SEO Templates, Guides and Checklists to Streamline Your Strategy

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Key Takeaways

  • SEO templates save time by giving you repeatable frameworks for everything from keyword planning, audits, reporting, content creation, outreach, and local SEO.
  • The best templates act as starting points, not shortcuts. You’ll get the most out of them by customizing around your goals and audience, instead of copying them exactly.
  • Free tools like Ubersuggest and downloadable spreadsheets can simplify diagnostic tasks (like technical checks or backlink analysis) and tracking (such as keyword or performance reporting).
  • Content-focused templates help you plan, write, edit, and publish more consistently by turning scattered ideas into clear briefs, calendars, outlines, and checklists.
  • With search changing, templates should help you track how your brand appears in AI-generated answers as well as traditional search results.

Tired of spending tons of time building SEO spreadsheets, sorting data, and double-checking each step? I’ve put together 19 SEO templates to make your life easier. 

From tracking organic traffic to writing the perfect blog post, these resources cover every step of the SEO process. I’ve also included an AI visibility template, because ranking on Google is no longer the full story.

Each template is a starting point you can customize to fit your goals and your workflow.

1. Google Data Studio Overall Traffic Report Template

Google Data Studio lets you connect, visualize, and share your data in one place. Use it to build interactive dashboards and reports that turn raw data into decisions your team can act on.

It connects to hundreds of data sources, including:

  • Looker by Google
  • Google Analytics and Sheets
  • PayPal
  • HubSpot
  • QuickBooks
  • Salesforce
Screenshot of the Google Data Studio main interface showing the reports dashboard with data source options and chart tools.

Source: https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/data-analytics/looker-studio-is-data-studio

Learn more about using Data Studio for reporting here.

2. All-In-One Google Search Console Template

Analyze keywords and page views with Data Studio’s All-in-One Search Console template. It gives you a full traffic overview: brand vs. generic keywords, page rankings, keyword analysis, and total performance over time.

Data Studio's Organic Overview dashboard showing organic traffic metrics for performance over time, keyword rankings, device performance, and country performance

Within each category, you can sort by date and dig deeper to compare improved and declining keywords, analyse short-tail vs long-tail query performance, and filter results by device or country. Then share the data with your team and other collaborators. 

You’ll need to complete the setup of Google Data Studio before you can add in your site’s data.

3. NP Digital SEO Audit Guide

A screenshot from NP Digital showing insights from the blog post entitled 'How to Do an SEO Audit: A Step-by-Step Website Audit Guide'.

My detailed website audit guide walks you through:

  • Tightening your titles and descriptions, since Google often rewrites meta descriptions
  • Stopping keyword cannibalization and duplicating content by consolidating pages
  • Filling content gaps your competitors are winning
  • Cleaning up your structured data and schema so AI Overviews can cite you
  • Building experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) with credentialed authors and original data.

By the time you’ve finished reading, you’ll have a clear picture of your site’s technical health and how to fix it.

4. Ubersuggest Backlink Checker

bersuggest's free Backlink Checker where you can enter any domain URL, instantly see all backlinks, filter by domain authority and anchor text, and identify toxic or broken links to disavow.

Use Ubersuggest’s free backlink checker to:

  • Enter any domain URL
  • Instantly see every backlink pointing to that site
  • Filter by domain authority and anchor text
  • Identify toxic or broken links to disavow. 
  • Export the results into an SEO spreadsheet to track changes

The Backlink Overview tracks backlinks and referring domains over time, so you can see how authority builds, spot sudden growth or losses, and check whether new links come from diverse sources. Use it for your domain or a competitor’s to benchmark link-building opportunities and strengthen your SEO strategy.

5. Canva’s Landing Page Templates

Building a landing page from scratch takes time, but Canva’s landing page templates let you skip that step. Each template has pre-built elements you can easily customize with the platform’s drag-and-drop features. 

You can choose paid options, but Canva also has plenty of free templates. Swap in your brand colours, drop in your copy, and you’re ready to capture leads with an optimized landing page. 

Canva’s landing page templates have all the key elements such as:

  • A landing page headline (also called your Hero Copy)
  • Detailed features and benefits of your product or offer
  • High-quality images and video
  • Reviews and testimonials
  • Calls to action

Here are some examples:

Canva's landing page templates page, displaying a grid of professionally designed, customizable landing page templates for websites, including options for businesses, portfolios, and product launches.

6. Ubersuggest Keyword Planner Spreadsheet

Need a simple way to keep your keyword planning organized? Grab my SEO keyword plan template to list every keyword you’re targeting in one place.

Neil Patel's Ubersuggest keyword planner worksheet. A free download.

My SEO Excel template lets you track search volume, keyword difficulty, and more. 

Use the findings to discover new keyword targets and sharpen your keyword strategy.

Then team it with Ubersuggest to find high-value keywords.

7. SEO + AI Site Audit Tool

NP Digital's free SEO + AI Visibility Audit tool, which checks metadata, technical health, Core Web Vitals, and AI visibility in a single pass with no setup required. 

Enter a URL and my free SEO and AI visibility tool audits:

  • Broken links
  • Core Web Vitals
  • Highest-performing keywords
  • Site speed and more

I’ve also included an AI visibility feature. Here’s why:

AI search is rapidly becoming one of the primary ways customers discover brands. 

My AI Visibility Insights tool shows exactly how your brand appears across major AI platforms. By tracking brand mentions, competitive share of voice, and sentiment across thousands of AI-generated responses; you’ll see how LLMs recommend you and how visibility changes over time.

8. Content Creation Template

More traffic starts with better content. My SEO content template gives you four ready-to-fill content structures for:

  • Thought leadership pieces
  • Audio and video content
  • Interview articles
  • Media posts
  • Case studies
  • How-to guides

Each one is broken into optimized, step-by-step sections you complete as you go, so you don’t waste time figuring out what belongs where.

The formats mix and match too. For example, an in-depth long-form guide might follow the thought leadership template overall, but you could pull in individual sections built around the how-to or case study templates. 

An SEO content template by Neil Patel from SEO Unlocked, his free SEO training course.

9. Content Editing Checklist

If you struggle with self-editing content, here are my content editing SEO worksheets. They introduce the STEPS process to tighten your writing. Run through this 5-step checklist every time you edit a piece to save time and streamline the editing process.

Each step has its own worksheet: 

  • Simplify: Replace complex words
  • Trim: Always write for brevity
  • Evaluate: Match content to your readers’ pain points
  • Polish: Tighten structure and improve flow and formatting.
  • SEO check: Run a final SEO check
A content editing checklist by Neil Patel from SEO Unlocked, his free SEO training course.

My SEO planning template lets you map out your content delivery and schedule content.

10. Editorial Calendar Spreadsheet

An Editorial Calendar Spreadsheet by Neil Patel from SEO Unlocked, from his free SEO training course.

You get columns for date, topic, author, editor, type of content, calls to action, and more.

Use it to plan:

  • Regular blog posts
  • Company announcements
  • Block out holiday content
  • Schedule guest post go-live dates

Once you’ve filled in your calendar, it’s much easier to spot publishing gaps and seasonal opportunities weeks ahead, giving you time to create content instead of chasing trends and missing the moment. 

11. Free Blog Post Templates

Tired of writer’s block? Get your creative juices flowing with this SEO template bundle from HubSpot. 

HubSpot's landing page for free SEO blog post templates 

It includes outlines for six formats: 

  • How-to guides
  • Listicles
  • Comparisons
  • Pillar posts
  • Newsjacking pieces
  • Infographics

Each template comes with tips for writing titles, introductions, and headings, so you’re not starting with a blank page.

Still stuck? Try using some AI tools for SEO and content creation to help you write that first draft.

12. Link Building Search Operators

You need link building for SEO, but where do you start? Search operators are special commands you type into Google to narrow down results, which can help you find pages that might not surface with a normal search.

With the right search string, you can find resources in minutes instead of hours. For link builders, this can be a handy shortcut when you’re prospecting for opportunities. 

My Link Building SEO worksheet gives you the exact operators and query formulas to use so you can start finding link prospects much faster. 

A link-building search operators spreadsheet by Neil Patel from his free SEO training 

For example, use “Keyword + Intitle: contact me” to find the contact information for people writing about your core keywords.

You can also combine operators to find resource pages and broken links worth reclaiming. 

13. Link Building Email Outreach Templates

Reaching out for links often feels awkward, but these HubSpot templates fix that. Among these nine link-building templates, you’ll find:

  • A preview pitch
  • A did-you-know pitch
  • A social proof pitch
  • The joke pitch (be careful with this one)
  • The exclusive offer
  • The personalized pitch
  • The mention
  • The response
  • The preview

The page also breaks down best practices for using them before you hit “send.” Here’s an example:

An inbound link SEO email template.

14. Email Outreach Templates

These 17 email templates cover advertorial, PR, and guest blogging outreach. They’ll give you the confidence you need to begin or maximize your outreach campaign and start building valuable backlinks. 

