Keywords in reviews are generally believed to help local rankings, although their impact is still actively debated within the local SEO community.
Regardless of where the truth on ranking impact ultimately lands, keyword-rich reviews can still provide meaningful value for local SEO beyond pure rankings.
Below are seven reasons why you should still encourage keyword-rich reviews.
1. Review justifications
If your reviews consistently mention a keyword related to your business, the likelihood that your Profile will get a Review justification in search increases.
This visibility can boost click-through rates. Higher engagement may lead to a secondary improvement in search engine rankings.
2. Place Topics
Google creates clickable Place Topics from keywords in your reviews. These topics:
Highlight your specialties.
Filter reviews for customers.
Can boost your Profile’s engagement.
3. Review snippets
Google bolds frequently mentioned terms in three review snippets on the Business Profile. This draws users searching for those terms to your Profile, hopefully increasing click-through rates.
4. Menu Highlights (restaurants)
The Menu Highlights are generated from customer reviews and photos, similar to Place Topics.
Keywords in reviews impact the Menu Highlights section.
Therefore, when you get a menu highlight for a term mentioned in your reviews, you should rank better for that term.
5. AI editorial summaries
Google’s AI-generated business summaries pull concepts from reviews (e.g., “cozy”) to describe your business.
While Google’s AI summaries aren’t something you can edit, encouraging customers to include specific keywords in their reviews could influence the AI to emphasize aspects most beneficial to your business.
6. AI review summaries
Google’s AI generates review summaries by analyzing common sentiments and tips from customer feedback.
If your customers mention the right keywords in their reviews, your review summary will appear more compelling.
7. Ask Maps about this place feature
Google is phasing out the old Q&A section and replacing it with an AI-powered feature that pulls answers from customer reviews.
This means reviews with detailed info (and the right keywords) are more valuable than ever.
How do you get keywords in your reviews?
It does not make sense to directly ask your customers, “Can you please add [keyword] to your review?” It’s unnatural and weird and will leave the customer wondering what your deal is.
But that doesn’t mean you have no options.
To encourage customers to naturally include relevant keywords in their reviews, begin by upgrading your review request templates.
Miriam Ellis recently wrote a helpful guide all about how to get keyword-rich reviews, which also includes three review request templates to make it extra easy for every business owner.
These templates guide customers on what to say, encouraging longer, more detailed, keyword-rich reviews — and can even prompt them to add photos to their reviews.
Here are three of those templates:
Scenario 1: Requesting reviews of specific products
Hi [customer name], I’m [your name and job title] from [company name], and I’m writing to check in with you on your purchase of [product]. It’s my job to be sure you’re satisfied, and I wondered if you would be willing to provide your feedback in a review at [link]? I’m enclosing a photo of [product] for your use in your review if you don’t have your own photo, and I’d be so grateful if you could review your experience with: – The features of this product that stand out most to you– What you like or dislike about it– How you’ve been using the product since you purchased it If there’s anything we could have done better for you, please feel free to contact us directly at [phone number or feedback form link]. I want to be sure you’re fully satisfied and we’re so grateful for your business. Thank you very much if you can take the time to tell us about your personal experience in your review. [review us here link or button] Sincerely,[name, job title, business]
Scenario 2: Requesting reviews of specific services
Hello [customer name], This is [your name and job title] from [company name], and we were so happy to [service provided]. It’s my job to be sure you’re satisfied, and I wondered if you would be willing to provide your feedback in a review at [link]? I’m enclosing a photo of [the service that was provided] for your use in your review if you don’t have your own photo, and I’d be so grateful if you could review your experience with: – Whether the service met your expectations– What you like/dislike about the service– How we did with our customer service If there’s anything we could have done better for you, please feel free to contact us directly at [phone number or feedback form link]. I want to be sure you’re fully satisfied, and we’re so grateful for your business. Thank you very much if you can take the time to tell us about your personal experience in your review. [review us here link or button] Sincerely,[name, job title, business]
Scenario 3: Requesting reviews when you’re not sure what a customer purchased
Email template
Hello [customer name], Thank you for being our customer. I’m [your name and job title] from [company name], It’s my job to be sure you’re satisfied, and I wondered if you would be willing to provide your feedback in a review at [link]? I’m enclosing a photo of [the business premises] for your use in your review if you don’t have your own photo, and I’d love it if you could review: – Whether you found our customer service helpful– What you like/dislike about our store– Why you chose our store If there’s anything we could have done better for you, please feel free to contact us directly at [phone number or feedback form link]. I want to be sure you’re fully satisfied and we’re so grateful for your business. Thank you very much if you can take the time to tell us about your personal experience in your review. [review us here link or button] Sincerely,[name, job title, business]
Now, make it work for you
By implementing a few simple improvements in your review requests, you will receive more detailed reviews from your customers, and their enhanced feedback will provide numerous benefits.
You may even increase your Google rankings for additional keywords, but I can’t guarantee anything. With all the other benefits, rankings shouldn’t be your primary goal anyway.
https://i0.wp.com/dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/plumbing-google-review-justifications-y1aXp1.webp?fit=1999%2C974&ssl=19741999http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-11-11 13:00:002025-11-11 13:00:007 local SEO wins you get from keyword-rich Google reviews
Over 2.5 million home services businesses operate in the U.S., from HVAC companies and plumbers to pest control specialists and landscapers. Most compete within a 10-15 mile radius, fighting for the same local customers.
Here’s the problem: your potential customers need help right now. A burst pipe. A broken AC in July. A wasp nest over the front door. They’re Googling “emergency plumber near me,” asking ChatGPT for recommendations, or searching through Google’s AI Overviews for “same-day HVAC repair.” They’re calling the first business that looks trustworthy.
If you don’t show up in those searches, either traditional Google results or AI-generated answers, with strong reviews and clear contact info, you’ve already lost the job.
Home services marketing gets you in front of customers at the exact moment they need you, across every platform they’re using. This guide breaks down the specific tactics that work for local service businesses.
Key Takeaways
Home services marketing drives visibility when customers search during emergencies or urgent needs in your local area.
Reviews and your Google Business Profile directly impact whether customers call you or scroll to the next listing.
Effective home services marketing combines local SEO, paid search for high-intent keywords, and reputation management.
Mobile-optimized websites with click-to-call functionality are critical since most home services searches happen on phones.
AI search tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews now influence how customers find local service providers.
Tracking call volume, form submissions, and cost per lead helps you invest in what actually brings customers through the door.
Why Do Home Services Businesses Need Marketing?
Referrals and repeat customers built your business. But what happens when your best referral source retires? Or when a new competitor opens two miles away and starts undercutting your prices?
Marketing creates a predictable lead pipeline that doesn’t depend on word-of-mouth alone.
Here’s what effective marketing does for home services businesses:
Generates leads during slow seasons. HVAC companies can’t survive on summer AC calls alone. Marketing keeps your calendar full with maintenance appointments, system upgrades, and off-season work.
Captures customers before they call your competitor. When someone searches “24-hour electrician,” three businesses appear in Google’s map pack. Marketing gets you in that top three instead of buried on page two.
Look at the example below. These three electricians dominate the local map pack for emergency searches. Notice how each has over 100 reviews, clear phone numbers, and “Open 24 hours” indicators. The businesses below this fold get far fewer calls.
Builds pricing power through reputation. When you have 200+ five-star reviews and your competitor has 15, customers stop shopping on price alone. They’ll pay more for the business that looks trustworthy and established.
Lets you choose your customers. Good marketing attracts the right jobs at the right price points. You’re not just taking whatever walks through the door.
Without marketing, you’re reacting. With it, you’re in control of your growth.
What Makes Home Services Marketing Unique?
Home services marketing operates differently than retail, ecommerce, or B2B software. You’re selling an in-person service that requires customers to let strangers into their homes, often during stressful situations.
That creates three unique challenges:
Hyper-local competition. You’re not competing nationally. You’re fighting for visibility against 15-30 other plumbers, electricians, or HVAC companies within a 10-mile radius. Your customer in Austin doesn’t care about the best roofer in Dallas.
Trust is the primary buying factor. Customers research your business before opening their door. They check if you’re licensed, read what other homeowners say about you, and look for proof you won’t rip them off or do shoddy work.
Look below for an example of what customers see when researching a home services business. This HVAC company’s Google Business Profile displays detailed reviews mentioning specific technicians and response times. These trust signals matter more than flashy branding.
Speed matters more than polish. Most home services searches are urgent. Customers need someone today, not next week. They’ll call the first business that answers the phone and can schedule them quickly. A beautiful website means nothing if your contact info is buried or your phone goes to voicemail.
Click-to-call buttons on every page, above the fold.
Service area pages for each city or neighborhood you cover.
Real customer photos showing your team, trucks, and completed work.
Fast page load times because impatient customers bounce quickly.
Digital Marketing Strategies For Home Services
Winning in local home services marketing requires a mix of visibility tactics and trust-building. You need customers to find you when they search, trust you enough to call, and remember you for future jobs.
The strategies below work specifically for home services businesses. Each section covers what the tactic does, why it matters for local service companies, and how to implement it without wasting money on tactics built for other industries.
Home Services LLM Marketing
Large Language Model (LLM) marketing optimizes your content to appear in AI-generated search results from tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews.
When someone asks ChatGPT “Who’s the best emergency plumber in Austin?” or uses AI Overviews to search “how to choose an HVAC company,” you want your business cited in those responses.
Answer specific questions clearly. Create content that directly answers common home services questions: “How much does furnace replacement cost in Chicago?” or “What causes low water pressure?” AI tools favor content that gets straight to the answer in the first paragraph.
Use structured data markup. Add schema markup (LocalBusiness, FAQPage, HowTo) to help AI understand your services, location, and expertise. This increases your chances of being cited as a source.
Build authority with detailed guides. Publish comprehensive resources like “Complete Guide to Emergency Plumbing Repairs” or “HVAC Maintenance Checklist for Homeowners.” AI models pull from authoritative, in-depth content when generating recommendations.
Check out this Google’s AI Overview for landscaping companies near Seattle. These businesses earned placement by creating structured, authoritative content that AI can parse and reference.
Claim and optimize your Google Business Profile. AI tools often reference Google’s local business data when making recommendations for service providers.
Home Services Content Marketing
Content marketing for home services means creating blog posts, videos, and guides that answer customer questions, build trust, and improve your local SEO rankings.
Customers research before calling. They want to know what the job costs, how long it takes, and whether they can trust you. Content answers those questions and positions you as the expert.
What works for home services:
Location-specific service pages. Create dedicated local landing pages for each service in each city you cover: “Emergency Plumbing in Austin, TX” or “AC Repair in Round Rock.” Include local details like average response times, areas served, and city-specific regulations.
Educational blog posts targeting search queries. Answer questions customers actually ask: “How do I know if my water heater needs replacing?” or “Why is my AC blowing warm air?” These posts drive organic traffic and demonstrate expertise.
Video content showing your work. Film your technicians diagnosing problems, completing repairs, or explaining maintenance tips. Video builds trust faster than text. The River Pools YouTube channel is a good example, showing repair tutorials and walkthroughs..
FAQs on every service page. Add 3-5 frequently asked questions at the bottom of each service page. This helps with SEO and reduces pre-call questions.
Paid Media for Home Services
Paid search (PPC) puts your business at the top of Google instantly, above the map pack and organic results. For urgent home services searches, paid ads capture customers who need help now and will call the first number they see.
Home services keywords are expensive. “Emergency plumber” or “AC repair near me” can cost $15-$75 per click in competitive markets. That’s why your campaigns need tight targeting and strong conversion tracking.
Here are some best practices for home services PPC:
Target hyper-local, high-intent keywords. Bid on “emergency electrician in [neighborhood]” or “same-day HVAC repair [city].” Skip broad terms like “plumbing tips” that attract researchers, not buyers.
Use call extensions and location extensions. Make your phone number and address visible in every ad. Most home services customers call directly rather than visiting your website first.
Run call-only campaigns for mobile. Over 70% of home services searches happen on phones. Call-only ads display just your phone number and business info with a tap-to-call button.
In the paid ads for “emergency plumber NYC,” you can see book buttons, star ratings, and location info. Notice how these ads dominate the top of results before any organic listings appear.
Track phone calls, not just clicks. Use call tracking software like CallRail to measure which keywords drive actual phone inquiries and booked jobs.
Home Services SEO
SEO (search engine optimization) helps your business rank organically in Google without paying for every click. For home services, local SEO drives the most valuable traffic because customers search for providers in their immediate area.
Local SEO focuses on appearing in the map pack (the top three businesses with pins) and ranking for city-specific keywords. Getting into that map pack means more calls.
How to optimize local SEO for home services:
Optimize your Google Business Profile completely. Fill out every section: business description, service areas, hours, attributes (veteran-owned, emergency services, etc.), and upload at least 10 photos. Add posts weekly to stay active.
Create dedicated pages for each service and location. If you serve five cities, create five separate pages for “AC Repair in [City].” Include local landmarks, neighborhoods, and zip codes in your content.
Build local citations. Get your business listed on Yelp, Angi, BBB, Chamber of Commerce, and industry directories. Consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) across all sites signals legitimacy to Google.
