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How to write valuable content that your clients will love

As an agency owner, you need skills to write content that your clients and audiences will love. Luckily, you can learn how to do it with proper steps and helpful tools. Here, we’ll discuss how to plan, write, and optimize the content work for your clients. If you have your process down, you’ll easily create content that aligns with the client’s needs and brings in results. One of the tools we’ll use is the Yoast SEO plugin, which helps your content production. 

Understanding what makes content valuable

Good content always has a goal — it could answer questions, solve problems, or offer critical information. If readers find your clients’ content valuable, they will likely feel listened to. They will understand that the advice and ideas are meant for them, which helps you build a bond with them. Writing valuable, high-quality content isn’t just for filling your client’s websites but a way to help and inspire them to improve their business. 

There are many options to get results from the content you produce for your clients. So, what are some of the more popular goals you can target with your client’s content?

  • Building brand recognition: Share brand stories and values so people understand who your clients are.
  • Teaching the audience: Create articles and videos showing how products and services work.
  • Getting leads: Write content to get people to subscribe, download items, or contact your client. 
  • Driving traffic: If your client’s content is valuable, readers will likely click on their site.
  • Increasing engagement: Make content to spark conversations and get feedback. 

Keep writing focused and clear, with your eyes on the ball. You should focus intently on your clients’ current issues, challenges, and opportunities. Take the time to write well-researched pieces, as these can empower your readers. Once you do this, they will likely see your clients as subject matter experts they can trust. Straightforward, high-quality content can inspire readers and bring much value to you as an agency. 

Strategic planning is the foundation

Much of the writing process is about planning. Before you write for your clients, clearly define the goals for that content piece. Find out what questions your clients’ customers are struggling with and how your answers can help them. Research their target audience to understand their daily struggles. This way, you can make your content much more relevant to readers. 

It’s advisable to spend plenty of time doing keyword research. This process is very helpful, giving you many insights into your client’s audience and the words they use to find things. Ultimately, these findings will help you build content strategies for your clients.

The next step is to create a content plan. First, make a simple calendar or a list of topics your client wants to cover. Your plan will guide them and help them keep track of their audience’s themes and recurring concerns. 

Don’t forget to use tools that integrate directly into their content. For instance, the Yoast SEO plugin has integrated keyword research features — among many other great features. It can highlight keywords and trends related to current topics, which will help your clients plan the current piece of content but could also inform the next. 

Ideation and content planning

After researching, it’s time to start generating ideas for your client’s content. Don’t tie yourself up too much; brainstorm freely. Write down every topic that pops up and then organize these ideas to match the client’s needs. Mind mapping is a fantastic way to sort and visualize these ideas. Of course, you can always use a simple list or whatever works for you. Seeing these ideas together helps your client see the connection between them. 

Before starting to write, it’s a good idea to think about the structure of the content. Break down the article into introductions, main sections, and conclusions. This way, it’s easier to structure the content and keep the writing focused and readable. From there, write and edit the first draft — editing helps the content shine.

Optimize your writing for readability

Good writing is all about clarity. Use direct language and try to avoid passive voice. Vary your sentence length to keep the client’s articles engaging. Start with a bold statement or an inverted pyramid-style intro. In the rest of the article, use detailed explanations to build on and prove the main point. 

Read more: SEO copywriting: the ultimate guide 

Format your client’s text to improve readability. Always use headers to introduce new sections and short paragraphs to make it easier for readers to follow the ideas. The same goes for using lists and bullet points to break up walls of text. Make sure that every element of your client’s layout allows the reader to understand your writing quickly.

During this phase, you also need to consider on-page SEO optimizations. Watch how you use your focus keywords and logically structure your client’s content. As you might know, Yoast SEO is a fantastic tool for this. It gives you feedback on sentences, passive voice use, and keyword use and distribution. As a result, this feedback helps publish high-quality content, especially under a tight deadline.  

Read more: What is high-quality content and how do you create it? 

Using Yoast SEO in your content process

Yoast SEO is an SEO plugin/add-on for WordPress, Shopify, and WooCommerce. It’s designed with simplicity in mind while also offering a solid set of SEO features. It also lives within your post editor to give you feedback on your writing. For instance, it offers real-time suggestions on how you use keywords and the structure of your article. Thanks to this, you can focus on the writing part without sacrificing the SEO and technical aspects of making content your clients will love.

Yoast SEO is an industry standard for agencies. It’s a helpful tool that guides users in writing engaging, valuable content for all clients. As it’s aimed at ease of use, the feedback is practical and insightful. Also, Yoast SEO Premium comes with AI-powered suggestions that make this process even easier. Using this SEO plugin in your agency helps you build a consistent content process to write, review, and optimize high-quality content. 