  • Other templates include:
  • Guest blogging 
  • Getting on a podcast
  • Influencer outreach
  • Networking
A free, downloadable email outreach template by Neil Patel.

However, don’t just copy and paste them. These work best with some personalization. For example, include the recipient’s name and reference something specific they’ve published. Let them know why you chose them and not someone else. 

That extra homework can be the difference between a reply and your outreach landing in the trash folder.

15. Improve Organic CTR with Google Search Console

Google Search Console’s (GSC) Performance report is an easy way to see which high-impression pages underperform in clicks. This is the data you need to improve your organic CTR.

You won’t need to trawl through Screaming Frog or manually merge data, as everything is now built into GSC with no setup required. Here’s how to find your low-CTR opportunities in under a minute:

  1. Open the Performance report in Google Search Console
  2. Filter by Page
  3. Sort by Impressions
  4. Add Click through rates (CTR) and averages as a columns

Now you can instantly see which pages get plenty of views but fail to earn clicks. Small tweaks like title tag and meta description rewrites can often deliver the fastest CTR wins. 

Now you can instantly see which pages get plenty of views but fail to earn clicks. The next step is knowing what to do with that list. Work through it using this four-step framework:

  1. Benchmark against position: A weak CTR at position 2 is a clear underperformer because users click heavily on the top results. 
  2. Prioritise by impact: Start with pages that have high impressions and a below-par CTR for their position.
  3. Diagnose the cause: Click into each priority page and check its queries. Does your title tag match what people are searching for? Is the title or meta description truncated? Is a featured snippet or another SERP feature pushing your result down?
  4. Fix and track: Rewrite the title tag and meta description to match search intent and make the benefit clear. Then use GSC’s date comparison to check the result after a few weeks, 

For a more in-depth walkthrough, here’s a helpful video from Google covering the GSC Performance report overview and basic setup:

Still from a video by Google explaining how to analyze performance on Google Search Console with the Performance report.

Source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7576553?hl=en

16. Local SEO Guide

Local SEO still matters. It helps small businesses outperform bigger brands and reach people actively searching. 

If you need some direction, check out my local SEO guide. In it, I write about:

  • Finding local keywords: Use Ubersuggest for keyword research to find the phrases customers are searching for. For example, ‘building contractor near me’
  • Optimizing content for local intent: Add your keywords to pages, headings, meta, and service descriptions.
  • Claiming your Google Business Profile: Add categories, services, photos, business descriptions, and local keywords. Keep your profile updated with posts and reviews.
  • Using paid ads to drive traffic and more: Run targeted local ads for your top-performing keywords. Even small budgets can outperform bigger brands locally. 
  • Update your local SEO regularly: Publish fresh content and review your keyword performance.

Nail these fundamentals, and it will go a long way to helping you capture the high-intent local customers your competitors might miss.

17. SEO Strategy Starter Pack

Don’t let SEO be a guessing game. HubSpot’s SEO starter pack is packed full of guides and templates to get you on the right track.

A free download for an SEO Starter Pack resource from HubSpot.

Here’s what’s inside:

  • Templates that help you optimize faster
  • An eBook to grow your traffic
  • Eight ways to build an AI-proof SEO strategy
  • 20 ChatGPT prompts for your SEO

This free resource covers strategy, keywords, and on-page SEO, giving you a starting point for your SEO strategy. 

18. Search Insights Report Template

Try HubSpot’s Search template for all your SEO data in a single view so you can see which Topics your audience is searching for and where your content gaps are.

A free download for a Search Insights Report Template from HubSpot.

You can also break content down by type (pillar pages, blog posts). Then you can see which formats are gaining momentum and which are losing traffic. 

 Because everything sits in one report, it’s simple to share with your team and show what’s working.

19. Ubersuggest’s AI Visibility Tracker

As I said in the intro, ranking on Google isn’t the whole game anymore. People are asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini for recommendations, and the answers are guiding buying decisions. That’s why I added AI Visibility Tracking to Ubersuggest.

Type in a keyword or brand and you’ll get numbers on:

  • Search volume
  • AI prompt ideas and keywords
  • Prompts intent
  • Clicks behavior
Ubersuggest's free AI Visibility Tracker that shows how often you get mentioned in AI-generated answers vs. your competitors, along with your industry rank and top prompts. 

This AI Visibility Tracking tool is the natural companion to Ubersuggest’s keyword planning and site audits I mentioned earlier. Keyword research tells you what people search for, the site audits ensure your pages are technically sound, and this tool shows you the queries triggering AI answers, all in one place.

FAQs

How do SEO templates speed up content production?

SEO templates give you a framework. Instead of staring at a blank page or reinventing your audit process each time, you have a proven structure. Using them as a checklist also means nothing slips through. 

What fields should an SEO template include?

As a minimum, you should include a primary keyword with volume and difficulty data, secondary keywords, a title tag, meta description, heading outline, target word count, internal and external links, tone and audience definition, useful AI prompts, and a CTA with a conversion goal. 

How can I adapt SEO templates for different content types?  

Treat SEO templates as flexible starting points and customize from there to suit your business and goals. For example, if you’re an e-commerce business, you might adapt an SEO template by adding a Schema Type to ensure Product schema applies to every page.

What are common mistakes when using SEO templates?

Treating templates as the strategy instead of a starting point. For example, sending link-building templates verbatim with zero personalization, skimming past the research, or leaning on a checklist as a process, rather than a final pass before publishing.

Conclusion

Whether you are just getting started in SEO or are a professional looking to wow your clients or boss, you’ll find loads of handy SEO templates online to guide you. To make it easier, I’ve narrowed it down to the essentials.

Among these 19 templates, you’ll find accessible resources for keyword research, content creation, backlinks, local SEO, and AI visibility, giving you everything you need for a successful digital marketing strategy.

I hope these spreadsheets and templates make your workday more productive and help take your SEO strategy to the next level.

If you need some extra help, set up a call and let’s see how we can help you win at SEO.

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Why AI Makes Content Ecosystems Essential

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Key Takeaways

  • AI is shifting marketing from campaign-based execution toward continuous growth and optimization.
  • Producing more content with AI does not automatically create better marketing results. Teams need content systems that connect strategy, creation, distribution, and measurement.
  • Human expertise, original insights, and audience understanding remain important differentiators as AI makes content production more scalable.
  • AI-enabled workflows can help content teams produce and improve content more efficiently when they are built around a clear strategy.
  • AI search and changing discovery behaviors make structured, adaptable, and trustworthy content more important for long-term visibility.
  • The competitive advantage will come from building repeatable content operations that continuously learn from performance and audience behavior.

AI is changing more than how quickly marketers can create content. It is changing how marketing teams operate.

McKinsey’s latest research argues that AI is moving organizations away from campaign-based marketing and toward continuous growth, supported by capabilities such as hyperpersonalization, scaled creativity, and AI-native discoverability. That shift has important implications for content teams, particularly as AI changes how audiences discover and evaluate information.

The opportunity isn’t simply to produce more content with AI. Brands need systems that connect audience insights, human expertise, content creation, distribution, and performance measurement. The teams that build these processes can continuously improve their content while adapting to changing audience behavior and search environments.

AI Is Changing How Marketing Operates

McKinsey’s research points to a broader change in marketing: AI is moving teams away from isolated campaigns and toward a continuously improving growth engine.

The report identifies five capabilities that will shape AI-first marketing: continuous insights, scaled creativity, hyperpersonalization, marketing to AI agents, and always-on orchestration. The common thread is that these capabilities work together rather than operating as separate AI experiments.

A graphic explaining 5 AI capabilities that are evolving to support marketing.

Source

Campaigns Are Becoming Continuous Systems

Traditional campaigns are usually planned around a defined launch, run for a set period, and evaluated afterward.

AI makes it possible to shorten that cycle. Teams can monitor audience signals, identify changes in behavior, adapt content, and use performance data to inform what happens next.

McKinsey argues that the campaign-era marketing model is becoming less effective as customer behavior changes. Its research found that while many organizations are experimenting with AI, fewer than 10% have scaled it or captured value across marketing workflows.

The challenge isn’t simply adopting AI. It is redesigning the process around it.

AI Is Increasing the Need for Better Content Operations

AI can dramatically increase how much content a team can produce. Without the right processes, that can create another problem: more assets to manage without a clear connection between strategy, quality, distribution, and performance.

This is why content operations are becoming increasingly important.

Teams need repeatable processes for deciding what to create, establishing quality standards, adapting content for different channels, and measuring what happens afterward. AI can accelerate many of these steps, but the system connecting them still needs to be deliberately designed.

Why More Content Isn’t the Answer

One of the easiest ways to use AI is to treat it as a production tool. Give it a topic, generate an asset, publish it, and move on. Many businesses are following this strategy, but it can serve as a trap if not executed well.

A graphic showing how AI written content is becoming more popular.

Source

That approach can create short-term efficiency, but it doesn’t necessarily create better marketing.

