On PPC Live The Podcast, I spoke with Peter Bowen, a Google Ads specialist with nearly 20 years of experience and a strong focus on B2B lead generation.
Pete shared two major lessons from his career: always check the basics, and never assume the systems around your ads are working just because the campaigns look fine.
The currency mistake that cost 10 times the budget
Pete Bowen shared an early mistake where a South African client’s account was set up in the UK, defaulting the currency to pounds instead of rand. That simple oversight led to spending roughly 10 times the intended budget, delivering great results at first — but ultimately setting unrealistic expectations and losing the client.
Why checklists protect PPC teams
The takeaway from that mistake was to formalise learning into process. Adding something as simple as a currency check to a setup checklist ensures that once a mistake is made, it doesn’t happen again — turning painful lessons into repeatable safeguards.
The bigger problem: system decay
Beyond setup errors, Pete highlighted a more subtle but common issue he calls “system decay” — where the infrastructure connecting ads, tracking tools, CRMs and sales processes gradually breaks down without anyone noticing.
Why conversion data failures hurt performance
When conversion data stops flowing properly, Google’s algorithms lose the feedback they rely on to optimise. This can lead to reduced spend, poor performance or campaigns that suddenly stop delivering — even if nothing appears wrong inside the platform.
PPC managers need to look beyond the interface
One of the biggest mistakes advertisers make is focusing only on what happens inside Google Ads. Strong performance depends on the entire journey, from click to conversion to revenue, and any break in that chain can undermine results.
What to do when conversion tracking breaks
When tracking fails, the priority is to fix the root issue quickly and, where possible, use data exclusions to prevent bad data from influencing optimisation. Longer term, building monitoring systems that flag issues early is essential to avoid repeat problems.
The danger of optimising for clicks
Pete also pointed to a common but damaging mistake: optimising campaigns for clicks rather than outcomes. Without proper conversion tracking, advertisers can end up driving large volumes of traffic that never turn into leads or sales.
Why Performance Max needs strong tracking
Automation like Performance Max can amplify this issue, as it will follow whatever signals it receives. Without accurate conversion data, it can scale irrelevant traffic quickly, making strong tracking a prerequisite before leaning into automation.
Why bid strategies need guardrails
Google’s bidding systems are powerful but literal — they optimise toward whatever you define as success. That means advertisers need clear goals, reliable data and sensible guardrails, such as CPC limits, to avoid extreme or inefficient outcomes.
Testing AI features carefully
With newer tools like AI Max, the risk isn’t testing too early — it’s testing without a clear definition of success. Metrics like impressions and clicks are not enough; advertisers need to measure impact on qualified leads, sales and revenue.
The problem with “always be testing”
Peter also challenged the idea that everything should be constantly tested. Many accounts simply don’t have enough data to make small tests meaningful, meaning time is often better spent improving fundamentals rather than chasing marginal gains.
The key takeaway
The overarching lesson is straightforward: mistakes are part of the process, but only if they lead to better systems. Every error should result in a checklist, a monitoring process or a safeguard — ensuring it doesn’t happen again.
https://i0.wp.com/dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/web-design-creative-services.jpg?fit=1500%2C600&ssl=16001500Dubado Solutionshttp://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.pngDubado Solutions2026-04-27 18:42:012026-04-27 18:42:01Pete Bowen talks about why Google Ads is not just about clicks
Most location pages fail for one of two reasons: They’re too thin (just an address and phone number) or too generic (the same template with city names swapped out).
Google sees through both. So does ChatGPT.
But here’s what a good location page can do:
Rank in organic search
Link from your Google Business Profile (GBP)
Get cited in AI answers
Serve as a landing page for ads
Convert visitors into leads
One page, five jobs.
Most location pages do none of this.
They just sit there. Technically live, technically indexed, technically doing nothing.
I’ve built location pages for HVAC companies, electricians, painters, funeral homes, and more across dozens of markets.
The ones that rank fast — sometimes within 48 hours — aren’t longer or stuffed with more keywords.
They’re built for how customers actually interact with that business.
In this guide, I’ll show you exactly how to build location pages that work for your business model. Whether you have 3 locations or 300, physical storefronts or service areas.
You’ll get two plug-and-play templates, ranking tactics, and strategies for showing up when someone asks an AI “best [your service] in [city].”
Two Types of Location Pages (and When You Need Each)
Before you build anything, you need to know which type of location page you’re creating.
Get this wrong, and you’ll confuse users, Google, and AI systems.
For example: A bank branch in Philadelphia needs a completely different page than an HVAC company serving Philadelphia from 30 miles away.
Take Bank of America’s Philadelphia branch.
The page shows exactly what someone needs to visit: full address, hours, parking, what to expect when they walk in.
Now compare that to Sila, an HVAC company serving Southeastern Pennsylvania.
They don’t have an office in Philadelphia. But their page proves they cover the area and gives customers confidence to call them.
Physical Location Pages
Creating location-specific pages is how you convert local searches to foot traffic.
What it is: A page for a place customers actually visit
Examples: Bank branches, retail stores, medical offices, restaurants, walk-in clinics
User intent: Directions, hours, parking, what to expect when they arrive
Key signal: You have a real address where customers walk in
Merit Dental’s Sandusky location shows exactly what visitors need: address, hours, map, and a photo of the actual building.