Inspiring through actionable content

Help your readers out and show how little things can make a big difference. Don’t forget to give your clients the tools and processes needed to succeed. For instance, share your best practices and guidelines for writing content and creating the valuable material everyone seeks. Share stories of how your agency helped clients reach their content goals, as these insights help potential new clients choose you over the competition.

Inspiration can come from many places, but it’s not always a given. When you get inspired, your client’s content can reach a whole new level. Content can also reach new heights when writing with a clear purpose and using tools that support your writing process. This way, you can turn a simple set of ideas into content your clients will love. 

Wrapping up

Creating content your client loves depends on many things, especially having good plans, writing clearly, and regular improvements. As always, everything starts with research to build a solid plan. After that, start creating relevant content for your clients with clear writing and text structure. Finally, optimize your work with helpful tools like the Yoast SEO plugin, which gives relevant feedback and improvements. 

You should also treat it as a learning process and improve as you go. This way, your clients eventually have a solid foundation that gets more engagement and deeper connections with their audience. Try it out and see how it can change your client’s next project. Every article will strengthen your client relationship while showing your expertise and experience.

The post How to write valuable content that your clients will love appeared first on Yoast.

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AI search engines often make up citations and answers: Study

AI search engines and chatbots often provide wrong answers and make up article citations, according to a new study from Columbia Journalism Review.

Why we care. AI search tools have ramped up the scraping of your content so they can serve answers to their users, often resulting in no clicks to your website. Also, click-through rates from AI search and chatbots are much lower than Google Search, according to a separate, unrelated study. But hallucinating citations makes an already bad situation even worse.

By the numbers. More than half of the responses from Gemini and Grok 3 cited fabricated or broken URLs that led to error pages. Also, according to the study:

  • Overall, chatbots provided incorrect answers to more than 60% of queries:
    • Grok 3 (the highest error rate) answered 94% of the queries incorrectly.
    • Gemini only provided a completely correct response on one occasion (in 10 attempts).
    • Perplexity, which had the lowest error rate, answered 37% of queries incorrectly.

What they’re saying. The study authors (Klaudia Jaźwińska and Aisvarya Chandrasekar), who also noted that “multiple chatbots seemed to bypass Robot Exclusion Protocol preferences,” summed up this way:

“The findings of this study align closely with those outlined in our previous ChatGPT study, published in November 2024, which revealed consistent patterns across chabots: confident presentations of incorrect information, misleading attributions to syndicated content, and inconsistent information retrieval practices. Critics of generative search like Chirag Shah and Emily M. Bender have raised substantive concerns about using large language models for search, noting that they ‘take away transparency and user agency, further amplify the problems associated with bias in [information access] systems, and often provide ungrounded and/or toxic answers that may go unchecked by a typical user.’” 

About the comparison. This analysis of 1,600 queries compared the ability of generative AI tools (ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Perplexity Pro, DeepSeek search, Microsoft CoPilot, xAI’s Grok-2 and Grok-3 search, and Google Gemini) to identify an article’s headline, original publisher, publication date, and URL, based on direct excerpts of 10 articles chosen at random from 20 publishers.

The study. AI Search Has A Citation Problem

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As AI scraping surges, AI search traffic fails to follow: Report

AI search crawlers, user agents, and bots

AI-powered search engines (e.g., OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Perplexity) are failing to drive meaningful traffic to publishers while their web scraping activities increase. That’s one big takeaway from a recent report from TollBit, a platform that says it helps publishers monetize their content.

CTR comparison. Google’s average search click-through rate (CTR) was 8.63%, according to the report. However, the CTR for AI search engines was 0.74% and 0.33% CTR for AI chatbots. That means AI search sends 91% fewer referrals and chatbots send 96% less than traditional search.

Why we care. This is bad news for publishers because it shows AI search won’t replace traditional search traffic. As AI-generated answers replace direct website visits, you should expect to see this trend continue.

By the numbers. AI bot scraping doubled (+117%) between Q3 and Q4 2024. Also:

  • The average number of scrapes from AI bots per website for Q4 was 2 million, with another 1.89 million done by hidden AI scrapers.
  • 40% more AI bots ignored robots.txt in Q4 than in Q3.
  • ChatGPT-User bot activity skyrocketed by 6,767.60%, making it the most aggressive scraper.
  • Top AI bots by share of scraping activity:
    • ChatGPT-User (15.6%)
    • Bytespider (ByteDance/TikTok) (12.44%)
    • Meta-ExternalAgent (11.34%)
  • PerplexityBot continued sending referrals to sites that had explicitly blocked it, raising concerns about undisclosed scraping.

Context. One company, Chegg, is attempting to sue Google over AI Overviews. Chegg claims Google’s search feature has severely damaged its traffic and revenue.

About the data. There’s no methodology section, so it’s not entirely clear how many websites were analyzed, just that it’s based on “all onboarded ToolBit sites in Q4.” Toolbit says it “helps over 500 publisher sites.”

