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The SEO Services Report

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SEO services have evolved significantly in recent years, driven by changes in search behavior, AI-powered results, and rising competition across industries.

To give you the most accurate picture of the industry today, we’ve combined data from multiple sources, including our survey of 1,200 business owners.

In this report, you’ll learn:

  • How much businesses spend on SEO services today
  • Where companies actually find and hire SEO providers
  • What factors influence the decision to choose one agency over another
  • Why clients leave (or stay with) their SEO provider
  • Key trends shaping the future of SEO services

Let’s dive into the data.

Highlights and Key Statistics:

1. Companies spend $119.4 billion on SEO and digital marketing consulting each year in the US.

2. We found a strong correlation between higher spending and higher client satisfaction in small business SEO. In fact, clients who spent over $500/month were 53.3% more likely to be “extremely satisfied” compared to those who spent less than $500/month.

3. Most small business owners find SEO providers through referrals, Google searches, and online reviews. A small fraction of SEO clients (8%) found their current provider from online advertising.

4. When it comes to choosing a provider, 74% of business owners consider an SEO provider’s reputation “very” or “extremely” important. Monthly cost and the provider’s own Google rankings were also noted as important factors.

5. Overall, SEO client satisfaction is decidedly low. Only 30% would recommend their current SEO provider to a friend or colleague. However, we found that client satisfaction among marketing agencies was higher than that of freelancers.

6. SEO provider turnover is high. 65% of our panel stated that they’ve worked with several different SEO providers. 25% have worked with 3 or more providers.

We have more detailed and expanded findings below.

Average Monthly SEO Spend

In 2025, US organizations spent $119.4 billion on SEO and digital marketing consulting.

Our 2019 research found that small businesses spend $497.16 per month on SEO services.

However, we did discover a large range in SEO spending. Half of our respondents reported spending less than $1,000 per year on SEO. 14% spend $5k+ per year. Only 2% spend over $25k/year.

Small business SEO spending varies greatly

We also found that agencies tend to get paid significantly more than freelance SEO providers.

Specifically, agencies were 2x more likely to get paid $1k-$2k/month than freelancers, who mostly get paid in the $500-$1k per month range.

SEO agencies get paid significantly more than SEO freelancers

Agencies also tend to dominate the high-end pricing range (clients that spend $10k-$25k/year on SEO).

Agencies are 8X more likely to get paid $10k-$25k/year than freelancers

As you can see, 24% of small businesses that work with agencies spend between $10k-$25k/year, compared with 2% that work with a freelance SEO.

Sources: Infinite, Backlinko

Monthly Spend Is Tied To Client Satisfaction

When it comes to SEO, do you “get what you pay for”?

According to our data, yes.

Specifically, we discovered that clients spending over $500/month were 53.3% more likely to consider themselves “extremely satisfied” compared to people who spend less than $500/month.

Higher SEO spending is correlated with higher client satisfaction

We also found a clear relationship between dissatisfaction levels and cost.

Specifically, business owners who spent less than $500/month were 75% more likely to be dissatisfied than those who invested at least $500/month in SEO.

SEO dissatisfaction is correlated with lower SEO spending

This relationship played out whether a client worked with a freelancer, agency, or a mix of both.

Source: Backlinko

Referrals and Google Searches Are the Top Ways Businesses Are Finding SEOs

When someone wants to hire an SEO agency, where do they look?

According to our panel, most people find potential SEO service providers through word of mouth, Google searches, and online review platforms (like Yelp).

Most clients find SEO services via referrals, Google search and review sites

On the other hand, relatively few find SEO providers through online or offline advertising, or referrals from other vendors (like web designers or writers).

If you’re an agency owner or a freelancer, this is a key finding. If you know where small business owners look to find SEO service providers, you can invest resources to make sure your business has a presence in those places.

Sources: Backlinko

Reputation and Cost are Key Factors Involved In Choosing a Provider

Demand for SEO services continues to grow as search becomes more complex and harder to manage in-house. 

In fact, recent data shows that 61% of companies hire SEO agencies due to a lack of internal expertise, while others turn to external providers when they don’t have the time, resources, or results needed to scale.

Most common reasons for using SEO services:

  • Lack expertise – 26.87% 
  • Lack resources – 22.70% 
  • More cost-effective – 21.48%
  • Poor in-house SEO results – 15.48%
  • Lack sufficient time – 10.70%

But hiring an agency isn’t just about capability. Once someone finds a list of potential providers, how do they decide which one to go with?

We discovered that reputation, cost, and a provider’s own Google rankings influenced their decision the most.

Reputation and cost are key factors involved in choosing a provider

Small business owners cited client case studies and the provider’s social media presence as significantly less important.

However, even these relatively minor factors played a role in whether or not someone decided to work with a particular SEO provider. For example, 55% of our panel cited “referrals” as an important consideration.

Referrals influence more than 50% choosing a provider

Although the importance of referrals pales in comparison to a provider’s reputation (55% vs. 74%), it’s still something that influenced more than half of the people we spoke to.

Interestingly, we found that a provider’s location mattered quite a bit.

Only 51% knew exactly where their SEO provider was located.

Half of SEO clients don't know where their SEO provider is located

However, 78% of US-based small businesses stated that knowing their provider’s location was “extremely” or “very” important (with 46% stating that a known location was “extremely important”).

78% of small business owners state SEO provider's location as 'Important'

If you provide SEO services, making your location clear and obvious may help you land more SEO clients.

Here’s a great example from Siege Media, which actually includes a picture of their office on their about page:

SiegeMedia – Make location clear

Sources: Leading Edge, Backlinko

The Vast Majority of Business Owners Expect SEO Services To Increase Customers and Traffic

A recent 2025 survey found that 91% of people who used SEO services reported a positive impact on website performance and marketing goals.

As such, it’s no surprise that expectations are high when working with an SEO provider.

According to our survey, the most important expectations are “accessing new customers”, “increasing traffic”, “increasing brand awareness”, and “building trust” as most important.

SEO clients value new customers, traffic and brand awareness

“Gaining social media followers”, “increasing number of email subscribers”, and “helping to attract new talent” were cited as relatively unimportant.

In fact, even though this is a common goal set by marketing agencies, only 26% of respondents cited “getting followers on social media sites” as extremely important.

Only 26% state getting followers on social media sites as extremely important

This finding is especially key for SEO providers that are taking on new clients.

For example, a newly-hired SEO provider that says, “Our first step is going to be to get more likes on your Facebook page” isn’t speaking their client’s language.

On the other hand, kicking off the client-provider relationship with: “I look forward to helping you get more targeted traffic and customers” will likely result in a more satisfied client.

Needless to say, for the relationship to last, you need to deliver on those promises (more on that later). But it does help to understand what clients hope to get out of SEO so you can mold your services and reports based on that.

Sources: Conductor, Backlinko

SEO ROI: What Businesses Can Expect

SEO is widely regarded as one of the highest-return marketing channels, with some estimates placing the average ROI at around 22:1, meaning businesses earn roughly $22 for every $1 invested.

And around 1 in 3 qualified leads (34%) come directly from SEO efforts.

However, ROI varies significantly across industries:

Medical Device – 1,183% ROI, 13 months breakeven
Higher Education & College – 994% ROI, 13 months breakeven
Oil & Gas – 906% ROI, 10 months breakeven
Industrial IoT – 866% ROI, 7 months breakeven
Pharmaceutical – 826% ROI, 9 months breakeven
Manufacturing – 813% ROI, 9 months breakeven
Biotech – 788% ROI, 8 months breakeven
Solar Energy – 770% ROI, 9 months breakeven
Commercial Insurance – 758% ROI, 9 months breakeven
B2B SaaS – 702% ROI, 7 months breakeven
Construction – 681% ROI, 5 months breakeven
HVAC Services – 678% ROI, 6 months breakeven
IT Staffing – 612% ROI, 10 months breakeven
Legal Services – 526% ROI, 14 months breakeven
Healthcare – 532% ROI, 11 months breakeven
Financial Services – 447% ROI, 9 months breakeven
E-commerce – 317% ROI, 9 months breakeven

The rapid emergence of AI also has a bearing on SEO ROI, with 39% reporting a “moderate increase” and 29% claiming a “significant ROI increase”. Only 1% claim that AI reduces their SEO ROI.

Sources: WebsiteBuilderExpert, G2, AllOutSEO, Semrush

Overall Satisfaction With SEO Services Is Low

SEO is a long-term investment, and results often take time to materialize; many campaigns require 6–12 months just to break even. 

That slower payoff, combined with unclear reporting or misaligned expectations, can leave many businesses frustrated with the SEO services they receive.

In our study, we asked our panelists to rate their current SEO provider (or the last SEO provider they worked with) using the Net Promoter Score.

The results were markedly low.

First off, we found that only 30% of small business owners would recommend their current SEO provider.

Only 30% of small business owners would recommend their current SEO provider

Importantly, 30% of our respondents considered themselves “detractors”. Which means they would leave a negative review for their last or current SEO provider.

In fact, the SEO services industry as a whole has an NPS score of 0, which is considered “not likely to recommend”.

The SEO services industry has an NPS score of 0

When we broke down the NPS scores among agencies, freelancers, and a combination of freelancer and agency, we discovered that agencies had a higher average NPS score than freelancers.

Agencies had a higher average NPS score than freelancers

However, all three types of services had fairly low NPS scores.

Sources: AllOutSEO, Backlinko

Clients Cite Lack of Education and Resources as Top Reasons for Low Satisfaction Levels

Delivering effective SEO requires significant investment in talent, tools, and ongoing strategy, something many businesses underestimate when hiring a provider.

Building comparable in-house capabilities can cost $150K–$250K+ for senior talent plus thousands per month in tools, which helps explain why expectations often exceed what lower-cost or under-resourced SEO services can realistically deliver.

NPS is a helpful benchmark. However, NPS can only tell you so much. In other words, it’s difficult to understand why SEO services have such low levels of satisfaction.

That’s why we decided to dig deeper into this finding.

And when we dug a bit deeper to understand more about what’s happening, we uncovered a few surprising insights.

First, many unhappy SEO clients fully or partially blamed themselves.

Specifically, 50% stated that “I feel like I need more training to fully benefit from what SEO offers”, and 28% told us that they “do not have the staff resources to properly benefit from SEO”.

Many unhappy SEO clients cite 'training' and 'lack of resources' as reasons for leaving an SEO provider

This means that low satisfaction levels aren’t solely due to poor quality work. In fact, many clients are simply not in a position to benefit from SEO due to a lack of resources.

Plus, even clients with resources may not make SEO a priority because they don’t have the training to fully understand how SEO benefits them.

For example, let’s say an SEO provider wants to change a title tag on a client’s site. But it doesn’t happen because their developer is swamped with a website redesign. Also, this client may not understand that this simple change can increase their Google traffic due to a lack of training. So they don’t make that change a priority. And progress stalls.

Which leads us to our second interesting finding, the importance of reporting and transparency.

27% of the clients we spoke with agreed with the statement: “I find SEO to be confusing and unclear about what services they offer.” 25% said that “I am not sure what I am really paying for with SEO.”

Many clients are unclear on how SEO benefits them

In other words, many clients are confused about what their provider is doing for them or what they’re getting out of the arrangement.

These are two points that could be remedied with better reporting and increased transparency.

I should point out that a fair number of clients stated that “I feel like SEO companies are very unreliable” and “I don’t think SEO is worth the money for my business.”

A small but significant percentage of small businesses consider SEO companies unreliable

Which means that a simple lack of results and ROI is often the culprit behind low client satisfaction levels.

However, as you just saw, there are usually non-performance-based factors at play as well.

Sources: Passionfruit, Backlinko

Turnover In the SEO Services Industry Is Extremely High

Likely due to low global satisfaction levels, we found high levels of turnover in the SEO services industry.

Specifically, we found that 65% of small business owners have worked with at least one SEO provider before:

65% of small businesses have worked with multiple SEO providers

We also found that 1/4th of our panel have worked with 3 or more providers:

25% of small business owners have worked with 3+ SEO providers

However, our data suggests that most clients don’t switch between SEO providers without careful consideration.

In fact, the clients in our panel have been working with their current SEO service for an average of 3 years. And lapsed clients give their service provider an average of 2 years to deliver before moving on.

Both existing clients and lapsed clients stay with SEO providers for 2+ years before switching

That said, we did discover a small subset of clients that do rapidly switch between different providers.