The example below shows a location-specific service page optimized for local SEO. Notice how the plumbing company includes the city name in the H1, mentions specific neighborhoods served, references local weather patterns, and includes a map showing their service area.
Optimize for mobile speed. Run your site through Google PageSpeed Insights and fix any issues slowing load times. Slow sites lose impatient mobile customers.
Social Media For Home Services
Social media for home services builds local recognition and trust. You’re not trying to go viral. You’re staying visible so customers think of you first when their water heater breaks or their AC stops working.
Focus on Facebook and Instagram for residential customers, and add YouTube for educational content. LinkedIn works if you target commercial property managers or businesses.
What works for home services social media:
Post before-and-after photos of completed jobs. Show the clogged drain versus the clean pipe. The old HVAC unit versus the new installation. Visual proof builds credibility and gives customers confidence in your work quality.
Share customer testimonials and video reviews. Ask satisfied customers to record a 30-second video explaining their experience. Video testimonials feel more authentic than text reviews and perform better on social platforms.
Show your team and trucks in action. Post photos of your technicians arriving at jobs, working on repairs, or attending training. This humanizes your business and helps customers recognize your branded vehicles in their neighborhood.
The example below shows a foundation repair company’s Instagram feed with informational content, team photos, and customer shoutouts.
Engage with local community content. Share local events, sponsor youth sports teams, or highlight neighborhood news. This positions you as a community business, not just a service provider.
Post 3-4 times per week minimum. Consistency matters more than perfection.
Email Marketing For Home Services
Most home services businesses ignore email marketing, which leaves money on the table. Email keeps you connected with past customers and turns one-time jobs into repeat business.
Home services have natural repeat cycles. HVAC systems need annual maintenance. Gutters need cleaning twice a year. Pest control requires quarterly treatments. Email reminds customers to book before they call someone else.
How to use email for home services:
Send seasonal maintenance reminders. Email past customers in April about AC tune-ups before summer heat. In October, remind them about furnace inspections before winter. These emails generate easy repeat bookings.
Automate post-job follow-ups. Three days after completing a job, send an automated email asking for a review with direct links to your Google Business Profile. Follow up 30 days later with maintenance tips or related service offers.
Share monthly tips in newsletters. Send seasonal advice like “How to prevent frozen pipes” or “Signs your water heater is failing.” Educational emails keep you top-of-mind without being pushy.
The screenshot below shows a house cleaning company’s new stripping and waxing service seasonal email reminding customers to book spring maintenance. Notice the clear call-to-action button, features, and service photos.
Win back inactive customers. Email customers who haven’t booked in 12+ months with a special offer.
Home Services Reputation Management
Your online reputation directly impacts whether customers call you or scroll to the next business. Studies show 97% of consumers read customer reviews before choosing a local service provider. For home services, where customers invite strangers into their homes, reviews matter even more.
A competitor with 150 five-star reviews will get calls over you, even if your prices are lower and your service is better. Reputation management isn’t optional.
How to manage your reputation:
Ask for reviews immediately after completing jobs. Send a text or email within 24 hours with direct links to your Google Business Profile and Yelp. Happy customers forget to leave reviews if you wait too long. Make it easy with one-click links.
Respond to every review within 48 hours. Thank customers for positive reviews and mention specific details (“Glad Tom could solve your drainage issue so quickly”). For negative reviews, respond professionally, acknowledge the problem, and offer to make it right offline.
Display reviews prominently. Add a reviews widget to your website homepage. Screenshot your best Google reviews and share them on social media. Ideally, you should have as many ways as possible to feature testimonials.
Monitor mentions across platforms. Use tools like Podium, Birdeye, or Google Alerts to track when your business is mentioned online.
Home Services Mobile/SMS Marketing
SMS marketing works exceptionally well for home services because customers open 98% of text messages within minutes. For time-sensitive communications like appointment confirmations and service updates, texting beats email every time.
How home services use SMS effectively:
Send appointment confirmations and reminders. Text customers 24 hours before scheduled service: “Reminder: Tom will arrive tomorrow at 2pm for your AC repair. Reply C to confirm or R to reschedule.” This reduces no-shows significantly.
Update customers on technician arrival. Text “Your technician is 15 minutes away” when your crew is en route. This courtesy builds trust and reduces anxious phone calls asking “Where are you?”
Request reviews via text. Send a review request within hours of completing a job: “Thanks for choosing us! How did we do? Leave a review: [link].” SMS review requests get 3x higher response rates than email.
Send seasonal promotions to past customers. Text previous clients with limited-time offers: “Spring AC tune-up special: $79 (reg $129). Book by 4/30. Reply BOOK to schedule.”
Keep messages short, personalized, and always include an opt-out option to stay compliant with
Measuring Your Home Services Marketing Success
Tracking results tells you what’s working and where to invest more budget. Home services businesses should focus on metrics that directly tie to revenue: calls, bookings, and cost per customer.
Key metrics to track:
Phone call volume and source. Use call tracking software like CallRail or CallTrackingMetrics to see which marketing channels drive calls. Tag different phone numbers for your website, Google ads, and Facebook page to identify your best sources.
Form submissions and online bookings. Track how many people fill out contact forms or book appointments through your website. Set up conversion tracking in Google Analytics to measure this.
Google Business Profile insights. Check your profile’s dashboard monthly to see how many people viewed your listing, clicked for directions, called your business, or visited your website. This shows your local visibility trends.
Cost per lead and cost per customer. Calculate how much you spend to acquire each lead and each paying customer. If your Google ads cost $2,000/month and generate 40 leads with 10 becoming customers, your cost per customer is $200.
The screenshot below shows a CallRail dashboard tracking phone calls by source. Notice how it attributes calls to specific campaigns (Google Ads, organic search, Facebook) so you know exactly what’s driving results.
Use Google Analytics, Ubersuggest, and your CRM to centralize this data in one dashboard.
FAQs
What is home services marketing?
Home services marketing is the process of promoting businesses like HVAC, plumbing, roofing, pest control, and other similar categories. It includes strategies like SEO, paid ads, local listings, email, and referral programs to attract and retain customers.
How to market home services?
Start with the basics: claim your Google Business Profile, build a review strategy, create local SEO-optimized service pages, and run targeted PPC campaigns. From there, test channels like email and SMS to nurture leads and win repeat business.
Conclusion
More leads, more reviews, and a full calendar don’t happen by accident. Home services marketing builds the visibility and trust that turn searchers into paying customers.
Start with local SEO and your Google Business Profile. These give you the foundation to appear when customers search for help. Add customer reviews to build credibility, then layer in paid ads and content to capture customers at every stage.
Track your results monthly. Know which channels drive calls and which waste budget. Double down on what works.
If you need help building a marketing strategy that fills your schedule, NP Digital works with home services businesses to create campaigns that generate real ROI.
A recent Google blog post announced the expansion of Opal, a Google tool that uses AI to get people create mini apps, and touted that the tool can be used to create “optimized” content in a “scalable way.” Many SEOs are asking if this is against Google search guidelines, specifically the scaled content abuse policy.
What Google wrote. Google wrote on the Google blog about reasons one should use Opal:
“Creators and marketers have also quickly adopted Opal to help them create custom content in a consistent, scalable way.”
“Marketing asset generators: Tools that take a single product concept and instantly generate optimized blog posts, social media captions and video ad scripts.”
“Scaled content abuse is when many pages are generated for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings and not helping users. This abusive practice is typically focused on creating large amounts of unoriginal content that provides little to no value to users, no matter how it’s created.”
The examples Google provided include:
“Using generative AI tools or other similar tools to generate many pages without adding value for users.”
Is this against Google’s policies. So the big question is, what Google promoted on its blog as a reason to use Opal is actually against Google’s policies. Google can argue that as long as your “primary purpose” is not “of manipulating search rankings” and it is to help users, than it is fine to use Opal or any other AI tool.
In fact, Reddit talked about how it was using AI tools to translate its pages at scale and it turned out, Google was okay with it.
SEOs not happy. Many SEOs feel these are double-standards and think Google should take a strong stance on using AI to generate content. Here are some of the complaints I posted from the community:
Google has historically opposed to any kind of content creation “at scale”. So, I’m a bit sad to see this language in their official communication channels
Google has employees who have been trying to get rid of spam for decades, and now it’s offering AI spam creation services. I wonder how those employees feel about this.
Well, they are not always opposed to it. I wrote a two-part article covering Reddit’s AI translations. That’s massive scaling but Google is OK with it.
They provided this statement to me at the time: “While we don’t comment on the status of specific sites or pages, nor do we… pic.twitter.com/WNKjklzzq7
Why we care. Everyone is talking about “AI slop” and how it can ruin the web. When it comes to Google Search, Google has said it has algorithms to reward content that is helpful to users and that AI is not necessarily a bad thing.
Ultimately, if you are going to be using an AI tool, like Opal, to help you create content, you should use it as a tool and let it help you but don’t let it do it for you, fully automated, without oversight and at incredible scale.
Be careful with these tools.
I should note, we reached out to Google for a statement but we have not heard back yet. If we do, we will update the story with that statement.
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Google statement. Google sent me the following statement:
This Google Labs experiment helps people develop mini-apps, and we’re seeing people create apps that help them brainstorm narratives and first drafts of marketing content to build upon. In Search, our systems aim to surface original content and our spam policies are focused on fighting content that is designed to manipulate Search while offering little value to users.
https://i0.wp.com/dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/web-design-creative-services.jpg?fit=1500%2C600&ssl=16001500http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-11-10 17:00:082025-11-10 17:00:08Google’s new AI tool touts creating optimized content in a scalable way
As of this writing, Reddit’s stock price has risen 177.6%. If you’d bought 100 shares of RDDT then, you’d be $13,113 richer today.
In a June 2025 analysis of 150,000 AI citations, Semrush found that Reddit was the top source, appearing in more than 40% of LLM responses.
So what happened? It comes down to the law of supply and demand.
The supply-and-demand crisis of online answers
The demand for answers has skyrocketed as people increasingly turn to LLMs.
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Grok will try to come up with the answers from their training data, and failing that, they’ll search the web.
ChatGPT uses Bing, Gemini uses Google, and Claude, Grok, and Perplexity use their own internal search engine.
The web search engine will quickly find that the supply of long-tail answers is nonexistent.
And so it will surface the closest thing it can find: a Reddit thread that matches the keywords, but could very well have been written by a novice, an armchair expert, or a troll.
Whose fault is it that the web is devoid of meaningful long-tail content?
Ultimately, it was Google’s.
Even the best SEO professionals among us were told by our clients and bosses that nothing mattered except for the One Ring – getting ranked on the top for a competitive head term.
We all started to write the same blog posts to try to grab that top spot, while the vast long tail went ignored.
The irony is that if your brand has any kind of expertise or authority in your space, you always could – and still can – completely own the undiscovered country of the long-tail of search for your industry, a frontier of questions no brand has yet answered.
The advantages of user-generated content
The best way to do this – by far – is through user-generated content (UGC), which has several key characteristics:
It matches search intent: Users post the same way they search, using the same words.
It’s always up-to-date: New posts keep topics current without constant editorial work.
It’s accurate: Assuming your brand can attract experienced experts who contribute, each new reply will add value or correction.
It builds semantic depth: Conversations naturally surface related terms, subtopics, and entities that boost SEO and LLM discovery.
It’s trustworthy and AI-proof: Authentic human discussion is the one thing that LLMs can’t replicate.
If this all sounds familiar to you, it’s the same old E-E-A-T that Google has been trying to get us to do for years.
Only now, it really counts.
Why brands hesitate
Most companies instinctively resist the idea of launching a forum.
Here are the objections I hear most often – and how I respond.
It’s too expensive: Ironically, forum and Q&A software is among the most mature software in the open-source world. You can literally have a production-ready system up and running in a week at a cost less than a few cups of coffee. I’ll share some examples below.
We don’t have the development resources: If you’re not familiar with the concept of open-source, you don’t need development resources other than for tasks like skinning and building single sign-on, which your developers can do in their sleep.
We tried it before, and it didn’t work: In most cases, this is because forums were treated as side projects, and not owned media.
There’s no clear ROI: Forums have always reduced support tickets, but because it’s hard to prove a negative, most companies treated both online and offline customer service as cost centers – and the first things to cut. Today, forums still lower service costs and add valuable, search-friendly content. It’s time to redo the math.
Moderation is too much of a hassle: Today’s spam filters, coupled with smart heuristics, enforced policies, and AI-supported moderation, can handle 90% of bad actors. A strong community of users and in-house moderators can easily handle the rest.
Everyone’s already on Reddit or Discord: Exactly. And those platforms own your audience, your brand, and your data. It’s time to take it back.
Forums are outdated: Reddit is a forum. It has a market cap of $38 billion. Time to re-do the math on that one, too.
Discussion boards vs. Q&A sites
I tend to use the phrase “forums” interchangeably to refer to two kinds of sites: discussion boards and Q&A sites.
There are key differences, depending on your company’s goals.
A discussion board is built for ongoing conversation.
It’s a social space where customers can connect, share experiences, swap ideas, and engage in the occasional friendly debate, like an always-on company event or conference.
A Q&A site, by contrast, is built for resolution. Each post centers on a single question from a community member.
Some brands limit responses to verified experts, while others invite the whole community to contribute and vote on the best answer.