The report. TollBit State of the Bots – Q4 2024 (registration required)

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Google expands Message asset to Performance Max

Top 5 Google Ads opportunities you might be missing

Google is adding more engagement options to Performance Max campaigns, adding Message assets alongside those already available in Search campaigns.

What’s new:

  • The Message assets functionality, previously exclusive to Search ads, was spotted by digital marketer Emirhan Bayutmuş and is now available in Performance Max campaigns.
  • This feature allows users to initiate conversations with businesses directly from ads, enhancing engagement.
  • Google has updated their message asset help document to reflect this update.

Why we care. The expansion gives advertisers another way to connect with potential customers directly through chat-based interactions, potentially improving conversion rates.

What to watch. Expect further integration of conversational ad formats as Google continues to refine its AI-driven ad experiences.

Read more at Read More

SEO isn’t just 10 blue links anymore by Edna Chavira

Search has transformed. AI-powered results, featured snippets, “People Also Ask,” and Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) are redefining how — and where — visibility happens.

Join Wayne Cichanski, Vice President of Search & Site Experience at iQuanti for SEO Beyond Just the Ten Blue Links! He’ll share a data-driven SEO 2.0 framework designed to help brands systematically claim high-impact search shelf-space — and convert visibility into measurable results.

In this live session, you’ll learn:

  • How to analyze and win across modern SERP features
  • A blueprint for aligning structured data, content, and intent
  • Real-world strategies for navigating SEO volatility

Whether you’re leading digital strategy or scaling performance SEO, this session will reshape how you think about search. Save your spot today!

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Google Search is 373x bigger than ChatGPT search

Giant robot vs little robots

Despite being a popular talking point, people aren’t (yet?) abandoning Google Search and using ChatGPT search or other AI chatbots.

In fact, the number of Google searches increased year over year, and Google Search handles 373 times more searches than ChatGPT, according to a new analysis by SparkToro co-founder Rand Fishkin.

Why we care. Many search marketers, users, and analysts have speculated that AI tools are reducing Google’s dominance in search. However, this research finds no evidence that vast numbers of searchers are abandoning Google for ChatGPT and other AI search engines and chatbot experiences.

By the numbers. Even if all ChatGPT’s 1 billion messages per day were search-related, its total share of the search market would be less than 1%. (ChatGPT used search to answer 46% of queries, and only 30% of ChatGPT prompts fell into “traditional” search-like behavior, according to a Semrush study.)

  • Google saw more than 5 trillion searches in 2024, or about 14 billion per day, giving it a 93.57% market share.
  • ChatGPT saw an estimated 37.5 million search-like prompts per day, giving it a 0.25% market share. That’s less than Microsoft Bing (4.10%), Yahoo (1.35%), and DuckDuckGo (0.73%).
  • Google saw ~373 times as many searches as ChatGPT in 2024.

More Google searches. The number of Google searches grew 21.64% in 2024, compared to 2023, based on Datos data.

  • This data seems to confirm what Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai said about AI Overviews increasing search usage (“we are seeing an increase in search usage among people who use the new AI Overviews…”).

But. Just because people are searching more doesn’t necessarily mean Google is sending as many clicks or as much traffic to websites. As a reminder, an estimated 60% of Google searches ended without a click in 2024. That means more than 3 trillion searches in 2024 ended without a click.

Dig deeper. Survey: 54% of people look through more search results vs. 5 years ago

The report. New Research: Google Search Grew 20%+ in 2024; receives ~373X more searches than ChatGPT.

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How to use ChatGPT Tasks for SEO

How to use ChatGPT Tasks for SEO

ChatGPT Tasks might be the most underrated tool in SEO today.

It can turn a single employee into a vast team – but only if you know how to use it.

And in this article, you’re about to see the future of SEO.

What is ChatGPT Tasks?

ChatGPT Tasks is a tool within ChatGPT designed to automate various tasks, including those related to SEO, such as content generation, keyword research, and link building.

This feature allows users to schedule tasks to run at specific times, either as one-time events or recurring actions, enhancing workflow efficiency and productivity.

As of writing, it’s in beta and rolling out to users on the Plus, Pro, and Team plans.

How to use ChatGPT Tasks: The basics

The key to maximizing ChatGPT Tasks is to approach it strategically and leverage its capabilities fully.

Start by identifying specific tasks you want to automate, such as:

  • Creating blog post outlines.
  • Generating meta descriptions.
  • Researching competitor backlinks. 

Then, explore the tool’s features and experiment with different prompts to find the most effective workflows for your needs.

ChatGPT Tasks is powerful, but it’s not a magic solution. 

You must carefully review and refine the output to ensure it aligns with your brand and SEO strategy.

Efficiency gains: The secret to ChatGPT Tasks

One of the reasons ChatGPT Tasks is so powerful is that it optimizes your time.

As an SEO professional using AI, your role will shift from doing work to checking work. That means you need to maximize your efficiency.