Everything invites you to visit.
Service Area Pages
Service area pages are how you dominate search in 50 towns without opening 50 offices.
What it is: A page for a geographic area you serve, but don’t have a physical presence in
Brick-and-mortar with regional draw: Chiropractors, dentists, urgent care
User intent: Proof you serve their area, credibility, why they should choose you
Key signal: You want visibility in this area but have no physical address there
Infinity Roofer travels to customers across the Denver metro, so their service area page focuses on building credibility through local expertise (mentioning “Denver’s infamous hailstorms”).
Note: Neighborhood pages (e.g., “Electrician in South Philadelphia”) are a more granular version of service area pages. Same approach, tighter geographic focus.
But service area pages aren’t just for businesses that come to you.
Brick-and-mortar locations should use them too when they draw customers from surrounding towns.
For example, Centre for Healing Arts is based in Limerick, Pennsylvania. But they created this service area page for Pottstown, just 7 miles away.
How They Work Together
Many businesses need both.
For example:
McCafferty Funeral & Cremation Inc. has two physical offices: Philadelphia and New Hope, Pennsylvania.
They also serve families in surrounding communities like Lambertville, New Jersey (just 2 miles from their New Hope location).
They need physical location pages for their two offices and service area pages for nearby towns like Lambertville where they don’t have a physical presence.
To make this structure work, link them strategically.
Service area pages link to your nearest physical location. Physical location pages link out to the service areas they cover.
This creates a clear hierarchy for users and search engines.
How to Make Your Location Pages Perform
Whether you’re optimizing for organic rankings, AI citations, paid traffic, or conversions, the same core principles apply.
Match Searcher Intent
Does your page match what someone searching “[service] in [city]” actually wants?
Physical location searchers are often looking for logistics. Hours, directions, parking, what to expect when they visit.
Service area searchers want proof you serve their region and reasons to choose you.
Mismatch = bounce.
Add Real Local Value (Not Just City Name Swaps)
This is where most location landing pages fail.
Swapping city names isn’t unique. Google knows.
Check out these near-identical pages from an HVAC company in Tucson, Arizona.
Real local value means neighborhood-specific details, regional challenges, and local expertise you can’t copy-paste.
For example, Wade Paint Co’s Sullivan’s Island house painting page includes FAQs about historic preservation requirements.
These are concerns unique to this barrier island’s homes.
Or Bill Joplin’s Plano HVAC page, which discusses how Plano’s climate and types of homes affect system sizing.
Details only someone actually working in that market would know.
Right-Size Your Content Depth
Not every location page needs 2,000 words.
But major purchases like home remodeling, medical procedures, or legal services typically require extensive information.
Why?
Because customers are investing significant time and money.
Check out this service area page from Assembly Squad Remodeling, a bathroom contractor.
It addresses different Chicago building types, the specific challenges of each, even pricing ranges for various project scopes.
Low-consideration pages can be leaner. Like this laundromat location page in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Consideration isn’t the only factor in determining page depth.
Competitive markets require more content to differentiate. Less competitive markets can get away with less.
So, match your page’s depth to what the decision actually requires.
I’ve ranked service area pages on domains with Authority Scores (AS) of 20-30 in as little as 48 hours.
Sometimes, in even less time.
With even lower Authority Scores.
How?
I focused on building pages around searcher intent.
In my experience, a well-built location page on a smaller site can beat a thin page on a high-authority domain.
Like how this local painting company is outranking CertaPro Painters, a national franchise. As well as Yelp.
Structure for AI and Search Engines
Schema markup is table stakes. You need LocalBusiness, FAQPage, and Review at minimum.
Scannable sections with descriptive headings help crawlers, AI systems, and humans find what they need fast.
Optimize for Each Channel
The core factors above apply everywhere. But each channel rewards certain elements more than others.
Organic Rankings
The more comprehensive your content, the better it ranks.
Answer questions competitors ignore. Address objections before users have to ask.
You still need keywords, too. Naturally integrated in your title, headings, and body content.
Just don’t stuff “[city] [service]” in every sentence:
Local backlinks to that specific location page signal you’re actually relevant to that area.
Get mentioned by local chambers, news sites, neighborhood blogs, industry directories.
Real images make a difference, too.
Photos of your actual location, your team, or projects you’ve completed.
Stock photos just won’t cut it.
AI Citations
When someone asks Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, or Perplexity for local recommendations, will your business show up?
Third-party “best of” features increase your citation chances significantly.
When you’re mentioned on local roundups, listicles, or “top 10” posts, AI systems are more likely to reference you. They trust these aggregated sources.
Comparison tables also make it easy for AI to pull and cite your content.
Format your information so it’s scannable. Pricing breakdowns, service comparisons, coverage areas. AI loves data it can parse quickly.
FAQ sections with clear question headers work because large language models (LLMs) are trained in part on Q&A content.
Write your questions the way people actually ask them. Then, answer them directly.
Structure your content the way these systems are trained to consume information, and you’re more likely to get cited.
Experiment: What AI actually cites for local queries
I tested 30 “best [service] in [city]” queries across Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. Then, cataloged every source in their citation panels — 725 citations total.
