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From search to answer engines: How to optimize for the next era of discovery

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From search to answer engines: How to optimize for the next era of discovery

The shift from traditional search engines to AI-powered answer engines signals more than a technical upgrade.

It marks a fundamental change in how people discover, evaluate, and act on information. 

Search is no longer a discrete game of isolated queries and static rankings. 

It’s becoming an infinite game – one shaped by context, memory, and ongoing interaction. 

For many users, large language models (LLMs) now offer a more effective starting point than classic search engines, especially when the task calls for clarity, research, or a more conversational experience.

How search evolved: From static queries to continuous conversations

Traditional search: A one-off query model

Traditional search engines (like classic Google Search) operate on a deterministic ranking model. 

Content is parsed, analyzed, and displayed in SERPs largely as provided. 

Ranking depends on known factors:

  • Content quality.
  • Site architecture.
  • Links.
  • User signals. 

A user types a query, receives a list of results (“10 blue links”), clicks, and typically ends the interaction. 

Each query is treated independently, with no memory between sessions. 

This model supports advertising revenue by creating monetization opportunities for every new query.

AI-powered search: Built for continuity and context

AI-powered answer engines use a probabilistic ranking model. 

They synthesize and display information by incorporating:

  • Reasoning steps.
  • Memory of prior interactions.
  • Dynamic data. 

The same query can yield different results at different times. 

These systems are built for ongoing, multiturn conversations, anticipating follow-up questions and refining answers in real time. 

They operate continuously, even while you sleep, and focus on delivering direct, synthesized answers rather than just pointing to links.

How output and experience differ between search and answer engines

The differences between traditional search and AI-powered answer engines aren’t just technical. They show up in what users see and how they interact. 

From output format to underlying signals, the user experience has fundamentally changed.

From link lists to zero-click answers

  • Traditional search engines: Return a ranked list of links generated by complex algorithms.
  • Answer engines: Deliver full answers, summaries, direct responses, or even product recommendations by blending large-scale training data with real-time web results. They reduce the need for users to click through multiple sites, leading to more zero-click experiences.

From keywords to context

  • Traditional search: Relies on keyword matching, backlinks, and on-page optimization.
  • AI search/generative engines: Rely on semantic clarity, contextual understanding, and relationships between entities enhanced by attention mechanisms and references in credible sources. Even content that doesn’t rank highly in traditional search may appear prominently in AI summaries if it is well-structured, topical, and cited across trusted platforms. 

Key characteristics of answer engines

modern search engine characteristics

Conversational search

LLMs like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Perplexity enable conversational interactions, often serving as a more intuitive starting point for users seeking clarity, context, or nuanced understanding. 

Queries tend to be longer and phrased as full questions or instructions.

Personalization and memory

Unlike traditional search, AI-powered search incorporates user context, such as:

  • Past queries.
  • Preferences.
  • Location.
  • Even data from connected ecosystems (e.g., Gmail within Google’s AI Mode). 

This context allows the engine to deliver tailored, dynamic, and unique answers.

Dig deeper: How to boost your marketing revenue with personalization, connectivity and data

Query fan-out

Instead of processing a single query, answer engines deconstruct a user’s question into dozens or even hundreds of related, implicit, comparative, and personalized sub-queries. 

These synthetic queries explore a broader content pool. 

From one query, systems like AI Mode or AI Overviews:

  • Generate a constellation of search intents.
  • Retrieve responsive documents.
  • Build a custom corpus of relevant content. 

Reasoning chains

AI models move beyond keyword matching, performing multi-step logical reasoning. They: 

  • Interpret intent.
  • Formulate intermediate steps.
  • Synthesize coherent answers from multiple sources.

Multimodality

Answer engines can process information in various formats, including text, images, videos, audio, and structured data. They can:

  • Transcribe videos.
  • Extract claims from podcasts.
  • Interpret diagrams.
  • Integrate these inputs into synthesized outputs.

Dig deeper: Visual content and SEO: How to use images and videos in 2025

Chunk-level retrieval

Instead of retrieving or ranking entire pages, AI engines work at the passage level. 

They extract and rank smaller, highly relevant chunks of content to build precise, context-rich answers.

Advanced processing features

User embeddings and personalization

  • Systems like Google’s AI Mode use vector-based profiles that represent each user’s history, preferences, and behavior. 
  • This influences how queries are interpreted and how content is selected, synthesized and surfaced as a result – different users may receive different answers to the same query.

Deep reasoning

  • LLMs evaluate relationships between concepts, apply context, and weigh alternatives to generate responses. 
  • Content is judged on how well it supports inference and problem-solving, not just keyword presence.

Pairwise ranking prompting

  • Candidate passages are compared directly against each other by the model to determine which is most relevant, precise, and complete. 
  • This approach departs from traditional scoring models by favoring the best small sections rather than entire documents

A step-by-step guide to answer-engine-optimized content

Content best practices remain the same – it should be people-centric, helpful, entity-rich with healthy topical coverage based on audience intent.

However, the content creation process needs to incorporate answer-engine optimization best practices in the details.

Here’s our recommended seven-step process for content creation.

answer engine content creation steps

1. Content audit

When auditing existing content:

  • Check current visibility signals, including impressions, rich results, and whether the page is cited in AI platforms like Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, or Perplexity.
  • Identify signs of content decay to establish a baseline for measuring improvement.
  • Spot and document issues such as:
    • Topical gaps or missing subtopics.
    • Unanswered user questions.
    • Thin or shallow content sections.
    • Outdated facts, broken references, or weak formatting.
    • Grammatical errors, duplicate content, or poor page structure.

2. Content strategy

It is not all about creating new content. 

Your content strategy should incorporate aligning existing content to the needs of answer engines.

  • Retain: High-converting content with high visibility and high traffic.
  • Enhance: Pages with high impressions but low click-through rate, pages with low visibility, impressions, and rich results.
  • Create: Content around topical gaps found in the audit.

3. Content refresh

Update existing content to close topical gaps to make information easily retrievable

4. Content chunking

This involves breaking long blocks into:

  • Scannable sections (H2/H3).
  • Bullet lists.
  • Tables,
  • A short TL;DR/FAQs. 

Keep each chunk self-contained so LLMs can quote it without losing context, and cover just one idea per chunk.

Dig deeper: Chunk, cite, clarify, build: A content framework for AI search

5. Content enrichment

Fill in topical gaps by:

  • Expanding on related topics.
  • Adding fresh data.
  • Drawing on first-hand examples.
  • Referencing expert quotes.

Cover topics AI can’t easily synthesize on its own. 

Cite and link to primary sources within the text (where relevant and meaningful) to boost credibility.

6. Layer on machine-readable signals

Insert or update schema markup (FAQPage, HowTo, Product, Article, etc.). 

Use clear alt text and file names to describe images.

7. Publish → monitor → iterate

After publishing, track organic visibility, AI citation frequency, and user engagement and conversion. 

Schedule content check-ins every 6–12 months (or after major core/AI updates) to keep facts, links, and schema current. 

Make your content LLM-ready: A practical checklist

Below is a checklist you could incorporate in your process to ensure your content aligns with what LLMs and answer engines are looking for.

Map topics to query fan-out

  • Build topic clusters with pillar and cluster pages.
  • Cover related questions, intents, and sub-queries.
  • Ensure each section answers a specific question.