In the past, SEOs often outsourced work to overseas staff in different time zones. ChatGPT Tasks changes this.

Now, you can outsource tasks to AI, ensuring they are ready for you when you start your day.

Here’s how I use ChatGPT Tasks: At 7 a.m., AI sends me a batch of completed work.

Beyond that, I’ve also used Tasks to generate content throughout the day.

For example, I set up a content prompt that delivers product description pages to me every 30 minutes. (More on that later.)

Essentially, this feature allows you to maximize “dead time” – periods when you aren’t actively working. 

While it doesn’t mean the tool is working around the clock, it ensures you get what you need when needed. 

For instance, if you ask it to send you something at 7 a.m., it likely generates it at 6:59 a.m.

But I don’t need to know how it works. I just care that I get what I asked for.

Dig deeper: How to use OpenAI’s Deep Research for smarter SEO strategies

How to use ChatGPT for SEO tasks

To use ChatGPT Tasks effectively, think of your role as an army commander.

You are the SEO in charge of 1,000 other SEOs who can complete any task you assign. Your job is to plan efficiently.

Here’s how:

How to access ChatGPT Tasks
  • Go to ChatGPT and select GPT-4o with scheduled tasks.
  • Ask GPT to send you a task and specify when you want to receive it.

Get the newsletter search marketers rely on.



How to think in terms of tasks

One challenge I initially faced was figuring out which tasks to automate.

This will vary by individual, but the key is to think in terms of scale.

What recurring tasks would provide the most value if they were handled automatically?

Here are a few examples:

You should come up with more, but these examples illustrate what’s possible.

Account management

Here’s a sample prompt:

“These are my SEO clients and their tasks: (insert list).

Each day at 5 p.m., send me a list of these clients, ask what work has been completed for the month, and provide an updated task list.

Also, ask me about any new tasks, and add them to the list. Then, each day at 7 a.m., send me an updated list of outstanding tasks.

Your precise output will be:

  • A morning list (7 a.m.) summarizing clients and tasks.
  • An evening list (5 p.m.) with the same summary, plus a request for updates.
  • The next morning, an updated list based on my responses.

Do you understand?”

This prompt acts as a mini account manager – and yes, it works remarkably well.

Content creation

Content creation is essential for SEO, and the quality of AI-generated content depends on the specificity of your prompt.

Initially, I experimented with ChatGPT Tasks, and it worked superbly. 

Every 30 minutes, my inbox received fresh content, from landing pages to product descriptions.

One limitation of Tasks is that you can’t upload a spreadsheet. However, you can provide a list of pages you want to generate content for. 

With a well-crafted prompt, the output is solid.

Are the drafts perfect? No, but they’re good starting points. 

They often require refinement, but they save significant time.

Now, you might wonder – why deliver content every 30 minutes?

I do this to ensure GPT is creating what I want. 

If I received 10 product pages all at once and they were off the mark, I’d have to redo them all. 

With smaller, frequent deliveries, I can monitor quality and adjust as needed.

Dig deeper: Automate SEO analysis with Google Sheets, GSC & ChatGPT API

Page titles

Many SEOs focus on page title optimization, and ChatGPT Tasks makes this process easier.

I use a “dueling” method, where GPT generates multiple page title variations. 

I then run them through a tournament-style evaluation to select the best one based on preset criteria.

Social media post ideas

Generating a steady stream of fresh and engaging social media content can be time-consuming. ChatGPT Tasks can help streamline this process.

Here’s an example prompt:

Social media post prompt

The output of that prompt looks like this:

Social media post output

This is just one of the many prompts I use. 

While I only implement about 5% of the generated ideas, they often lead to new inspiration – especially on days when I’m feeling stuck.

Industry news summaries

Staying on top of industry news is essential for SEO professionals. 

With ChatGPT Tasks, you can automate this process.

Each morning at 7 a.m., I receive a curated list of SEO and AI news from my preferred sources.

The future of tasks

SEO workflows are rapidly evolving with AI, and ChatGPT Tasks represents a significant step forward.

I suspect there’s still untapped potential. Could I schedule an entire week’s worth of SEO tasks in advance?

For example, if I know I need to work on a client’s account on Wednesday at 11:30 a.m., could I schedule ChatGPT to conduct research or analyze content beforehand?

Looking further ahead, it may eventually ask you what needs to be done – and then suggest the best way to execute it using Tasks. 

OpenAI may even develop a single model to streamline this process.

While ChatGPT Tasks is still in its early days, I believe it will evolve rapidly.

My advice? Start mastering it now.

Dig deeper: 15 AI tools you should use for SEO

Read more at Read More

Google Marketing Live set for May 21

Google is gearing up for its annual Google Marketing Live event, set to stream on Wednesday, May 21, at 12 p.m. ET / 9 a.m. PT.