The goal is clarity: one question, one accepted solution.
Both formats create a treasure trove of owned, uniquely human content.
While other companies rely on generative AI to churn out soulless copy, with the help of your community, you’ll be building fresh content that feeds AI and, more importantly, reaches real customers.
As derivative AI-generated content floods the web, that authentic human signal will become a huge competitive edge.
While many enterprise and SaaS options exist, most businesses can start with open-source software – ideal for small, mid-sized, or cost-conscious enterprises.
Here’s why open source makes sense.
Open source software is free
Every software package I recommend below will be free.
All you need is a web server or hosting plan (your own infrastructure, a cloud provider, or even a managed host), and you can run it yourself.
Open source software is customizable
Most mature open-source platforms enable brands to easily customize and extend functionality through plug-ins and extensions – all with a fraction of the development effort required to build a system from scratch.
Instead of building a huge system from scratch, your team can focus on customization, such as:
Customizing the front-end design to match your brand website.
Using single sign-on with your existing customer database to make access seamless for your customers.
Adding reputation and gamification systems, such as upvotes, leaderboards, and badges, to promote the most credible voices.
You own your own data
When you self-host your forum, you own the data and can export it at any time, with no dependencies on third-party platforms or APIs.
This is increasingly important as we enter an era where unique content is literally an asset.
SEO and LLM visibility
Most mature forum and Q&A software have SEO best practices built in, from automatic title tags to best internal linking practices that make it easy for search engines and AI bots to discover content.
Moderation tools
Active moderation is crucial to the success of online communities.
Choosing the right discussion board software
After extensive research, my go-to recommendations for discussion boards are Flarum and Discourse.
I like Flarum for its sleek, minimalist interface and Reddit-like familiarity.
Built on PHP with Laravel components, it’s fast, lightweight, and highly extensible, supported by an active developer community.
It’s ideal for small to mid-sized businesses, startups, and niche communities.
Discourse is the gold standard for modern forums, built on Ruby on Rails and Ember.js.
It offers robust features out of the box, including SSO, analytics, trust levels, and a powerful API, plus a paid option for fully managed deployments.
Used by major brands like OpenAI, Samsung, and Shopify, it’s ideal for larger organizations, SaaS companies, and professional communities.
Honorable mention goes to NodeBB and phpBB, older platforms that require a bit more care and feeding, but also have their advantages.
Platforms built for Q&A
My go-tos here include Apache Answer and Question2Answer.
Apache Answer is a modern, actively supported platform from the Apache Software Foundation, with a solid pedigree.
Built on Go and Vue.js, it offers a full feature set – voting, accepted answers, categories, and a Reddit-style reputation system.
Question2Answer, first released in 2010 and still actively maintained, is inspired by Stack Overflow, offering features such as voting and tagging.
Its out-of-the-box interface looks dated, but a good designer can easily modernize it. It’s built in PHP.
AskBot and Scoold are also worth exploring.
Test them out. They all have links to a demo and real-world client implementations on their sites.
Find one you like. Pay $50 for a shared web hosting service, and another $50 for pizza for engineers and developers.
You’ll have a fully functional forum within a week.
Where most forums succeed – or fail
Unlike most software projects, building a discussion board or Q&A site is relatively straightforward.
But it’s maintaining and running it that will determine whether it’ll be successful.
I’ve been fortunate enough to have launched, managed, and moderated several successful discussion forums and Q&A sites over the years.
Here’s some practical advice.
Have a zero tolerance for spam
I mentioned this in my previous article; it’s the number one reason forums fail.
The moment you launch a discussion board, it will be attacked.
Fortunately, tools like Akismet, StopForumSpam, CleanTalk, and reCAPTCHA can block most spam before it reaches your site.
You can even run your server logs through an LLM to generate smart filtering rules for your CDN.
And if anything slips through, remove it fast – spam spreads apathy faster than any troll.
With Q&A sites, you’ll have a bit more control, depending on how many of the questions and answers you’d like to open up to the public.
Require detailed and authentic titles
This is another Achilles’ Heel of many forums.
Discussion boards often have non-descript titles, such as “Help!” or “Need Advice!” You’ll also want to have a zero-tolerance policy toward those.
Have instructional copy that reminds them to leave detailed titles, and if any slip through the cracks, either generate a title for them or reject the post.
Similarly, for Q&A sites, your titles must reflect actual questions that users ask in their own language, not the words of a marketer or other internal voice.
Seed popular topics
To understand the questions people are asking, review:
Your on-site search data.
Google Search Console data.
Customer service inquiries.
External sites like Reddit.
Post them to the discussion board from a moderator account, provide high-quality answers, and invite comments.
As long as you’re authentic and transparent, users will respond.
Establish clear, public community guidelines
Set rules and boundaries clearly up-front and display them prominently.
Keep them short enough that real users will read them, ideally 5-7 bullet points.
Some thought starters:
Linking policy: Generally, you’ll want to allow only accounts that have been vetted or passed certain criteria to be able to post links.
Reinforce tone: “Disagree without being disagreeable”
Rules against harassment and bad language.
Rules against off-topic posts.
Establish clear categories
Define categories and tags clearly.
Take a large pool of typical questions or discussion topics and categorize them. (Hint: Use your favorite LLM to help.)
Ensure that category names are immediately intuitive to users. Move or delete off-topic content quickly.
Empower trusted regulars
Over time, many forums start to attract regular visitors.
If this happens to your brand, tap into their passion by inviting them to take on small moderation privileges (e.g., editing titles, retagging, or flagging spam).
Depending on your relationship with these fans, you can incentivize them with recognition, branded merchandise, free product, or monetary compensation.
Community self-correction scales far better than centralized policing.
Gamify contributions for everyone with leaderboards, badges, upvote milestones, etc.
Archive or merge duplicates
Especially in Q&A boards, you’ll want to make sure to avoid repeating questions.
That causes duplicate content issues for SEO, but worse, it can frustrate visitors.
Own the conversation before your competitors do
There are plenty more ways to run a successful discussion board or Q&A site.
But the most important rule is this: don’t treat it as an SEO tactic, an LLM feeder, or a necessary evil.
Build a destination you and your team would actually want to visit – a place for lively conversation, useful knowledge, and genuine connection with your customers and fans.
That’s the real formula for success.
A year ago, I suggested that you start a forum. This year, it’s not optional.
Reddit has proven that conversation has real value, and your competitors will soon catch on.
Claim the conversations that belong to your brand, and you’ll:
https://i0.wp.com/dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Reddits-stock-price-NOYADm.webp?fit=733%2C419&ssl=1419733http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-11-10 14:00:002025-11-10 14:00:00The reign of forums: How AI made conversation king
AI search is still moving. What’s cited today across Google (AI Mode + AI Overviews) and ChatGPT might look different in a month.
But there’s no need to scramble.
For example, a dip in Reddit citations isn’t a reason to abandon conversational marketing or rebuild your plan from scratch.
(Plus, it’s likely things aren’t always what they seem, like this speculation from John-Henry Scherck about Reddit and ChatGPT.)
Instead, stick to doing the basics — getting mentioned by the major players in your industry as well as hyper-relevant/niche ones — while keeping tabs on macro changes that should impact your go-forward strategy.
LLM Sources Aren’t Set in Stone
The “who gets cited” list keeps changing, especially in ChatGPT.
When sources are in flux, you win by doubling down on durable authority and adding a light, recurring layer of measurement to stay apprised of changes.
The goal should be to keep your foundation strong. Google’s own guidance for AI features emphasizes usefulness, experience, clear structure, and trust signals.
Those are the same qualities humans respond to and the same signals LLMs can verify.
But, while working on the fundamentals, it’s good to keep an eye on LLM trends.
Below we’ll share four tips that will help you sustainably optimize for LLM answers and citations while simultaneously tracking significant, noteworthy shifts in LLM behavior.
Tip #1: Check ChatGPT Sources Monthly for Target Prompts
As we’ve seen, ChatGPT’s citations change. Sometimes quickly.
Rather than seeing this as a race, consider it an opportunity.
Every time an LLM adds new sources into the mix, they’re providing new ideas for where you can earn media and build brand visibility and authority.
And you don’t need a complex dashboard to track the changes. You just need a simple spreadsheet that shows which domains it’s using for your money prompts.
Start by choosing prompts that map to your funnel.
For example:
“What is ___?”
“Best ___ for ”
“ vs ___”
“How to set up ___”
“Pricing for ___”
Run them in an LLM the same way a buyer would. Note the sources. Track in a shared living document month over month.
You’re looking for two things: new entrants and rising domains. Both provide ideas on where to place your best evidence next.
So, what does this look like in practice?
Create a one-page tracker and update it every 30 days:
Prompts: 25-100 that reflect real buyer questions
Sources: Every domain cited, in order of appearance
Changes: New, up, down, gone
Action: One line per change (“Pitch reviewer X,” “Add methodology to pricing guide,” “Publish teardown with benchmarks”)
Again, the goal is to identify broader trends and not worry about every little change.
After a few months of this type of tracking, you may notice similarities in the types of sites or content being prioritized. Those are the ones worth adding to your strategy.
Tip #2: Still Perform Backlink Competitive Analyses to Identify Where Else Competitors Are Being Cited
LLMs lean on trusted third-party sites. Some of those sites already vouch for your competitors.
Backlinks show where that trust lives.
Use traditional backlink gap analyses to find new ideas as to where you can earn external authority signals. You can also gain insight about the type of content that’s worth citing.
Start simple. Pick 5–10 competitors and pull their new referring domains from the last 3-6 months.
For example, using Semrush’s Backlink Gap tool, we compared Backlinko’s backlinks to leading SEO tools and noticed they have links from VistaPrint while Backlinko doesn’t.
So we checked out the content and the page they linked to, which in this example turned out to be an informational blog post about the marketing funnel.
When we put this URL into Semrush’s Backlink Analytics tool, we found that this specific page has 344 referring domains pointing to it.
Many of the linking pages are informational about marketing and are relying on Semrush’s expertise to support their own articles.
This indicates the piece of content is strong and worth evaluating for insight into what makes it high quality.
As it turns out, the page is very robust with a lot of visual appeal. It’s full of useful graphics, screenshots, and actionable takeaways that make what can be a convoluted topic into something straightforward.
In this example, we’ve learned some sites that talk about marketing fundamentals and may be worth targeting (VistaPrint, GoDaddy, etc.), and we’ve gained inspiration as to what makes that content appealing to link to.
When doing this kind of analysis yourself, look for patterns:
Formats that win links: Research studies, graphics, benchmarks, calculators, templates, product docs, API guides, teardown posts, expert Q&As.
Topics that attract citations: “How it works,” “costs and trade-offs,” “setup steps,” “common mistakes,” “comparison X vs Y.”
Pro tip: Mid-tier niche outlets often outperform top-tier media for earning durable, evergreen citations. They publish faster, go deeper, and link more generously when you bring real substance.
Tip #3: Refresh Audience Research to Learn Which Publications, Sites, and Podcasts Your Buyers Trust
Models evolve. People move faster.
If your buyers shifted from big media to niche reviewers or podcasts, your distribution plan has to follow.
Ask recent customers one question: “What did you read, watch, or listen to before choosing a tool like ours?”
Keep it lightweight. Add it to onboarding and to quarterly interviews. Log their responses and share with the PR and content teams to plan how to achieve earned media in those locations.
There’s online research you can do, too.
SparkToro, for example, reveals where your audience consumes content, giving you a great head-start on putting a pitch list together.
For example, with the free account (which gives you five searches per month), we wanted to explore where else folks who visit Backlinko.com get their information.
SparkToro then provides a list of websites, social networks, AI tools, YouTube channels, podcasts, and more that your audience tends to visit.
No matter your preferred method for audience research, if the last time it was updated was over six months ago, it’s time for a refresh.
Tip #4: Continue Focusing on Providing Net-New Value Via Content
You know what’s always necessary for building third-party authority signals on a regular basis?
Content. Search engines, LLMs, social sites, YouTube, etc. all need content to surface.
But “better” content isn’t enough. You need something new to compete. Data no one else has. Tests no one else ran. Explanations that resolve the question completely.
This kind of content gives LLM models something concrete to ground on and editors something worth linking to.
What does this look like in practice?
Try shipping one high-value asset per month:
Original data with a simple method and limits
Comparative testing with screenshots, timings, and results
Expert explainers with named practitioners and sources
Product docs or setup guides that others reference to get the job done
Comprehensive guides can still perform, too. Take an example from our own site, Google RankBrain: The Definitive Guide, which is often a primary source for LLMs on relevant queries.
When you create something better than anything else out there, that’s when it becomes a primary reference. It can even get mentioned on the MIT site in an article about the shift to generative AI.
Ultimately, if you’re providing the best answer that satisfies a curiosity, you’re building a solid foundation for driving authority signals.
Once you create the content, close the loop. Pitch those assets to the outlets from Tips 2 and 3.
If they’re published on a third-party site, implement your typical distribution process to get as much traction as possible.
Then track if they start showing up in your monthly ChatGPT check.
Aim Where Trust Already Lives (And Models Look)
AI search will keep shifting. Your fundamentals shouldn’t.
