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AI tools are changing how people discover your website, and not always in the way you’d want.
They might surface old blog posts, low-priority pages, or content that no longer reflects your brand. That can confuse users, damage trust, and dilute your expertise.
That’s where llms.txt comes in. And now, you can personalize it.
Choose what AI sees
The llms.txt file points large language models to the content on your site that deserves attention. With the latest update, you’re in control:
Manual mode: Pick the exact pages you want to include.
Automatic mode: Let Yoast handle it by prioritizing cornerstone content. Updated for you weekly.
Easy toggle: Turn the feature on or off anytime. No coding, uploads, or extra tools.
Why this matters
AI is already influencing how people experience your site and brands through summaries, answers, and search results.
If it highlights the wrong content, it can:
Misrepresent your business
Confuse your audience
Undermine your credibility
This update gives you more control over how your site is understood by large language models now and as AI-driven search continues to evolve.
Built for the future of SEO
Fully integrated in Yoast SEO and Yoast SEO Premium
No third-party plugins needed
Designed specifically for AI visibility, not just general SEO
You’ll find all llms.txt settings in the Site Features panel. Just flip the switch and choose the setup that works best for you.
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Google AI Mode is search with a brain. It uses AI to answer questions directly, so it’s no longer about just blue links. Type, talk, or upload a photo, and it gives you a useful summary plus follow-ups. Here’s how it works and why it matters.
Google AI Mode is a feature in Search that uses generative AI to deliver full, conversational answers instead of just showing a list of links. It breaks questions into parts, pulls information from across the web, and presents a direct, useful response at the top of the results page.
This new feature doesn’t replace traditional search just yet, but it does build on it. As a result, it changes how people explore information and how content gets surfaced.
Are you curious about how this works? Check out the video below to see Google AI Mode in action while planning an autumn trip to Banff, Canada.
Search becomes a lot smarter
AI Mode handles different types of input, not just text. You can type a question, say it out loud, or upload a photo, and it works out what you mean. That flexibility makes it easier to search however and whenever it makes sense, whether you’re speaking into your phone, typing at your desk, or pointing your camera at something you want to learn more about.
It also uses what Google calls query fan-out. That means it quietly rewrites your question into a bunch of related ones and looks for answers across those variations. Ask something broad, like “best credit card for travel,” and the system may branch off behind the scenes, looking at fees, perks, user reviews, and so on.
AI Mode also pays attention to context. It keeps your previous queries in mind and follows the thread. You can ask follow-ups and get refined answers without starting from scratch.
An example of a search in Google AI Mode
How Google AI Mode works in practice
Using Google AI Mode feels different from standard search, and that shows up in how it delivers answers.
When someone asks a question, AI Mode doesn’t just take the words at face value—it tries to understand the intent behind them. It rewrites the query in several different ways behind the scenes, each one focused on a specific angle.
For example, a search like “what are the best places to travel in fall” might also trigger more specific questions in the background, like “pleasant weather and fewer crowds,” “fall foliage and scenic beauty,” or “unique experiences and cultural events.” AI Mode runs all of those in parallel, scans multiple online sources for useful information, and pieces together a response that covers what the user likely meant, even if they didn’t spell it out.
The response doesn’t look like a typical search results page. Instead of a list of links, users see a short summary stitched together from different sources. It reads more like an answer than a directory and can include images, maps, and more.
With AI Mode, you can also keep the conversation going. You could ask follow-up suggestions like “compare destinations in Canada,” “check visa requirements for Canada,” or “see average weather in British Columbia”. It helps users toward the next thing they might want to know without making them start over. The video at the top of this article shows this in practice.
The opening screen of Google’s AI Mode where you enter your questions
Behind the scenes, AI Mode uses passage-level retrieval. Rather than ranking entire pages, it scans individual sections, like a single paragraph, list, or sentence, to find the parts that answer specific pieces of the question.
That means a well-written section buried halfway down a product guide or FAQ could be surfaced, even if the full page wouldn’t normally show up high in the results.
This alone could make us rethink visibility. It’s less about a page’s overall ranking and more about whether any part of it directly addresses what someone is asking.
The focus of content is changing
AI Mode shifts how content gets discovered. It’s less about ranking in the traditional sense and more about providing answers that are both useful and directly relevant to what someone is asking.
The system is looking for content that fits into a specific response. That means structure matters, like clear headings, focused sections, and formatting that makes key points easy to extract. But usefulness on its own doesn’t guarantee visibility. The content has to align with the intent of the query in a very specific way.
Covering a topic from different angles helps. It gives your content more chances to match how people frame their questions, even when those questions vary in wording, detail, or focus. Visibility often depends not just on quality, but on precision.
Google AI Mode does several searches at the same time, while also looking at a large number of sites
What does Google AI Mode mean for SEO?
Google AI Mode could shift what we aim for. Visibility now depends on whether your content can deliver value right away, often in small, specific pieces. Google’s pulling answers from across the web: a sentence from one page, a stat from another, maybe a checklist from a support article.
That might feel limiting, but it opens up opportunities. If others are still optimizing for old patterns, there’s space to improve. Recognizing this shift early can give your brand a real advantage.
It also rewards a stronger understanding of how people search. Pages, tools, and features that directly answer real questions and make that answer easy to find stand a better chance of getting picked up.
Google added an AI Mode button to its search homescreen
Where it’s going
Google is folding AI Mode into regular search experiences. On some questions, especially ones that ask for a comparison, a definition, or a plan, it’s already showing AI-generated results first.
That approach is expanding. More queries will likely trigger this kind of response over time, which means the way content gets surfaced will keep shifting. Long, keyword-heavy pages won’t offer the same payoff they once did. What works now is content that’s clear, helpful, and flexible enough to match how people explore a topic.
Chances are, AI Mode isn’t a side feature for long. It’s looking more and more like the future of Google Search.
How to access Google AI Mode
AI Mode is rolling out now in the U.S. and India. If you’re using Google Search or the Google app, you’ll start to see a new AI Mode tab either at the top of the results page or right in the search bar. This gives you access to more advanced AI responses, improved reasoning, and a deeper view of web content through follow-up questions and linked sources.
If you don’t see AI Mode yet, it’s likely still rolling out. Expect it to appear automatically soon. Once it shows up, you can use it without any special sign-up or activation. Once Google figures out monetization, we’ll see it roll out AI Mode to more countries soon.
You can also access it from search results. If Google thinks your query fits, a “Try in AI Mode” option may appear automatically. Trying it out firsthand gives the clearest insight into how responses are built and how your content appears.
Meet Google’s AI Mode
Google AI Mode signals a shift in how search works. It’s not just about rankings anymore. It’s about how helpful your content is and how easily it can be used to respond to real questions.
This change gives SEO and content teams a reason to look at their work differently. Clear structure, focused writing, and alignment with how people search all play a bigger role in visibility.
It’s a good time to step back, reassess what’s working, and explore areas you may have overlooked. For many, this is a chance to improve useful content, refine formats, and meet search expectations in new ways.
http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png00http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-07-24 12:00:002025-07-24 12:00:00What is Google AI Mode?
Black Friday is the biggest rush of the year for most ecommerce businesses, and it is right around the corner. The most successful merchants prepare for Black Friday early and follow a structured plan to prepare their stores, ensure visibility, and convert first-time visitors into long-term customers.
This guide breaks down your preparation into three categories: Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. Each section builds on the last so that you can grow your readiness over time, regardless of your team size or budget.
Basic: Start with what you can control for Black Friday
These actions lay the groundwork for everything else. Without these, no advanced strategy will stick.
1. Optimize your metadata
First impressions matter, and your metadata is the first thing users see in search results. So make it count and leave a lasting impact.
Why it matters: Strong metadata can improve visibility and attract more clicks. When your titles and descriptions align with what shoppers seek, your chances of standing out rise significantly.
Actionable tips:
Prioritize metadata for high-traffic products and category pages.
