SEO for Plumbers: How to Rank Higher & Get More Customers

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Want to know why some plumbing businesses dominate Google’s first page while others struggle to get noticed?

It’s not luck.

These plumbing companies all focus on the same core SEO strategies.

Take Deer Valley Plumbing Contractors, for instance.

They appear in Google’s 3-Pack when prospective customers in their area search for “plumbing company” and other related keywords.

And they have notably more reviews than the competition.

Google Businesses – Plumbing company – Arizona

Their site also ranks for 3K keywords.

This helps Deer Valley Plumbing Contractors drive 2.7K organic visits to their website each month.

Traffic that would cost an estimated $44.7K per month in Google Ads.

Organic Research – Deer Valley Plumbing – Overview

The best part?

With SEO for plumbers, your business can achieve similar—or better—results.

In this guide, you’ll learn SEO fundamentals that’ll help your site rank higher, from local search to link-building.

But first, let’s start with a quick overview of what exactly plumbing SEO is.

What Is Plumbing SEO?

Plumbing SEO is a set of practices that increase a plumbing company’s website’s visibility in search engines like Google.

SEO for plumbers includes:

  • On-page optimization: Optimizing your service pages for key terms like “water heater repair” or “emergency plumber” by using strategic headers, meta descriptions, and location-based keywords that match how local customers actually search
  • Technical SEO: Making sure your plumbing website loads quickly on mobile devices, has intuitive navigation, including clear contact information, and works smoothly for emergency calls
  • Local SEO: Optimizing your Google Business Profile, service area pages, and local citations to show up in “near me” searches and Google Maps when homeowners need a plumber in your area
  • Content marketing: Creating helpful guides, FAQs, and service pages that answer common plumbing questions like “Why is my water heater leaking?” or “How to unclog a drain” to attract local homeowners searching for solutions
  • Link building: Building credibility and authority by getting featured in local business directories, home service websites, and plumbing supplier sites

Google SERP – Plumber near me

What Are the Benefits of SEO for Plumbers?

SEO has many benefits for plumbers—especially if you’re at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs).

This includes attracting more qualified leads, building authority, and increasing revenue—all without spending a dime on advertising.

Think about how people search for plumbers today.

When a homeowner’s water heater fails at midnight, or their kitchen sink backs up before a dinner party, they immediately grab their phone and search Google.

SEO increases your chances of showing up in these searches, helping you get more ready-to-hire leads.

And you have plenty of opportunities—246,000 people search for “plumbers near me” in the U.S. every month.

Keyword Overview – Plumbers near me – Volume

But that’s far from the only search term getting traffic.

Countless people search for standard and urgent plumbing-related terms monthly:

  • Emergency plumber: 27,100 monthly searches
  • Plumbing companies near me: 27,000 monthly searches
  • Best plumbers near me: 9,900 monthly searches
  • 24 hour plumber: 4,400 monthly searches

Keyword Overview – Emergency Plumber – Volume

When your website ranks at the top of Google for these terms, you’re essentially setting up a 24/7 lead generation system.

6 Essential Plumber SEO Strategies

Ready to outrank your competitors and capture more high-value plumbing leads?

These six SEO strategies work together to boost your search visibility. And convert website visitors into paying customers.

1. Keyword Research

The first step of any plumber SEO campaign is keyword research.

This involves identifying relevant keywords based on key metrics like search intent, volume, and keyword difficulty. And conducting research into your competitors’ keyword strategies.

Understand Keyword Metrics

A tool like Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool is helpful for conducting keyword research.

Note: A free Semrush account gives you 10 searches in this tool per day. Or you can use this link to access a 14-day trial on a Semrush Pro subscription.

Enter a seed keyword like “plumbing company” into the Keyword Magic Tool.

Keyword Magic Tool – Plumbing company – Search

You’ll see a list of keyword ideas and some important information about each term.

This includes “Intent.”

Keyword Magic Tool – Plumbing company – Keywords Intent

Search intent is the reason behind a user’s search—it tells you why they searched and what they were hoping to find.

There are four types of search intent.

Including:

  • Informational: These are searches where people want to learn something, like “how to fix a clogged toilet.” This type of content works best as detailed guides and tutorials.
  • Navigational: When searchers are looking for a specific plumbing business or page like “Jerry’s Plumbing Company” or “Plumbing Pros hours of operation”
  • Commercial: The person wants to know more about a product or business, such as “best plumbers in Austin” and “sink repair.” Use these in product comparison articles, testimonials, and service pages.
  • Transactional: The person is ready to hire and might search “hire a plumber” or “call a plumber.” Use strategic calls to action (CTA) and keywords like “hire” and “book now” on your site.

For example, “plumbing company” has commercial intent.

Keyword Magic Tool – Plumbing company – Keyword

This means the user’s goal for this search is to research plumbing company options, read reviews, and view services, making it a good term to target on a service page.

But if someone searches “how to fix a leaky faucet,” (which has informational intent), they expect to find detailed DIY instructions with photos or videos.

See the difference?

Rainbow Restoration – How to fix leaky faucet

Next, let’s look at two other crucial metrics:

  • Volume: The number of monthly searches for a keyword
  • Keyword Difficulty (KD): A rating showing how hard it is to rank for that keyword from zero to 100

Keyword Magic Tool – Plumbing company – Volume & KD

While you’ll likely have broad keywords on most pages, if you have a newer site (or one that lacks authority), you’ll also want to target terms that’ll be easier to rank for in the SERPs.

Local keywords often have this perfect combination—moderate search volume with lower competition in specific service areas.

For example, “plumbing companies in phoenix, arizona” gets 70 searches per month and has a low keyword difficulty score of 27.

Keyword Magic Tool – Plumbing companies – Arizona, Phoenix

You might use this term on a location page to target local customers.

Continue researching keywords to target on each page of your site—making sure to adjust your focus for each page’s specific purpose:

  • Service pages should target specific plumbing solutions: Water heater repair, drain cleaning, radiator installation
  • Location pages need geographic terms: Local plumbing company, plumber in [city], 24/7 plumbers in [city]
  • About pages should emphasize trust and credentials: Licensed plumber, family-owned plumbing, plumbing company hours
  • Resource pages should answer common questions and concerns: How to fix a leaky faucet, signs you need repiping, water heater maintenance tips

Answer User Questions

Your target audience likely has a lot of questions about plumbing problems and hiring a plumber.

These questions make great topics for FAQ pages and blog posts.

Here’s how to find them using the Keyword Magic Tool:

Search for a broad keyword like “drain repair” and apply the “Questions” filter.

Keyword Magic Tool – Drain repair – Questions

The tool will return options like:

  • How to repair tub drain: 320 volume; 29 KD
  • How to repair shower drain: 210 volume; 30 KD
  • How to repair a leaking shower drain: 170 volume; 23 KD

All of the above topics have informational intent, which means they’d work well as step-by-step tutorials on your blog.

Plus, answering these questions with high-quality content will help you establish expertise.

As you review the questions, pay attention to volume and KD scores—the lower the KD, the easier it’ll be for you to rank for each term.

Research Competitor Keywords

You don’t have to start from scratch when finding keywords—analyze what’s already working for your successful competitors.

A tool like Semrush’s Keyword Gap can help you with this.

First, enter your URL and up to four competitors’ URLs. Hit “Compare.”

Keyword Gap – Bill Howe – Search

Now, you’ll see an overview of your site’s keyword performance compared to your competitors.

Including how many ranking keywords you and each of your rivals have.

Keyword Gap – Bill Howe – Keyword Overlap

As you review the reports, pay special attention to three key opportunities:

  • Missing: Keywords your competitors rank for but you don’t
  • Weak: Keywords where competitors outrank you
  • Untapped: Keywords where at least one competitor ranks

These are opportunities to target these keywords on existing pages.

And create new content to knock your competitors off the SERPs.

Keyword Gap – Bill Howe – Details for filters

If they have a blog post on how to clear a clogged drain, create a better version with step-by-step photos and videos.

If they list services, include pricing guides and customer case studies.

Aim to outrank them with higher-quality content that diverts traffic away from their site to yours.

2. Local SEO

Local SEO is vital for plumbers.

Why?

Because when someone conducts a search with local intent, such as “plumber near me” or “plumber in [city],” Google shows three local businesses at the top of the page.

Google Businesses – Plumber in Queens New York

This is the 3-Pack I mentioned earlier in the article—and it’s prime real estate for plumbers.

Let’s make sure your business shows up there.

Claim and Optimize Your Google Business Profile

Start by claiming your free Google Business Profile (GBP). If you’re not sure how to do this, follow Google’s tutorial.

Add your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) to your profile.

Double-check that you’ve entered everything correctly.

Accurate NAPs show Google your business is trustworthy, which helps increase your chances of ranking in the Map Pack.

Google Map Pack – Plumber in Phoenix

Next, create a keyword-rich business description that includes important terms for your business.

This will be the services you offer and any standout features like “local plumbing business” or “emergency plumbing repair.”

For example, Maloney Plumbing and Drain Services included key terms like “plumbing repair” and “drain clearing” in their company overview.

They also referenced the location they serve: “Phoenix.”

Maloney Plumbing and Drain Services – Overview – Key terms, location

Add as many relevant service categories as possible—from sewer cleaning to garbage disposal installation.

Maloney Plumbing and Drain Services – Services

The photos section isn’t just about showing you exist.

Your images should build trust and show potential customers exactly what to expect:

  • Uniformed technicians (shows professionalism)
  • Branded trucks (proves you’re established)
  • Actual repair work (demonstrates expertise)
  • Team in action (builds credibility)

Maloney Plumbing and Drain Services – Photos

Finally, post updates.

This shows searchers and Google that you’re an active business with up-to-date information.

But it also lets you share vital details, communicate with customers, and highlight promotions and events.

Maloney Plumbing and Drain Services – Updates

With your GBP filled out, it’s time to focus on earning positive reviews—lots of them.

Collect and Manage Online Reviews

Reviews matter more than you may realize.

Seventy-one percent of consumers will not consider using a business if it has an average review rating below three stars.

Google also states that one of the three ranking factors for local search is “prominence,” which is defined by how popular a business is online and offline.

(Prominence includes review count and average review rating.)

Maloney Plumbing and Drain Services – Prominence

So, how do you get more positive reviews?

You ask for them.

Most importantly, you make it easy for past clients to leave reviews.

For example, Total Service Plumbing created a dedicated review page on their website that links to each of their location’s Google Business Profiles.

Smart.

Total Service Plumbing – Review page

While having a page on your website is helpful, you’ll want to take a multi-pronged approach to collecting reviews.

For example:

  • Send a follow-up text right after completing a service
  • Include a review link in your invoice emails
  • Create QR codes on your business cards and service vehicles
  • Train your technicians to ask satisfied customers for reviews

Pro tip: Use a tool like Semrush’s Review Management to make it easy to track and reply to all your reviews (even negative ones) from your Google Business Profile and other directories. This shows you value customer feedback and want to improve your services.

West Plumbing LLC – Customer feedback

Build Local Citations

A local citation is any mention of your business on the internet.

This includes your basic contact details, like your NAP.

Think Yelp, Angi, and Porch.com.

The key? Keep your information consistent everywhere.

Yelp – Consistent business information

Consistent business information tells search engines your business is legitimate and trustworthy.

But manually searching and verifying your citations is not a productive use of your time (or your team’s).

Use a tool like Semrush’s Listing Management tool to automate this process.

Listing Management automatically checks for issues like missing phone numbers and incorrect addresses and updates them for you.

Listing Management – Ranshav – Plumbing and heating example

This makes it easy to maintain updated and accurate listings across multiple directories and keep your local SEO on point.

3. On-Page SEO

On-page SEO is the practice of improving webpage elements so your website ranks higher in SERPs and earns more relevant traffic.

Here’s how to optimize your plumbing site.

Use Your Target Keyword in the Right Places

Every webpage has specific spots where keywords make the biggest impact.

This includes the following elements:

  • Title tag: This is the title that shows up in search results. Limit this to 50-60 characters and include the target keyword as close to the front as possible.
  • Meta description: This is the summary that appears under the title tag in search results. Include the target keyword and keep it under 155 characters.