These “rapid switchers” tend to hire and fire SEO companies at a fever pitch.

For example, we classified 10% of our panelists as “rapid switchers” (worked with 3 or more SEO providers over the last year).

10% of people have worked with 3+ SEO providers over the last year

Source: Backlinko

Most SEO Clients Leave Due to Lack of Results and Cost

We wanted to know why people decide to leave their current SEO provider or switch to another company.

We referred to people who worked with multiple SEO providers as “lapsed clients”. And we asked this subset of lapsed users what went into their decision.

Here were the results:

Reasons that people switch from current SEO provider

Not surprisingly, 82% of our respondents cited “Dissatisfaction with business results” as a factor in their decision. 81% reported that cost played a large role as well.

This suggests that clients don’t look at results in a vacuum. They also pay attention to the ROI that they’re getting from SEO. In other words, delivering results for clients is one thing. But it’s also important to demonstrate the ROI that SEO has on their business. Otherwise, they may leave.

Although lack of results and cost were the two largest factors, they weren’t the only reasons that clients decided to stop working with an SEO provider.

In fact, 80% of lapsed clients stated that they found a better option on their own, which suggests that clients are happy to shop around for an alternative to their current SEO provider.

80% of lapsed clients say they 'Heard about a better option'

And 34% cited poor “customer service/ responsiveness” as a factor in their decision.

However, relatively few clients cited “pitched by a competitor” as a reason for leaving. In other words, as long as you can keep your clients happy, they’re not likely to leave. This remains true even if a competitor attempts to poach your client with a better offer.

We also asked our “lapsed clients” panelists to describe to us why they decided to stop using an SEO service. Here’s a sample of those responses:

Quotes from clients that stopped using an SEO service

We also asked a group of users who were happy with their SEO service (“existing clients”) what they liked about it. Here’s what they told us:

Quotes from clients that are happy with their SEO service

Source: Backlinko

Existing Clients are 2x More Likely to Be Web Savvy Than Lapsed Clients

We asked our panel to self-report their level of “web savviness”.

Here were the results:

Self-reported web savviness among SEO clients

As you can see, 37% of SEO clients consider their web savviness as “somewhat” or “not very”.

The upshot here is that many clients simply don’t have the web savviness to understand key digital marketing terms, like “title tags”, “CSS”, and “backlinks”. This suggests that SEO companies should largely avoid this sort of jargon in favor of terms like “leads”, “sales”, and “first page Google rankings”.

In fact, this is backed up by another finding from our panel: that lapsed clients are significantly more likely to consider themselves not web savvy.

Specifically, we found that existing clients were 2x more likely to consider themselves “extremely web savvy” than lapsed clients.

Existing clients are 2X more likely to consider themselves 'Extremely web savvy'

This suggests that web-savvy users are in a better position to understand how their SEO service is helping them. So they decide to stay. On the other hand, clients who aren’t web savvy may not fully understand what they’re getting from their SEO provider. So they decide to leave.

Source: Backlinko

Conclusion

I hope these findings helped you get a better feel for the SEO services industry.

I’d like to thank Northstar Research Partners for helping me design and conduct the survey that formed much of this report.

And if you’d like to learn more about how this survey was conducted, here’s a PDF of our study methods.

The post The SEO Services Report appeared first on Backlinko.

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Best Content Marketing Agencies of 2026

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Key Takeaways

  • Content agencies often specialize in certain industries or subsets of content marketing, such as technical SEO or conversion-focused content.
  • Our list of some of the best content marketing brands in the business covers a range of services and specialties.
  • Check out their client lists and portfolios to see if their work aligns with your expectations and preferences.
  • Knowing what to look for in a content marketing company and the right questions to ask can help you identify the ones with the abilities and capacity to help you expand and improve your content strategy and reach your marketing goals.

The content world is changing, but people still know its value. A 2023 survey from the Content Marketing Institute showed that over three-fourths of marketers indicated that content marketing generates demand and leads. 

This is no surprise when you realize 70 percent of people would prefer to learn about a company through an article rather than advertising. 

Content marketing can generate huge amounts of traffic, leads, and sales for your business. If you’re a company looking to get started with content marketing, it can be tough to find the resources and expertise you need. 

What kind of content do your customers want from you? Is that the same kind of content that creates revenue for your business? Today we’ll take a look at the best content marketing companies in the industry to help you answer those questions and more.

Agency  Best For  Ideal For  Notable Clients  Standout Approach 
NP Digital  Immediate and consistent revenue growth  Broad (B2B, e-commerce, SaaS, finance)  CNN, Adobe, Western Union, SoFi  Revenue-focused content with technical SEO built into every campaign from the start 
Seer Interactive  Big data search and content  Competitive industries like finance, banking, and mortgages  Asos, Intuit, SendGrid, Terminix  12,000GB proprietary data warehouse surfaces hidden customer trends competitors can’t see 
Brainlabs  Technical SEO  Not specified  Formula 1, Estée Lauder, Capital One, Polaroid  Built on a team of mathematicians, scientists, and programmers driving data-backed automation and testing 
Fractl  In-depth, research-heavy content  Research-intensive industries  Porch, Fanatics, Superdrug, Healthline  Research published in Harvard Business Review, The Economist, and the NYT, with a dedicated client growth division 
Column Five  Data and content visualization  Not specified (broad enterprise client base)  Deloitte, JP Morgan, Dell, Harvard University  Visual storytelling specialists covering infographics, video, interactive motion graphics, and exhibition design 
Single Grain  Conversion-driven content marketing  Businesses needing rapid turnaround or growth  Lyft, Warby Parker, Semrush, Nextiva  Entrepreneurial approach to flipping underperforming businesses through aggressive conversion optimization 
The Content Bureau  B2B content marketing  Technology, venture capital, and financial sectors; global corporations  American Express, PayPal, Microsoft, Cisco  Woman-owned agency with 80 percent of staff at 10+ years tenure, offering premium, high-attention client service 
Webprofits  Growing challenger brands  E-commerce, consumer, and retail brands scaling fast  Logitech, Philips, Nespresso, HP  “Fluid marketing” methodology blends digital strategy and performance marketing to find hidden growth opportunities 
Siege Media  Scalable SEO content  Fortune 500 companies down to small startups  Zillow, Airbnb, TripAdvisor, Asana  Passive link generation through content, backed by a proprietary link management tool maintained monthly 
Directive  Performance marketing for tech companies  Tech companies of all sizes  Amazon, Bill.com, Matillion, SentinelOne  Generated $10B+ in client revenue by acting as an embedded extension of in-house marketing teams 

1. NP Digital – Best for Immediate and Consistent Revenue Growth

The NP Digital website.

NP Digital is my content marketing company. We created NP Digital in 2017 to serve the millions of people who needed help with their content marketing to grow revenue. 

Rankings are important, but many marketers still focus obsessively on keywords and content that doesn’t lead to revenue. I’ve always focused on helping readers build a business that generates traffic, leads, and, most importantly, revenue. So we have a big focus on developing high-quality content that ranks high and converts visitors into customers by aligning with user intent.

Today, we’re one of the top content marketing brands in the business. a powerhouse global agency with one of the top 100 blog destinations in the world.

Another thing that’s different about NP Digital is the fact that we incorporate technical SEO into our content marketing planning. SEO — technical, on-page, off-page, local, etc.— it’s always a package deal with content marketing. Our status as one of the top SEO agencies means you get the best of both worlds.

We stay on top of Google’s updates and algorithms and adjust our strategies accordingly. This means the content we create for our clients automatically performs well with Google. here’s no extra work required. 

NP Digital is my way of helping everyone achieve the revenue and growth they deserve in their business. 

NP Digital’s client list includes:

  • CNN
  • Adobe
  • Western Union
  • Brightside Health
  • SoFi
  • LiquidWeb
  • ConnectWise
  • ModKat

2. Seer Interactive – Best for Big Data Search and Content

The Seer Interactive agency website.

Wil Reynolds founded Seer Interactive, which got its start as a search engine optimization company. What makes Seer one of the best content marketing companies on our list is its focus and emphasis on big data. 

Using a combination of in-house and third-party tools, they’ve built a massive data warehouse with almost 12,000 gigabytes of data they can analyze to identify new, hidden, and unexpected customer trends. 

If you’re in a competitive or cutthroat industry (e.g., finance, banking, or mortgages), this data is what you need to stay ahead of your competitors.

With Seer Interactive, their approach is SEO-heavy. That should be an important priority for every company, whether you’re big or small, but not every company is ready for Big Data.

Seer Interactive’s client list includes:

  • Asos
  • Intuit
  • SendGrid
  • Terminix
  • Think Company
  • Time Inc.

3. Brainlabs – Best for Technical SEO

The Brainlabs website.

Brainlabs was founded by Daniel Gilbert in 2012. Understanding that marketing was becoming all about data, he took the unusual tactic of hiring mathematicians, scientists and programmers to support automation and data-driven insights.

His approach paid off: Since 2020, the agency has expanded its services by acquiring other marketing companies, including the SEO-focused Distilled, a leader in the space. 

Today Brainlabs is known as one of the top content marketing agencies for technical SEO and helping companies evolve in an increasingly competitive SEO landscape. They are constantly experimenting and testing to improve conversion rates.

Brainlabs’ client list includes:

  • Formula 1
  • Estée Lauder
  • Capital One
  • Polaroid

4. Fractl – Best for In-Depth, Research-Heavy Content

The Fractl Website.

Fractl is a research-heavy, data-driven content marketing company. They’re focused on rapid, organic growth that’s driven by content marketing, data journalism, digital PR, and search engine optimization. 

Research makes Fractl unique. 

They’re always researching industry-related topics, and they share their understanding of the art and science behind newsworthy content. They share their research in top publications, leading market resources, scientific journals, and authoritative conferences around the world.

Their research has been published in MarketingProfs, TNW, The Economist, Time, the Harvard Business Review, the New York Times, Pub Con, and many other publications and journals.

If you’re in a research-heavy industry and you’re looking for a high-growth content marketing company, Fractl is a good choice. Aside from being one of the best content marketing brands, they’re one of the few companies that have a division dedicated to client growth.

Fractl’s client list includes:

  • Sapio
  • Porch
  • Fanatics
  • Travelmath
  • College Finance
  • Alcohol.org
  • NVISION
  • Superdrug

5. Column Five – Best for Data and Content Visualization

The Column Five website.

Column Five describes itself as a creative content agency. They’re primarily focused on the visual side of content marketing — storytelling, design, data visualization, video, interactive motion graphics, even exhibition design.

They are most known for their “child of the 90s” viral video on behalf of Internet Explorer, which launched their reputation as one of the best content marketing brands out there.

As a content creation company, Column Five is focused primarily on content strategy, content creation, and content distribution. They rely on a simultaneous mix of organic and paid distribution channels to draw attention to client content.

The company mantra is “the best story wins,” showing their commitment to developing great content that delivers big results. It specializes in content that is “inherently newsworthy,” making it more likely to get traffic, links, and media attention. 

The Column Five client list includes:

  • Deloitte
  • Cornell University
  • Harvard University
  • J.P Morgan
  • MetLife
  • ASPCA
  • The World Bank
  • Charles Schwab 
  • Dell
  • eBay
  • Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
  • Zendesk

6. Single Grain – Best for Conversion-Driven Content Marketing

The Single Grain website.

In 2014, entrepreneur and leading marketing expert Eric Siu made a big gamble. He bought a failing SEO agency for less than the cost of a cappuccino — $2. This wasn’t the first time he’d made a seemingly risky bet — in the past he led the growth strategy for an online education company when it had just a few months of cash left in the bank. 

“A month into it, the CEO pulls me aside,” Siu recalls, “and he’s like, ‘Eric, you know, 48 people, their families, they’re riding on your shoulders right now, and if you can’t hit numbers in the next month, we’re gonna have to let you go.’”

Did I mention he was just 25 years old at the time?

Eric leveraged his marketing know-how and entrepreneurial outlook to turn Single Grain around and take it to where it is today: solidly among the ranks of the best content marketing brands out there.  

Eric Siu and the Single Grain team can do for your business what they do best: turn it around. They know how to turn a faltering business into a successful one with an approach of optimizing for conversions and focusing on rapid growth. 

Single Grain’s client list includes:

  • WineDeals
  • Nextiva
  • Peet’s Coffee
  • Semrush
  • Warby Parker
  • Crunchbase
  • Lyft

7. The Content Bureau – Best for B2B Content Marketing

The Content Bureau's website.