Optimize for assage-level retrieval

  • Use clear H2/H3 headings phrased as questions.
  • Break content into short paragraphs and bullet points.
  • Include tables, lists, and visuals with context.

Build depth and breadth

  • Cover topics comprehensively (definitions, FAQs, comparisons, use cases).
  • Anticipate follow-up questions and adjacent intents.

Personalize for diverse audiences

  • Write for multiple personas (beginner to expert).
  • Localize with region-specific details and schema.
  • Include multimodal elements (images w/ alt text, video transcripts, data tables).

Strengthen semantic and entity signals

  • Add schema markup (FAQPage, HowTo, Product).
  • Build external mentions and links from reputable sources.
  • Use clear relationships between concepts.

Show E-E-A-T and originality

  • Include author bios, credentials, and expertise.
  • Add proprietary data, case studies, and unique insights.

Ensure technical accessibility

  • Clean HTML, fast load times, AI-friendly crawling (robots.txt).
  • Maintain sitemap hygiene and internal linking.

Align with AI KPIs

  • Track citations, brand mentions, and AIV (attributed influence value).
  • Monitor engagement signals (scroll depth, time on page).
  • Refresh content regularly for accuracy and relevance.

Get the newsletter search marketers rely on.

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How SEO is evolving into GEO

As the mechanics of search evolve, so must our strategies. 

GEO (generative engine optimization) builds on SEO’s foundations but adapts them for an environment where visibility depends on citations, context, and reasoning – not just rankings.

Many “new” AI search optimization tactics, such as focusing on conversational long-tail searches, multimodal content, digital PR, and clear content optimization, are essentially updated versions of long-standing SEO practices.

New metrics and goals 

Traditional SEO metrics like rankings and traffic are becoming less relevant. 

The focus shifts to being cited or mentioned in AI-generated answers, which becomes a key visibility event and a brand lift moment, rather than just driving traffic. 

New KPIs at the top of the funnel include:

  • Search visibility.
  • Rich results.
  • Impressions.
  • LLM visibility. 

With declining traffic, engagement, and conversion metrics become critical at the bottom of the funnel.

Relevance engineering

This emerging discipline involves:

  • Strategically engineering content at the passage level for semantic similarity.
  • Anticipating synthetic queries.
  • Optimizing for “embedding alignment” and “informational utility” to ensure the AI’s reasoning systems select your content. 
relevance engineering audience strategy

Your website acts as a data hub. 

This also means centralizing all types of data for consistency and vectorizing data for easy consumption, and distributing it across all channels is a critical step. 

Importance of structured data

Implementing schema markup and structured data is crucial for GEO. 

It helps AI engines understand content context, entities, and relationships, making it more likely for content to be accurately extracted and cited in AI responses (53% more likely).

Dig deeper: How to deploy advanced schema at scale

Brand authority and trust

AI models prioritize information from credible, authoritative, and trustworthy sources. 

Building a strong brand presence across diverse platforms and earning reputable mentions (digital PR) is vital for AI search visibility, as LLMs may draw from forums, social media, and Q&A sites.

Connecting the dots: UX and omnichannel in the age of AI search

user journey evolution

The typical user journey is no longer linear. The options for discovery have diversified with AI acting as a disruptor. 

Most platforms are answering questions, are multimodal, delivering agentic and personalized experiences. 

Your audience expects similar experiences on the sites they visit. As the user journey evolves, our approach to marketing needs to change, too. 

In a linear journey, having channel-based strategies worked. 

Consistency of messaging, content, visuals and experiences at every touchpoint are today key to success. 

That means you need an audience strategy before mapping channels to the strategy.

Dig deeper: Integrating SEO into omnichannel marketing for seamless engagement

website as data hub

To make it happen effectively, you need to orchestrate the entire content experience – and that starts with your platform as the foundation.

Your website today needs to act as the data hub feeding multimodal information across channels.

How to make your content discoverable by LLMs

llm search optimization

To show up in LLM-driven search experiences, your content needs more than depth. It needs structure, speed, and clarity. 

Here’s how to make your site visible and machine-readable.

Foundational SEO

The fundamentals of SEO still apply. 

LLMs have to crawl and index your content, so technical SEO elements like crawlability and indexability matter. 

LLMs do not have the crawl budgets or computing power that Google and Bing have. 

That makes speed and page experience critical to maximize crawling and indexing by LLMs

Digital assets

With search going multimodal, your digital assets – images and videos – matter more than they ever did. 

Optimize your digital assets for visual search and make sure your page structure and elements include FAQs, comparisons, definitions, and use cases.

Structural integrity 

Your site and content need to be both human and machine-readable. 

Having high-quality, unique content that addresses the audience’s needs is no longer enough. 

You need to mark it up with an advanced nested schema to make it machine-readable.

Deep topical coverage

Ensure your content aligns with the best practices of Google’s E-E-A-T.

People-first content that:

  • Is unique.
  • Demonstrates expertise.
  • Is authoritative.
  • Covers the topics that your audience cares about. 

Make your content easy to find – and easy to use

While the building blocks of SEO are still relevant, aligning with LLM search calls for refining the finer points of your marketing strategy to put your audience before the channels. 

Start with the basics and ensure your platform is set up to let you centralize, optimize and distribute content. 

Adopt IndexNow to push your content to LLMs instead of waiting for them – with their limited computing and crawling capabilities – to crawl and find your content.

Thank you, Tushar Prabhu, for helping me pull this together.

Read more at Read More

AI traffic is up 527%. SEO is being rewritten.

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For the past year, we’ve talked about how AI might change search.

That moment is over.

This is no longer a “what if” conversation. We are seeing a measurable shift in web traffic movement.

At Previsible, we analyzed LLM-driven traffic across 19 GA4 properties and found something undeniable: AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot are already influencing how users find and engage with websites.

Not in theory. In actual traffic.

  • In just five months, total AI-referred sessions jumped from 17,076 to 107,100.
    • That’s a 527% increase between January and May 2025.
  • Some SaaS sites are now seeing over 1% of all sessions coming from LLMs.
  • Traffic from ChatGPT, Claude, and others is doubling and tripling across verticals like Legal, Health, and Finance.

If you work in SEO, content, or growth strategy, this moment will feel familiar. Like when mobile-first flipped ranking factors overnight. Or when social transformed from brand garnish into a legitimate acquisition engine.

Every time the rules changed, early adopters won. This time is no different, except it’s moving faster.

So the question isn’t if AI is changing your traffic mix. It’s how much it already has, without you realizing it.

TL;DR: What you need to know about AI search

  • AI discovery is up 527%: Comparing the first 5 months of 2025 with the same time frame in 2024 we see how total sessions from LLMs (like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and, Gemini) surged from 17,076 to 107,100 across 19 GA4 properties.
  •  LLMs are already part of the user journey: Some sites, especially in SaaS, are seeing over 1% of all traffic initiated by AI results. Primarily to the bottom of funnel users and targeted prospects. 
  • High-consultive industries are leading:  Legal, Finance, SMB, Insurance, and Health make up 55% of all LLM-driven sessions, showing that users turn to AI for complex, contextual questions.
  • ChatGPT leads, but the field is widening: ChatGPT still dominates, but Perplexity, Copilot, and Gemini are gaining real traction. 
  • SEO is splitting and speeding up:  It’s no longer just about ranking in Google. You now need to earn visibility in AI assistants, summaries, and conversational UIs, and they prefer content that’s structured, clear, and genuinely helpful.