Include seasonal keywords such as “Black Friday deals” or “holiday gift ideas.”
Keep titles and descriptions concise and compelling.
With Yoast SEO for Shopify and Yoast WooCommerce SEO, you can preview and improve your metadata in real time. The tools flag missing or duplicated fields and guide you on how to write content that earns clicks.
2. Optimize product pages for both humans and search engines
Product pages are the moment of truth. They’re where curiosity turns into clicks and clicks turn into customers.
Why it matters: No matter how great your traffic or ads are, most people will leave without buying if the product page feels confusing or incomplete. A well-structured page improves your chances of ranking in search and helps buyers feel confident in their decision.
Actionable tips:
Lead with benefits, not just specs. Tell shoppers how the product fits into their lives.
Use bullet points and headers to make details skimmable.
Reinforce trust by showing stock levels, customer reviews, and delivery clarity.
Bulk update how you showcase your product on Shopify using Yoast SEO for Shopify Content Templates feature.
Yoast WooCommerce SEO and Yoast SEO for Shopify help your product pages appear cleanly and clearly in search results. They add structured data behind the scenes and check your content for SEO and readability so you can focus on turning visitors into buyers.
3. Use internal links to guide traffic
Internal linking guides customer to surface key pages, maps user behavior, and boosts your site’s SEO.
Why it matters: Internal linking helps search engines understand your site structure, distributes authority to key pages, and guides visitors toward high-converting content. It keeps users engaged, supports SEO, and makes your promotions easier to surface across your site.
Actionable tips:
Link to your Black Friday page from key blogs and evergreen content.
Feature top categories or bestsellers in your navigation.
Use anchor text that aligns with what users are searching for.
Yoast WooCommerce SEO offers internal linking suggestions as you write, making keeping your content connected and strategic easier.
Fast wins and common pitfalls
Once you have set up the basics, some steps can help you boost impact quicker and avoid costly missed opportunities.
Fast wins:
Swap stock photos for original product shots
Double-check coupon logic and expiration dates
Test any gift wrap or personalization options on product pages
Big pitfalls to avoid:
Waiting until November to publish seasonal content
Using duplicate product descriptions from suppliers
Letting broken links or outdated pages remain live
Intermediate: Strengthen your SEO and campaign strategy
Once the technical foundation is stable, it’s time to focus on your content and promotions.
4. Test and improve your site’s speed
Site speed directly impacts user experience, especially during high-traffic periods like Black Friday. Slow-loading pages frustrate shoppers and lead to lost sales.
Why it matters: A fast site supports smoother browsing and quicker checkout. Search engines consider page performance in rankings, and users are more likely to buy when the experience feels seamless.
Actionable tips:
Use performance monitoring tools to identify slow pages.
Compress and resize large images to reduce page load times.
Deactivate unused plugins (WooCommerce) or apps (Shopify).
Clean up excessive code or bulky page elements.
While Yoast SEO is not a speed optimization tool, clean site structure and proper internal linking help improve crawlability and engagement, indirectly supporting performance.
5. Create a focused Black Friday landing page
Your landing page is the command center for your seasonal promotions. It’s where visitors decide to browse further or bounce.
Why it matters: A dedicated page gives your Black Friday campaign direction and cohesion. Instead of scattering your offers across the site, it provides a clear path for shoppers to follow. It simplifies navigation, allows for better internal linking, and gives you a consistent, trackable URL for email campaigns, ads, and site banners. Plus, it’s reusable! Just update the content each year.
Actionable tips:
Create a short, memorable URL like /black-friday-deals and keep it live year-round.
Showcase limited-time offers, bundles, top-selling categories, and exclusive discounts.
Use persuasive headers, quick-loading images, and CTA buttons that lead directly to product pages.
Answer common buyer concerns upfront, e.g., shipping deadlines, return windows, and local pickup options.
6. Segment your email list and automate flows
Email isn’t just another marketing channel during Black Friday; it’s your direct line to customers ready to buy.
Why it matters: Blasting the same message with monotonous tone to everyone no longer works. Crafting compelling emails with personalized messages that resonate with the reader is key to email marketing. People are more likely to open, click, and shop when an email speaks to their pain points and highlights the solution. A segmented email list means you’re talking to people based on what they care about: early access, bundles, or a product they viewed or left in their cart.
Actionable tips:
Break your list into clear segments, e.g., loyal customers, cart abandoners, and holiday-only shoppers.
Map out your flow: teaser email, early access offer, launch announcement, final hours.
Track performance with UTM parameters like utm_campaign=bf25 so you can optimize in real time.
7. Create content that helps people find your deals earlier
Buyers don’t always search for discounts. Many start with questions or ideas like “affordable gifts for coworkers” or “best tech gift under $100.”
Why it matters: Helpful blog posts and gift guides pull in people who aren’t searching for your brand yet. These early touchpoints introduce your products and lead them toward your Black Friday offers.
Actionable tips:
Write guides and roundups tied to real shopper intent.
Use long-tail keywords that match seasonal search habits.
Add smart internal links to featured products or your Black Friday landing page.
Fast wins and common pitfalls
Once your product pages are polished, tighten up the surrounding details.
Fast wins:
Set a calendar reminder for your campaign email and social media schedule
Add an announcement banner linking to your Black Friday page
Test your email signup and welcome flow to catch any issues
Big pitfalls to avoid:
Forgetting to link email campaigns to relevant landing pages
Using inconsistent messaging and UTMs across channels
Launching your Black Friday page too late for indexing and ranking
Buy WooCommerce SEO now!
Unlock powerful features and much more for your online store with Yoast WooCommerce SEO!
Advanced Black Friday preparation: Boost visibility, trust, and retention
If you’re already doing the essentials well, these strategies will help you scale.
7. Improve your chances of showing up in local search
If you offer in-store pickup or have a physical store, don’t miss out on the people searching near you. Shoppers looking for same-day purchases often skip past online-only stores.
Why it matters: When someone searches for a product near them, being present in the results can drive instant foot traffic and build trust before they even walk in.
Actionable tips:
Ensure your name, address, and phone (NAP) are identical across all pages and listings.
Update your opening hours and add clear pickup instructions.
Add content to your site that mentions your location, city, or neighborhood.
Yoast Local SEO is included in the Yoast WooCommerce SEO. It helps you create and manage local schema and landing pages that appear in search. (It is not available for Shopify.)
8. Use structured data to stand out in search
When someone searches for a product and your listing shows price, availability, or reviews, that’s not luck. That’s structured data.
Why it matters: Rich snippets give your products more space in search results, credibility, and clicks.
Actionable tips:
Add structured data (schema) for Product, Offer, and Review to top-selling listings.
Use Google’s tools to check that your schema is implemented correctly.
Use product variant schema to improve your chances of showing in rich search results.
9. Set up post-purchase flows before the sale starts
Black Friday may be over at checkout, but it’s just the beginning of your relationship with a new customer.
Why it matters: People who buy during Black Friday often need reassurance and support. They’re far more likely to come back if they feel taken care of.
Actionable tips:
Set up automated flows for thank-you messages, setup tips, and review requests.
Offer a discount for a second purchase or referral.
Guide people back to your product pages or Google review profile.
Taking care of this now means you can focus on fulfillment and service during the Black Friday rush.
Fast wins and common pitfalls
A thoughtful follow-up and last check make sure you build on opportunities and are ready for what might come your way.
Fast wins:
Recheck your sitemap to ensure new pages are indexed
Update your business hours and contact details in your footer
Enable review requests to trigger automatically post-purchase
Big pitfalls to avoid:
Making last-minute technical changes with no buffer
Ignoring mobile performance and checkout testing
Overlooking schema validation or broken structured data
Final thoughts
Preparing for Black Friday is about being proactive, not reactive. Every SEO improvement you make now, from product pages to local visibility, will help you attract more shoppers and turn clicks into customers.