The Content Bureau bills itself as a premier B2B content marketing company. This agency is woman-owned, 100 percent virtual, and their team is 90 percent female, of which a third are women of color. The Content Bureau focuses its attention on the technology, venture capital, and financial sectors, working almost exclusively with global corporations that rely on them year-round. 

Many of their clients are long-term, stable clients who prefer their premium approach, exclusive attention, and veteran workforce; 80 percent of their team have been with The Content Bureau for 10+ years. 

As an organization, they give their clients lots of handholding; they’re open and transparent with each of their clients, and they deliver amazing service with their extraordinary content.

The Content Bureau’s client list includes:

  • American Express
  • PayPal
  • Royal Bank of Canada
  • ADP
  • Unilever
  • Magento
  • Microsoft
  • Cisco
  • Atlassian

8. Webprofits – Best for Growing Brands

The Webprofits website.

Webprofits is the content marketing and advertising company that was co-founded by Sujan Patel and Alex Cleanthous. Their company focuses on challenger brands in the e-commerce, consumer, and retail space that want to grow their business fast. They’ve refined their process based on real-life, in-the-trenches experience.

In fact, Patel doesn’t think of Web Profits as an agency. He calls it a marketing “hit squad,” a team of specialists who understand your business inside and out. 

What makes Web Profits one of the top content marketing companies? They use a unique “fluid marketing” approach, which combines digital strategy with performance marketing. This enables its team of experts to identify hidden correlations and connections that can point to exciting opportunities for content marketing.

This makes the Web Profits team uniquely qualified to serve challenger brands that want to make a big impact.

Web Profits’ client list includes:

  • Logitech
  • Philips
  • Nespresso
  • Swarovski
  • HP
  • LG Electronics

9. Siege Media – Best for Scalable Content

The Siege Media website.

Siege Media prides itself on taking a “scientific approach” to scaling SEO-focused content. The agency works with a wide range of companies, from established Fortune 500 businesses to small startups.

The focus of the business is on link-building. Siege Media creates content that serves as passive link generators, a tactic they say is more effective than manual outreach. Their formula results in high-impact content that produces instant results—and it’s a cost-efficient tactic, too.

Siege’s superpower is a proprietary solution for link management. Siege maintains the tool for its clients on a monthly basis, ensuring that websites are always aligned with overall goals and updates. 

This commitment to innovation and leveraging technology for content marketing makes Siege one of the best content marketing companies for the future.

Siege Media’s client list includes:

  • Zillow
  • Quicken Loans
  • Inuit Mint
  • Shutterfly
  • Airbnb
  • Healthline
  • Casper
  • TripAdvisor
  • Asana
  • ZenDesk

10. Directive – Best for Performance Marketing for Tech Companies

The Directive Website.

CEO Garrett Mehrguth founded Directive when he was just 21, focusing on SEO. Today it works with some of the world’s most prominent tech companies, helping them become more discoverable in a dynamic and often challenging industry. Since its founding, it’s generated more than $10 billion in revenue.

The agency uses a unique data-driven methodology to generate quality leads organically across the marketing funnel. The team prefers to act as a partner rather than a vendor, serving as an extension of its clients’ in-house marketing teams.

Directive’s client list includes:

  • Amazon
  • Bill.com
  • Matillion
  • Sumo Logic
  • Eden Health
  • Vyond
  • Brooklyn Solarworks
  • ActivePDF
  • SentinelOne

4 Characteristics that Make a Great Content Marketing Company

A good content marketing company will have no problem demonstrating that they have the expertise and the resources they need to make your campaign a success. These are some qualities to expect in a high-quality content marketing agency.

1: A Stable Team of Content Creators

Content mills produce poorly written filler content that’s mainly written for search engines. Not only is that a short-sighted approach, but Google’s algorithm is more likely to ding sites that use it—especially now that it is incorporating AI. 

The best content marketing companies have a roster of regular and consistent writers on their team. Stable writers are skilled at writing, grammar, logical consistency, and storytelling. These writers can draw your readers in, creating content that moves people towards a specific goal or objective that you have in mind. 

These writers don’t need a lot of babysitting, and they’re able to figure things out, to a certain extent, on their own. They’re dependable, and they’re able to match your brand voice. 

When you contact a content marketing company, you’ll want to ask them questions about how they run their business. 

  • How many writers do you have on staff?
  • Are they freelance or W-2? Do you use a mix of both? 
  • How many of your writers are full-time? Part-time? 
  • How do you manage your team of writers? 
  • How many years of experience does the average writer on your team have? 

When you ask companies these questions, listen to their answers carefully. Look for any inconsistencies or red flags. If you spot any, bring them up immediately and ask for an answer. 

2: Access to Publishers and Influencers

According to Derek Halpern, founder of Social Triggers, you should be spending 20 percent of your time on content creation and 80 percent of your time on content promotion. The content marketing companies you work with are no different. If you’re investing a significant amount of time and money in creating an amazing piece of content, you should be spending 4x as much time on promotion to make sure your target audience sees it.

When you’re working with a content marketing company, they should already have a list of influencers and publishers in their address book. They should also have strong connections and relationships with the right people, so they’re reasonably sure they can drive traffic to your content. 

3: Specialized Knowledge About Your Industry

In an ideal world, your content marketing provider has a significant amount of experience in your space, or the ability to connect with experts who do. At a minimum, you’ll want to ensure that the content marketing company you choose can write credibly about the topics that are relevant to your business. 

The more specialized the content, the more important these criteria are for your business. 

Industries like healthcare, engineering, or finance require large amounts of specialized experience. It’s unrealistic to expect an inexperienced company to write credibly about a highly technical topic. 

Specialization requires specialists. The more technical your business, the more important it is to hire a content marketing company with experience and expertise in your field. 

4: Content Analysis and Measurement

When you’re investing in the services of a content marketing company, you’ll want to see the numbers. The agency should be able to provide you with a detailed breakdown that includes data outlining your performance as well as the KPIs, metrics, and sentiment surrounding your content.

This information should give you the answers to the following questions:

  • Does this content move us closer to our campaign goals? 
  • Does this piece of content (e.g., blog post, whitepaper, e-book, infographic) lead to enough conversions?
  • How far are people reading into your content? 
  • Where in our flywheel are we losing customers? 
  • What do we need to change/optimize to improve our conversion rates?
  • Which content marketing opportunities are we missing, and where? 

Creating content isn’t enough. The content marketing company you choose should provide you with the actionable data you need and a comprehensive strategy to create profitable content for your business. 

What To Expect From a Great Content Marketing Company

Top content marketing agencies are able to get you up to speed on their processes and provide you with a consistent and comprehensive set of deliverables. These deliverables ensure that your content marketing campaigns stay on track and that you’re able to achieve the consistent results you need.

To do this, your content marketing provider should provide you with onboarding guidance and specific deliverables throughout the pre-launch, launch, and post-launch phases of your campaign. These should include: 

  • Content samples demonstrating your knowledge and expertise
  • The information and materials (e.g., credentials, existing content) they need from you to get started
  • A statement of work and a list of deliverables (e.g., 14 2,500-word articles each month, edits included)
  • Their process (if they’re not working with you and yours)
  • Projected campaign milestones, timelines, and calendars
  • Your point-of-contact, including their name, and contact information
  • Hours of availability
  • The best way to communicate (e.g., Slack, email, phone, chat, or text)
  • Expectations from you 
  • Their process, policies, and procedures
  • Analysis and reports, including business goals, objectives, KPIs, metrics, strategy, tactics, and risks
  • Content audits
  • Consistent updates on your campaign performance
  • Regular (weekly or monthly) calls to discuss performance
  • Consistently updated due dates and delivery timelines
  • Monthly debrief to discuss successes and failures

Here are some additional details you should also expect from your content marketing providers:

  • Good boundaries (including the ability to say no)
  • Prompt and clear feedback
  • Accurate information on various parts of your campaign, including financial, campaign, and performance data

The best content marketing companies ask a lot of questions. They make sure to provide you with the upfront information you need to vet their company and make an informed decision. Once you’ve decided to move forward, they ask you for all of the information and materials they’ll need to produce the results you want.

FAQs

What makes good content marketing?

Good content marketing is different for every business, but in general, it involves creating well-written content that provides valuable information for your target market. It also draws in qualified leads and converts them into customers at a rate that justifies your investment.

How do you track content marketing results?

Tracking content marketing results involves setting clear goals, identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) such as website traffic, inquiries, and conversion rates to use as metrics, and monitoring the results. Most content marketing agencies use analytics tools to track and measure results. 

How do you optimize for content marketing?

Optimizing for content marketing involves several steps. First, research who your target audience is and their needs. This will guide you toward topics for content development that can answer their questions and provide valuable information. Incorporate SEO to ensure your content ranks high on search engine results pages and brings in organic traffic. Finally, analyze the results to refine content topics, formats, and overall strategy.  

Which content marketing agency is best for B2B companies?

B2B companies should look for agencies that focus on long-form content, SEO, and lead generation. The best partners understand how to create content that nurtures prospects over time, not just drives traffic. Agencies with strong experience in SaaS or professional services tend to perform best here.

Which content marketing company is best for small businesses?

Small businesses need agencies that balance quality with cost. Look for teams that offer flexible packages or project-based work instead of large retainers. The goal is to get consistent, high-quality content without overcommitting your budget early on.

Which agency is best for SEO-driven content?

You want an agency that combines content creation with keyword research and technical SEO. Firms that focus heavily on search performance will build content designed to rank, not just read well. Check for proven results in organic traffic growth and rankings.

Should you hire a specialized content agency or a full-service marketing agency?

Specialized agencies go deeper into content strategy and production. Full-service agencies connect content to SEO, paid media, and conversion optimization, which can drive better overall results. If content is your main bottleneck, go specialized. If growth is the goal, full-service often wins.

How do you choose the right content marketing agency?

Start with their results. Look for case studies showing traffic growth, lead generation, or revenue impact. Then review their content quality and process. The best agencies have a clear system for research, creation, and optimization.

Conclusion

Content marketing produces more leads and revenue than traditional marketing methods. If you’re looking for a good content marketing company to help you get started, it can be tough. Use this list to identify the companies that are a good fit for your business. 

With this post, you should have a pretty good idea of the questions to ask, what to expect, and how to select the right content marketing provider. 

Invest the right amount of effort with the right company, and your content marketing will grow faster than you expect. It’s tough in the beginning, but it will take effort, push through, and keep creating really helpful content, even if it’s hard. 

You’ll see consistent revenue growth once customers realize that you’re serious about helping them solve their problems. Content marketing is the best way to show them that you understand, and you can help. With this said, combining with other disciplines is the best way to unlock your content’s true potential. Check out my lists of the best CRO agencies and top social media agencies for more information.

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LinkedIn expands Event Ads beyond its own platform

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LinkedIn Ads retargeting: How to reach prospects at every funnel stage

LinkedIn is rolling out Off-Platform Event Ads, giving marketers a new way to promote events without needing a native LinkedIn Event Page.

What’s happening. The new format allows advertisers to run Event Ads that link directly to external destinations — such as webinar platforms, landing pages or livestream sites — instead of keeping traffic on LinkedIn.

This marks a shift from platform-contained experiences to more flexible, marketer-controlled journeys.

How it works. Marketers can create an Event Ad using a third-party URL, add event details like date and format, and choose from objectives including awareness, engagement, traffic or lead generation.

Clicks send users directly to the external event page, while performance metrics remain trackable in Campaign Manager.

Why we care. Until now, promoting events on LinkedIn often meant working within platform constraints, which could fragment the user journey and limit control over registrations.

Off-Platform Event Ads remove that friction by allowing marketers to tap into LinkedIn’s targeting while keeping traffic, data and conversions on their own platforms — making it easier to scale campaigns and maintain a consistent experience.

What to watch:

  • Whether this drives higher registration rates compared to native Event Pages
  • How advertisers balance LinkedIn targeting with off-platform conversion tracking
  • If LinkedIn expands similar flexibility to other ad formats

Availability. Off-Platform Event Ads are currently rolling out globally and are expected to be available to all advertisers by May 6.

Bottom line. By opening Event Ads to off-platform destinations, LinkedIn is making it easier for marketers to scale event promotion — without forcing them to build inside its walls.

