Programmatic SEO: What It Is and When to Use It (+ Examples)

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Imagine if your website could rank for every single keyword related to your niche.

That’s the promise of programmatic SEO.

It’s how Tripadvisor creates “Things to Do in” pages for countless locations across the globe…

Tripadvisor – Things to Do in – Collage

…and ranks for almost 100K keywords featuring the words “things to do in”:

Organic Research – Tripadvisor – Keywords

But the reality is more nuanced. It’s not a magic trick that’ll instantly drive traffic.

And we’ve seen programmatic plays go wrong countless times (more on that below).

The real differentiator nowadays isn’t the ability to create thousands of pages. It’s whether those pages actually deserve to rank.

In this guide, I’ll show you when programmatic SEO works, when it doesn’t, and how you can build your own winning programmatic SEO strategy.

What Is Programmatic SEO?

Programmatic SEO, also referred to as pSEO, is the systematic creation of content at scale using templates and data to target thousands (sometimes millions) of related search queries. The goal is to drive traffic and revenue through these automatically generated pages.

Put another way:

You create landing pages at scale to rank in lots of search results.

In traditional content marketing, you create individual articles targeting specific keywords. With programmatic SEO, you automate page creation based on patterns in search behavior.

Each page uses the same template structure, layout, and core elements. The only things that change are the keywords you’re targeting.

Keywords

You use automation to spin up hundreds or thousands of variations. Each one targets different long-tail keywords with relatively low competition.

The goal is to drive traffic, build authority, and generate revenue for your business — at a volume you couldn’t replicate manually.

4 Successful Programmatic SEO Examples

Use the programmatic SEO examples below to get inspired and understand how to spot patterns that make good candidates for programmatic campaigns.

Note: Some of these sites have millions of pages, and they often run across multiple different types of programmatic SEO efforts. As a result, the number of pages and traffic figures are estimates. But they should still give you a good idea of what is possible when pSEO works well.

1. Wise

Card 1 – Wise

Wise is a global financial platform that helps users send, spend, and receive money internationally.

You’ll see Wise as a common example of programmatic SEO in action, generally for their currency converter pages. But most discussions on the topic don’t properly convey the true scale of Wise’s pSEO play.

The total number of currency converter pages across Wise’s domain (including across different global subfolders like /gb/ and /us/) is a whopping 8.5 million.

Not tens of thousands. Millions of pages. That all look like this:

Wise – Currency converter

How do I know there are that many?

Because Wise’s main sitemap index contains 170 individual sitemaps for the currency converter pages alone (it starts at “sitemap-0”):

Wise – Currency converter – 170 individual sitemaps

And each of those contains 50K individual URLs (except the last one, which has just under 47K):

One Wise sitemap contains 50k individual URLs

All of which are indexable and canonicalized:

Wise – Currency converter – Page URL & code

That includes the variants for specific currency amounts.

That’s right, Wise has created a bunch of pages for various currencies that are prefilled with common amounts of currency to convert. Like “2,000 Maldivian rufiyaas to New Zealand dollars.”

And they rank:

Google SERP – Currency convert – Wise

In fact, Wise ranks for tens of thousands of related keywords, including 36.5K that include the word “convert”:

Organic Research – Wise – Keywords

Wise’s currency conversion pages demonstrate the difference between valuable programmatic content and thin content.

Each page (like USD to EUR) includes real-time rates, interactive calculators, historical charts, bank comparisons, and transactional capabilities. Not just basic templated text with a CTA.

Their pages solve real user problems rather than merely existing to capture keywords.

But that’s not the only way Wise uses programmatic SEO. They also use it for:

SWIFT codes for businesses (1.25 million pages):

Wise – Swift Codes

Stock tickers (280K+ pages):

Wise – Stock Tickers

And they also have:

  • Currency exchange pages (~8K)
  • Account pages (~1K)
  • “Send money” pages (~16K)
  • IBAN pages (~10K)
  • Comparison pages (~38K)
  • Routing number pages (~45K)
  • Various landing pages (~6K)

Overall, the Wise website has more than 10 million pages. Combined, they drive 100+ million visits every month.

Backlinko – Website Traffic Checker – Wise

Note: Want to see traffic metrics for other sites? Try our free website traffic checker tool.

This isn’t necessarily the most relatable example. It would require extensive resources to pull off this kind of automated page creation.

But it does show the sheer scalability and ranking power of programmatic SEO.

Why this works: Wise has massive amounts of proprietary data about currencies and other financial information. Each page also caters to a very specific user need that is globally relevant.

2. Tripadvisor

Card 2 – Tripadvisor

Tripadvisor uses programmatic SEO for its location pages.

Search for “things to do in [city]” and you’ll see how they’ve dominated this pattern.

For example, here’s the result for “things to do in Paris”:

Tripadvisor – Things to Do in Paris

And this is the result for “things to do in New York”:

Tripadvisor – Things to Do in NYC

Each page follows the same structure. But each one is populated with location-specific attractions, reviews, and booking options unique to that destination.

Tripadvisor – Things to Do in – Collage

These pages collectively drive millions of organic traffic to Tripadvisor.

Backlinko – Website Traffic Checker – Tripadvisor

Bonus note: This is just counting the URLs on Tripadvisor’s .com domain. There are similar pages on its global domains too, like .co.uk.

Why does this work so well?

Because Tripadvisor is able to meet the pain points of users all over the world. Travellers are always looking for things to do in different locations.

And Tripadvisor can cater to this need with its vast array of data on landmarks, sights, and activities. Plus, they have proprietary user data (like reviews) that helps make every programmatically generated page unique and useful.

Why this works: Tripadvisor has an Authority Score of 100. Add to that the fact that its pages cover the global travel market and contain heaps of UGC (like reviews) and you have the ideal candidate for pSEO.

3. Zillow

Card 3 – Zillow

Zillow uses programmatic SEO to generate thousands of hyper-local pages for every city, neighborhood, and property type to capture long-tail real estate search traffic.

The site transforms raw data (like home value estimates, price trend visualizations, school information, and walkability scores) into context-rich resources that both rank well and help users make important decisions.

And they have A LOT of listings.

I trawled through their sitemaps and found various groups of pages:

  • Home values by location (173K pages)
  • Miscellaneous listings (9K pages)
  • School districts (146K pages)
  • For sale by agent (1.6M pages)
  • For sale by owner (26K pages)
  • New construction (160K pages)
  • Pending (1.5K pages)
  • Recently sold (7.5M pages)
  • For rent (1.2M pages)

Then there are other sitemaps covering buildings, apartments, off-market, other, and “for sale” suggesting tens of millions of pages.

But one sitemap index for off market homes contained 4999 sitemaps, each with seemingly around 23K URLs. This would suggest there are more than 100 million URLs in this category.

Either there is some overlap on the pages (which would be impossible to manually check for) or Zillow lists pretty much every single home in the US on its site.

Regardless, Zillow has millions of pages. And these rely on programmatic SEO.

The result?

243 million organic visits every month.

Backlinko – Website Traffic Checker – Zillow

Why this works: Zillow has massive authority (Authority Score of 97). When you combine that with masses of proprietary data and a nationwide market, you have a brilliant use case for programmatic SEO.

4. Zapier

Card 4 – Zapier

Zapier is an automation platform that connects different web apps and creates workflows based on these connections.

They generate detailed integration pages for every possible app combination to capture search intent around software integrations. With 590K+ pages, Zapier’s programmatic efforts are impressive.

Zapier – Calendly and Slack

The /apps/ subfolder that contains these integration pages drives more than 610K organic visits every month:

Traffic Analytics – Zapier – Visits & Unique Visitors

Each integration page (like “Connect Calendly to Slack”) offers specific use cases via templates…

Zapier – Set up your first integration

…along with lists of supported triggers and actions:

Zapier – Supported triggers and actions

Why this works: Zapier’s entire tool works around integrating different tools. So they have proprietary data they can lean on (the lists of templates and triggers) that nobody else can replicate. But the key part is that every one of these pages serves a very specific intent in a detailed way.

When pSEO Makes Sense (And When It Doesn’t)

Not every business can or should use programmatic SEO.

So before you spend resources building a system that cranks out thousands of pages, let’s be brutally honest about when this approach actually works.

Marketplace sites, aggregators, and directories are the perfect candidates for pSEO. Think Zillow (property listings), Tripadvisor (travel destinations), or Zapier (software integrations).

Why do these programmatic SEO sites work so well?

Because each piece of content changes enough to justify its own page. Plus, users genuinely need that specific information or functionality.

Key takeaway: If your data or functionality doesn’t meaningfully change between variations, strongly reconsider whether you should use programmatic SEO.

Simply changing “[City] plumbers” to target 500 locations while offering identical generic text isn’t programmatic SEO — it’s spam.

The Dangers of Programmatic SEO

Programmatic SEO can look a lot like spam if you just create a bunch of thin content.

But even if it doesn’t look like spam, if users have a different intent or there are better sources out there, you’ll struggle to rank.

We’ve seen programmatic efforts have negative consequences with the likes of G2 and ZoomInfo.

ZoomInfo’s databases of companies and people still drive significant traffic:

Domain Overview –Zoominfo – Organic Traffic – Days

But nowhere near as much as they used to:

Domain Overview – Zoominfo – Organic Traffic – Months

The same goes for G2.

The product review and comparison site used to drive almost 12 million monthly visits back in 2021. But now it gets less than 1 million:

Domain Overview – G2 – Organic Traffic

Both sites saw major drops in traffic on at least two occasions:

  • Between May-August of 2021, coinciding with several major Google updates (including for spam specifically)
  • In October 2023, again coinciding with major Google updates, and again with one for spam specifically

There are other factors at play too, like the prevalence of AI Overviews in search results, Reddit’s SERP dominance, and more authoritative competition.

But these are two examples of programmatic SEO working very well — until it doesn’t.

How to Know if Programmatic SEO Is Right for You

Before you invest in programmatic SEO, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Do you have lots of proprietary data, user-generated content, or structured information at your disposal?
  • Does your site already have rankings and authority?
  • Will your hypothetical pages each provide real value individually?
  • Would you be proud to show each individual page to any user?

You should be able to answer “yes” to all of these questions. If not, rethink whether programmatic SEO is worth your investment.

How to Build Your Programmatic SEO Strategy in 5 Steps

Step 1: Find Scalable Keywords

The foundation of programmatic SEO isn’t finding high-volume keywords. It’s about identifying patterns that you can target systematically.

What Good Programmatic SEO Keywords Look Like

You’re looking for search queries that follow consistent formats but change one or two variables.

Like these examples:

  • [product] vs [competitor]
  • best restaurants in [city]
  • convert [currency] to [currency]
  • [language] to [language] translation
  • average salary for [profession]
  • cheap flights from [location] to [location]

The key is evaluating whether the underlying search intent stays consistent across variations.

For example, let’s take a closer look at Wise’s currency converter pages:

Organic Research – Wise – Pages – Organic Pages

Someone searching “USD to EUR” wants the same core information as someone searching “GBP to JPY.” They just want to convert different currencies.