Yoast gives you the tools to stay ahead: clearer product listings, stronger search visibility, and smart automations that scale with your store. Whether you’re using Shopify or WooCommerce, optimize now to be ready before the crowds arrive.
http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png00http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-07-22 12:40:022025-07-22 12:40:02How to prep your Shopify or WooCommerce store for Black Friday before the rush starts
The summer is well on its way. Should you already start preparing for Black Friday and the holiday season? Yes! They’re the biggest sales of the year, and ranking in Google is something you take time to do. It’s never too early to start getting your deals ready. So, if you are a merchant with an online store or an ecommerce business, let’s start working on your holiday season and Black Friday SEO immediately!
Don’t forget that Black Friday (November 28, 2025) and Cyber Monday (December 1, 2025) are kicking off this year’s holiday shopping season. You can set up a lot of content for all occasions. In this post, we’ll review some things you can do to prepare!
Today, people are used to shopping online. It’s easy and convenient. You don’t have to travel only to find something out of stock. Plus, online stores often offer payment plans. Shopping online is so popular that online sales during the holiday season keep hitting record after record. And the numbers will only continue to rise. That’s why it’s safe to assume that people will buy many (if not most) holiday gifts online this year.
Staying on top of trends to prepare for the holiday season is good. E-commerce is still growing, and consumers expect more every year. Here are some actionable tips for the upcoming Black Friday and holiday season to improve your SEO:
Discount deals and alternative payment options (Buy now, pay later) should be part of your ecommerce strategy
Brands should provide a consistent purchasing experience across digital/online and physical stores
To minimize returns, brands should make their product pages as comprehensive as possible
Holiday season marketing campaigns should be tailored to each platform to ensure maximum effectiveness
Online is where it’s at
Of course, in-store or curbside pick-up will still prove popular. However, most people research their ecommerce purchases online – sometimes weeks in advance! So don’t be surprised when the holiday shopping season starts well before Black Friday and continues for weeks.
Extending Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and other holiday season online deals for a few days or weeks can be a good idea. This is especially true if you want to prevent huge crowds from gathering at your store on a specific day. That won’t be a good shopping experience for anyone involved, so spreading these deals over an extended time is probably better.
Start preparing in time
Dive into the data you amassed during previous Black Friday and Cyber Monday events, and see if you can come up with improvements for your e-commerce holiday season SEO. Bear in mind that it takes a while for content to rank. So, to keep up with the competition, try to get your content in gear at least 45 days ahead. That’s often recommended. Of course, you can always start preparing earlier if that works better for you. Your schedule could look something like this:
45 Days in advance: Post your promotion to your website calendar and post a save-the-date post on social media and in your email newsletter.
7 Days in advance: Post upcoming events/promotions on social media and via email. Try to encourage other (small) businesses to share it with their followers.
1 Day in advance: Post an event reminder on social media.
It’s a good rule to remember these steps and time frames. However, you can do much more than set up new pages and renew old ones. Let’s look at a few practical tips.
1. Do holiday season keyword research
Keyword research is important all year, but especially during the season when your online store starts having big sales. You have probably worked on this research previously, but now is the time to dive in again. There are always things to learn, like developments in your industry, changes in consumer behavior, or new trends and topics to discuss.
Start early with your research to give yourself enough time to produce high-quality, helpful content that helps reach those new audiences. While using generative AI tools to generate holiday season SEO content for your e-commerce business is enticing, please be careful with that. Generative AI can help you do your job, but it can’t replace your valuable insights and opinions.
First, we must consider what category or particular landing pages make sense for the upcoming holidays. You can always set up pages like ‘Best gifts for parents/millennials/teens’, ‘Newest deals for your 6/10/12-year-old’, and ‘Best friend/grandparents/coworker discounts’. You could also think of ‘Top 10 gifts for outdoor/skiing/parasailing enthusiasts’ and ‘Top 3 deals for stay-at-home parents’, etcetera.
To increase the chances of your gift pages ranking, boost their internal linking structure. You can also link the previous all-year holiday season pages, such as specific Christmas landing pages (‘Top 7/10/25 gifts for under the Christmas tree’) to boost these when the time has come. That could be around the 45-day mark, but we would be okay with stretching that to 60 days. You’ll need to give Google and other search engines enough time to follow your links and find your specific holiday season SEO landing pages with deals.
3. Promote on social media and in your newsletter
Social media like X and Instagram can play a massive role in the success of your (online) Black Friday sale. Take Pinterest, for instance. Many people have a Pinterest Christmas wish list. As a merchant, it would be amazing to get your products on people’s wish lists, which can positively impact your reach and maybe even your sales.
While you’re at it, don’t forget to share your Black Friday gift pages on Facebook and other social media. Maybe even make short videos to post on TikTok. In the previous section, we mentioned the top ten lists. We all know these still work pretty well on social media. Yoast SEO can help you optimize your social media posts before you share them.
Email marketing
Last but not least, remember your email marketing! For many companies, newsletters provide a steady stream of income. Be sure to plan a good campaign for your newsletters.
For example, we recommend setting up holiday gift guides and sharing these. You can create an excellent overview of many gifts that many people will enjoy. ELLE and Target have pages like that, and so do more companies.
4. Introduce new products
The holiday season is an excellent time to pitch new products. If you know of potential bestsellers for the upcoming holiday season, start writing content about these products now. You can compare it to tech sites writing about concept iPhones, features that Apple might add, etc.
The more you write about new products upfront, the more likely the sales pages for these products will rank when it matters. You should link all pages you made in advance to that one main page you’ll set up when the product is released and available to buy. Treat that page like cornerstone content.
5. Add structured data to your product pages
When adding or changing your product pages to fit the holiday season, don’t forget to optimize them. Check, for instance, whether you’ve added structured data to your product pages. Rich results that show ratings and prices can give you an edge over your competitors. Our WooCommerce SEO plugin, Local SEO plugin (included in Yoast SEO Premium), or Yoast SEO for Shopify app can help you do this to improve your holiday season!
Example of a product appearing in the search results if you use structured data.
Don’t forget to optimize your e-commerce product feeds for Black Friday and holiday season SEO. This maximizes visibility and sales during this high-traffic online shopping period. Start by ensuring all product information, such as titles, descriptions, prices, and availability, is accurate and up-to-date. Check if the products that need them have relevant Black Friday keywords to enhance discoverability. Use high-quality, clear images to showcase your product.
Use the promotions feature in Google Merchant Center to prominently display special deals and discounts for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This way, you’ll make your offers more attractive to potential buyers. Please update your feed regularly to reflect real-time inventory changes and fix errors to maintain product visibility.
7. Reuse content
There’s no shame in serving old wine in a new bottle. If you have a Black Friday or a Christmas gift guide for 2024, feel free to reuse it in 2025. Update the year and details like popular brands and products for that year. If the slug of your URL is /black-friday-guide-2024/, change it to /black-friday-guide-2025/ around August next year, and redirect the old URL to the new one. No need to create a new page. It would be a waste of nice inbound links not to reuse that old URL. Of course, this is even easier if you don’t include the year in the URL, so /black-friday-guide/ is also an excellent slug.
In the months before the holiday season, you could even simply repost popular posts from last year (a bit adjusted or updated if needed) on social media. Valentine’s Day might even become Secret Santa. Cyber Monday might match your child’s favorite gifts for Ramadan. These are probably small adjustments; perhaps just adding ‘this Ramadan’ to a meta description or title will do.
It’s a good idea to check and optimize your website for speed and mobile use. Trust us; you’ll get these recommendations from an SEO blog or consultant daily. And with good reason! Mobile, site speed, and user experience are essential to get people to spend money on your ecommerce business this Black Friday. When preparing your online store for the holiday sale season, this is as good a time as any to check your mobile website and site speed, and update or improve them if possible.
