing budget, including a 25% flexibility margin for adjustments. Finally, continuously monitor performance using KPIs and analytics tools to assess your campaign’s effectiveness. Measuring Success and Performance Even though measuring success and performance in your marketing efforts might seem intimidating, it’s vital for comprehending how well your strategies are working. To effectively assess your campaigns, focus on key performance indicators (KPIs) like: Advertising spend Sales figures Conversion rates Regularly evaluating these metrics allows you to identify which tactics yield the best results. This process helps you make informed adjustments to your strategies, ensuring that your marketing plan remains relevant to consumer behavior and market trends. Furthermore, a well-defined marketing plan provides benchmarks for future campaigns, facilitating continuous improvement and optimization. Aligning the Marketing Plan With Business Goals Measuring success in marketing provides valuable insights, but it’s equally important to align those marketing efforts with your business goals. A clear marketing plan definition helps guarantee that your marketing strategies contribute directly to your organization’s overarching objectives, creating a unified direction for all departments. By aligning your marketing plan, you can set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals that facilitate tracking progress. Comprehending company goals allows your marketing team to tailor campaigns, improving customer engagement and satisfaction. In addition, a marketing plan reflecting business objectives aids in efficient resource allocation, directing budgets to initiatives that yield the highest return on investment. Regularly reviewing and adjusting your marketing plan guarantees agility, enabling you to respond effectively to market changes. Attracting Investors With a Solid Marketing Plan To attract investors, you need a marketing plan that clearly outlines your business’s growth potential and strategic direction. By demonstrating a strong comprehension of your target market, competitive environment, and unique advantages, you bolster your credibility in their eyes. Furthermore, including measurable objectives and strategies for customer acquisition shows investors that you’re prepared to tackle challenges and achieve success. Demonstrating Growth Potential When crafting a marketing plan, demonstrating growth potential is crucial for attracting investors who want assurance of a company’s viability. A well-defined marketing strategy plan outlines your business direction, showcasing your comprehension of the target market and measurable objectives. This increases your credibility and reassures investors of your commitment to growth. Consider including these elements: Competitive analysis: Highlight your advantages over competitors. Audience segmentation: Show how you target specific customer groups effectively. Performance metrics: Detail how you’ll measure success and adapt strategies. Enhancing Credibility With Investors Investors are more likely to back your business if you present a solid marketing plan, as it clearly outlines your strategic direction and growth potential. A well-crafted marketing plan boosts credibility by detailing your target audience, strategies, and expected outcomes. It shows investors you’re organized and proactive. Parts of a Marketing Plan Importance for Investors Executive Summary Provides a concise overview Market Analysis Demonstrates comprehension of the market Marketing Strategies Outlines how to reach your audience Objectives and KPIs Sets measurable goals for success Financial Projections Shows potential return on investment Frequently Asked Questions What Is a Marketing Plan and Why Is It Important? A marketing plan outlines your goals, strategies, and budget for reaching potential customers. It’s essential since it helps you identify your target market, allowing for customized messaging that resonates. By setting clear, measurable objectives, you can track performance and optimize resources. Conducting a SWOT analysis reveals your strengths and weaknesses, guiding your competitive positioning. Regular evaluation through KPIs guarantees your marketing efforts align with business objectives, driving growth and long-term success. What Is a Marketing Plan and Why Is It a Company’s Most Important Document? A marketing plan’s essential since it serves as your roadmap for achieving business goals. It outlines your objectives, strategies, and target audience, ensuring everyone’s aligned and accountable. Why Do Firms Need a Marketing Plan? Firms need a marketing plan to establish clear, measurable objectives that align with their overall business goals. By conducting a SWOT analysis, you can identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, allowing for customized strategies. A marketing plan guarantees efficient budget allocation and effective campaign monitoring against established KPIs. It likewise improves team alignment by providing a roadmap, reducing brainstorming time, and assuring consistent efforts, finally positioning your firm better for attracting investors and securing funding. What Is the Main Goal of the Marketing Plan? The main goal of a marketing plan is to define clear, measurable objectives that align with your business strategy. It helps you target and engage your audience effectively. By detailing strategies and tactics, it sets a roadmap for achieving goals like increased sales or brand awareness. Furthermore, it establishes key performance indicators (KPIs) for monitoring effectiveness, ensuring resource allocation is efficient, and maximizing return on investment during enhancing organizational alignment across teams. Conclusion In conclusion, a marketing plan is crucial for guiding your business’s strategies and achieving your marketing goals. By outlining your target audience, budget, and performance metrics, you can adapt to market changes effectively. Comprehending the types of marketing plans and their key elements helps you create a robust strategy that aligns with your overall business objectives. Furthermore, a solid marketing plan improves your credibility with potential investors, making it an important tool for growth and success. Image via Google Gemini This article, "What Is a Market Plan and Why Do You Need It?" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Enterprise teams must run parallel SEO and AI workflows while building dedicated ownership and measurable transition frameworks. The post The Real Reason Your SEO Team Hasn’t Made The AI Transition Yet appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Claude has always been focused on text and code, but a few days ago, it rolled out image-generation capabilities—ways to get graphics, mock-ups, slideshows and other similar materials created by AI. The suite of tools is called Claude Design. Then ChatGPT, already much more invested in AI image generation, rolled out a substantial update called Images 2.0. Promises were made of a "step change" in accuracy, consistency, and instruction following. So what can you now do with these AI tools that you couldn't before? And how do the capabilities compare? Claude Design is focused on business and enterpriseClaude Design is available for Claude subscribers, and is intended, in the words of Anthropic, for "visual work like designs, prototypes, slides, one-pagers, and more." It won't produce pictures of cats riding skateboards for you, but it will pull together a project slideshow, or a mock-up of an iPhone app. This continues Claude's focus on business and enterprise: As well as coding with Claude, teams can work up prototypes and put together pitch decks. That may sound a little dry, but the new capabilities are actually quite versatile, and include spinning, interactive globes, as seen in the demo video. Claude Design will produce editable slide decks for you. Credit: Lifehacker To get started, you can get Claude to create visuals from an existing codebase, load up existing images and documents to use as starting points, or just type out a text prompt. You need to head to a special Claude Design landing page, separate from the main chatbot interface, which lets you choose how you want your workflow to operate. I decided to build a slide deck showing off the value of Lifehacker, and gave the AI a few screenshots to work with for an idea of the style. Claude then asked me a few questions about what I wanted, including the mix of text and images, and how long the slideshow should be, before getting to work. You get to see the AI "thinking" and working through the steps of building the graphics in real time. When the finished work was presented, it was impressively polished—and Claude Design gives you everything you need to export your work somewhere else. One of the most useful features is the way you can tweak the visuals after they've been created—on my slide deck, I was able to tweak the accent color, fonts, and slide density with just a few clicks. A mock-up of a potential Lifehacker news app. Credit: Lifehacker You can also request edits via further prompts, and even draw on the visuals to indicate what should happen next. Moving on to an iPhone mock-up of a potential Lifehacker news app, Claude Design did a great job here too, bar one or two little graphical glitches: the app design that looked very Lifehacker-y, and I was able to request edits just by drawing on the visuals and typing out what I wanted to change. It's all slick, professional, and easy to get around; I could see a lot of companies using Claude Design right alongside Claude Code. For individuals, it looks like a useful way of putting together ideas for designing just about everything, including slide decks (though the AI tools inside apps like PowerPoint and Google Slides might suit you better). ChatGPT Images 2.0 is focused on consumer as well as business use As for ChatGPT and its Images 2.0 upgrade, it's much more generalized and focused on consumer as well as business use. OpenAI says prompt instructions are now more closely followed, end results are more accurate and consistent, and text rendering has been further improved. Tasks can be more complex, and images look more "intentionally designed" as well. Creating images is as straightforward as it always has been: Just click Create an image and explain what you want to see in the prompt box. People have been making complex Where's Waldo? images, infographics from scientific papers, and mock magazine covers; I was able to produce a quick comic strip about Lifehacker in minutes. The Lifehacker comic—note the desk gets completely rearranged and the coffee gets hotter. Credit: Lifehacker/ChatGPT ChatGPT also proved able to mock up two Lifehacker magazine covers, of varying quality: They certainly look realistic enough, and there are no obvious mistakes or typos, but at the same time they also have that generic feel that a lot of AI imagery comes with. You can tell that these covers represent the "averaging out" of all the magazine covers sucked up in ChatGPT's training data. Choose your favorite Lifehacker magazine cover. Credit: Lifehacker/ChatGPT You can't build slide decks or anything as complex as you can in Claude Design with ChatGPT Images 2.0. You can theoretically create single slides and app mock-ups, but there