Wise – Currency converter – Different currencies

But these pages aren’t just glorified calculators. They also feature historic conversion charts:

Wise – Currency chart – USD to EUR

Tables of the highs, lows, averages, and changes:

Wise – Currency converter – Tables

And a comparison of Wise’s own rates versus competitors:

Wise's rates versus competitors

This is why they dominate these searches: they’re solving the specific problem searchers have with each currency pair. It’s the same intent but with different variables — the right mix for programmatic SEO.

How to Find Your Own pSEO Keywords

Good programmatic SEO keywords consist of two key parts:

  • Head term: The consistent part that appears in all variations (e.g., “Resume templates”)
  • Modifier: The variable element that changes with each page (e.g., job titles like “product managers” or “systems engineers”)

You can use Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool to find keywords like this.

For example, imagine we’re looking to create programmatic content around the head term “SEO tools”:

Keyword Magic Tool – SEO tools – Overview

We’d look for patterns where only one variable changes across multiple keywords.

For example, patterns like “best seo tools for [business type]”:

Keyword Magic Tool – Best SEO tools for – Keywords

Once you’ve identified a potential pattern, you’ll need a variety of modifiers to create your programmatic pages.

The right modifiers expand your keyword targeting exponentially, while maintaining consistent search intent.

Here are some keyword modifiers that work across multiple niches:

  • Geographic modifiers: “in [city]”, “near [location]”, “for [country]”
  • Comparison modifiers: “vs [competitor]”, “alternative to [product]”, “[product] or [product]”
  • Attribute modifiers: “best [product] for [use case]”, “[color] [product]”, “[size] [product]”
  • Professional modifiers: “for [profession]”, “[skill] for [industry]”, “[tool] for [job]”
  • Format modifiers: “[topic] template”, “[topic] calculator”, “[topic] checklist”
  • Question modifiers: “how to [verb] [topic]”, “can [subject] [verb]”, “why does [topic] [verb]”
  • Statistical modifiers: “average [metric] for [category]”, “[topic] statistics [year]”

Pro tip: Use the asterisk (*) search operator in Google to find even more variations (like “seo tools for *”).

Set the Keyword Difficulty to “(KD) < 30” and use the “Include” filter to narrow down to specific patterns (e.g., include “for” to find “seo tools for [industry]”).

Finally, sort by volume to prioritize higher-traffic opportunities.

Keyword Magic Tool – SEO tools – Filtered keywords

Next, check the SERPs for several variations of your pattern and to confirm similar content types appear across variations.

Keyword Overview – SEO tools – SERP Amalysis

This is an important step. Let’s say you were planning to programmatically create pages that list the top SEO tools for different business types.

Your plan was to create pages that contained a simple list with basic facts and stats about each tool, along with some features and pricing info. You have a database with all this information, and you plug in an AI tool’s API to help create unique content for each page.

But then you check the SERP for some common terms and realize that Google seems to be rewarding more detailed lists.

Google SERP – SEO tools for small businesses

Lists that feature:

  • In-depth tool info
  • Expert takes and opinions
  • Screenshots that show the writer has used the tool

Do you think your programmatic content will rank alongside these guides?

Probably not.

That’s why checking the SERP and evaluating the search intent is so important.

But once you do have a list of ideal keywords to target, you can export it and group by modifier types (locations, products, features). This organized data will feed directly into your template planning.

Step 2: Collect and Structure Data

Every successful programmatic SEO project thrives because of its data.

Without unique, valuable information, you’re just going to create thin pages Google will eventually demote.

You have three main options for data acquisition:

  1. Proprietary data: Information you own or generate that competitors can’t access is the gold standard. Think Zapier’s integration data or Tripadvisor’s reviews. If you have proprietary data, your programmatic SEO has built-in defensibility.
  2. Public data with added value: You can transform, combine, or present data from public sources in uniquely valuable ways (like from government databases or APIs). Because anyone else can access this data, how you present it is absolutely key.
  3. Scraped data: This is the riskiest option. If you go this route, focus on adding significant value through analysis, visualization, or aggregation. Remember: scraping should be a starting point, not your end product.

If you’re struggling to find data, here are some free datasets for programmatic SEO across different niches (including stocks, salary data, social media, books, and more).

Just remember that anyone can find these data sets. So it’s best to use them for inspiration rather than hinging your pSEO campaign on them.

Practical Programmatic – Datasets

Step 3: Create Quality Content Templates

Templates are the engine of programmatic SEO. But they’re also where most projects go wrong. It’s easy to generate 100,000 pages. It’s hard to make them genuinely useful.

Start by manually creating 3-5 examples of your target pages. These are your test runs. Use them to validate that your data, structure, and content actually helps users.

Once you’re happy, build your template with the following:

  • 500–1,000+ words of helpful content: Use headings, bullet points, and other visual breaks to improve clarity
  • Conditional content logic: Use if/then rules to tailor each page’s copy, examples, recommendations, or CTAs to match the specific data or topic
  • Rich elements like HTML tables, charts, or maps: Visualize your data to make your page interactive and genuinely informative
  • Internal links: Guide users to related pages, deeper resources, or next steps

Step 4: Technical Setup (Based on Skill Level)

You don’t need to be a developer to launch a programmatic SEO site. But you will need to choose your approach based on your technical comfort and scale requirements.

Here are a few examples of what your setup might look like depending on your skill level:

Level Pages Tools Example Workflow Best For
Beginner / No-code 1-100 pages
  • Google Sheets
  • WordPress or Webflow
  • WP All Import or similar plugins
  1. Export keyword data to spreadsheet
  2. Write templates using variables
  3. Use formulas/find+replace to populate content
  4. Bulk import via plugin
 Non-technical users launching small projects
Intermediate 100-1,000 pages
  • Airtable / Notion
  • Webflow CMS
  • Zapier / Make
  • Jekyll, Hugo (SSGs with data files)
  1. Build structured data in Airtable
  2. Connect to Webflow CMS via Make
  3. Auto-generate new pages when data is added
 Marketers comfortable with no-code automation tools
Advanced 1,000+ pages
  • Custom apps
  • Next.js or similar
  • CMS APIs
  • Databases with caching
  • CI/CD pipelines
  1. Develop custom app (e.g., with Node.js)
  2. Fetch data from database (e.g., PostgreSQL)
  3. Generate and deploy pages with frameworks like Next.js via Vercel
 Developers or teams with engineering resources

Pro tip: Roll out your programmatic SEO efforts in stages. Don’t push 100K URLs live overnight.

Step 5: Monitor and Improve Your SEO

Like any SEO strategy, programmatic SEO is an ongoing effort. Because you might have hundreds or thousands of pages to manage, staying on top of performance and technical issues is key.

Here are some important things to track, and the best tool(s) to use:

  • Indexation rate: What percentage of your pages are in Google’s index? (Google Search Console)
  • Crawl stats: How frequently is Google visiting your pages? (Google Search Console)
  • Traffic distribution: Are certain variations performing better than others? (Google Analytics)
  • Conversion patterns: Which page types drive valuable actions? (Google Analytics)
  • Page-level metrics: What do your loading speeds, bounce rates, and time on page metrics look like? (PageSpeed Insights, Google Analytics)
  • Cannibalization issues: Are your programmatic pages competing with each other? (Google Search Console, Semrush Position Tracking)

Is Programmatic SEO Really the Way to Go?

It’s hopefully clear by now that programmatic SEO can yield some pretty impressive results.

But it should also be clear that it’s not the right choice for everyone.

Unless you have:

  • Existing authority
  • Plenty of resources
  • Unique data

It’s probably not the right approach for your website (at least not yet).

For now, I recommend focusing on growing your site with quality, not quantity. For more on this, check out our guide to creating high-quality SEO content.

The post Programmatic SEO: What It Is and When to Use It (+ Examples) appeared first on Backlinko.

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LLM Visibility: The SEO Metric No One Is Reporting On (Yet)

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You lost half your Google traffic.

But suddenly…more people are searching for your brand. What’s going on?

Welcome to the invisible influence of LLMs, where your visibility goes up even when traffic goes down.

New research from Semrush reveals a seismic shift happening right now: LLM traffic will completely overtake traditional Google search by 2027.

Google and LLM Unique Visitor Growth Projection (Moderate Case)

There’s A LOT to think through here.

The good news?

If you’re already doing quality SEO, you’re 70% of the way there. The next step is to ensure your expertise is recognized by AI systems.

In this guide, you’ll learn:

  • Why Google rankings are no longer your best growth signal
  • What LLM visibility actually means
  • How to track and influence this new layer of search that’s driving brand discovery

Let’s start with what your current analytics are struggling to see.

Your Brand Is Blowing Up in LLMs (You Just Can’t See It)

LLMs are quietly becoming the biggest brand discovery platform on the internet.

Users ask AI about your industry, see your brand mentioned, and then visit you directly later.

The problem is you can’t see this influence in Google Analytics.

What Your Analytics Miss

Almost 90% of ChatGPT’s citations come from search results ranking in positions 21+ — not the top 5 rankings you’re fighting for.

While you optimize for position #1, ChatGPT mines pages 3, 5, and 10 for answers. And users trust those recommendations.

What SEOs Optimize for vs What ChatGPT Actually Cites

This data focuses on ChatGPT, but similar patterns appear across LLMs.

Gemini also favors long-tail sources, and Perplexity shows comparable citation behaviors across the ecosystem.

Looking forward: Google’s massive reach through AI Overviews and the AI Mode rollout positions them as the long-term leader, even as ChatGPT dominates current conversations.

How Discovery Has Changed

Discovery is fundamentally changing:

Old way: Google → Click → Explore → Decide

New way: Ask AI → See mention → Visit directly later

And different generations use LLMs differently.

  • College students treat ChatGPT as an “operating system.”
  • Users in their 20s-30s use it as a “life advisor.”
  • Older users see it as a Google replacement.

Still, each interaction creates invisible brand impressions.

When someone discovers you through an LLM and visits later, it appears as:

  • Direct traffic (typed your URL)
  • Branded search (Googled your name)
  • Untagged referral (bookmarked and returned)

There’s zero attribution to the LLM mention.

So you have to get creative.

4 Signs Your LLM Visibility Is Growing

Your analytics might be telling a story of decline, while your brand influence is actually exploding.

This exact pattern is happening to Backlinko.

Our clicks dropped 15% while impressions surged 54% over the past three months.

GSC – Backlinko – Performance compare report

More people are seeing our content in search results, but fewer are clicking through.

They’re likely discovering us through AI responses, then searching for us directly later.

Here are four signs that LLM visibility might be driving invisible growth for your brand:

  1. Declining organic traffic + stable branded searches: People are discovering you elsewhere first, then searching for your brand directly.
  2. Sales calls mentioning “found you through AI”: Direct evidence of LLM-driven discovery that never shows up in analytics.
  3. Direct traffic holding steady despite fewer Google clicks: Users are bypassing search entirely after AI discovery.
  4. Competitors gaining share with weaker traditional SEO: They’re likely winning LLM visibility while you focus on rankings. (More on what that looks like later.)

How LLMs Find and Cite Content

Historically, SEO has been fairly straightforward. For the most part, it’s predictable cause and effect.

Optimize for keyword X, build Y backlinks, get position Z.

LLM visibility operates differently. It’s probabilistic and contextual.