AI discovery is up 527% – and it isn’t waiting for you to rank

AI is reshaping web traffic at warp speed.

When we compared January-May 2025 to the same period in 2024, we saw total AI-sourced sessions across 19 GA4 properties jump from 17,076 to 107,100.

That’s a 527% year-over-year increase.

In one standout example, ChatGPT went from just 600 visits/month in early 2024 to over 22,000/month by May 2025.

And when you zoom in by industry, the growth in share is just as dramatic:

  • Legal: 0.37% → 0.86% of sessions from LLMs
  • Health: 0.17% → 0.56%
  • Finance and SaaS are showing similar trajectories, in some cases, exceeding 1% of total traffic

LLMs are becoming a legitimate discovery channel, and they’re doing it fast.

Why it matters:

Most SEO strategies are still stuck in the old timeline:

Optimize → Wait → Crawl → Rank → Convert

That playbook was built for Google’s crawling and indexing cycle – a system that rewards patience, backlinks, and slow iteration.

But LLMs don’t care about that process.

They don’t crawl the same way. They don’t rank in the same order. They don’t wait for your canonical tag to propagate.

They surface content immediately if it’s useful.

The only thing that matters is whether your content helps answer the user’s question in a way the model trusts.

No indexing delay. No competition for blue links. No sandbox.

Just: Is this helpful right now?

That rewires everything.

Content doesn’t need to appear at the top of Google’s SERPs to be found. It needs to be clear, structured, and cited by the model – whether in a blog, a help doc, a case study, or a knowledge base.

And it means the old mindset — publish, wait, and hope Google figures it out — is now dangerously outdated.

We’ve entered the “instant surfacing era” of SEO, where content can be discovered before it even ranks.

If your SEO strategy doesn’t account for that, you’re already behind.

Where LLM traffic is actually going: The real breakdown

Not predictions. Not vibes. Actual traffic.

In the 2025 Previsible AI Data Study, we analyzed LLM-driven sessions across 19 GA4 properties to understand where platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, and Perplexity are already influencing real user behavior.

Here’s what we found:

  • Legal topped the chart, with 0.28% of total traffic from LLMs
  • Finance followed at 0.24%, showing strong traction in regulated markets
  • Health came in at 0.15%, with a mix of ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity sources
  • SaaS showed breakout performance but only in some domains, with a selected few getting 1%+ of total sessions from LLMs

But the most important finding?

Legal, Finance, Health, SMB, and Insurance account for 55% of all LLM-sourced sessions across the dataset.

Why these five?

Because people aren’t using LLMs like search engines.

They’re asking contextual, trust-heavy, consultative questions. The kind they’d normally ask a real expert:

  • “What should I ask a lawyer before signing this contract?”
  • “Is this medication safe with XYZ conditions, XYZ personal information, and XYZ symptoms?”
  • “How do I structure payroll as a small business owner that owns a flower shop with 5 employees, 2 part-time and 3 full-time?”

These are high-context moments, and that’s where LLMs are starting to win.

So if your brand plays in a space where trust, clarity, or expertise matters, and your content isn’t optimized for AI, you’re likely missing the exact kinds of requests these models are built to answer.

Model-level insight: Who’s actually driving the traffic?

It’s not just about how much AI traffic you’re getting, but also about who’s sending it. 

Across nearly every vertical, ChatGPT is the dominant contributor, consistently driving 40–60%+ of all LLM traffic.

But this isn’t a single-player story. Other models are gaining share, especially in specific sectors:

  • Perplexity is surprisingly strong, contributing over 0.073% of Finance traffic, 0.041% in SMB, and 0.041% in Legal.
  • Copilot makes up a meaningful chunk of Legal (0.076%) and Finance (0.036%) sessions. Second only to ChatGPT in both.
  • Gemini is emerging in Insurance (0.0075%) and SMB (0.035%).
  • Claude is still marginal (<0.001% in most industries), but present across the board.

Bottom line: While ChatGPT leads, LLM discovery is becoming a multi-model landscape, and performance is beginning to vary by vertical and use case.

This has two implications:

  1. You can’t just optimize for one model. Visibility across platforms will matter more over time.
  2. Different models favor different formats, sources, and structures. Understanding how each one pulls and presents content is your next strategic edge.

How to adapt to the LLM traffic surge starting now

If you’re still treating LLMs like a 2026 conversation, you’re already behind.

The shift is no longer theoretical; it’s happening in your analytics right now. And the teams that move early will stay visible and build a lasting competitive edge.

Here’s how to respond:

1. Start tracking LLM-driven sessions, even if it’s imperfect

You can’t manage what you don’t measure.

Set UTM parameters for AI platforms. Monitor for unexplained spikes in direct traffic. Annotate content that gets surfaced in ChatGPT or Perplexity.

Look for surges in branded search that coincide with AI exposure. Start tracking mentions, not just clicks.

Attribution won’t be perfect – but waiting for standardized reporting is how you miss the wave.

2. Structure your content for AI interfaces, not just human readers

LLMs favor content that’s clean, clear, and scannable. Think bullet points, tight intros, FAQ sections, and strong summaries.

If featured snippets were SEO 2.0, this is 3.0. Answers need to perform inside a model’s response, not just on a results page.

3. Shift your mindset: from ranking to being selected

It’s not about being in position #1 – it’s about being the answer a model chooses to surface.

That means relevance, clarity, and trust signals matter more than ever.

Audit the content already being cited or linked by AI platforms and build a strategy for becoming the go-to source in your space.

If you don’t, your competitor will.

4. Make your content AI-ready across the entire funnel

This isn’t just about blogs.

Product pages, help docs, onboarding flows – every touchpoint is now eligible to be surfaced in an AI conversation.

You need cross-functional alignment between SEO, content, UX, and product teams to ensure your entire site is conversation-ready.

SEO isn’t dying – it’s evolving

SEO is splitting into two tracks: traditional search and LLM-driven discovery.

The second one is growing faster than anyone expected and it’s already rewriting how users find answers and how brands earn visibility.

Move now. Learn fast. Or get left behind.

Read more at Read More

Why your content strategy needs to move beyond SEO to drive demand

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Why your content strategy needs to move beyond SEO to drive demand

For many years, SEO has been the lifeblood of content marketing.

Keyword research, quality content, blog optimization, and organic traffic became the gospel of lead generation. 

But times have changed.

Take the Great Decoupling of organic impressions from clicks as a result of Google’s AI Overviews. 

Or the shift in user behavior away from Google search and toward LLM-powered engines, like ChatGPT. 

With these changes, and many others, how we think about content needs to change as well.

If your content strategy still relies on keyword lists and Google ranking to move the needle, you risk falling behind. 

Future-forward competitors are learning to adapt to the new landscape of assistive engine optimization, personalization, and immersive content.

This article tackles how to move beyond traditional SEO and build a content engine that powers brand demand across search engines and formats.

What is demand generation content?

Demand generation is an area of marketing focused on generating awareness of and interest in your brand. 

Demand generation content, then, is content that speaks to the needs of your target audience, gets you noticed, and makes people aware of your products or services. 

It isn’t just MQL capture, though. It’s the full system of:

  • Educating buyers.
  • Comparing your brand to competitors.
  • Accelerating prospective buyers through a decision cycle.