Each platform told a completely different story.
Google AI Mode leaned heavily on Yelp listings (32%) and Reddit threads (30%). Community discussions and review platforms drove the majority of its citations.
ChatGPT favored editorial “best of” lists more than any other platform — 22% of its citations came from third-party roundups. Getting featured in a local magazine’s “Top 10” list matters here.
Perplexity was the outlier. It cited business websites directly 73% of the time — including location pages. Strong site content gets found.
The takeaway: each platform pulls from a different layer of the web.
Yelp profiles and Reddit mentions for Google AI Mode. Editorial roundups for ChatGPT. Your own site for Perplexity.[/largequote]
Paid Landing Pages
If you’re running Google Ads for local services, your location pages make perfect landing pages.
But only if you get the messaging right.
Your ad says “24/7 Emergency Plumber in Orange County”?
That exact promise needs to be the first thing someone sees when they land on the page.
Not buried in the third paragraph. Not implied. Right there in the headline.
When your landing page headline matches your ad copy, Google sees a better user experience.
That improves your Quality Score and lowers your cost per click (CPC).
Specificity matters too.
If your ad targets “Landscaping Denver,” don’t send them to a service area page for all of Colorado.
Send them to your Denver-specific page with Denver details, Denver reviews, Denver project photos.
Pro tip: The goal here isn’t just to rank — it’s to take up as much search engine results page (SERP) real estate as possible.
With the right setup, your brand can appear three times in a single SERP: your GBP in the map pack, your location page in organic results, and your PPC ad at the top (all using that same location page).
When someone sees your brand multiple times on the same SERP, you get instant credibility. And, it can boost your click-through rates (CTRs).
Most businesses treat these as separate channels. Smart ones use location pages to connect them all.
Template 1: Physical Location Page
Use this template when customers come to you: a storefront, office, branch, restaurant, or clinic they physically visit.
Photos showing your work in this area (or team working in similar neighborhoods)
Credibility & trust signals (industry associations, certifications, years serving this area)
Reviews & testimonials (prioritize reviews from customers in this specific area)
Link to nearest physical location (if applicable “We’re based 15 minutes away in [city]”)
Contact info & CTA
Depth Modules
Here’s how you build a service area page that actually competes. The more competitive your market, the more of these modules you’ll need.
Hyperlocal Content
Show you actually understand this area’s unique challenges.
Maybe you’re a pest control company that can speak intelligently about termite pressure zones in the Southeast.
Or, a pool service that addresses the hard water issues Arizona homeowners deal with constantly.
The more specific you get about problems only someone working in this market would recognize, the harder you are to compete with.
Previous Work in Area
Prove you actually serve this geography with specifics.
We’ve completed 180+ pool installations in Scottsdale over the last 4 years.”
Then, add examples. “Last summer we built three saltwater pools in the DC Ranch community during that record-breaking heat wave.”
Before/after photos from local projects work here, too. Real numbers and real examples beat vague claims every time.
Extended FAQs
Service area pages need to answer two types of questions: Can you actually help me, and do you understand what makes my area different?
Answer service logistics questions like “Do you service [specific neighborhood]?” or “How quickly can you get here?”
Address technical questions tied to local conditions like “Do I need a permit for AC replacement in [city]?” or “What foundation issues are common in this area?”
Write your questions the way people actually ask them. Then, answer them directly.
Scaling for Enterprise
Everything above works whether you have 5 locations or 500.
Centralized templates prevent local teams from going rogue.
Define what’s editable (local details, testimonials, staff bios) versus what’s locked (brand messaging, legal disclaimers, core service descriptions).
Create a style guide specifically for location pages.
Build approval workflows for new pages or major edits so you catch problems before they go live.
Avoid the Duplicate Content Trap
The biggest risk at scale is 50 pages that look identical with city names swapped.
Each page needs genuinely unique content — not just find-and-replace.
Like these examples from Public Storage.
They stay unique by tying each page to real places and explaining the specific storage needs that come with living there.
Audit regularly for pages that are too similar. Remember that thin pages hurt your entire domain, not just that one page.
Choose Your Content Team Structure
Centralized teams give you more control and consistency but less local flavor.
Local teams create more authentic, hyperlocal content but are harder to manage for quality.
The hybrid approach usually works best: The central team owns templates and core messaging; local teams add hyperlocal details and testimonials.
Clear ownership prevents pages from going stale.
Connecting Physical Locations to Service Areas
If you have three offices serving 50 towns, your structure matters.
This avoids confusion for users and search engines while signaling which pages matter most.
Build Neighborhood Pages That Don’t Suck
Don’t create neighborhood pages for every ZIP code.
Prioritize competitive markets, areas with genuine search volume, and places where you have real hyperlocal expertise.
Thin neighborhood pages hurt more than they help. Ten strong neighborhood pages beat 100 weak ones.
Audit and Fix Underperformers
Monitor your location pages’ SEO performance to spot underperformers.
Run regular audits for thin content, outdated information, and broken links.
Set a refresh cadence: quarterly reviews at minimum. Kill pages that aren’t earning traffic or conversions.
Set Up Your Production System
Use CMS templates that enforce your structure.
At my agency, we use WordPress with custom templates to ensure consistency across all location pages.