Investing in local SEO for Black Friday and Christmas shopping is essential for local businesses aiming to attract more customers. Begin by optimizing your Google Business Profile with accurate business information, including address, phone number, business hours, and any special Black Friday/Cyber Monday hours or promotions. Encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews. Use local keywords in your content, focusing on terms your community will likely search for, such as “Black Friday deals in [Your City].” Additionally, engage with your local community on social media by promoting special deals to drive more foot traffic to your store.
10. Create a measurement plan
All set? Remember to make a measurement plan to analyze your success. Write down all your plans, then think about how to track all your actions. This is key to knowing what to focus on next year. For detailed instructions on analyzing your Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or Cinco de Mayo shopping, read our post with five tips to measure your holiday sales success.
What should you do when the holiday season is over?
How do you handle the product pages of holiday gift sets after the holidays? Even if the gift set or product was a great success, and you want to offer it again next year, it’ll take a while for the page to be relevant again. What is the best way to deal with these pages in the meantime?
Our advice: Keep the pages up. However, you don’t necessarily want them visible to people browsing your site. So, have the page up without linking, then link to it again during the holiday season. This is better than deleting it and starting again.
Conclusion on holiday season SEO
In short, now’s the time to buckle down and start writing holiday gift pages and content for new products. Remember to plan your social media promotion and analytics. After all, you can never start too early when your online business depends on the holiday season. Be prepared; begin now with your SEO. Good luck with your holiday season sale!
http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png00http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-07-21 11:00:362025-07-21 11:00:36Holiday season SEO: 10 tips to start preparing!
Off-page SEO is everything you do outside of your website to help it rank better in the SERPs. On-page SEO focuses on content, site structure, and technical improvements, but off-page SEO looks at building credibility from outside. There are many ways to get there, from link building to social media to earning those coveted brand mentions.
With off-page SEO, you try to gain trust and credibility for yourself or your business. A big part of this strategy concerns link building, which involves getting other websites to link back to yours. Doing this shows search engines that your content is helpful and worth looking at.
Remember that it’s about the quality of links, instead of the quantity. A few high-quality links from trusted websites will help more than lots of links from low-authority ones. But links aren’t the only signals that matter.
Mentions of your brand name or domain from other websites also help build authority. Even without direct links, consistent references in articles and forums show that people are engaging with your brand.
Social media builds on that exposure. Sharing content where your audience spends time can boost visibility, which in turn can lead to more mentions, traffic, and backlinks.
Local SEO is another area of off-page SEO. Using tools like Google Business Profile and getting reviews helps your business appear in location-based searches. It’s especially useful for service businesses or companies with physical locations.
You can also experiment with creating content for different audiences to naturally attract attention. Reusing content in different formats, like videos, blog posts, or infographics, keeps your reach wide. You can also work with experts or influencers, as these can introduce your brand to new audiences and help build visibility.
Why off-page SEO matters for your site
Search engines want searchers to see trustworthy content. With off-page SEO, you can prove your site is dependable, and the quickest way to do this is when others refer to or recommend it. Good links from strong websites act like references, building confidence in your content’s value.
Even unlinked brand mentions help. When your name keeps coming up across the web, algorithms pick up on it. A strong digital presence makes a difference, whether that’s engaging with others online, through media coverage, partnerships, or content sharing.
While not directly tied to rankings, increasing your online visibility can lead to more searches, shares, and links, which can lead to increased traffic.
All these efforts support the broader goal of demonstrating that your website is run by real people with knowledge and experience. They help search engines judge how much they can rely on your content.
Link building is a big part of off-page SEO
Links from other websites tell search engines that your content is worth showing. That’s why link building is one of the key parts of off-page SEO, but not every link is equal.
Search engines find links from high-authority, topic-relevant sites more important. Getting those kinds of links usually means creating content that people want to reference, such as guides, studies, or tools.
Outreach plays a role, too. You can connect with other websites, offer guest posts, or share original insights. Over time, this builds relationships and can lead to higher-quality backlinks.
PR and content marketing also help, whether you contribute expert opinions to news outlets or create something worth citing. It’s more effective than mass emailing or buying links, the latter of which you shouldn’t do anyway.
Part of your job should be managing your existing links. SEO tools such as Ahrefs and Semrush can monitor broken or lost links and help fix or replace them.
If you are successful, link building can be more than just a tactic. It can show that others recognize your site as trustworthy, and that recognition, measured through linking, can improve rankings and drive traffic.
Social media’s impact
Social media doesn’t directly affect ranking, but it helps people discover and share your content. That kind of exposure can lead to links, searches, and increased brand familiarity.
Platforms like LinkedIn, X, Reddit, and Instagram let you speak to your audience and encourage interaction. When people find value in what you publish, they tend to share it or come back to it.
In time, these interactions build brand recognition. While this might not have a clear SEO metric attached, it does support and improve your visibility. Collaborating with influencers expands your audience even more. If they share something you’ve created, it can get picked up and linked to by others.
Video is playing an increasingly important role in this. Research from BrightLocal shows that many U.S. consumers are drawn to video content directly from businesses discussing their products or services. Over a third of consumers prefer this type of video, even more than those shared by friends, influencers, or typical social media reviewers. Additionally, 31% of individuals find value in watching videos from regular social media users.
Use insights from these platforms to spot what your audience cares about. That helps shape better content, which can trigger organic shares and mentions.
Local SEO as an off-page SEO strategy
For locally oriented businesses, off-page SEO means being easy to find and well-reviewed locally. Start with accurate business info across online directories, so make sure that your name, address, and phone number (NAP) are consistent. Search engines use this to match your business to search results.
Your Google Business Profile needs regular attention, so photos, updates, and timely responses to reviews all help. In that same BrightLocal research, 89% of respondents say they expect merchants and business owners to reply to all types of reviews.
Encourage satisfied customers to leave public reviews. New reviews show search engines and potential visitors that your business stays active and involved. A complete, active listing stands out to local customers and improves your chances of appearing in map results.
Try building links from other local businesses or organizations. These carry weight in local SEO. Sponsoring events or working with local publications can lead to mentions and coverage.
Being visible in your area is not just about what local content you have on your site, but also about how your local audience views your business online.
Carefully replying to your reviews manages your online reputation
Expertise and trust
With off-page SEO, you have many opportunities to show your expertise. Sharing your knowledge can build trust, which in itself can create useful input for search engines.
Guest posting on reputable websites reaches people already interested in what you have to say. If those sites link back, it’s a plus for SEO, except when shady things happen, of course.
You can also take part in forums and Q&A sites. Offering useful, relevant insights gets your name out and sometimes leads to mentions from others who find your content helpful.
Podcasts, webinars, and speaking events work the same way. Participating in discussions in your space helps establish expertise and can result in new traffic or backlinks from media coverage or event promotions.
Collaborating with other professionals through research or shared content introduces your work to their audience and can lead to more recognition and links over time.
You shouldn’t just focus on creating more content, but try to actively lead in your field. If your business is perceived as the go-to place, this builds trust with both your audience and search engines.
How off-page SEO impacts AI-driven search
Search is changing quicker than ever. Beyond the classic search results, people are now using AI tools like Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, and chat assistants like ChatGPT to find answers. These tools use large language models (LLMs) to pull information from across the web, and off-page SEO plays a role in how your content shows up.
When your brand or website appears on high-quality, trusted sites, it increases the chances that AI tools recognize your content as reliable. Structured citations, strong backlinks, and consistent brand mentions all help LLMs “see” your site as a good source. This can lead to your content influencing or being featured in AI-generated summaries and answers.
Authority, trust, and topic alignment are all important. The more your content is referenced or quoted by reputable sources, the more likely it is to appear in conversational search results or be used to answer common questions. Find out how to optimize content for AI LLM comprehension using Yoast’s tools.
Off-page SEO now supports not just link-driven visibility, but also discoverability in AI search and chat tools. It helps improve your overall presence, so it doesn’t matter whether someone uses Google, social media, or an AI chatbot to find information about you.
Off-page SEO helps widen the scope
Off-page SEO works together with on-page work to strengthen your website’s reputation across the web. First, it helps your users, but it also helps search engines and AI tools recognize your content as trustworthy and relevant.