Stay focused on building durable authority. Track what matters, earn trust where your audience already looks, and create work worth citing. You’ll stay adaptable no matter what comes next.
Tracking your LLM visibility can be tedious, especially as it’s a relatively new addition to your monthly reporting.
For high-level directional data about your industry as a first pass, bookmark and download Semrush’s AI Visibility Index. It’s updated monthly, saving you that first layer of research.
Black Friday is three weeks away, so it’s time to finalize the last adjustments. Here’s what to focus on now, based on two Yoast Black Friday coffee chats with our own principal SEOs, Carolyn Shelby and Alex Moss. Alex states, “Black Friday isn’t one day anymore, but a season. If you’re not visible to AI now, you won’t be in the results when shoppers ask for recommendations.”
No major technical changes. Switching platforms, payment processors, or themes? Wait until January. Focus on optimizing what you have
Code freeze starts now. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Test changes in a staging environment first
Exception: Installing Yoast SEO or WooCommerce SEO add-ons is a low-risk activity. Do it if needed
Pro tip: If you must update plugins, test on staging and avoid updates one week before Black Friday.
2. Fix these right now (or regret it later)
Fraud attacks are ramping up
Fraudsters test stolen credit cards by buying cheap items (<$5). Signs you’re being targeted:
Sudden spike in orders for your lowest-priced item
High failure rates (declined payments)
Orders from VPNs/rotating IPs
How to fight back:
Raise your minimum price. Bundle items to push totals over $5 (e.g., “Buy 2 stickers, get free shipping”)
Add friction (carefully):
Enable CAPTCHA on checkout
Turn on Stripe Radar (if using Stripe) or velocity checks (limits orders per IP)
Avoid disabling guest checkout, as this will hurt conversions
Contact your payment processor. Say: “I’m seeing fraudulent test orders. Here’s the pattern, please help me block them.”
Block high-risk countries (if you don’t ship there). Use Cloudflare’s WAF (Web Application Firewall) to filter traffic.
Warning: Fulfilling fraudulent orders costs you product + shipping + time. Verify payments before shipping.
Language and search alignment
AI/LLMs (ChatGPT, Gemini) can’t “see” hidden text. If it’s behind tabs/toggles/accordions, they’ll miss it. Move critical info (FAQs, specs, reviews) to visible text.
Avoid “clever” product names. Example: A dress colored “Pristine” won’t show up in searches for “ivory dress”.
Fix: Add generic terms in parentheses:
Wrong: “Pristine Midi Dress”
Right: “Pristine (Ivory) Midi Dress”
Test your products with AI: Ask ChatGPT: “Find me [your product] in [color/size/price range].” If it misses your product, your descriptions need work.
Reviews are trust signals (for humans and AI)
Encourage detailed reviews. Generic “I love it!” won’t help.
Ask customers: “How do you use this product? What problem does it solve?”
Example: “These hiking shoes fit my wide feet—finally no blisters!”
Leverage brand reviews. If you sell multiple products, get reviews for your brand (e.g., via G2 or Trustpilot). LLMs pull these when answering questions like “What’s the best brand for X?”
Last-resort tactic: Ask friends/family to leave honest reviews. (No fake ones, because Google penalizes that.)
Pro tip: Utilize Yoast SEO’s FAQ schema for reviews and Q&As. However, please keep FAQs visible; avoid hiding them in toggles.
3. Optimize for AI and search (quick wins)
Product pages: Lead with the good stuff
First 100 words matter most. AI/LLMs and users skim, so put key details up top, such as price, shipping info, and bundling options
Plain and concise language wins over clever marketing.
Example:
Original: “Experience luxury with our artisanal ceramic mug.”
Optimized: “14oz ceramic mug. Dishwasher-safe, holds heat for 2 hours.”
Add videos. Show the product in use (e.g., flipping through a planner, wearing a dress). Yoast SEO Premium includes video SEO tools. Please use them
Focus on your “underdog” products. These aren’t your top three bestsellers, but they’re the items ranking lower down your sales list. They might not sell as much, but they often have higher profit margins, making them a worthwhile consideration.
How to optimize them:
Use Google Search Console to identify:
Products with steady sales and high profitability (promote these in bundles or via email).
Products that could benefit from topic clustering (group related queries to uncover hidden opportunities).
Give them a boost by:
Bundling them with bestsellers (e.g., “Buy our top-selling coffee maker, get 20% off these premium beans”).
Upselling or cross-selling (e.g., “Customers who bought this also loved…”).
Use email and social to seed the AI
Send a Black Friday teaser email this week. Include:
Your brand name + product names (helps AI recall you later)
Clear discounts (e.g., “20% off all espresso makers—no code needed”)
Links to product pages (not just the homepage)
Why? ChatGPT/Gemini now scans emails (if users connect their Gmail). If someone asks, “Where can I buy X?”, the AI may suggest your brand because it saw your email
Social posts: 80% useful, 20% fun. Example:
Wrong: [Image of pizza with caption: “Ooooh”]
Right: “Our Chicago deep-dish pizza—now 15% off for Black Friday! [Link] #DeepDishDeals”
Remove friction from checkout
Audit your checkout flow. Ask:
Do you need a phone number? (Many users abandon carts here.)
Is shipping info clear upfront? (e.g., “Free shipping on orders over $50”)
Can users save their cart for later?
Test with dummy orders. Use Shopify/WooCommerce’s test credit card numbers to simulate purchases
4. Last-minute hacks (do these soon)
Task
Why it matters
Log in to Merchant Center > Check for warnings.
Create a Black Friday landing page
Centralizes promotions for AI/users.
Use a PLP (Product Landing Page) with text like: “Gifts under $50 for sports-loving dads”. Link to it from emails/social.
Update Google Shopping feed
Fix errors (missing SKUs, sizes) now.
Log in to Merchant Center and check for warnings.
Add FAQ schema
Helps AI answer questions like “What’s the return policy?”
Use Yoast SEO’s FAQ block (visible text only!).
Check inventory
Avoid selling out of bestsellers.
Reorder now, because shipping delays are expected to spike in November.
Set up a backup payment processor
Fraud attacks can freeze your account.
Add Stripe (even if inactive) as a backup to PayPal.
5. What not to do before Black Friday
Don’t wait until the last minute to launch promotions or make critical changes. Big brands start their Black Friday campaigns in early November. If you hold off until Thanksgiving week, you’ll miss the early shoppers and the AI “training window.” LLMs prioritize brands they’ve seen mentioned in emails, social posts, or searches before the holiday rush.
Avoid hiding key details behind tabs, accordions, or images. AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini often skip hidden text when scraping product pages, and users tend to overlook shipping costs and return policies as well. Never ignore Fake Friday (the Friday before BF), the unofficial kickoff when bargain hunters start browsing. Run a pre-sale or teaser discount to capture this traffic before competitors do.
Steer clear of overcomplicating bundles or discounts. A “Buy 5 random items, get a mystery gift” deal might sound creative, but it confuses shoppers and dilutes profits. Instead, pair high-margin items with slower sellers (e.g., “Buy a camera, get 50% off a memory card”).
Don’t assume your payment processor can handle fraud spikes. If you’re suddenly hit with stolen card tests (look for a surge in cheap, failed orders), your account could get flagged or frozen. Set up Stripe Radar or PayPal’s fraud filters now—and have a backup processor ready.
Finally, never neglect mobile checkout testing. If your “Add to Cart” button is hard to tap or forms don’t autofill on phones, you’ll lose impulse buyers. Test on a slow 3G connection to simulate real-world frustration.
Your Black Friday success starts now
The countdown is on. Black Friday will be here before you know it. But here is the good news. You still have time to make a real impact. Whether it is tightening up your product descriptions, safeguarding against fraud, or making sure your site is AI-friendly, every small tweak you make now can translate into bigger sales when the shopping frenzy hits.
If you are feeling overwhelmed, remember this. You do not have to do it all alone. Tools like Yoast SEO Premium and WooCommerce SEO can help you optimize your product pages, structure your content for both AI and search engines, and even add schema markup to ensure your products are more visible to both AI and search engines. It is like having an SEO expert in your corner, guiding you through the chaos so you can focus on what really matters. Selling more and stressing less.
So take a deep breath, tackle one task at a time, and trust that you have got this. Here is to your most successful Black Friday yet. Now go get those sales. And if you need a little extra help, you know where to find us.
Buy WooCommerce SEO now!
Unlock powerful features and much more for your online store with Yoast WooCommerce SEO!
http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png00http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-11-06 13:36:542025-11-06 13:36:54Last-minute Black Friday SEO prepping for ecommerce stores
Managing local search marketing for one location is straightforward.
But managing multi-location SEO — whether it’s 10, 50, or 100 branches — gets complicated fast.
Each location needs unique content.
A single mistake in your business info can mislead customers and hurt trust.
And it’s tough to see which branches are actually driving results.
Everything changes when you’re managing SEO for multiple locations.
Our six-step system below tackles these challenges in order of priority.
You’ll learn exactly how to:
Create high-performing location pages
Optimize Google Business Profiles (GBPs) across every branch
Manage reviews, citations, and backlinks efficiently
Track performance by location to see what’s really working
Plus, you’ll get our free toolkit to help you build a scalable SEO strategy for multiple locations.
Let’s dive in.
Step 1. Create Location Landing Pages
Every branch needs its own home online.
Without a dedicated location landing page, your GBP has nowhere reliable to link. And customers looking for local hours, directions, or services may bounce straight to a competitor.
So, start by confirming the basics.
Talk with branch managers or franchise owners to verify core business details — official name, address, phone number, operating hours, and available services.
Copy our location details sheet and use it to gather and confirm accurate data for every branch.
Once it’s filled out, this sheet becomes your single “source of truth” — helping you prevent endless downstream errors when managing dozens of listings and citations later on.
Do Location-Focused Keyword Research
Once you’ve gathered accurate data, move into keyword targeting.
Each page should focus on one primary keyword set that combines your core service with its city or neighborhood modifier (e.g., “dentist in Austin”).
Doing this avoids keyword cannibalization between branches while signaling clear relevance for local searchers.
To scale efficiently, create a modular framework for every location page. This ensures consistency across branches while letting you customize local details.
Start with a simple, SEO-friendly URL structure.
Use subfolders (e.g., example.com/locations/austin).
Why?
They inherit more domain authority and are easier to maintain across large sites.
Each page should include these essential content blocks:
Name, address, and phone number (NAP)
An embedded map and clear driving directions
Local photos and customer reviews
A concise overview of services offered
A strong, localized call to action
Once your template is set, link to these pages internally so search engines and users can easily find them.
Add links from your main navigation or a dedicated HTML sitemap, and cross-link between related locations or service pages when relevant.
This type of modular setup helps every page stay on-brand while still serving unique, location-specific content.
Want a shortcut?
That’s where our Location Page Template comes in.
It’s a plug-and-play framework that keeps pages consistent while giving you room to localize copy, visuals, and CTAs.
Instead of rebuilding from scratch, just fill in the blanks and launch pages faster.
Publish Unique, Optimized Content
Even with templates, every location page should feel distinct and relevant to its community. Boilerplate content can hurt engagement and limit your local visibility.
So, add local flavor wherever you can — photos of the branch exterior or team, nearby landmarks, or community involvement.
These small touches make each page authentic and help prevent duplicate content issues.
But don’t just stop there.
Rotate seasonal offers, update photos, and feature new testimonials to show both search engines and customers that your locations are active and trusted.
Finally, dial in your SEO details.
Titles, headers, image alt text, and LocalBusiness schema should all include the branch’s city or neighborhood.
These signals help Google connect each page to the right local search intent.
Pro tip: Start with your highest-traffic or flagship markets first. Once those pages are performing, use the same structure and workflow and apply it to the rest.
Step 2. Build and Optimize Google Business Profiles for Every Location
Multi-location SEO starts with accuracy and consistency in your GBPs.
One wrong detail — or a suspended profile — can tank visibility for that branch. And when you’re handling dozens of listings, a small mistake can spread fast.
Next, check every listing against your master spreadsheet from Step 1.
Make sure the name, address, phone number, hours, and landing page URL all match. Even one typo can hurt rankings.
Then, add UTM tracking to your website links.
This lets you see which branches drive traffic, leads, and sales in Google Analytics (GA4) or your customer relationship management (CRM) system.
Optimize Your GBPs Completely
Verification is just the start.
If you’re doing SEO for multiple locations, it’s not a one-time job — it’s a system you have to run efficiently across every branch.
Start with categories.
One wrong choice can confuse Google, so build a shared list of approved options every branch can use.
Precision matters more than volume. So, pick one main category and a few secondary ones that match what that branch actually offers.
Not sure which categories competitors use?
Tools like GMBspy show the primary and secondary categories of top-ranking businesses in your market.
From there, focus on consistency and automation across every profile:
Standardize visuals: Give each manager a short photo checklist (e.g., storefront, interior, team, and one or two local highlights) to keep listings current.
Use a brand-approved description template: Maintain a consistent tone but personalize each listing with local details.
Keep data aligned: Hours, URLs, and phone numbers should always match your website and location pages. Even one mismatch can cause issues across your network.
Automate updates: Tools like Semrush Local or BrightLocal can push edits, track reviews, and monitor changes in bulk.