Nick's- Plumbing – Title tag & meta description

Pro tip: SEO plugins like RankMath and Yoast SEO make it fast and easy to customize title tags and meta descriptions on your site. The plugins will also alert you when you’ve forgotten to add metadata, helping ensure you keep up with on-page optimization.


You’ll also want to add your target keyword to the H1 (aka the headline) of each page.

For example, plumbing company Benjamin Franklin uses the keyword “Residential Leak Detection Services” on its H1 for one of its service pages.

H1s tell Google and readers what your page is about.

Benjamin Franklin Plumbing – Leak Detection Services – H1

Pro tip: Every service page needs a unique H1—aka, don’t use “Plumbing Services” on multiple pages.

Use subheads (H2, H3, H4) to organize your content. Include keyword variations in them naturally.

For example, Benjamin Franklin uses “The Types of Plumbing Leaks We Repair” as an H2 and has “Common Signs of Plumbing Leaks” underneath as an H3.

Benjamin Franklin Plumbing – Using subheadings

You’ll also want to add descriptive alt text to your images.

This helps Google understand what your images show and ensures your site is accessible for those using screen readers.

For example, alt text for this image could be: “Professional plumber in uniform inspecting under-sink plumbing while showing digital tablet to homeowner in kitchen.”

Plumbing services in Phoenix – Image

Further reading: SEO Content: Complete Beginner’s Guide

Implement Schema Markup

Schema markup is code that helps search engines understand your content better.

It’s a ‌common practice to put this code on all webpages, especially service and location pages.

When done right, it can make your listing stand out with rich snippets that include:

  • Your business logo
  • Star ratings
  • Service prices
  • Availability hours

Like this plumbing company that shows up when searching for “clogged drain repair in San Diego.”

The listing features a 4.8 star rating and shows the business has over 8K votes, helping to instill confidence in searchers.

Rooter Hero Plumbing – Star rating

Use Google’s free Schema markup generator tool.

Select “Local Businesses” for the data type.

Enter the URL of the webpage and click “Start Tagging.”

Google Structured Data Markup Helper – Benjamin Franklin Plumbing

This takes you to the webpage where you highlight or tag the content needed for the code.

Google Structured Data Markup Helper – Create HTML

Once you’re done tagging the page, click “Create HTML.”

Google Structured Data Markup Helper – Script block

Copy the script block and paste it to the head section of your webpage’s HTML.

Too technical for you?

Hire a developer or tech-savvy friend to help you with this step.

It’s worth the hassle, as it can help your plumbing business stand out in the SERPs.

Analyze Current Pages for On-Page SEO Opportunities

As you add more pages to your site and blog, you’ll want to make sure you’ve properly implemented on-page optimization.

Semrush’s On Page SEO Checker can help you with this—it automates the process, so you don’t have to check each page manually.

Enter your URL and click “Get ideas.”

On Page SEO Checker – Ranshaw – Get ideas

Click the “View all pages & ideas” to view the full list of pages it found to optimize.

On Page SEO Checker – Ranshaw – Overview

Click the blue “Ideas” button for any page to view the suggestions.

On Page SEO Checker – Ranshaw – Optimization Ideas

For example, you’ll see recommendations like avoiding keyword stuffing in content, creating more informative contentm, and providing more relevant meta descriptions.

It’ll also give you tips on how to score featured snippets for certain keywords.

Make the necessary changes to help give your site a boost in the SERPs.

On Page SEO Checker – Ranshaw – Optimization Ideas – Content

4. Content Marketing

Creating helpful, high-quality content for your audience is a big part of SEO.

It can also drive long-term results and steady organic traffic over time.

Let’s look at how you can use content marketing to attract leads and instill confidence in prospective customers.

Answer Questions in Your Blog Posts

People who have a clogged toilet might not want to hire a plumber right away.

They might first try to fix the problem themselves—this is when they try to find answers online.

As a plumber, you’re in the best position to teach them how to unclog a toilet.

Like Benjamin Franklin did on its blog:

Benjamin Franklin Plumber – Blog topic

With step-by-step instructions, Benjamin Franklin gives its target customers the information they need to handle the job themselves.

Benjamin Franklin Plumber – Plumbing topic instructions

But they also include hiring a pro as an option to encourage those who don’t want to DIY to give them a call.

Nice.

Benjamin Franklin Plumber – Call a Plumber

Sounds simple enough, right?

Well, you’ll be competing in the SERPs with countless other plumbers who are targeting the same keywords for the same topics.

So, how do you stand out?

By following Google’s quality guidelines for content: experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T).

Here’s how:

  • Prove your expertise. Include an author bio at the end of your content and highlight your experience as a plumber, including any certifications, years of experience, education, and more
  • Include step-by-step photos and videos: Guide your readers through each step with high-quality photos and videos that show you know your stuff
  • Add expert insights and quotes: Share firsthand tips that showcase your experience and include quotes from SMEs on your team to infuse your content with more authority and trust

Create Location and Service Pages

Location and service pages are exactly what they sound like.

They’re dedicated webpages for every service and location of your business.

If you have 10 different plumbing services, you need to create 10 separate pages describing each service.

For example, Jimmy Joe’s Plumbing has a separate page for everything from backflow prevention to home remodeling plumbing.

Jimmy Joe's Plumbing – Service pages dropdown

If you have multiple locations, you’ll also want to create dedicated pages for each one.

Like John the Plumber did in Florida.

Its site has pages for each location with city-specific content on each one.

John the Plumber– Service Areas dropdown

Pro tip: Create unique content for each location page—don’t copy/paste. Duplicate content is a big no-no in SEO and can negatively impact your rankings.

Include Semantic Keywords in Your Content

Semantic keywords are keywords that are related to your target keywords.

It’s important to add semantic keywords to your content because it helps Google understand the context of your content.

You can use keyword research tools to find related keywords based on a seed keyword.

But you can also type a word in Google and view the People Also Ask section.

For example, typing in “heater installation” reveals semantic and question keywords you can target in content.

People Also Ask – Heater installation

5. Technical SEO

Technical SEO is the process of improving your website’s technical aspects.

In other words, it needs to be fast, mobile-friendly, and secure.

But if you’re not a technical person, don’t worry.

I’ll teach you how to run an audit and check your site’s speed with user-friendly tools.

Run an SEO Audit

An audit can identify issues with your site, particularly page errors that affect your site’s performance and health.

For instance, broken links and pages can damage your website’s ranking and authority.

Tools like Ahrefs and Semrush offer free website audit tools.

For example, Semrush’s Site Audit tool lets you audit up to 100 pages per month on Semrush’s free plan.

Enter your website’s URL and click “Start Audit.”

Site Audit – Ranshaw – Start Audit

You’ll get an email when the report is ready.

The tool will provide an overview of your site’s performance.

This includes everything from a site health score to categorizing site issues by severity: Errors (high), Warnings (medium), and Notices (low).

Site Audit – Ranshaw – Overview

Click on the “Issues” tab to learn how you can improve your site’s pages.

Site Audit – Ranshaw – Issues – How to fix it

Some common errors you might see include:

  • Keyword cannibalization: When multiple pages have the same or similar target keywords and the same search intent
  • Keyword stuffing: When target keywords are used excessively on the page
  • Thin content: The content doesn’t have any (or little) value to readers and doesn’t meet search intent

Improve Loading Speed

If it takes your site longer than three seconds to load, 53% of visitors will abandon it, according to Google Consumer Insights.

So, if you have a slow site, it could be causing you to lose valuable plumbing leads.

Use a free web speed analysis tool like GTMetrix to check your site’s loading speed.

Enter your website’s URL and click “Test Now.”

GTmetrix – Test your website speed

After the analysis, you’ll get a grade, which tells you how well your site is performing, along with an overview of Core Web Vitals metrics.

Core Web Vitals measure the speed, interactivity, and visual stability of your site.

GTmetrix – Country plumber – Report

Scroll to the “Top Issues” section to learn what your site’s errors are and how to fix them.

GTmetrix – Country plumber – Report – Top Issues

Prioritizing technical SEO helps ensure your site delivers the fast and intuitive experience users expect.

6. Link Building

Link building is the process of getting other sites to link to a page on your website.

These links, called backlinks, play a big role in your site’s search ranking.

Here’s how to build your backlink profile, starting with a little competitor research.

Spy on Your Competitors’ Backlink Profiles

Use Semrush’s Backlink Analytics tool to learn valuable information about your competitors’ backlink profiles.

This includes the total number of referring domains and backlinks they receive and their authority score.

Backlink Analytics – Roto-Rooter – Overview

View the “Referring Domains” report to see who is linking to your competitors.

(So you can try to get them to link to you, too.)

Backlink Analytics – Roto-Rooter – Referring Domains

Some referring domains might be directories you can add your business information to, and others may be sites you can try to guest post on.

Find and Reach Out to High-Quality Link Prospects for Guest Posting

Think about plumbing-related content that a website within your industry might be interested in.

Some examples of websites that might feature plumbers include:

  • Home improvement blogs
  • Real estate blogs
  • Home insurance blogs

Here’s an example of a guest blog from Precision Air & Plumbing for a home insurance website.

City Building Owners Blog – Common Plumbing Problems

Finding websites that publish plumbing-related content can take time.

One way to speed things up is to use a tool like Semrush’s Link Building Tool.

Enter your URL and click “Start Link Building.”

Link Building – Black Diamond Today – Search

Add your keywords, like “plumber in chicago” and “emergency plumber chicago” and click “Keywords” on the bottom.

Link Building – Black Diamond Today – Add keywords

This brings you to the next page, where you can add competitors.

Click “Start Link Building.”

Link Building – Black Diamond Today – Competitors

Click “View prospects” on the pop-up.

View link building prospects – Black Diamond Today

Sort the list by highest AS (Authority Score).

This shows you the most reputable websites on this list.

Link Building – Black Diamond Today – To In Progress

Use your judgment to choose websites that are likely to accept guest posts.

Click on the icon to open the link to see plumbing-related content that’s published on the prospect’s website.

Link Building – Black Diamond Today – To In Progress – wikiHow

In this example, we clicked on wikiHow’s link and learned that the co-author is a professional plumber.

This points out an opportunity to reach out to major sites and offer your expert input for articles.

This can be a great way to build backlinks for your site while highlighting you as an industry expert.

wikiHow – Author Bio

Make a list of prospects and pitch topics that match what the sites publish and are relevant to your target audience.

While not all sites will provide backlinks, it’s still a valuable way to get your name—and your plumbing business’s name—some positive press mentions online.

Further reading: 6 Best HARO Alternatives (Expert Review)


Keep Track of Your Best Links

When it comes to backlinks, focus on quality over quantity.

This is why it’s a good idea to check for low-quality backlinks.

Low-quality links can come from:

  • Sites or content that are unrelated to your industry
  • Sites with low domain authority
  • Sites with low-traffic
  • Sites with spam content

These links may hurt your site’s ranking.

Check for toxic backlinks with Semrush’s Backlink Audit tool.

In the Overview tab, click on the number in red (your total toxic backlinks) under the Overall Toxicity Score.

Backlink Audit – A Better Plumber – Overview

This shows you all of your site’s toxic backlinks and their source pages.

Hover over each of the links to see the reason why the link was labeled as toxic.

Backlink Audit – A Better Plumber – Toxic

If you determine the link needs to go, try reaching out to the website owners and requesting to have the link removed.

If you can’t get these links removed, you can disavow them as a last resort.

Disavowing links tells Google not to take these links into account when determining rankings for your pages.

Google advises to disavow links only when:

  • You have a lot of spammy or low-quality links to your site
  • Your site has received a Google penalty because of the link

Read Google’s guidelines on disavowing links before attempting this step.

If disavowing is the right move, the Backlink Audit tool can help you with this process.

Click the blue icon featuring a circle with a slash (“Move to Disavow list”) to move URLs to a disavow list.

Backlink Audit – A Better Plumber – Toxic – Move to Disavow list

Go to the “Disavow” tab.