McKinsey’s research makes a similar distinction. Its scaled creativity capability is about producing tailored content at greater speed while maintaining brand consistency, using performance data to continuously improve what gets created.

Output Without Strategy Creates More Noise

AI can help marketers generate more ideas and variations in less time. It cannot determine which ideas are strategically important to a particular business without the right inputs.

That requires understanding the audience, the brand, the market, and the business objective behind the content.

For brands, this means the goal shouldn’t be maximizing the number of articles, videos, social posts, or other assets produced. The goal should be creating content that answers real questions, demonstrates expertise, and contributes to a measurable business outcome.

Content Needs to Learn From Performance

A strong content system creates a feedback loop.

Audience behavior and performance data should influence what gets created next. If certain topics consistently attract qualified visitors, for example, those insights can inform future content. If a format performs poorly, teams can adjust rather than continuing to produce the same type of asset.

This turns content into an ongoing process of learning and optimization instead of a series of disconnected campaigns.

What an AI-Powered Content System Looks Like

A useful AI content strategy doesn’t begin with a list of AI tools. It begins with the workflow those tools are supposed to improve.

Start With Human Expertise and Original Insights

The foundation of a strong content system should be information that a brand can genuinely own.

That could include subject matter expertise, proprietary research, customer experiences, first-party data, or insights from people working directly in the industry. In-house studies like the example below are a good starting point:

A graphic showing where marketers encounter AI errors most often.
A graphic that covers tasks where marketers commonly encounter AI errors.

Source

AI can help organize, adapt, and distribute that knowledge. Human experts still need to determine what is valuable, accurate, and worth sharing.

This is especially important as AI search makes original information and credible expertise increasingly valuable.

Build Repeatable AI-Enabled Workflows

AI can support multiple stages of content production, from research and ideation to drafting, adaptation, optimization, and analysis.

The important part is connecting those activities into a repeatable workflow.

For example, a team could establish a process where audience research informs content briefs, subject matter experts provide original insights, AI assists with production, editors review the final material, and performance data feeds into the next round of planning.

The specific tools can change. The workflow remains.

Connect Creation With Measurement

Measurement should be part of the content system rather than something that happens after publication.

Teams should understand which content attracts the right audiences, which topics generate engagement, and which assets contribute to business outcomes. That information can then inform future production.

McKinsey similarly emphasizes building feedback loops and tracking value rather than simply measuring AI activity.

AI Search Makes Content Systems Even More Important

The rise of AI search adds another layer to this shift.

McKinsey identifies marketing to AI agents as one of its five core capabilities. This means creating information that AI systems can interpret, trust, and use when recommending products or services. The report specifically points to machine-readable credibility signals, detailed product information, verified reviews, expert input, and consistently updated information.

That has direct implications for content teams.

Content needs to be structured clearly enough for both people and machines to understand. It also needs to demonstrate why the information is trustworthy.

That means brands increasingly need content that is:

  • Easy to understand and extract
  • Supported by credible expertise and original information
  • Adaptable across search, AI, social, and owned channels

The result is a broader definition of content strategy. Content isn’t only being created to rank on a search results page. It is becoming part of the information systems through which audiences discover and evaluate brands.

The Competitive Advantage Is the System

The advantage won’t come from simply having access to AI. As these tools become more common, access itself becomes less differentiating.

The advantage comes from knowing how to use AI within a system that combines technology with human judgment.

Using AI as a pure scaling play for content means short-term gains at best. Building smarter systems that make every piece work harder over time is key, with human experience at every step of the process.

That human component remains important because AI doesn’t replace the need for strategy, subject matter expertise, editorial judgment, or accountability.

The strongest teams will use AI to remove repetitive work and increase their capacity while giving experts more time to focus on decisions that require experience and judgment.

How Brands Can Start Building Better Content Systems

Building a sophisticated AI-powered marketing operation doesn’t have to happen all at once.

Audit Your Existing Content Workflow

Start by mapping how content moves from idea to publication and measurement.

Look for repetitive tasks, unnecessary handoffs, production bottlenecks, and areas where teams are creating content without a clear understanding of what happened to previous assets.

This provides a starting point for deciding where AI can actually improve the process.

Identify Where AI Can Add Value

Prioritize workflows where AI can improve speed, efficiency, or analysis without removing necessary human oversight.

Research, content adaptation, formatting, performance analysis, and repetitive production tasks can all be potential starting points.

The goal should be measurable improvement rather than AI adoption for its own sake.

Create a Continuous Optimization Loop

Once AI is incorporated into the workflow, connect the resulting output back to performance data.

The process should look less like:

Plan → Create → Publish → End

and more like:

Learn → Create → Measure → Improve → Learn again

That loop allows content to become more useful over time while helping teams adapt to changing audience behavior and search environments.

AI Is Turning Content Into an Operating System

AI is making content production faster, but production speed is only one part of the change.

The bigger opportunity is building a marketing system that can continuously learn, create, distribute, and improve.

McKinsey’s five capability pillars point toward this model. Continuous insights inform decisions. Scaled creativity increases production capacity. Personalization adapts experiences. Marketing to AI agents expands discoverability. Always-on orchestration connects those capabilities into an ongoing system.

For content teams, that means moving beyond isolated campaigns and individual AI tools.

The brands best positioned for this shift will be those that connect original expertise with AI-enabled workflows and performance measurement.

FAQs

What is an AI content strategy?

An AI content strategy uses AI within a broader content operation to improve research, production, optimization, personalization, and measurement. It still relies on human expertise and oversight to establish strategy, quality, accuracy, and brand standards.

Why do marketers need content systems?<

AI can significantly increase the speed and volume of content production. Content systems give teams the processes needed to manage that output, maintain quality, connect content to business goals, and continuously improve based on performance.

Does AI replace content teams?

Not necessarily. McKinsey’s framework emphasizes a human-AI operating model in which AI supports workflows while people continue to provide judgment, creativity, expertise, and quality control.

How does AI search affect content strategy?

AI search increases the importance of content that is clear, trustworthy, structured, and supported by credible information. Brands need to consider how their content can be interpreted and used by both human audiences and AI systems.

Conclusion

AI is changing the role of content teams. The opportunity is no longer limited to producing more assets in less time. It is about building systems that make content creation, distribution, and optimization work together.

A strong AI content strategy combines human expertise with AI-enabled workflows, original information, and continuous performance measurement. Instead of treating every article, campaign, or asset as a standalone project, brands can create processes that learn from each cycle and improve what comes next.

That shift will become increasingly important as AI changes both how marketing teams work and how audiences discover information.

If you want to build a scalable content system that combines AI-enabled workflows with human expertise, reach out to the NP Digital team to learn how a smarter content strategy can support long-term growth.

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How Websites Are Becoming a Key Trust Signal for Consumers

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Key Takeaways

  • Websites remain an important way for consumers to verify that a business is legitimate.
  • Wix’s State of Websites report found that search still accounts for 42% of website traffic.
  • Sites with structured data that passes Google’s rich-results inspection earn 2x more revenue and 9x more traffic than sites without it.
  • Blogs and reviews can strengthen a brand’s authority and contribute to business growth.
  • As AI changes discovery, a credible website can give consumers and AI systems a reliable source of information about a brand.

AI has made it easier than ever to create a website, generate content, and put a brand online. That speed comes with a new challenge: consumers have more reason to question what they see.

A convincing business can appear online almost overnight. For customers, a website therefore has an important job beyond selling products or services. It can help establish that a business is real.

Wix’s first State of Websites report, based on data from more than 300 million users, examines how websites are being built, discovered, and used in the age of AI. The report found that websites remain central to business growth, even as discovery expands across AI platforms and other channels.

For marketers, the takeaway is straightforward. Website credibility still matters. The challenge is making sure a website provides the information, content, and technical signals that support trust with both people and machines.

Why Websites Still Matter in the Age of AI

AI search is changing how people find information, but it hasn’t eliminated the need for a destination where customers can verify what they’ve learned.

A graphic showing statistics about the value of websites even in the age of AI.

Source

Websites Help Consumers Verify a Business

Wix’s research describes a growing tension around AI and website creation. Building a site is becoming faster, but customers still need confidence that a business is legitimate.

A consumer might discover a company through an AI recommendation, social platform, or traditional search result. Before making a purchase or contacting the business, they may visit its website to confirm that the company exists and learn more about what it offers.

That makes a website part of the validation process.

A professional domain, clear business information, useful content, customer reviews, and evidence of expertise can all contribute to website trust. These signals help answer a basic question that becomes increasingly important as AI-generated information becomes easier to produce: Is this business real?

AI Search Is Changing Discovery, Not Replacing Websites

The Wix report found that AI platforms are increasingly interacting with websites. Its data shows that LLMs still account for less than 1% of website traffic, although traffic from LLMs grew fourfold between 2024 and 2025.

Traditional search remains much more significant. Search accounts for 42% of traffic to Wix sites, compared with 40% from direct traffic and 13% from social.