This emerging discipline is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). It’s the practice of optimizing for AI-powered search systems.

While this guide focuses on measuring LLM visibility specifically, it’s part of the broader GEO strategy.

With that said, think of GEO as an extension of SEO rather than replacing it, as many of the skills overlap.

The fundamental difference:

  • SEO: Deterministic rankings drive traffic
  • GEO: Probabilistic mentions build influence

Why Rankings Don’t Predict LLM Citations

Different LLMs prioritize different authority signals, creating multiple opportunities for visibility.

For example, when you search “best SEO blogs in 2025,” Google’s AI Overview cites established brands.

It mentions Backlinko alongside Search Engine Land, Semrush, and other recognized industry leaders.

Google SERP – Best SEO blogs in 2025 – AI Overview

Open the top three cited posts in the AIO, and they all mention the same blogs.

Ask ChatGPT the same question (logged out in a private browser), you get a similar list.

ChatGPT – SEO blogs to follow in 2025 – Incognito

But here’s where it gets interesting.

When I asked ChatGPT the same question, logged in, I got a completely different answer.

ChatGPT – SEO blogs to follow in 2025 – Logged in

Instead of citing the usual suspects, it focuses on finding diverse, current perspectives across different platforms. It recommends everything from premium newsletters to X/Twitter accounts worth following.

All based on the context of my chat history.

So, Google AI values co-citation patterns, but ChatGPT rewards fresh perspectives and contextual coverage.

This is why your 2023 comparison post might never appear in AI Overviews, but could become ChatGPT’s go-to citation for explaining complex topics.

SEO vs LLM Optimization Priorities

What LLMs Actually Prioritize

Early testing suggests that query fan-out and semantic chunk matching are big drivers of LLM behaviour.

How LLM Query Fan-out Works

LLMs often create several related sub-queries from your original question, especially for complex topics. They pull the best matches from the web.

Traditional SEO vs LLM Semantic Matching

LLMs focus on identifying the most relevant content chunks, rather than the highest-ranking pages.

The result?

While strong Google rankings often correlate with LLM citations, the relationship isn’t perfectly linear.

Content ranking lower in traditional search can still get cited by AI systems when it provides the most relevant, specific answer to what users are asking.

To win this transition, continue building comprehensive topical authority. It’s the same principle that has driven SEO success, but now even more critical for LLM visibility.

Further reading: Topic Clusters 101: How to Level Up Your SEO (with Examples)

How LLM Discovery Works in Practice

Here’s what LLM visibility looks like:

Prompt: “How do I build high-quality backlinks to my website?”

ChatGPT Response: Building quality backlinks requires strategic outreach and valuable content creation. The Skyscraper Technique, popularized by Brian Dean from Backlinko, involves finding top-performing content in your niche, creating something better, then reaching out to sites that linked to the original. Other effective methods include guest posting on relevant blogs…

What happens next: The user doesn’t click anywhere. They continue asking about outreach templates and timeline expectations, then later search “Backlinko Skyscraper Technique” or navigate directly to backlinko.com.

The invisibility factor: Branding just influenced a purchase decision, but you’ll never see it in referral traffic.

Claude – Traditional Google Search vs ChatGPT Response

LLMs present information with or without links. Both drive discovery.

Here’s an example of a Perplexity response with a link:

Perplexity – Backlinks to my website

Trends show that citations without links often feel more trustworthy because users don’t sense they’re being “sold to.”

Note: In these examples, we’re referring to RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation). It’s where the model often conducts additional web searches (query fan-out, etc.) for complex queries.

Why Your Analytics Are Blind to LLM Growth (And How to Fix It)

Your current measurement tools can’t see the biggest growth opportunity in search, but there are ways to track what actually matters.

What Your Dashboard Misses

When someone discovers you through an LLM and visits later, it appears as:

  • Direct traffic (typed your URL or clicked a link that didn’t pass referrer data)
  • Branded search (Googled your name)
  • Unknown or untagged referral (bookmarked and returned)

It’s worth repeating, there’s often zero attribution to the LLM mention.

Why Traditional Metrics Fail

Google Analytics and Google Search Console were designed for a click-based world.

Old customer journey: See result → Click → Convert (trackable)

New customer journey: See AI mention → Research brand → Visit directly later (invisible)

It’s a measurement paradox. Your most effective discovery channel is completely hidden.

Why Traditional Metrics Fail

Quick rant:

Google isn’t adding access to traffic data for AI Mode or AI Overviews.

I believe it’s because it’ll reveal just how little traffic both are actually driving to external websites.

Maybe the tide will turn, and eventually, they’ll add the data to their tools. Time will tell.

How to Track Your LLM Visibility

It’s worth acknowledging that LLM visibility tools are new and evolving.

I’ve been using Semrush’s AI Toolkit as it provides insights into how your brand compares to competitors in LLMs.

For Backlinko, I added four competitors, and here’s what the report looks like for ChatGPT visibility.

Semrush AI Toolkit – Dashboard – Backlinko & Competitors

Semrush leads with a 33% market share, followed by Ahrefs at 25%. Unfortunately, we’re sitting at 5%.

Caveat: we’re not a product company, and we have much smaller brand demand than Semrush and Ahrefs.

This matters because LLM visibility may correlate with brand awareness and search volume. Brands with more online discussion and search demand typically have more content and mentions for LLMs to discover and cite.

Yes, how often you’re being mentioned in LLMs is crucial. But how you get mentioned matters just as much.

Back to the Semrush AI Toolkit, Brand & Marketing dashboard shows shifts in sentiment among LLMs.

Backlinko consistently has a high favorable sentiment share.

Semrush AI Toolkit – Brand & Marketing – Backlinko & Competitors

The Strategic Opportunities section shows where the gaps are and helps you prioritize the execution by timeframe.

Semrush AI Toolkit – Backlinko – AI Strategic Opportunities

So, instead of fighting for the same top rankings, you can build authority in overlooked niches where LLMs need better sources.

Track these metrics monthly:

  • Visibility score changes across different LLM models
  • Branded search correlation in Google Search Console
  • Market share shifts vs competitors

Semrush’s Enterprise AIO offers even more powerful ways to monitor brand visibility in LLMs.

Pro tip: When you see visibility increases, correlate them with branded search spikes in GSC to estimate real business impact.

The Measurement Mindset Shift

Traditional SEO measurement focuses on traffic and tracked conversions.

LLM visibility measurement focuses on influence created.

Instead of asking “How many clicks did we get?” ask “How much authority did we build?”

The businesses that adopt this measurement philosophy first will have a massive advantage in AI-driven search.

Building Authority That AI Actually Recognizes

Here’s the good news:

Building authority for LLM visibility isn’t about throwing out everything you know about SEO.

What makes content trustworthy for people — like clear structure, real expertise, and thorough coverage — also helps AI systems see it as authoritative.

But there are some nuances worth understanding.

Why SEO Authority Still Matters (Mostly)

Again, your existing SEO work isn’t wasted.

LLMs mine the same content ecosystem as search engines, but they have different priorities.

We’re at a critical inflection point where everyone is moving fast and low-quality content is becoming rampant.

Google search used to be messy. I mean, it’s not perfect now, but it’s vastly better than pre-2010.

For LLMs to succeed long-term, they need to maintain and develop ways to promote real authority and trustworthy sources, not just those who cheaply game the system.

The overlap between traditional SEO authority and LLM visibility is significant:

  • Content depth and expertise matter to both systems
  • Clear information architecture helps both humans and AI navigate your content
  • Consistent topic coverage builds authority across platforms
  • Original insights and data get cited by both search engines and LLMs

Building Authority for Both Search Engines & LLMS

Where things diverge is in the details. And those details create opportunities.

Expertise Depth Over Keyword Coverage

You’ve probably heard SEO advice that creates a false choice between keyword optimization and content quality.

But if you’ve been following sound SEO principles, you already know that keywords are simply demand signals.

They’re data points that help you understand what your audience wants to learn and prioritize your content efforts.

LLMs have made this quality-first approach non-negotiable.

The citation analysis shows that AI systems consistently favor sources that demonstrate genuine expertise. Content that covers edge cases, recognises complexity, and shares insights from real experience.

Surface-level content aggregation used to rank well just by optimizing keywords. Now, it gets fewer mentions in AI responses.

This isn’t because LLMs dislike keywords. It’s because they’re better at recognizing and rewarding authentic expertise.

The SEO Evolution: LLMS Validate Quality-first Approach

This means sharing process details, insightful nuances, and clear methods that both people and AI see as trustworthy.

Include the details that only practitioners would know.

Acknowledge when approaches don’t work and explain why.

Be clear and precise in your explanations. This helps both humans and AI systems understand your expertise accurately.

LLMs have simply made the stakes higher for thin content while rewarding the approach that quality-focused practitioners have always advocated.

The Strategic Citation Playbook

If you’ve been building quality backlinks, you’re already 70% of the way to LLM citation success.

The research reveals that citation-worthy content follows similar principles to link-worthy content, with a few critical differences in how citations actually work.

How to Get Cited Alongside Competitors

The research shows a clear pattern among top-cited brands. They consistently appear alongside other authorities in expert clusters.

When industry publications discuss “best practices for X,” they cite multiple experts.

Your goal is to be part of that conversation.

The Co-citation Authority Pattern

Practical focus:

  • Guest post on publications that already cite your competitors
  • Participate in expert roundups where your insights add genuine value
  • Comment thoughtfully on high-authority industry content with detailed expertise

Citations vs. Links: What’s Different

LLM citation patterns mirror what quality-focused SEOs have always known: authoritative sources carry more weight than weak ones.

Citation Value: Quality vs Quantity

But there are key differences from traditional link building.

  • Citations don’t require links: A thoughtful Reddit comment or YouTube video description can carry citation weight without clickable links back to your site.
  • Content depth beats ranking position: LLMs evaluate expertise independently of SERP rankings. Your detailed comparison post ranking on page 6 can become your most-cited asset.

To win LLM visibility, strategically place your expertise where AI systems recognize genuine authority.

Why Your Small Brand Can Compete in LLMs

The LLM visibility shift creates the biggest opportunity for smaller brands since the early days of SEO.

While established competitors fight for the same top rankings, you can build authority in the spaces they’re ignoring.

The Playing Field is Leveling

Remember: Almost 90% of ChatGPT citations come from long-tail results.

Your niche expertise on “B2B SaaS customer onboarding analytics” has the same citation potential as a Fortune 500 company’s homepage about “business software.”

Speed Beats Scale

Big brands move slowly. Committee approvals, legal reviews, and corporate messaging requirements create lag time.

You can capitalize on emerging trends, respond to breaking news in your industry, and share real-time insights that LLMs value for currency and relevance.

When a new platform launches or regulations change, you can publish authoritative analysis within hours while competitors are still scheduling meetings.

The Community Multiplier Effect

Your engaged audience amplifies LLM visibility in ways traditional SEO can’t measure.

When customers share your insights in Slack channels, Discord servers, or LinkedIn comments, they’re creating citation pathways that LLMs discover and value.

A single detailed Reddit comment from a satisfied customer can carry more LLM authority than a generic press release.