Backlink Audit – How to manage toxic backlinks

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On the next page, you’ll see the links you’ve added to the tab. Click the “Export to TXT” button.

Backlink Audit – A Better Plumber – Disavow

Go to the Google Disavow Tool and upload the .txt file.

Once done, Google will no longer consider these links when ranking your site or pages.

Get More Customers with Plumber SEO

SEO isn’t a quick fix.

But it’s one of the most effective ways to get new plumbing customers.

With a bit of research and help from tools like Semrush, you can flood your business with high-quality leads (without spending a fortune on ads).

I’m talking crushing your local competition in Google Maps, ranking #1 for emergency plumbing keywords, and turning your website into a 24/7 lead generation machine.

Ready to rank higher for local keywords?

Check out the top local SEO tools for plumbers that will help you dominate the SERPs.

The post SEO for Plumbers: How to Rank Higher & Get More Customers appeared first on Backlinko.

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How to Get More Google Reviews: 9 Proven Tips

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Google reviews play a huge role in a brand’s success.

Especially positive reviews.

That means it’s a good idea to think about how to get more Google reviews for your business.

To illustrate why, let’s go over some of the advantages.

Benefits of Getting Google Reviews

By collecting Google reviews, you can:

  • Learn what customers think about you: This includes what they like and dislike about your business, so that you know what’s working and what to improve on
  • Increase visibility: Having more good Google reviews can improve your business’s Google local pack rankings
  • Persuade people to buy: A product’s number of reviews is the second most influential factor affecting prospects’ perception of its quality and decision to buy it, according to research

How to Get More Google Reviews: 9 Methods

1. Optimize Your Google Business Profile

Set up a Google Business Profile (GBP) for your business if it doesn’t yet have one.

This is a free business listing that appears in places like Google Maps and Search.

It also stores your Google reviews, as this GBP from Diablo & Sons Saloon shows:

Go to the profile creation tool and follow the steps to add your business to Google.

This involves providing information like your business’s name, category, and website URL.

If a profile for your business already exists, claim it or follow Google’s steps to request ownership from the current owner.

Once you have control of your GBP, choose a verification method (email, text message, etc.).

Google may take up to five business days to verify your profile. You can use it to collect Google reviews after that.

Pro tip: Use a tool like Semrush’s Listing Management to automatically distribute your information to GBP and dozens of other directories all at once. You can also manage these listings within the tool.

2. Provide an Excellent Experience

If you wow customers with amazing products, services, and customer support, they’ll be more likely to leave you a Google review.

This is the best way to get good Google reviews.

Why?

Because people are more motivated to take action when they feel strongly about something.

Like writing a glowing review to tell others about their phenomenal experience with your business.

3. Share Your Google Review Link

Share your Google review link everywhere users may see it so they can easily leave you a review.

There are a few ways to get your Google review link through your GBP.

Alternatively, use Semrush’s free Google review link generator.

Launch the tool, type your business name into the search bar, and then use the drop-down menu to select your business.

Once you’ve selected your business, the tool will generate short and long Google review links for it.

We recommend using the short link, as it looks cleaner.

Copy your Google review link and share it in places like your:

  • Website footer
  • Email signature
  • Social media profiles

For example, Bunny & Co. has placed a Google review link in its website’s footer:

4. Provide a Review QR Code

Preparing a QR code customers can scan to access your Google review link is helpful when clicking a link isn’t convenient.

Like when:

  • The customer is shopping in your physical store
  • You want to include your review link in your business cards or posters

A handy way to create a QR code for your review link is with Semrush’s Google review link generator.

After creating your Google review link with the tool, enter your email address into the “Wait! There’s more…” section and click “Send me QR & prints.”

Then, check your inbox for QR code assets you can use.

5. Respond to Current Reviews

Responding to your Google reviews signals that you take feedback seriously.

This can motivate prospects to leave reviews in the future after they become customers.

Plus, research from Shout About Us reveals that up to 76% of customers may update their negative reviews if you reply and take steps to address their concerns.

So, respond by:

  • Thanking customers for their feedback—whether positive or negative
  • Sharing the follow-up actions you’ve taken in response to negative feedback

A tool like Semrush’s Review Management makes it easy to monitor and respond to your Google reviews.

Here’s how it works:

Open the tool and enter your business’s name, site, or phone number into the search bar.

Then, select your business from the drop-down menu.

Click the “Try it now” button on the page that loads.

Follow the steps to sign up for Semrush Local.

Once you’ve set up the tool, click the “Review Management” tab.

Scroll down the page to see your reviews.

Click the “Not Replied” filter to view only those you haven’t responded to yet.

The tool will suggest AI-generated replies to your Google reviews.

Modify any reply as you see fit and click “Reply” to submit it.

Take a page out of Giordano’s book if you can.

The pizza chain replies to every Google review it gets—both good and bad.

6. Send a Feedback Email

Emailing customers to ask for a Google review right after they buy from you is a good way to get reviews while their experiences are still fresh in their minds.

Here’s an example of an email requesting a Google review from Love and Logic:

Note: Trying to influence reviews through tactics like offering incentives, discouraging negative feedback, and buying or faking reviews violates Google’s policies and can result in penalties.

You can also use an email marketing platform to automate your customer feedback emails instead of sending them manually.

7. Design Physical Review Cards

Creating physical cards asking for Google reviews works well if you interact with customers in offline situations like:

  • Running a brick-and-mortar shop—where you can place review cards at the checkout counter
  • Delivering physical goods to customers—where you can include a feedback card in the package

Some cards have QR codes for customers to scan, but you can also use cards embedded with near-field communication (NFC) technology.

If you do, customers just need to activate their phone’s NFC feature and tap it against the card to visit your Google review page.

This Instagram post from Zappycards shows how it works:

The result?

Leaving a review becomes even more convenient.

8. Ask for Reviews Directly

To get more good Google reviews if you’re engaging with customers in person, just ask.

You may even receive more reviews this way than waiting for customers to take action on their own.

Good times to ask for a Google review include:

  • After clearing the customer’s table (at a restaurant)
  • After the customer has paid for their items
  • Just before the customer leaves

And here’s a sample script you can try:

“Thanks for stopping by today! If you enjoyed your time with us, could you take a couple of minutes to leave us a Google review? Thank you so much!”

9. Provide Review Instructions

Consider teaching users how to leave you a Google review.

If they need help, this could help you get more reviews than you might get otherwise.

Drs. Najem & Lehky Orthodontics does this by sharing step-by-step instructions with screenshots:

And Rehab In Motion posted an Instagram video demonstrating how customers can leave it a Google review:

Make the Most of Your Reviews

Getting more Google reviews doesn’t have to be complicated.

Focus your energy on two things: making it super easy for customers to leave reviews and delivering service that’s worth talking about.

Then, use tools like Semrush’s Listing Management to keep listings updated and accurate across the web.

Ready to level up your local SEO strategy?

Read our definitive guide to local SEO to learn how to dominate your local market step by step.

The post How to Get More Google Reviews: <br>9 Proven Tips appeared first on Backlinko.

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Bluesky Statistics: How Many People Use Bluesky?

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Publicly launched in February 2024, Bluesky is a microblogging social network, widely considered an alternative to X/Twitter.

During the invite-only stage, Bluesky attracted an audience of 3 million registered users and has since grown to become a popular social media platform with over 25 million users and counting.

Read on to find all the latest Bluesky usage statistics for 2024.

Key Bluesky Stats

  • Bluesky has 25.47 million users.
  • In November 2024, monthly installs of Bluesky app reached 7.85 million.
  • In the US and UK, Bluesky app has around 3.5 million daily active users.
  • 20 full-time employees work at Bluesky

Bluesky Registered Users

According to the latest update, Bluesky currently has 25.47 million registered users.

Bluesky Registered Users

Bluesky crossed the milestone of 20 million users in November 2024.

Here’s a table with number of Bluesky users over time:

Date Bluesky Registered Users
September 15, 204 10 million
October 19, 2024 12.11 million
October 24, 2024 13 million
November 13, 2024 15 million
November 20, 2024 20 million
December 19, 2024 25.47 million

Sources: Bluesky, Jaz’s Bsky Stats, Statista, TechCrunch

Bluesky Downloads

Monthly downloads of Bluesky on Google Play and App Store combined reached 7.85 million, an all-time high to date.

Bluesky Downloads

As of November, annual downloads worldwide of Bluesky in 2024 amounted to 16.52 million.

Here’s a table with monthly downloads of Bluesky app worldwide across Google Play and App Store combined:

Date Bluesky Downloads
February 2023 0.02 million
March 2023 0.09 million
April 2023 0.58 million
May 2023 0.25 million
June 2023 0.09 million
July 2023 0.62 million
August 2023 0.32 million
September 2023 0.47 million
October 2023 0.63 million
November 2023 0.41 million
December 2023 0.51 million
January 2024 0.18 million
February 2024 1.25 million
March 2024 0.16 million
April 2024 0.26 million
May 2024 0.08 million
June 2024 0.3 million
July 2024 0.07 million
August 2024 0.76 million
September 2024 2.85 million
October 2024 2.76 million
November 2024 7.85 million

Source: Statista

Bluesky App Daily Active Users

According to recent data, Bluesky app has 3.5 million daily active users in the US and UK.

Bluesky app has 3.5 million daily active users in the US and UK

Source: Financial Times

Bluesky Website Monthly Visits

According to latest data, visits to Bluesky website reached 157.04 million in November 2024, showing a 96% increase since October 2024.

Bluesky Website Monthly Visits

Here’s a detailed breakdown of Bluesky website visits:

Date Bluesky Website Visits
June 2024 17.41 million
July 2024 16.48 million
August 2024 21 million
September 2024 67.09 million
October 2024 80.16 million
November 2024 157.04 million

Source: Semrush

Bluesky Website Traffic by Country

In November 2024, the United States accounted for over half (52.37%) of website traffic to Bluesky website, followed by the UK (8.37%), Japan (6.59%), Brazil (5.38%) and Canada (3.06%).

In November 2024, the U.S. accounted for 52.37% of website traffic to Bluesky website

Source: Semrush

Bluesky Users by Country

According to Bluesky CEO (Jay Graber), the countries with the highest number of Bluesky users are the United States, Japan, and Brazil.

Source: Bluesky

Bluesky Funding

Bluesky raised $23 million across 2 rounds to date, including its latest $15 million Series A funding round announced in October 2024.

Bluesky raised $23 million in funding across 2 rounds to date

Here’s a breakdown of all funding rounds of Bluesky:

Date Funding Amount, Round
July 2023 $8 million, Seed
October 2024 $15 million, Series A

Source: TechCrunch

How Many Employees Work at Bluesky?

Bluesky has 20 full-time employees and 100 contractors who work as content moderators. Bluesky operates with a fully remote team.

Bluesky has 20 full-time employees and 100 contractors

At the time of writing, Bluesky had 2 publicly available job postings on its website.

Source: Bluesky, Platformer

Conclusion

That’s it for my list of Bluesky user stats.

Bluesky is currently one of the fastest-growing social networks but as a private company they don’t disclose many details. So I did my best to find recent data from multiple sources to bring you the latest stats on one page.

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What Is Generative AI and How Does It Work?

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Generative AI refers to technology that uses machine learning models to create content. Machine learning models are computer programs that seek to replicate aspects of human intelligence.

These models can produce various content formats, including code, text, visuals, audio, and video.

Various programs have the ability to learn almost any kind of information.

For example, different generative AI models can understand coding, visual, scientific, and human languages.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT is a popular example of a model that understands and produces textual content.

In this article, we’ll explore how this and other gen AI tools work.

How Generative AI Works

Gen AI uses libraries of existing material to produce original content. Here’s how the process works.

Step 1: Users Provide Prompts

The technology generates content based on user prompts.

Depending on the tool you use, you may be able to enter freeform, text-based prompts.

Suppose you want to generate a description for a new ecommerce item.

A simple ChatGPT prompt could look like this:

“Write a 100-word product description for [insert product details]. Use a friendly, upbeat tone of voice.”

Some AI tools use parameters rather than freeform input.