Pre-load FAQs: Seed each profile’s Q&A section with verified, brand-approved answers before customers fill in the gaps.
Pro tip: Want to make life easier? Use our GBP optimization checklist to stay consistent across every location.
Post and Update Regularly
Google rewards freshness.
Regular posts, photos, and updates show that your business is active. And they help each location stand out in Maps and the local pack.
Share short posts for promos, events, and new services. Rotate new photos or short videos every few months to keep your listings looking current.
Even small updates like adding seasonal offers or highlighting staff can make a difference in clicks and calls.
And don’t forget the Q&A section.
Add common customer questions yourself with accurate, brand-approved answers. Then, monitor it regularly so you can respond fast when new ones appear.
The hard part?
Doing this for dozens — or hundreds — of branches. Manually updating each profile is exhausting and easy to fall behind on.
Tools like Semrush Local can make it easier by letting you manage posts, photos, and info for all your locations from a single dashboard.
Step 3. Collect and Manage Reviews
Reviews drive both rankings and trust.
At scale, the challenge isn’t getting one review — it’s managing hundreds across locations every month without dropping the ball.
Automate Review Acquisition
Start by collecting customer contact info at checkout or after service.
That lets you send automated review requests by text or email through your point of sale (POS) system or CRM.
Each branch should have its own short review link or QR code so customers can find the right profile fast.
Add those links to receipts, follow-up emails, and even in-store signage. Small touches like that can boost response rates over time.
Most customers don’t ignore review requests on purpose, they just forget.
A simple reminder can make a big difference in review volume.
Centralize Review Monitoring
Tracking reviews one branch at a time wastes hours.
Set alerts for negative reviews so you can respond quickly and win back unhappy customers.
Over time, you’ll start spotting trends — like which cities get the most reviews or which teams need more support.
Standardize Responses
Consistency matters as much as speed.
Create a few brand-approved templates for positive, neutral, and negative reviews. Then, teach local staff how to personalize them with names or specific details from the customer’s experience.
Small touches like that make responses feel authentic while staying on brand.
You can also make a copy of our Review Response Templates to speed things up and keep messaging consistent.
The goal is to sound human without going off-script. That balance keeps your tone aligned across every branch while still making each customer feel heard.
List the official name, address, phone number, hours, Google Business Profile URL, and landing-page URL for every location.
Keep it updated — this one file keeps every branch aligned.
Next, make it easy to see what’s current and what’s not. Use the “Last Verified” column to track when each location’s details were last checked.
If different people manage different regions, assign ownership right in the sheet. That one small habit prevents duplicate edits and conflicting updates later on.
Automate Distribution
Once your data is solid, automation makes running multiple locations easier and saves hours of manual updates.
They also make it easy to update details like hours, phone numbers, and URLs whenever something changes.
Audit and Monitor Listings Regularly for Accuracy
Your listings won’t stay accurate forever. That’s where routine maintenance makes all the difference.
Run a quarterly NAP audit to catch inconsistencies before they snowball. Your listings tool can scan every profile and flag details that don’t match your master sheet.
Then, spot-check the platforms that matter most: GBP, Apple Maps, Yelp, and Facebook. If you’re in a specialized industry, check directories like ZocDoc or FindLaw, too.
Keep a running log of what you fix each quarter.
Over time, patterns will reveal which platforms or regions slip most often. That insight helps you tighten your process and prevent repeat issues.
Step 5. Build Local Backlinks That Actually Move the Needle
With one location, a few chamber of commerce links or directory listings can boost authority.
But when you’re managing dozens of branches, growing that process across your entire network takes more than luck. It takes systems.
Focus on Community and Local Partnerships
Local links help boost visibility and build trust.
They show that real people in each community engage with your business.
So, encourage branch managers to get involved. Sponsor events, join community groups, or collaborate with nearby businesses.
These efforts often lead to natural mentions and backlinks that show local relevance to search engines.
To streamline the process, collect ideas that work and turn them into a shared playbook.
Pro tip: Use your location landing pages as link destinations instead of the homepage. They’re more relevant to searchers in each market and can strengthen those pages’ ability to rank locally.
Systematize Outreach
Multi-location SEO relies on repeatable systems that make expansion easier.
Document what’s working so every branch can replicate it.
Use our Local Backlink Opportunity Tracker as your central database to log outreach, track live links, and measure results across all locations.
Add notes on what type of partnership or content earned each link so others can reuse the same playbook.
Centralize research at the brand level to save time. Identify sponsorship pages, community events, and local publishers that align with your audience before branches start outreach.
Over time, you’ll start to see what works best.
Certain link types, partner categories, or content formats will consistently deliver stronger results.
Use those insights to refine your playbook and make link acquisition faster, easier, and more predictable across your entire network.
Use Tools to Prioritize and Track
Link research tools come to the rescue in automating link opportunity discovery for every branch.
Start with Semrush’s Backlink Analytics to see which local websites link to your competitors. Those same sponsors, media outlets, and directories are strong prospects for your own branches.
You can also build city-specific prospect lists using searches like “our sponsors” + city name or “community partners” + city.
Try prompting AI tools like ChatGPT or Google’s AI Mode to surface local organizations, events, and publications worth contacting.
Review your data regularly to see which branches or regions are earning coverage and which need extra support.
If some locations have fewer opportunities, that’s normal.
Smaller towns and rural areas often have limited local media or sponsorship options. In those cases, expand your search to nearby cities or regional publishers.
Step 6. Track and Attribute Performance by Location
Tracking performance can get complicated, especially when you’re running a local SEO strategy for multiple locations.
Without clear attribution, you can’t prove which branches — or tactics — are driving results.
Use UTMs + Location IDs Everywhere
Building a consistent local SEO strategy for multiple locations means tracking every branch the same way — from clicks and calls to conversions and revenue.
Multi-location tracking starts with structure.
Add UTM tags to every GBP link, ad campaign, and email.
They make it possible to separate traffic, leads, and conversions by branch inside GA4 and your CRM system.
Use a clear naming convention so you can filter results without digging through rows of messy data.
Phone calls and form fills are two of the strongest conversion signals in local SEO.
Don’t lose them in a generic tracking setup.
Use tools like CallRail to assign unique phone numbers to each branch. That way, you can see which campaigns and locations are driving calls directly from search or ads.
For web forms or booking widgets, embed hidden location IDs so submissions are tagged automatically to the right branch. It takes a few minutes to set up, but it eliminates hours of manual cleanup later.
Centralize in a Multi-Location Dashboard
You can’t improve what you can’t measure.
Use a platform like Looker Studio. It can combine GBP insights, GA4 data, call-tracking results, and CRM metrics into one dashboard.
At a glance, you’ll see how all locations perform side by side. Then, drill into individual cities or stores to find what’s working and what needs attention.
Optimize Based on Insights
Once you have consistent tracking, insights start to stand out.
Spot underperforming branches early and dig into the “why.”
Maybe reviews are trending negative, citations are inaccurate, or local pages haven’t been updated in months.
At the same time, identify top-performing branches and replicate their wins across the rest of your network. Share these insights regularly with local managers so strategy and execution stay aligned.
Level Up Your Multi-Location SEO Game
Consistency is the quiet advantage in multi-location SEO.
Why?
Because brands that systemize how each branch builds trust, relevance, and citations win the long game in local search.
In short: The top performers don’t rely on guesswork. They build repeatable frameworks.
If you’re ready to scale smarter, explore our Local SEO Tools comparison.
You’ll find the platforms and features that make local SEO for multiple locations faster, easier, and far more effective — no matter how many branches you manage.
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When you think of SEO, your brain probably jumps to Google. But there’s another major search engine people often overlook, YouTube.
With over 2.7 billion monthly users and more than 500 hours of content uploaded every minute, YouTube is the second-largest search enginein the world, and video is one of the most popular content delivery methods online.
And here’s the kicker. YouTube videos don’t just show up on YouTube. They rank in Google results, too. So if you’re not optimizing your videos, you’re leaving a ton of organic reach on the table.
That’s where YouTube SEO comes in.
Just like you optimize blog posts to rank on Google, you need to optimize your videos to rank on YouTube. Different platforms, different rules, but the same goal: get discovered.
This guide breaks down exactly how to do that, with updated strategies, data-backed tips, and easy wins you can apply to your next upload.
Key Takeaways
YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world, processing billions of video searches each month.
SEO isn’t just for Google. YouTube SEO can help your videos reach a much wider audience.
Ranking on YouTube requires optimizing for a different algorithm than Google’s, but with overlapping principles.
YouTube SEO includes optimizing your channel, playlists, metadata, description, and videos.
A strong video SEO strategy improves visibility both inside YouTube and in Google search results.
Key ranking signals include watch time, engagement, click-through rate (CTR), and keyword-rich metadata.
Small optimizations, like better thumbnails or tighter intros, can lead to big gains in discoverability.
How Does YouTube SEO Work?
YouTube SEO means optimizing your videos and channel so they appear in YouTube search results, and often in Google search results as well.
So how does YouTube decide what to rank? It’s not just about keywords. The YouTube algorithm looks at how users interact with your content.
YouTube wants to feature videos that people watch all the way through, engage with, and find relevant. That includes:
High watch time (viewers stay for most or all of the video)
Engagement (likes, comments, shares, and subscriptions)
Relevance (matches what someone is actively searching for)
Clean metadata (accurate, keyword-rich titles, descriptions, and tags)
It also weighs other elements like thumbnail design, captions, and even your video file name.
If your video gets clicks but users bounce after 10 seconds, that’s a red flag. But if they watch to the end and hit subscribe? That’s a signal your video is delivering real value.
The goal isn’t to outsmart the system, it’s to help YouTube understand why your content deserves visibility. When your video SEO aligns with the ranking factors that matter, you improve your chances of being discovered.
Video SEO vs. Traditional SEO
Traditional SEO and YouTube SEO share a few principles, but they’re built for different behaviors.
Retention and audience signals matter more than keywords alone
Captions and file names can impact rankings
YouTube rewards content that performs, not just content that’s well-optimized. Another note is that as of right now, YouTube competition is lower than conventional blogs just because there’s so much more blog content out there.
Why YouTube SEO Matters Now More Than Ever
YouTube SEO helps your brand get found across more than just YouTube.
Google’s shift toward Search Everywhere means results now pull from all kinds of content, web pages, videos, images, and forums. YouTube isn’t just along for the ride. It’s a key input.
YouTube content can surface in a range of Google SERP features, from AI Overviews to video carousels and rich results.. It also improves your odds of showing up in AI-powered summaries, where large language models (LLMs) highlight sources that are relevant, clear, and trustworthy. This is Search Everywhere Optimization in action, and YouTube is a key cornerstone of this strategy.
When your brand shows up consistently on YouTube, you build credibility. That reinforces everything else you’re doing, blog content, backlinks, schema markup, and on-page SEO.
Video isn’t just part of your content strategy. It strengthens your presence in search.
Next, we’ll break down what you can do to improve your YouTube SEO and get your videos in front of the right audience.
Ways To Improve Your YouTube SEO
You don’t need to guess what works, there are proven YouTube SEO tips that make your videos more discoverable.
From how you title your videos to how you hold attention, small changes can lead to more views, more engagement, and better rankings. Let’s break them down.
1. Perfect Your YouTube Keyword Research
Strong YouTube SEO starts with the right keywords, and your research process needs to match how people actually search on the platform.
YouTube queries tend to be intent-driven: tutorials, reviews, comparisons, and questions. That means your keyword list should include real phrases your audience types into the YouTube search bar.
Start with YouTube’s autocomplete. Type a broad topic into the search bar and look at the suggested queries. These are gold, purely based on actual user behavior.
Next, check out high-performing competitor videos. What phrases show up in their titles, descriptions, and tags?
You can also use tools like Ubersuggest, vidIQ, or TubeBuddy to explore search volume, competition, and related keyword ideas. Ubersuggest doesn’t go as deep on YouTube-specific data as others, but it’s a good starting point to find popular keywords to build videos around.
Once you’ve built a list, prioritize keywords with clear intent and moderate competition. If people are searching for it and your video delivers, it’s a win for rankings and engagement.
Make keyword research a habit. The better you understand how your audience searches, the easier it is to create videos that get found.
2. Optimize Your Video Title
Your video title is one of the most important signals YouTube uses to understand your content and it’s also what drives clicks.
A good title does three things: matches the search query, promises value, and grabs attention without feeling clickbaity.
Use your primary keyword early in the title. Then add a hook that creates curiosity or outcome-driven interest.
Outdated: “Small Business Marketing Tips to Grow Your Revenue” Stronger: “Small Business Marketing: 7 Tactics That Actually Drive Revenue in 2026”
This updated version is more specific, adds a number, includes a timeliness cue, and still leads with the core keyword.
The examples below show these principles in action, giving you clear examples of what you will get in the video.
3. Optimize Your YouTube Tags
YouTube tags still help clarify what your video is about, but they’re no longer a major ranking factor.
Use tags that are closely aligned with your video title, topic, and primary keyword.
You don’t need dozens. Stick to a few highly relevant tags.
Instead of thinking in terms of “LSI keywords,” focus on real search terms your audience might use.
For example, a video about growing succulents indoors might include tags like: succulent care, indoor gardening, how to grow succulents, succulent tips.