You also want to track all location pages in a spreadsheet or database with URLs, last updated dates, and performance metrics.
Set automated alerts for pages that haven’t been touched in 6+ months.
Programmatic approaches can work if you have genuinely unique data for each page. For example, a brand like Expedia pulling real hotels, prices, and reviews.
But if you’re just swapping city names, you’re creating thin content at scale. In that case, build fewer pages manually with real depth.
Start Small, Scale Smart
Start with one page.
Pick your highest-priority location or service area and build it using the templates above.
Don’t try to launch 50 pages at once.
Get that first page ranking, converting, and getting cited by AI. Then, use it as your model for the rest.
Remember: One well-built location page can do the work of five different marketing assets.
But most businesses will never build pages this detailed. That’s your advantage.
Need help managing location pages at scale?
Our guide to multi-location SEO shows you how to optimize GBPs, track citations, and coordinate review strategies across every location without losing your mind.
http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png00Dubado Solutionshttp://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.pngDubado Solutions2026-04-26 14:50:212026-04-26 14:50:21How to Build Location Pages That Rank, Convert, and Get Cited
You can only choose channels, messaging, and KPIs once you know what goal you’re supporting.
Of course, revenue growth is almost always the overarching goal.
But most marketing strategies ladder up to that larger goal by supporting things like:
Demand generation
Brand awareness
Retention or expansion
To define your own primary marketing goal, work through these steps:
Name the real problem marketing needs to solve right now: Is the issue volume? Lead quality? Retention? CAC? Awareness? Be specific.
Choose one primary goal: Over the next 6-12 months, what single outcome should marketing influence most?
Identify 1-2 secondary goals (optional): You can support these goals, but not at the expense of the primary goal.
Turn this into a SMART goal and pressure-test it: Pick a goal that you can measure and achieve in a set amount of time.
Of course, the “right” marketing goal depends on your situation.
Early-stage companies need momentum. Growth-stage teams focus on scalable demand. More mature companies might focus on efficiency, retention, or expansion.
The goal you choose sets the direction for every decision that follows.
Here’s an example:
In 2020, Fireflies.ai launched with a small team and limited marketing budget. They needed to drive user adoption and growth, fast.
So, they chose a strategy that focused on product-led, word-of-mouth growth. One of the best drivers: make it easy and worthwhile to refer new users.
They skipped popular tactics like paid acquisition, brand campaigns, and traditional demand gen funnels.
Why?
Because their resources, product design, and business stage made product-led growth the highest-impact path.
Their goal dictated everything else, including how they tracked success. Fireflies.ai co-founder and CEO Krish Ramineni talked about this. He said success was measured with:
Increased product usage
More users inviting Fireflies’ AI notetaker into their meetings
Organic mentions across the web
With this strategy, they were able to grow to over 10 million users, without ever using paid ads.
Before you choose channels or tactics, you need the same clarity Fireflies had. What outcome does marketing actually need to drive right now?
To go even deeper, answer the questions in Step 1 of our Marketing Strategy Workbook.
Step 2: Pinpoint Your Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
A strong unique value proposition (UVP) answers one question:
Why should someone choose you over the best alternative?
In other words, what makes your business meaningfully different from your competitors?
Here’s how to figure it out:
First, identify and analyze your best customers.
The most obvious candidates are the customers who renew subscriptions or keep purchasing from your brand.
But don’t forget your brand evangelists. Who is out there recommending your products regularly?
Once you’ve built that list, ask yourself:
What do these customers have in common?
Your UVP usually lives where you deliver the most consistent, measurable results.
Tip: Our marketing workbook walks you through more questions to help you identify your UVP.
Next, identify the core outcome. What real-world result do those customers get?
Go beyond the surface-level benefits. Think about what changes in your customers’ daily routine. How does your product affect their daily life? How does it impact their business?
Is it smoother communication? Fewer mistakes? Less stress? Better data? Stronger performance?
Anchor your UVP to a real outcome.
Then, define your defensible difference.
Now ask: what allows you to deliver that outcome better or differently than alternatives?
That could be:
Proprietary data
A specific process
Product architecture
Speed
Category specialization
Pricing structure
Brand trust
Community
Be specific. “Easy to use” and “innovative” don’t count unless you can prove why.
Finally, pressure test your analysis.
Ask yourself: If we disappeared tomorrow, what would our best customers struggle to replace?
That point of friction is your real differentiation. It means your UVP isn’t something interchangeable with any other brand in your industry.
Once you have this, your UVP becomes the baseline for the rest of your marketing strategy. It’s a foundation for your message that shows up over and over again.
Doordash is a great example of this. Their tagline is: “Everything you crave, delivered.”
This simple UVP defines:
The audience state (craving)
Breadth (everything)
Outcome (delivery convenience)
The same story shows up everywhere.
Homepage messaging. App story copy. Email newsletters.
The result of having that solid UVP?
DoorDash reinforces one idea: we’re the easiest way to get what you want, when you want it.
That’s the kind of core benefit you want your audience to remember.
Step 3: Perform Audience Research
Your UVP is your hypothesis.
Now, it’s time to validate it.
We have a full guide to audience research, so save that for later. In the meantime, here are three places to gather information:
Customers
Market perception
Competitors
First, let’s start with customer research.