What’s new:

  • Ginny Marvin, Google Ads Liaison, announced the date on LinkedIn and encouraged advertisers to register for the event
  • Vidhya Srinivasan, Google’s VP of Ads, shared a letter previewing the company’s focus on reimagining ads across platforms like Search and YouTube.
  • AI advancements will play a major role in helping advertisers create tailored experiences and improve business outcomes.
  • You can register here.

Why we care. Google Marketing Live is a key event for advertisers, offering insights into the company’s latest ad innovations and AI-driven strategies. As a reminder, here’s everything that was announced at Google Marketing Live 2024.

What to watch. Expect updates on AI-powered ad solutions, measurement tools, and cross-platform marketing strategies as Google continues to evolve its ad ecosystem.

Read more at Read More

4 Similarweb Alternatives for Better Competitor Research

Similarweb is powerful for digital intelligence. But like any tool, it has limitations.

You might want deeper insights into your competitors’ content strategies. Or need more reliable data for SEO planning. Or you’re simply looking for a more affordable solution.

I’ve spent months testing and researching the best Similarweb alternatives to see how they compare.

Four tools stand out as replacements.

This guide covers the top options for:

  • Market trends
  • Advanced SEO analysis
  • Ad intelligence

Similarweb Limitations

While Similarweb excels at competitor intelligence, it might not fit everyone.

Here are some key limitations:

Similarweb – Limitations

  • Limited SEO and keyword research features: It lacks in-depth keyword rankings, SERP tracking, and backlink analysis, making it less effective for SEO professionals
  • Limited keyword and backlink databases: Similarweb’s databases are smaller compared to its competitors like Semrush and Ahrefs
  • Limited traffic source breakdown: It doesn’t show a detailed breakdown of where the website gets traffic from (e.g., organic search, social media, referrals, email, etc.)
  • No granular audience demographics: Unlike some alternatives, Similarweb lacks detailed demographic breakdowns, such as income level or interests, that could help with audience targeting

Similarweb Alternatives at a Glance

Before I review each tool in detail, here’s a quick comparison of the best Similarweb alternatives:

Best for Standout Feature Price Starts at
Semrush .Trends Getting a detailed overview of competitors’ digital strategy Comprehensive traffic source analysis and traffic journeys $428.95 per month
Ahrefs Site Explorer SEO and backlink analysis In-depth keyword research, competitor content tracking $129 per month
Serpstat Budget-friendly SEO and PPC analysis Keyword gap analysis, competitor PPC insights $59 per month
Exploding Topics Discovering emerging trends before they peak AI-powered trend forecasting, 12+ months of predictions Free plan available

Semrush .Trends

Best for marketers who want detailed competitor intelligence and market trends

Pricing: $139.95 (Semrush Pro plan) + $289 (.Trends add-on) = $428.95 per month

Semrush.Trends

Semrush .Trends helps you spy on your competitors’ traffic and uncover hidden market opportunities.

It shows you how much traffic your competitors get, where that traffic comes from, and how engaged their visitors are.

Plus, you can use Market Explorer to spot emerging industry trends before your competition.

Why consider Semrush .Trends over Similarweb?

Let’s take a glance:

Semrush Similarweb
Primary Focus Competitor intelligence and SEO analysis Competitor intelligence and general market research
Traffic Source Breakdown Detailed insights into specific channels More generalized traffic source analysis
Keyword Database 26 billion keywords 5 billion keywords
Backlink Database 43 trillion backlinks 3.6 trillion backlinks
Who’s It for? Digital marketers, SEO professionals, business strategists Market researchers, businesses, or investors analyzing industries

Here are the key features included in .Trends:

Traffic Analytics

Traffic Analytics shows you your competitors’ traffic and where it comes from.

It also reveals useful SEO performance metrics, including:

  • Total monthly traffic
  • Top traffic sources
  • Best-performing content
  • Visitor engagement metrics

And you’ll get detailed insights into website traffic and visitor behavior that’ll help you refine your marketing strategy.

Let me show you how to use Traffic Analytics to spy on your competition.

Evaluate On-Site Engagement

Metrics like pages per visit, average visit duration, and bounce rate give you a snapshot of what happens when visitors land on the site.

Traffic Analytics – Backlinko – Overview

Here’s what these metrics tell you about your competition:

A high bounce rate means most visitors leave without exploring other pages. This often happens when:

  • The content doesn’t match what visitors were searching for
  • Pages take too long to load
  • The site isn’t mobile-friendly

On the flip side, when you see a high average visit duration and multiple pages per visit, it usually means:

  • Their content keeps readers engaged
  • They’ve built effective content funnels
  • Their site navigation makes it easy to explore more content

Analyze Website Traffic Sources

Go to the “Traffic Journey” tab to understand where your competitors’ website visitors are coming from and which channels are driving the most traffic. For example, organic search, paid search, social, or referrals.

Traffic Analytics – Backlinko – Traffic Channels

What do these metrics mean?