Whether you’re earning backlinks, encouraging brand mentions, engaging on social platforms, or building local visibility, each off-page signal adds to your authority. Collaborations, reviews, and expert participation show real experience behind your site.
These strategies now also influence how content surfaces in AI-generated results. That means off-page SEO doesn’t just support traditional rankings, but it also helps your brand stay discoverable in new, AI-powered ways.
The more consistent, trusted, and present your brand is across the web, the more likely it is to show up wherever people are searching, even if they’re not using a classic search engine. Build trust, stay visible, and let your off-page efforts work across search formats, now and into the future.
Midway through the year is a good time to see how your SEO is holding up. Search habits shift, rankings change, and AI is reshaping how people find information. A mid-year SEO checkup isn’t about starting over. It’s a check-in to spot what’s working, what’s not, and what to adjust going forward.
Traffic and rankings: What’s changed since January?
Start your mid-year SEO review by checking how your site is performing, not just on the surface level, but deeper down. Look beyond overall traffic and into individual pages and search queries. What’s still working? What’s losing visibility? The goal is to spot slow shifts early, before they turn into bigger problems.
Organic traffic trends
Start with a traffic check in GA4. Compare your organic numbers from January to now, then narrow in on which landing pages have gained or lost ground. After that, use Search Console to see how impressions and clicks line up with the shifts. Look across different devices and locations, as you might notice mobile traffic dropping while desktop stays level.
As you review, think about what’s changed. Are certain types of content sliding? Is the homepage steady while deeper articles get less visibility? Has something in the layout or search results changed how people interact with your site? These patterns will help you figure out where to adjust.
Keyword movement and SERP features
GA4 won’t show you how keywords are doing. For that, use Search Console or Semrush, if you want a more detailed view. It gives you a clearer view of how your top queries are performing and whether their positions are trending up or down. Focus on terms sitting somewhere between positions five and fifteen. These are close to the edge and can shift either way with the smallest change.
Keep an eye out for new queries your site is now appearing for. Also, check if your content is showing up in features like video carousels, People Also Ask, or AI Overviews. These placements affect clicks, even if rankings stay flat.
If CTR is dropping, it might be because the answer’s already visible in the search result. That’s common with broad questions or terms that Google can answer directly with a snippet or summary. Some of these shifts started with recent algorithm updates. If you saw a change around that time, that might explain it.
Being on page one isn’t always enough now. What matters more is how your page shows up and whether it stands out next to everything else.
Where’s the gap?
Ranking alone doesn’t mean a page is performing well. Some are still showing up in search but aren’t pulling their weight anymore. Take a look at your top pages from Q1 and compare them to what’s performing now. If something dropped, check for changes. Did the URL structure shift? Was the copy updated? Did anything break during a migration or redesign?
Segmenting traffic helps spot patterns during your mid-year SEO checkup. Blog content might be holding steady while product pages quietly slip. Or maybe a location page that once performed well is now buried. Sorting traffic this way makes it easier to see where things are improving and where they’ve gone quiet.
And don’t ignore branded versus non-branded search. If branded terms are down, it may reflect lower awareness. If non-branded terms fell off, that usually points to stronger competition or a shift in search demand. Either way, those are signs to act on, not ignore.
What to do next in your mid-year SEO review
As you review performance, note content that’s lost traffic and look at how it aligns with current keyword trends. Some pages may need updates, while others might be better merged or repurposed. If certain pages are still ranking but getting few clicks, flag those, too, as there may be issues with title tags, metadata, or how the content is framed.
Also, look for signs of new search interest or shifts in consumer behavior that are driving unexpected traffic. Those insights can help guide your Q3 and Q4 planning. A detailed mid-year SEO checkup now helps prevent bigger issues later. Small drops or mismatches in intent can add up over time, especially if you miss the early signs. Use your data to make informed decisions, not just to complete a report.
Audit and refresh your content
Not all content holds its value over time. Some pages stop performing due to outdated content, and others never performed well to begin with. A mid-year SEO audit helps you figure out what’s worth updating, combining, or removing altogether.
Focus first on content that’s lost traffic or rankings. Use Google Search Console to spot declines in impressions and clicks, then compare that with GA4 engagement metrics. If a page ranks but no longer drives real value, or doesn’t match what users are looking for, it likely needs attention.
Google wants people-first content. So if your site relies on thin tutorials, vaguely rewritten definitions, or pages written more for search engines than real users, those pages may be dragging down your overall SEO performance.
When refreshing content, lead with clarity. Remove fluff, update stats, and make sure your answer matches the search intent. Don’t just rewrite, make the page genuinely better. In some cases, the fix might be cutting it entirely. If a page hasn’t contributed value or activity recently, rethink why it’s there.
Diversify and focus on video
Search results are more visual than they used to be. Video clips now show up in carousels, featured snippets, and AI responses. If your site is still relying on just blog posts, you’re missing opportunities to be seen.
Short videos, especially how-tos, demos, and explainers, can increase visibility on Google, YouTube, and Discover. They also help with engagement, keeping visitors on your site longer.
Start by turning high-performing articles into videos. Post them to YouTube, embed them on your site, and add basic schema markup. Just a few clear, well-structured videos can increase your presence in search results and help reach users who don’t want to read through long text.
Video doesn’t need to be expensive or overly produced. What matters is that it’s useful, focused, and easy to watch. During your mid-year SEO checkup, you might need to improve your video strategy.
Adapting to AI and zero-click searches
More users are getting answers directly on Google, without clicking anything. With AI Overviews becoming more common across search results, especially for question-based queries, your content needs to work even when there’s no obvious incentive to visit your page.
That means clear structure, clean markup, and highly readable content that makes it easy for Google to understand the core answer quickly. Place key information high on the page and use a strong title, meta description, and subheadings. Organize your content with scannable sections so it’s more likely to appear in featured results.
Don’t ignore FAQ or how-to formats, as these can still help Google identify your page’s purpose. Structured data reinforces clarity for both traditional search and AI-generated summaries.
Zero-click doesn’t mean zero opportunity. Content that’s referenced in AI answers or shown in SERP features can strengthen brand visibility, build trust, and lead to familiar users returning via other channels later.
What AI Mode means for search visibility
In addition to AI Overviews, Google is adding a feature called AI Mode. This is a new search experience built for more complex, multi-part queries. It pulls information from several sources and delivers a conversational response with helpful links.
Instead of listing links, AI Mode breaks down the query, runs multiple related searches, and returns one detailed answer. There’s less space for traditional rankings, but a chance for useful, well-structured content to be included. If your impressions are rising but clicks aren’t, your content may already appear in these summaries.
While AI Mode is still rolling out, it shows where search is likely headed. And it’s not just Google, as tools like ChatGPT (Search) and Perplexity show that AI-powered discovery is already expanding. As this grows, you might have to rethink how you see content. Learn how to optimize for LLMs using Yoast SEO’s tools.
Refresh your keyword strategy
Midway through the year is a good time to check if your keyword strategy still aligns with how people are searching. Start with Search Console and any SEO tools you use, and look for shifts in rankings, drops in CTR, or signs that user intent has changed. Some keywords may still rank but deliver less value, while others may be gaining traction.
Take another look at the SERPs. Are AI Overviews, snippets, or video results pushing your links down? If your content no longer fits the query, it may need a rewrite or a new format.
Also consider what’s surfaced since Q1. Seasonal queries, comparison searches, and longer questions might now be worth targeting. Even if they bring less volume, they often convert better. Use what you find to adjust your focus for the second half of the year.
Technical SEO clean up
Great content alone isn’t enough if your site’s technical side is holding it back. A mid-year SEO checkup is a good time to inspect the foundation. See how your site loads, how it’s crawled, and whether pages are being properly indexed.
Start with speed. Use Google’s Core Web Vitals tools to review page load performance. Fix common issues like oversized images, unnecessary scripts, or layout shifts that hurt usability. These things don’t just impact rankings; they also affect how users experience your site, especially on mobile.