The best demand gen content:

  • Provokes curiosity.
  • Answers buyers’ burning questions.
  • Challenges users’ assumptions.
  • Turns competitors on their heads.
  • Offers value (before the “ask”).
  • Addresses purchase-oriented queries, not just informational searches.

The problem with the traditional “SEO-first” approach to content is that this content typically (not always) involves targeting what people are already searching for. 

Which makes sense, because most brands want to capture volume. But this content does little in terms of anticipating users’ questions before they’re asked. 

Content in today’s competitive (and comparative) environment needs to create desire, long before your audience even knows what they’re looking for.

The limitations of traditional SEO in demand gen

Now, SEO still matters. 

Most of the traditional approaches to optimization still apply, and I don’t suspect Google will disappear anytime soon. 

But SEO should not be the sole driver of discovery or your demand gen strategy. 

AI and zero-click searches are changing the SERPs

In 2024, 25.6% of desktop and 17.3% of mobile Google searches ended without a click, according to Semrush data. 

And those numbers are only expected to grow, especially with the growing prevalence of AI Overviews, featured answers, etc.

This shows that ranking near the top of the SERPs isn’t always enough to drive immediate traffic to your site from those searches.

Trying to rank at the top is still a worthwhile endeavor, as it increases your chances of being seen. 

But there are many more pieces of SERP “real estate” for users to see before they ever decide to click on your site.

When users can get answers without having to click through, you lose the ability to move prospective “visits” through the funnel. 

Keyword competition is fierce

Also, the highest value keywords you want to rank for are probably the most competitive. 

Hundreds, if not thousands, of brands are publishing content optimized for the same keywords. And there are only 10 spots to rank. 

Even if your content is technically better, it still might not stand out. You’re competing against the authority and relevance of other domains – often, big players.

Chasing keywords, then, doesn’t quite work as well as it used to. So, your approach to content needs to be revisited.

Buyers don’t just rely on Google anymore

Google is still the leading search engine in town, but the prevalence of LLM-driven engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity is shaking things up. 

Users are now able to ask uber-specific questions, receive personalized answers, and seek further clarification on those answers within the answer engines.

They don’t necessarily need Google or you to tell them what they need to know or want to hear.

Also, there are other channels driving the conversations – Instagram, podcasts, Reddit, YouTube, and forums, just to name a few. 

A growing portion of B2B buyers spend more time on self-directed research across these types of channels, Gartner reports.

This means that you need to engage potential buyers where they actually are, not just where search engines decide to place you. 

From SEO-centric to buyer-centric: How to create content that drives demand

If you want to generate real, tangible demand for your brand, you need to shift your content strategy away from keywords and toward buyer behavior. 

That means creating content in anticipation of buyers’ needs, questions, comparisons, and buying triggers. 

Here’s how to do that.

1. Identify common friction points

Don’t ask “What are people searching for?”

Instead, ask “What are people debating internally before they buy?”

Any SEO tool can surface keywords like “best restaurant POS” or “best POS for cafes,” but they won’t drive the strategy in terms of addressing buyer friction points, comparisons, etc.

And the importance of addressing friction points becomes obvious when you do any LLM search for your keyword…

Best POS for restaurants - ChatGPT

Here, we see ChatGPT’s output for “best POS for restaurants,” where it organizes recommendations by:

  • Business type (e.g., “Enterprise”).
  • Device (e.g., “Mobile/Tablet Use”).
  • Budget (e.g., “Budget-Friendly”).

It then prompts you as to whether you’d like to see a “comparison chart” of these options side-by-side.

ChatGPT - comparison chart

Targeting and ranking for “best restaurant POS” is:

  • Likely not feasible given the high competition.
  • Not sufficient in targeting all of these “comparison”-style queries.

So, instead of creating a “Best Restaurant POS” page or listicle, create content like:

  • Hidden Costs of “Cheap” Restaurant POS Platforms: Toast vs Square vs [our Brand]
  • Best Restaurant POS for Tablet: Streamline Your FOH Tech Stack
  • Your Current Restaurant POS Isn’t Working – X [Competitor] Alternatives to Try
  • When to Use Toast POS for Your Restaurant (and When You Need Something Better)
  • Cloud vs. Legacy POS Systems: Which One Is Right for Your Restaurant?

These topics come from actual buying friction. 

They don’t simply target high-search-volume keywords but contain valuable information that aids the buyer’s decision and can easily be interpreted by LLMs. 

Also, this content tends to work better for cross-channel repurposing, such as in email, paid social, and sales enablement, not just organic search.

Aren’t sure what friction points to address? 

Talk to your sales team and customer success managers.

The phrases buyers use in calls and email threads are content goldmines. 

It’s also worth checking out ChatGPT and the like to find “gaps” that might be missing in your content (e.g., product features and benefits, brand comparisons, pricing tables, etc.)

2. Prioritize first-party data over third-party sources

Traditional SEO often depends on tools like Semrush or Ahrefs to surface content opportunities. 

While this data is certainly valuable, it only really tells you what people are searching for, not what they are actually consuming/interacting with.

First-party data sources, such as Google Analytics 4 or your website’s native analytics, can provide valuable insight into:

  • How users are engaging with your site.
  • What they’re searching for on your site (site search).
  • What’s leading to conversions. 

With this information, you’re better positioned to create content based on what your target audience is most interested in and what will drive them to take action, rather than chasing monthly search volume. 

Here are a few good sources of user behavior data:

  • GA4 for conversions, traffic sources, or pages visited.
  • Your chosen CRM tool (e.g., HubSpot) for lead-to-conversion flow.
  • Social media, for high-engagement and/or high-CTR content.
  • Email analytics, such as CTR or reply rates.
  • Support Center, for customer questions and complaints.

First-party analytics can help guide your demand generation strategy in a few ways. 

For one, it can help you address gaps in your existing content, especially if you see users falling off after a particular page. 

It can also help you better leverage (CRO-wise) the content that’s performing well, to hopefully generate more conversions from your most popular content.

For example, if your GA4 data shows that you have a service page that gets a lot of clicks but few conversions, you might want to add content like:

  • “How to Know if [Service] is Right for You – Weigh Your Options.”

Or, if you see from your CRM that leads often drop off after downloading your gated content, consider following up with a targeted email campaign with a subject line like:

  • “Thinking about [Service]? Read This First…”

Don’t rely solely on search volume to drive your content strategy. Volume without relevance will not generate the results you want!

Get the newsletter search marketers rely on.

See terms.

3. Use content to support the sales process

Demand generation content is not just about lead capture. It’s a tool for generating user interest, addressing friction points, and continuing the sales conversation. 

Who said your best content needs to live on your website? There are many different content formats that can be used to drive sales.

Instead of focusing all of your time on web pages and blogs, think of different content assets your sales team could use to support their conversations with prospective customers.

For example:

  • Objection-handling one-pagers (“Is [Brand] Worth the Cost?”).
  • Client testimonials praising your product/service against your competitors.
  • Competitive battlecards repurposed into comparison guides.
  • Industry-specific guides for different verticals.
  • Short tutorial videos explaining your products or integrations.

It is important to have content that addresses top-of-funnel interests and bottom-of-funnel buying considerations, and your website should include places for this. 

But often, the difference makers occur in the conversations prospective customers have during trials or with your sales team.

Demand generation content should build buyer confidence. Buyer confidence shortens the sales cycle. 