Your goal: understand what your customers actually care about.
Start with a segment of your customers, ideally the high-value customers you identified in Step 2.
Then, answer these four questions:
What problem consistently pushes them to look for a solution?
What triggers that search?
What objections slow down decisions?
What words do they use to describe the problem?
You don’t need months of research.
Start with even just two or three customer conversations to understand how buyers describe their challenges. Talk to your sales or customer success teams to learn about top objections, misunderstandings, or decision blockers.
Next, dig into the market perception of your brand and industry.
Start with social media research. Search on relevant Reddit threads, skim through YouTube comments, or read reviews on third-party sites.
As real people describe the problems they’re facing, pay attention to the emotional language and repeated frustrations. Learn from the criteria they use to compare similar products.
Conversely, when someone recommends your brand specially, what’s the context?
For example: I searched for mentions of Omnisend in an email marketing subreddit. And I learned that the brand is often brought up in conversations about email marketing for ecommerce brands.
Given Omnisend brands itself as email marketing software for ecommerce, this lines up.
Essentially, Semrush runs AI searches for prompts related to your business and gathers a crowdsourced opinion of your brand.
Because LLMs are informed by how your brand appears across the web, this serves as a useful way to gauge both how your brand is perceived online and what the LLMs specifically are telling your target audience about your brand.
Head to the “Brand Performance” dashboard, then scroll to see “Key Business Drivers” to see the topics your brand is associated with in AI answers.
When I analyzed this data for Omnisend, I found that one of their top drivers is deep ecommerce store integration. Which aligns perfectly with what I saw earlier on Reddit.
When you’ve gathered this data, you can use it to pressure test your UVP from Step 2.
Do customers mention the differentiator you identified?
Do they value the outcome you thought was most important?
Are they choosing you for the reason you expected?
Pro tip: If everything feels perfectly aligned, you probably didn’t dig deep enough. This step should create clarity by surfacing the disconnect between what you want people to know, and what they actually know about your brand. The gap is what you aim to solve with your marketing strategy.
Lastly, competitor research can add another layer to this by telling you what’s already being said in the market.
For example, content marketing agency Animalz paid attention to competitors. They noticed that other agencies were competing for the same SEO-driven keywords.
Meanwhile, their ideal clients — CMOs and founders — cared more about experience-driven insight than traffic volume.
So Animalz leaned into what only they could offer: insights from hundreds of content programs.
They focused on original research, experience-driven frameworks, and thought leadership — not search volume.
The result? Fewer generic visitors, more high-quality leads. According to their homepage, their client list includes the likes of Google, Amazon, Airtable, and Atlassian.
That’s the goal here. Understand the audience. Study the landscape. Then, position yourself where you’re both relevant and differentiated.
By the end of this step, you should be able to clearly state:
The core problem your audience is trying to solve
The trigger that pushes them to act
The language they use
The top objection(s) you must address
That’s enough to inform channel decisions and messaging — without drowning in data.
Step 4: Choose Your Marketing Channels
You can’t reasonably “be everywhere.”
Every channel has different mechanics, expectations, and resource demands. So, choose a small number of channels based on:
Where you audience already spends time
Which channels best support your primary goal
What you can execute consistently with your current resources
Here’s what major channels can look like in practice:
Email marketing: High-ROI channel for nurturing, retention, and revenue expansion. It’s one of the most accessible channels to start with. And data shows consistently high conversion rates (2.8% for B2C and 2.4% for B2B).
HubSpot uses educational newsletters to deliver value first. Then, they naturally route engaged readers toward tools and upgrades.
Search (SEO + AI Optimization): When done well, long-form, evergreen content can drive results that compound over time. The key is to optimize for both traditional SEO ranking and AI summaries. Structure content clearly so it’s understood and surfaced — even in zero-click environments.
NerdWallet does this by publishing structured, comparison-driven guides. These rank in search and appear in AI answers. That builds visibility even when users don’t click.
Social media marketing: Platform-native content is built for discovery and engagement. It requires knowing your audience deeply, and playing into the right trends.
One of the most well-known examples of a brand that does this well is Duolingo. Their TikTok and Instagram content leads with humor. Over the years, it’s built massive awareness without traditional selling.
Affiliate and influencer marketing: Leverage trusted voices to expand reach and credibility.
Glossier does this by partnering with creators. This builds authentic recommendations into growth.
Paid advertising: Best for speed and high-intent capture. Requires budget discipline and clear measurement.
Shopify uses paid search to capture intent from searches like “how to start dropshipping for free”
And this likely pays off, considering Shopify has been bidding on the keyword (and ranking as the top ad) for the past year:
Customer and community marketing: Build owned spaces that compound trust and advocacy. It’s a big time lift, but it can pay off in the long run.
Notion supports user-led communities and templates. They’ve built a marketing engine that turns customers into educators and evangelists.
With these channels in mind, it’s time to narrow your focus.
Ask:
Does my audience actively use this channel?
Does this channel support my primary goal directly?
Do we have the skills and resources to execute this well?
Can we sustain this for at least 6-12 months?
Once you’ve committed to 1-2 primary channels, define what success looks like for each one. List the resources you’ll need, and be honest about constraints.