Look at crawlability. Search Console can show you which pages aren’t being indexed, where crawl issues are popping up, or if valid content is being skipped. If strong content still isn’t performing, this could be why.
In your mid-year SEO checkup, you should also see your internal linking. Important pages should be easy to reach. If key articles or landing pages are buried under layers of clicks or orphaned entirely, Google’s crawlers (and readers) may never find them.
Finally, check out your structured data. Schema still gives your content a better chance of being understood by search engines.
A light technical review every few months helps keep things healthy. You don’t need to fix everything at once, but leaving small issues unsolved can turn into long-term performance headaches.
Monitor competitors and trends
Search isn’t static, and neither are your competitors. Even if your strategy hasn’t changed much since Q1, theirs might have. A mid-year SEO checkup is a smart idea to see who’s gaining ground, what kind of content is outperforming yours, and what shifts are happening in your space as a whole.
Start by checking who’s around you in the search results, especially for your highest-value keywords. Are the same domains showing up? Has a competitor overtaken you with fresher content, a better format, or a new angle? Sometimes it’s less about Google’s algorithm and more about someone else simply doing it better.
Use ranking and backlink tools to identify newer content that’s climbing. What’s different? Is it shorter, clearer, or more visual? Has it earned links or been widely shared? These observations can shape not just what you publish next, but how you structure and present it.
Whether you’re in an aggressive or stable position, awareness is part of strategy. Without reviewing what others are doing, you don’t have a clear view of what winning looks like right now or how quickly that picture is changing.
Set clear goals for the rest of the year
After reviewing performance, updating content, tightening technical issues, and refreshing keywords, the next step in your mid-year SEO checkup is setting focused goals for the rest of the year.
Keep them specific. A goal like “get more traffic” is too vague to drive clear action. Use what you’ve learned, whether that’s from rankings, audit results, or crawl reports, to define outcomes that are tied to your time, resources, and business needs.
Look for low-effort wins and long-term improvements. Fix pages that rank but don’t get clicks. Update content that dropped after an algorithm change. Strengthen internal links to help strong posts on the edge of page one move up. These small changes can improve results with less time than starting from scratch.
If AI features are reducing your traffic on top queries, consider focusing more on visibility than clicks. That might mean leaning into content formats that stand out in summaries, like FAQs or short-form video.
You can also set process goals: publish more consistently (maybe using workflow improvements from Yoast SEO’s Google Docs add-on), clean up old content, reduce crawl waste, or make reporting easier. These are just as important as traffic-focused targets, and they’re often easier to maintain over time.
Your goals don’t need to be dramatic. Often, refining what already exists brings more gains than chasing something new. Revisit your targets regularly and track your progress without overthinking it. Most importantly, stay flexible heading into Q4, when search activity and competition both tend to spike.
Workflow improvements also help, for instance, by integrating Google Docs and Yoast SEO
Do your mid-year SEO checkup
Search has changed a lot since January, and it’s not slowing down. A mid-year SEO strategy review gives you the chance to course-correct, refocus your efforts, and keep momentum going into the back half of the year.
You don’t need to overhaul everything. Just fix what’s broken, improve what matters, and make better decisions with what you know now. Stay consistent, track what shifts, and keep building.
First impressions stick, especially in UX. When we saw that new users of our Yoast SEO for Shopify app were skipping key steps or dropping off early, we knew our onboarding wasn’t working. Using journey mapping and service blueprints, we redesigned the experience to be faster, clearer, and more supportive from the start. Here’s how small, well-timed changes made a big difference.
We recently launched a redesigned onboarding experience to help Shopify merchants set up for success. Behind that update is a bigger story: how thoughtful UX decisions, team-wide alignment, and service design methods reshaped the user experience. And we mean that in the broadest sense, from discovery to giving users the feeling that the app is working for them and helping them succeed.
In this interview, we spoke with our UX designer, Tom Ottjes, who led the project to unpack that process. His answers will offer a closer look at the problems we needed to solve, the tools he used to communicate across teams, and the omnichannel changes that made the biggest difference.
Before you start reading, here’s a quick animation showing the various parts of the service blueprint we worked on. Of course, there’s much more, but we cannot show you everything.
From patterns to priorities
Before redesigning a single screen, the team needed a way to understand and communicate what wasn’t working. They needed to uncover what had to change to fix the experience for people in a way that also helped us achieve our company goals. That’s where service design tools, particularly customer journey maps and service blueprints, came in.
Customer journey mapping helped visualize what users were experiencing from discovery through installation and first use. It highlights not only the steps customers take but also where they become confused, hesitant, or drop off. Based on support conversations, surveys, and analytics, the journey map revealed several issues. One of those issues was a lack of early guidance, which led to missed configuration steps, among other things.
Before we moved on to action, we wanted to define success by determining KPIs. This is an essential step. It will help shape the direction of the service and experience you will be designing. Instead of viewing onboarding as just a UI problem, the service blueprint mapped every user action alongside the systems, processes, and people behind them. This included content, customer support, notifications, and working within Shopify’s own platform constraints.
Because it connects what’s visible to the user with what happens behind the scenes, a service blueprint became central to the project. It gave every team, from UX to development, support, and marketing, a shared reference point. By mapping each phase as its own blueprint, the team could prioritize quick wins while keeping an eye on a longer-term onboarding vision.
It turned a complex, cross-functional issue into something everyone could contribute to. The blueprint helped make improvements easier to design, build, and test in smaller, clearer parts.
A real example: Turning uncertainty into reassurance for larger stores
One of the more surprising and important insights from our service blueprinting process was about scale. We discovered that while the app felt fast and responsive for smaller Shopify stores, larger ones had a very different experience. For shops with tens of thousands of products and pages, the initial processing and indexing step could take anywhere from several minutes to a few hours.
The problem? We weren’t telling users that. Small stores would see their data reflected almost instantly. Large stores would land on a blank dashboard, with no indication that the system was still working in the background. From the user’s perspective, it looked like nothing was happening.
We addressed this with a series of small but intentional changes. First, we introduced a proper loading state with messaging acknowledging what was happening. Then, we added an email field to that screen, giving users the option to be notified when setup was complete. When they enter their email, they receive a confirmation message once everything is ready.
It’s a small detail, but one that shifts how the experience feels. Instead of confusion or doubt, users now get feedback, a sense of transparency, and a way to re-engage later. And for us, it’s a concrete example of why aligning the front-end and back-end through service design actually matters.
Meet the designer
Meet the UX designer: Tom Ottjes
This interview is with Tom Ottjes, one of Yoast’s UX designers. He led the onboarding redesign for our Shopify app and was co-responsible for designing the Yoast AI features. With several years of experience working across product and marketing, his approach centers on translating user behavior into actionable design. Much of his work focuses on simplifying complex flows, improving user guidance, and helping teams understand the customer journey.
Tom, what problem were you seeing that made this project a priority?
With our Yoast SEO for Shopify app, we strive to deliver real, tangible value to our users. That starts with understanding their experience from the moment they install the app. Through a combination of user surveys, interviews, support request analysis, and product analytics, we began to see clear patterns emerge.
There were three main friction points we kept hearing and seeing:
A lack of guidance: Many users simply didn’t know how to use the app effectively. They installed it but weren’t sure what to do next to optimize their store.
Unclear value delivery: We noticed that crucial steps, like completing the ‘Site representation’ settings, which unlock immediate SEO benefits, were often skipped. That told us users weren’t seeing the connection between setup actions and real results.
Hesitation to engage with the free trial: Users were wary of testing the app, unsure of what the trial included or whether it was truly risk-free.
All of these insights pointed to one thing: the onboarding experience wasn’t doing its job. It wasn’t guiding, reassuring, or demonstrating value early enough. We visualized all these issues in a detailed customer journey map, helping us to zoom out and see broader patterns. We found different user types, where they dropped off, and what confused them. That map became a key alignment tool and helped us frame the onboarding redesign as a top-priority project.