Better content leading to higher impact means a better ROI for your business – and this can happen during Sales, not just through content on your website.

4. Form/communicate a clear point of view

Users are spoiled for choice when it comes to “helpful” content. 

Any Google search is likely to produce a surplus of listicles, guides, videos, etc. 

While “value” may be the goal, this content is often created with SEO in mind – high word count, keyword dense, etc.

But what many brands fail to do is offer a distinct point of view. 

People don’t want to read another article they can find anywhere else (and what Google AI Overviews can summarize for them). 

They want something actionable, unique, thoughtful, etc. – something that will make their lives better!

So, how do you do that in content?

First, you start with a hook. Ideally, one that taps into a tension your audience already feels. It could be:

  • A misconception (“Beauty bloggers say you need this, but you don’t…”)
  • A pain point (“Your skincare routine isn’t doing you any favors…”)
  • A bold opinion (“Your current restaurant POS sucks…”) 

Hooks don’t just grab attention. They immediately communicate the relevance of your content to user interests. 

Then, you make your argument. Instead of regurgitating the same old information, connect the dots your way. 

For example, instead of a boring guide on “How to Create and Send an Invoice,” show a real customer using your platform to create an invoice step by step. 

Something like: 

  • “If you’re a small business owner like me, then you know creating invoices manually is super time-consuming. Here’s what I do to automate my invoicing and get paid faster…”

For another example, a typical “10 Best Summer Dresses for Summer” listicle becomes “10 Girlies Top Picks – What We’re Wearing This Summer,” with reviews from real customers. 

In short, try to:

  • Use real examples from your own customers.
  • Incorporate stories.
  • Inject your unique brand voice.
  • Back up unconventional wisdom with evidence. 

Bring something interesting to the SERPs!

In demand gen, this isn’t about being contrarian for clicks. 

It’s about helping the reader see their problem differently, and how they can find the solution outside traditional methods and in your product/service.

5. Showcase content on the right distribution channels

Now, you’ve created all this good content. That’s great. But you want it to get seen!

The traditional approach to content marketing was to wait for SEO to do its thing. That can take weeks or months. 

Who wants to wait to see results?

Fortunately, there are many platforms available if you want to get your content in front of customers. You just need to identify the right ones. 

For demand generation, these platforms tend to work the best:

  • LinkedIn: B2B buyers, executives, decision-makers, agency leads, founders.
  • YouTube: DIYers, visual learners, problem-aware buyers, comparison shoppers.
  • Meta: Business owners, impulse buyers, local service seekers.
  • Email: Existing leads, subscribers, trial users, pipeline prospects.
  • X: Thought leaders/influencers, early adopters, B2B.
  • TikTok: Impulse buyers, creators, DTC shoppers, SMB founders.
  • Reddit + Facebook Groups: High-intent researchers, skeptics, deep divers, niche hobbyists.

There are others. 

It’s important to narrow your focus to the channels your prospective buyers tend to use most and that align with their shopping behaviors.

Your Google Analytics can be a great source of identifying where your referral or social traffic is coming from. 

Your sales team may also have insight into where you get most of your business.

The misconception that you need to be everywhere is exactly that – a misconception. 

It’s better to create highly targeted content that appeals to the audience on that particular platform, rather than a wide-cast blast of content to every outlet.

Also, you can usually optimize your content for search engines at the same time, for good measure. Long-term potential plus quick gains!

Demand gen example: How Lavender does it right

Lavender is an AI email assistant and sales intelligence platform designed to help reps move faster and close more deals. 

But what really sets them apart isn’t just the product – it’s the content strategy behind it.

While they have a blog, it’s far from your basic “top guide” type content. 

Just take, for example, some of their recent topics: 

  • “11 Reasons NOT to Buy Lavender” 
  • “Lavender’s Secret Sauce for Onboarding New SDRs”
  • “Cold Email Wizardry 101”

Also, their LinkedIn presence is consistently valuable, entertaining, and tactical. 

They have a clear POV and humorous tone of voice and are shaking up online conversations. 

Through this content, prospective customers can discover the brand, engage in conversations, and walk away with something new. 

And in the sea of other AI tools, this differentiation is essential. 

They share this content on the platforms that matter most to them – well before it hits the Google ranks. 

Demand gen content that goes beyond the status quo

SEO content still has its place, but the traditional approach to optimizing content for search engines has been shaken up. 

There are many more “no click” options for users to consider than ever before. 

Ranking at the top isn’t a foolproof strategy.

A more adaptive approach to content creation is needed for brands to generate new demand and customer interest. 

This requires content that addresses user friction, communicates a clear POV, and attracts users at relevant channels. 

It also requires looking outside SEO tools for topic ideas and data. It’s not only about what’s searchable.

The more you can differentiate your brand, the better. 

And the more you can be adaptive to the LLM-dominated landscape, the less dependent you will be on the SERPs to drive your brand’s traffic and sales. 

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AI ate my traffic by Campaign Monitor

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Campaign Monitor by Marigold

Have you noticed a dip in your organic traffic lately? You aren’t imagining it.

AI-powered search engines, such as Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity, are transforming the way people discover and consume content. Instead of clicking your link, users are getting instant AI-generated answers – often built from your content – without ever visiting your site.

You’re still publishing and optimizing. But your results are shrinking.

Welcome to the AI discovery era, where your hard-earned traffic is the appetizer on someone else’s plate.

SEO isn’t dead – but it’s no longer yours

Organic rankings no longer guarantee visibility. AI search experiences are removing the middle step between “search” and “solution.” Your website often gets cut out in the process.

If your strategy is solely focused on SEO and attracting clicks, your success depends on platforms you don’t control.

The answer: reclaim what you own

In this new landscape, the smart move isn’t just chasing new traffic – it’s protecting and activating the audience you already have.

That means doubling down on email.

Why? 

Email remains:

  • Direct (no algorithm middleman)
  • Personal (built for 1:1 relationships)
  • Segmentable (think personalize, automate, scale)

In fact, according to Marigold’s 2025 Consumer Trends Index Report, 77% of respondents stated they were likely to engage with an email focused on exclusive VIP offers, while 86% said they would be motivated to engage with sale or holiday promotions.

But here’s the kicker: to segment messaging and remain consistent in your outreach, you need a platform built for fast-moving businesses.

Introducing Campaign Monitor by Marigold – your revival engine

Campaign Monitor isn’t just for sending newsletters. It’s your command center for fostering, rebuilding, and monetizing opportunities.

Here’s how Campaign Monitor helps power your revival:

List management at scale

With traffic declining, your contact and email lists are more valuable than ever, and they are unique to your business. Through Campaign Monitor, you can use your owned lists to:

  • Segment by behavior, purchase history, or engagement.
  • Identify dormant contacts and re-engage them.
  • Clean your list to improve deliverability and performance.

Automation that nurtures (while you sleep)

Don’t send one email and hope. Use Campaign Monitor to:

  • Welcome new subscribers with personalized messages.
  • Deliver value-driven nurture sequences with easy-to-use pre-built journeys.
  • Trigger timely emails based on behavior, like abandoned carts or event registration. With intelligent automation, you can turn a cold list into a steady stream of engaged leads and real conversion opportunities – no late nights required.

Personalization that cuts through the noise

Generic emails are easy to ignore. Campaign Monitor allows you to:

  • Personalize subject lines, product recommendations, and timing.
  • Use dynamic content to deliver the right message to the right person.
  • A/B test and optimize continuously.