4. Optimize Your YouTube Description
Your YouTube description helps both viewers and YouTube’s algorithm understand what your video is about.
Start with a clear, one-sentence summary of your video that includes your target keyword early on.
After that, use the remaining space to give context, outline what viewers will learn, and link to any relevant resources.
Avoid keyword stuffing. Instead, use related terms naturally throughout your copy.
If your video covers multiple steps or topics, consider adding timestamps.
You should also include a few branded or evergreen links at the bottom—think blog posts, landing pages, or your email signup.
A strong description can boost your ranking, increase watch time, and drive more clicks from both YouTube and Google.
5. See What Your Competitors Are Optimizing For
Looking at what top competitors are doing on YouTube is one of the fastest ways to improve your own SEO strategy.
Search for videos ranking for terms you want to target, then study their titles, thumbnails, tags, and video descriptions.
Look for patterns in phrasing, topic angles, or keywords they repeat across multiple uploads.
You can also use tools like TubeBuddy or vidIQ to explore the tags used and how often certain phrases show up in popular videos.
The goal isn’t to copy what works, but understand what’s already resonating with your shared audience.
From there, refine your keyword strategy to stand out while still aligning with search demand.
6. Create YouTube Playlists
Well-organized YouTube playlists help you group related videos together in a way that increases watch time, session duration, and topical relevance.
From an SEO perspective, playlists are crawlable by YouTube and Google, especially if you include keywords in the title and description.
Use playlists to guide viewers through multi-part tutorials, related topics, or evergreen series. The goal is to keep people watching without needing to click away. Take a look at this e-commerce playlist and how it helps viewers walk through different aspects of the topic.
Just avoid overstuffing. A focused playlist with a logical flow will perform better than a catch-all bucket.
Done right, playlists act like internal linking for your channel by connecting videos around topics that matter to your audience and to the algorithm.
7. Add Cards and End Screens
Cards and end screens are built-in tools that keep viewers engaged and watching more of your content.
Cards are clickable links that appear during a video—use them to recommend related videos, playlists, or even external links if you’re eligible.
End screens appear in the final 5–20 seconds of your video and let you promote additional content, encourage subscriptions, or push viewers to a playlist.
These features help increase session time and send positive engagement signals to YouTube’s algorithm.
Make sure your end screens point to videos with similar topics or formats. That increases the chance viewers will keep watching.
You can add cards and end screens inside YouTube Studio under the “Editor” tab for each video.
8. Encourage Engagement
Engagement signals tell YouTube your content is worth promoting, and they go beyond just comments and subscriptions.
Ask viewers to leave a comment by posing a simple, relevant question in your video.
Encourage likes, subscriptions, playlist saves, and shares. You can also ask viewers to vote in a Community tab poll or engage with a follow-up Short.
Use tools like pinned comments, end screens, and YouTube’s subscribe buttons to drive those actions.
The key is to be specific. Instead of “Leave a comment,” try “What’s the biggest SEO mistake you’ve made? Let me know below.”
Stronger engagement not only improves discoverability, it keeps people connected to your brand.
9. Step Up the Production Value
Production value doesn’t have to mean studio-level gear, but it does make a difference.
Clear audio, clean visuals, and simple edits help your content feel more professional and trustworthy.
Your background doesn’t have to be fancy, but it should be free of distractions. Use lighting that keeps you visible and present.
Strong delivery matters, too. Speak clearly, stay on-topic, and bring energy. YouTube tracks engagement, and your performance affects watch time.
Think of production as a multiplier. If your title, thumbnail, and keywords get the click, good production keeps the view.
10. Create an Eye-Catching Thumbnail
YouTube doesn’t use thumbnails as a direct ranking factor, but they can strongly influence your click-through rate. That impacts how often your video gets recommended.
A clear, well-designed thumbnail helps your video stand out and gives viewers a reason to click.
Use large, readable text (four to five words max), strong contrast, and a visual that supports your title.
Avoid cluttered screenshots, generic imagery, or designs that mislead viewers.
For example, a thumbnail with the phrase “SEO Checklist” next to a presenter and recognizable brand colors is both clear and scroll-stopping.
Think of your thumbnail as a visual hook that earns attention and builds trust.
11. Add Closed Captions And Transcripts
Closed captions and transcripts both support accessibility, and they help with SEO, too.
Captions allow your video content to be indexed more accurately by YouTube and Google. Transcripts can be added to your description or linked in the comments to provide even more context.
YouTube’s automatic captions are a helpful start, but they’re sometimes inaccurate. Always edit them or upload your own.
Accurate captions support viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing, improve clarity fornon-native speakers, and make your videos easier to follow in sound-off environments.
12. Edit Your Filename to Improve YouTube SEO
This is one of those tricks that may or may not dramatically impact your SEO, but it’s nevertheless important to do.
The idea is to rename your raw file so that it reflects your title or your focus keyword.
So for example, your file may default to a name like “VID_230912.mp4.”
But if you rename it and use your focus keyword (e.g., “youtube_keyword_research_tips.mp4”), you’ll tell YouTube what your video is about.
13. Share on Social Media
Social shares drive clicks and help build links to your channel and videos, which improves your long-term YouTube SEO.
When your video is embedded or linked on high-traffic platforms, you’re reinforcing its authority. That helps YouTube understand it deserves broader distribution.
Facebook: Pair your video with a short, benefit-driven post. Native uploads still get good reach, but YouTube links with the right framing still perform.
Twitter/X: Share with a one-liner hook, a stat, or a contrarian take. Quote-tweet your own video to build thread engagement.
LinkedIn: Great for expert tips, B2B, or tutorial content. Use a headline-style intro and keep it professional but personal.
Reddit: Find subreddits where your content solves a problem or answers a recurring question. Don’t spam, be useful.
TikTok: Post a short preview or teaser clip from your full YouTube video. Add a CTA like “Full video on YouTube—link in bio.”
Strategic social sharing expands your reach and builds the signals YouTube looks for when recommending content.
14. Send an Email to Your List of Subscribers
Your email list is a direct line to viewers who already trust your content—use it to boost early video views and engagement.
When you publish a new video, send a short email that tees up the topic, builds curiosity, and includes a direct link.
Example: “Just dropped: My 5-part YouTube SEO checklist. These are the exact tactics I use to rank. Watch it here.”
Avoid overloading your email with text or embedding full videos. Keep it simple, scannable, and focused on the value of the video itself.
Early views and clicks from your email list help signal relevance to YouTube’s algorithm and can give your video a faster lift.
15. Embed Your Video for Better YouTube SEO
Embedding your YouTube videos into your site helps with both visibility and watch time, two things that matter for SEO.
The best place to embed is inside blog posts that already get traffic, especially content that aligns with the topic of your video.
For example, I embedded a video about Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) in a blog on Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC).
Avoid placing the video at the very end of the post. Higher placement improves play rate and session time.
You can also embed videos on landing pages, FAQ pages, or resource libraries to drive discovery.
Every additional view helps build authority for your channel, and the contextual match between the page and video strengthens relevance.
16. Increase Your Watch Time
Watch time, the total minutes viewers spend watching your content, is one of the most important signals YouTube uses to rank videos.
The longer someone watches, the more YouTube sees your video as valuable. That leads to higher visibility across search and suggested content.
To improve watch time, you need to know where viewers are dropping off. Start by checking the Watch Time and Audience Retention reports in YouTube Studio.
Go to Analytics > Content to see average view duration, key drop-off points, and which videos are keeping people engaged.
Use this data to spot patterns: Which intros keep people watching? Do tutorials hold attention better than explainers? Are certain upload times leading to stronger engagement?
You can also play your video inside YouTube Studio to watch second-by-second retention data and see exactly when people leave.
Over time, optimizing your content based on this data will boost watch time, keep people on your channel longer, and help you rank higher.
17. Use Engagement Reports to Drive YouTube SEO
YouTube’s engagement reports give you critical insights into how viewers interact with your content and where you can improve.
In YouTube Studio, go to Analytics > Engagement to track key metrics like Average Percentage Viewed and Top Videos by End Screen.
Use Average Percentage Viewed to spot weak retention. If people drop off early, your hook or pacing might need work.
End Screen and Card CTRs show how well you’re keeping people in your content ecosystem.
You can also monitor Subscriber changes by video to see what content drives the most loyalty.
These reports won’t boost SEO on their own, but they show you exactly what’s working, so you can double down on content that keeps people watching.
To hold attention, you need a strong hook that quickly communicates what the video is about and why it matters.
You can open with a surprising stat, a pointed question, or a bold statement that previews the outcome.
Keep your energy high, use tight editing, and avoid long intros or branding sequences.
For example: “Most creators lose half their audience in the first 30 seconds. Here’s how to stop that.”
The goal is to immediately frame value, build curiosity, and give viewers a reason to stay.
If they bounce early, it sends negative signals to YouTube and hurts your chances of ranking.
19. Get Featured on Another Channel
Getting featured on another YouTube channel is one of the most effective ways to grow your audience and strengthen your SEO presence.
When another channel links to yours in the description or recommends your video, it sends referral traffic and authority signals YouTube notices.
Partnerships work best when the content is complementary, not directly competitive. A design channel could collaborate with a branding expert. A tech channel might feature a startup founder with a product demo. I regularly appear on other channels to talk about marketing and entrepreneurship.
Interviews, guest appearances, channel takeovers, or content swaps are all viable formats. The key is to provide clear value to their audience.
When reaching out, pitch a topic or format that fits their content style. Make it easy for them to say yes by sharing links to your best-performing videos and suggesting a clear angle.
Be sure to ask for a link in the description and even suggest end screen placement or pinned comment visibility if appropriate.
Collaborations not only expand your reach. They build link equity, keep viewers moving between videos, and strengthen your channel’s position in YouTube’s recommendation engine.
20. Find Your Optimal Video Length
There’s no universal “perfect length” for a YouTube video, but top-performing content often falls in the 10–12 minute range.
But that doesn’t mean every video should hit that mark.
TED Talks, for example, often run 15 minutes or higher, and viewers expect that kind of depth. Cut them shorter, and they’d feel incomplete.
Instead of aiming for a specific number, focus on how long it takes to fully deliver the value your title promises.
Track your average view duration and retention in YouTube Studio to spot trends. If people drop off early, try tightening your delivery. If they’re watching to the end, test slightly longer formats.
Your “ideal length” is whatever keeps people watching and coming back.
21. Take Advantage of YouTube Shorts
YouTube Shorts are a major discovery tool inside the platform.
They show up in their own feed, dominate the mobile experience, and often reach viewers who haven’t seen your main content yet.
One smart move is to repurpose key moments from your longer videos into Shorts. Take a tip, stat, or highlight and format it vertically with captions.
This expands your reach and helps new viewers discover your channel.
Use your video description or a pinned comment to link to the full video or playlist.
If you’re skipping Shorts, you’re likely missing out on an audience that prefers quick, mobile-first content.
Frequently Asked Questions About YouTube SEO
What is YouTube SEO?
YouTube SEO is how you optimize your videos and channel to rank in YouTube searches.. It involves things like keywords, video structure, thumbnails, and watch time, all to help your content get discovered and watched longer.
How to optimize YouTube videos for SEO?
Start by finding the right keywords, then use them in your title, description, and video file name. Create a strong hook, add closed captions, use end screens and playlists, and encourage engagement. The more signals you send that viewers enjoy your content, the better your SEO.
What SEO tools are good for YouTube SEO?
TubeBuddy and vidIQ are two of the best. They help with keyword research, tag suggestions, and competitive insights. Ubersuggest can also help if you want to look for broader SEO and content trends to guide your video strategy.
Do YouTube videos help SEO?
Yes. When embedded in blog posts or linked across the web, YouTube videos can improve time on page, add relevance to your content, and build backlinks to your channel. That’s good for your site SEO and your video rankings.
Conclusion
YouTube isn’t just for uber-famous superstars, you can get in on the action, too.
If you work hard to make videos that really help people, you’ll watch the views roll in.
You don’t need a huge budget to start making great videos. You can produce a viral video using just the phone in your pocket and a free video editor.
The best channels stand out because they have something unique to offer.
If you have a unique value proposition of your own, and if you go the extra mile to create videos people love, you can become very successful on YouTube.
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Generative engine optimization (GEO) platform Lorelight, is shutting it down – not because it failed, but because the problem it solved didn’t need solving, according to its founder Benjamin Houy.
“Customers were churning because the product didn’t change what they needed to do. They would pursue the same brand-building fundamentals whether they had the data or not,” Houy wrote in a blog post.
The big idea. Launched in April, Lorelight pitched itself as a “proactive AI brand monitoring” tool. Lorelight promised real-time alerts when large language models, such as ChatGPT or Claude, misrepresented a brand.
The goal: To help marketers control their brand narrative in the age of AI by detecting inaccuracies, biases, or outdated info in AI-generated responses.
Lorelight claimed to offer visibility into how AI models “interpreted” brands and give companies a chance to correct or influence that narrative before misinformation spread.
Why it failed. Lorelight could show where brands appeared (or didn’t) in AI answers, but that data rarely led to new action, according to Houy. After months of analysis, Houy found that the brands showing up most often in AI-generated results shared familiar traits:
High-quality, helpful content.
Mentions in authoritative publications.