What would success look like for you from the user’s perspective?
From the user’s point of view, success meant feeling confident and supported from the very first interaction with our app. We wanted users to land in the onboarding flow and immediately understand two things: how the app can help them improve their Shopify store’s SEO, and what steps to take first to see results.
That meant offering a smoother, more intuitive experience. An experience that clearly communicated value upfront, provided improved guidance around initial setup steps, and highlighted key features. It should also assure users that trying the app was safe and worthwhile.
First, we wanted to help users quickly understand the full value of the app. In addition, we wanted users to complete key onboarding actions such as filling out their ‘Site representation’ settings and exploring core features relevant to their store. Emotionally, we aimed for a sense of clarity, trust, and motivation to continue.
Ultimately, if a user could say, ‘I know exactly what this app does, what I need to do, and I can already see it working for me,’ then we knew we were on the right track.
The new onboarding helps introduce the app and guides the user through the set up
Can you explain your service design process and how it helped the teams?
After mapping the current onboarding journey and identifying the key pain points, we knew we didn’t just need a better UI. We needed a more holistic service experience. That’s where service blueprinting came in.
We started by defining clear KPIs to measure the impact of our changes, such as completion rates for critical onboarding steps, time to value, and feature discovery. These metrics gave us a shared definition of success and helped shape the direction of the user experience.
Then we used the service blueprinting method to reimagine onboarding as a complete service. A service blueprint maps the relationships between people, processes, and touchpoints tied to a customer journey. It helped us visualize both what the user sees and everything happening behind the scenes to support that experience, from content strategy to customer support workflows to engineering requirements.
This systems-level view was essential in aligning multiple teams, like UX, development, marketing, and support. Everyone could see how their work connected to the user’s experience and where coordination was needed. It also helped us identify internal gaps, inefficiencies, or dependencies early, so we could design around them.
To move quickly and deliver value incrementally, we broke the optimized onboarding journey into phases, prioritizing what would have the most immediate impact for users. That approach lets us ship improvements faster while staying grounded in a long-term vision for the onboarding experience.
We approached the whole effort using a service design mindset. We zoomed out to understand the system users interact with, not just the screens they see. Service blueprinting helped us take what users were experiencing (empathy and insight), identify internal blockers, and structure releases around clear hypotheses. It wasn’t just about delivering onboarding, but about improving the service behind it.
How are you tracking whether it’s helping users get started faster?
From the start, we knew that redesigning onboarding wasn’t just about launching something new. We wanted to prove it made a difference. So, we defined clear KPIs to measure the impact of our changes. To make this measurable, we built the tracking infrastructure needed to monitor user behavior at each step.
But we didn’t stop at numbers. We also incorporated qualitative customer listening tools, things like in-app feedback, support conversations, and interviews. As we wanted to understand how users feel as they move through onboarding.
Are there still improvements to make?
Absolutely, because onboarding is never truly ‘finished.’ It’s an evolving experience, and we see it as a continuous opportunity to better support our users.
The next phase of our optimized onboarding journey will focus on deepening the guidance we provide, helping users go beyond setup and start making more meaningful improvements to their store. We’re looking at how we can better surface insights, suggest next steps based on context, and empower users to unlock even more value with confidence.
While I can’t share all the details just yet, I can say this: we’re not stopping at getting users through the door. We’re focused on helping them thrive once they’re inside.
Good things are coming. As always, we’re listening closely to our users to make sure what we build truly meets their needs.
Pro tips for getting started with service blueprinting
Thinking of using service blueprinting in your own work? Here are a few things that helped us:
Start with a real journey: Mapping is most useful when it’s grounded in actual user behavior. Use support data, interviews, and analytics to anchor the blueprint in real problems.
Define what “success” means upfront: Before mapping, align your team on what outcomes you’re working toward (e.g., faster time to value, fewer drop-offs).
Map front-end + back-end: Don’t just track what users see. Include internal systems, support workflows, engineering dependencies, and anything that influences the experience.
Keep roles visible: Show which team is responsible for which process. It keeps conversations focused and collaboration smoother.
Don’t overcomplicate: A blueprint doesn’t need to be a polished artifact. Start simple. The value is in getting teams aligned, not in how it looks.
Blueprinting doesn’t replace good UX research or design, but it’s a powerful way to connect them to the broader experience. If you’re working on anything cross-functional, it’s absolutely worth trying.
A shared understanding drives real change
This project wasn’t just about shipping a new flow. We wanted to design with a clear, shared understanding of our users and the processes that support them.
Our service blueprint turned out to be a great tool to align teams around a single goal: helping users quickly see the value of the Yoast SEO for Shopify app. Along the way, we uncovered friction, mapped dependencies, and built toward something more consistent, supportive, and effective.
Thoughtful onboarding is the start of everything that follows. By making those early minutes feel clear, calm, and grounded in real outcomes, we’ve not only improved setup times and reached our KPIs but also changed how we work, design, and listen together.
The work continues, focusing on feature onboarding, improved guidance, and even future WordPress experiences. Together, we’ll apply these lessons from now on. We’ll design by putting users first, build teamwork on transparency, and create experiences that guide, not just onboard.
http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png00http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-07-10 13:20:112025-07-10 13:20:11Redesigning onboarding for impact: A service design approach
Today we’ve launched a redesigned onboarding experience for Yoast SEO for Shopify, built to guide, support, and empower every user from the moment they install. Customer-centric marketers and designers know, first impressions matter, and thoughtful onboarding is the first step to long-term success.
A new onboarding, designed with care
We’ve simplified the setup process, removed unnecessary steps, and introduced a guided, narrative-style welcome experience that makes it easier to get started and harder to get stuck.
Whether you’re new to SEO or scaling a large store, our goal is the same: help you feel confident from the first click.
“We wanted users to land in the onboarding flow and immediately understand two things: how the app can help them improve their Shopify store’s SEO, and what steps to take first to see results.” Tom Ottjes, UX Designer at Yoast
Behind the scenes: Service design in action
This onboarding redesign isn’t just a UI refresh, it’s the result of a service design approach that included:
Journey mapping based on real user behavior
Cross-functional collaboration across UX, development, support and marketing using service blueprints
Strategic improvements to both front-end and back-end processes
Want to learn how a single blueprint helped align our teams and reshape the onboarding experience?
We’re already working on the next phase of improvements designed to improve our customers’ experience, including smarter in-app guidance and contextual feature onboarding.
Thanks to everyone who shared feedback along the way. Keep it coming, we’re listening, learning, and building better together.
Content production seems quite simple, in principle. You develop an idea, write about it, do SEO checks, and click publish. Simple, right? It never turns out that way, especially when working with a team. Miscommunications, last-minute changes, and confusion about what needs to happen when. We’ve all been there! Try these ten tips to streamline your digital content workflow and eliminate much stress.
Before we start, remember that the ‘perfect’ content workflow probably doesn’t exist. After all, every piece of content is unique, so a one-size-fits-all process is unlikely to produce the highest quality results. If your high-quality, unique content is taking forever to finish, you might struggle to meet deadlines or keep to a schedule. If that sounds like you or your organization, take a look at our tips and see how you can improve.
1. Start the process with clear goals
Whether you’re working alone or as part of a bigger team, it’s important to have a clear idea of all the steps involved and how long each step might take. Not every digital content process is the same. For instance, social media posts don’t need to be optimized for search engines, while blog posts targeting organic traffic do. Regardless of your end goal, the first step is always to start with clear goals.
Want to cover all your bases? Try to answer as many of these questions as you can, as clearly as you can:
What topic are you focusing on? How in-depth will you go?
Who are you writing for? Who is your audience?
What are you trying to achieve? More website visits, increased sales, and more social shares?
How will people be able to find your content? Where will you share it, and when?