Real metrics. Real decisions.

AI platforms don’t share data. Campaign Monitor provides insights into audience engagement and campaign performance, allowing marketers to optimize their strategies:

  • See who’s opening, clicking, and converting.
  • Track revenue generated from each campaign.
  • Attribute performance down to the segment or workflow.
  • No guesswork. Just growth.

So… what now?

AI may have eaten your top-of-funnel traffic, but that doesn’t mean your pipeline is doomed.

Now is the time to:

  • Rebuild your list with intent-driven offers.
  • Modernize your email strategy with segmentation, automation, and personalization.
  • Use Campaign Monitor to make it all scale – without burning out.

Final word

AI isn’t your enemy. Passive marketing is.

The smartest brands are adapting by doubling down on what they can control: their list, their messaging, and their subscriber relationships.

With Campaign Monitor by Marigold, you’re not just surviving the AI age – you’re reviving your funnel for the long haul.

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AI Max gets new reporting features

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Why campaign-specific goals matter in Google Ads

Google Ads’ AI Max reporting now allows advertisers to view search terms, headlines, and landing pages in a single report, offering a clearer window into how AI-powered campaigns operate.

Why we care. This update means less guesswork and more control. You can now see what users actually searched for, which landing page Google’s AI sent them to, and the headline shown alongside the ad. That’s a big upgrade from the days of Performance Max (PMax), where advertisers waited years for basic visibility into campaign behavior.

The details. Especially useful if you’re using Final URL expansion or Auto-Generated Assets

It also makes it easier to:

  • Spot when a product search lands on a generic category page.
  • Diagnose and fix page mismatch issues.
  • Deactivate Final URL expansion if needed.

“This means more transparency. From Month one. Unlike PMax where we had to wait 4 years,” said Thomas Eccel, head of Google Ads at JvM IMPACT.

Bottom line. Google is giving advertisers a clearer lens into AI Max behavior – allowing for smarter optimization, faster troubleshooting, and a better user experience. This update removes a major blind spot in AI Max reporting.

First seen. The update was mentioned by Eccel who credited senior SEA consultant Jerome Fleck for first spotting it.

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AI Max experiments arrive in Google Ads: Here’s how they work

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How Google works: Experiments, entities, and the AI layer beneath search

Google Ads rolled out a new AI Max experiment type for Search campaigns, aimed at streamlining how advertisers test AI-powered features – without duplicating campaigns.

Why we care. Traditional experiments require creating campaign copies, adding complexity and delaying results. This new format runs within the original campaign, splitting the budget 50/50 between control and test groups. The goal: faster, statistically valid insights.

How it works:

  • Found under a new Choose a variable to test section, advertisers can now select AI Max for Search campaigns.
  • The experiment auto-enables:
    • Search Term Matching
    • Asset Optimization
  • Advertisers can customize these settings at the campaign or ad group level.
  • By default, results are auto-applied. This can be turned off for more control.

Zoom out. The new setup is already visible in many accounts. For those looking for more details, Google Ads’ help page on AI Max Experiments breaks it down.

First seen. This update was first surfaced by marketing consultant Dario Zannoni.

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Get discovered before it’s too late: top Yoast SEO for Shopify features to outperform competitors this Black Friday

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Before we know it, the winter hues will set in, and with them comes the biggest shopping day of the year: Black Friday. Black Friday 2024 was a goldmine for online businesses, clocking in record-breaking numbers. Online shoppers spent over $10 billion, marking a 10% jump from the previous year, and 2025 is shaping up to be even bigger.

In this blog post, we’ll break down the most powerful features of the Yoast SEO for Shopify app and show you how to make the most of them. The goal? Help boost your SEO game, improve your store’s visibility, and stay ahead of the competition this Black Friday.

How is Yoast SEO a game-changer for your Shopify store?

When it comes to ecommerce, SEO plays a crucial role in getting your product pages in front of potential buyers. That visibility becomes even more important during high-traffic events like Black Friday, when every click counts.

Let’s talk numbers: the #1 result in Google’s organic search sees an average click-through rate of 27.6%, while only 0.63% of users click on something on the second page. In short, first page converts most.

This is where SEO—and more specifically, Yoast SEO steps in to boost your chances of winning those clicks. Enhancing your visibility in search results helps drive more clicks, traffic, and ultimately, sales during peak shopping seasons, such as Black Friday.

Top Yoast SEO for Shopify Features to help maximize your Black Friday visibility

Yoast SEO for Shopify provides the necessary tools to optimize your Shopify website, just when shoppers are searching the most. Here are the top features that make it possible –

1. Instantly generate SEO-friendly meta titles and descriptions with one-click AI

Black Friday is one of the most competitive times of the year for online stores, and your product pages need to do more than exist—they need to stand out.

Optimized meta titles and descriptions can help you grab attention in search results, improve your click-through rates, and drive more qualified traffic when people are actively looking to buy.

How Yoast SEO for Shopify helps

Yoast SEO for Shopify makes this process fast and effortless with Yoast AI Generate. With just one click, you get multiple meta titles and descriptions optimized for search engines and the audience.

You can easily pick a suggestion that fits, tweak it to match your brand tone, or generate fresh variations until you find the perfect match. It’s a huge time-saver, especially when you’re racing against the Black Friday clock.

Hint: Yoast AI doesn’t have any hidden (AI) fees.

2. SEO and readability analysis

So, you’ve optimized your meta titles and descriptions and successfully caught a shopper’s attention in the search results. That’s great, but the job isn’t done yet. Now it’s time to turn that click into a conversion.

Whether you’re writing fresh product copy or trying to fix an underperforming one, your product pages should answer the searcher’s intent. If your page is overloaded with keywords or dull copy, shoppers will bounce fast. That means lost sales and more abandoned carts.

    A well-written, easy-to-read product page could boost your search visibility and build trust with your buyers. It helps them feel confident, informed, and ready to hit that “Buy Now” button.

    How Yoast SEO for Shopify helps

    Yoast SEO for Shopify gives you real-time SEO and Readability Analyses through a traffic light system as you write. It helps you find the right balance between being search-friendly and human-friendly. With its signature traffic light system, you’ll know instantly whether your content is on track or needs work.

    The best part? The analysis is tailored to the type of content you’re creating, whether it’s a product page, a blog post, a static page, or even a collection. And yes, it works in 20+ languages, so you’re covered even if you’re targeting international audiences.

    See more: Yoast Readability Analysis feature

    3. Automatic product structured data

    Structured data helps search engines understand your content, and more importantly, helps your products stand out in search results. When done correctly, it can get your store featured in rich results, including price, reviews, and availability, directly in the SERPs. That kind of visibility can seriously boost your click-through rates and drive more qualified traffic to your store.

    For ecommerce, structured data (or schema markup) is a big deal. It tells search engines exactly what your page is about, whether it’s a product, a brand, or an offer, and helps it display that information in a more attractive and informative way.

    How Yoast SEO for Shopify helps

    Yoast SEO for Shopify handles the heavy lifting automatically. It adds clean and complete structured data behind the scenes using JSON-LD, covering essentials like Product, Organization, Website, WebPage, BreadcrumbList, Article, and Offer.