are many more limitations in terms of consistency and editing what's on screen afterwards—ChatGPT is much more about one-off moments of AI art. The new Images 2.0 model is also much better at pulling up real information from the web, so you can put together a cartoon map of Middle Earth (although it's copyright-savvy enough to not do an exact copy of Tolkien's work), or create an informative diagram about upcoming sports tournaments. I ran both those tests, and ChatGPT came up with impressive visual results. Rather than ChatGPT, the closest comparison to Claude Design is probably the Gemini AI tools available through Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, which I've written about previously. While you can't yet create entire presentations, you can build slides from simple prompts, and load in other materials as references for the design. As with Claude Design, you can use follow-up prompts to refine certain aspects of the slideshow or document design, without having to start again from the beginning. And your finished work can be exported into a variety of formats, including PDF and Microsoft Office-compatible file types. View the full article

For a long time, we defined SEO success by rankings and traffic. If you reached the top of the search results and brought people to your site, you did your job. That approach worked when discovery was linear, and search engines were the primary gatekeepers. But modern search behavior does not stop at discovery. Users want clarity, reassurance, and confidence before they make decisions. With so many options to choose from, users want to understand what a product does, how it compares to alternatives, and whether it fits their needs. There is a shift in SEO, one that pushes closer to product thinking and long-term value creation. Search engines reward content and experiences that help users make informed decisions, not just pages that match keywords. That means SEO can no longer exist solely in the acquisition channel. SEO must support the entire journey, from first touch to post-purchase experience. Table of contents Technical SEO has always been product thinking Think like a product marketer, not just an SEO Your product is your most underrated SEO asset AI is changing how products are discovered and bought Why schema matters more than ever Conclusion Key takeaways SEO now focuses on user clarity and informed decision-making rather than just rankings and traffic. Businesses should adopt an approach that integrates product understanding and user intent into keyword research. Technical SEO remains crucial; a well-structured site improves visibility for both users and AI systems. Product content, including descriptions and FAQs, serves as a powerful SEO asset that should be optimized. Schema markup is essential for AI systems to accurately interpret product information, enhancing visibility and recommendations. Technical SEO has always been product thinking Technical SEO has always mattered, and it’s been tied to product quality, or at least product page quality. Site speed, internal linking, structured content, and clear navigation all shape how users experience a product online. A fast, well-structured site helps users and AI platforms better understand your products. That means better visibility in search engines and AI recommendations alike. Good SEO looks at the system as a whole, prioritizes changes based on impact, and focuses on removing friction, which are the same principles that guide good product decisions. Think like a product marketer, not just an SEO Ranking for keywords does not automatically mean you are reaching the right audience or communicating the right value. Product marketers spend time understanding who the product is for, what problem it solves, and why someone should choose it over alternatives. SEO benefits enormously from that same approach. Keyword research is not just a targeting exercise. It reveals how people describe their problems, what they care about, and what information they need before making a decision. Applying those insights to product descriptions, category pages, and supporting content pulls SEO closer to real user intent. This is how SEO moves beyond traffic and starts contributing to the full customer journey: awareness, consideration, conversion, and, just as importantly, retention. Your product is your most underrated SEO asset Many SEO strategies still treat content as something separate from the product. Blogs live in one place while product pages are left to focus purely on conversion. But products are content. Product names, descriptions, specifications, FAQs, reviews, and even post-purchase information all reflect the real information users are looking for. This content often holds far more SEO value than a generic blog post. Still, most brands do not optimize it with the same level of care. When product pages are clear, well-structured, and written in the language customers actually use, they become powerful discovery assets. AI is changing how products are discovered and bought Users are turning to AI platforms to ask for recommendations, evaluate options, and understand differences between products. ChatGPT now supports direct purchases through integrations with platforms like Shopify, using OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol. That means users can discover and buy products directly within an AI conversation without ever visiting a product page on a website. For businesses, this changes what visibility looks like. SEO is no longer just about ranking in search results. SEO is about making sure your products are understandable, trustworthy, and accessible to AI systems that act as intermediaries. And the scope of that is broader than it first appears. Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) extends AI-mediated commerce well beyond the checkout, covering the full lifecycle from product discovery through to order management, post-purchase support, and loyalty. That means the journey SEO needs to support has grown significantly. It is not just about being found and bought; it is about being the kind of brand an AI agent would confidently recommend, follow up with, and return to. Read more about ACP and UCP and what they mean for SEOs. Why schema matters more than ever If AI systems are going to recommend and sell products, they need structured information to rely on. Schema provides that structure. It tells search engines and AI platforms what a product is, how much it costs, whether it is available, how it is reviewed, and how it fits into a broader catalog. Without structured data, products become harder for machines to interpret and surface. With it, they become eligible for richer visibility across search engines, LLMs, and emerging shopping experiences. This goes beyond the basics. Pricing, availability, reviews, FAQs, shipping details, and even compatibility information all contribute to how well an AI agent can evaluate and surface your products. Third-party reviews on platforms like Trustpilot also play a role. Agents use external signals to validate brand credibility before making a recommendation. If that structured data is incomplete or inconsistent, your products risk being entirely invisible to agent-mediated discovery. Conclusion The rules of SEO have not been torn up but extended. Product thinking, structured data, clear content, and technical rigor have always mattered. What has changed is the audience you are optimizing for. Alongside the human visitor, you now have AI agents evaluating, recommending, and, in some cases, completing purchases on a user’s behalf. The businesses that will thrive are those that make their products easy to understand, easy to trust, and easy to surface, whether a person or a machine is doing the searching. The post Why your product is your most important SEO asset appeared first on Yoast. View the full article

You want to be happier. You want to feel more fulfilled. You want to live a longer, healthier life. Hold that thought. Lewis Terman, a Stanford University psychologist, was a pioneer in I.Q. testing. His revisions of the Stanford-Binet test helped it become a widespread tool for measuring general intelligence. In 1921, he identified 1,500 children who had scored 135 or higher on the test and began one of the longest longitudinal studies ever conducted. (The New York Times calls Terman and his study of “Termites,” as the kids called themselves, the “grandfather of all lifespan research.”) Terman’s study was guaranteed to outlive him, but that was the point: analyzing large groups of people over many decades allows researchers to uncover connections between cause and effect that short-term studies naturally miss. (It’s really hard to know if what you did in your 20s actually made you happy in your 40s and 70s unless the researchers catch you at all three stages of your life.) Who tended to live the longest, most fulfilling lives? People who actively pursued, and were highly engaged in pursuing, their goals. In fact, many of those who worked the hardest turned out to live the longest. Even if they didn’t actually accomplish their goals. According to The Longevity Project, achieving lifelong dreams doesn’t matter. According to the authors, pursuing your dreams is what counts: We did not find that precisely living out your dreams matters much for your health. It was not the happiest or the most relaxed older participants who lived the longest. It was those who were most engaged in pursuing their goals. Those who were the most successful were the ones least likely to die at any given age. In fact, those men who were carefree, undependable, and unambitious in childhood and very unsuccessful in their careers had a whopping increase in their mortality risk. Of course, success means (and absolutely should mean) different things to different people. That’s why determining what success means to you, and then actively working to achieve your definition of success, is the key. Living a laid-back, carefree, stress-free life may sound great, but as the study shows, happy-go-lucky people tend not to thrive. Persistent, conscientious, goal-oriented people thrive—again, even if they don’t always achieve their goals. Of course, other things matter as well. Other research shows good relationships make you happier and healthier: Terman’s study shows kids who have greater willpower and perseverance tend to be more successful as adults, regardless of relative I.Q. It’s not easy to change the quality of your relationships overnight, though. Nor is it easy to develop greater willpower and determination (although there are certainly ways you can increase your ability to resist temptation, stay focused and determined, and remain resolute in pursuit of your goals). But what you can do, starting today, is actively work toward achieving one of your goals. (A great double-dip goal would be to try to improve the quality of your relationships.) Working toward a goal will make you happier. Working hard to achieve a goal will help you live longer. Actively pursuing a goal, even if you never quite achieve it, will make your life more fulfilling, both now and when you eventually look back on a life well-lived. Because there’s only one longitudinal study of happiness that truly matters: yours. —Jeff Haden This article originally appeared on Fast Company’s sister website, Inc.com. Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy. View the full article