You can use the Marketing Strategy Workbook’s impact vs. effort scoring model to pressure-test your decisions before moving forward.
Step 5: Solidify Your Messaging and Differentiation by Channel
If you just copy-paste your messaging across platforms, it’ll feel out of place. But if you reinvent your story on each channel, your brand will feel fragmented.
This step is about finding the right balance.
For each channel, define:
Which problem you’re emphasizing
What format fits that channel
How your tone and depth should adjust
But your core promise stays intact.
This matters more now than ever because people encounter brands across platforms before they visit your website. On top of that, AI systems look for consistent messaging to help inform their responses to user prompts.
So, how do you build your own channel messaging playbook?
Use our Marketing Strategy Workbook to walk through the main audience problems, content formats, and how your brand should show up on each channel.
If you do this step well, you’ll end up with the right balance of consistency and adaptation.
Duolingo does this really well. Their core story is consistent: learning a language should feel fun, not intimidating.
What changes is how the brand shows up depending on the channel:
On TikTok they’re chaotic, with trend-driven, mascot-heavy humor. That entertainment-first strategy has earned them 17 million followers.
Their Instagram features similar humor, but slightly more polished and adapted to Reels culture.
Their Facebook uses toned-down humor for an older demographic.
And on LinkedIn, the brand keeps a professional tone, but still recognizably Duolingo.
Same brand. Same core message. Different execution.
That’s what you’re aiming for.
By the end of this step, you should be able to say:
What problem each channel focuses on
What format you’ll use
How your tone and depth will adapt — without changing your core message
Step 6: Assign Project Owners and Resources
A marketing strategy only works if someone owns it.
For every primary channel, there should be one person responsible for results. Otherwise, it’s easy for momentum to slide.
Before assigning that owner, do a quick reality check:
How much budget is actually available?
How many hours per week can realistically go toward this?
What skills are missing?
Will you need outside help?
You can use the Marketing Strategy Workbook to keep track of team capacity and resources:
Once you understand the constraints you’re working with, clarify roles using a RACI structure:
Responsible: Who executes the work?
Accountable: Who owns performance?
Consulted: Who provides input?
Informed: Who needs visibility?
Lastly, don’t let channels operate in silos. SEO should inform paid. Sales objections should shape content. Customer success insights should influence customer marketing tactics. All of these teams would fall into the “consulted” category in our RACI framework.
Cross-team collaboration gives your digital marketing strategy the right foundation to build on.
By the end of this step, your strategy should feel operational, not theoretical.
Step 7: Establish KPIs and a Reporting Plan
KPIs let you get feedback on your marketing strategy’s performance over time. And feedback allows you to improve (without guessing).
The problem is, it’s harder than ever to measure what’s working. Marketing channels don’t always tie back directly to revenue. Some channels influence things that are harder to quantify, like brand awareness, AI visibility, or trust.
Instead of forcing attribution into a neat checklist, track metrics in three layers:
Visibility: Are we being seen?
Engagement: Are people responding (positively)?
Trust and intent: Are signals improving?
For email, you could report on open rates (visibility), clicks (engagement), and conversions (intent).
For social media marketing, you might track metrics like reach (visibility), comments (engagement), or saves (trust).
Of course, most marketers still need to answer one uncomfortable question:
How does this tie back to revenue?
It won’t always be perfect. But you can create stronger connections with a few simple systems.
Use UTM parameters on every campaign link. That way, you can trace traffic and conversions back to specific channels, campaigns, or posts.
Set up goal tracking or conversion events in Google Analytics. See which channels drive form fills, purchases, demo requests, or trials.
Review user paths to understand how people move through your site before converting. Just remember: many buyers interact with multiple channels before taking action, so treat these as a guide, not as a definitive start-to-finish buying journey.
For B2B teams, align with sales on pipeline influence. Even if marketing isn’t the final touchpoint, it often plays an early role in deal creation.
Multi-touch attribution may not be possible from day one. But these steps will give you directional clarity.
If a channel consistently drives qualified traffic, assisted conversions, or branded search growth, it’s contributing to revenue — even if it’s not the last click.
Reporting should tell a story, not just hand out numbers. The idea is to show progress, but also know when you need to pivot.
So, take a deep breath, start small, and scale over time.
If fancy dashboards and complex reporting tools feel like too much, just pick 2-3 metrics per channel. Then, assign a clear reporting owner, and set up a review cadence (probably monthly or quarterly).
This is enough to get started.
Start with small tests to see what actually works in your industry, with your audience. Don’t get distracted by the noise of new tools and trends.
Focus on what’s actually working, and then improve and scale the ideas that work best.
Start Small, Scale Up
Important reminder: You don’t need to track everything perfectly from day one. Here’s a plan to scale reporting over time.
Month 1: Establish baselines
Set up tracking
Collect initial data
Identify what’s easiest to measure vs. what requires more setup
Months 2-3: Validate what matters
Test small initiatives
See what moves the needle
Adjust metrics if needed
Months 4+: Optimize and scale
Double down on what’s working
Cut or pivot what’s not
Refine your reporting process
Every quarter, revisit things like channel performance, KPI relevance, and execution quality.