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Web Design and Development San Diego

How to measure paid social’s impact on PPC

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How to measure paid social’s impact on PPC

If your paid social campaigns aren’t converting, you may be undervaluing their impact. Your brand’s exposure on social media can influence other parts of your marketing that platform metrics don’t capture.

Here’s how to design and measure a test to understand how paid social influences your other marketing channels, including PPC.

Step 1: Determine your hypothesis

Start with what you want to learn, then define a hypothesis you can realistically evaluate with your data.

For example, this is a common hypothesis for measuring paid search lift from social traffic:

  • Search lift hypothesis: Increasing spend on social media will increase brand search volume and overall PPC CTRs.
  • Logic: 
    • Social ads build brand awareness. As more people become familiar with our brand, they will search for it more often when making research and purchase decisions. 
    • As more people are exposed to our brand, they will increasingly click on our PPC ads regardless of their search term (i.e., increasing non-brand and brand CTRs).
    • People exposed multiple times to our brand will have a higher trust factor in our products, and therefore, our conversion rates will increase. 
  • Measurement: 
    • Impression and click volume for our branded terms.
    • CTR changes for brand and non-brand terms.
    • Conversion rate changes for brand and non-brand terms. 

Your hypothesis could have a different scope, such as measuring paid and organic lift from social spend or an increase in direct traffic. 

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Step 2: The test

The next step is to set up the test parameters. Generally, measuring before and after a change is a mistake, as seasonality or other factors can affect your test results.

The most common test setup is a geographic split. In this test, we’ll increase social spend for only a set of geographies. Then we’ll examine the PPC data for the geographies where we ran the test and compare them with areas where we did not.

As you choose geographies, you’ll want to control for other variables that may affect your test. Here are some common issues that companies have run into and need to control for in their tests and measurements:

  • You sponsor a sports team, and they’re playing during your test.
    • If the game is regionally televised, this can dramatically affect your test results.
  • You’re running TV commercials in only certain regions.
  • You choose experimental geographies with many out-of-region commuters, such as New York City, and include New Jersey and Connecticut in your control group.
    • In these instances, grouping a region and its surrounding commuter areas together, and placing other cities with similar characteristics, such as Chicago and Philadelphia, in a different group, can help balance these tests. (Note: in this example, we’re splitting New Jersey in half.)
  • Seasonal or local events. Large conferences, festivals, or major weather events can affect your data.

Your control and experimental groups should be statistically similar across factors such as income levels, and urban versus rural regions.

As you set up and measure your test, consider your budget. If you increase social spend and expect higher clicks and conversions for your PPC campaigns, ensure you have the budget to capture the increased demand.

Examine your impression share and impression share lost to budget before and after the test to ensure budget limits won’t severely impact your results.

Dig deeper: Why PPC tests in 2026 call for nuance, not winners

Step 3: The measurement

Measurement can go from very simple to extremely complex.

At a simple level, you can compare platform data to see how your data changed. In this case, a Google Ads report shows how pausing social spending and influencer campaigns across all social platforms (TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) affects performance.

For this test, pausing social spending yielded mixed results for conversion rates. As brand searches decreased, conversion rates in some regions increased, while in others they fell.

However, what was consistent was a dramatic drop in conversions.

You can get more sophisticated in your testing. Depending on your analytics setup, some companies want to measure touchpoint differences for their conversions. Others will want to measure overlap rates between social and paid search visitors, or examine attribution touchpoints and models.

Before you set up your test, ensure you have the measurement capabilities needed to understand and interpret the results.

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Step 4: Evaluation beyond the test criteria

As you run various tests, you want to measure the results against your hypothesis. However, it’s useful to list other variables worth evaluating beyond your test criteria.

This is where search consoles, analytics tools, CRM, internal data, and even the paid and organic report can come into play.

In one example, a company was running a test to see whether pausing several advertising channels, from social media to TV ads, would dramatically change its brand search volume. They hypothesized that their brand was so well known in the marketplace that they could cut back on several forms of brand advertising and reallocate that budget to other channels and non-brand advertising.

While the simple paid and organic report in Google Ads won’t tell you the full story about in-store revenue and direct traffic changes, it can serve as a signal to form an overall picture of a very complex test.

They had recently launched a new product line, and that line continued to see a large increase in traffic during the test. However, their most common brand terms saw significant declines from the test. This was a year-over-year comparison across a set of geographies, rather than a period-to-period comparison, to help correct for the increase in holiday traffic that would have occurred during the previous period.

The results were by far the most dramatic I’ve ever seen in this type of test, to the point it was clear other variables had to be in play that could affect the test.

This takes you to the sniff test. Rely on your experience with data to make common sense adjustments. If you look at the data and it just doesn’t seem right, ask yourself whether this makes sense, if it’s a math quirk (common with low data), or if other unforeseen variables are in play.

In this example, no one believed the results should be this dramatic. The company stopped running the test and began an internal evaluation of its organic presence, including Google’s recent updates, changes to AI Overviews, AI engagement, and other factors affecting its web presence beyond its usual marketing channels.

Dig deeper: Are your PPC ads still authentic in the age of AI creative?

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What to do with your social impact tests

The test setup is simple:

  • Determine your hypothesis.
  • Decide how you will test. The easiest setup is a geographic split.
  • Make sure you can measure the results.
  • Launch the tests.
  • Evaluate the metrics for your hypothesis.
  • Examine other metrics for insight or additional testing ideas.

For some companies, Facebook and other social channels are their top conversion channels, and these tests won’t be applicable. For others, social media advertising results often look poor when evaluated in isolation.

In these examples, the companies were already running many social media campaigns, so the test was to reduce social media spend. If you don’t run much social media, your test will be to increase your social media spend to see how it affects your data.

I’ve seen a lot of these tests, and the results are highly inconsistent across companies. Many companies will increase their social media spend and see little change in their data. Others will increase their spend and see a nice lift in overall performance. These are tests you need to run yourself, as your results will vary by company.

Running geographic split tests in your social media campaigns and then measuring the results on paid or organic search traffic can give you insights into how to leverage social media campaigns for other marketing channels.

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Web Design and Development San Diego

New to PPC? 7 tips to build skills and confidence fast

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New to PPC? 7 tips to build skills and confidence fast

Understanding the ins and outs of paid media can seem like an overwhelming process when you’re first entering the field. As AI has rapidly changed ad platforms in recent years, keeping up can feel challenging.

Thankfully, you’re not alone. You’re part of a supportive industry with a wealth of content and knowledge to share. Here are seven tips to help you learn and become a more confident PPC manager.

1. Be curious

Curiosity is foundational to growth in PPC. You’ll learn best by taking initiative to understand ad platforms, how campaigns are structured, and what options are available on the backend. Of course, be careful about tweaking settings you’re not familiar with, but don’t be afraid to dig in on your own.

If you’re part of a team, ask your colleagues why they use a particular setup. If you’re not familiar with a platform and have a team member who frequently uses it, ask if they can walk you through it.

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2. Absorb content and find community

There are countless industry professionals producing content to teach PPC. Whether you learn best from reading, listening to podcasts, or watching videos, you’ll find options that fit your style. Looking up the authors of articles on this site is a great starting point to build a list to follow.

Block out time in your schedule for education. Even setting aside a couple of hours a week helps you gain perspective from others in the industry and keep up with constant platform updates.

The PPC industry has long been known for its welcoming, supportive community. Seek out individuals and organizations who are actively sharing, and don’t be afraid to engage with them on social media. Conferences are also a great way to network with other PPC professionals and sometimes discuss their approaches in a more informal setting.

A brief word of caution: Vet recommendations you see from others against your own experience in ad accounts. Just because a “best practice” worked for one account doesn’t mean it’ll work for every account. Depending on the tactic, you may want to test it as an experiment to measure impact, or compare results before and after.

Dig deeper: What 10 years of PPC testing reveals about breaking best practices

3. Take industry certifications with a grain of salt

While ad platform certifications can serve as a starting point for demonstrating basic functionality, be cautious about relying on them as the end-all proof of PPC expertise.

Certifications often lean heavily on platform-recommended best practices, which may conflict with tactics that align with a brand’s goals. Academic knowledge can’t match the insight gained from practical, hands-on experience in accounts.

4. Don’t chase what’s new and shiny

While I’d encourage staying aware of ad platform updates and current tactics, I’d discourage implementing a new campaign type or expanding into a new platform just because it’s new. Make sure you have sufficient budget and a clear reason to test.

Additionally, avoid making adjustments without a rationale. If campaigns are performing and driving qualified leads or sales, keeping the status quo may be best.

Basic marketing principles still apply, such as knowing your target audience, addressing their problem with a solution, and presenting a clear call to action. Focus on aligning your channel choices with these goals, and the rest will follow.

Dig deeper: 10 keys to a successful PPC career in the AI age

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5. Translate jargon for stakeholders

As you become more embedded in PPC, you may naturally use industry terms and acronyms such as CTR, CPC, ROAS, and CPA. However, these metrics are often meaningless to stakeholders who aren’t immersed in your world. One of the most vital skills for a paid media professional is translating abstract metrics into language that connects with what stakeholders care about.

For instance, I often default to “conversions,” even though the term can be ambiguous in reports. Referencing the actual action being tracked (such as account open, form fill, or purchase) is more concrete and ties directly to what stakeholders are tasked with driving.

6. Use AI, but don’t neglect the human touch

AI is an inevitable part of a future-forward career, and ignoring it will be detrimental to career development. However, don’t lose the human oversight that sets a seasoned PPC practitioner apart.

When writing ad copy, LLMs can offer a strong starting point and help refine wording. But don’t rely on AI to produce all your copy, as it may pull irrelevant content from your site (or elsewhere), and may not reflect your brand’s voice and perspective. Also, learn where AI can save time on “busy work” tasks, such as reviewing search terms and placements for exclusions, while still reviewing the output for accuracy.

While most ad platforms default to automated campaign setups and encourage a hands-off approach, a standout PPC manager understands the levers they can pull to maintain control when needed. Examples include:

  • Setting target bids or cost caps.
  • Excluding irrelevant keywords, placements, and audiences.
  • Pinning headlines and descriptions in responsive search ads.
  • Restricting geographic targeting to avoid unwanted locations.
  • Tailoring creative to specific demographics.

Dig deeper: The new PPC playbook: From media buyer to profit engineer

7. Don’t change things for the sake of showing activity

One common temptation for both new and seasoned paid media practitioners is to make changes just to appear busy. The motivation may be valid, as you want to prove to your client or boss that you’re attentive to PPC account management.

However, particularly with campaigns that rely heavily on data to drive automated bidding, too many changes in a short period are often detrimental. Be sure to allow for data significance and enough time before pausing ads and keywords or tweaking bid targets.

If you can show positive performance trends and provide readouts on which campaigns and channels are driving those results, you can validate your decisions to take or not take action when presenting to stakeholders.

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Keep learning, start sharing

Becoming a confident PPC manager requires mastering a blend of technical, interpersonal, and marketing skills. As you build your knowledge, look for opportunities to share what you’re learning with peers. It’s one of the fastest ways to reinforce what you know and keep improving.

Dig deeper: 7 power moves to accelerate your PPC career

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Where PPC and SEO teams lose control in branded search by Bluepear

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Branded search is often treated as predictable and easy to manage. In practice, it isn’t.

PPC teams see rising CPC on brand terms. SEO teams see declining branded CTR, even when rankings hold. These issues are usually investigated separately, with different dashboards, hypotheses, and fixes.

Both signals often stem from changes within a single SERP. What look like two separate problems are, in reality, one shared environment reacting to shifts in competition and visibility.

The issue isn’t a lack of data. Most teams already have basic reports and brand monitoring tools, including PPC and SEO platforms. The problem is how the data is used. 

To understand what’s happening in branded search, teams must manually piece signals together. This takes time, doesn’t scale, and delays decisions.

Here’s why that fragmentation is harmful and what to do about it.

What’s actually happening in branded search

Branded search is often described in terms of channels — paid and organic. For users, that distinction doesn’t exist.

A single SERP brings together multiple layers:

  • PPC ads 
  • Competitor ads or comparison pages
  • Organic results, including brand-owned pages
  • Affiliate listings promoting the same brand
  • Review platforms and aggregators 

All of these elements appear at once, within the same decision-making space.

From a SERP analysis perspective, this isn’t a set of isolated placements. It’s a dynamic environment where each element influences the others. A competitor ad above your organic result can reduce CTR. An affiliate listing can compete with your paid campaign. A review page can shift user intent before a click.

In practice, this creates a mismatch. 