Many consumers may be pausing their travel plans until whenever the U.S.-Iranian fuel crisis ends. But if you were hoping that airline ticket prices and other ancillary costs will come down afterward, the CEO of United Airlines has some bad news for you: Airlines may not lower prices to their pre-war levels even after fuel prices fall. Instead, they’ll pocket the profits. Here’s what you need to know. Ticket prices rise as Iran war drags on This week, United Airlines (Nasdaq: UAL) reported its Q1 2026 earnings. For all intents and purposes, it wasn’t a bad quarter. Total operating revenue was up 10.6% year over year to $14.6 billion, capacity rose 3.4%, and diluted earnings per share rose 85% year-over-year to $2.14. Of course, United, like all other airlines, is facing its challenges, too. While the company paid an average fuel price of $2.78 per gallon during the quarter, it incurred $340 million more in fuel expenses than in the same quarter a year earlier. But like all other airlines, United is counteracting rising fuel costs by passing them on to fliers. It is doing this in two primary ways: first, by raising baggage fees, and second, by raising ticket prices. And things may soon only get worse. Scott Kirby, CEO of United Airlines, has warned that this summer, fliers may see the airline’s fares rise by 15% to 20%. While this no doubt displeases consumers, many might find it understandable in the wake of the current geopolitical crisis. Planes need fuel to fly, and if fuel prices rise, ticket prices will too. The thing is, most consumers also expect that when fuel prices decline, ticket prices will fall as well. But Kirby has indicated that his airline may not do that—and instead keep prices elevated even if fuel costs fall. Will higher prices be the new normal? On a financial call with reporters on Wednesday, April 22, Kirby was asked whether United Airlines would maintain its higher ticket and other ancillary prices to boost its bottom line. Unfortunately, Kirby’s answer is bad news for fliers. “I think it is more likely than not this time, and certainly the longer this [rising fuel prices] lasts, the higher the probability goes that the pricing increases hold,” Kirby said, according to a transcript of the call. But the CEO also clarified his answer, noting that United isn’t likely to keep the full price increases in place. Instead, Kirby suggested that the airline will keep a portion of those price rises in place. “We probably won’t hold 100% if we’ll normalize it,” Kirby said. “I told the team earlier today, and it’s just my guess, that if things went back to mid-February normal, I think we’d keep 20% of the price increase next year, and I think that’s going to move towards 80%. And every day, it’s picking up the longer this goes on.” A spokesperson for United Airlines declined to comment. A lawmaker has warned airlines not to keep prices high once fuel crisis ends Kirby’s assertion that higher prices are likely to stick around even after fuel prices decline may put him at odds with some lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including Democratic Congressman Ritchie Torres of New York. In a recent letter to airline CEOs, Torres demanded that airlines commit to lowering prices once the fuel crisis abates. “If airline pricing is truly tied to global fuel costs, then it must be equally responsive when those costs decline,” Torres wrote. “Pricing cannot be a one-way street. Raising prices in response to external pressures and keeping them artificially high when those pressures ease takes advantage of a deadly international conflict for profit.” Fast Company has reached out to Representative Torres for comment. In the letter, Torres particularly called out Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian, who had previously said that future lower fuel costs would “certainly help us boost our margins this year and clearly into next year as well.” But given Kirby’s statement, United Airlines may now also become a focus for Torres. View the full article

Search campaigns often see strong early gains — more visibility, traffic, and conversions. But that growth doesn’t last forever. At some point, performance stalls, whether it shows up as a plateau, volatility, or rising costs. That slowdown isn’t necessarily a failure. More often, it signals limits in demand, targeting, conversion, or execution — the challenge is figuring out which one. Search performance doesn’t stay linear, and once early wins are exhausted, quick gains become harder to find. When growth stalls, the instinct is to do more — launch campaigns, publish content, increase spend. But without understanding the constraint, that effort can miss the mark. Instead, the goal is to diagnose what’s actually limiting performance so you can focus on the changes that unlock the next phase of growth. How to identify what’s actually limiting growth When performance drops off, there’s a natural reaction to do more. The discipline of taking a step back and having a mindset of auditing, or seeking to understand what is really going on, is key to understanding the situation. While the answer very well may be to launch more campaigns, increase budgets, or publish more content, chances are that it will be a wasted effort and possibly compound the problem. In many cases, time is of the essence, and we don’t have time to spend a month on a forensic audit. Plus, it isn’t always necessary. A set of questions within a diagnostic framework can quickly help you identify what’s happening. Where is the change occurring? This might already be answered, as a