For example, Semrush’s Ecommerce Booster app generates ad descriptions based on keywords, text length, readability, tone of voice, and format settings.

Step 2: Generative AI Models Produce Content

Once the system receives the user’s prompt, it uses machine learning models to generate content.

These models train using libraries that may contain billions of pieces of existing content.

As they train, the models learn the components and structures of this existing content. Then, they use what they’ve learned to generate “new” material. (It’s not truly new as it’s based entirely on existing content.)

The mechanics of the content generation process vary, depending on the type of output.

Some of the most common models include:

  • Large language models (LLMs): Algorithms that use large data sets to predict the next output (word) in a piece of content—typically used to generate textual content
  • Generative adversarial networks (GANs): Deep learning systems that use two competing neural networks to produce new output, mostly for visual or audio content generation
  • Variational autoencoders (VAEs): Neural network systems that encode and decode input to create new output, often to generate visual or code content

Gen AI vs. Other Types of AI

The standard generative AI meaning doesn’t include all types of artificial intelligence.

Unlike gen AI, so-called “normal” AI analyzes and synthesizes data rather than generating new outputs.

Here are two other types of AI:

  • Conversational AI: Uses natural language processing (NLP) techniques to analyze human language, understand what users are saying or typing, and provide relevant responses. This type of AI is most common in chatbots and AI assistants.
  • Predictive AI: Analyzes historical data to anticipate outcomes from specific events and suggest actionable steps. This kind of AI is common with data analysts who need to manage risk and make data-driven decisions.

Popular Gen AI Tools

Now that we’ve covered a comprehensive generative AI definition, let’s take a closer look at some of the most widely used gen AI tools.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI that produces text responses to prompts.

Like this:

ChatGPT can do a range of tasks, like creating lists, producing code, and answering questions.

It also generates outlines and creative content.

How does ChatGPT work?

It uses generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) technology to produce human-like responses to text prompts.

OpenAI also offers custom GPTs—versions of ChatGPT that perform specific tasks using personalized prompts.

For example, you could create a custom GPT to edit written content to reflect your brand voice.

Further reading: ChatGPT for SEO: Ultimate Guide, Tips & Prompts

Claude

Like ChatGPT, Claude is an AI chatbot that generates text responses to prompts.

Claude can also analyze the content you upload (like a spreadsheet or a PDF).

It then provides summaries or answers questions based on your prompts.

Claude can assist with tasks like AI copywriting and content generation, too.

In your prompt, you can include guidelines for the format and style of content you want to create.

Gemini

Similar to ChatGPT and Claude, Gemini (formerly Google Bard) is another AI chatbot that provides text responses to prompts.

Like this:

As a Google app, Gemini is integrated with many Google products. This lets you verify its responses via Google Search with one click.

You can also prompt Gemini to summarize files in Google Drive, like a virtual assistant.

Microsoft Copilot

Another AI chatbot, Microsoft Copilot generates multimedia responses to prompts.

Along with producing a text answer, it shows you relevant images and links from Bing’s search results.

DALL-E

DALL-E is a text-to-image generative AI tool developed by OpenAI (creators of ChatGPT) that generates images based on prompts. Like this one:

In addition to describing the contents of the image, prompts can also request a style.

The more specific and detailed your prompt, the more likely the image will meet your needs.

DALL-E uses a diffusion model to analyze images and look for patterns in the components.

Then, the image generation app uses what it’s learned to piece together its own AI image.

Note: A diffusion model adds random noise (variations) to available training data. Then, it reverses the process to recover the data and create new combinations of information.

Midjourney

Midjourney is a text-to-image generator that uses diffusion models and LLMs to create realistic content.

Like this:

Compared to DALL-E, Midjourney’s prompts are often much more complex.

For example, prompts typically need to include things like style and composition guidelines to get the best results.

Unlike many other generative AI tools, Midjourney isn’t a standalone app but a Discord bot. To use it, you’ll need to join the Midjourney Discord server and prompt the bot.

What Can You Use Generative AI for?

Here are the most common applications of generative artificial intelligence today.

Marketing

Generative AI tools let you quickly brainstorm marketing campaign ideas as well as draft blog posts and articles.

AI marketing software also helps with rewriting content and applying a consistent tone of voice.

For example, a tool like Semrush’s ContentShake AI generates written and visual content in seconds.

Even better?

It guides you through the whole process—from ideation to publication.

Here’s how to use it:

Head to the app and click “My own idea” from the main dashboard.

Then, enter your topic and hit “Start writing.”

Review the suggested title, target keywords, word count, tone of voice, and readability level.

Then click “Create article.”

Read through the AI-generated article.

Hit “Publish” to proceed as is or “Go to regenerate” to start again.

To edit and optimize the content manually (which we recommend you do), click “Go to editor.”

Use ContentShake AI’s preset prompts to speed up the optimization process.

You can even enter your custom prompts in the chat window.

Another Semrush tool, the SEO Writing Assistant, includes AI features to help you write online marketing content faster.

It also checks the SEO potential of your work.

Head to the tool and click the “+ Analyze new text” button on the tool dashboard.

If you’ve used the tool before, click the “Set a new goal” drop-down.

If you’re using this tool for the first time, input the keyword you intend to target and click “Get recommendations.”

Draft or outline your content.

Then, use SEO Writing Assistant’s AI features to improve your writing.

Select any phrase, sentence, or paragraph and click “Expand” to elaborate on those sections.

Review the content for accuracy and style.

Then, click “Accept,” “Reject,” or “Try again.”

Alternatively, open the “Smart Writer” drop-down and select “Rephraser.”

Input your text and choose one of the four optimization options.

Then, click “Rephrase.”

Review the AI-generated ideas and click “Rephrase” again to generate more.

Use the copy button to choose where to paste the text, or click “Replace and close” to insert it where the cursor is positioned.

Use the AI-powered Smart Writer to elaborate on existing content.

Write at least a few sentences.

Then, click “Compose” to generate more copy.

Select the “Ask AI” feature to submit custom questions or prompts.

Then, click “Ask.”

As you create your content, keep an eye on the score in the upper right corner.

This score factors in readability, tone of voice, originality, and SEO. The higher the score, the better optimized your content is and the easier it is to read.

Advertising

You can take advantage of AI advertising tools to generate both copy and creatives for your paid promotions.

For example, Semrush’s AI Writing Assistant allows you to compose ad headlines quickly.

Open the app from the Semrush App Center and select “All Tools” > “Social Media & Ads.”

Then, choose either “Facebook Headlines” or “Google Ads Headlines” to generate ad headlines.

Or “Facebook Primary Text” or “Google Ads Description” for ad description text.

Then, select a language, creativity level, and tone of voice.

Next, input your audience and product name details and write a short product description.

Click “Generate” when you’re ready.

Review the results and save any headlines you like—or copy and paste them directly into your ad platform.

To generate complete ad creatives, open Semrush’s AdCreative.ai.

Enter your domain or landing page and click “Import Brand” to add brand elements.

The app automatically identifies your brand name, logo, and colors.

Review them and click the “Create Brand” button.

Note: If you’ve already set up a brand, click “Create a Brand” from the “Brand Setup” section to add a new one to your dashboard.

From the list of asset types, select “Ad Creatives.”

Choose the creative format that best fits the advertising platform and hit “Next Step.”

Click the “Generate Texts” button to create text with AI.

Then click “Next Step.”

Input some information about the content you want to generate.

Then click “Save & Generate.”

Upload a background image, crop it if necessary, and enter a project name (optional).

You can also use the app’s image search engine to source background images.

Finally, click “Generate.”

Check the box below each of the AI-generated assets you want to use, and hit the “Download” button.

You can now upload the digital assets to your ad platform and set up your ad campaign.

Media

Film, animation, and gaming studios use generative AI to produce creative content more efficiently.

With advanced AI tools, they can generate realistic 3D models, avatars, and video content.

For example, large gaming studios can use gen AI to create more photorealistic characters or speed up game design workflows.

Coding

Software developers are able to code programs and applications with generative AI tools like GitHub Copilot.

The benefits include writing more consistent code in various programming languages, debugging code faster, and improving developer efficiency.

Healthcare

Generative AI models serve the medical industry across a wide range of applications.

For example, medical researchers use gen AI for genome sequencing and drug research. While health practitioners use them for medical imaging and assigning accurate medical codes.

Automotive

Auto manufacturers use AI models to improve vehicle design and implement in-vehicle AI-powered virtual assistants.

Generative design inspired BMW’s “Alive Geometry” in the Vision Next 100 concept car, which enables shape-shifting parts that interact with the driver.

[ss: bmw-vision-next.png]

Image Source: BMW

Many manufacturers also provide basic customer service using AI before involving human agents.

A 2023 Deloitte report anticipates that generative AI will lead to a 20% equipment availability increase and a 10% annual maintenance cost decrease for the automotive industry.

Data Synthesis

It’s impossible for generative AI models to learn or improve their processes and computations without training data.

However, training data doesn’t necessarily exist for every possible industry or use case.

To resolve this issue, generative models can themselves produce synthetic data for training purposes.

They also effectively address challenges and ethical concerns that may otherwise prevent industries from using generative AI.

For example, gen AI tools may create larger datasets for underrepresented groups. Or generate datasets that offer a more fair version of the original data.

Benefits and Limitations of Generative AI

To set appropriate expectations for any AI-generated content you produce, you should familiarize yourself with the pros and cons of using these models.

Benefits of Generative AI

  • Produces almost any type of digital media based on a brief prompt
  • Creates different types of content in a consistent style or format defined by the user
  • Gives individuals and teams of any size the capacity to create large volumes of content
  • Allows users to save time and money on the content creation process
  • Simplifies lengthy content or expands on short content in seconds

Here’s an example prompt using ChatGPT to tighten up a very wordy explanation of the law of inertia.

As compelling as these benefits are, they don’t necessarily mean anyone should create exclusively AI-generated content.

Human feedback, fact-checking, and manual editing can help ensure higher quality and improved accuracy.

Further reading: 15 Benefits of ChatGPT (+8 Disadvantages)

Limitations of Generative AI Tools

The main limitations of generative AI tools are that they:

  • May reflect biases or inaccuracies present in their training content
  • May not cite original sources or attribute concepts accurately
  • Offer insufficient transparency into their technology and methods
  • Can’t think independently or generate new ideas
  • Lack firsthand experience and personal opinions

Here’s what happened when we asked Notion AI to generate an opinion about the TV show “Family Guy”:

Although these limitations may seem daunting, they shouldn’t prevent you from using generative AI applications to improve your business’s efficiency.

Then, use your human intelligence to detect AI-written content bias, ethical considerations, and attribution issues. And tweak the content as necessary.

Concerns Surrounding Generative AI

Although gen AI can certainly be used for good, it has the potential to create serious concerns.

As an example, deepfakes are digitally altered photos or videos that make the subject appear to be another person.

They can be used to maliciously propagate false information.

Although deepfake detectors can increasingly identify images and videos that simulate another person, foolproof methods to alleviate these concerns don’t yet exist.

Instead, it’s essential to analyze content closely for anomalies. And to adhere to security protocols to protect sensitive information.

Because generative models create content that emulates existing visual, audio, and textual patterns, they have the power to mislead.

Particularly, their ability to mimic human language can be used for social engineering.

The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity defines this as:

“All techniques aimed at talking a target into revealing specific information or performing a specific action for illegitimate reasons.”

For example, gen AI models can encourage people to disclose sensitive information. Or compromise either personal privacy or their company’s security.

And as generative AI becomes more advanced, the infrastructure these models require may reach an unsustainable scale.

Keeping up with computational demands and coming up with the capital necessary to fund it is an ongoing concern for AI model developers.

A History of the Development of Generative AI

Generative AI has consistently made headlines since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 (and other foundation models shortly after).

However, the technology existed long before this date.

We list some major generative AI advancements in the table below.