For users, branded search is a single page. Inside the company, it’s split across workflows and handled by different functions.

PPC focuses on bids and efficiency. SEO focuses on rankings and organic traffic. Affiliate activity is often tracked separately, if at all. Competitor tracking may exist, but usually within a single channel. The result is a fragmented view of what is, in practice, a shared space.

Understanding what’s happening in branded search often requires manual effort. The data is there, but building a complete, up-to-date view of the SERP on a regular basis is time-consuming and hard to scale. That makes it difficult to understand how these elements interact — and even harder to respond to changes as they happen.

What PPC teams see (and often miss)

From a PPC perspective, teams focus on these signals:

  • Brand CPC starts to rise.
  • More players appear in the auction.
  • Branded campaigns become less efficient over time.

At first glance, this suggests increased competition. The typical response is to adjust bids, defend impression share, or refine targeting. All of it makes sense within paid media.

But this is where context changes everything.

What PPC teams don’t always see is who’s driving that competition. 

Not every new entrant in the auction is a direct competitor. Often, it’s affiliate activity — partners bidding on branded terms outside agreed-upon rules. Without deeper competitor tracking, these cases can look identical while requiring different actions.

There’s also the organic layer. Changes in SERP structure — more ads, different layouts, stronger third-party rankings — can directly affect paid performance. Even if the campaign setup stays the same, the environment shifts. Without ongoing SERP analysis, these changes are easy to miss.

In many cases, brands aren’t just competing with others — they’re competing with themselves. Over 40% of advertised pages already rank #1 organically (Ahrefs, 2025).

PPC teams rarely see the full page in context. They see auction data, metrics, and reports — but not always how their ads appear alongside organic results, affiliates, and other placements in real time.

But beyond missing context, there’s a more practical limitation.

Ad platform reporting rarely explains what changed. It shows performance shifts — but not how the SERP looked to users, who appeared alongside the ad, or how placements were arranged.

This creates a gap.

Competitor tracking without context doesn’t explain the situation — it only signals change. Without broader SERP-level brand monitoring, PPC teams often optimize on partial visibility, reacting to symptoms while the root cause must be reconstructed manually.

What SEO teams see (and often miss)

From the SEO side, branded search issues tend to surface differently.

The most common signals look like this:

  • Branded CTR starts to decline.
  • Rankings remain stable, often still in top positions.
  • SERP appearance shifts — new elements, richer features, or different page layouts.

On the surface, it looks like an SEO problem. The natural response is to review snippets, adjust metadata, or check for technical or content issues.

But in many cases, performance drops aren’t driven solely by SEO factors.

SEO teams generally know that paid activity, competitors, and affiliates can influence branded search. The challenge isn’t awareness — it’s consistent visibility over time.

To understand what changed, teams need to see how the SERP looked at a specific moment:

  • Which ads appeared and where.
  • Whether competitors or affiliates were present.
  • How organic results were positioned in context.

This isn’t what standard SEO workflows are built for. Teams often have to manually check results, compare snapshots across tools, or rely on incomplete data.

Then there’s the SERP itself. Modern branded SERPs aren’t static. Layout changes, added modules, and mixed result types can significantly affect click behavior.

Without consistent SERP analysis, it’s hard to isolate the cause. As a result, SEO teams may keep optimizing — and see no stable results.

Why PPC and SEO issues are actually connected

At a glance, PPC and SEO issues in branded search may look unrelated — different metrics, dashboards, and teams. But when you look at the SERP as a whole, the connection is hard to ignore.

Studies show this overlap isn’t an edge case. Nearly 38% of websites advertise on keywords where they already rank in the top 10 organically (Ahrefs, 2025). In branded search, the overlap is even higher.

That means both channels operate in the same environment — and compete for the same user attention.

Changes within that environment rarely affect just one side:

  • Increased ad presence can push organic listings lower or draw clicks away.
  • Aggressive bidding (from competitors or affiliates) can raise CPC while also reducing organic search visibility.
  • New entrants in the SERP can affect both paid efficiency and organic CTR simultaneously.

In this context, it’s not unusual for PPC performance to decline while SEO metrics shift in parallel. These aren’t isolated issues — they’re different reflections of the same underlying change. Yet they’re rarely analyzed together.

The real problem isn’t visibility — it’s fragmentation.

Most teams already have access to data. Specialized tools make SERP analysis, competitor tracking, and brand monitoring possible. The limitation isn’t what can be seen, but how it’s used.

PPC and SEO operate in separate systems — different platforms and reporting environments, KPIs, and workflows. To understand what changed in branded search, teams must align manually by comparing reports, checking SERPs, validating assumptions, and sharing findings across functions.

As a result, insights are delayed, alignment lags behind SERP changes, and decisions are made with incomplete or outdated context.

How to improve branded search performance

Most teams don’t miss the signals — a spike in CPC, a drop in CTR, unexpected competitors in the auction. These changes rarely go unnoticed. The challenge comes next: confirming what happened and deciding how to respond.

This is where branded search performance slows. Teams dig through separate reports, trying to reconstruct what the SERP looked like at a specific moment. By the time the picture is clear — if it ever is — the window to react has already passed.

Improving performance here isn’t about adding more data. It’s about changing how it’s collected and used. 

With the right setup, SERP analysis becomes continuous instead of manual. Changes in branded search are captured automatically, including competitor and affiliate activity that might otherwise require manual checks, post-fact validation, or go unnoticed.

Tools for branded search monitoring such as Bluepear provide: 

  • Unified look on SERP in a specific moment.
  • Automated alerts when meaningful changes occur.
  • Pre-collected, timestamped evidence that removes the need to manually gather screenshots or reconstruct past states.

Instead of spending time collecting screenshots, comparing reports, and reconstructing what happened, the information is already structured.

This shifts the process from reactive to operational. Instead of investigating issues after the fact, teams receive a clear signal or a complete case.

This creates a reliable record of what actually happened:

  • When a new player entered the SERP.
  • How placements shifted over time.
  • Where potential violations or conflicts appeared.

Instead of scattered evidence and manual reconstruction, teams get structured, ready-to-use context.

Reporting becomes simpler. Insights can be shared across PPC, SEO, and affiliate teams without rebuilding context each time, reducing internal alignment time. Most importantly, decisions can be made faster.

With Bluepear, brand monitoring and competitor tracking become continuous. Teams receive structured signals instead of raw fragments and can act without rebuilding the situation from scratch.

To see how Bluepear can improve your workflow, create an account and start your free trial.

Final takeaways

PPC and SEO teams don’t lack data — they interpret different signals from the same SERP. But these signals are connected. They’re shaped by the same changes in the search environment, even if they appear in different reports.

When SERP analysis is fragmented, it’s harder to see the full picture — and even harder to act quickly.

What makes the difference is not more data, but better coordination:

  • Continuous brand monitoring instead of occasional checks.
  • Shared visibility across PPC, SEO, and affiliate teams.
  • A consistent view of the SERP, not separate channel reports.

When branded search is managed holistically, teams don’t just react to performance changes — they understand what drives them and respond with clarity.

To simplify how your team tracks and responds to branded search changes, start using Bluepear to automate monitoring, capture SERP changes, and centralize evidence in one place.

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Web Design and Development San Diego

Ginny Marvin on AI in search, PPC trends, and Google Ads evolution

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Ginny Marvin didn’t get into PPC because she had a grand plan.

She got into it because she was ready to start again.

After years working in print publishing and ad sales marketing, Marvin found herself at a career pivot point. A startup magazine she had helped launch folded, and she decided it was time to move fully into digital.

That meant going from marketing director to entry-level applicant.

  • “I don’t know what I’m doing, so I’ll start from the beginning,” she recalled.

That reset eventually led her into search marketing, Search Engine Land, and later Google, where she is now Google Ads Liaison.

In this interview, Marvin looks back at how paid search has changed, what marketers still misunderstand, and why the next phase of search will reward curiosity more than control.

PPC clicked faster than SEO

Marvin started on the SEO side at a small agency.

Then the paid search manager went on holiday.

She took over the campaigns temporarily — and immediately saw the appeal.

Coming from print, where measurement was slow or sometimes impossible, PPC felt almost instant. You could launch, spend, measure and see action quickly.

That speed changed everything.

For Marvin, PPC made the connection between marketing activity and business results much clearer than SEO did at the time.

Google won by moving faster

When Marvin entered the industry, Google wasn’t the only serious search player.

Yahoo was still a major force, and Microsoft was part of the mix. But over time, Google pulled ahead.

Marvin believes the difference was focus.

Google kept improving the product, launching new features and iterating faster than competitors. It became increasingly clear that Google was building around advertiser needs and pushing the industry forward.

Early PPC was painfully manual

Today’s PPC marketers may complain about manual work, but the early days were on another level.

Campaigns were built around huge keyword lists, endless permutations and highly granular structures. Advertisers spent hours creating keyword combinations and negative keyword lists.

It gave marketers a sense of control, but it also forced them to build campaigns around how the platform worked — not necessarily how the business worked.

That, Marvin said, is one of the biggest changes in paid search: campaigns now start more naturally with goals.

Search Engine Land became the industry’s newsroom

When Search Engine Land launched, Marvin was still early in her search career.

But it quickly became the place people went for search news, updates and expert analysis.

What made it valuable wasn’t just the reporting. It was the mix of fast news, contributed columns and practical insight from people doing the work.

For Marvin, Search Engine Land played a major role in professional growth across the industry because it made knowledge easier to share.

The search community has always been different

One thing Marvin repeatedly came back to was the generosity of the search community.

From the early days, practitioners shared what they were testing, what worked, what failed and what others should watch for.

That culture of learning helped define the industry.

It also shaped Marvin’s own career, both as a journalist at Search Engine Land and now in her role at Google.

AI is not as new as people think

Marvin believes one of the biggest misconceptions about AI in search is that it suddenly appeared.

Machine learning has been part of Google Ads for years, powering changes such as close variants, Smart Bidding and automation.

What changed recently was the speed of progress driven by large language models.

AI did not arrive overnight. But LLMs accelerated the shift dramatically.

Consumer behaviour is changing search

For Marvin, the biggest change is not just what Google can do.

It is how people search.

Queries are getting longer and more complex. People are searching through images, voice and multimodal inputs. Search can now understand intent without relying only on typed keywords.

That means advertisers need to think beyond the final conversion moment and understand the full customer journey.

Success still means business outcomes

Marvin does not think the definition of success in search has changed.

It still comes down to business outcomes.

What has changed is marketers’ ability to measure those outcomes and connect campaign activity to business goals.

That makes data, measurement and first-party signals more important than ever.

The next 20 years will reward curiosity

When asked what kind of marketer will succeed in the next phase of search, Marvin pointed to curiosity.

The best advertisers will be those who keep learning, watch how customers behave and adapt before they are forced to.

She compared it to mobile, where consumers moved faster than advertisers did.

The same thing is happening with AI.

PPC marketers say they love change — until it happens

Marvin’s reality check for the industry was simple.

PPC marketers often say they love change, but many resist every major shift when it arrives.

Her advice is to take a longer view.

Many of the changes that feel sudden have actually been building for years. Automation, AI, broader intent matching and full-funnel campaigns have all been moving in this direction for a long time.

Her advice: start experimenting

Marvin’s message is not that every new feature will work immediately.

It is that marketers should not write things off forever because they tested them once months or years ago.

Platforms evolve quickly. Capabilities improve. What failed before may work differently now.

For advertisers still holding tightly to old ways of working, the next phase of search will be harder.

What she is proudest of

Looking back, Marvin said she is proud of the search community itself.

Its willingness to share, learn and support each other has made the industry stronger.

She also sees her role, both at Search Engine Land and Google, as being a resource for marketers.

  • As she put it, communicating “by marketers, for marketers” has always mattered.

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Web Design and Development San Diego

Pete Bowen talks about why Google Ads is not just about clicks

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On PPC Live The Podcast, I spoke with Peter Bowen, a Google Ads specialist with nearly 20 years of experience and a strong focus on B2B lead generation.

Pete shared two major lessons from his career: always check the basics, and never assume the systems around your ads are working just because the campaigns look fine.

The currency mistake that cost 10 times the budget

Pete Bowen shared an early mistake where a South African client’s account was set up in the UK, defaulting the currency to pounds instead of rand. That simple oversight led to spending roughly 10 times the intended budget, delivering great results at first — but ultimately setting unrealistic expectations and losing the client.