Reddit – Comment from a satisfied customer

Start Small, Win Big

Pick one sub-topic where you have genuine expertise. Become THE authoritative voice on that specific area.

Instead of competing for “project management software,” own “project management for creative agencies with remote teams.”

Target long-tail prompts where competition is lighter and your specific experience matters most.

Track your progress with tools like Semrush’s AI Toolkit and Enterprise AIO to see your authority build across conversations that matter to your business.

Lastly, be wary of anyone definitively selling you GEO, AI Search Optimization, or whatever term they’re using.

We’re in a fluid and developing environment, but the fundamentals remain key.

Focus on building a brand and think about how to create the right content that will stand up over time.

Avoid shortcuts and quick wins that are risky.

Your move.

The post LLM Visibility: The SEO Metric No One Is Reporting On (Yet) appeared first on Backlinko.

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Web Design and Development San Diego

Simplifying the search results page

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As part of our ongoing efforts to
simplify the Google Search results page, we will be phasing out support for a few
structured data features in
Search. We regularly evaluate the usefulness of Search features, both for users and website owners.

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HTML Link Code: How to Create Hyperlinks on Your Site

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HTML links (also called hyperlinks) are some of the most important functions of the internet. Google literally relies on them to find, crawl, index, and rank pages.

Links have a lot of power, both in terms of user experience and your site’s SEO.

So, understanding how to code HTML links properly is key if you want to create links that help (not hinder) your website’s performance.

The Components of an HTML Link

You create an HTML link using the anchor element: .

You then use attributes and values to change how the link functions.

Here’s what the complete HTML code for a clickable link looks like:

<a href="https://example.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Visit Example.com for more info.</a>

Let’s break that down:

  • The anchor tag (<a>) is the foundation of every link. It tells browsers “this is a clickable link.”
  • The href attribute defines where your link goes. This can be a web address, a file path, or even a specific section on the current page.
  • The target attribute controls how the link opens. The default is to open in the same window, but _blank makes it open in a new tab.
  • The rel attribute defines the relationship between the linking page and the linked page. It’s particularly important for SEO (more on that in the best practices section).
  • The anchor text is what users see and click. In the example above, it’s “Visit Example.com for more info.”
  • The closing tag (<a>) indicates where the link ends.

I’ll talk more about the role these elements play later in this guide. For now, let’s look at some of the most common ways to add HTML links.

How to Add Links with HTML Code

The basic method of adding links with HTML code involves placing the URL you want to link to within a link anchor tag. Just like the example above.

But here are a few of the most common use cases for adding links in HTML:

Text Links

Text links are the most common type of hyperlink you’ll create. You can use them to link to other pages on your site (internal links) or on other sites (external links).

Backlinko – SEO Strategy – Internal & External Link

Here’s the standard implementation:

<a href="https://example.com">Visit our website</a>

This creates a basic text link that users can click to navigate to the specified URL.

You can enhance text links with additional attributes for specific use cases. For example, here’s how you would set a link to open in a new tab:

<a href="https://example.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Visit Example.com</a>

If it’s an affiliate link, you might use something like this:

<a href="https://example.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer sponsored">Visit Example.com</a>

(More on these attributes later.)

Image Links to Make Images Clickable

Images can serve as powerful, eye-catching links that often attract more attention than plain text.

The basic structure for an HTML image link wraps an <img> tag inside an anchor tag:

<a href="https://example.com">
  <img src="logo.png" alt="Company Logo">
</a>

This transforms the entire image into a clickable link that navigates to the specified URL.

The “img src” attribute specifies the location of the image file. While the “alt” attribute specifies alternative text for the image.

Img src & alt attributes

For image links to be accessible and SEO-friendly, you should include descriptive alt text. Like this:

<a href="/product/camera"> 
  <img src="camera.jpg" alt="Canon EOS R6 Mark II Camera">
</a>

The alt text serves two critical purposes:

  • Screen readers will read it aloud for visually impaired users to understand the image’s content
  • It helps search engines understand the content of your image (which may help you rank in image search results)

You should only make your images clickable if they actually take the user somewhere useful. Like to the image’s source website.

It’s worth noting that for image links and a few of the other types below, you might implement them in different ways.

For example, here’s how we implement some image links here on Backlinko (using CSS classes):

Implemented image links using CSS classes

But here’s an image link on The Spruce:

The Spruce – Clickable image on the homepage

In this case, the image link is still contained within an <a> tag. But there are other elements (like <div>) and classes (like img-placeholder) as well.

How exactly you implement image links largely depends on your website setup. If you use WordPress, your theme and plugins will likely dictate how you code your image links.

Further reading: Image SEO: 15 Essential Optimization Tips

Email Links

Email links use a special protocol that launches the user’s default email client. They’re perfect for making it easier for users to reach you.

Use the mailto: protocol to create email links:

<a href="mailto:contact@example.com">Email Us</a>

When a user clicks this link, it opens their default email program with the recipient field already populated.

Allbirds – Help Email

You can enhance email links with additional parameters too. Like this:

<a href="mailto:sales@example.com?subject=Product%20Inquiry&body=I%27m%20interested%20in%20learning%20more">Email Sales Team</a>

This pre-fills the subject line with “Product Inquiry” and adds initial text to the email body that says “I’m interested in learning more.”

(Note that you need to encode spaces and special characters, like %20 for a space.)

Pro tip: Make it clear what will happen when a user clicks the link with descriptive anchor text. This way, they won’t be confused when their email client opens.

Phone Links

For phone numbers, use the tel: protocol:

<a href="tel:+15555555555">Call (555) 555-5555</a>

When a user taps this link on their mobile device, it opens the phone dialer with the number ready to call.

For international phone numbers, always include the country code with a plus sign:

<a href="tel:+442071234567">Call our London office: +44 20 7123 4567</a>

You can also use the “sms” value to open up a text message:

<a href="sms:+442071234567">Send us a text</a>

As with email links, be clear in your anchor text for phone and SMS links about what will happen when the user taps the link.

Jump Links (Anchor Links) for Internal Page Navigation

Jump links, also known as anchor links, help users navigate to specific sections within the same page. They’re especially useful for long-form content.

If your site uses a table of contents (like this site does), it works using jump links in this way.

Table of content in post

The basic structure requires two parts:

  1. An element with an id attribute that serves as the target
  2. A link that points to that id using a hash (#) symbol

For example, in our article on keyword mapping, which is a step-by-step list, we use jump links to make it easier for users to navigate.

First, we added “id” tags to the headings, like this:

<h3 id="add-keywords">3. Add the Keywords to Your Map</h3>

You don’t see this id attribute on the page, but it’s in the site’s code:

ID Tags added to the Headings

Then, in the second step of the list, which some users might not need to follow, we include a link to skip ahead to the third step (which has the id “add-keywords”).

The HTML link code looks like this:

<a href="#add-keywords">step 3</a>

And the link on the page looks like this:

Backlinko – Link to skip ahead

When a user clicks the link, the browser will instantly scroll to the element with the matching id (in this case, step 3). It’ll also update the URL in the address bar:

Updated URL in the address bar

Jump links are perfect for:

  • Tables of contents at the top of articles
  • “Back to top” links at the end of sections
  • FAQ pages where users want to jump to specific questions
  • Product pages with multiple information sections

Button Links for Calls to Action

HTML links over buttons combine the functionality of an <a> tag with the appearance of a button.

They’re perfect for calls to action that need to stand out and attract clicks.

The key difference between a button-style link and a regular link is that you’ll typically code HTML button links with CSS:

<a href="yourdomain.com/signup" class="button-link">Get Started</a>

This HTML looks like a standard text link, but with CSS, you can transform it:

.button-link {
  display: inline-block;
  padding: 10px 20px;
  background-color: #0066cc;
  color: white;
  text-decoration: none;
  border-radius: 4px;
  font-weight: bold;
  text-align: center;
}

.button-link:hover {
  background-color: #004080;
}

These styles create a rectangular button with:

  • Clear boundaries (background color and padding)
  • Rounded corners (border-radius)
  • Visual feedback on hover (background color change)

For mobile users, make sure your button-style links are large enough to easily tap:

@media (max-width: 768px) {
  .button-link {
    padding: 12px 24px;
    width: 100%; 
    margin-bottom: 10px;
  }
}

It’s worth noting that in a lot of cases, you won’t need to code button links yourself. If you’re using a CMS like WordPress, for example, you might use button templates of some kind.

Or perhaps, your developer will use CSS classes to create buttons rather than using HTML link codes.

CSS classes to create buttons

Download Links

Download links let your users easily save files from your website to their devices.

The basic HTML for a download link uses the download attribute:

<a href="report.pdf" download>Download PDF Report</a>

For files that browsers typically display rather than download (like PDFs), the download attribute ensures they’re saved instead of opened.

Many browsers will download other file types by default, without the need for a separate download attribute. This is often true for things like Excel and Word documents.

Note: Sometimes your server configuration will dictate whether a file will open or download by default. If you’re not sure, speak to your developer.

Other Important HTML Link Code for SEO

There are a few HTML link attributes you should be aware of for your site’s SEO. These don’t create hyperlinks, but they do go inside an HTML link element in the <head> portion of your page’s code.

This element looks like <link> rather than <a>.

Canonical Tags

Canonical tags (technically attributes) tell search engines which version of a page is the “primary” one when you have similar or duplicate content across multiple URLs. They help prevent duplicate content issues that can hurt your SEO.

But it’s good practice to implement them on all of your pages.

Backlinko uses canonicals

You implement canonical tags using a <link> element in the <head> section of your HTML:

<head>
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/original-page">
</head>

This effectively tells search engines: “This page is a copy or variation of the page at the specified URL. Please attribute all ranking signals to that URL instead.”

Canonicalization can help when you have URL parameters for tracking, filtering, or sorting (e.g., ?source=email or ?sort=price).

URL Structure

Hreflang

The hreflang HTML link attribute helps search engines understand the language and regional targeting of your pages. This helps them understand which version of your page to display to users in search results.

As with canonical tags, you implement it using link elements in the <head> section of your HTML:

<head>
  <link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-us" href="https://example.com/en-us/page">
  <link rel="alternate" hreflang="es" href="https://example.com/es/page">
  <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr" href="https://example.com/fr/page">
  <link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://example.com/">
</head>

These link elements tell search engines:

  • This page is available in English (US), Spanish, and French
  • The default version (for users speaking other languages) is at the root URL

The hreflang attribute uses language codes (like “en” for English) and optional region codes (like “us” for the United States).

Hreflang structure

Hreflang tags are only an issue for sites with different language versions and an international presence. They can be tricky to get right, so for more detailed info, check out our dedicated guide to hreflang tags.

HTML Link Code Best Practices

Following these best practices will ensure your links are effective, secure, and accessible to all users. And it’ll help improve your SEO too.

Syntax

Here’s the correct syntax for an HTML link:

<a href="url">Anchor Text</a>

Here are a few syntax rules to remember:

  • Always include the opening <a> and closing </a> tags
  • Add the href attribute along with a value (your URL)
  • Enclose attribute values in quotation marks
  • Don’t use spaces between the attribute, equals sign, and value

Anchor Text

Anchor text is the clickable text of your link. It’s the words users actually see and click on. It plays a crucial role in both user experience and SEO.