A Brief History of Generative AI
1947 Intelligent machinery
In one of the first recorded references to artificial intelligence, Alan Turing used the term “intelligent machinery” in a research paper. The study explored whether machines could spot rational behavior.
1950 Turing Test
Turing developed the Turing Test, which evaluated conversations between machines and human brains to identify machine responses.
1956 Dartmouth AI conference
The Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence, considered the birth of AI, brought together AI experts.
1961 ELIZA chatbot
Joseph Weizenbaum developed the ELIZA chatbot, a psychotherapy program that could converse with humans. And one of the first examples of generative AI.
1980s RNN architecture
Several researchers advanced recurrent neural network (RNN) architecture. Furthering the development of this bidirectional artificial neural network.
1997 LSTM networks
Josef Hochreiter and Jürgen Schmidhuber invented long short-term memory (LSTM) networks, significantly improving the accuracy of AI models.
2014 GANs and VAEs
The development of GANs and VAEs dramatically advanced generative AI technology.
2017 Transformer models
Newly developed transformer models allowed gen AI systems to create natural language text for the first time.
2018 OpenAI GPT
OpenAI released GPT, a neural network that could generate human-like text and converse with users.
2021 OpenAI DALL-E
OpenAI introduced DALL-E to generate digital images from prompts through deep learning.
2022 OpenAI ChatGPT, Midjourney beta
OpenAI launched ChatGPT (also known as GPT-3.5), a transformer-based model that one million users adopted in only five days.
Text-to-image generator Midjourney launched in beta the same year.

What Does Generative AI Mean for the Future?

While generative AI’s timeline is relatively long, many significant developments have happened in a few short years.

Given this rapid evolution, it’s reasonable to expect that gen AI will continue to develop quickly.

So, what will AI look like in the future? And how could it affect your industry?

Here are a few developments to monitor:

  • Increased adoption of generative AI tools: In many industries, companies are already pressuring leaders to implement AI tools. A Qualtrics survey of customer experience professionals revealed that 75% feel the pressure to use generative AI for business.
  • More advanced AI prompts: The more companies adopt generative AI strategies, the more advanced their prompting skills are likely to become. With extensive testing, users will probably develop more specific, nuanced prompts for producing higher-quality content.
  • Higher volume of AI-generated content: As more individuals and business processes use gen AI tools, the amount of AI-generated content will increase. Harvard Professor Latanya Sweeney predicts 90% of online content creation will no longer be by humans.
  • Improved AI detection: As AI evolves, AI detection tools may become more sophisticated. Increasingly advanced tools will better address issues with cybersecurity, deepfakes, and other growing concerns—potentially making AI content more credible.

Further reading: 15 Must-Watch AI Trends to Empower Your Business

Use Advanced AI Tools to Improve Your Content

Whether you’re just getting started with generative AI or looking for ways to level up your AI skills, you need the right tools at your disposal.

Tools like Claude, ChatGPT, and Semrush’s AI-powered suite are game-changers for content creation.

Not sure which one to pick?

Check out our in-depth guide to the top 5 AI writing generators, where we break down the features, pros and cons, and pricing of the best tools on the market.

The post What Is Generative AI and How Does It Work? appeared first on Backlinko.

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21 Google Search Tips to Find Exactly What You Want

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Here are 21 Google search tips that will help you:

  • Refine your searches to get the right answers faster
  • Search the web without typing a query
  • Discover cool things you never knew Google could do

At the end, we’ll also show you how you can get your site to appear in more Google’s search results.

(Spoiler alert—it involves something called search engine optimization, or SEO.)

But first, the tips.

1. Familiarize Yourself with the Basics

To do a Google search, launch your browser, navigate to the search engine, and type what you’re looking for into the search bar.

Alternatively, if Google is your browser’s default search engine, type your query into your browser’s address bar.

You can type:

  • Words (like “electrolysis”)
  • Phrases (like “electrolysis process”)
  • Questions (like “what is electrolysis”)

You don’t need to type in full sentences.

Then, hit “Enter” or “return” on your keyboard to run the search.

Don’t worry about your spelling or grammar. Google is good at autocorrecting misspelled queries.

After you run your search, Google will display relevant results. Use the tabs at the top to see only certain types of results.

For example, click “Images” to view only image results, or “News” to view results from news sites:

Google may also display topics at the top of the search results. Click them to add to your query and narrow your search:

For example, clicking the “women’s” topic that Google displays on the search engine results page for “cute shoes” will update the search query to “women’s cute shoes”:

2. Filter Your Results

Filter the results to see only those published within a certain period or that match your query word for word.

To do this, click the “Tools” option at the top of the Google search results. “Any time” and “All results” drop-down menus will appear.

Click “Any time” to filter for results published within the last hour, 24 hours, week, month, or year. Or within a date range of your choice.

Click “All results” to choose whether to see all results or only verbatim ones that closely (or exactly) match your search query.

For example, if you’re searching for a person named “Rob Downey,” turning on the “Verbatim” filter ensures you get results for people named Rob Downey.

And not Robert Downey Jr., the actor.

3. Search Within Websites

Add “site:[domain]” to your search query to view results from a specific site.

This Google search tip also works for viewing results from specific site subdirectories, like “[domain]/blog”:

Pro tip: Use other Google search operators to further refine your search and find exactly what you’re looking for.

4. Perform a Reverse Image Search

A reverse image search uses an image to look for information. It’s helpful for learning about something you have a picture of but don’t know the name of.

Run a reverse image search in Google by clicking the camera icon at the right of the search bar.

Upload your image to Google, or paste an image link into the provided field. Then click “Search.”

Google will analyze your image and suggest relevant results.

image search results

5. Search with Your Voice

If you can’t type your query, do a voice search—where you speak your query.

Select the microphone icon at the right of the search bar:

Let Google access your microphone if prompted. Then, say your query out loud.

Google will transcribe your speech and search for what you said. If the transcription is inaccurate, correct it and rerun the search.

6. Get a Direct Answer

Google has partnered with other sites to provide answers to certain types of queries directly on the results page. As a result, you don’t have to click a search result to get an answer.

This is useful when you just want a straightforward answer. Like a stock price:

Try these Google search hacks for triggering direct answers:

To Get a Direct Answer for: Use This Query:
Weather in a certain place “Weather in [country or city]”
Time in a certain place “Time in [country or city]”
Stock prices “[Stock ticker symbol] price”
Definitions “Define [word]” or “[word] meaning”

Note: Direct answers are different from featured snippets and AI Overviews. Like direct answers, featured snippets and AI Overviews offer answers directly on the search results page. But featured snippets contain information extracted from sites, while AI Overviews contain AI-generated information.

7. Find Exact Match Results

Enclose your search query in double quotation marks to view results that contain your query exactly as it appears.

This Google search tip is helpful for looking up the sources of quotes.

Let’s say you want to check which blog post provided this advice: “You should never pay for dofollow backlinks.”

Doing a Google search for that line without quotation marks may get you results with some words missing or in a different order:

But rerun the search with quotation marks, and you’ll get the sentence’s source right away:

8. Exclude Certain Results

Add a minus sign before certain words to exclude results with these words from the search results.

Here’s an example:

Searching for “caterpillar” usually gets you information on the Caterpillar construction equipment manufacturer.

To get information on the insect, instead, search for “caterpillar -construction”:

Another Google search tip is adding the minus sign before the “site:” operator to exclude a certain website from the results.

For example, to find mentions of your brand on any site except yours, search for “[your brand name] -site:[your domain].”

9. Find Files

Get only results with a certain file format by adding “filetype:[file format]” to your search query. Supported formats include:

  • pdf: For PDF files
  • doc: For Microsoft Word documents
  • xls: For Microsoft Excel spreadsheets
  • ppt: For Microsoft PowerPoint slides

If you’re looking for a PDF document for example, search “[document name] filetype:pdf.”

10. Run an Advanced Search

An advanced search gets you results that meet requirements like:

  • Containing all of a certain selection of words
  • Containing none of certain selection of words
  • Being in a certain language
  • Originating from a certain country
  • Having certain usage rights

To run an advanced search, do a regular Google search first. Then, select “Tools” > “Advanced Search” on the search results page.

Fill out the advanced search fields as required, then hit the “Advanced Search” button to run the search.

11. Turn On Dark Mode

Google offers a dark mode feature for doing searches in a dark-colored interface.

Turning on dark mode may reduce eye strain. It may also decrease blue light exposure, which can make it easier to sleep after spending a lot of time in front of a screen.

Google automatically enables dark mode if this is your device’s default setting. Learn how to change your device’s color settings here:

Alternatively, if your device’s color setting is light mode, here’s how to enable dark mode for a one-off Google search:

From your desktop device, go to the Google homepage. Select “Settings” at the bottom right and then “Dark theme: Off.”

If you’re using a mobile device, the “Dark theme: Off” option will appear directly at the bottom of the Google homepage.

12. Manage Explicit Results

Adjust Google’s SafeSearch settings to control whether you see search results containing adult content and graphic violence.

Click the gear icon at the top right of the search results. Then click on “SafeSearch.”

You’ll see three settings:

  • Filter: Exclude explicit results entirely
  • Blur: Blur explicit images but not explicit text or links
  • Off: Don’t censor any results

Click your preferred option. Google will save your choice and apply it to all future searches.

Note: You may not be able to change your SafeSearch settings if your network administrator has locked them.

13. Do Math

Google can help with math calculations.

If your calculation involves simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division, type it into Google’s search bar and run the search.

The search results page will show the answer.

To perform more complex calculations involving trigonometric functions, logarithms, and more, search for “calculator.”

Google will give you a scientific calculator you can use.

14. Convert Units of Measurement

Convert units of measurement by searching “[number] [source unit of measurement] in [desired unit of measurement].”

For example:

  • 6’2 in cm
  • 100 kg in pounds
  • 25 deg c in kelvin

15. Convert Currencies

Google “[number] [source currency] to [desired currency]” to convert currencies using the real-time exchange rate.

You’ll also see a chart of the exchange rate’s movements over time. Hover your cursor over the chart to learn the exchange rate on different days.

16. Start a Timer or a Stopwatch

Search for “timer [duration]” to have Google start counting down from that duration automatically.

Click “Stop” if you need to pause the timer and “Reset” to reset it.

Alternatively, search for “stopwatch” to get a stopwatch. Activate it by clicking “Start.”

Tip: Check your device’s sound levels if you don’t hear the timer go off.

17. Activate a Bubble Level

Google offers a built-in level tool—also known as a bubble or spirit level—on mobile devices. It provides a rough guide of how horizontal or vertical a surface is.

This Google search tip is helpful when you need to see whether that new shelf you’ve installed is straight, but you don’t have a level handy.

Use it by searching for “bubble level” or “spirit level” on your mobile device. Then, tap “Touch to activate.”

If prompted, grant Google access to your device’s motion and orientation sensors.

18. Set Up Search Alerts

Get notifications whenever there are new results for a Google search query.

For example, you can set up an alert for every time someone publishes a post that includes your name or your brand. Or topics relevant to you, like “vegan recipes.”

To do so, go to Google Alerts and type the query you want to monitor into the “Create an alert about…” field.

You’ll see sample results for your alert.

Click “Show options” to configure settings like how often you want to receive notifications and the results’ language and quality.

Then, click “Create Alert” to finish the setup. Google will start alerting you of new results at your preferred frequency.

19. Track Packages

Google can provide shipping updates for packages delivered by UPS, FedEx, and other supported shipping providers.

Just search for “[shipping provider] package tracking.” Provide your package’s tracking number and click “Track via [shipping provider].”

Google will display your package’s shipping status right there in the search results.

20. Play Games

You can play certain games directly from Google’s search results page.

This is less of a Google search tip and more of a fun way to use Google.

To play games, search “minesweeper,” “snake,” “pac man,” “solitaire,” or “tic tac toe” to load the relevant game:

Alternatively, you can play a text adventure where you’ll get a scenario in text format. And your response—also in text format—affects what happens next.

Try it by searching for “text adventure.” Then right-click the search results page and select “Inspect.”

Your browser’s developer tools will appear. Navigate to the “Console” tab.

Under the large “Warning!” heading in the console’s messages, you’ll see a question: “Would you like to play a game?”

And two response options: “Yes” or “No.”

Scroll to the bottom of the console log, type your response, and then hit “Enter” or “return” on your keyboard to start playing.