Why checklists protect PPC teams

The takeaway from that mistake was to formalise learning into process. Adding something as simple as a currency check to a setup checklist ensures that once a mistake is made, it doesn’t happen again — turning painful lessons into repeatable safeguards.

The bigger problem: system decay

Beyond setup errors, Pete highlighted a more subtle but common issue he calls “system decay” — where the infrastructure connecting ads, tracking tools, CRMs and sales processes gradually breaks down without anyone noticing.

Why conversion data failures hurt performance

When conversion data stops flowing properly, Google’s algorithms lose the feedback they rely on to optimise. This can lead to reduced spend, poor performance or campaigns that suddenly stop delivering — even if nothing appears wrong inside the platform.

PPC managers need to look beyond the interface

One of the biggest mistakes advertisers make is focusing only on what happens inside Google Ads. Strong performance depends on the entire journey, from click to conversion to revenue, and any break in that chain can undermine results.

What to do when conversion tracking breaks

When tracking fails, the priority is to fix the root issue quickly and, where possible, use data exclusions to prevent bad data from influencing optimisation. Longer term, building monitoring systems that flag issues early is essential to avoid repeat problems.

The danger of optimising for clicks

Pete also pointed to a common but damaging mistake: optimising campaigns for clicks rather than outcomes. Without proper conversion tracking, advertisers can end up driving large volumes of traffic that never turn into leads or sales.

Why Performance Max needs strong tracking

Automation like Performance Max can amplify this issue, as it will follow whatever signals it receives. Without accurate conversion data, it can scale irrelevant traffic quickly, making strong tracking a prerequisite before leaning into automation.

Why bid strategies need guardrails

Google’s bidding systems are powerful but literal — they optimise toward whatever you define as success. That means advertisers need clear goals, reliable data and sensible guardrails, such as CPC limits, to avoid extreme or inefficient outcomes.

Testing AI features carefully

With newer tools like AI Max, the risk isn’t testing too early — it’s testing without a clear definition of success. Metrics like impressions and clicks are not enough; advertisers need to measure impact on qualified leads, sales and revenue.

The problem with “always be testing”

Peter also challenged the idea that everything should be constantly tested. Many accounts simply don’t have enough data to make small tests meaningful, meaning time is often better spent improving fundamentals rather than chasing marginal gains.

The key takeaway

The overarching lesson is straightforward: mistakes are part of the process, but only if they lead to better systems. Every error should result in a checklist, a monitoring process or a safeguard — ensuring it doesn’t happen again.

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How to Build Location Pages That Rank, Convert, and Get Cited

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Most location pages fail for one of two reasons: They’re too thin (just an address and phone number) or too generic (the same template with city names swapped out).

Google sees through both. So does ChatGPT.

But here’s what a good location page can do:

  • Rank in organic search
  • Link from your Google Business Profile (GBP)
  • Get cited in AI answers
  • Serve as a landing page for ads
  • Convert visitors into leads

One page, five jobs.

One Page, Five Jobs

Most location pages do none of this.

They just sit there. Technically live, technically indexed, technically doing nothing.

I’ve built location pages for HVAC companies, electricians, painters, funeral homes, and more across dozens of markets.

The ones that rank fast — sometimes within 48 hours — aren’t longer or stuffed with more keywords.

Google SERP – Emergency electric

They’re built for how customers actually interact with that business.

In this guide, I’ll show you exactly how to build location pages that work for your business model. Whether you have 3 locations or 300, physical storefronts or service areas.

You’ll get two plug-and-play templates, ranking tactics, and strategies for showing up when someone asks an AI “best [your service] in [city].”

Two Types of Location Pages (and When You Need Each)

Before you build anything, you need to know which type of location page you’re creating.

Get this wrong, and you’ll confuse users, Google, and AI systems.

For example: A bank branch in Philadelphia needs a completely different page than an HVAC company serving Philadelphia from 30 miles away.

Take Bank of America’s Philadelphia branch.

The page shows exactly what someone needs to visit: full address, hours, parking, what to expect when they walk in.

Bank of America – Financial centers Philadelphia

Now compare that to Sila, an HVAC company serving Southeastern Pennsylvania.

They don’t have an office in Philadelphia. But their page proves they cover the area and gives customers confidence to call them.

Sila – Philadelphia

Physical Location Pages

Creating location-specific pages is how you convert local searches to foot traffic.

  • What it is: A page for a place customers actually visit
  • Examples: Bank branches, retail stores, medical offices, restaurants, walk-in clinics
  • User intent: Directions, hours, parking, what to expect when they arrive
  • Key signal: You have a real address where customers walk in

Merit Dental’s Sandusky location shows exactly what visitors need: address, hours, map, and a photo of the actual building.

Everything invites you to visit.

Merit Dental – Dental office Sandusky

Service Area Pages

Service area pages are how you dominate search in 50 towns without opening 50 offices.

  • What it is: A page for a geographic area you serve, but don’t have a physical presence in
  • Examples:
    • Mobile/field services: HVAC, plumbing, electrical, painting
    • Brick-and-mortar with regional draw: Chiropractors, dentists, urgent care
  • User intent: Proof you serve their area, credibility, why they should choose you
  • Key signal: You want visibility in this area but have no physical address there

Infinity Roofer travels to customers across the Denver metro, so their service area page focuses on building credibility through local expertise (mentioning “Denver’s infamous hailstorms”).

Infinity Roofer – Denver

Note: Neighborhood pages (e.g., “Electrician in South Philadelphia”) are a more granular version of service area pages. Same approach, tighter geographic focus.

EP Electric – Licensed electrician in South Philadelphia

But service area pages aren’t just for businesses that come to you.

Brick-and-mortar locations should use them too when they draw customers from surrounding towns.

For example, Centre for Healing Arts is based in Limerick, Pennsylvania. But they created this service area page for Pottstown, just 7 miles away.

Chiropractic care in Pottstown

How They Work Together

Many businesses need both.

For example:

McCafferty Funeral & Cremation Inc. has two physical offices: Philadelphia and New Hope, Pennsylvania.

McCafferty Funeral Homes – Locations

They also serve families in surrounding communities like Lambertville, New Jersey (just 2 miles from their New Hope location).

They need physical location pages for their two offices and service area pages for nearby towns like Lambertville where they don’t have a physical presence.

McCafferty Funeral Homes – Lambertville

To make this structure work, link them strategically.

Service area pages link to your nearest physical location. Physical location pages link out to the service areas they cover.

This creates a clear hierarchy for users and search engines.

How to Make Your Location Pages Perform

Whether you’re optimizing for organic rankings, AI citations, paid traffic, or conversions, the same core principles apply.

Match Searcher Intent

Does your page match what someone searching “[service] in [city]” actually wants?

Physical location searchers are often looking for logistics. Hours, directions, parking, what to expect when they visit.

Grand Central Bakery – Multnomah Village

Service area searchers want proof you serve their region and reasons to choose you.

Alliance Plumbing – Service area

Mismatch = bounce.

Add Real Local Value (Not Just City Name Swaps)

This is where most location landing pages fail.

Swapping city names isn’t unique. Google knows.

Check out these near-identical pages from an HVAC company in Tucson, Arizona.

ACS HVAC – Duplicate content

Real local value means neighborhood-specific details, regional challenges, and local expertise you can’t copy-paste.

For example, Wade Paint Co’s Sullivan’s Island house painting page includes FAQs about historic preservation requirements.

These are concerns unique to this barrier island’s homes.

Wade Paint Co – Sullivan Island FAQ

Or Bill Joplin’s Plano HVAC page, which discusses how Plano’s climate and types of homes affect system sizing.

Joplins service areas – Plano

Details only someone actually working in that market would know.

Right-Size Your Content Depth

Not every location page needs 2,000 words.

But major purchases like home remodeling, medical procedures, or legal services typically require extensive information.

Why?

Because customers are investing significant time and money.

Check out this service area page from Assembly Squad Remodeling, a bathroom contractor.

It addresses different Chicago building types, the specific challenges of each, even pricing ranges for various project scopes.

Assembly Service IL – Bathroom remodeling Chicago

Low-consideration pages can be leaner. Like this laundromat location page in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Classic Cleaners – Broad Ripple

Consideration isn’t the only factor in determining page depth.

Competitive markets require more content to differentiate. Less competitive markets can get away with less.

So, match your page’s depth to what the decision actually requires.

Consider Authority

Domain authority matters, but it’s not everything.

I’ve ranked service area pages on domains with Authority Scores (AS) of 20-30 in as little as 48 hours.

Sometimes, in even less time.

Google SERP – Fast page ranking

With even lower Authority Scores.

Domain Overview – Rapid Air HVAC – Authority Score

How?

I focused on building pages around searcher intent.

In my experience, a well-built location page on a smaller site can beat a thin page on a high-authority domain.

Like how this local painting company is outranking CertaPro Painters, a national franchise. As well as Yelp.

Google SERP – Painting company

Structure for AI and Search Engines

Schema markup is table stakes. You need LocalBusiness, FAQPage, and Review at minimum.

Google – Rich Results Test – Schema items

Scannable sections with descriptive headings help crawlers, AI systems, and humans find what they need fast.

Klaus Roofing of Oregon

Optimize for Each Channel

The core factors above apply everywhere. But each channel rewards certain elements more than others.

Organic Rankings

The more comprehensive your content, the better it ranks.

Answer questions competitors ignore. Address objections before users have to ask.

You still need keywords, too. Naturally integrated in your title, headings, and body content.

Just don’t stuff “[city] [service]” in every sentence:

Roto Rooter – Pflugerville

Local backlinks to that specific location page signal you’re actually relevant to that area.

Get mentioned by local chambers, news sites, neighborhood blogs, industry directories.

Real images make a difference, too.

Photos of your actual location, your team, or projects you’ve completed.

Devocion Cafe – Downtown Brooklyn, NY

Stock photos just won’t cut it.

AI Citations

When someone asks Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, or Perplexity for local recommendations, will your business show up?

Third-party “best of” features increase your citation chances significantly.

Philly Home Pros – Best home remodelers

When you’re mentioned on local roundups, listicles, or “top 10” posts, AI systems are more likely to reference you. They trust these aggregated sources.

Comparison tables also make it easy for AI to pull and cite your content.

Format your information so it’s scannable. Pricing breakdowns, service comparisons, coverage areas. AI loves data it can parse quickly.

FAQ sections with clear question headers work because large language models (LLMs) are trained in part on Q&A content.

Write your questions the way people actually ask them. Then, answer them directly.

Orange Pestaz – Apache Junction spider control

Structure your content the way these systems are trained to consume information, and you’re more likely to get cited.

Experiment: What AI actually cites for local queries

I tested 30 “best [service] in [city]” queries across Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. Then, cataloged every source in their citation panels — 725 citations total.

Each platform told a completely different story.

What AI platforms cite for local business queries

Google AI Mode leaned heavily on Yelp listings (32%) and Reddit threads (30%). Community discussions and review platforms drove the majority of its citations.

ChatGPT favored editorial “best of” lists more than any other platform — 22% of its citations came from third-party roundups. Getting featured in a local magazine’s “Top 10” list matters here.

Perplexity was the outlier. It cited business websites directly 73% of the time — including location pages. Strong site content gets found.

The takeaway: each platform pulls from a different layer of the web.

Yelp profiles and Reddit mentions for Google AI Mode. Editorial roundups for ChatGPT. Your own site for Perplexity.[/largequote]

Paid Landing Pages

If you’re running Google Ads for local services, your location pages make perfect landing pages.

But only if you get the messaging right.

Your ad says “24/7 Emergency Plumber in Orange County”?

That exact promise needs to be the first thing someone sees when they land on the page.

Not buried in the third paragraph. Not implied. Right there in the headline.

Cyclone Plumbing USA – Emergency plumber in Orange County

When your landing page headline matches your ad copy, Google sees a better user experience.

That improves your Quality Score and lowers your cost per click (CPC).

Specificity matters too.

If your ad targets “Landscaping Denver,” don’t send them to a service area page for all of Colorado.

Send them to your Denver-specific page with Denver details, Denver reviews, Denver project photos.

Bottom line: Generic landing pages bleed money. Location-specific ones convert higher and cost less.

Pro tip: The goal here isn’t just to rank — it’s to take up as much search engine results page (SERP) real estate as possible.

With the right setup, your brand can appear three times in a single SERP: your GBP in the map pack, your location page in organic results, and your PPC ad at the top (all using that same location page).