Good anchor text clearly tells users what to expect when they click a link. It also provided

Here’s an example of poor anchor text:

<a href="https://example.com/pricing">Click here</a>

And here’s an example of good, descriptive anchor text:

<a href="https://example.com/pricing">View our pricing plans</a>

The second example gives users (and search engines) clear information about where the link will take them.

When writing anchor text, follow these guidelines:

  • Make it descriptive and relevant to the destination
  • Keep it concise (typically 2-5 words)
  • Avoid generic phrases like “click here” or “read more”
  • Use keywords naturally, but don’t stuff them in

Title Attributes

There’s also a “title” attribute you can add to links. But you generally don’t need this if you use descriptive anchor text.

In fact, using it can reduce readability and accessibility if it just repeats the anchor text. Screen readers usually won’t read it out, and users hovering over the link will see a tooltip that may just block other content on the screen. Plus, it won’t display on mobile devices at all.

So, unless you can meaningfully add important information about the link, don’t use the title attribute. And instead just make your anchor text descriptive.

Aria Labels

ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) labels enhance accessibility by providing additional context for screen readers and other assistive technologies.

The aria-label attribute provides an accessible name for a link when the visible text isn’t descriptive enough, or for links over icons rather than text:

<a href="https://yourdomain.com/settings" aria-label="Go to settings">
  <svg><!-- settings icon --></svg>
</a>

In this example, a screen reader would announce “Go to settings” but the site would only visually display a settings icon.

Target

The target attribute determines how your link opens when a user clicks on it.

The default link behavior opens the link in the same tab (i.e., you go from the current page to the linked page).

The default value is “_self” but you don’t need to specify that.

If you want to open the link in a new tab, use the “_blank” target value:

<a href="https://example.com" target="_blank">Example</a>

You used to need to add rel=“noopener” to links with a blank target value for security reasons. But you no longer need to do this. (More on noopener below.)

Opening your link in a new tab is particularly useful when:

  • Linking to external websites
  • Providing reference material that users might want to check while staying on your page
  • Linking to downloads or resources that would disrupt the user’s current activity

Opinions vary on whether this is best for accessibility. Some believe this creates a disruptive user experience, especially on mobile and for those using assistive technologies (like screen readers).

For internal links that are part of the natural navigation flow, it’s usually best to stick with the default behavior (opening in the same tab).

Note: There used to be other target values (_parent and _top), but these are deprecated in HTML5.

Relationships (rel=)

The rel attribute defines the relationship between your current page and the page you’re linking to. It’s an important attribute that affects both security and SEO.

The default behavior is to not add any rel values. But here are a few of the most common ones:

Sponsored Links

You use the sponsored rel value when another brand has paid to have a link on your site.

For example, let’s say you have an affiliate link to a product you promote.

This is a form of paid or sponsored link, because you might earn money from purchases users make through that link. Google recommends you use the “sponsored” attribute for paid link placements:

<a href="https://example.com" rel="sponsored">Paid link</a>

Here’s an example of this on WireCutter, a popular product comparison website:

Wirecutter – Sponsored attribute for paid link

You would also use this attribute for links other companies have explicitly paid you to include on your site.

UGC Links

Use the user-generated content rel value on links in comments and forum posts. These are links you don’t necessarily control, and this tells Google that you don’t endorse them.

<a href="https://example.com" target="_blank" rel="ugc">External site you haven’t verified</a>

Reddit – UGC links

Nofollow Links

Use nofollow when none of the other rel values apply and you don’t want Google to associate your site with the one you’re linking to. Or when you don’t want Google to crawl the page you’re linking to.

<a href="https://example.com" rel="nofollow">Link to a site you don’t endorse</a>

Let’s say you’re not the one creating the links on your site so you can’t verify them before they go live. Maybe you have a team of writers, or you’re accepting guest posts.

But you know the links are not sponsored or in user-generated content. In this case, you’d use nofollow.

What About “noopener” and “noreferrer”?

The “noopener” rel value tells your browser to go to the target link without giving the new location access to the page with the link.

If you’re using target=“_blank” then modern browsers will essentially treat it as if you have added noopener. But you can also use it on other links you don’t necessarily trust but aren’t using the _blank target value for. Like those you’re also adding nofollow to.

Using the “noreferrer” value hides the origin of any traffic sent through that link in the analytics of the site you’re linking to.

You can combine multiple rel values by separating them with spaces:

<a href="https://example.com" rel="noopener noreferrer sponsored">Affiliate link</a>

Absolute vs. Relative URLs

When creating an HTML link, you need to decide whether to use an absolute or relative URL in the href attribute. Each has specific use cases and advantages.

Absolute URLs include the complete web address, starting with the protocol:

<a href="https://example.com/products/item1">Product page</a>

Relative URLs are shorter and reference locations relative to the current page:

<a href="/products/item1">Product page</a>

Generally, I’d recommend you use absolute URLs in most cases.

Using relative URLs can speed up production if you’re working with lots of them. Plus, if you move pages or domains but keep the same URL structure, your internal URLs should all continue working without you having to change them all to the new domain.

But honestly, unless you’re planning a major website migration at the time you’re setting up your site (unlikely), you aren’t likely to foresee and then benefit from this relatively minor advantage.

You might want to use relative URLs when working with a staging site that’s on a different domain from the site you’re developing.

In this case, it can avoid you or your developers having to rewrite all the internal links when you push your site live.

How to Check Your Site’s HTML Links

You can manually check the code of an HTML link in your browser with the inspect tool. Just right-click over the link you want to check and select “Inspect” to open up the developer console:

Backlinko – HTML Link

This is handy for quickly verifying your attributes and rel values.

But what if you want to check your links at scale?

That’s where a tool like Semrush’s Site Audit comes in.

Just plug your domain in, let the audit run, and head to the “Issues” tab. Then type in “link” to highlight any issues with your site’s HTML links.

Site Audit – Backlinko – Issues – Link

Go through and fix any issues to improve your site’s SEO and user experience.

Note: A free Semrush lets you audit up to 100 URLs. Or you can use this link to access a 14-day trial on a Semrush Pro subscription.

The post HTML Link Code: How to Create Hyperlinks on Your Site appeared first on Backlinko.

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Web Design and Development San Diego

Adding markup support for loyalty programs

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Member benefits, such as lower prices and earning loyalty points are a major factor considered by
shoppers when buying products online. Today we’re adding support for defining loyalty programs under
Organization structured data
combined with loyalty benefits under Product
structured data.

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What AI gets wrong about your site, and why it’s not your fault: meet llms.txt 

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AI tools are everywhere — from chatbots that answer customer questions to language models that summarize everything from documentation to legal text. But if you’ve ever asked a model like ChatGPT to explain your site, your product, or your API, the results might not feel quite right. In fact, sometimes they’re way off. And no, that’s not your fault. 

The disconnect between websites and LLMs 

Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini are trained to understand a wide range of content. But when they try to interpret your website at runtime, that is, when someone is actively asking them a question, they run into a few core problems: 

  • HTML is noisy. Navigation bars, cookie banners, modal popups, and analytics scripts clutter the page. 
  • Context windows are limited. Most websites are too large for an LLM to process all at once. 
  • Important details are spread across multiple pages or hidden in tables, code blocks, or comments. 
  • Markdown docs may exist, but the model often can’t locate them, or even know they exist. 

So, when you ask an AI tool to “explain what this company does” or “summarize this library API”, it often gets stuck. It either skips key context or grabs the wrong signals from cluttered markup. 

It’s not bad intent; it’s a design limitation. 

Why it’s not your SEO’s fault, either 

You’ve probably invested time and effort into search engine optimization. Maybe your robots.txt and sitemap.xml are in place. You’ve got meta tags, structured data, and clean internal links. Good, but LLMs don’t always work like Google. 

Traditional SEO helps your site get found. However, it doesn’t guarantee that AI tools will understand what a human user would. That’s where a new proposal comes in. 

Meet llms.txt: A simple way to help AI understand your site 

A growing number of developers and AI researchers are adopting a lightweight, human-readable standard called llms.txt.  

What is llms.txt? 

llms.txt is a plain Markdown file placed at the root of your site that provides language models with a summary of your project and direct links to clean, LLM-readable versions of important pages. It’s designed for inference-time use, helping AI tools quickly understand a site’s structure, purpose, and content without relying on cluttered HTML or metadata intended for search engines. 

What it does: 

  • Gives a short summary of your site or project 
  • Links to clean, LLM-ready Markdown versions of key pages 
  • Helps AI tools find exactly what matters, without parsing messy HTML

Is it widely supported? Not yet 

Right now, no major LLM provider officially supports llms.txt. Tools like GPTBot (OpenAI), Claude (Anthropic), and Google’s AI crawlers don’t reference or follow it as part of their crawling behavior. Some companies like Anthropic publish llms.txt files themselves, but there’s no evidence that any crawler is actively using them in retrieval or training. 

Still, it’s a low-effort, no-risk addition that helps prepare your site for a future where structured LLM access becomes more standardized. And LLM-facing tools, or even your own AI agents, can make use of it today. 

Example use cases: 

  • A dev library links to .md-formatted API docs and usage examples. 
  • A university site highlights course descriptions and academic policies. 
  • A personal blog offers a simplified timeline of key projects or topics. 

You control the content and the structure. LLMs benefit from curated, LLM-aware context. And users asking questions about your site get better answers. 

Using our Yoast SEO plugin? 

If you’re already using our Yoast SEO (free or Premium) plugin, generating a llms.txt file is easy. Just enable the feature in your settings, and the plugin will automatically create and serve a complete llms.txt file for your site. You can view it anytime at yourdomain.com/llms.txt. 

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Read about the llms.txt feature

An LLM-friendly web isn’t the same as a Google-friendly web 

This doesn’t replace SEO. Think of llms.txt as a companion to robots.txt. It tells AI bots: “Here’s the good stuff. Skip the noise.” 

Sitemaps help crawlers find everything. llms.txt tells LLMs what to focus on. 

It’s especially useful for: 

  • Developers and open-source maintainers 
  • Product marketers looking to reduce support load 
  • Teams that want chatbots to pull answers from docs, not guess 

You don’t need a new CMS or tech stack 

All this requires is creating two things: 

  1. A basic llms.txt file in Markdown
  2. Ideally, you’d also have Markdown versions (.html.md) of key pages included alongside the originals, with the same URL plus .md added. 

No new tools, plugins, or frameworks needed, although some ecosystems are already adding support. 

Here’s an example of a file automatically built by Yoast SEO, as it has an llms.txt generator built in:

Generated by Yoast SEO v25.3, this is an llms.txt file, meant for consumption by LLMs. This is the (https://everydayimtravelling.com/sitemap_index.xml) of this website. 
 