Strong reputations and subject-matter expertise.
Houy wrote:
“It’s the exact same stuff that’s always worked for SEO, PR, and brand building.
“There was no secret formula. No hidden hack. No special optimization technique that only applied to AI.
“There’s no secret GEO strategy. AI models reward the same fundamentals that already drive SEO and PR.”
The bigger picture. Houy concluded that GEO makes more sense as a feature within existing SEO platforms, not as a standalone category. Building a dedicated tool for tracking brand visibility in AI responses simply didn’t deliver enough unique value to sustain a business, he said.
Established SEO platforms, including Semrush, have already begun expanding into AI visibility and brand monitoring, integrating features that help marketers understand how brands appear in generative search results.
What they’re saying. Many SEO practitioners applauded the candor, via comments on Houy’s LinkedIn post. Some of the reactions:
Lily Ray said the post was something “the industry needs to hear.”
Gaetano DiNardi called it “saying the quiet part out loud.”
Kristine Strange praised Houy’s courage to step away from the idea he believed in.
Randall Choh countered that LLM visibility is already driving conversions, citing data showing that ChatGPT-sourced signups convert six times better than Google traffic.
Panos Kondylis argued the GEO space is “premature” – visibility tracking is early-stage and most tools echo what SEO platforms already do.
Yes, but. Beware of confirmation bias. One tool’s failure (that you probably hadn’t even heard about before it shut down) doesn’t prove an entire discipline is worthless. It’s still early.
If you believe in the Gartner Hype Cycle, GEO may simply be passing through the Trough of Disillusionment – when inflated expectations crash and weaker players fold before the survivors evolve into something more durable.
Lorelight lived for about seven months – from its April launch to its October shutdown. Its quick demise may be more about timing than the longer-term viability of GEO.
Google’s AI Overviews and AI-driven search are reshaping content creation, SEO, and user behavior.
As we watch this fascinating evolution of search – and continue to debate what we call this new marketing discipline (HubSpot is opting for AEO, or answer engine optimization) – I interviewed Aja Frost, senior director of global growth and paid media at HubSpot. Some of the topics covered in our interview:
The need to redefine success metrics for AEO, prioritizing visibility and share of voice
HubSpot’s experimental journey, including creating hyperspecific, data-rich content and optimizing for LLMs.
Traffic directly from LLMs converts about 3x better than traditional search traffic for HubSpot.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Danny Goodwin: Hey everybody, this is Danny Goodwin, editorial director of Search Engine Land, and, today I’m being joined by Aja Frost. We have an interesting discussion coming up about GEO, AEO, AI, and all the good hot topics. It’s great to meet you Aja. ’cause I’ve actually never, uh, run into you on the conferences or anywhere. So it’s really nice to connect with you.
Aja Frost: You know, Danny, I was gonna say, it’s nice to see you, which is my go-to if I’m not sure whether I’ve seen someone, I met someone before. I figured we had met because we definitely run in the same circles. But I’m delighted to be finally, officially making your acquaintance.
Danny Goodwin: Absolutely. Before we dive in for the people watching or listening, do you want to introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Aja Frost: Yep. I am Senior Director of Global Growth and Paid Media at HubSpot. Global Growth is our catch-all for top-of-funnel non-paid demand, which largely translates to SEO and now AEO. And I’ve been at HubSpot for a little over nine years, which is about eight years longer than I thought I would be. For those who don’t know, HubSpot is the customer platform that powers 268,000 teams. And it changes, I would say, as a company, every few years, which is what has kept me there. I think we have had a really interesting journey to this point, and we are embarking on what I believe is the most interesting era of SEO, AEO, and really marketing yet.
Danny Goodwin: Absolutely. So, yeah, it is a very fun time and you’ve been around for a few years at this point, so very curious to get your take. So, we had SMX Advanced a while back, our conference returned in person and at that point in time I’m like, oh, this whole a AEO versus GEO versus whatever we’re gonna call a debate – it’s gotta be settled by the time like October, November comes around. And I’m surprised that it has not still been settled. So I’m curious from your perspective, where do you stand on that whole name debate? What are you calling it, you know, this new form of SEO, or if it’s some, even if you consider it a new form of SEO, you know, has been GEO, AEO, some people call it AI SEO. What are you kind of calling this practice right now internally and, and why have you settled on whatever term that is?
Aja Frost: Yeah, great question because this was the topic of much debate internally at HubSpot. I think we debated all of the names that you just mentioned and probably 10 more. And we ultimately landed on AEO, or answer engine optimization, because we think it best reflects how people are using AI and what businesses/brands should be doing in response. So I think SEO, you wanted to rank in the results, like that was pretty clear. Now you wanna be a part of the answer. And so answer engine optimization is the tactics, the plays that you run to show up as part of that answer. Also, it just sounds cooler than GEO in my opinion, but we’ll see how long the debate rages on. I have learned not to underestimate how long people in our particular world can spend haggling and debating this type of thing.
Danny Goodwin: Yes, I know it’s, it’s sort of like subdomains versus subfolders. If you’ve been around long enough, you’ll know what that means and how long that debate has been going on. And I can’t even tell you, uh, more than a decade, I’m safe in assuming. Whatever we call it ultimately or whatever it gets decided it is called, this does feel like a big transition point for search from traditional ranking search to AI search is more about retrieval. So for you, how has it changed the way you’re thinking about visibility and strategy?
Aja Frost: Yeah, we are very much thinking about AEO as an evolution of SEO, which I did my homework and I’m just a Danny Goodwin fan, so I know that I think we’re on the same page there. And yes, that was an intentional pun. I think one thing that has actually always been a very HubSpot philosophy is do what’s best for the customer. And that’s always overlapped really neatly with our SEO strategy. It’s also what Google has preached for many years – do what’s best for the customer. You may miss out on some short-term wins, but in the long run, your site is going to perform better. And that is at the heart of our AEO strategy. I also think that the three buckets of plays that we’re running are familiar from SEO. So the what hasn’t changed, but the how has, and I’ll go a click deeper there. Those three buckets for us are content, technical, and offsite.
Our content for AEO looks fairly different than it does for SEO. It’s much more specific. It’s much nicher and deeper. It’s structured differently. It’s written differently. But it’s always intended to be what’s best for the customer or best for the reader.
The second bucket is technical. And again, I think that Google indexes/ingests content differently than AI bots do. And so we need to adjust our technical strategies to match while not doing anything that’s harmful for GoogleBot, because of course we still care about Google.
And then offsite, one thing that is probably the clearest from SEO to AEO is the emphasis on brand mentions rather than links. And so we’re really shifting our offsite strategy to be much more about positive mentions in the places that AI is training and citing versus getting backlinks on high domain authority websites.
Danny Goodwin: That is a big shift. I think still a lot of people aren’t ready for. So much of the stuff the tactics have been ingrained for – and I forget, how long have you been doing SEO roughly?
Aja Frost: I’ve been doing SEO for a little over a decade.
Danny Goodwin: So SEO is probably about near 30 years old at this point.
Aja Frost: Oh, Danny, we didn’t say we were gonna talk about my age on the podcast.
Danny Goodwin: Hey. But yeah. Um, sorry about that.
Aja Frost: No, they’re all good.
Danny Goodwin: So yeah, I mean, it’s just like, there’s this kind of, this whole playbook I think that a lot of people are attached to. And change is scary for a lot of people. Rethinking that stuff is important because nothing is static. And especially right now things are just kind of chaotic. The amount of changes we’re seeing, it’s crazy.
Aja Frost: Oh my God. Change is so scary.I think change is scary for us. We also had the pressure of not just figuring this out for our own internal strategy, but for figuring it out for our customers. The strategy that we are shipping right now, I have a very direct line to our VP of product for our marketing hub. I also spend a lot of time with the head of product for content hub. Those two products basically represent your website and content strategy and HubSpot. Everything that we’re doing. I’m telling them about the stuff that’s working, the stuff that’s not working, so they can turn that into product learnings as quickly as possible. I think it is terrifying and exhilarating and exciting all at once.
Danny Goodwin: Yeah. And with that change, I think there’s a lot of rethinking about how we define success, right? So AEO is not going to be the same success metrics that we had with SEO. So how are you actually thinking about that right now? It used to be like, how many links can I acquire? But what are you thinking about now? What’s important? Is it visibility in a AI answers, getting citations or mentions the actual conversions from the traffic, which again, is not as large as traffic from search, but – there is debate over whether it’s higher quality at this point, which maybe we’ll get into a little bit later. How are you sort of defining success with AEO?
Aja Frost: This was also a topic of much debate, and we actually published the results on our Loop Marketing page. We have a new scorecard for how companies should be thinking about marketing in the age of AI. And AEO, which fits into this loop marketing framework has a few new North Star metrics.
The first, and the one that I would argue is the most important, is visibility. And it’s visibility and not traffic, or not citations, because visibility is what’s going to ultimately inform whether someone converts. And they might not convert in that session. They’re probably not gonna convert directly from their interaction with the LLM. We know that LLMs just are really bad at navigational search. And so they’re probably opening up a new tab or maybe two days later, five days later, going to the website. But the, the visibility is what informs what we care about, which is the conversion. So that’s number one.
That takes, by the way, a lot of education with your exec leadership. And I am very lucky to work at a company, whose leadership is deeply embedded in all these conversations, and I think gets it. But if you are at a company where your CEO is not reading Search Engine Land, it’s definitely worth doing a deep dive to help them understand why visibility is the number one.
Second is share of voice. So what is your visibility like relative to your competitors? And I think that’s a really useful benchmark. I know that there was a lot of coverage back in mid-September when ChatGPT really turned down the dial on visibility for brands. And if you are just looking at visibility, you might think, oh, something’s going haywire with my strategy. If you look at share voice and share voice is constant or growing, you know that you’re doing the right thing, agnostic of some of the algorithmic changes.
Then we get to mentions, or sorry, mentions goes into visibility, then we get to citations. How many times is your website used as a source in answer engine responses? And I think this is really important. I think a lot of brands go after citations first. I’m putting it third on our list. I think it is important because if you get the citation, what we have found is your average ranking and the response and the sentiment of that description, they’re both better, which makes a ton of sense. If you control the source, you’re always gonna say the nicest things about yourself and put yourself first. If you overindex on citations, however, you’re gonna miss out on a wide swath of visibility that I think is pretty critical.
Danny Goodwin: You’ve done a lot of experimenting, which I want to get into in a minute, with optimizing for LLMs and AI-generated answers. What ways do you see SEO and AEO being similar? And then maybe where do you see them separating a little bit?
Aja Frost: Yeah, I think this goes back to what I was talking about – solving for the customer or doing what is good for the end user. I think that is shared for SEO and AEO. And one of the questions you probably get, ’cause I get it all the time, is, well, if I do this for AEO, will it be bad for SEO? And my answer is always no. If you are doing, if you were rolling out an AEO strategy that is good for the end user.
So an example of what would be bad for the end user would be burying secret instructions in content for an AI agent. A good thing would be creating really helpful specific content that’s going to answer a really niche query that someone is asking ChatGPT. And as long as you are solving for that end user, I think that you’ll benefit in both disciplines. You’ll, benefit in answer engines as well as Google.
And then I think the three higher level categories of plays are similar, but where I think things get very different are, again, the content is just, we’re going from these very broad, high level topics, these ultimate guides, which HubSpot – this is a, I don’t know, a dubious claim to fame. But when I started an SEO at HubSpot, then I was telling the blog team what keywords I thought we should target and, and recommending search friendly titles. And I really liked Ultimate Guide. I just thought it sounded nice. So every title I recommended was Ultimate Guide, this Ultimate Guide that. And then of course, a lot of websites started using Ultimate Guide, and now I’ll click through the SERPs and I see Ultimate Guide. I’m like, I think this is my fault.
So you’re going from the ultimate guide to, you know, this is the exact use case that this exact persona wants to accomplish, and here’s how to do it, and here’s some original data that we’ve gotten from customers just like you. And if you come from an answer engine, it’s gonna be tailored exactly to what we know about you. And so it’s a very different style of content and content journey.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. ’cause I, I feel like, and I’ve, I had this conversation not publicly, but there were conversations after the whole bruhaha about all the traffic. HubSpot lost when that, that came out on, I don’t even remember what month that was this year, earlier probably in the spring. And just how much traffic they were losing. Everybody was losing their minds over it. And I was like, wow. You know, you kind of forget the influence that HubSpot had on content marketing as a whole. Your playbook that you guys came up with was used by so many other websites. Like there’s just, you know, repurposed for their specific topic or niche or whatever. But yeah, like HubSpot, that playbook was huge for a lot of years. Right. I think that’s, that was started like right before COVID around that time and then just sort of exploded., Is that the right timeframe?
Aja Frost: I think it depends on what you are talking about. If you’re talking about inbound, inbound I think is really at the heart of the web. At least for a lot of companies that were publishing educational content and inbound goes way, way back. I think we have always been very much a build and public company and, and we share our successes and our strategies along the way. Which is what we’re doing right now with Loop Marketing. I think that has led to a lot of companies saying, oh, this was really successful for HubSpot, I’m gonna adopt it as well, which is good. That’s what we wanted.