21. Discover Easter Eggs

You’ll sometimes find special messages or features on the Google search results for certain queries.

Here are some examples:

Search for fonts like “Calibri,” “Comic Sans MS,” and “Courier font,” and Google will display results in the respective font.

Ask Google “the answer to life, the universe, and everything” and it will reply “42”—which is a supercomputer’s reply to the same question in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” a science fiction book by Douglas Adams.

Meanwhile, Google the “BTS” Korean boy band and you’ll see a purple heart near the top left of the search results page.

Select the heart, and purple balloons will appear on the screen. Click them to pop them. The balloons containing microphones reveal messages from BTS’s band members when popped.

Make Google Search Work for You

Applying this list of Google search tricks will get you more relevant answers to your questions—and quicker, to boot. Some of these tips also make Googling more fun.

But apart from learning how to search on Google effectively for others’ pages, how would you like your pages to appear in Google’s search results?

You can appear higher for relevant search queries by using SEO.

SEO is the process of helping search engines discover and understand your site so they can display your site’s pages for relevant queries.

Optimize your site well to increase its chances of ranking higher in search results and receive more organic traffic.

Read these guides to get a foundational knowledge of SEO:

The post 21 Google Search Tips to Find Exactly What You Want appeared first on Backlinko.

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How to Find Competitors’ Keywords to Boost Your SEO

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Finding competitor keywords is essential to building your SEO strategy.

Why?

Because they show what’s working for others, highlight opportunities, and uncover gaps in your approach.

At Backlinko, we’ve spied on Ahrefs, Moz, and Semrush’s keywords for years—and found many opportunities.

For instance, Ahrefs gets an estimated 2.5k monthly organic visits from the keyword “website authority checker.”

Organic Research – Ahrefs – Website authority checker – Organic Traffic

But this is only part of the story.

The page targets over 1.7k keywords and drives an estimated 30k monthly organic visits.

Organic Research – Ahrefs – Website authority checker – Positions

Clearly, A LOT of people are interested.

So we published a free tool with a supporting blog post on the same topic. Now this page ranks for 1,000 queries and gets over 13k clicks a month from Google.

GSC – Backlinko – Website authority – Clicks

That’s the power of finding competitor keywords.

In this guide, you’ll learn:

  • What competitor keywords are and how they fit into an SEO strategy
  • How to find and analyze these keywords, step-by-step
  • Where to integrate them into your content and SEO plans

The Power of Using Competitor’s Keywords for SEO

When you find competitors’ keywords, you uncover what content they’re ranking for.

But it’s more than just ranking for a specific keyword.

Think bigger: You’re getting a snapshot of your competitors’ SEO strategy.

SEO Strategy

Competitor keywords reveal opportunities to boost your SEO in three ways.

First, spotting patterns in your competitor’s keyword strategy and capitalize on gaps.

Say a competitor is going after terms like “best vegan protein powder.” But they might be ignoring budget-conscious customers.

That’s your chance to swoop in and target keywords like “affordable vegan protein powder.”

The goal?

Position yourself to win over the segments they’re missing. Whether it’s budget-friendly options, niche markets, or untapped audiences.

Second, understanding their focus.

Whether they’re targeting broad, high-traffic terms or niche, long-tail keywords.

Say a competitor is focused on targeting top-funnel keywords like “online course platforms.”

Here, you can take a different route.

Why not target bottom-funnel queries like “how to create an online course for free?”

It will help you reach an audience ready to buy.

Third, building a content plan based on your strategy.

Finding competitors’ keywords gives you ideas for a content calendar.

Use them to plan your next topics, decide on content formats. And, finally, create content that meets your audience’s needs better than anyone else.

Now, you’ll learn techniques to find competitors’ keywords.

Step 1: Identify Your SEO Competitors

If you want to find competitors’ keywords, focus on SEO competitors.

These are websites competing with you for similar keywords and rankings.

They may not even be direct business competitors.

Start with a manual search and analysis.

Imagine your business is in the crypto space.

Think of relevant keywords that your potential customers might use.

Like “best crypto platforms 2024.”

Search the keyword on Google.

Google SERP – Best crypto platforms 2024

Take note of the websites that rank for this keyword.

In our example: Investopedia, Alchemy, and NerdWallet.

These are your content competitors.

Next, check the “People also ask” box.

People Also Ask – Best crypto platforms 2024

It’s a good tool for finding additional keywords and content ideas.

Now, let’s explore another method for finding competitors.

First, create a free Semrush account and follow these steps:

Head to the Organic Research tool.

Add your URL and hit “Search.”

Organic Research – Backlinko – Search

Then, scroll down to “Main Organic Competitors.”

Organic Research – Backlinko – Main Organic Competitors

Click the “View all 35.3K competitors” button to show your rivals.

Organic Research –Backlinko – Organic Competitors

Now, locate the “Com. Level” column.

You’ll see a percentage showing keyword alignment with your competitor.

For Backlinko, Ahrefs has a 35% competitive overlap, and Moz has 25% overlap.

Both are close content competitors.

Now that you’ve identified your competitors, it’s time to analyze their keywords.

Step 2: Find Competitor Keywords Using Tools

By examining the keywords your competitors rank for, you can uncover opportunities to improve your SEO strategy.

This step will help you find the exact terms your competitors are targeting and how you can potentially outrank them.

We’ll continue with our Backlinko example.

Since we identified Moz as a competitor, let’s enter its URL into the Organic Research tool.

Click “Search.”

Organic Research – Moz – Search

In the “Overview” section, you’ll immediately see key data such as the total keywords Moz ranks for, their traffic volume, and the estimated cost of that traffic.

Organic Research – Moz – Overview

Click the “Positions” tab to view a detailed list.

Here, you’ll find important data:

  • “Keyword positions” for each term
  • “Intent” showing the user’s goal behind searched query
  • “Traffic” generated from these keywords
  • “Keyword volume” (searches per month)
  • “Keyword difficulty (KD%)” telling you how competitive each keyword is

You can use this information to identify high-value keywords your competitor is targeting and analyze their performance.

How?

Look for keywords with high search volume but lower keyword difficulty.

Use filters to narrow your search and focus on the most promising keywords:

  • Set the position filter to “Top 10”: Focus on keywords where your competitors rank high but you don’t
  • Adjust the volume filter to “101-1,000 searches per month”: Target keywords with moderate volume so you actually drive organic traffic to your website
  • Set keyword difficulty (KD%) to “Possible”: Target keywords where you can rank without having to go all-in on building external backlinks

Organic Research – Moz – Organic Search Positions – Filters

These filters help you pinpoint keywords that offer a good balance of traffic potential and achievable competition.

For example, a keyword like “seo terms” gets 1K searches per month. And has a KD% of 46.

Organic Research – Moz – Organic Search Positions – Filtered keyword

Not bad.

Create better content and optimize it to close gaps and outrank your competition.

Pro tip: Don’t stop at organic keywords—check what terms your competitors are paying for, too. Using tools like Semrush’s Advertising Research, you can uncover the keywords they’re investing in. These paid keywords signal strong opportunities for your SEO campaign.

Step 3: Expand Your Keyword List Through Research

Nuanced research helps you better target and prioritize audience-focused keywords.

In the end, it helps you expand your keyword database in ways that align with your overall strategy.

Let’s explore more advanced techniques to find competitors’ keywords.

Customer Feedback Analysis

Customer feedback is one of the most underrated sources of keyword inspiration.

Customers often use natural terms not found in keyword tools.

By diving into reviews, you can discover keywords that reflect real customer needs.

Let’s say you’re competing with a project management tool like Monday.

Analyze customer reviews on platforms like G2, Trustpilot, or even Google Reviews for local businesses.

They might reveal phrases like “Monday.com prevents copying and pasting data without exporting.”

Monday – Customer review

These kinds of comments give you direct insight into the pain points users are facing with competitors’ products.

And they’re a perfect example of long-tail keywords that you can tackle.

For instance, paste “project management software with data import/export” into Google search to see how saturated the space is.

Google SERP – Project management software with data import/export

Here, GetApp’s software comparison page ranks organically in the top spot.

Monday’s competitor, Asana, is also present.

This indicates that content creators see value in addressing this specific pain point for users.

If you’re selling project management software with data import and export features, you could create a blog post or comparison page.

These pieces help attract frustrated users seeking better alternatives.

Private Communities

Your competitor’s private communities like Facebook Groups, Slack channels and Discord servers are gold mines for keyword ideas.

Simply watch what people talk about. You’ll discover:

  • Questions they ask (that aren’t being answered)
  • Problems they face (that you could solve)
  • Terms they use naturally (not marketing speak)

For example, let’s say you’re competing with Nike Training Club.

Join a few fitness Facebook groups where their users hang out.

You might spot people asking about:

  • “Best bodyweight exercises for beginners”
  • “Home workout equipment”
  • “Affordable fitness gear”

These terms could be perfect keywords that a competitor isn’t targeting yet.

Here’s what to do next:

Head to Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool.

Enter your target keyword into the search bar.

Then, hit “Search.”

We’ll use “home workout equipment” as an example.

Keyword Magic Tool – Home gym equipment – Search

This generates us a list of relevant keywords.

Next, we’ll set some filters to refine the list.

Adjust the “Volume” filter to 101–1,000, and for “Keyword Difficulty,” choose “Possible.”

Keyword Magic Tool – Home gym equipment – Filters

This will help you identify high-value terms that have decent traffic potential but aren’t overly competitive.

Keyword Magic Tool – Home gym equipment – Keywords

For example, these keywords stand out as prime content opportunities:

  • “compact home gym equipment” (320 searches/month)
  • “essential home gym equipment” (320 searches/month)
  • “affordable home gym equipment” (260 searches/month)

Why?

They have a solid search volume per month. At the same time, they’re not too competitive.

It means you have chances to rank relatively high on the search engine results page (SERP).

Google Search Operators

Google search operators are a powerful tool to find competitor content and gaps in your strategy.

By using specific search queries, you can reveal the topics your competitors are covering and how well they’re doing it.

Start by typing site:competitor.com followed by a keyword or phrase related to your niche.

In our example, we’ll use the niche of organic beauty products.

Let’s say one of our organic competitors is Our Oily House.

We searched: site:https://www.ouroilyhouse.com/ “natural face moisturizer“

This gives us a list of pages on that competitor’s site that mention or target this keyword.

Google SERP – Ouroilhouse

But we don’t stop there.

Now, we’ll look for patterns.

Are they creating topic clusters around natural skincare?

Or organic ingredients?

Or maybe DIY beauty tips?

Examining their content reveals pillar topics and related subtopics they rank for.

For example, we’ll jump back to the Keyword Overview and check “skincare kits.”

Keyword Overview – Skincare kits – Overview

It has transactional intent, it gets 1,300 monthly average searches, and the “Keyword Difficulty” is 27.

Great!

Step 4: Evaluate Your Competitors’ Keywords

You know how to find competitors’ keywords.

The next step is to evaluate them.

Analyze competitor keywords to see how intent-based terms target different funnel stages.

Let’s take a keyword like “best online course platforms.”

Now, check the search intent.

Domain Overview – Best online course platforms – Intent

It’s “Commercial.”

Meaning users want to investigate and compare brands or services.

This implies a content format that should be a comparison post.

Or a landing page evaluating various platform’s capabilities.

Second, look for keyword relevance.

Focus on competitor keywords that align with your business goals.

These have high keyword relevance.

If your platform offers course creation tools, focus on keywords like “best course software” or “create a membership site.”

For example, broad terms like “passive income from online courses” won’t be useful.

Third, search for volume and difficulty.

Ideally, you’re looking for keywords with high search volume and moderate to low keyword difficulty.

Let’s head back to the Keyword Magic Tool.

We’ll use Teachable as our example.

Enter “best online course platform.”

And add the website URL for personalized results.

Now, hit “Search.”

Keyword Magic Tool – Best online course platform – Search

You’ll see a list of related keywords.

Take a look at the intent, search volume, and personal keyword difficulty (PKD%).

Also, see the position in the SERP.

Keyword Magic Tool – Best online course platform – Keywords

For example, “best online course platforms” has 480 monthly searches with a PKD% of 0.