# everydayimtravelling.com: Stories from our travels 
 
## Posts 
- [Test video](https://everydayimtravelling.com/test-video/) 
- [A Journey Through Portugal’s Wine Country: A Suggested Wine Tour Route](https://everydayimtravelling.com/a-wine-tour-through-portugal/) 
- [Travel essentials for backpackers FAQ](https://everydayimtravelling.com/travel-essentials-for-backpackers-faq/) 
 
## Pages 
- [Checkout](https://everydayimtravelling.com/checkout/) 
- [Contact us](https://everydayimtravelling.com/contact-us/) 
- [How we started this blog](https://everydayimtravelling.com/pagina-harry-potter/) 
- [My account](https://everydayimtravelling.com/my-account/) 
- [Cart](https://everydayimtravelling.com/cart/) 
 
## Categories 
- [Europe](https://everydayimtravelling.com/category/europe/) 
- [Asia](https://everydayimtravelling.com/category/asia/) 
- [South America](https://everydayimtravelling.com/category/south-america/) 
- [Food](https://everydayimtravelling.com/category/food/) 
- [Western Europe](https://everydayimtravelling.com/category/europe/west-europe/) 
 
## Tags 
- [Budget](https://everydayimtravelling.com/tag/budget/) 
Yoast SEO has an llms.txt generator onboard; you can find it in the API settings
Yoast SEO has an llms.txt generator onboard; you can find it in the API settings

Helping AI help you 

So, if AI is misinterpreting your website, producing erroneous summaries, or skipping critical content, there’s a reason, and it’s fixable. 

It’s not always your copy. Not your design or your metadata. It’s just that these language tools need a little guidance. In the future, llms.txt could be the way to give it to them, and you do so on your terms. 

Do you need help creating an llms.txt file or converting your existing content to Markdown for LLMs? Yoast SEO can automatically generate an llms.txt file for you. 

The post What AI gets wrong about your site, and why it’s not your fault: meet llms.txt  appeared first on Yoast.

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New: Future proof your website for tomorrow’s visitors with Yoast SEO llms.txt

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Increased usage of AI is changing how people discover businesses and services online. While your website may be optimized for traditional search engines, large language models (LLMs) process your website’s information differently. Our new feature, llms.txt offers to bridge the gap. Yoast SEO generates a file that highlights the most important, up-to-date content on your website as an invitation for LLMs to get the right picture. It’s automatic, requires no technical setup, and is ready in one click.

Helping AI understand your website

Unlike search engines that regularly crawl and index websites, LLMs like ChatGPT and Google Gemini work differently. They don’t store website content for future use. Instead, they gather information in real time when responding to user queries.

This means LLMs often only access a small portion of a website while looking for answers. This is especially true for large websites such as news platforms or ecommerce stores. This can lead to incomplete or even inaccurate AI-generated responses. Not ideal if you’re aiming to improve your visibility in LLM-generated answers as part of your marketing strategy.

If you want to better understand what LLMs tend to look for when accessing websites, this guide on optimizing content for LLMs offers a helpful overview.

What is an llms.txt file?

The llms.txt file gives LLMs a suggested, pre-prepared slice of your website, highlighting your most important and up-to-date content.

Think of it like a helpful guide at the entrance of a large department store. Imagine you’re walking in looking for socks. Someone greets you and hands you a store map that highlights where the socks are, along with other key departments like shoes, checkout, and customer service. You don’t have to use the map,  you can wander around on your own, but it makes it much easier to quickly find what you’re looking for.

In the same way, this file helps LLMs quickly identify the most relevant and useful parts of your website. While the models can still explore other areas, giving them clear guidance increases the chances that they’ll surface the right information in their responses.

How is it different from robots.txt?

robots.txt
  • Tells bots what not to access
  • Focuses on permission
  • Used for search engine indexing and crawling
  • Supported by traditional search engines

llms.txt

  • Suggests what AI should read
  • Focuses on guidance and clarity
  • Helps AI answer user questions more accurately
  • Designed for large language models like ChatGPT

How does Yoast SEO llms.txt work?

When you turn the feature on, it automatically generates an llms.txt file for your website, using a mix of relevant website data. It draws from:

  • Your most recently updated content
  • Technical SEO elements like your sitemap for context
  • Descriptions you’ve added about your website

This offers large language models a website summary to understand what your website is about and what content is most important.

Managing your llms.txt file

The plugin automatically creates and maintains the llms.txt file for you, refreshing every week. You can preview the file to ensure it accurately reflects your brand and prioritizes the right content before implementation.

Want full control or prefer to manage it yourself? Learn how to manually add an llms.txt file to your website by visiting our developer documentation.

At Yoast, our mission is SEO for everyone

Setting up an llms.txt file manually may only be accessible to a technical few. By automating the process, we make it easier for all website owners to benefit from this new technology, without needing to dive into code.

At Yoast, we believe that everyone should have a say in how their content is seen and used. Especially as AI plays a bigger role in how people discover information online. That’s why we’ve introduced this feature as opt-in, so you can decide if and when it makes sense for your website. We’ve seen early signs that this is something more website owners are starting to think about.

Just as robots.txt tries to help search engines understand what to index, llms.txt suggests which parts of your website large language models should pay attention to.If you’d like to see what an llms.txt file looks like in practice, you can view the live version on yoast.com.

The post New: Future proof your website for tomorrow’s visitors with Yoast SEO llms.txt appeared first on Yoast.

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Search Everywhere Optimization Guide (+ Free Checklist)

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Imagine you’re looking for after shave oil.

You type a few keywords into Amazon. A brand called Truly Beauty pops up. You’ve never heard of them.

Amazon – After shave oil – Truly – Results

So you go to YouTube to find the “best after shave oil”.

At the top of the results, someone has reviewed Truly Beauty’s product.

YouTube – Best after shave oil – Results

Okay, interesting…

Let’s stay on YouTube. Next, you type “truly beauty after shave oil” into the search.

YouTube – Truly Beauty after shave oil – Results

What the? The whole page has people reviewing Truly Beauty products!

Is this brand legitimate, or are all these ads in disguise?

Time to go to Reddit to get some unfiltered opinions.

You search for “after shave oil reviews reddit” and notice that once again, Truly Beauty shows up in the results.

Google SERP – After shave oil reviews Reddit

Sure enough, other people share your skepticism. But there’s some positive feedback too.

You decide to give them a try.

This kind of journey happens millions of times every day — across every industry, on every platform.

Side note: I run a men’s apparel brand, but I often research women’s beauty. It’s insanely competitive and usually way ahead in digital strategy.

If you’re in SEO, there’s a clear takeaway here:

You’re not just optimizing for Google anymore.

You need to show up across the entire decision-making journey. Wherever your audience searches, scrolls, or compares.

This is exactly what Truly Beauty figured out.

They didn’t just optimize for Google. They built visibility across the entire search ecosystem. Amazon for discovery. YouTube for social proof. Reddit for authentic reviews.

And it’s working amazingly well.

In this guide, I’ll break down how to optimize your brand for how people actually search today. With concrete examples. Including Truly Beauty’s strategy.

Free resource: To make things easier, I’ve created a checklist to track your progress

Let’s start with what’s really happening here.

The New Reality: Search Everywhere Optimization

What Truly Beauty did isn’t luck. It’s strategy.

They understood something most brands still miss:

Search has changed.

Today’s customers don’t follow a clean, Google-only path. They bounce from TikTok to YouTube, Reddit to Amazon, back to Google, then maybe ChatGPT for one last check.

Credit where it’s due: Rand Fishkin captured this evolution perfectly in his recent post.

Search Everywhere Optimization is about helping people find, evaluate, and trust your brand across every platform where discovery happens. That includes Google — but also YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, Amazon, LinkedIn, and even AI tools like ChatGPT.

Every one of those platforms can shape a decision. Miss one? You risk losing the customer to someone who showed up where you didn’t.

How People Search in 2025

Your job isn’t just to rank on Google.

It’s to help people find, evaluate, and trust your brand everywhere they search.

Some call this omnichannel SEO, cross-platform optimization, AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), or GEO (Generative Engine Optimization).

The way I see it:

Search Everywhere Optimization.

Because the search journey now includes everything from YouTube Shorts to AI summaries.

And your job is to build visibility, credibility, and conversion power across it all.

It’s not just about being found.

It’s about being trusted. On every platform where decisions happen.

That’s what makes Search Everywhere Optimization different — it evolves SEO beyond a siloed tactic into a full-funnel growth strategy.

So, you’re not just optimizing pages anymore.

You’re shaping how people find, evaluate, and trust what you offer across every stage of the journey, on every platform they turn to for answers.

Done right, Search Everywhere Optimization helps you:

  • Show up on high-engagement platforms where decisions start
  • Create content that resonates in the right format and context
  • Build trust through experience — design, messaging, and credibility
  • Turn search moments into conversions, leads, or long-term users

That’s the shift:

From rankings to relevance. From clicks to action. From Google-only to everywhere that matters.

Two Core Areas of Search Everywhere Optimization

To make Search Everywhere Optimization work, you need to understand where your audience is discovering products.

And how much control you have over those moments.

That’s where this framework comes in.

We divide the modern search experience into two key areas:

  • Managed experiences — where you control the content and presentation
  • Influenced experiences — where others shape the narrative, but your brand still shows up

This distinction helps you prioritize efforts across platforms you own… and platforms where you earn visibility.

Managed Experiences

These are touchpoints you can directly control.

Your website is still your most important owned asset. But you also manage your social media profiles, product listings, app store pages, and more.

Pinterest – Truly Beauty

This is where things gets tactical. You’re shaping the journey with:

  • Engaging content
  • Clear messaging
  • Cohesive visuals
  • Optimized flows and CTAs

On your website, you can go even deeper — refining structure, page speed, copy, and trust signals.

The goal? Deliver a fast, credible, and conversion-ready experience every time someone finds you through search.

Earned and Influenced Experiences

Now, let’s talk about where you don’t control the narrative.

These are the moments shaped by others: customers, creators, communities, algorithms.

Earned and influenced experiences are touchpoints you don’t directly control.

But they still shape how people perceive and trust your brand.

This includes:

  • Customer reviews
  • Reddit threads
  • YouTube mentions
  • Third-party comparisons
  • AI-generated responses in tools like ChatGPT

Illuminate Labs – Blog Health – Truly Beauty review

You can’t control these spaces… but you can influence them.

Search Everywhere Optimization is about increasing your visibility, credibility, and perceived value in places you don’t own.

That might mean:

  • Engaging in relevant conversations
  • Encouraging customer reviews
  • Partnering with trusted voices
  • Publishing helpful content that others cite

Truly Beauty does this well. Their TikTok is a managed asset. The brand controls the content, caption, and messaging.

This isn’t about control. It’s more about visibility, relevance, and credibility in places people already go to decide.

Luckily, you can help shape perception through helpful content, real engagement, and clear value.

You can pay influencers to review and interact with your product, publish high-quality guest posts. So, you don’t have full control over them, but you can light the fire.

For example, Truly Beauty has a strong presence across owned and earned/influenced platforms.

This includes the brand’s official TikTok account, an owned experience.

The brand controls the content, caption, and messaging.

TikTok account – Truly Beauty – Mobile

But when someone searches for Truly on TikTok and sees unsponsored reviews? That’s an influenced experience.

TikTok – Truly Beauty – Search

Both matter. Because both shape how people perceive your brand.

Search Everywhere Optimization ensures you show up in both worlds (managed and influenced) so you’re part of the journey no matter where it happens.