This puts the current state of discovery into perspective. AI search is growing quickly, but traditional search continues to be a major source of website visits.

For brands, that means the website still needs to serve both audiences: people arriving directly or through search and AI systems looking for information to use in their responses.

What the Wix Data Says About Website Trust

The report highlights several website characteristics associated with stronger business performance.

Information about structured website data and its impact on LLM visibility.

Source

Structured Data Can Support Visibility

One of the clearest findings concerns structured data.

Wix found that sites with structured data markup that passed Google’s rich-results inspection earned 2x more revenue and received 9x more traffic than sites without it.

This is a correlation in Wix’s dataset, not evidence that adding structured data directly causes those outcomes. Still, the finding reinforces the importance of making website information easier for search engines and AI systems to understand.

Structured data gives machines additional context about the information presented on a page. As search experiences become more sophisticated, that machine-readable layer can help make important information easier to interpret.

For brands investing in AI visibility, technical foundations such as structured data should therefore remain part of the conversation.

Blogs Continue to Build Authority

The report also found that content remains closely connected to website performance.

Sites with blog content were 5x more likely to generate ecommerce sales and 5x more likely to secure bookings. Sites with 50 or more blog posts received 7x more monthly sessions than sites without a blog, with organic search serving as the primary traffic source.

These findings reinforce why useful content remains valuable even as the search environment changes.

A blog gives a brand space to answer customer questions, demonstrate expertise, publish original insights, and build topical authority. Over time, that content can also give search engines and AI systems more information to understand and reference.

Reviews Add Another Layer of Trust

Reviews provide another signal of credibility.

Wix found that sites with 50 or more reviews earned 40x more median revenue and received 24x more traffic than sites with fewer than 50 reviews. The report also found a substantial increase in ecommerce success rates among sites with even one to five reviews.

Reviews aren’t simply a conversion tool. They provide evidence that real customers have interacted with a business.

Combined with useful content and a professional website, customer feedback can help reinforce the legitimacy that consumers are looking for when evaluating a brand.

A graphic showing how online reviews signal trust and the impact.

Source

What This Means for SEO and AI Visibility

The findings suggest that marketers shouldn’t treat website development, SEO, and brand credibility as completely separate priorities.

Build Content That Proves Expertise

A website should give visitors a reason to believe that a business understands its industry.

That can include educational articles, original research, customer stories, product information, reviews, and other content that demonstrates genuine experience.

This content also creates more opportunities for a brand to appear in search. Wix found that organic search remains the largest source of website traffic across its dataset, accounting for 42% of traffic.

Make Your Website Understandable to Machines

A website now needs to communicate with more than human visitors.

Search engines crawl its pages, while AI systems and agents increasingly access website information when answering questions or helping users make decisions. Wix reports that AI platforms ping nearly 700,000 Wix sites each month, generating 2.2 million sessions in March 2026.

That makes machine readability an increasingly relevant consideration.

Marketers should review structured data, page organization, metadata, and other technical elements that help systems understand what a website contains.

How Brands Can Strengthen Their Website Credibility

The report points toward several practical areas marketers can address.

Audit Your Trust Signals

Review the information a new customer would encounter when visiting your website for the first time.

Is it immediately clear who the company is, what it offers, and how customers can contact it? Are reviews, credentials, case studies, and other evidence of expertise easy to find?

These details contribute to the overall experience of evaluating a business online.

Strengthen Your Content Foundation

Look for gaps in the content that customers and search engines need.

Develop useful resources around important questions, publish original insights where possible, and make sure commercial pages provide enough context to support purchase decisions.

Wix’s data suggests that blogs can be strongly associated with traffic and business outcomes, particularly when sites build a substantial library of useful content.

Review Your Technical Foundations

Technical SEO should continue alongside content development.

Review structured data implementation, indexing, page structure, and other elements that help search engines and AI systems interpret your site. NP Digital is also exploring newer approaches to machine readability, including reviewing LLMs.txt where appropriate and identifying opportunities to make valuable content easier for AI systems to access.

The objective isn’t to optimize a website for machines at the expense of people. It is to make the same useful information accessible to both.

A Strong Website Still Proves a Brand Is Real

The rise of AI doesn’t make a website less important. In some ways, it raises the stakes.

When anyone can create a convincing business presence quickly, a website backed by real content, customer experiences, reviews, and clear business information can provide an important layer of credibility.

The Wix data reinforces that websites continue to generate meaningful traffic and business results. Search still drives 42% of website traffic, blogs are associated with stronger business performance, and sites with validated structured data show substantially higher traffic and revenue in the report’s dataset.

We’ve always built content for trust and authority and that’s exactly what AI rewards now. In a world where anyone can look like a business overnight, a website built on real content and reviews is what proves you actually are one.

The role of the website is evolving, but its fundamental purpose remains. It gives customers a place to learn, verify, and decide.

FAQs

Why is website credibility important?

Website credibility helps customers determine whether a business is legitimate and trustworthy. Clear business information, useful content, customer reviews, and evidence of expertise can all contribute to that trust.

Does AI search make websites less important?

Not necessarily. AI is changing how people discover businesses, but websites remain an important destination for validation and further research. Wix’s data found that search still accounts for 42% of website traffic across its dataset.

How does structured data help a website?

Structured data gives search engines and other systems additional information about the content on a page. Wix found that sites with structured data markup that passed Google’s rich-results inspection earned 2x more revenue and received 9x more traffic than sites without it.

Should brands still invest in blog content?

Yes. Wix found that sites with blog content were 5x more likely to generate eCommerce sales and 5x more likely to secure bookings. Sites with 50 or more posts also received 7x more monthly sessions than sites without a blog.

Conclusion

AI is changing how consumers discover businesses, but it hasn’t removed the need for a credible web presence.

Websites continue to serve as a place where customers can verify a business, research its offerings, read reviews, and decide whether they can trust it. At the same time, the information on those sites increasingly needs to be understandable to search engines and AI systems.

For brands, that means investing in website credibility remains valuable. Strong content, customer reviews, technical foundations, and structured data can help create a site that supports both human decision-making and the evolving requirements of AI search.

If you want to strengthen your website’s trust signals and prepare your organic strategy for the evolving search landscape, reach out to the NP Digital team to learn how content, technical SEO, and AI visibility can work together.

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Yoast SEO 28.7: more Abilities updates and our yearly code cleanup

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This release is for developers and anyone who builds on Yoast SEO. It brings two changes: you can now use your AI tool to update titles, meta descriptions, and social previews with Yoast SEO Abilities. In addition, we’ve done our yearly cleanup of deprecated code. If you maintain a theme or plugin that hooks into Yoast SEO, read the cleanup section before you update.

Update titles and descriptions from your AI tool

Since April, Yoast SEO Abilities have let you use your AI tool to check your SEO, readability, and inclusive language scores. In September, you could also read a post’s SEO data and correct its technical settings without opening wp-admin. Now you can update the titles and descriptions people see in search results and social feeds too.

The yoast-seo/update-post-seo-data ability now supports six more fields:

  • SEO title
  • Meta description
  • Open Graph title and description (what platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn show when someone shares your post)
  • X title and description

For example, say you’ve renamed a product, and its title and social previews still show the old name. You can use your AI tool to read the post’s SEO data, review what’s out of date, and update it in the same conversation.

Everything else works as before. Your focus keyphrase stays read-only, so you always set it yourself. In addition, access still follows native WordPress capability checks.

Already using Abilities? The new fields are ready once you update. New to it? The developer documentation covers how to connect your LLM and the WordPress MCP Adapter, plus the full ability list and schemas.

Yearly cleanup of deprecated code

We’ve removed code we deprecated in Yoast SEO 26.1 or earlier. If your site, theme, or plugin still uses any of it, you’ll have been seeing deprecation notices for at least a year. As a result, most sites won’t notice a thing. However, these changes are the most likely to affect you:

  • We’ve removed the WPSEO_Frontend class, which we deprecated in Yoast SEO 14.0 (April 2020).
  • We’ve removed the wpseo_opengraph and wpseo_twitter actions. Use wpseo_frontend_presenters instead. You’ll still get a warning if your code hooks into them.
  • The wpseo_robots_array filter must now return an array. Returning anything else causes a fatal error.
  • We’ve deprecated the $where and $format arguments of WPSEO_Database_Proxy::upsert(). That means we’ll remove them in next year’s cleanup.

You can find the full list of removals here.

The post Yoast SEO 28.7: more Abilities updates and our yearly code cleanup appeared first on Yoast.