If you see most of their traffic comes from organic search (like in the screenshot above), you’ve struck gold. This usually means:

  • They’ve built a solid foundation of SEO-optimized content
  • They’re targeting the right keywords for your industry
  • They’re not overly dependent on paid traffic

Pro tip: Pay special attention to competitors maintaining steady organic traffic growth. These are the ones whose SEO strategies you’ll want to study and adapt for your own site.


Map Out the Traffic Journey

The Traffic Journey report is like a GPS for your competitors’ visitors. It tracks their exact path before and after they land on the site.

Here’s what different traffic patterns reveal:

Pattern #1: When you see visitors flowing from Google → Your competitor → Stripe (or other payment processors), you’ve found a winning formula:

  • Their content matches search intent perfectly (thanks to a solid SEO strategy)
  • They’ve built a high-converting sales funnel
  • They’re turning organic traffic into customers

    Traffic Analytics – Traffic Journey – Styleseat

Pattern #2: Notice lots of visitors bouncing back to Google.com? That’s a red flag indicating:

  • The content isn’t delivering what visitors want
  • There might be technical issues causing frustration
  • You’ve spotted a gap you can fill with better content

    Traffic Analytics – Traffic Journey – Fresha

Discover Top-Performing Pages

Navigate to the “Top Pages” tab to identify which pages on a competitor’s site drive the most traffic.

These top pages reveal what resonates most with their audience. This offers inspiration for your content strategy.

Traffic Analytics – Backlinko – Top Pages

Let’s say you run a personal finance blog. You might discover that NerdWallet’s most-visited pages are their:

  • Mortgage calculator tools
  • Credit card comparison guides
  • Student loan refinancing reviews

This tells you three things:

  1. What type of content your audience want (interactive tools and comparison guides)
  2. Which topics drive the most traffic (mortgages, credit cards, student loans)
  3. Where to focus your content strategy for maximum impact

Market Explorer

Market Explorer helps you evaluate your market size and track up to 100 competitors at once.

The tool shows you who’s leading your industry, who’s growing fast, and detailed insights about your target audience’s demographics and behavior.

Semrush – Market Explorer

Here’s what you can do with Market Explorer:

Get a Market Summary

The Market Summary dashboard shows you a snapshot of your chosen industry.

Let’s say you’re just starting a business in the travel and tourism industry. This dashboard gives you the key metrics to evaluate the market and plan your strategy effectively:

Market Explorer – Travel & Tourism – Overview

Here’s what the key metrics on this dashboard mean:

  • Market consolidation: Shows if a few big players dominate your market (high consolidation) or if it’s spread across many smaller sites (low consolidation)
  • Market domains: How many active websites compete in your space
  • Market traffic: How many monthly visitors the entire industry gets (and whether it’s growing or shrinking)
  • Market traffic cost: How much you’d need to spend on ads to get the same traffic volume
  • Market size: Two key numbers that matter:
    • Total Addressable Market (TAM): Your maximum possible audience size (example: “all online shoppers”)
    • Serviceable Available Market (SAM): The audience you can realistically reach (example: “online shoppers in your country”)

Analyze Audience Insights

The Audience section provides a detailed breakdown of your industry’s demographics, socioeconomic data, and behavioral trends.

These insights help you understand your target audience on a deeper level. This will allow you to tailor your marketing strategies to their specific needs and preferences.

Market Explorer – Travel & Tourism – Audience

Market Explorer even shows detailed audience socioeconomic data. For instance, their employment status, education level, and household income and size.

Market Explorer – Travel & Tourism – Audience – Socioeconomics

You’ll also see an overview of your audience’s additional interests. And what social media they use the most.

Market Explorer – Travel & Tourism – Audience – Interests & Social media

Strengths & Limitations

Strengths Limitations
Understand where competitors get engagement from (organic search, social media, email, ads) No mobile app intelligence
Tailored for SEO intelligence as it’s an all-in-one SEO platform

Ahrefs Site Explorer

Best for SEO professionals looking to analyze competitors’ organic traffic

Pricing: Starting at $129 per month

Ahrefs – Site Explorer

Ahrefs’ Site Explorer is an SEO-focused alternative to Similarweb. It provides detailed insights into competitors’ organic traffic and SEO strategies.

Why should you consider Ahrefs’ Site Explorer over Similarweb?

Here’s the high-level feature comparison:

Ahrefs Similarweb
Primary Focus SEO and backlink analysis Competitor intelligence and general market research
Traffic Source Breakdown Organic and paid traffic insights More generalized traffic source analysis
Keyword Database 28.7 billion keywords 5 billion keywords
Backlink Database 35 trillion backlinks 3.6 trillion backlinks
Who’s It for? SEOs and content marketers analyzing SEO competition Market researchers, businesses, or investors analyzing industries

Now, let’s review the key features Ahrefs Site Explorer offers.