How Search Everywhere Optimization Builds on Traditional SEO

Traditional SEO has mostly focused on one thing — ranking on search engines like Google.

That still matters.

But it’s no longer enough.

Search Everywhere Optimization expands your SEO strategy beyond Google to include every platform where people search, compare, and decide.

So instead of optimizing just for rankings…

You’re optimizing the entire discovery journey.

This shift doesn’t replace SEO. It levels it up.

Here’s how they work together:

Traditional
SEO		 Search Everywhere Optimization
Primary Goal Drive qualified traffic from Google and other search engines Help people find, evaluate, and take action across platforms
Tactics Focus on content, keywords, backlinks, and technical fixes Tailor messaging and format to each platform and stage of the journey
Performance Metrics Metrics include rankings, impressions, CTR, and conversions Metrics include engagement, watch time, scroll depth, reviews, and cross-platform performance

Think of it this way:

  • Traditional SEO gets you found on Google
  • Search Everywhere Optimization gets you chosen — everywhere

When you combine both, you create a strategy that moves with your audience.

Across platforms. Across formats. Across every step of their journey.

Step 1: Define Your Search Personas

Creating search personas lets you outline what your ideal audience wants and needs, and what drives their decisions.

This helps you design content and experiences based on real search behavior, rather than assumptions.

Creating search persona

Pro tip: Already have marketing personas? Add a “Search Behavior” section to show how your audience searches, discovers, and evaluates solutions online.

Start with Real People

Before you can build your personas, you need real-world insights.

Go straight to the source by asking existing customers questions like:

  • How they found you
  • What made them trust you
  • What they needed before taking action

Tools like Typeform let you create and distribute surveys.

Start with their ready-to-use consumer behavior templates to make the process fast and easy.

Typeform – Survey template

Loop in Sales and Support

No one knows buyer questions better than your frontline team.

Ask them:

  • What keywords or phrases do people use when they reach out?
  • Which platforms drive user discovery?
  • What’s unclear or confusing before people convert?

This input gives you practical insights you can’t get from keyword tools alone.

Layer in Data

Tools like Semrush’s Traffic & Market Toolkit let you analyze your target market’s demographics.

Here’s how it works:

Enter your domain and up to four competitors’ domains.

Click “Analyze.”

Traffic Analytics – Truly Beauty – Competitors

View the “Audience” report to get a breakdown of unique visitors to each domain by age and sex.

Traffic Analytics – Truly Beauty – Demographics – Audience

Then, scroll to the “Geo Distribution” report to see an overview of visits and unique visitors by country.

Traffic Analytics – Truly Beauty – Geo Distribution

Next, click “Audience Overlap” to learn about your audience’s online habits.

Traffic Analytics – Truly Beauty – Audience Overlap

Including their most-visited domains. This gives you insights into their preferences, pain points, and needs.

Traffic Analytics – Truly Beauty – Visited domains

Once you’ve gathered your data, organize everything into a clean visual persona.

Free tools like Semrush’s persona builder make this easy.

Semrush – Persona Wizard

Or just use a doc or spreadsheet — whatever helps you capture the key insights clearly.

By the end, you should know:

  • What your audience is trying to solve when they search
  • What blocks or gaps slow them down
  • What type of content or format resonates most

These insights give you a clear picture of who your searchers are and what matters to them.

Note: You can create multiple personas if your product serves more than one audience. For example, a beginner and a power user won’t search the same way or want the same content.

Step 2: Map the Full Search Journey

Map how each search persona moves from discovery to decision across platforms, questions, and content types.

We want to start by breaking the journey into three simple stages.

Quick note:

I’m showing these stages as a linear progression for simplicity. Real search journeys usually aren’t straightforward.

Users frequently jump between platforms and stages, circling back and moving forward unpredictably. This framework simply helps organize our understanding of the core phases searchers experience.

Journey 1

  • Discover: This is when someone first realizes a need or problem and starts looking for ideas, inspiration, or possible solutions
  • Compare: At this stage, they evaluate their options, which involves comparing features, reading reviews, or checking alternatives to decide what fits best
  • Act: This is when they’re ready to take action. Including making a purchase, signing up, booking a service, or taking the next step.

Expand this journey into more stages and variations as needed.

Like awareness, consideration, evaluation, or post-purchase.

Journey 2

For simplicity, we’ll stick with three core stages.

Then, for each stage, identify:

  • What they search for
  • Where they go to find answers
  • What content format they expect

Let’s say we’re mapping the search journey of a shopper discovering Truly Beauty.

A user might first come across this brand when searching for “best after shave oil” on TikTok.

TikTok – Best after shave oil – Truly

From there, they Google “after shave oil” and see Truly in the top results.

Google SERP – After shave oil reviews Reddit

Next, they visit the brand’s site to view product details, images, and pricing.

Truly Beauty products – Glazed Donut After Shave Oil

After that, they head to YouTube.

They search “truly after shave oil review” to find reviews from real people.

YouTube – Search – Truly after shave oil review

Finally, they visit Amazon, search for the product, and check reviews again before placing their order.

Amazon – Truly product – Customer reviews

This is a simplified version of your audience’s actual journey.

In reality, searchers might visit more platforms during the discovery and compare stages — spanning days or even weeks.

This is why it helps to map the complete journey.

Like this:

Complete Journey

Have more than one persona or product category? Create a separate map for each.

Many platforms offer free customer journey map templates, such as Canva and Miro.

Customer Journey Map – Web

Step 3: Identify Gaps and Prioritize Touchpoints

Here’s where you’ll identify what your brand is missing across the search journey and what to fix first.

Using your journey map from Step 2, go through each stage and ask:

  • Are we visible everywhere our audience searches?
  • Does our content actually help them move forward?

Let me walk you through an example.

I conducted a quick manual audit for Truly Beauty across multiple platforms.

On TikTok and Instagram, they consistently appear for branded searches like “Truly Beauty.”

And product-specific searches like “vanilla baby body oil.”

Instagram – Search – Vanilla baby body oil

Next, I examined user-generated forums to see if people discuss the brand organically.

On Reddit, I found some positive threads where users recommend Truly products.

Comment on Reddit – Truly Beauty

And some negative threads, too.

Overall, Truly Beauty could have a stronger presence in earned and influenced spaces.

Reddit – Posts – Truly Beauty

I then analyzed Truly’s product pages.

Their website features several conversion elements:

  • Social proof (ratings and reviews)
  • Clear pricing and purchase options
  • Subscription incentives
  • Trust badges

Truly Beauty products – Vanilla Baby Luxury Body Oil

Their Amazon listings maintain this strategy while adapting to the marketplace’s format.

This way, they create a consistent purchase experience regardless of where customers shop.

Amazon listings – Truly

You’ll want to adjust this process based on your specific industry, audience, and platforms.

The key is documenting all touchpoints where your audience searches.

Once you’ve audited all platforms, organize your findings in a simple spreadsheet.

Include a “Status” column to label your presence on each platform:

  • Optimized
  • Weak
  • Missing

Here’s an example to show how you might organize your audit insights.

Feel free to structure it however works best for you.

SXO – Backlinko Google Sheet

Bonus: We added the above audit template to our downloadable checklist to help you complete this step. Download it now, if you haven’t already.

Now, it’s time to decide which platforms need attention first:

In Truly Beauty’s case, they could strengthen their presence in earned spaces.

Responding to positive and negative feedback builds trust with potential customers.

This might mean recommending products where appropriate.

And addressing any user concerns and complaints.

Prioritize your own gaps based on:

  • Where users likely drop off or switch to competitors
  • High-intent moments like evaluation or decision stages
  • Platforms your audience already trusts and uses to make decisions

This focused approach ensures you tackle the most impactful improvements first.

Further reading: How to Run a Content Audit in 6 Easy Steps

Step 4: Build a Content Plan Aligned with Search Intent

A key part of any strategy is planning content for each search stage and platform.

Use your audit insights from Step 3 to build a content plan that satisfies user needs.

Improve Your Existing Content

Before creating new content, maximize what you already have.

Check Google Analytics or Google Search Console (GSC) for pages that are underperforming.

For example, in GSC, look for:

  • Posts with high impressions but low CTR
  • Pages that rank for relevant keywords, but not as high as they should

Google Search Console – Pages with high impressions & low CTR

Consider this Truly Beauty blog post as an example.

Truly Beauty – Blog post

It already targets commercial keywords, like “best moisturizer for mature skin.”

But it ranks on page 4, 5, and beyond.

This means it’s nearly invisible in search.

Organic Research – Truly Beauty – Organic Search Positions

So, how do you fix that?

Check what they include that you don’t, like additional examples, FAQs, or expert commentary.

Then, improve the content by:

  • Updating it with fresh info, product comparisons, or reviews
  • Adding structure that matches search intent (like “best of” lists, buyer’s guides, etc.)
  • Enhancing formatting for scannability — with subheadings, bullets, and visuals
  • Filling gaps with missing subtopics or angles competitors cover

For instance, Truly Beauty could improve this post by adding:

  • A side-by-side comparison with other moisturizers
  • Tips from skincare experts
  • More visuals (like product images, charts, or before/after shots)

These updates would help align the content with what searchers expect. And give it a better shot at ranking.

Further reading: Google E-E-A-T: How to Create People-First Content + Free Audit

Create New Content

Creating new content for every platform should be an ongoing part of your strategy.

For each platform, ask:

  • Is the user trying to learn, compare, or act?
  • What format do they expect — video, reviews, short posts, or product pages?
  • What would build trust or answer their next question?

Semrush’s Topic Research Tool helps you find new content ideas.

Open the tool and enter a topic. Like “best body scrub for glowing skin.”

Then, select your target location and click “Get content ideas.”

Topic Research – Best body scrub for glowing skin

Click on a relevant subtopic.

And go through the “Questions” column to see what users are actively searching for.

For example, Truly Beauty could turn common questions into helpful content that drives conversions.

Like “What are some good homemade body scrubs?” and “How do you make a homemade scrub?”

Topic Research – Best Body Scrub for Glowing Skin – Content Ideas

Analyzing competitor content can also help you come up with great topic ideas.

Look at top-performing content across platforms where your audience searches.

Pay special attention to:

  • Content themes
  • Hooks
  • Formats
  • Captions
  • Hashtags

For instance, Truly Beauty’s audience might search “best body scrubs for glowing skin” on TikTok.

The brand could explore top-performing videos around that phrase.

And analyze what makes them successful.

TikTok – Best Body Scrub for Glowing Skin

Then, they could use what they find to create videos that mirror those formats — while tailoring them to their product and audience.

(And you can, too.)

Repurpose Content

Don’t let great content live in one place.

The most efficient strategy turns one strong piece into many platform-specific assets.

Start with your highest-performing content.

Then, adapt it to match how your audience consumes information on different platforms.

Truly Beauty – Blog – Best foods for skin

For example, Truly Beauty could transform their “12 Best Foods for Your Skin” blog post into the following:

  • Email newsletter
  • Pinterest infographic
  • Facebook and Instagram carousels
  • TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts
  • Twitter/X or Bluesky thread

One idea → multiple formats → broader discovery.

This way, you can easily scale content across the entire search experience for every platform.