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Ubersuggest & AnswerThePublic: Up Your SEO Game

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Key Takeaways

  • AnswerThePublic now functions as a content creation platform. It reads your URL, builds a Business Summary, and turns real audience questions into 50 ranked content ideas.
  • Suggested For You tells you what to write next, and Keyword Coverage tags every keyword you already rank for by source (sitemap, competitor, manual/planned, or AI suggestion) so you know where you stand today.
  • Content Studio drafts a full article in your brand voice, and one click publishes it straight to WordPress or shares it across your connected social accounts.
  • Ubersuggest’s AI Prompt Ideas tool surfaces the prompts people run for your keyword, which brands get mentioned, and which sources get cited inside those AI answers.
  • Ubersuggest’s AI Search Visibility report tracks how often your brand shows up in AI-generated answers over time, compares that to competitors, and flags whether the mentions read positive, neutral, or negative.

Search listening still gets you ahead in the SEO game. It just means something bigger now.

Hear me out.

Google averages 3.5 billion searches a day. About 20% of those have never been typed before.

Every search is a window into what someone actually thinks, wants, or worries about. And now, that window matters more than ever, since a huge share of those searches never end in a click. They end in an AI-generated answer. So, if your content isn’t built to be cited inside that answer, it doesn’t matter how good it is.

Google’s exactly where people still go when someone tells them to “just Google it.” But increasingly, they’re also asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini the same questions.

By listening to what people are actually asking, across all of it, AnswerThePublic turns real search behavior into a content plan. Not a keyword list. A plan.

Pair it with Ubersuggest, and you’ve got the two halves of a real SEO strategy: what to write, and whether it’s working.

What is AnswerThePublic?

AnswerThePublic used to be a keyword ideation tool. Type in a word, get a wheel of related questions.

It’s grown into something bigger: a content intelligence and creation platform. You still start from real audience questions, but now the tool takes you all the way from “what should I write?” to a published article, in one place.

Say you run an ecommerce store selling earbuds and headphones. You could guess what your customers want to know. Or you could paste your site’s URL into AnswerThePublic and let it tell you, based on what real people are actually searching.

How to Use AnswerThePublic: An Example

Let’s head to AnswerThePublic.

Step 1: Enter your URL.

The AnswerThePublic Homepage.

Instead of starting with a keyword, you start with your website. AnswerThePublic reads your site and builds a Business Summary in seconds: what you sell, who you sell to, and the topics you should own.

If you’d rather start with a specific topic, you can do that too. But the URL-first approach means the tool already knows your business before it gives you a single idea.

A business summary generated by entering a business URL in AnswerThePublic.

Step 2: Open Suggested For You.

In the past, this is where the wheel lived, full stop. Now you get the wheel plus something new: 50 AI-suggested content ideas, ranked by opportunity for your specific business, with a badge showing how likely that keyword is to rank well based on competition and content gaps.

AnswerThePublic's AI-suggested content ideas for a term, ranked by opportunity.

The wheel is still right there if you want the full, unfiltered spread of Questions, Prepositions, Comparisons, Alphabetical, and Related terms. The 50 ranked ideas just mean you don’t have to sort through it by hand before you know where to start.

AnswerThePublic's traditional wheel results patter, with a spread of questions, prepositions, comparisons, alphabetical, and related terms.

You won’t use all 50 ideas, and you won’t need every branch of the wheel either. Focus on what you and your team can actually execute well, and save the rest for later.

Step 3: Check Keyword Coverage.

Right below Suggested For You in the project menu, there’s a section called Keyword Coverage. This one isn’t about new topics, it’s an audit of what your site already ranks for and where you’re exposed.

AnswerThePublic's Keyword Coverage functionality.

Every keyword in there is tagged by where it came from. Sitemap means it’s a keyword you’re already ranking for in live Google results. Competitor means a rival ranks for it on page one and you don’t, yet. Manual/Planned means you added it yourself. AI suggestions means AnswerThePublic surfaced it on its own.

That’s the difference between the two sections: Suggested For You tells you what to write next. Keyword Coverage tells you where you stand right now, and who’s ahead of you on keywords you haven’t claimed.

From either screen, Suggested For You or Keyword Coverage, you can pick a topic and hit Generate Content right there. No detour required if you already know what you want written.

Step 4: Or Build it Out in Content Plan.

If you’re planning further ahead than one article, Content Plan is where that happens. It’s a calendar view, laid out by month, where you set a cadence (1 Articles/Day, for example) and schedule what gets written and when.

The Add Keywords functionality in AnswerThePublic's Content Plan section.

Click Add Keywords, and you’ve got two options: type in the keywords yourself, separated by commas, or click Get AI Suggestions and let AnswerThePublic pick them for you. Arrange Keywords lets you reorder what’s queued, and Keywords History keeps a record of everything you’ve already used.

So there are really two ways to work: generate one article at a time straight from Suggested For You or Keyword Coverage, or batch it out on a calendar in Content Plan and let it run on a schedule.

Step 5: Hit Generate in Content Studio.

Whichever path got you here, Content Studio is where the draft actually gets written. Pick a title, shape the outline, and let it do the heavy lifting. 

It researches the pages already ranking for that topic and writes a draft in your brand voice, not a generic one.

The drafted result of generated content by AnswerThePublic's Content Stuido.

Step 6: Refine, Plan, and Publish.

Edit the draft until it sounds like you, then publish straight to your site. One-click WordPress publishing is built in.

AnswerThePublic's Article Editor functionality.

Hit Share button and push it straight to Instagram, X, LinkedIn, or Facebook. You connect those accounts once under Settings > Social Integrations, and after that it’s one click from a draft or a published article straight to your social feeds.

No separate writing tool. No manual copy-paste into your CMS, and no separate scheduler for social either.

Pairing AnswerThePublic With Ubersuggest

Once you’ve got your content plan from AnswerThePublic, Ubersuggest is where you validate it and track what happens next.

The Ubersuggest interface.
AnswerThePublic's business summary functionality.

These two tools give you a massive amount of useful data.

Take one of your Suggested For You topics and drop it into Ubersuggest’s Keywords tool. Two things are worth checking here.

Content Ideas shows you the pieces that got the most social shares on that topic, so you’re not writing blind, you’re writing with headline inspiration already backed by what people actually shared.

AI Prompt Ideas goes a step further. For your keyword, it surfaces the most relevant AI prompts people are actually running, and shows which brands get mentioned, what intent sits behind each prompt, and which sources get cited. 

That’s a direct line into what’s already winning inside AI answers for your topic, before you’ve written a word.

From there, you’re combining two data sets:

  • What your audience is actually asking (from AnswerThePublic)
  • Who’s already winning that topic, in Google and in AI answers (from Ubersuggest)

That combination tells you not just what to write about, but how to angle it so you’re not just repeating what’s already ranking or already cited.

Once your article is published, Ubersuggest’s AI Search Visibility report shows you whether it’s actually getting picked up. 

You’ll see how often your brand shows up in AI-generated answers for that topic, how you compare to competitors tracked in the same space, and whether the mentions read as positive, neutral, or negative.

That’s the loop you need to keep track with: find the question, write the answer, and then actually check if Google and AI platforms are citing you for it.

Using Ubersuggest and AnswerThePublic to Build Your SEO Strategy

AnswerThePublic gets you strategically creative. It shows you the real questions people are searching, and drafts the content that answers them.

Ubersuggest gets you the data to back it up, and the visibility tracking to know if it worked.

Together, they cover the full loop: research, create, publish, and measure whether you’re actually showing up where your audience is searching, on Google and beyond.

Set up a cadence. Publish consistently. Check your AI Search Visibility numbers the same way you’d check rankings.

Combining Ubersuggest and AnswerThePublic to test AI Visibility results.

That’s how you stay ahead of a search landscape that keeps changing shape.

FAQs

What is AnswerThePublic?

AnswerThePublic is a content intelligence platform that starts with your website URL, surfaces the real questions your audience is asking, and helps you turn those questions into a published article.

How is AnswerThePublic different from Ubersuggest?

AnswerThePublic handles research and content creation. It shows you what people are asking and drafts the content that answers them. Ubersuggest handles validation and tracking. It shows you who already ranks for a topic and reports whether your published content shows up in AI-generated answers.

What does Keyword Coverage show in AnswerThePublic?

Keyword Coverage audits the keywords your site already ranks for and tags each one by source: sitemap, competitor, manual/planned, or AI suggestion. It also flags topics where a competitor ranks on page one and you don’t, yet.

Can I publish content directly from AnswerThePublic?

Yes. Content Studio drafts an article in your brand voice, and once you’ve edited it, you can publish straight to WordPress or share it to Instagram, X, LinkedIn, or Facebook from the same screen.

What does Ubersuggest’s AI Search Visibility report track?

It tracks how often your brand appears in AI-generated answers for a given topic, compares your visibility to competitors you’re tracking in that space, and notes whether the mentions read as positive, neutral, or negative.

Conclusion

With AnswerThePublic, you’re not guessing what your audience wants to know. You’re reading it straight from the source.

Your audience gives you the questions. AnswerThePublic turns them into content. Ubersuggest tells you if it’s landing.

Try it for yourself, starting with your own URL instead of a single keyword, and see what your audience has been asking all along.