When someone sees your brand multiple times on the same SERP, you get instant credibility. And, it can boost your click-through rates (CTRs).

Most businesses treat these as separate channels. Smart ones use location pages to connect them all.

Template 1: Physical Location Page

Use this template when customers come to you: a storefront, office, branch, restaurant, or clinic they physically visit.

Physical Location Page

Core Modules

  • Hero section (business name, location, primary CTA, contact form)
  • Address & directions (full address, embedded map, parking/accessibility details)
  • Hours of operation
  • What to expect when you visit
  • Services offered at this location
  • Photos of the location (interior, exterior, team, waiting area)
  • Credibility & trust signals (industry associations, BBB accreditation, certifications)
  • Special offers for this location
  • Reviews & testimonials (prioritize from customers who actually visited this location)
  • Links to other physical locations
  • Contact info & CTA

Depth Modules

These separate pages that rank from pages that don’t.

Competitive markets and high-stakes services (medical, legal, home remodeling) need most or all of these. Less competitive markets can use fewer.

Hyperlocal Content

This is where you show you actually operate in this neighborhood.

Talk about the area’s vibe, nearby landmarks people know, and transit options.

Cover parking situations and accessibility details customers care about.

The goal is to paint a picture of what it’s like to visit you here — with details only someone who actually works in this neighborhood would know.

Extended FAQs

Go beyond the basics like hours and directions.

Answer questions about the visit itself: “Is there parking?” “How long is the wait?” “Can I walk in or do I need an appointment?”

Experience Chiropractic – What to expect

Address common queries about payment options: “What insurance do you accept?” “Do you offer payment plans?”

Include neighborhood-specific questions like “Are you near [landmark]?” or “Do you serve customers from [adjacent area]?”

Structure these FAQs with clear question headers so AI systems can parse and cite them easily.

Team/Staff

If customers interact with specific staff at this location, introduce them.

Not generic corporate bios. Actual people who work here. Headshots, credentials, specialties.

For professional services like medical, legal, and financial, this builds significant trust.

Community Involvement

If you sponsor local teams, partner with neighborhood businesses, or support area charities, highlight it here.

“We proudly sponsor the South Charleston Little League” proves you’re part of the community, not just operating there for profit.

Template 2: Service Area Page

Use this template when you serve an area but don’t have a physical presence there.

Service Area Page

This covers both:

  • Mobile services (you go to customers)
  • Brick-and-mortar businesses drawing from surrounding towns (they come to you, but your office isn’t in their area).

Core Modules

  • Hero section (service + location, primary CTA, contact form)
  • Services offered in this area
  • Special offers for this area
  • Photos showing your work in this area (or team working in similar neighborhoods)
  • Credibility & trust signals (industry associations, certifications, years serving this area)
  • Reviews & testimonials (prioritize reviews from customers in this specific area)
  • Link to nearest physical location (if applicable “We’re based 15 minutes away in [city]”)
  • Contact info & CTA

Depth Modules

Here’s how you build a service area page that actually competes. The more competitive your market, the more of these modules you’ll need.

Hyperlocal Content

Show you actually understand this area’s unique challenges.

Maybe you’re a pest control company that can speak intelligently about termite pressure zones in the Southeast.

All U Need Pest – Termite control

Or, a pool service that addresses the hard water issues Arizona homeowners deal with constantly.

Aspppoolco – FAQ

The more specific you get about problems only someone working in this market would recognize, the harder you are to compete with.

Previous Work in Area

Prove you actually serve this geography with specifics.

We’ve completed 180+ pool installations in Scottsdale over the last 4 years.”

Then, add examples. “Last summer we built three saltwater pools in the DC Ranch community during that record-breaking heat wave.”

Before/after photos from local projects work here, too. Real numbers and real examples beat vague claims every time.

Extended FAQs

Service area pages need to answer two types of questions: Can you actually help me, and do you understand what makes my area different?

Answer service logistics questions like “Do you service [specific neighborhood]?” or “How quickly can you get here?”

Address technical questions tied to local conditions like “Do I need a permit for AC replacement in [city]?” or “What foundation issues are common in this area?”

1 by 1 Roof – FAQ

Write your questions the way people actually ask them. Then, answer them directly.

Scaling for Enterprise

Everything above works whether you have 5 locations or 500.

But at scale, new challenges emerge.

Lock Down Brand Standards

Centralized templates prevent local teams from going rogue.

Define what’s editable (local details, testimonials, staff bios) versus what’s locked (brand messaging, legal disclaimers, core service descriptions).

Create a style guide specifically for location pages.

Build approval workflows for new pages or major edits so you catch problems before they go live.

Avoid the Duplicate Content Trap

The biggest risk at scale is 50 pages that look identical with city names swapped.

Each page needs genuinely unique content — not just find-and-replace.

Like these examples from Public Storage.

Public Storage – Different content

They stay unique by tying each page to real places and explaining the specific storage needs that come with living there.

Audit regularly for pages that are too similar. Remember that thin pages hurt your entire domain, not just that one page.

Choose Your Content Team Structure

Centralized teams give you more control and consistency but less local flavor.

Local teams create more authentic, hyperlocal content but are harder to manage for quality.

The hybrid approach usually works best: The central team owns templates and core messaging; local teams add hyperlocal details and testimonials.

Clear ownership prevents pages from going stale.

Connecting Physical Locations to Service Areas

If you have three offices serving 50 towns, your structure matters.

Location Page Linking Structure

This avoids confusion for users and search engines while signaling which pages matter most.

Build Neighborhood Pages That Don’t Suck

Don’t create neighborhood pages for every ZIP code.

Prioritize competitive markets, areas with genuine search volume, and places where you have real hyperlocal expertise.

Thin neighborhood pages hurt more than they help. Ten strong neighborhood pages beat 100 weak ones.

Audit and Fix Underperformers

Monitor your location pages’ SEO performance to spot underperformers.

Run regular audits for thin content, outdated information, and broken links.

Set a refresh cadence: quarterly reviews at minimum. Kill pages that aren’t earning traffic or conversions.

Set Up Your Production System

Use CMS templates that enforce your structure.

At my agency, we use WordPress with custom templates to ensure consistency across all location pages.

You also want to track all location pages in a spreadsheet or database with URLs, last updated dates, and performance metrics.

Set automated alerts for pages that haven’t been touched in 6+ months.

Programmatic approaches can work if you have genuinely unique data for each page. For example, a brand like Expedia pulling real hotels, prices, and reviews.

Expedia – Dallas hotels

But if you’re just swapping city names, you’re creating thin content at scale. In that case, build fewer pages manually with real depth.

Start Small, Scale Smart

Start with one page.

Pick your highest-priority location or service area and build it using the templates above.

Don’t try to launch 50 pages at once.

Get that first page ranking, converting, and getting cited by AI. Then, use it as your model for the rest.

Remember: One well-built location page can do the work of five different marketing assets.

But most businesses will never build pages this detailed. That’s your advantage.

Need help managing location pages at scale?

Our guide to multi-location SEO shows you how to optimize GBPs, track citations, and coordinate review strategies across every location without losing your mind.

The post How to Build Location Pages That Rank, Convert, and Get Cited appeared first on Backlinko.

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7 Steps to Build a Marketing Strategy That Actually Works in 2026

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With all of the platform changes and tech advancements, it’s easy to feel like you’re always a step behind.

Buyers can discover brands in countless ways without ever visiting their website.

Tracking and attribution are becoming murkier, which makes it harder to know what to prioritize.

Everyone is telling you to use AI, or you’re out of business tomorrow.

You constantly need to adapt. And many times, without the data to show whether you’re making the right calls.

The good news is, you don’t need more tactics or fancier tools.

You need structure.

Below, you’ll find a step-by-step framework you can use to build your marketing strategy for 2026.

Marketing Strategy Framework

It doesn’t matter where you’re starting from. These steps will guide you toward a strategy that’s documented and built for sustainable growth.

As you work through each step, use our Marketing Strategy Workbook to capture your decisions as you go.

Marketing Strategy Workbook

Step 1: Define Your Primary Business Goals

You can only choose channels, messaging, and KPIs once you know what goal you’re supporting.

Of course, revenue growth is almost always the overarching goal.

But most marketing strategies ladder up to that larger goal by supporting things like:

  • Demand generation
  • Brand awareness
  • Retention or expansion

To define your own primary marketing goal, work through these steps:

  • Name the real problem marketing needs to solve right now: Is the issue volume? Lead quality? Retention? CAC? Awareness? Be specific.
  • Choose one primary goal: Over the next 6-12 months, what single outcome should marketing influence most?
  • Identify 1-2 secondary goals (optional): You can support these goals, but not at the expense of the primary goal.
  • Turn this into a SMART goal and pressure-test it: Pick a goal that you can measure and achieve in a set amount of time.

Smart Goals

Of course, the “right” marketing goal depends on your situation.

Early-stage companies need momentum. Growth-stage teams focus on scalable demand. More mature companies might focus on efficiency, retention, or expansion.

The goal you choose sets the direction for every decision that follows.

Here’s an example:

In 2020, Fireflies.ai launched with a small team and limited marketing budget. They needed to drive user adoption and growth, fast.

So, they chose a strategy that focused on product-led, word-of-mouth growth. One of the best drivers: make it easy and worthwhile to refer new users.

Fireflies – Referral program

They skipped popular tactics like paid acquisition, brand campaigns, and traditional demand gen funnels.

Why?

Because their resources, product design, and business stage made product-led growth the highest-impact path.

Their goal dictated everything else, including how they tracked success. Fireflies.ai co-founder and CEO Krish Ramineni talked about this. He said success was measured with:

  • Increased product usage
  • More users inviting Fireflies’ AI notetaker into their meetings
  • Organic mentions across the web

With this strategy, they were able to grow to over 10 million users, without ever using paid ads.

Before you choose channels or tactics, you need the same clarity Fireflies had. What outcome does marketing actually need to drive right now?

To go even deeper, answer the questions in Step 1 of our Marketing Strategy Workbook.

Marketing Strategy Workbook – Step 1

Step 2: Pinpoint Your Unique Value Proposition (UVP)

A strong unique value proposition (UVP) answers one question:

Why should someone choose you over the best alternative?

In other words, what makes your business meaningfully different from your competitors?

Here’s how to figure it out:

First, identify and analyze your best customers.

The most obvious candidates are the customers who renew subscriptions or keep purchasing from your brand.

But don’t forget your brand evangelists. Who is out there recommending your products regularly?

Once you’ve built that list, ask yourself:

What do these customers have in common?

Your UVP usually lives where you deliver the most consistent, measurable results.

Tip: Our marketing workbook walks you through more questions to help you identify your UVP.

Marketing Strategy Workbook – Step 2

Next, identify the core outcome. What real-world result do those customers get?

Go beyond the surface-level benefits. Think about what changes in your customers’ daily routine. How does your product affect their daily life? How does it impact their business?

Is it smoother communication? Fewer mistakes? Less stress? Better data? Stronger performance?

Anchor your UVP to a real outcome.

Then, define your defensible difference.

Now ask: what allows you to deliver that outcome better or differently than alternatives?

That could be:

  • Proprietary data
  • A specific process
  • Product architecture
  • Speed
  • Category specialization
  • Pricing structure
  • Brand trust
  • Community

Be specific. “Easy to use” and “innovative” don’t count unless you can prove why.

Finally, pressure test your analysis.

Ask yourself: If we disappeared tomorrow, what would our best customers struggle to replace?

That point of friction is your real differentiation. It means your UVP isn’t something interchangeable with any other brand in your industry.

Once you have this, your UVP becomes the baseline for the rest of your marketing strategy. It’s a foundation for your message that shows up over and over again.

Doordash is a great example of this. Their tagline is: “Everything you crave, delivered.”

DoorDash – Homepage

This simple UVP defines:

  • The audience state (craving)
  • Breadth (everything)
  • Outcome (delivery convenience)

The same story shows up everywhere.

Homepage messaging. App story copy. Email newsletters.

Most Convenient Week Ever

The result of having that solid UVP?

DoorDash reinforces one idea: we’re the easiest way to get what you want, when you want it.

That’s the kind of core benefit you want your audience to remember.

Step 3: Perform Audience Research

Your UVP is your hypothesis.

Now, it’s time to validate it.

We have a full guide to audience research, so save that for later. In the meantime, here are three places to gather information:

  1. Customers
  2. Market perception
  3. Competitors

Simple Audience Research Framework

First, let’s start with customer research.