    And if you’re using product review apps like Judge.me, Loox, Ali Reviews, or Opinew —Yoast seamlessly integrates with them to include the AggregateRating schema, making your products look even more trustworthy at a glance.

    No need to fiddle with code. Just set it up once, and Yoast does the rest.

    See more: Yoast Structured Data feature

    4. Optimize how your store appears on search and social media  

    Another important factor that can make or break your Black Friday traffic is how your store shows up, both in search results and across social media. With thousands of brands vying for attention, a strong, well-optimized snippet or preview can give you the edge you need to get noticed and clicked on.  

    Your product might be perfect, but you risk getting lost in the noise if it doesn’t look compelling in Google results or stand out in a social feed. When people search and scroll with urgency on a day like Black Friday, those tiny first impressions can mean a big difference in click-throughs and conversions.  

    How Yoast SEO for Shopify helps  

    Yoast SEO for Shopify lets you take control of how your product pages and content appear in search. You can easily edit your title, slug, and meta description and preview how they’ll look on mobile and desktop, ensuring your Black Friday deals look as irresistible as they are.  

    On top of that, Yoast helps you fine-tune how your pages appear when shared on platforms like Facebook and X. You get to set the title, description, and the preview image, so every share looks polished, on-brand, and click-worthy.

    In short, it helps your content stand out where it matters most—whether it’s a Google search result or a viral Black Friday post on social media.

    See more: Yoast Content Preview feature

    Other notable features

    We’ve already covered some core features that make the Yoast SEO for Shopify app a powerful tool, but that’s not where the value ends. The app packs in several other features that make your experience smoother, smarter, and way more worth the spend, especially as you gear up for high-pressure sales periods like Black Friday.

    Here are a few extra perks worth mentioning:

    • Free trial: Yoast offers a 14-day free trial so you can explore all its features and see how it fits into your Shopify store without spending a penny upfront.
    • Seamless theme compatibility: Yoast works smoothly with most Shopify themes and automatically removes any conflicting code. That means a cleaner site, faster load times, and a better shopping experience, exactly what you need when traffic spikes during Black Friday.
    • Learn with Yoast SEO Academy: The Yoast SEO Academy gives you access to beginner to expert-level SEO courses that cover everything from ecommerce SEO to keyword research, SEO copywriting, and more. It’s a great way to build your skills while the app handles the technical side, so you can focus on selling.
    • 24/7 support, all year round: Yoast’s support team is available 24/7, 365 days a year. Whether you’re setting things up or stuck somewhere in the middle of Black Friday madness, they’ve got your back.

    Over to you…

    With Black Friday coming up, it’s important to start optimizing your Shopify store, and SEO is one area you really don’t want to overlook. It can get tricky, especially for small businesses, but having the right tools in place can make it much more manageable.

    To improve your chances of appearing when shoppers search, you must cover the ecommerce SEO basics. And when you pair that with a tool like Yoast SEO for Shopify, you get a solid set of features that help you save time, avoid technical headaches, and stay one step ahead of your competitors.

    Also read, Holiday season SEO: 10 tips to start preparing!

    The post Get discovered before it’s too late: top Yoast SEO for Shopify features to outperform competitors this Black Friday appeared first on Yoast.

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    10 Yoast WooCommerce SEO features to boost Black Friday rankings and revenue   

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    Black Friday isn’t just a sales event; it’s a battle for attention. Whenever product, price, and promotion fight for a click, visibility becomes a battle for dominance, not just survival. Are you a WooCommerce store owner pouring your energy and budget into paid ads, but not getting the required results? But what about organic traffic? That’s free traffic, compounding over time. Does it often get ignored, just when it matters most?

    This Black Friday, Yoast WooCommerce SEO offers a more innovative way to boost visibility in search engines. It’s built to help ecommerce teams and SEO beginners optimize product listings at scale, improve product rankings, and get their products seen by relevant traffic without relying on developers or SEO agencies. From structured data that powers Google Shopping to auto-generated meta descriptions that convert, Yoast SEO for product pages helps you unlock visibility where it counts.  

    10 features designed to help WooCommerce stores sell more!  

    1. Make your products pop in search with Automated Schema Markup  

    SEO plugin for WooCommerce automatically adds structured data to your product pages, including price, stock status, and review ratings, so Google knows exactly what you’re selling.  

    Here’s why this is essential during Black Friday:

    • Earn more visibility with essential markups  

    Your products become eligible for enhanced display formats in Google search and Google Shopping, like star ratings, price tags, and “In stock” labels, which catch the eye and drive more clicks.  

    • Show up in search with enhancements.  

    Your products become eligible for rich results in Google Search and Shopping, helping you stand out with product snippets with visual cues, giving you a critical edge to gain buyers’ trust.  

    • Scale stress free during busy hours  

    Whether you have 10 products or 10,000, the automation works across your entire catalog, giving your store a visibility boost without coding or development support.  

    2. Ecommerce SEO for product pages 

    Black Friday is approaching, and you shouldn’t settle for generic Black Friday ecommerce SEO advice. Product pages must be fast, focused, and fully optimized, yet most tools fall short.  

    Yoast SEO for WooCommerce gives you a more intelligent SEO analysis tailored to your e- commerce needs.    

    Here’s why it matters right now:  

    • Optimize faster with checks tailored for online stores.  

    Yoast SEO for WooCommerce knows the difference between product pages and blog posts. SEO for product pages enables ecommerce-specific analysis looks for missing GTINs, product images, short descriptions, and key product data, which impact how your listings rank and appear in search.  

    • Clean content with more intelligent optimization  

    When your product pages meet SEO best practices, they stand a better chance of ranking, earning clicks, and converting buyers, especially during peak sales like Black Friday.  

    • Built-in guidance to tackle high-traffic periods  

    The tool flags what’s missing, offers suggestions to fix it, and helps you complete each page with confidence, no spreadsheets, no second-guessing.  

    3. Keep your sale pages in the spotlight with canonical URLs 

    When your store has filters, variants, or dynamic parameters, it can unintentionally create multiple URLs for the same product. Yoast Black Friday ecommerce SEO handles this with canonical tags, ensuring search engines focus on the most critical version. It’s an essential tool to safeguard your rankings during high-traffic periods like Black Friday.  

    Why it matters for Black Friday:  

    • Prevents internal competition in search results  

    Filters or variants like color, size, or other factors can generate dozens of duplicate URLs. Canonicals ensure your main product page ranks, and not identical clones.  

    • Keeps the focus on your high-converting sale URLs  

    During campaigns, you want one clear URL driving all traffic and shares. Canonical control lets you guide the attention of search engines and shoppers to the most profitable path.  

    • Avoids SEO dilution across extensive seasonal catalogs  

    Black Friday season sales often mean bulk uploads across many categories. Canonicals help you scale without wrecking your SEO by telling search engines which URLs to prioritize.  

    4. AI-Powered meta titles and descriptions  

    Writing compelling meta titles and descriptions across hundreds of product and category pages can take up time, especially during Black Friday. Yoast SEO’s generative AI tool relieves pressure by helping you act fast and stay consistent.  

    Why it matters for Black Friday ecommerce SEO:  
     

    • Instantly creates five optimized options per page.  

    No more starting from scratch. Whether you have 10 or 1,000 products, you’ll get fast, relevant, SEO-friendly, and conversion-focused suggestions.  

    • Let’s you inject urgency and seasonal phrases automatically.  