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Email Marketing in the AI Era: Personalization, Automation & Deliverability

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Key Takeaways

  • AI adoption in email is concentrated in content production. Personalization, automation, and deliverability, where the bigger revenue gains sit, get far less attention.
  • Personalization is moving from broad segments, like geography and demographics, to individual, predictive targeting.
  • Automation’s share of email revenue grows with company size. Businesses over $51 million in revenue get 71 percent of email revenue from automation versus 11 percent from campaigns.
  • Nearly a fifth of sent emails never reach the inbox, and most of that loss happens before a subscriber has any chance to engage.
  • The programs that win connect personalization, automation, and deliverability into a single system that reinforces itself.

Have you noticed your team is sending more emails than ever, but the results don’t feel any different?

Most marketers are pointing AI at email marketing’s wrong problem. The real opportunity is understanding customer intent, automating decisions, and personalizing experiences at scale. Most teams are using AI to write more emails without fixing the parts of the program that actually drive revenue.

Email personalization, automation, and deliverability are the three areas that actually move that revenue. Inboxes are getting louder as AI makes content creation easier, and louder rarely means more relevant. The rest of this post walks through what’s changing in each area, and how to build them into one connected system.

The AI Shift: What’s Changing in Email Marketing

Marketing teams are under real pressure right now: do more with fewer resources, scale personalization, improve retention and lifetime value, and increase marketing efficiency, all at once. AI looks like the obvious answer.

The problem is where that AI effort is actually going. Ask marketers what their biggest email challenge is today, and list growth tops the list at 29 percent, followed by personalization at 25 percent. Deliverability comes in last, at just 6 percent, even though it’s the foundation everything else depends on. An email that never reaches the inbox can’t be personalized or well-timed enough to matter.

"Bar chart ranking marketers' biggest email marketing challenges: list growth, personalization, automation, content creation, reporting, deliverability."

Source

The New Email Marketing Framework

Here’s how the pieces break down:

  1. Personalization: delivering the right message.
  2. Automation: delivering it at the right moment.
  3. Deliverability: making sure it reaches the inbox at all.

You can’t improve these levers in isolation and expect the same lift each time. A gain in one gets erased by a gap in another. Perfect personalization that lands in spam accomplishes nothing, and flawless deliverability paired with generic, one-size-fits-all messaging just means more people ignoring an email they did receive.

Personalization in the AI Era

Most brands are stuck in what amounts to a segmentation trap. They personalize using broad buckets, new versus returning customers, geography, industry, demographics, and call it personalization. Only 34 percent of companies actually use AI-driven or predictive email marketing personalization. Another 24 percent are still at basic audience segmentation, and 5 percent use no personalization at all.

Most teams have the customer data needed for real personalization, they just aren’t using it to predict what happens next. Teams rate themselves strongest in measurement and attribution, with 55 percent calling that capability strong or very advanced. They rate themselves weakest in customer data and identity, at just 37 percent strong or advanced, along with AI skills and governance.

Bar chart showing what customer data gets used for email personalization.

Personalization moves through three stages. Demographic personalization (location, age, gender) is the easiest to set up but produces broad assumptions and low relevance. Behavioral personalization (products viewed, purchases, engagement) produces higher engagement and better conversion. Predictive personalization goes a step further, using purchase likelihood, churn risk, and lifetime value to guide what happens next.

Open rates already vary by age group, from roughly 20.6 percent among 18-24-year-olds up to 25.7 percent among 55-64-year-olds, which makes a strong case for layering behavioral and predictive signals on top of basic demographic segmentation.

Bar chart comparing email open rates by age group.

Source

Four tactics you can implement this week: dynamic product recommendations based on browsing and purchase history, dynamic content blocks that swap headlines and offers by segment, send-time optimization based on when a subscriber actually engages, and predictive offers built around what a subscriber is likely to buy next.

Donut chart showing personalization maturity levels across companies, and table comparing demographic, behavioral, and predictive personalization stages.

Source

Automation That Actually Drives Revenue

Campaign marketing runs on a simple loop: campaign, send, repeat. Lifecycle marketing works differently. A customer action triggers an automated response, no one has to remember to hit send.

That shift matters more as companies grow. Businesses earning less than $1 million get 49 percent of their email revenue from campaigns. That flips as revenue scales. Companies earning over $51 million get 71 percent of email revenue from automation and just 11 percent from campaigns. Manual scheduling shows up as inconsistent customer journeys, day-to-day operational inefficiency, and revenue a trigger would have caught but a person missed.

A bar chart comparing which automations in email generate the most revenue.

Source

Some automations pull far more weight than others. Abandoned cart drives the largest share of automation revenue at 32 percent, followed by welcome series at 21 percent and post-purchase upsell or replenishment at 16 percent. 

Post-purchase flows compound in a way that’s easy to underestimate. Email marketing lifts repurchase rate by 31 percent and shortens time to repurchase by roughly 8 days, and that gain repeats across your entire customer base.

Automation maturity builds in stages. Triggered campaigns just need a trigger to fire. Behavioral automation needs data on what people actually do. Predictive lifecycle marketing needs AI making the calls on timing and offers.

A chart showing where revenue comes from for campaigns and automation.

Source

Deliverability: Why Great Emails Still Land in Spam

Here’s how much audience a typical send loses before anyone has a chance to engage. Of emails sent, 98 percent get accepted by the mailbox provider, but only 82 percent actually reach the inbox. Only 36 percent get opened, and only 2.5 percent get clicked. Every stage between send and click loses part of your audience, and most of that loss happens before a subscriber ever sees the email.

Inbox providers are changing the rules on this. They increasingly use AI to decide which emails reach the inbox, which get filtered, and which senders get trusted at all. Marketers tend to rank authentication and open rate as what matters most, but inbox providers weight sender and domain reputation and spam complaints far more heavily. Trust signals like replies and complaint rates are quietly deciding who gets filtered, whether marketers are watching them or not.

Email deliverability best practices rest on authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), sender reputation built through engagement and damaged by complaints, and list quality, where a smaller engaged audience consistently outperforms a larger inactive one. Good list hygiene reinforces each of these: segment by engagement, purchase behavior, and activity recency, then back that up with re-engagement campaigns, sunset policies, and suppression strategies for contacts who’ve gone quiet.

Higher send frequency can shrink your effective audience instead of growing it. Open rates decline as cadence increases, from 33.8 percent at one send a week down to 26.2 percent at five or more, and volume without value trains subscribers to stop opening. Affiliate emails and cold emails carry the highest unsubscribe and spam complaint rates of any email type. The most common mistakes behind poor email deliverability are excessive frequency, poor segmentation, purchased lists, misleading subject lines, and ignoring inactive subscribers instead of suppressing them.

"Funnel chart showing the percentage of email audience lost at each stage from send to click, and radar chart comparing what marketers think matters to inbox providers versus what actually drives inbox placement."

Source

Building the AI Email Marketing Operating System

Personalization, automation, and deliverability only work as one system. Personalization without deliverability never gets read. Automation without personalization feels robotic. Deliverability without automation can’t scale past what a person can manually manage.

A modern email stack needs five pieces working together: an ESP platform, a customer data platform, AI content tools, predictive analytics, and deliverability monitoring. Most teams already have some of these, but few have them talking to each other.

That disconnect shows up in where AI investment is actually going. Teams are pouring the most effort into content creation and paid media optimization, the two areas with the highest percentage of teams applying AI. Personalization and marketing automation get far less investment, despite rating comparable or higher on effectiveness. Investment is going toward the easiest wins, even though personalization and automation are rated as more effective.

The future email team blends strategy, data, automation, and AI into a single connected workflow from the start.

A graphic comparing the items for what is in modern email stacks.

The 90-Day Action Plan

Trying to fix personalization, automation, and deliverability all at once is how most programs stall. Sequencing beats doing everything simultaneously.

  1. Days 1 to 30 (Audit): Review deliverability, automation, and segmentation to find the weakest link in your current program.
  2. Days 31 to 60 (Implement): Build the priority automations, dynamic content, and AI-assisted workflows the audit surfaced.
  3. Days 61 to 90 (Scale): Layer in predictive personalization, advanced testing, and revenue measurement once the foundation holds.
A 90 day chart comparing what to do at different stages of an AI-powered email strategy.

The sequencing matters more than the individual tactics. Predictive personalization and recommendations account for the largest single share of incremental business impact among AI email initiatives, at 31 percent, and impact compounds as each subsequent initiative builds on the last, reaching 100 percent cumulative impact across all five. Sequence each initiative starting with whichever is easiest to implement, and let each one build on the last.

FAQs

What is AI email personalization?

AI email personalization uses behavioral and predictive data, like purchase likelihood, churn risk, or browsing history, to tailor subject lines, content, and offers to each subscriber individually.

How do I improve email deliverability?

Focus on authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), sender reputation built through consistent engagement, and list quality maintained through regular re-engagement campaigns and suppression of inactive contacts.

What email automations have the highest ROI?

Abandoned cart, welcome series, and post-purchase upsell or replenishment automations drive the largest share of automation revenue. Browse abandonment and re-engagement automations round out the five workflows worth building first.