Long Form Content

Step 5: Optimize Owned Touchpoints

When someone lands on your site, they expect it to:

  • Load fast
  • Feel trustworthy
  • Make it easy to take the next step

In fact, search engines like Google look at user experience signals when ranking pages.

That’s why this step focuses on performance, structure, and clarity, so your site works for users and ranks highly.

Improve Site Performance

Slow-loading pages lead to higher bounce rates, missed conversions, and lower rankings.

Use PageSpeed Insights to analyze your site.

And view your Core Web Vitals scores, which are Google user experience metrics.

These metrics measure user responsiveness, visual stability, and the speed at which your main content loads.

For example, Truly Beauty’s website failed the Core Web Vitals assessment on both mobile and desktop.

PageSpeed Insights – Truly Beauty

The good news?

PageSpeed Insights also shows exactly what’s slowing your site down and how you can fix the issues.

So, Truly Beauty can improve site performance by taking steps like reducing JavaScript execution time and minimizing main-thread work.

PageSpeed Insights – Truly Beauty – Diagnostics

For a deeper look at your site’s speed and usability, use Semrush’s Site Audit tool.

Note: A free Semrush account allows you to crawl up to 100 URLs using Site Audit. Or you can use this link to access a 14-day trial on a Semrush Pro subscription.

Enter your domain and configure the tool to set up your first crawl.

Once your report is ready, you’ll see a “Site Performance” score in the “Overview” tab.

For instance, Truly Beauty has a site performance score of 95%.

Click “View details” for more information.

Site Audit – Truly Beauty –Overview – Site Performance

Here, you’ll see the average load speed of your site.

Truly Beauty has an average page load speed of 0.31 seconds, which is outstanding.

Site Audit – Truly Beauty – Site Performance

You’ll also learn if Site Audit detected any issues with your site, categorized by priority:

  • Errors: Highest priority
  • Warnings: Medium priority
  • Notices: Lowest priority

Click “Learn more” for details on how to fix each issue.

Site Audit – Truly Beauty – Site Performance Issues – Learn more

Once you’ve addressed the issues, re-run the audit.

You’ll likely see improved site speed and performance (if you’ve correctly fixed the issues).

These technical improvements will strengthen your search experience optimization efforts.

And improve the experience for your users.

Further reading: Technical SEO: The Ultimate Guide

Add Trust Elements

Trust elements give users the confidence to take action, whether that’s making a purchase, booking a demo, or signing up.

Add them anywhere users evaluate options or make decisions.

Including product pages, landing pages, checkout screens, pricing pages, and even comparison blog posts.

Trust elements include:

  • Star ratings or review counts
  • Customer testimonials
  • Author bios with credentials
  • Security badges or payment icons
  • User-generated content, like photos or quotes

For example, Truly Beauty shows a variety of trust elements on its product pages.

Like ratings, reviews, and customer-submitted photos.

Truly Beauty – Variety of trust elements

This creates a compelling social proof ecosystem that reduces purchase anxiety and enhances your brand perception.

Clean Up Structure and Layout

Messy layouts confuse users and slow them down.

In contrast, a clean and consistent structure makes your page easier to read, navigate, and act on.

Take a look at how formatting impacts readability on mobile:

Hard-to-skim vs. Easy-to-skim Paragraphs

Which one do you think is more readable?

Shorter paragraphs and clear spacing make content easier to scan and understand.

Here’s how to improve your site’s structure and layout:

  • Break up long paragraphs into shorter chunks
  • Use clear, descriptive headings to guide the flow
  • Keep visual design consistent: fonts, spacing, and colors
  • Make key elements like CTAs, pricing, or product features easy to spot

For example, this Truly Beauty blog post does some things well.

Including scannable headings, bullet lists, and plenty of white space.

Truly Beauty – Blog – Good practices

But they could increase the font size to make the content easier to read and skim.

Further reading: 9 Ecommerce Website Optimization Tactics [Expert Insights]

Step 6: Strengthen Your Presence Across Discovery Channels

Some of the most important search moments happen off your website.

In this step, you’ll focus on optimizing how you appear on social media sites, niche forums, and more.

Optimize Your Profiles

Your profile should instantly tell visitors who you are and why they matter to you.

So, review your bio, visuals, and links on every priority platform.

Each one should reflect your brand clearly and feel native to how people use that platform.

Truly Beauty’s Instagram bio is short and clear. But there’s room for improvement.

It doesn’t highlight what sets the brand apart, including a strong hook or call to action.

Instagram – Truly Beauty – Bio

They also don’t have pinned posts.

And their Highlight covers aren’t clear or consistent with their brand visuals.

Instagram – Truly Beauty – No pinned posts

Conversely, makeup brand Too Faced does a great job here.

Their Instagram bio is short but expressive:

Instagram – Too Faced – Bio

Their Instagram Highlights are organized by category — from new product drops to event looks.

Instagram – Too Faced – Highlights

They even include multiple links and a “Shop” button to drive action directly from the page.

Instagram – Too Faced – Shop button & links

On TikTok, Too Faced takes a different but equally strategic approach.

The brand uses playlists to categorize videos by product type.

TikTok – Too Faced – Playlists

And the pinned posts showcase high-performing videos with bold thumbnails and direct product demos.

Which is perfect for TikTok’s users, who prefer short, visual content before buying.

TikTok – Too Faced – Pinned videos

Engage with Followers

Getting questions or comments on your social media posts?

This is a great opportunity to engage with your audience and offer helpful information.

Truly Beauty engages with users in the comments.

And responds to feedback, answers questions, and shows appreciation for its customers.

Instagram – Truly Beauty – Comments engagement

This kind of interaction builds trust and shows followers there’s a real team behind the brand.

Collaborate with Trusted Voices

Want a fast way to build credibility?

Partner with the creators your audience already trusts.

Find the voices influencing those spaces — and team up.

Truly Beauty works with influencers to promote products.

Instagram – Truly Beauty – Influencers

But when it comes to creator partnerships, makeup brand Morphe takes this strategy to another level.

They regularly collaborate with beauty creators to launch products, demo looks, and drive buzz.

Like this influencer collab that got them over 2.4K likes and 60+ comments:

Instagram – Morphe Brushes – Influencer collab

Step 7: Monitor, Measure, and Optimize

You can’t optimize what you don’t track.

To improve your performance over time, you need visibility into how people discover and engage with your content, products, or services.

And what happens next.

Start by identifying which metrics you want to prioritize.

Here are some examples:

  • Google: Rankings, click-through rate (CTR), impressions
  • YouTube: Watch time, average view duration
  • TikTok: Engagement rate, profile clicks
  • Amazon: Conversion rate, product search visibility
  • Instagram: Post engagement rate, profile visits, bio link clicks
  • Reddit: Upvotes, comment volume, brand mentions
  • Your website: Goal conversion rate, bounce rate, scroll depth, time on page

Then, choose the right tools to track these metrics.

Google Analytics 4 and Google Search Console provide essential data to track your SEO performance and user experience improvements.

For instance, on GA4, you can navigate to “Reports” > “Acquisition” > “Traffic Acquisition” to view your site’s traffic sources.

GA – Traffic Acquisition report

YouTube Studio, TikTok Insights, and Instagram Insights provide platform-specific data.

Like views, watch time, and subscribers.

YouTube Studio – Analytics

Use what you learn to improve weak content and fix UX issues.

You may also want to add specialized tools for social media and website performance.

Like heat mapping, session recording, and conversion analysis.

Clarity – Microsoft – Heatmaps

Ready to Improve Every Search Touchpoint?

The search journey in 2025 isn’t linear anymore. And your strategy shouldn’t be either.

The brands that win won’t be the ones with the most blog posts.

They’ll be the ones who show up with the right content, in the right format, on the right platform — at the moment it matters.

To make that happen, you need a strategy built for how people actually search.

Use our free checklist to turn what you’ve learned into a clear, actionable strategy.

Next up: Check out our definitive guide to on-page SEO, a crucial component of any effective SEO strategy.

The post Search Everywhere Optimization Guide (+ Free Checklist) appeared first on Backlinko.

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Site Kit by Google insights in your Yoast SEO Dashboard

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Ever feel frustrated having to jump between different apps just to check your site’s SEO performance? We’ve simplified things for you. Yoast now seamlessly integrates insights from Site Kit by Google (Google Analytics and Search Console) right into your Yoast Dashboard, giving you one clear view to manage your website’s SEO effectively.

Here’s why you’ll love this:

Connect once, get instant clarity: Easily link your Yoast Dashboard and Site Kit by Google just once, avoiding multiple logins and complex workflows.

Instantly see where to focus your efforts: Efficiently recognize your best opportunities to boost visibility and rankings, allowing you to prioritize SEO tasks effectively.

Stay effortlessly informed: The Yoast Dashboard integration with Site Kit by Google connects your analytics and search data seamlessly in one place, so you can quickly see important metrics like organic traffic, impressions, clicks, and bounce rates without switching tabs.

How to connect your Site Kit by Google to the Yoast SEO Dashboard

  1. Update your Yoast plugin to the latest version.
  2. Go to your Yoast Dashboard in WordPress.
  3. Follow the steps in the Site Kit installation widget.
  4. Start reviewing insights directly in your Yoast Dashboard.

Connect Site Kit by Google to your Yoast Dashboard today and simplify your SEO workflow!

Disclaimer!

Please note that we’re rolling out this new feature in phases. This means that you might not see the Site Kit integration in your Yoast Dashboard yet. Eventually, this integration will be available to everyone, so stay tuned!

The post Site Kit by Google insights in your Yoast SEO Dashboard appeared first on Yoast.

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Yoast AI Optimize is now available for Classic Editor

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We’re excited to announce that Yoast AI Optimize is now also available when using the Classic Editor in WordPress!

You’ve finished your copy, great! But those pesky Yoast SEO Analysis lights aren’t all green and you have to make manual changes. That’s where Yoast AI Optimize comes in. With Yoast SEO Premium, you can now get AI-powered suggestions right inside your Classic Editor to help fine-tune your content.

What is Yoast AI Optimize?

Yoast AI Optimize brings smart, targeted SEO support into your writing flow. It gives AI-powered suggestions for specific assessments in the Yoast SEO analysis, such as length, structure, and keyphrase distribution.  You’ll see exactly where improvements can be made and get quick, editable suggestions to help you fix them. You can quickly apply or dismiss them; the final decision always remains yours.

Benefits:

  • Get real-time AI suggestions that help improve SEO and readability
  • Edit suggestions to match your style and tone of voice
  • Apply or dismiss suggestions easily without breaking your writing flow
  • Use it in both the Classic and Block editors with Yoast SEO Premium
  • Supports optimization for:
    • Keyphrase in introduction
    • Keyphrase distribution
    • Keyphrase density
    • Sentence length
    • Paragraph length

Whether you’re using the Classic Editor or sticking with the Block Editor, Yoast AI Optimize helps you improve your SEO score faster, without losing the personal touch.

If you’re curious to know how we built this feature, check out our developer blog post with all the behind the scenes.

Ready to optimize smarter?
Update to Yoast SEO Premium to try AI Optimize in the Classic Editor today!

The post Yoast AI Optimize is now available for Classic Editor appeared first on Yoast.

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