Another strong keyword is “best platform to sell online courses,” with 170 searches and a PKD% of 0.

Both are prime targets.

They also have commercial intent.

Meaning searchers are closer to making a purchase decision.

Targeting these can help improve your rankings and capture more organic traffic from competitors.

Step 5: Prioritize Your Competitors’ Keywords List

Now that you’ve analyzed the competitor keywords, the next step is to integrate them into your strategy.

First, compare the competitor keywords with the ones you’re already targeting.

But what exactly are you looking for?

  • Are there any high-volume keywords you’re not targeting yet?
  • Are there terms they’re ranking for where you could compete?
  • Are there areas where you’re already ranking, but could improve?

This will ensure you’re not leaving valuable opportunities on the table.

Earlier, we used the example of vegan supplements.

Here’s a spreadsheet with keyword data for this niche, showing volume, difficulty, and value.

Later, we’ll show you how to create this spreadsheet (and provide a template.)

Keyword Prioritization Framework – Spreadsheet

The more keywords you have in your database, the better.

This gives you plenty of options to choose what to write about.

(After all, the better keywords you choose, the faster you can grow your organic traffic and bring more leads.)

Now, go to Keyword Overview, and add all your keywords.

Keyword Overview – Vegan suplements – Enter keywords

Then, click “Analyze.”

Scroll down and press “Export.”

Choose between XLXS, CSV or CSV semicolon.

Keyword list – Export data

To prioritize your keywords well, use a simple scoring framework.

Download the template and follow our steps

We’ll use Google Sheets—we’ve exported our data in CSV format.

Go there and press “Import.”

Keyword Prioritization Framework – Data import

An “Import file” window will open.

Switch to the tab “Upload,” and choose your exported file.

Then, click “Browse,” and choose your exported file.

Google Docs – Import file – Upload

Then, click “Import data.”

Google Docs – Upload – Import data

Now, you have your raw data.

What interests you is Volume (column C) and Keyword Difficulty (column E).

Keyword Prioritization Framework – Raw data

Click over to the “Framework” tab and check VLOOKUP formulas.

In our case it’s:

  • =VLOOKUP(A2, Data_import!$A$1:$G$16, 3, FALSE) to get Search Volume
  • =VLOOKUP(A2, Data_import!$A$1:$G$16, 5, FALSE) to get Ranking Difficulty

At this point, you should have Search Volume and Ranking Difficulty columns and scores for these two (they’re automatic.)

Keyword Prioritization Framework – Ranking Difficulty & Search Volume

First, let’s talk about Ranking Difficulty.

This tells you how tough it’ll be to rank for a keyword:

  • Under 30: Low competition (easy to rank for), score = 1
  • 30-60: Medium competition, score = 2
  • Over 60: High competition, score = 3

Next, we’ve got Business Value.

This is a manual assessment (you have to insert numbers between 1 and 3 yourself) of how well the keyword aligns with your product or service.

  • 3 (High value): If your product fits well into content targeting that keyword
  • 2 (Medium value): If your product fits, but not perfectly
  • 1 (Low value): If the keyword is barely relevant

Lastly, consider Search Volume.

  • Over 800 searches/month: High volume, score = 3
  • 500-800 searches/month: Medium volume, score = 2
  • Under 500 searches/month: Low volume, score = 1

Once you score all your keywords on these three factors, formulas in the sheet gives you the final score.

This helps you prioritize what to target.

Focus on keywords with high volume, low difficulty, and strong business value.

Here’s how:

  • High search volume (over 800 searches per month) means more potential traffic
  • Low ranking difficulty (anything under 30) means it’s easier to break into the rankings
  • Strong business value means it’s a perfect fit for what you offer, so it’s worth your time to go after it

For example a keyword “vegan protein powder.”

It has high search volume, low ranking difficulty, and business value.

Which means it’s going to be a top priority.

Meanwhile, something like “affordable vegan protein powder” has lower search volume and tougher competition.

So, it might fall to the bottom of the list.

This way, you’re focusing on keywords that’ll actually move the needle.

But remember:

In the end, any framework is just a framework.

Consider market trends, customer feedback, and lifetime value, too.

Now it’s time to create a content plan.

Step 6: Turn Competitor Keywords into Content

Once you’ve integrated competitor keywords into your strategy, it’s time to plan your content around them.

Say you’re a fast-growing brand that can’t compete with big players that rank high for high-volume and high-difficulty keywords.

But you have authority in one field.

And you found loads of decent-volume but low-competition keywords.

So, your strategy should focus on this untapped area.

Suppose your framework lists “vegan vitamins” as a high-priority keyword.

Google SERP – Vegan vitamins

It has commercial intent.

And you know your customers often ask about it.

First, review the types of pages that currently rank for this keyword.

Then, create a landing page that lists all the vegan vitamins.

Ensure it provides more value and depth than competing pages.

Apply this workflow to each of your high-priority keywords for maximum impact.

Get a Strategic Start for Using Your Competitors’ Keywords

Competitor keywords provide valuable insights for a focused SEO strategy.

The most important thing is to approach this task through a strategic lens.

To help you set the right priorities, download our keyword prioritization framework.

Use it to create an at-a-glance reference of your keywords and related data.

Then, put those insights to use to build a better SEO strategy and ultimately outrank your rivals.


Download the template

The post How to Find Competitors’ Keywords to Boost Your SEO appeared first on Backlinko.

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How to Rank on Page 1 of Google FAST (In-Depth Case Study)

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Today you’re going to see one of my favorite SEO strategies in action.

“Guestographics”.

Specifically, I’ll show you how Perrin used this technique to hit Google’s first page for a bunch of his target keywords.

Let’s dive right in.

The Guestographic Method:
An SEO Strategy That Gets Results

Guestographics work for one simple reason:

They make your content MUCH easier to share.

I published a post a while back that outlines the entire process: How to Get Backlinks With Guestographics.

Backlinko – How to get backlinks

So if you haven’t read that post, go check it out.

In that post I reveal how The Guestographic Method increased my organic traffic by more than 175%:

Increase by 175%

And Guestographics are one reason that Backlinko ranks in the top spot on Google for “on page SEO”:

Google SERP – On page SEO

Does this sound like something you’d like to try?

Keep reading…

How Perrin and David Used Guestographics to Skyrocket Their Rankings (And Traffic)

I just showed you how well Guestographics worked for me.

Now it’s time to reveal Perrin and David’s results.

First up, we have Perrin Carrell.

A while back, Perrin launched a pet blog called HerePup.

Here Pup! Website

Why did Perrin make this blog?

Well, a few months before Perrin picked up a cute little black puppy from an animal shelter (Chewie).

Chewie

Like most new dog owners, Perrin searched for the best dog food for Chewie…

…but he didn’t find any content that blew him away.

That’s when Perrin realized that he had a HUGE opportunity staring him in the face:

There aren’t any dog blogs with mind-blowing content. Why not make the first one?

In Perrin’s own words:

“I saw a few smaller blogs ranking for low-competition keywords. I thought I could top what they were doing. I also noticed that authoritative pet blogs were getting insane traffic. Even though it was going to be really tough to beat these bigger sites, that showed me that the ceiling in this niche was really high.”
Perrin Carrell

After dozens of late-night writing sessions, Perrin’s site went live:

Chewie Says website

(Note: Perrin’s original name for the blog was Chewie Says. But he recently changed it to Here Pup.)

That’s the good news.

The bad news? The dog blog space is dominated by a handful of massive authority sites.

That means that Perrin is going toe-to-toe with mega-sites like PetMD.com and Cesar “The Dog Whisperer” Millan.

You could even say that it’s a dog-eat-dog world (sorry, I couldn’t resist ? ).

To have a fighting chance against these massive authority sites, Perrin had two options:

Option #1: He could grind away on his blog, publish on a set schedule, and HOPE he got traffic (“The Publish and Pray Approach”).

Option #2: He could create (and promote) a few pieces of amazing content.

Fortunately for Perrin and his new blog, he pulled the trigger on option #2.

And he decided to kick things off with Guestographics.

How did it go?

Guestographics boosted his organic search engine traffic by 963% in just 6-weeks:

Chewie Says – Organic traffic

And thanks to placements on a handful of popular pet blogs…

Guest appearance

…and The Huffington Post…

Huffington Post – Chewie

…he also funneled over 1000 targeted referral visitors to his site:

Chewie – Referral traffic

Not bad for a brand new blog.

Note: His secret was NOT a $10,000 infographic. As you’ll see in a minute, the design had very little to do with Perrin’s success.

With that out of the way, it’s time for me to walk you through the step-by-step process.

Step 1: Create and Publish a (Really Good) Infographic

Here’s the deal:

Despite what most “content marketing gurus” would have you believe, design plays a VERY small part in an infographic’s success.

In fact, choosing the right topic is 90% of the game.

And that’s where Perrin’s infographic — 22 Ways Dogs Make Humans Healthier — hits a home run:

22 ways dogs graphic

Sure, his infographic looks really nice.

But it wouldn’t have done NEARLY as well without a topic that dog lovers cared about.

Now:

Perrin had a hunch that dog owners would want to learn that Mr. Fluffy Pants improves their health.

So he searched for “dogs and human health”.

Google Search – Dogs and human health

And he came across this slideshow from WebMD ranking on the first page:

WebMD – Slideshow

(Yes, that’s really what it looks like.)

As Perrin puts it:

“That’s not a good article. It’s just fun facts with cute blurbs. There’s no design or research to speak of. I knew I could do it better, and one of the ways I wanted to improve it was to make an infographic.”
Perrin Carrell

Even though the WebMD page leaves A LOT to be desired, it attracted backlinks from over 300 referring domains:

Ahrefs – 300 referring domains to pets.webmd.com

In other words, Perrin saw that there was proven demand for content about “ways that pets improve human health”.

But not just any information…

…demand for visual content.

So Perrin decided to create an infographic around that proven topic.

First, he spent a day researching content for the infographic.

Then he hired a freelance designer to take his list of bullet points…

22 ways list

…and turn it into a professional infographic.

22 ways dogs make humans healthier – Full graphic

Looks nice, right?

As you probably know, publishing something valuable isn’t enough to generate quality backlinks and targeted traffic.

If you’re serious about getting results from your content, you need to strategically promote it.

This leads us to step #2…

Step 2: Find People That Are Interested In Your Infographic

Once your infographic is ready, it’s time to make a list of people that might want to check it out.

The easiest way to do that? Search for keywords that describe your infographic’s topic.

For example:

Let’s say that you just published an infographic about the Paleo Diet.

You’d Google keywords like “Paleo diet”, “Paleo diet recipes”, “what is the Paleo Diet?” etc.

And Google will show you a list of blogs that tend to cover that topic:

Google SERP – Paleo diet recipes

You can even use Google Suggest to get even more keyword ideas:

Google Suggest – Paleo diet

Here’s how Perrin found his Guestographic prospects:

Like I just outlined, Perrin searched in Google using keywords like “pets and health.”

But he didn’t stop there…

He also searched for keywords like “top 50 dog blogs”.

Google Search – Top 50 dog blogs

These “best of” keywords hooked Perrin up with hand-curated lists of popular pet blogs:

Feedspot dog blogs

Once you’ve found a quality blog in your niche, here’s what to do next:

Step 3: See If They’re Interested In Your Infographic

Most people pitch bloggers the complete WRONG way.

Instead of gauging interest with a feeler message, they go straight for the hard sell.

You’ve probably received some of these annoying emails yourself.

Have you ever replied to any of them?

I didn’t think so. 🙂

That’s why you want to start off the Guestographic outreach process with a quick email…

…A quick email that simply asks them if they want to see your infographic.

Here’s a tested script you can use:

And here’s the the exact feeler email that Perrin sent out:

Perrin – Outreach email

See how Perrin’s message is completely different than most pushy outreach emails?

He’s just asking if they’d like to see the infographic… which is an easy sell.

In other words, you don’t want to link to anything in your first email.

Why not?

When someone sees a link in an email from someone they don’t know, they think: “this person must want something”.

And they hit the delete button.