How much should I automate vs. send as campaigns?

It depends on company size and program maturity, but the trend is clear: larger, more mature email programs shift the majority of their revenue toward automation. Businesses over $51 million in revenue get 71 percent of email revenue from automation, compared to 49 percent from campaigns at businesses under $1 million.

Conclusion

AI raises the ceiling on an email program that already has strong fundamentals in place.

Personalization, automation, and deliverability function as one integrated system. A gap in any one of them limits what the other two can do. Brands that build these pillars in sequence see the gains compound faster than brands trying to fix everything simultaneously.

If you’re not sure where your program is weakest, NP Digital’s guide to email marketing is a good place to start auditing the fundamentals.

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Yoast SEO vs All in One SEO: which WordPress plugin is right for you?

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If you’re weighing Yoast SEO vs All in One SEO, you’re asking the right question. Your SEO plugin touches almost every page you publish. It shapes how search engines read your site and how AI platforms understand it too. Both plugins have been part of WordPress for a long time and are a popular choice among website owners and agencies worldwide. So this isn’t a choice between a proven tool and an untested one. It’s a choice between two ideas of what an SEO plugin should do for you.

What matters in a WordPress SEO plugin comparison 

Most established plugins cover the basics: SEO titles, meta descriptions, content analyses. What separates them is how they help you make decisions, handle change, and support you when something goes wrong. Before comparing features, ask yourself: 

  • Will it help me understand SEO, or will it only tell me what to change? 
  • Will it keep working reliably as WordPress and search evolve? 
  • Can I get help right away when something breaks? 
  • Is it ready for how people search now, including AI assistants? 
  • Can it grow with my site, my team, and the platforms we use? 

Yoast SEO vs AIOSEO: how the plugins compare 

AIOSEO positions itself as an all-in-one toolkit. Alongside its TruSEO on-page analysis, it offers a Schema generator, search statistics, a keyword rank tracker, local SEO, a link assistant, and AI writing tools. At the moment, AIOSEO has over 3 millions users of their WordPress plugin.  

Yoast SEO takes a different approach. We focus on guiding you as you write, structuring your site for search engines and AI platforms, and explaining the why behind every recommendation. Yoast SEO is active on more than 13 million websites with more than 1 billion downloads in total.

Feature Yoast SEO All in One SEO 
Free version  Yoast SEO  AIOSEO Lite
Content feedback  Real-time SEO and readability analysis, plus inclusive language analysis  TruSEO on-page analysis and score 
AI tools  AI Generate, AI Optimize, AI Summarize, AI Content Planner (Premium), AI Bulk Editor (Premium) and AI Brand Insights (Yoast SEO AI+) AI Assistant, AI Content Generator, and AI Image Generator
Structured data  One connected Schema graph, generated automatically  Schema Generator with rich snippet types 
AI readability  llms.txt and Schema Aggregation, both free  LLMs.txt Generator 
Platforms  WordPress/WooCommerce, Shopify, and Google Docs  WordPress including WooCommerce 
Learning  Yoast SEO Academy courses, blog posts, help articles, and monthly webinars  Documentation, blog, and guides 

Both are capable plugins. AIOSEO leans toward breadth and reporting inside WordPress, while Yoast SEO leans toward guidance, structure, and readiness for wider discovery. 

Understanding what you need 

The best WordPress SEO plugin is the one that fits your goals: 

  • Guidance and learning: Choose a plugin that explains why each recommendation matters.
  • AI readiness: Look for connected Schema, llms.txt, and control over AI crawlers. 
  • Support: Check how quickly you can reach a real person when something breaks. 
  • Search data in WordPress: Does the plugin provide sufficient data to make choices about your content and website?
  • The long term: Pick a plugin with a record of stable updates and a team that keeps adapting. 

Experience that keeps up with search 

For more than 15 years, Yoast has tracked every major shift in search, from early algorithm updates to AI-generated answers. Today, Yoast SEO is active on more than 13 million websites and has passed one billion downloads. 

That experience works for you. Our team follows algorithm updates and how AI platforms read content, updates the plugin when things change, and explains what it means on our blog, in webinars, and in Yoast SEO Academy. Since 2010, our mission hasn’t changed: SEO for everyone, regardless of budget or technical skill. 

Innovation for how people search today 

People now find answers through search engines, AI Overviews, and assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. Here’s how Yoast SEO helps search engines and AI platforms understand your content. 

Make your site readable for AI 

  • Schema Aggregation (free): Built with Microsoft NLWeb, it brings your structured data together in a standard format that’s easier to read for AI agents. 
  • llms.txt (free): A plain-text guide, generated for you, that points large language models (LLMs) to your most important content. 
  • Bot Blocker (Premium): Choose which AI crawlers can access your content. 
  • Yoast SEO Abilities (free): This integration allows your AI tool to read and fix a post’s core technical SEO settings.

AI tools in your editor 

Yoast SEO Premium includes these at no extra cost: 

  • AI Generate: SEO title and meta description options in one click 
  • AI Optimize: Specific fixes for SEO assessments, which you can apply, edit, or dismiss 
  • AI Summarize: A key takeaways block for long posts 
  • AI Content Planner: Five post ideas specifically for your site, plus a starter draft 
  • Bulk Editor: AI-drafted metadata for your whole site, with every change yours to approve 

See how AI represents your brand 

Yoast SEO AI+ includes AI Brand Insights, which tracks how your brand appears in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. See your AI Visibility Index, sentiment, and cited sources, and compare them with competitors. No tool can guarantee AI mentions, but this gives you the visibility to decide what to create next. 

Schema that search engines can understand 

Structured data, or Schema, shows search engines who wrote a page, which organization is behind it, and what it offers. Most plugins add some option to add structured data to your pages. The difference is how the pieces fit together. 

Yoast SEO automatically builds one connected Schema graph per page. Your organization, website, pages, articles, and authors are linked in a single JSON-LD structure, the format search engines read. No setup is needed and Yoast WooCommerce SEO adds product details like price and availability to the same graph. 

A consistent graph makes your site easier for search engines and AI platforms to interpret. It also makes pages eligible for rich results like breadcrumbs, though no plugin can guarantee they’ll appear. 

An ecosystem that supports you 

  • 24/7 support (Premium): Help from real people, whenever you need it. 
  • Yoast SEO Academy (Premium): Courses from SEO basics to AI for SEO, with certificates. Some courses are free for everyone. 
  • Local, Video, and News SEO (Premium): All included in Yoast SEO Premium.

Stability and reliability at any scale 

New features are exciting, while reliable updates are what keep your site running. Every Yoast SEO release is tested, PHP setups, and common plugin combinations, and built to keep your existing settings working. With more than 13 million active installations, the same plugin runs on personal blogs and large enterprise sites. 

Where Yoast SEO stands out 

Guidance that teaches as you write

Color-coded SEO and readability feedback in your editor, with a short explanation per assessment, in more than 20 languages. The optional inclusive language analysis helps you spot wording that could leave readers out. Premium adds multiple keyphrases, word forms, and synonyms, so you can write naturally. 

Internal linking and redirects (Premium) 

Yoast SEO suggests relevant pages to link to as you write. The redirect manager prompts you to create a redirect when you change a URL, and supports CSV import and export and regex. A regex pattern allows you to redirect a whole group of URLs that share a word or pattern in one single redirect. 

Crawl settings 

Turn off URLs, scripts, and metadata that WordPress adds automatically with the crawl settings, so search engines focus on the pages that matter. Less wasted crawling also helps reduce your site’s carbon footprint. 

Which Yoast product fits you? 

Plan  Best for  What you get 
Yoast SEO  Anyone getting started with SEO  Real-time SEO and readability analysis, connected Schema graph, XML sitemaps, llms.txt, Schema Aggregation, bulk editor and crawl settings 
Yoast SEO Premium  Entrepreneurs and in-house marketing teams  Everything in Yoast SEO, plus AI tools, internal linking suggestions, redirect manager, Bot Blocker, Local, Video, and News SEO, Yoast SEO Academy, and 24/7 support 
Yoast WooCommerce SEO  Online stores on WooCommerce  Everything in Premium, plus product Schema, ecommerce content analysis, and AI-generated SEO titles and meta descriptions for products 
Yoast SEO AI+  Marketers and brands who want to track AI visibility  Everything in Yoast WooCommerce SEO, plus AI Brand Insights 

Compare Yoast plans » 

Looking for an AIOSEO alternative? 

Yoast SEO tends to suit you if you want a plugin that explains its recommendations, structures your site for search engines and AI platforms, and comes with education and support. Switching is simple, because Yoast SEO’s import tool supports All in One SEO. Our migration guide covers each step in detail. 

Make the choice that supports your growth 

Choosing an SEO plugin isn’t about the longest feature list. It’s about a partner that fits how you work and keeps up as search changes. With Yoast SEO, you get guidance that teaches as you write, free AI-readiness tools, AI built into Premium, and 24/7 support, backed by more than 15 years of dependable releases. 