View Your Competitors’ Top Pages

Site Explorer lets you identify the highest-value content on your competitor’s website. Plus, the top organic keywords driving that traffic.

Ahrefs – Exploding Topics – Top Pages

Use these insights to replicate their success.

Let’s say you’re running a personal finance blog that competes with NerdWallet. You can analyze their top-performing pages to spot content opportunities.

Ahrefs – Nerd Wallet – Top Pages

In this example, the mortgage rates page is one of the most visited. This means that “current mortgage rates” is a high-demand topic worth covering on your website.

Review the Site Structures of Your Competitors

Ahrefs’ Site Structure feature shows a website’s architecture in a tree format with key SEO metrics across each section and subfolder.

This helps you analyze how competitors organize their content and which sections attract the most traffic.

For example, when you analyze one of your competitors, you can see:

  • Which content categories drive the most organic traffic (e.g., reviews, mortgage guides, or financial calculators)
  • The traffic performance of individual pages and subfolders
  • How much organic and paid traffic each section receives, pinpointing opportunities for content optimization
    [missing-ss]

Strengths & Limitations

Strengths Limitations
Helps identify high-value content opportunities Less emphasis on broader market research
Have a look at competitors’ site architecture No data on your competitors’ audience (age, location, interests, etc)

Serpstat

Best for SEOs and PPC advertisers looking for a budget-friendly tool for competitor analysis

Pricing: Starts at $59 per month; freemium version available

Serpstat – Homepage

Serpstat is a budget-friendly SEO and PPC intelligence tool that analyzes competitors. It finds keyword opportunities and improves search rankings.

Why should you consider Serpstat over Similarweb?

Let’s take a glance:

Serpstat Similarweb
Primary Focus SEO and PPC competitor analysis Competitor intelligence and general market research
Keyword Database 7 billion keywords 5 billion keywords
Backlink Database 1.5 trillion backlinks 3.6 trillion backlinks
Who’s It for? SEOs, content marketers, PPC advertisers Market researchers, businesses or investors analyzing industries

Analyze Any Site’s SEO

Imagine you run a high-end salon in Philadelphia and want to compete with top-ranking salons like Salon OKO.

Serpstat’s Site Analysis > Competitors feature lets you compare multiple competitors side by side, showing common keywords and missing keywords.

Serpstat – Competitors

But what do these metrics mean for you?

Common keywords are those you and your competitors rank for. This tells you:

Who ranks higher, and where you need to improve.

For example, if your competitor ranks #1 for a keyword while you’re at #10, you may need to update your content.

Missing keywords are keywords your competitors rank for that you don’t. This is an important insight because it can reveal:

  • High-value content gaps and cover topics your competitors are already benefiting from
  • New keyword opportunities, i.e., terms that are already proven to generate traffic in your industry
  • Keywords that competitors dominate while your site doesn’t show up at all, likely because of indexing issues

Then, for each competitor’s domain, you can access detailed insights, such as:

  • Domain overview report: Get a bird’s-eye view of their SEO performance, including total organic traffic, keyword rankings, and estimated traffic value
  • Positions and keywords: See exactly which keywords they rank for, what position they’re in, and how these rankings change over time
  • Top pages: Discover their highest-traffic content and the exact keywords driving visitors to each page (perfect for finding content gaps in your own strategy)
  • Backlink profile: Analyze where their backlinks come from, which pages get the most links, and how their link profile grows over time
  • Site audit: Peek under the hood at their technical SEO setup, including site structure, loading speed, and potential technical issues you can learn from

Why do these insights matter?

They let you reverse-engineer your competitors’ success to improve your SEO strategy.

And find high-authority sites linked to your competitors. Then, reach out to these websites for backlink opportunities.

Spy on Competitors’ PPC Campaigns

Serpstat’s Ads Examples feature lets you analyze your competitors’ paid search strategies. This helps you optimize your ad performance.

Here’s what you can learn from these examples:

  • See what’s working for your competitors. Identify real ads competitors run and spot patterns in messaging, offers, and calls to action (CTAs).
  • Find best-performing keywords. View which keywords each competitor’s ad ranks for to identify high-converting terms worth targeting.
  • Analyze landing page strategies. Discover where competitor ads direct users. Is it a homepage, a booking page, or a dedicated landing page?

Serpstat – Ads examples

Strengths & Limitations

Strengths Limitations
More budget-friendly than Similarweb or other alternatives Smaller keyword and backlink databases
Analyze competitors side by side Lacks multi-channel traffic data
Detailed PPC analysis lets you see ad examples that perform well for competitors

Exploding Topics

Best for entrepreneurs and marketers needing early trend insights to capitalize on emerging opportunities

Pricing: Free (paid plans start at $39 per month)

Exploding Topics – Homepage

Exploding Topics is a market research and trend discovery tool that identifies emerging trends before they peak.