When this is in place, build a simple feedback loop:
Analyze performance
Dig deeper to understand the patterns
Reprioritize channels and actions
Update your strategy and goals
Use the Marketing Strategy Workbook to run through this feedback loop, and document your insights and decisions. As your data improves, so will your strategy.
Evolve Your Marketing Strategy as You Grow
A marketing strategy is a living thing. That means you can revisit, refine, and strengthen the system over time.
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AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini now intercept patient and clinician research journeys at scale. For many healthcare organizations, third-party […]
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For a long time, we defined SEO success by rankings and traffic. If you reached the top of the search results and brought people to your site, you did your job. That approach worked when discovery was linear, and search engines were the primary gatekeepers. But modern search behavior does not stop at discovery. Users want clarity, reassurance, and confidence before they make decisions. With so many options to choose from, users want to understand what a product does, how it compares to alternatives, and whether it fits their needs.
There is a shift in SEO, one that pushes closer to product thinking and long-term value creation. Search engines reward content and experiences that help users make informed decisions, not just pages that match keywords. That means SEO can no longer exist solely in the acquisition channel. SEO must support the entire journey, from first touch to post-purchase experience.
SEO now focuses on user clarity and informed decision-making rather than just rankings and traffic.
Businesses should adopt an approach that integrates product understanding and user intent into keyword research.
Technical SEO remains crucial; a well-structured site improves visibility for both users and AI systems.
Product content, including descriptions and FAQs, serves as a powerful SEO asset that should be optimized.
Schema markup is essential for AI systems to accurately interpret product information, enhancing visibility and recommendations.
Technical SEO has always been product thinking
Technical SEO has always mattered, and it’s been tied to product quality, or at least product page quality. Site speed, internal linking, structured content, and clear navigation all shape how users experience a product online.
A fast, well-structured site helps users and AI platforms better understand your products. That means better visibility in search engines and AI recommendations alike. Good SEO looks at the system as a whole, prioritizes changes based on impact, and focuses on removing friction, which are the same principles that guide good product decisions.
Think like a product marketer, not just an SEO
Ranking for keywords does not automatically mean you are reaching the right audience or communicating the right value. Product marketers spend time understanding who the product is for, what problem it solves, and why someone should choose it over alternatives. SEO benefits enormously from that same approach.
Keyword research is not just a targeting exercise. It reveals how people describe their problems, what they care about, and what information they need before making a decision. Applying those insights to product descriptions, category pages, and supporting content pulls SEO closer to real user intent.
This is how SEO moves beyond traffic and starts contributing to the full customer journey: awareness, consideration, conversion, and, just as importantly, retention.
Your product is your most underrated SEO asset
Many SEO strategies still treat content as something separate from the product. Blogs live in one place while product pages are left to focus purely on conversion.
But products are content. Product names, descriptions, specifications, FAQs, reviews, and even post-purchase information all reflect the real information users are looking for. This content often holds far more SEO value than a generic blog post. Still, most brands do not optimize it with the same level of care.
When product pages are clear, well-structured, and written in the language customers actually use, they become powerful discovery assets.
AI is changing how products are discovered and bought
ChatGPT now supports direct purchases through integrations with platforms like Shopify, using OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol. That means users can discover and buy products directly within an AI conversation without ever visiting a product page on a website.
For businesses, this changes what visibility looks like. SEO is no longer just about ranking in search results. SEO is about making sure your products are understandable, trustworthy, and accessible to AI systems that act as intermediaries.
And the scope of that is broader than it first appears. Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) extends AI-mediated commerce well beyond the checkout, covering the full lifecycle from product discovery through to order management, post-purchase support, and loyalty. That means the journey SEO needs to support has grown significantly. It is not just about being found and bought; it is about being the kind of brand an AI agent would confidently recommend, follow up with, and return to. Read more about ACP and UCP and what they mean for SEOs.
Why schema matters more than ever
If AI systems are going to recommend and sell products, they need structured information to rely on. Schema provides that structure. It tells search engines and AI platforms what a product is, how much it costs, whether it is available, how it is reviewed, and how it fits into a broader catalog.
Without structured data, products become harder for machines to interpret and surface. With it, they become eligible for richer visibility across search engines, LLMs, and emerging shopping experiences.
This goes beyond the basics. Pricing, availability, reviews, FAQs, shipping details, and even compatibility information all contribute to how well an AI agent can evaluate and surface your products. Third-party reviews on platforms like Trustpilot also play a role. Agents use external signals to validate brand credibility before making a recommendation. If that structured data is incomplete or inconsistent, your products risk being entirely invisible to agent-mediated discovery.
Conclusion
The rules of SEO have not been torn up but extended. Product thinking, structured data, clear content, and technical rigor have always mattered. What has changed is the audience you are optimizing for. Alongside the human visitor, you now have AI agents evaluating, recommending, and, in some cases, completing purchases on a user’s behalf. The businesses that will thrive are those that make their products easy to understand, easy to trust, and easy to surface, whether a person or a machine is doing the searching.
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B2B SEO is the practice of making a business-to-business organization discoverable, accurately understood, and recommended by both traditional search engines […]
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Most SEO strategies are built with one goal: getting people through the door. That usually means driving traffic to the website, ranking for high-volume keywords, and bringing in new users. But what happens after someone signs up or makes a purchase? That part of the funnel often gets ignored. SEO doesn’t stop at acquisition. It can and should be used to support retention, improve onboarding or post-purchase experience, and make your product or offering easier to understand. So let’s break down the opportunity in post-conversion content, why it matters for SEO, and how to identify and optimize it effectively.