But I also think that when we started seeing declines from the emergence of AI Overviews and the changing nature of Google, that was a bit of a bellwether for what I think a lot of websites are now seeing. And so one response could have been, oh, we’re not gonna build in public anymore. We’re gonna be very cagey about what we’re doing and what’s working. So that doesn’t happen again. But that’s obviously not what we’re doing. We’re trying to be even more transparent and helpful. I really hope and believe that loop marketing, which is not a replacement of inbound, but meant to be, again, an extension of and, and a really helpful framework for companies can play that role.
Danny Goodwin: So just going back to that, that traffic drop. I was basically told it was about an 80% traffic drop and you kind of helped the company through that. And now in LLM world, HubSpot is the most cited CRM, is that correct?
Aja Frost: Or the most visible CRM
Danny Goodwin: Most visible. Okay. Gotcha. All right. And, and obviously this is, again, this is a fairly new technology. So, when you were starting to approach optimization on LLMs and AEO, how did you start that journey? Like, what were the first few things that you maybe either thought about or tried that did or did not work?
Aja Frost: Yeah. Well, the first thing I did that I would really recommend folks do if they don’t have an AEO function already stood up was I, um, pulled together some of the ICS on our team that were already doing a lot of experimentation and research in their own time. In my day-to-day, I am usually working with managers or directors. I’m not super close to the work. But I knew that I needed to be really close to this and really help guide it. And so I said, the three of us, we’re gonna meet once a day. We are going to launch one experiment per week if we can. I’m working with the dev team so that whatever we need to do, we can execute as quickly as possible. And so we took a very experimental mindset from the get go.
What we started out with was how do we scale good quality data-rich content? We had been thinking, and I think most people thought about content, maybe in a month you put out 30 pieces. If you’re a news publication, you could be putting out hundreds. But we’re thinking in multipliers of tens most teams. And I think we need to be thinking in multipliers of hundreds or thousands. And so with the team, I wanted to figure out how do we create that content? How do we start relatively small? So like batches of 10, generated with AI reviewed by a human, and then how do we scale that over time? That I think has been very successful.
We’re still experimenting with the types of content that get the most visibility in answer engines. And so that’s what a lot of experimentation revolves around. We also did a lot of what I think of as good clean AEO. Making sure that we were using all the available schema types across our website, making sure that things were really well structured and that we’re leading with the answer. And each section of the page is semantically complete and things are formatted in a Q and A format. You know, a lot of things that I think are now becoming like the standard AEO playbook.
Danny Goodwin: So you mentioned content types. I know there’s been a lot of noise about how some people are abusing top X lists – the top 10 best insert thing here. Is that the sort of stuff you’ve been playing around with? When you say content form, is there anything you can share about what you found that works maybe better?
Aja Frost: Yeah, so I’m not thinking so much about top X for Y, although I think that that still very much has a place in people’s content playbooks. But what we’re really experimenting with is – Danny, what’s the last thing you did research with ChatGPT to buy?
Danny Goodwin: Oh, to buy?
Aja Frost: Yeah.
Danny Goodwin: Uh, it’s, it’s probably researching to find a hotel for Christmas.
Aja Frost: Okay. Find a hotel for Christmas. So the context that ChapGPT is going to have when it recommends a hotel for you is probably about how much money you typically spend based on some demographic data it’s collected about you, if you’ve done any hotel research in the past, where you’re going, obviously how long you’re gonna stay. Hotels, we wanna provide the answers for all of those contextual clues. So if I were a hotel and I was trying to show up in answer engines, I would be creating content that spoke to your particular persona type and your particular use case. Now, I think the challenge is doing that without that content being duplicative or spammy. And to do that, this is what we spend a lot of time on. What are all the data sources that we can ingest to feed these systems essentially, so that all the content is unique, it’s grounded in what we know the persona needs, and it’s not repetitive from page to page.
Danny Goodwin: As, as you’ve gone through this process, were there any maybe big surprises like, oh my God, I didn’t think that would work. Or is there just like any kind of aha! moments, um, as you’ve been doing all this optimization for AI answers?
Aja Frost: The hardest part has been the measurement. I think that we are still very much as an industry, and I know this ’cause I talked to a lot of AEO vendors, figuring out how to correlate the actions that we are taking with specific visibility increases. And it’s highly dependent on the prompts you are tracking. I think that leaves the room for uncertainty and ambiguity because what if you’re tracking the wrong prompts? Or what if you’re tracking the right prompts, but not enough of them? It’s far less clear to say “I did X and Y happened” than it was with SEO. And even with SEO, you know, we couldn’t run A/B tests. We are always doing look backs. There’s so many variables at play.
I talked about education with execs around why visibility is the most important. I think the other really important piece of education, not just for executive leadership, but for, SEO/AEO teams is getting comfortable with less data and fewer direct lines between what we’re doing and the results. So that’s been, I don’t know if that’s been surprising ’cause I think I knew going in that that was going to be hard. But as we’ve progressed and we’ve done more and more teasing apart, the impact of individual experiments has gotten harder and harder.
Danny Goodwin: So I heard through on background of getting this interview set up that you sort of have a formula for getting ChatGPT to recommend a brand. So I want to hear all about that. What can you tell us about that?
Aja Frost: Well, I think that many of the best tactics that we are successfully using are ones that I’ve already mentioned. So we’ve spent a lot of time talking about hyper-specific persona-centric content. What we’ve talked about a little less is the off-site tactics that we’re using. And what we’ve done is identified ChatGPT and Google, because those are priority engines, we’ve identified their top training and citation sources. And then we have put together a concerted strategy to show up as positively and frequently as possible in those places. And two big areas for us have been YouTube and Reddit, which probably won’t surprise anyone as being very influential for answer engines. I can go a little bit more into some of the things we’ve done there, if that’s useful?
Danny Goodwin: Yeah, I think so. There’s been some research done around how heavily cited Reddit and YouTube and a few other sites are. So yeah, I’d be kinda curious to know, like from a strategic standpoint, maybe like how you guys are approaching Reddit and YouTube.
Aja Frost: Yeah. Very different strategies for each and one big learning for us, I wouldn’t say this is in the last year because we’ve been very active on both platforms for several years, but, um, treating every social media platform as its own beast and really getting to know the lay of the land and understanding the culture and the rules and the unspoken rules before we engage. I mean, that’s just a general best practice for any community or social media site.
But on YouTube, uh, we have a large slate of owned channels from Marketing Against the Grain and HubSpot Marketing, to how to HubSpot, science of scaling. It really runs the gamut. And we, the global growth or SEO AEO team works really closely with the teams creating those conthat content to weave in organic mentions of the products where they make sense and make sure that we are creating content on topics that we know answer engines and people care about. We also have a lot of creator partnerships with folks who speak to our relevant audience and somewhat similar playbook there. We want organic, relevant, contextual mentions of HubSpot.
Danny Goodwin: So that’s like influencer marketing, that sort of thing when you say creator?
Aja Frost: Yeah. I think you could call it influencer marketing. I mean, we, we sign, um, multi-month sometimes one-year contracts with creators and, and say, you know, we will pay you X, Y, Z and, in exchange you will create content on these wide topics. Well, we give them a lot of editorial freedom, but you know. You’ll mention HubSpot in X videos, that sort of thing.
And then on Reddit, it is a much more advocacy and community-centric approach. And I should have shouted out HubSpot Media on the YouTube front. They are a fantastic partner to my team. On the Reddit front, we work really closely with HubSpot community, another internal team. And in the last year we became the co-moderator of HubSpot’s subreddit. And we have spent most of our time making that subreddit as productive and engaging as possible because what we’ve seen, which is really interesting, is that the more activity that happens in our HubSpot, the more positive mentions of HubSpot there are across Reddit. Because basically you’re creating a team of advocates who are really excited about your brand, your product, and then they organically go out into conversations on our sales, our marketing, our CRM, and they say good things about HubSpot. So, very, very different strategies, but both focused on getting the right people to say nice things about HubSpot.
Danny Goodwin: I think we touched on this a little bit earlier. Google search versus traffic you get from AI engines, it’s very different. It’s not as large. We’ve actually reported, in the last couple months, three different stories basically saying that traffic that you get from LLMs is either worse or about on par with Google search in terms of converting. I’m curious what you’ve seen there. Do you see that to be the case or do you see quality traffic coming through?
Aja Frost: Yeah, the traffic that directly comes from LLMs converts at about three times better than traditional search for us. So we’re definitely seeing higher conversion rates. And I, I’ve read the SEL stories. I was looking at the one you most recently published, which was like 900 e-comm website over the course of a year. I shared that with my team last week. I was curious whether the difference in conversion rates had anything to do with the difference in the type of product and the buying journey. Like, I think by the time someone is coming to hubspot.com from an LLM, they’ve done a lot of research, at least that’s what our analysis suggests. And so they’re much readier to convert than someone who might in the old world have been coming to the blog to download an ebook on content marketing. It’s been another really fascinating area to watch the industry debate because I’ve also seen several different, uh, different stats.
Danny Goodwin: Right. Yeah. Again, it’s very early and these are not large scale studies, it’s just sort of anecdotal I guess we would say. But any data, I think is useful ’cause at least it gets people thinking about all of these things and it’s gonna always go back to, it depends. It may be different for ecomm versus B2B or whatever the case may be. I think there’s still a lot that’s going to change and where AI is now. I even today was seeing somebody saying we’re at peak AI already. Like really? Like it’s, it’s two years old. Like, come on.
Aja Frost: Yeah. I would disagree with that. Yeah. I think there are, to your point, some things that could be step function increases in conversion rates. Obviously instant checkout, that’s huge. I think that, yeah, I mean this was obviously over the course of a year and I do remember seeing in the study that conversion rates had increased over time, maybe as people got more comfortable or familiar with ChatGPT. But instant checkout’s huge. I don’t know what adoption for Atlas is going to be or for any of these ad browsers to be fair. But agent mode or agentic checkout would definitely improve conversion rates. So I think we’re at the very early innings of this.
Danny Goodwin: Where do you think AEO as a practice will be at maybe a year from now? Do you think it’ll be kind of its own thing? Do you think it’ll be part of SEO and is there anything that you were maybe kinda excited to see happen from ChatGPT or some of these other engines that could make these systems even better?
Aja Frost: I think a lot hinges on when Google makes AI Mode more of the primary search experience. I don’t believe that you are going to get an AI-powered answer for every search. My belief is for navigational queries, at the very least, you’re probably always gonna have something that feels like the traditional SERP and that it gets you from point A to point B very quickly. But I think for a lot, if not most other searches, you will probably be in some form of AI Mode and at that point, SEO and AEO become merged because there is no real traditional SERP to optimize for anymore.
Danny Goodwin: Yep. Exactly. That’s sort of been my problem with this whole naming debate. If you’re gonna call it AI SEO, what happens if that search engine goes away? There’s no more, there’s no more SE in SEO.
Aja Frost: Totally. Yeah. But yeah, and also that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Like I don’t wanna stand up and and say I am an AI SEO.
Danny Goodwin: Right. Exactly. So if you could maybe give people one AEO type of experiment you think maybe they could run before the end of the year to kinda get a feel for it or just anything that you think might be helpful for them to kinda experiment with. Is there anything maybe you could suggest to people like, try this tactic or this strategy or whatever?
Aja Frost: I think if you want a real project, then I would try creating those hyper-specific, very persona-focused pages. I think if you’re looking for something that you could run with and get live by the end of the week, use one of the many query fan-out tools that are available online. Take a page that already exists on your website, plug like a, a likely reasonable query that would lead someone to that page into a query fan-out pool, and then assess whether your page answers or has content for all of the subqueries that that pool provides. And if it doesn’t add them and then see does your visibility for that head question increase.
Danny Goodwin: Awesome. Any final thoughts? Anything we didn’t talk about that you’d love to comment on or leave people with some parting words of wisdom?
Aja Frost: Yeah, I would, I would be remiss not to direct people to hubspot.com/loopmarketing. We have spent a lot of time on AEO. Of course, AEO is one of the tactics in this new growth framework for the AI era, but there’s a lot more that we believe businesses can and should be doing to not just survive but thrive. Check it out. I think there’s a lot there.
Danny Goodwin: Awesome. And just, just for anyone who’s listening and doesn’t know what is loop marketing like, can you give us just a quick overview of what that is? ’cause you mentioned a couple times.
Aja Frost: Yeah. Loop marketing is a growth framework for businesses. There are four phases: express, tailor, amplify, and evolve. Each of those four phases has a host of plays and tactics. But the general idea is that, as the web changes, as folks go from progressing through this ever narrowing funnel to getting an answer in an LLM, then going to your Instagram, then reading a review and, and really having like a much more messy, much less linear journey, we need a new framework for marketing. And so this framework is an ever-evolving, much more flexible dynamic framework.
Danny Goodwin: Right. So it’s sort of like that old bendy straw, the messy middle as Google put it, I think. Right?
Aja Frost: Yes. Yes. I will say messy middle came up many times in our conversations around the loop.
Danny Goodwin: Yeah. Awesome. Alright, well that is all the time I have for you for today. It was a great conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with us. Look forward to seeing more from you in the future and wishing you nothing but success heading forward.
Aja Frost: Thanks so much, Danny. This was really fun.
Danny Goodwin: All right. Thanks. Aja. Bye everybody.
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