Whichever plugin you choose, pick the one you’ll be happy to build on for years. Check out our Yoast SEO Premium page for more information on our SEO plugin and its features.

The post Yoast SEO vs All in One SEO: which WordPress plugin is right for you? appeared first on Yoast.

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The September 2026 SEO Update by Yoast recap

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Each month, we host the SEO Update by Yoast, covering the latest in search and AI. In this edition, Carolyn Shelby and Alex Moss discussed Google’s latest content updates, the impact of AI on search visibility, and how to adapt to the evolving digital landscape.

Watch the full recap on YouTube to dive deeper into these topics, hear examples, and get answers to audience questions.

Key stories from September 2026

Reddit citations in ChatGPT raise platform risks

A study from The State of Brand highlighted the risks brands face when their information is cited on third-party platforms such as Reddit. Since LLMs are probabilistic rather than deterministic, they rely on recurring information to verify their accuracy.

Why it matters:
Your brand’s messaging might be shaped by external sources, not just your own content. If negative sentiment dominates discussions about your brand on Reddit or review sites, that could be the narrative LLMs pick up.

Actionable takeaway:

  • Ensure your messaging is consistent and widely referenced across all platforms.
  • Actively engage in discussions on third-party sites to provide counter-narratives where needed.
  • Monitor mentions of your brand regularly and address inaccuracies.

Google says ChatGPT sends new audience to Search

AI is not replacing search but altering how people interact with it. Google reports that ChatGPT is driving new search queries, often long-tail and more specific.

Why it matters:
Users are now conducting more searches than ever before, but these searches differ from traditional ones. They are more conversational and tailored to specific needs. The growth in AI-generated queries means more opportunities for your content to rank, provided it addresses niche topics.

Actionable takeaway:

  • Focus on creating content that dives deep into specific Subject matter and answers unique questions.
  • Optimize for long-tail keywords and conversational queries.
  • Leverage tools like Google Trends and Mark Williams Cook’s AlsoAsked to explore related topics.

OpenAI expands ChatGPT ads globally

OpenAI has officially rolled out ads in ChatGPT globally. This follows months of experimentation.

Why it matters:
Ads in ChatGPT could further complicate visibility for organic results. Just like Google Ads once did, paid placements may start to dominate attention within AI conversations. However, this can also be an opportunity for brands that want to ensure their content is seen.

Actionable takeaway:

  • Explore running ads on ChatGPT, so your brand doesn’t miss out on visibility.
  • Optimize your ad creatives to stand out against organic listings.

Google loses faith in low-value programmatic SEO

Google is cracking down on sites using low-value programmatic content to manipulate rankings.

Why it matters:
Forget what you heard in the past; this type of content is not just unhelpful now, it is actively harmful. These pages are often created solely to rank for as many keywords as possible with minimal effort, offering little to no value to users. This approach has always been risky, and since the September 2026 core update, it is increasingly likely to backfire.

Actionable takeaway:

  • Audit all programmatic content on your site.
  • Ensure every page provides unique insights or first-person perspectives.
  • Back up your content with evidence, original research, or unique data.

Google deploys new AI spam detector

Google has officially launched SAFE, its new AI spam detector. This is another step in their ongoing effort to fight low-quality, auto-generated content.

Why it matters:
Google is actively working to combat spammy content. This new protection is filtering out unhelpful, auto-generated content so that useful content can surface instead.

Actionable takeaway:

  • Review your content and remove any low-quality or auto-generated pages.
  • Focus on creating high-quality, user-centric content.

Google tests paying publishers for AI answers

Google is piloting a new program to compensate publishers for content used in AI-generated answers.

Why it matters:
As AI answers become the norm, publishers need new ways to monetize their content. If they rely solely on traditional models, they may struggle as traffic declines. With fewer people clicking through to their sites, publishers need to find an alternative way to earn, and Google may be providing it.

Actionable takeaway:

  • Explore new revenue models beyond ad-based traffic.
  • Monitor development in AI-driven content monetization closely.

Cloudflare lets sites block AI training without blocking Googlebot

Cloudflare now allows sites to block AI crawlers, such as those from OpenAI, without blocking Googlebot.

Why it matters:
While this may sound tempting, it’s best to think long and hard before blocking AI from crawling your site. Blocking AI crawlers will remove your site from AI-generated answers, making your content less visible. If you’re not in those AI answers, you won’t get the traffic or the credit.

Actionable takeaway:

  • Weigh the pros and cons of blocking AI crawlers.
  • Focus on ensuring your content is well-structured and accessible so that AI systems can cite it accurately.

Google is blocking scrapers and tracking tools

Google is actively blocking various scrapers and tracking tools.

Why it matters:
With annotations disappearing from Google Analytics and Google blocking scrapers, the tools we rely on for this data will become less reliable. This shift will likely force SEOs to adapt their strategies and rely more on alternative data sources. The insights we get from our tools will probably become more directional instead of exact.

Actionable takeaway:

  • Prepare clients and stakeholders for less reliable data.
  • Diversify your data sources so that you can cross-reference for accuracy.
  • Use LLMs to analyze your exports and find consistencies in your data.

Google Lighthouse adds AI agent resource discovery audit

Google Lighthouse now includes an audit for AI Agent Resource Discovery (ARD).

Why it matters:
This tells agents a site’s capabilities. It is expected to become increasingly important for discovery. Should you implement it? That depends on how large your site is. If your site is small, consisting of around five pages, then it isn’t necessary. However, if your site is large and complex, ARD will let agents understand what they can do with your site’s pages.

Actionable takeaway:

  • Decide if your business needs ARD.
  • If your site is large and complex, work with your development team to prioritize this.

Research finds AI mode may send fewer clicks

Research shows that AI Overviews may be sending fewer clicks to publishers.

Why it matters:
If we want to be discovered, we need to rank highly and ensure our snippets pull users in. Bearing this in mind, it is now more important than ever to ensure your content is unique so that an LLM has a reason to cite you.

Actionable takeaway:

  • Focus on high-quality, unique content that provides genuine value.
  • Optimize your snippets to entice users to click.

Google Search traffic to publishers continues to decline

Google Search continues to see a drop in referrals, a trend observed across the web.

Why it matters:
As the digital landscape shifts, traditional metrics like traffic are becoming less reliable indicators of success. Visibility equals success in the current environment, and you can have visibility without traffic.

Actionable takeaway:

  • Focus on unique, high-quality content.
  • Find new KPIs that accurately reflect your performance.
  • Analyze AI-driven insights to find out what is truly working for your business.

Google updates guidance on using generative AI content

Google has updated its guidelines on the use of AI in content creation.

Why it matters:
Google is making it clear that using AI to create content is not inherently bad. Bad content is bad, whether humans or AI generate it. If your content offers nothing new, unique, or interesting, then LLMs already have that information. Why would they cite you?

Actionable takeaway:

  • Use AI to assist in creating new and interesting content.
  • Always review AI-generated content to ensure its accuracy.

Anthropic calls for a slowdown in AI development

The CEO of Anthropic has called for a slowdown in AI advancement, while other business leaders disagree. You can read their thoughts here and here.

Why it matters:
Is this a genuine concern for safety or a strategic move to gain a competitive edge? Either way, it’s sparking crucial conversations about what the future of AI will look like.

Actionable takeaway:

  • Stay informed about the discussions surrounding AI development.
  • Consider the ethical implications of your use of AI.

Yoast news: introducing Yoast SEO AI+ for Shopify

We have just launched Yoast SEO AI+ for Shopify. This combines Yoast SEO with AI Brand Insights, a tool that provides insight into how AI platforms describe brands.

Why it matters:
Shopify stores that use Yoast SEO AI+ can gain a deeper understanding of how AI is portraying their brand. This allows the opportunity to adapt to any inaccuracies.

Actionable takeaway:

  • Try out Yoast SEO AI+ for Shopify to gain valuable insights.
  • Adapt your branding according to your findings.

Sign up for the next SEO Update by Yoast

Want to stay in the loop? Sign up for the next SEO Update by Yoast. The next show will be on the 27th October 202.

Can’t wait until later this month? You can always watch the previous editions whenever suits you, or even listen along on Spotify.

The post The September 2026 SEO Update by Yoast recap appeared first on Yoast.

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Web Design and Development San Diego

New learning paths: curated YouTube playlists for Search fundamentals and Technical SEO

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Over the years, the Search Central YouTube channel
has published hundreds of videos across various series, from Search for Beginners and Ask Googlebot
to Search Console Training and Search Off the Record. While our series structure works well for
deep dives and episodic updates, we know that finding a clear, sequential learning path from scratch can sometimes be challenging.

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Best Gemini SEO Agencies: Research by Onely

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There is no single best Gemini SEO agency. A Gemini SEO agency promises to get a brand named when people […]

The post Best Gemini SEO Agencies: Research by Onely appeared first on Onely.

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