A lot of SEO strategies overlook post-conversion content, even though this type of content is great for an improved user experience.
Post-conversion content can include help docs, knowledge bases or product guides serving as long-tail SEO assets.
Engaged users generate positive signals, aiding in SEO through branded searches and reduced churn.
Identify post-conversion content by analyzing support tickets, customer interactions, and internal search queries.
Creating valuable guides and linking related content boosts retention and makes SEO efforts more effective.
Most brands stop too early
SEO strategies (understandably) love to focus on the top of the funnel: traffic, rankings, and new users. However, conversion isn’t the finish line. After someone signs up or makes a purchase, they’re still searching. They’re still learning, and they’re still deciding if they want to stick with you.
This is where SEO can step in to support:
Onboarding flows or post-purchase journeys
Help docs
Community content
Knowledge bases
All of these are searchable, indexable, and incredibly useful. Not just for users, but for long-term organic growth.
The opportunity in post-purchase content
Once someone starts using your product or receives their purchase, they often turn to Google (or your internal search) for answers about setup, usage, sizing, care, troubleshooting, or returns, depending on your business and industry. This is where content such as help centers, knowledge bases, product explainers, FAQs, or how-to guides comes into play. If they’re structured well, optimized for real user queries, and regularly updated, they become long-tail SEO machines.
Another overlooked asset is community forums or customer reviews/Q&A sections. Real user questions and real answers lead to long-tail keywords and user-generated content that basically maintains itself.
SEO benefits of retaining users and reducing churn
Retention isn’t just a product or support goal, but an SEO goal too. Engaged users generate more branded searches, click through internal content more often, share links, leave reviews, and make repeat purchases, creating positive engagement signals.
Reducing churn means people stay in your ecosystem longer, giving your website content more opportunities to show up, get linked, and build authority.
How to identify high-value post-conversion content
This part isn’t guesswork; you already have the answers. The key is to tap into the real questions and friction points your users experience after they convert. Here’s how to do it:
1. Support tickets
Look at the most common questions that indicate that something is not working or that users don’t understand something. If the same issue keeps popping up, that’s a signal you need better documentation or that your current documentation is not easy to find.
How to use it: Turn top support issues into searchable help documents, step-by-step tutorials, or even short videos embedded in your knowledge base or product pages.
2. Customer interactions
Your customer-facing teams hear things you won’t get from tickets. They will understand why certain products, features, or steps in the buying journey cause confusion.
How to use it: Create content that supports onboarding or post-purchase usage, expands on underused products, features, or clarifies key steps in getting value from what was purchased. Pull direct language from how customers describe problems and try to use it to your advantage. They’ll likely use the same language to search for a solution.
Your internal site or knowledge base search is one of the best indicators of intent. What users search for after logging in or visiting your site tells you exactly what they are struggling with.
How to use it: Identify top queries that return poor results or no results. Create or improve content that answers those questions. Optimize titles, headers, and metadata so the right article appears first.
4. Feature usage or product engagement data
Low usage doesn’t always mean low interest; it might mean unclear setup, poor discoverability, or hidden value.
How to use it: Look at features or products with low adoption but high impact. Interview users who use them and reverse-engineer what made it work for them. Then build content that guides others to the same outcome.
Types of high-value content to create
Feature walkthroughs or product usage guides: clear, step-by-step guides and how-tos with screenshots or GIFs.
Setup checklists: especially for more complex products
Integration or compatibility guides
Advanced use case tutorials
Other explainers and tactful guides for common mistakes
These pieces not only improve user experience but also target long-tail search queries, reduce support load, and strengthen retention.
Below are examples of great post-conversion content:
Microsoft combines training hubs, such as the Educator Center, with help content and community resources to support users throughout their post-purchase journey.This example comes from Nike’s website, which mainly focuses on product care and styling tips to help customers use and maintain their products.
Internal linking strategies that keep users engaged
Post-conversion content shouldn’t live in isolation. It should be linked, surfaced, and reused across your entire ecosystem.
Ways to keep users moving:
Link between related help documents
Add “next steps” CTAs to knowledge base articles
Include product education content in lifecycle emails
Use breadcrumbs, related content widgets and in-context links
Done right, this turns your post-conversion content into an internal SEO web that improves engagement and makes users more confident in using your products.
Why supporting existing users is good SEO and good business
If your SEO strategy only focuses on acquisition, you’re leaving money (and traffic) on the table. Post-conversion content helps users get more value from your products, reduces friction, and builds long-term loyalty, all while creating indexable, intent-driven pages that search engines can surface at key moments.
Want to take action? Start by auditing your post-conversion content. Map out the key moments after signup or purchase, and ensure users receive support at each step. Surface help docs, feature guides, and tutorials where they are needed most and connect them with clear, intentional internal links.
SEO isn’t just about discovery. It’s about usability. It’s about confidence. It’s about making sure your users stay, not just show up. If you want to build long-term, defensible growth, that’s where you should be focusing.