Your goal: understand what your customers actually care about.

Start with a segment of your customers, ideally the high-value customers you identified in Step 2.

Then, answer these four questions:

  • What problem consistently pushes them to look for a solution?
  • What triggers that search?
  • What objections slow down decisions?
  • What words do they use to describe the problem?

You don’t need months of research.

Start with even just two or three customer conversations to understand how buyers describe their challenges. Talk to your sales or customer success teams to learn about top objections, misunderstandings, or decision blockers.

Next, dig into the market perception of your brand and industry.

Start with social media research. Search on relevant Reddit threads, skim through YouTube comments, or read reviews on third-party sites.

As real people describe the problems they’re facing, pay attention to the emotional language and repeated frustrations. Learn from the criteria they use to compare similar products.

Conversely, when someone recommends your brand specially, what’s the context?

For example: I searched for mentions of Omnisend in an email marketing subreddit. And I learned that the brand is often brought up in conversations about email marketing for ecommerce brands.

Reddit – Omnisend comment

Given Omnisend brands itself as email marketing software for ecommerce, this lines up.

Google SERP – Omnisend

You can also use Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit to learn how your brand is perceived by LLMs.

Essentially, Semrush runs AI searches for prompts related to your business and gathers a crowdsourced opinion of your brand.

Because LLMs are informed by how your brand appears across the web, this serves as a useful way to gauge both how your brand is perceived online and what the LLMs specifically are telling your target audience about your brand.

Head to the “Brand Performance” dashboard, then scroll to see “Key Business Drivers” to see the topics your brand is associated with in AI answers.

When I analyzed this data for Omnisend, I found that one of their top drivers is deep ecommerce store integration. Which aligns perfectly with what I saw earlier on Reddit.

AI SEO – Brand Performance – Omnisend – Key business drivers

When you’ve gathered this data, you can use it to pressure test your UVP from Step 2.

  • Do customers mention the differentiator you identified?
  • Do they value the outcome you thought was most important?
  • Are they choosing you for the reason you expected?

Pro tip: If everything feels perfectly aligned, you probably didn’t dig deep enough. This step should create clarity by surfacing the disconnect between what you want people to know, and what they actually know about your brand. The gap is what you aim to solve with your marketing strategy.

Lastly, competitor research can add another layer to this by telling you what’s already being said in the market.

For example, content marketing agency Animalz paid attention to competitors. They noticed that other agencies were competing for the same SEO-driven keywords.

Meanwhile, their ideal clients — CMOs and founders — cared more about experience-driven insight than traffic volume.

So Animalz leaned into what only they could offer: insights from hundreds of content programs.

Animalz – Flagship content frameworks

They focused on original research, experience-driven frameworks, and thought leadership — not search volume.

The result? Fewer generic visitors, more high-quality leads. According to their homepage, their client list includes the likes of Google, Amazon, Airtable, and Atlassian.

That’s the goal here. Understand the audience. Study the landscape. Then, position yourself where you’re both relevant and differentiated.

By the end of this step, you should be able to clearly state:

  • The core problem your audience is trying to solve
  • The trigger that pushes them to act
  • The language they use
  • The top objection(s) you must address

That’s enough to inform channel decisions and messaging — without drowning in data.

Step 4: Choose Your Marketing Channels

You can’t reasonably “be everywhere.”

Every channel has different mechanics, expectations, and resource demands. So, choose a small number of channels based on:

  1. Where you audience already spends time
  2. Which channels best support your primary goal
  3. What you can execute consistently with your current resources

Here’s what major channels can look like in practice:

Email marketing: High-ROI channel for nurturing, retention, and revenue expansion. It’s one of the most accessible channels to start with. And data shows consistently high conversion rates (2.8% for B2C and 2.4% for B2B).

HubSpot uses educational newsletters to deliver value first. Then, they naturally route engaged readers toward tools and upgrades.

Hubspot – Masters in marketing

Search (SEO + AI Optimization): When done well, long-form, evergreen content can drive results that compound over time. The key is to optimize for both traditional SEO ranking and AI summaries. Structure content clearly so it’s understood and surfaced — even in zero-click environments.

NerdWallet does this by publishing structured, comparison-driven guides. These rank in search and appear in AI answers. That builds visibility even when users don’t click.

Google AI Mode – Best savings accounts – Nerdwallet

Further reading: How to Rank in AI Search (New Strategy & Framework).


Social media marketing: Platform-native content is built for discovery and engagement. It requires knowing your audience deeply, and playing into the right trends.

One of the most well-known examples of a brand that does this well is Duolingo. Their TikTok and Instagram content leads with humor. Over the years, it’s built massive awareness without traditional selling.

TikTok – Duolingo

Affiliate and influencer marketing: Leverage trusted voices to expand reach and credibility.

Glossier does this by partnering with creators. This builds authentic recommendations into growth.

TikTok – Lenkalul – Glossier

Paid advertising: Best for speed and high-intent capture. Requires budget discipline and clear measurement.

Shopify uses paid search to capture intent from searches like “how to start dropshipping for free”

Google SERP – Shopify ad

And this likely pays off, considering Shopify has been bidding on the keyword (and ranking as the top ad) for the past year:

Advertising Research – Shopify – Ad history

Customer and community marketing: Build owned spaces that compound trust and advocacy. It’s a big time lift, but it can pay off in the long run.

Notion supports user-led communities and templates. They’ve built a marketing engine that turns customers into educators and evangelists.

Notion – Templates

With these channels in mind, it’s time to narrow your focus.

Ask:

  • Does my audience actively use this channel?
  • Does this channel support my primary goal directly?
  • Do we have the skills and resources to execute this well?
  • Can we sustain this for at least 6-12 months?

Once you’ve committed to 1-2 primary channels, define what success looks like for each one. List the resources you’ll need, and be honest about constraints.

You can use the Marketing Strategy Workbook’s impact vs. effort scoring model to pressure-test your decisions before moving forward.

Marketing Strategy Workbook – Step 4

Step 5: Solidify Your Messaging and Differentiation by Channel

If you just copy-paste your messaging across platforms, it’ll feel out of place. But if you reinvent your story on each channel, your brand will feel fragmented.

This step is about finding the right balance.

For each channel, define:

  • Which problem you’re emphasizing
  • What format fits that channel
  • How your tone and depth should adjust

But your core promise stays intact.

This matters more now than ever because people encounter brands across platforms before they visit your website. On top of that, AI systems look for consistent messaging to help inform their responses to user prompts.

So, how do you build your own channel messaging playbook?

Use our Marketing Strategy Workbook to walk through the main audience problems, content formats, and how your brand should show up on each channel.

Marketing Strategy Workbook – Step 5

If you do this step well, you’ll end up with the right balance of consistency and adaptation.

Duolingo does this really well. Their core story is consistent: learning a language should feel fun, not intimidating.

What changes is how the brand shows up depending on the channel:

On TikTok they’re chaotic, with trend-driven, mascot-heavy humor. That entertainment-first strategy has earned them 17 million followers.

TikTok – Duolingo video

Their Instagram features similar humor, but slightly more polished and adapted to Reels culture.

Instagram – Duolingo

Their Facebook uses toned-down humor for an older demographic.

Facebook – Duolingo

And on LinkedIn, the brand keeps a professional tone, but still recognizably Duolingo.

LinkedIn – Duolingo

Same brand. Same core message. Different execution.

That’s what you’re aiming for.

By the end of this step, you should be able to say:

  • What problem each channel focuses on
  • What format you’ll use
  • How your tone and depth will adapt — without changing your core message

Step 6: Assign Project Owners and Resources

A marketing strategy only works if someone owns it.

For every primary channel, there should be one person responsible for results. Otherwise, it’s easy for momentum to slide.

Before assigning that owner, do a quick reality check:

  • How much budget is actually available?
  • How many hours per week can realistically go toward this?
  • What skills are missing?
  • Will you need outside help?

You can use the Marketing Strategy Workbook to keep track of team capacity and resources:

Marketing Strategy Workbook – Step 6

Once you understand the constraints you’re working with, clarify roles using a RACI structure:

  • Responsible: Who executes the work?
  • Accountable: Who owns performance?
  • Consulted: Who provides input?
  • Informed: Who needs visibility?

Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed

Lastly, don’t let channels operate in silos. SEO should inform paid. Sales objections should shape content. Customer success insights should influence customer marketing tactics. All of these teams would fall into the “consulted” category in our RACI framework.

Cross-team collaboration gives your digital marketing strategy the right foundation to build on.

By the end of this step, your strategy should feel operational, not theoretical.

Step 7: Establish KPIs and a Reporting Plan

KPIs let you get feedback on your marketing strategy’s performance over time. And feedback allows you to improve (without guessing).

The problem is, it’s harder than ever to measure what’s working. Marketing channels don’t always tie back directly to revenue. Some channels influence things that are harder to quantify, like brand awareness, AI visibility, or trust.

Instead of forcing attribution into a neat checklist, track metrics in three layers:

  • Visibility: Are we being seen?
  • Engagement: Are people responding (positively)?
  • Trust and intent: Are signals improving?

For email, you could report on open rates (visibility), clicks (engagement), and conversions (intent).

For social media marketing, you might track metrics like reach (visibility), comments (engagement), or saves (trust).

TikTok – Nike

Of course, most marketers still need to answer one uncomfortable question:

How does this tie back to revenue?

It won’t always be perfect. But you can create stronger connections with a few simple systems.

  • Use UTM parameters on every campaign link. That way, you can trace traffic and conversions back to specific channels, campaigns, or posts.
  • Set up goal tracking or conversion events in Google Analytics. See which channels drive form fills, purchases, demo requests, or trials.
  • Review user paths to understand how people move through your site before converting. Just remember: many buyers interact with multiple channels before taking action, so treat these as a guide, not as a definitive start-to-finish buying journey.
  • For B2B teams, align with sales on pipeline influence. Even if marketing isn’t the final touchpoint, it often plays an early role in deal creation.

Multi-touch attribution may not be possible from day one. But these steps will give you directional clarity.

If a channel consistently drives qualified traffic, assisted conversions, or branded search growth, it’s contributing to revenue — even if it’s not the last click.

Reporting should tell a story, not just hand out numbers. The idea is to show progress, but also know when you need to pivot.

So, take a deep breath, start small, and scale over time.

If fancy dashboards and complex reporting tools feel like too much, just pick 2-3 metrics per channel. Then, assign a clear reporting owner, and set up a review cadence (probably monthly or quarterly).

This is enough to get started.

Start with small tests to see what actually works in your industry, with your audience. Don’t get distracted by the noise of new tools and trends.

Focus on what’s actually working, and then improve and scale the ideas that work best.

Start Small, Scale Up Important reminder: You don’t need to track everything perfectly from day one. Here’s a plan to scale reporting over time.
Month 1: Establish baselines
    • Set up tracking
    • Collect initial data
    • Identify what’s easiest to measure vs. what requires more setup

​​
Months 2-3: Validate what matters
  • Test small initiatives
  • See what moves the needle
  • Adjust metrics if needed
Months 4+: Optimize and scale
  • Double down on what’s working
  • Cut or pivot what’s not
  • Refine your reporting process

Every quarter, revisit things like channel performance, KPI relevance, and execution quality.

When this is in place, build a simple feedback loop:

  • Analyze performance
  • Dig deeper to understand the patterns
  • Reprioritize channels and actions
  • Update your strategy and goals

Use the Marketing Strategy Workbook to run through this feedback loop, and document your insights and decisions. As your data improves, so will your strategy.

Marketing Strategy Workbook – Step 7

Evolve Your Marketing Strategy as You Grow

A marketing strategy is a living thing. That means you can revisit, refine, and strengthen the system over time.

You now have a clear structure with:

  • A defined goal
  • A sharp value proposition
  • Real audience insight
  • Focused channel priorities
  • Clear ownership
  • Measurable KPIs

That clarity makes execution easier.

Your next step is simple: open the Marketing Strategy Workbook and document your decisions.

Fill in what’s missing. Then commit to your top one or two channels and start executing.

Remember: this isn’t your final version. But it’s a starting point you can revisit, refine, and build on as your business evolves.

Once your strategy is defined, the next logical step is going deeper into execution.

If you’re prioritizing organic growth, read our guide to building an SEO strategy next.

The post 7 Steps to Build a Marketing Strategy That Actually Works in 2026 appeared first on Backlinko.

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