While Similarweb focuses on existing competitors, Exploding Topics helps you spot rising trends before they take off. The tool analyzes search data, social media, and startup activity to identify tomorrow’s opportunities.

Why is Exploding Topics better than Similarweb?

Let’s take a glance:

Exploding Topics Similarweb
Primary Focus Trend discovery and market opportunities Competitor intelligence and market research
Trend Detection AI-driven trend forecasting Relies on historical industry data
Keyword Database Identifies rising search trends Tracks established search volume
Competitive Analysis Limited, focused on macro trends Detailed competitor insights
Who’s It for? Entrepreneurs, product developers, investors Market researchers, large enterprises

Here are the key features included in Exploding Topics:

Discover Emerging Trends Before They Peak

Exploding Topics analyzes millions of data points from search engines, social media, online discussions, and startup investments to identify growing trends.

What does this mean for you?

Let’s say you have an affiliate blog selling home technology. You want to see what’s trending to understand which products or keywords have rising demand before they become mainstream.

Using Exploding Topics, you discover that “walking pads,” compact treadmills designed for home offices, are rapidly gaining traction.

Exploding Topics – Walking Pad

This early insight gives you three key advantages:

  • You can create content while competition is still low
  • You can rank for keywords before they get expensive
  • You can establish yourself as an authority before the trend peaks

In other words: you get more traffic with less effort by being first.

Spot Trends 12+ Months Before They Take Off

Exploding Topics’ forecasting feature can position you as an early authority and rank faster in search.

Imagine creating content around AI image enhancers.

At first glance, it’s hard to tell if the interest in AI-powered image tools will continue to grow or if it’s just temporary hype.

Instead of guessing, you check Exploding Topics’ forecasting data. And see that the search volume for “AI logo generator” is expected to rise steadily.

AI Logo Generator

Knowing the keyword’s popularity may rise gives you the confidence to take action early and secure organic traffic before the competition.

Note: Forecasting is available in Exploding Topics Pro, but you can test it with a 14-day trial for $1. After 14 days, Pro memberships start at $39 per month.


Strengths & Limitations

Strengths Limitations
Provides long-term trend growth insights Not focused on competitor intelligence
Predicts emerging trends before they peak Doesn’t show competitors’ website traffic data

Match Your Similarweb Alternative to Your Growth Stage

Your business stage determines which tool you’ll need.

Just starting out? Exploding Topics gives you free baseline data to validate ideas.

Ready to scale? Semrush .Trends reveals overlooked opportunities in your space.

Match Your Similarweb Alternative to Your Growth Stage

The right tool accelerates your market research. But knowing how to interpret the data is what drives real growth.

Ready to turn market insights into sales? Our proven market analysis framework shows you exactly how to spot and capitalize on gaps your competitors are missing.


The post 4 Similarweb Alternatives for Better Competitor Research appeared first on Backlinko.

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Americans search Google 126 times per month on average: Study

American desktop users perform 126 unique Google searches per month, on average, according to a new analysis of search behavior published by SparkToro co-founder Rand Fishkin. The median average was 53 Google unique searches per month.

By the numbers. Here are some additional findings about American searchers, beyond the headline statistic:

  • 34% conducted more than 101 searches per month.
  • 36% conducted 21-100 searches per month.
  • 30% conducted 1-20 searches per month.

Google Search by vertical. A whopping 86.94% of Americans use Google.com (Google’s homepage search experience) to search. As for Google’s other vertical options:

  • Images: 10.62%
  • Video: 1.16%
  • Maps: 0.64% (which “is almost certainly undercounted,” according to Fishkin)
  • News: 0.38%
  • Shopping: 0.23%
  • Web: 0.04%

As the study notes about this section:

  • “This breakdown is looking at the searches that happen in those tabs/sections, not the ones that simply result in a click on a Google News or Shopping result that appeared in the default Google search tab.”

Why we care. There’s been much speculation that AI tools and answer engines will negatively impact Google’s search dominance. However, this data confirms that Google’s search volume is still massive. Future updates to this study could reveal whether there is any truth to Gartner’s oft-cited prediction that traffic from search engines will fall by 25% by 2026.

The intrigue. Hours before this report was published, we reported that Google processes more than 5 trillion searches per year. Datos’ estimate for the number of annual Google searches: 5.9 trillion. According to Fishkin:

  • “Our math above puts the number at 5.9 Trillion, a little high, likely because Datos’ panel focuses on wealthier countries where more search activity per person is to be expected. Still incredible that they’d come out with numbers the day we publish that help back up the veracity of these results, and the quality of Datos’ panel.”

About the data. Fishkin partnered with Datos (a Semrush company), which only tracks web browser activity. That means searches made within mobile apps (e.g., Google search, Google Maps) are excluded from this research. Only searches on Google.com and its five main vertical options were counted.

The research. How Often Do Americans Search Google? Which Search Verticals Do They Use?

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