But when you send an email that simply asks if they want to see your content, it’s usually received with open arms.

In fact, Perrin sent 92 emails…

…and he got 5 conversions (that’s a 5.4% conversion rate).

Solid.

Now:

Once you get a response back saying, “sure, send it over”, like this…

Perrin – Outreach email – Reply

…it’s time for step #4.

Step 4: Make Sharing Your Infographic a Breeze (AKA, “The Bribe”)

When you want another site to link to you, you need to remember one thing:

The more barriers you remove, the more success you’ll have.

(This is true of anything in marketing… not just email outreach.)

Well, what’s the ONE thing that prevents people from sharing an infographic?

The fact that they have to write a unique introduction to go along with it!

Well, the beauty of Guestographics is that you remove that barrier.

How?

By writing that introduction for them.

This is the template that I use:

And here’s the email that Perrin sent to the people that liked his infographic:

Perrin – Outreach email – Link

And because you’re making their life easier, your response rate will be MUCH better than a pushy pitch:

Perrin – Outreach email – Link reply

When someone says “sure, send me an introduction”, send them a high-quality 200-250 word intro.

Oops. I almost forgot.

Here’s the script to use when you send your intro:

And here’s the email Perrin used to send people his unique introduction:

Perrin – Outreach email – Intro

Step 5: Add a Link In Your Introduction

This is important:

The unique introduction doesn’t just make sharing your infographic easier.

It also makes your link MUCH more powerful.

How?

Unlike most infographic backlinks, which appear automatically when someone shares your infographic using an embed code, like this…

Featured image

…Guestographic links are surrounded by unique content in the introduction.

Contextual backlink

Links in the intro boost your referral traffic and is better for SEO.

In total, Perrin’s Guestographics campaign brought in 8 niche-relevant, white hat backlinks.

(5 came from Guestographics. The other 3 were natural placements that happened after his infographic spread around the web.)

That’s a total cost of $25/link. Not bad.

The post How to Rank on Page 1 of Google FAST (In-Depth Case Study) appeared first on Backlinko.

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How to Build AWESOME Backlinks in 2022 (9 Proven Strategies)

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Ready to grab some quality backlinks and boost your site’s Google ranking?

Awesome!

This post contains 9 proven link-building strategies that are working GREAT right now.

(In 2022.)

Let’s get started!

1. Use Data to Get Links From News Sites and Blogs

In one of my recent guides I covered how to use HARO to become a source for reporters.

And that’s something you should DEFINITELY be doing.

But HARO connects you with journalists who are planning features in advance.

And what else do reporters do? They report the news of course! And the news doesn’t work on a set schedule.

So… if there’s breaking news related to your niche, that’s a HUGE opportunity to pick up mentions and links.

Here’s what to do:

1. Monitor the news for new mentions of your site’s main topics

The easiest way to do that is by setting up a Google alert or BuzzSumo Alert.

Buzzsumo – McDonalds keyword alert

2. Reach out to reporters with added VALUE

If you’re going to get a link from a news site, you’re going to have to put in some work.

You have to provide real value to the reporter. And ideally, make their life easier.

Reaching out and saying “I see you wrote about this, I wrote about it too.” will quickly get you flagged as a spammer.

How do you provide value? Here are some ideas:

  1. Give them a quote with personal insight from your industry. Include your credentials.
  2. Offer unique data or statistics.
  3. Offer an alternative take.
  4. Create an infographic or custom visual that they can embed in their story.

Whichever way you go, there’s one thing that’s SUPER important…

You need to act FAST.

Today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s recycling. So ideally you want to reach out the same day that the news is breaking.

Pro tip: Create a personal black book of journalists who cover your industry. Then ping them as soon as you see a story breaking. That way you might catch them while they are still working on an article for publication.

2. Scale The Skyscraper Technique

Yup, skyscraper content is still my #1 go-to tactic for building high quality links.

In fact, this piece of Skyscraper Content that I published a while ago has already racked up 5,6K backlinks:

Voice search SEO study – Backlinks

The best part? This approach is SUPER simple. In fact, it’s so simple, I can boil it down to just 3 steps:

  1. Find a popular piece of content in your niche. Hint: popular = lots of backlinks.
  2. Make something even better.
  3. Promote the heck out of it!

With that, here are a few extra tips to help you scale this strategy.

Find Popular Content

Your first point of call is Google. Search a popular keyword in your niche, and it’s a safe bet that the page ranking at #1 will have backlinks powering that #1 ranking.

Google SERP – Paleo diet tips

But say you’re not sure which topic is going to be best for attracting links. Is there a way to take out the guesswork?

Yup.

(Note: you’ll need an account from Semrush or any other SEO tool for this.)

Semrush and other link analysis tools have a report called “Best by links”. This will show you the most linked-to pages on any site.

For example, you can see that my Google Ranking Factors post has picked up links from almost 5K domains!

Semrush – Indexed pages – Backlinko

So plug in a competitor’s site, find their most popular pages, and you’re set. Easy peasy.

Make Something (a LOT) Better

Found a page to skyscraper? Great. Your next step is to create something even better.

But…

…making your page “a little” better isn’t going to cut it.

If you REALLY want to pull in those links you’re going to have to make something a LOT better.

In fact, I try to make my skyscraper content 5-10x better than the current top page.

How do I do it?

Easy. I work out what’s missing. Then, fill in those gaps.

Here are a few tips from my personal checklist:

  1. Does the ranking page go in-depth on the topic? If not, I’ll make sure I cover EVERYTHING it skipped.
  2. Is the ranking page text heavy? If so, I’ll include TONS of high-quality images in my post to make it more visually appealing.
  3. Does the ranking page include video? If not I’ll add one to mine. In fact, I’ll probably do that anyway!
  4. Does the ranking page include 10 tips? Then I’ll include 20. Doubling is a good starting point.
  5. Does the ranking page include links to related resources? If not, I’ll make sure mine does.

I’ve yet to find a page that I can’t 10x with a little thought and a lot of hard work.

For example, a few months ago I noticed that most posts about “how to get more YouTube subscribers” sucked.

Specifically:

  • They were written by people that don’t have successful YouTube channels
  • They cited outdated strategies, techniques and features
  • They didn’t have any visuals to show you how to implement each strategy
  • They all regurgitated the same tired strategies

So I set out to create something WAY better.

Backlinko – How to get YouTube subscribers

Unlike the other posts that I read, my post had:

  • Real life examples of how I used the tips to grow my channel
  • New strategies that you couldn’t find anywhere else
  • Lots of screenshots and visuals to make the techniques easy to understand (and use)

Promote The Heck Out Of It

Reaching out to people you featured in your content is a good place to start with content promotion.

Besides that, here are some other tips:

  1. Reach out to people who linked to your competitor’s page.
  2. Reach out to people who commented on your competitor’s page.
  3. Reach out to people who shared your competitor’s page on social.
  4. Reach out to people who linked to other pages in the top 10.

Build a big prospect list… and go nuts!

Pro tip: Check out Skyscraper 2.0 to find out how to take this thing to the next level!

3. Moving Man Method 2.0

Nailed “The Moving Man Method”?

Here’s another way to nab quality links from outdated content.

(Moving Man Method 2.0.)

This time… instead of focusing on businesses that have gone pop or rebranded, we’ll leverage outdated information.

Why? Because things change!

Here’s a super simple example.

Let’s say we had a page that ranked the most popular websites in the world.

Well, some time ago YouTube overtook Facebook as the second most visited website on the planet.

And guess what happened? Suddenly there were a TON of pages that contain outdated information:

Forbes – Outdated article

Over 11,000 of them to be precise!

(And that’s just one query…)

So, we’ve now got a perfect “in”.

We can:

  1. Reach out to all the sites with the old info.
  2. Let them know that it’s changed.
  3. Point them to our own page while we’re there!

Pro Tip: If something has changed recently in your industry, then use Google’s date function to find articles published prior to the change.

Google Search – Custom date range

4. Double Down on Effective Content Formats

When it comes to creating content that will attract quality links I don’t like to rely on guesswork. And neither should you.

There are a number of proven content formats that people LOVE to link to:

  • List Posts
  • Quizzes
  • “Why” Posts
  • “How to” Posts
  • Infographics
  • Videos

That said, every industry is different. In your space videos might work best. And for others, it’s list posts.

So I recommend trying out a few different formats… and seeing what works best for you.

Then, double down on those formats.

Pro tip: Combine two or more of these formats into one piece. Hint: A “How To” post in list format, or a “Why” post with an infographic or video would do the trick.

5. Podcast Link Building

A while ago I was checking out where one of the sites in my niche got their backlinks from.

And I noticed that a big chunk of their backlinks came from going on podcasts.

Quicksprout – Podcast backlinks

So I decided to become a guest on as many podcasts as I could.

In fact, I appeared on over 50 podcasts over the next year and a half.

Google SERP – Brian Dean podcast

Not only did these podcasts send some serious traffic my way…

Serious traffic

But they resulted in tons of backlinks.

Interviewed On Podcast

So:

How do you find podcasts to go on?

First, grab a headshot of someone in your niche that goes on a lot of podcasts. Then, put their headshot into Google reverse image search.

And you’re set:

Google SERP – Rand Fishkin podcasts

6. Resource Page Link Building

What’s the purpose of a resource page? To link out to other useful pages!

And that’s a link builder’s dream.

All you gotta’ do is:

  1. Find em’.
  2. Make sure you have something that’s worthy of a link.
  3. Reach out.

I’ll be honest:

Finding them is probably the hardest part. So here are 10 advanced Google searches that will help:

  1. “{your keyword}” + inurl:resources
  2. “{your keyword}” + inurl:links
  3. “{your keyword}” + inurl:recommended
  4. “{your keyword}” + “top websites”
  5. “{your keyword}” + “top sites”
  6. “{your keyword}” + “recommended websites”
  7. “{your keyword}” + “recommended resources”
  8. “{your keyword}” + “further reading”
  9. “{your keyword}” + “recommended reading”
  10. “{your keyword}” + “useful sites”

Pro tip: Flipping this round, a well curated, super helpful resource page on your own site can be great for picking up quality links. You can even try reaching out to OTHER resource pages to suggest they link to YOUR resource page. Sounds a bit like Inception… but it works!

7. Unlinked Brand Mentions

If someone mentions your brand in an article but doesn’t include a link, that’s a HUGE opportunity.

All you gotta do is reach out…

…and 9 times out of 10 you’ll get a link.

I recommend setting up an alert for your brand name.

That way you’ll get a notification any time your business is mentioned on the web.

Buzzsumo – Mentions

Pro tip: Got a branded technique like “The Moving Man Method”? Then set up an alert for that too!

8. Name Your Strategies

Heard of “The Moving Man Method” or “The Skyscraper Technique”?

Well… both those terms were coined by yours truly 🙂

This means whenever someone is writing about them…

…I get another quality backlink!

Another quality backlink

Can you do the same?

Sure! All you have to do is:

  1. Figure out a process or strategy that’s unique to your business.
  2. Give it a catchy name.
  3. Write about it!

And it’s writing about the process that’s key. Because you’ll only get links if:

  1. Your strategy is SUPER useful.
  2. You can prove it works.

This is why I always feature real-life case studies when I reveal a new strategy or technique.

Backlinko – Skyscraper Technique 2.0

9. Two-Step Email Outreach

A softly, softly approach to the outreach can often yield better results than straight asking for a link right off the bat.

Try using feeler emails like the one below to warm up your prospects:

Mike Bonadio – Outreach email

Pro tip: I also use this technique before launching a new post. I’ll reach out to a prospect and tell them what’s coming, then ask permission to send it their way when I publish. Most of the time the answer is a resounding YES! A little courtesy goes a long way in outreach.

Ready To Grab Some High-Quality Backlinks?

All of the above tactics are tried and tested. And I’ve used them to grow Backlinko’s search traffic from ZERO to over 175,000 unique visits per month.

Bonus: they’re also 100% white hat. So no need to worry about getting slammed by a Google update.

The post How to Build AWESOME Backlinks <br>in 2022 (9 Proven Strategies) appeared first on Backlinko.

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