specific KPI might have triggered the concern to start with. However, it’s important to understand where the performance gap is happening. Is it in just one channel? One platform? Or, more broadly, across the board? Where in the funnel or customer journey is it happening? Is it related to visibility, traffic, conversions, or something else? What hasn’t changed? Knowing what metrics are stable can help isolate variables in your search for answers. The more you can isolate the issue, the better you can diagnose problems and more quickly get to resolution steps. Is the issue upstream or downstream? Digging into upstream items includes demand and targeting, while downstream leads to the website and conversions. Getting granular with where performance is impacted in the journey helps greatly. Is this a limit or a gap? Limits can include considering if an opportunity has been maxed out, leading to a plateau. And, gaps can include considering if something is missing or is misaligned in the journey, tech, and end-to-end ecosystem. Dig deeper: Stop reporting traffic and activity. Start reporting progress. Your customers search everywhere. Make sure your brand shows up. The SEO toolkit you know, plus the AI visibility data you need. Start Free Trial Get started with Where search growth typically breaks down 1. Demand I’m starting with demand, as it can be one of the most frustrating causes of performance plateaus or negative changes, as it’s one that is difficult or impossible for marketing leaders and teams to change on their own. If impressions plateau, impression share remains high, rankings are strong, but you have limited new keyword opportunities, you might simply be at the mercy of changes in demand for your product or service. This could be due to global economic reasons, seasonality, or very niche market reasons. Early growth often comes from capturing existing market demand. But, eventually, that demand can be saturated, and more campaigns and optimization unfortunately can’t fix this – and can only hurt the ROI we already have. When exploring demand issues, you can expand your keyword and targeting universe, adjacent topics and subject matter (if still relevant to your product/service), seek out new audiences/personas, or consider expanded geography. All of these have to make sense for your business, though. 2. Targeting and coverage gaps If you have inconsistent performance across campaigns, content, or landing pages, you might have some targeting and/or coverage gaps. This often looks like inconsistent performance across campaigns and pages, missed segments of the funnel, and uneven coverage of the audience. The good news is that opportunity exists, and demand isn’t the issue, and you can identify and fill the gaps in intent coverage and ensure that all stages of the customer journey are covered. I see this most often when there’s a focus primarily on bottom-of-the-funnel users and not a full-funnel strategy. You can consider keyword clustering/structure, segmentation of your campaigns, and ensuring that your content is mapped really well to specific intents and stages in the journey. 3. Conversion and website constraints When traffic grows but conversions don’t, if you have a declining conversion rate, or strong visibility with weak outcomes, your website might be the bottleneck and cause. Search can do the job of getting the visitor to the site, but if the website is hurting potential outcomes or causing a mismatch between expectations of the visitor and the ultimate experience they have on the landing page, you have a website constraint. Landing page alignment to intent and the subject matter, and a strong user experience, are sometimes afterthoughts. A lot of focus can go into the content, topics, and targeting without considering the full experience. Trust signals, messaging clarity, clear conversion paths, and removing UX friction are key to getting the expected ROI on search. Dig deeper: 6 SEO tests to help improve traffic, engagement, and conversions Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. See terms. 4. Efficiency limits in paid search If you’re experiencing rising cost per acquisition numbers, declining return on ad spend, or a higher cost for incremental growth, then you’ve likely hit a ceiling on efficiency. Early efficiency gains are often easier to find and achieve. When you get further into a campaign management phase, you may find that scaling requires tradeoffs and cost increases that are marginal when you expand. You can consider different bid strategies, creative, or ad fatigue, audience expansion, and even what it looks like in how you’re balancing efficiency versus scale in your efforts. 5. Content depth vs. expansion trade-off When you increase content creation and output with limited gains from the investment/effort, see stagnant visibility, or keyword cannibalization, you might be finding that more content isn’t necessarily the answer within your strategy. Early on, you might have experienced gains from filling content gaps and, with gaps filled, are now focused on adding depth. Sometimes, adding depth and continuing to scale content can create unintentional overlaps and dilute performance in hidden ways. It might not seem intuitive, but evaluating if you need to consolidate content (instead of expand) to create a sharper focus and higher overall quality (versus quantity) could be the best option for you. A focus on improving existing content, topical authority, and the content hierarchy and linking structure could be better for you than simply producing more and new content overall if you’re experiencing plateaus. 