If you specify your ideas and plans clearly at the beginning, it can help you and your team align your plans. It also helps you to stay on track, which can save you a lot of back-and-forth later on!
If you’re working in a team, our next tip is as important as the first. Why? Even if you’re clear about your goals, does everyone involved agree with your action plan? That’s why you need to identify your essential contributors and key stakeholders.
Depending on how big your organization is and how well-developed your process is already, making a list of contributors and stakeholders could be a lot of hard work, or a total no-brainer. If you sometimes find that your digital content workflow reaches a bottleneck (or descends to total chaos) because blockers arise from unexpected sources, it could be a sign that you need to do more work in this area.
Once you’ve come up with your plan, it’s a good idea to share it with any essential colleagues who need to give approval in the end before you start doing the real work. If you can get these people to agree with your initial plan, you can refer back to this later to explain creative choices and decisions you might need to make. When you let key parties know what to expect, you can avoid a lot of “What is this? What were you thinking?” kind of conversations.
3. Visualize your content workflow
It can be beneficial to visualize your content workflow, even if it seems daunting. At a minimum, you should write out the basic steps. If you add boxes and arrows to link the steps together, this can help to make the journey through the steps clearer (especially if there are moments when you need to loop back and repeat an earlier step). You can create this however feels comfortable to you — you could choose basic office software like Microsoft Word or Google Docs (Yoast SEO has a handy Google Docs add-on), you could try more advanced software like Visio or Lucidchart, or you could sketch it out on paper. It’s up to you!
For instance, your workflow could look like the first example written out in steps, or like the image below if you use a visualization tool. If, like us, you’re working in WordPress or Google Docs with the Yoast SEO plugin enabled, you can incorporate the features that you use into your workflow too.
Use Yoast SEO in Google Docs
Optimize as you draft for SEO, inclusivity, and readability. The Yoast SEO Google Docs add-on lets you export content ready for WordPress, no reformatting required.
4. Assign activities and responsibilities to team members
Even if you have a solid content workflow on paper, it’s important to ensure that each time you go through it, everyone is clear about who is doing what. Not only that, but how and when will different team members communicate with each other to hand over tasks or ask questions? Clearing these kinds of things up in advance can save a lot of hassle for everyone involved.
If these tasks aren’t a regular part of your team’s working day, they’ll also need to manage their own schedule to accommodate the tasks. If so, make sure that they have time to work on your planned content. It’s also worth checking what other priorities your contributors are juggling, as these could prevent progress if they become too demanding. Maybe you have the authority to make your planned content a top priority. If that’s your intention, make sure everyone involved knows that this should be #1 on their to-do list!
5. Set sub-deadlines and contact moments
Naturally, you’ll want to set a deadline for when your content is going to be published. But if you think you can just send out an initial set of instructions, with one final deadline for all the tasks, and nothing concrete in between… Then things are quite likely to go wrong.
To achieve a much more reliable plan of action, you should include sub-deadlines and contact moments at key points in the content process. These help to keep everyone’s work aligned as the piece of content is developed, and can help you to avoid process bottlenecks by identifying issues early on. It’s also wise to schedule your own internal deadlines to have your content ready at least a week before you intend to publish it. That way, you can avoid last-minute changes (and all the mistakes that are likely to come with them). We’ll come back to this point later.
6. Agree on standards and priorities
So at this point, if you’ve followed all of our tips, you might be planning in sub-deadlines like ‘rough draft is ready’ or ‘final draft for approval’. Before you build all your hopes and dreams around these mini-deliverables, you’ll need to clarify how rough this rough draft can be! After all, you don’t want to end up disappointed because you only received a basic article outline and a few bullet point lists when you were expecting something almost finished.
If you’re using tools like Yoast SEO, you’ll also want to make it clear what results are acceptable to you: for instance, do you expect the readability analysis to always be green, but the SEO analysis doesn’t have to be when it’s not written for ranking purposes? Do you expect the internal linking suggestions to be added as a requirement, or are these just to be used as suggestions? Make sure everyone agrees about how you use your tools and what the end goal is.
7. Allow time for final checks and changes
If you have a regular content publishing schedule that you want to keep to, it’s a good idea to prepare your drafts with a decent amount of time to spare. That way, you can avoid stressing about deadlines and last-minute changes. Here are a few things that really ought to be on your pre-publication checklist, especially if they’re not already incorporated in your content development process:
Check the SEO of your post using the Yoast SEO analysis. Is it good enough?
Check the readability of your post using the readability analysis. Is it good enough?
Have you added internal links to and from other relevant pages on your site?
If you use tags/categories, have you selected all the right options?
Are comments enabled/disabled according to your preferences for this post?
Is the correct date/time set for your post?
Using Yoast SEO in Google Docs makes it much easier to work across teams
As you can see, there’s quite a lot to do even after a post is written, so don’t underestimate how long these checks will take.
Got a good basic content process, but still having issues? This is what to check:
8. Do you create unnecessary work?
Sometimes tasks become more complicated than they really need to be. Are there times when one small change causes a cascade of new issues to deal with? This can be a sign that you need to rethink the order of your steps and who is involved. Small changes should be easy, right?
Often, it’s obvious who should be doing what and how the process should continue. But it’s not always. For instance, if you have a graphic design team, do they need to make every change themselves? Can you make things easier by enabling your writing team to change text and background colors themselves, for instance?
Another type of problem can arise if you don’t have a clear decision-maker in place. Sure, there might be lots of people who should have a say about the content in the end. But who makes the final decisions? If it’s not clear who is responsible for which decisions, you might end up with all your best experts trying to reach an agreement about every little thing. That can be tricky, and it can waste loads of time! Make it easier by giving specific individuals ownership of specific aspects of the process.
9. Are things not going according to plan?
Sometimes things go wrong, in spite of your best efforts. But if things are often going wrong in your content production process, you should investigate the cause of your problems. It’s always a good idea to reach out to the people involved in the steps that are going wrong. What challenges are they facing? Does the existing process make things easier for them or more difficult? And very importantly, ask if they have any ideas to improve the process!
Don’t be afraid to try something new if what you’re doing isn’t working. Even if your new idea doesn’t work out any better, you can always learn from it and try something different next time! Or put it this way: trying anything is better than burying your head in the sand and continuing with a broken content development process.
10. Doing extra tasks that aren’t part of the plan?
Last but not least: are you making life harder by adding in ‘nice-to-have’ extras that weren’t part of the plan? It’s an easy mistake to make! After all, when you really care about the content you’re creating, your natural instinct is to keep improving and make it the best that it can be. Even though that means making a whole new infographic. Even though that infographic wasn’t a part of the original plan. Your team can make it happen, right? Or else you can just push the deadline back…
It’s great to aim high when it comes to making quality content. But if you’re ambitious, late-arriving ideas become a burden to the process, you might want to start categorizing them into “must-have” and “nice-to-have” content elements. That way, everyone knows which parts to prioritize and which parts can be left out if they’re too difficult to achieve within the original plan. And don’t forget that one of the biggest advantages of publishing digital content is that you can continue to improve it and share it again whenever you want!
Streamline your content workflow, but don’t let it rule you!
Those are our ten tips! It can be really worthwhile to streamline your content workflow, especially if you’re experiencing issues and bottlenecks in the process. Naturally, every situation is different, and each piece of content comes with its own opportunities and challenges, too. So you need to think about what works for you and what doesn’t in order to adapt your content process.
Try to keep a balance and avoid making a content process that’s too strict or inflexible. You don’t want to set up a rigid process that dictates your editorial decisions and rules your creative output. It’s a creative process, after all! So it’s always good to keep some room for flexibility, but just how much is up to you.
Remember: whatever your content workflow looks like, WordPress, Google Docs, and the Yoast SEO plugin can help you! From your main topic and focus keyphrase, through to the final touches you add just before publishing, the tools can form checkpoints to easily align your team and your goals.
http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png00http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-06-27 11:00:212025-06-27 11:00:2110 tips to streamline your blog content workflow