6. Execution and resource constraints So maybe “doing more” is the answer. I’m not contradicting what I noted early on about how doing more isn’t typically the answer, but you’ll know if that is a constraint and if you think it’s holding you back. In this case, it isn’t that you’re aimlessly adding more work, but you know that you have constraints with resources. When you have a backlog that you can’t get to, slow implementation, or inconsistency in tactics, you’re likely limited by capacity. Knowing what to do but not being able to execute isn’t rare or unique, and it can be frustrating to company and marketing leadership when you see what needs to be done, how it’s holding back results, creating plateaus, and if it isn’t something you can quickly fix. Dig deeper: How to cultivate SEO growth through continuous improvement Find the constraint, then unlock growth It’s exciting to see search performance graphs trending “up and to the right,” and the impact that can have on the bottom line. On the flip side, it can be frustrating, create stress, and be complicated to address when that positive performance stagnates or a plateau is reached. Typically, doing more and doubling down isn’t the right answer. The complexity and number of potential variables that impact performance can be hard to identify and isolate. Leveraging a framework like the diagnostic I unpacked and understanding common reasons can help you sort out performance concerns faster and with greater clarity in your search marketing leadership and implementation. View the full article

Three congressional candidates wagered on the outcome of their own elections on Kalshi, according to the prediction market, which said Wednesday that it fined and suspended the men from their platform for five years. It is the latest high-profile case of alleged insider trading on prediction markets including Kalshi and Polymarket, which have brought bipartisan scrutiny from Congress and calls for stricter regulations of the websites where people can put money on just about anything. Kalshi’s disciplinary documents named Mark Moran, who is running as an independent in Virginia’s U.S. Senate race; Ezekiel Enriquez, who ran in a Texas Republican primary for a U.S. House seat; and Matt Klein, a Democratic state senator running for a U.S. House seat in Minnesota. Klein and Enriquez both placed bets less than $100 related to their “own candidacy,” Kalshi said. Moran said on social media that he “traded $100 on myself.” These relatively small bets follow mammoth wagers on prediction markets earlier this year that raised eyebrows. In one case, an anonymous Polymarket user made a $400,000 profit in January on a wager that former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would soon be out of office. In March, after two U.S. senators announced legislation that threatened prediction markets, Kalshi and Polymarket highlighted new rules, including against political candidates trading on their own campaigns. Moran refused to reach an agreement with Kalshi and was fined the most at more than $6,200, while Klein and Enriquez did reach agreements and face penalties of over $530 and $780, respectively, the company said. All were suspended from Kalshi for five years. Some politicians said the punishments didn’t go far enough. U.S. Rep. Mike Levin, a California Democrat, slammed the repercussions on social media, saying, “That’s not a punishment. That’s a parking ticket.” The agreements are with the company, and not with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates predication markets. The agency is chaired by Michael Selig, who is considered friendly to the burgeoning industry. Far from denying the allegations, Moran told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he placed the bets intending to draw attention to what he said was unjust sway that platforms like Kalshi have on elections. Moran added that he’d met with the company and had asked for his name to appear on its website. Moran said he was fined more than the other candidates because he refused to sign a settlement that would’ve required him to post a statement on X. He said he felt that the stunt was successful. “When I piss people off, when I upset people, and when I captivate their attention, that’s when they have to start listening,” he said. Klein also confirmed Kalshi’s findings in a post on social media on Wednesday. The $50 wager he placed in October was the first time he had used a predictions market, he said in a statement on X, and he was “curious about how it worked.” “This was a mistake and I apologize,” he wrote, saying that the experience made it clear that the markets need more regulation. Klein is a cosponsor of a bill working its way through the Minnesota Legislature to ban most wagering on predictive markets, including the outcome of elections. In an interview, he said he didn’t think there was an inconsistency between his betting $50 on himself to win his primary and his sponsorship of legislation. Klein said he spent the winter learning about predictive markets and signed onto the bill well before he learned that his bet violated Kalshi’s rules. Enriquez, known as Zeke, lost his House race in the beginning of March with less than two percent of the vote. Contact information for Enriquez was not immediately found to request comment. Associated Press reporters Steve Karnowski and Hannah Schoenbaum contributed. —Jesse Bedayn and Safiyah Riddle, Associated Press View the full article

Why Google is evolving into a more “engaging” platform, and what declining engagement from younger users means for search and publishers. The post Why Google Has Changed & Who’s Really Paying for It appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article