    You can easily add terms like “Black Friday Deals,” “Only Today,” or “Hurry—Ends Soon” into your metadata so your listings match the season’s tone and urgency.  

    • Reduces writing time and boosts consistency  

    When every product needs a compelling meta description, AI speeds up the process while keeping branding and tone aligned. 

    Help your online store stand out!

    Get this and much more in the Yoast WooCommerce SEO plugin!

    Get Yoast WooCommerce SEO Only $178.80 / year (ex VAT)

    5. Increase shoppers’ engagement with internal linking suggestions  

    Intelligent internal linking isn’t just good for SEO. It boosts time on site and nudges shoppers toward more purchases. Yoast SEO automatically recommends links to related products, categories, or promo pages while editing, so you never miss a chance to cross-promote during a high-traffic season.  

    Why it matters for Black Friday:  
     

    • Recommends relevant internal links  

    Link high-traffic Black Friday products to similar deals or bundles to increase cart size and page views.  

    • Improves site structure and shopper retention  

    A clear internal linking strategy guides users deeper into your store, helping them discover more of what they want.  

    • Distributes SEO value to priority pages  

    Funnel link authority toward your most profitable or seasonal categories without manual planning.  

    6. Polish every share with social preview customization  

    First impressions on social media can make or break a click. Yoast SEO lets you control how every product or sale page appears when shared on Facebook and X. You can customize your posts without relying on a designer.  

    Why it matters for Black Friday:  
     

    • Customize how each page looks when shared  

    Align visuals and messaging for your most significant sales to match the tone and urgency of your ad campaigns.  

    • Prevent broken or off-brand previews  

    Avoid the risk of blank images, awkward text cuts, or generic-looking links that lower CTR.  

    • Make every page share-ready, instantly  

    Eliminate the need for external tools by handling everything within WordPress.  

    7. Eliminate broken links with the Redirect Manager  

    During seasonal updates, product URLs change, stock rotates, and categories shift. Yoast SEO’s Redirect Manager keeps your store agile and error-free by prompting for redirects when you move or delete a page and letting you manage them in bulk for larger campaigns.  
     

    Why it matters for Black Friday:  
     

    • Prompts for redirects automatically  

    Stay ahead of 404 errors when product pages are removed or consolidated during your Black Friday refresh.  

    • Prevents lost traffic in live campaigns  

    Ensure shoppers don’t land on dead ends from searches, ads, or email links.  

    • Bulk manages redirects at scale  

    Easily import/export rules so you can update entire catalogs in one go.  

    8. Prioritize what matters with a WooCommerce optimized sitemap  

    Yoast SEO generates a lean, clean XML sitemap that emphasizes your key products and categories so Google can quickly find and index the right pages.  

    Why it matters for Black Friday:  
     

    • Excludes non-essential elements  

    Keep bots focused on pages that convert, not test products or expired deals.  

    • Prioritizes core product/category pages  

    Surface your highest-converting listings sooner in search.  

    • Boosts crawl efficiency during rapid updates  

    Frequent product additions or updates? No problem. Your sitemap stays updated and focused. 

    9. Reach the right shoppers with multilingual & regional SEO  

    Black Friday is global, but search intent varies by country. With Yoast SEO, your WooCommerce store can automatically serve the correct language and regional content, ensuring each shopper lands a relevant, localized experience.  

    Why it matters for Black Friday:  
     

    • Directs users to the correct language or market page  

    Auto-detects delivers region-appropriate content for better engagement.  

    • Reduces bounce from mismatched traffic  

    Avoid shoppers clicking away due to currency issues or unfamiliar language.  

    • Supports UK, US, and international targeting  

    Essential if your campaign runs across multiple storefronts or regions.  

    10. Stay search-ready with built-in best practices  

    Black Friday ecommerce SEO campaigns move fast, and so do SEO rules. Yoast SEO keeps your store aligned with the latest Google guidelines in real time, so you don’t have to double-check every tag, title, or markup under pressure.  

    Why it matters for Black Friday:  
     

    • Updates in sync with Google’s changes  

    Trust that your store is optimized even as algorithms evolve.  

    • Prevents technical errors during fast changes  

    Launch flash sales, new landing pages, or content tweaks without risking SEO slip-ups.  

    • Maintains quality under pressure  

    Even during high-stress periods, you’ll ship content that performs well in search.  

    Ready to make this your best Black Friday yet?  

    Don’t wait until the last minute. Install and configure Yoast SEO for WooCommerce now and start optimizing your store with robust, scalable tools. From automated metadata to intelligent internal linking, everything is built to save time and boost results. With Yoast, you’re not just keeping up, you’re staying ahead.  

    Start now, as the sales surge, and you will find your store miles ahead.  

    Help your online store stand out!

    Get this and much more in the Yoast WooCommerce SEO plugin!

    Get Yoast WooCommerce SEO Only $178.80 / year (ex VAT)

    The post 10 Yoast WooCommerce SEO features to boost Black Friday rankings and revenue    appeared first on Yoast.

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    22 Best Large Language Models (LLMs) in 2025

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    Large language models, also known as LLMs, are advanced AI systems that were pre-trained on large data sets designed to recognize human language and generate unique content based on user input.

    In fact, there are over 300 LLMs designed for a range of use cases from text generation to writing code. In this blog post, you’ll find a list of 22 leading LLMs as of July 2025.

    Best LLMs in July 2025

    Here’s a table with 22 key large language models (LLMS) in 2025:

    LLM Name Developer Release Date Context Length License Active Parameters
    Llama 4 Scout Meta AI April 2025 10 million Open Source 17 billion
    Grok 4 xAI July 2025 256 thousand Proprietary Unknown
    Gemini 2.5 Pro Google March 2025 1 million Proprietary Unknown
    MiniMax-Text-01 MiniMax January 2025 4 million Open Source 45.9 billion
    o3-pro OpenAI April 2025 200 thousand Proprietary Unknown
    DeepSeek-R1-0528 DeepSeek May 2025 128 thousand Open Source 37 billion
    GPT-4.1 xAI April 2025 1 million Proprietary Unknown
    Nova Premier Amazon Web Services April 2025 1 million Proprietary Unknown
    o4-mini OpenAI April 2025 200 thousand Proprietary Unknown
    o3-mini OpenAI January 2025 200 thousand Proprietary Unknown
    Gemini 2.5 Flash Google April 2025 1 million Proprietary Unknown
    Claude Opus 4 Anthropic May 2025 200 thousand Proprietary Unknown
    Claude Sonnet 4 Anthropic May 2025 200 thousand Proprietary Unknown
    Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 Alibaba July 2025 262 thousand Open Source 22 billion
    Llama Nemotron Ultra NVIDIA April 2025 128 thousand Open Source Unknown
    Mistral Medium 3 Mistral AI May 2025 128 thousand Proprietary Unknown
    DeepSeek-R1 DeepSeek January 2025 128 thousand Open Source Unknown
    Solar Pro 2 Upstage AI July 2025 66 thousand Proprietary Unknown
    Kimi K2 Moonshot AI July 2025 128 thousand Open Source 32 billion
    o3 OpenAI April 2025 200 thousand Proprietary Unknown
    Grok 3 Mini xAI February 2025 1 million Proprietary Unknown
    GPT-4o OpenAI March 2025 128 thousand Proprietary Unknown

    Let’s take a closer look at some of the most popular models recently introduced to the market.

    1. Grok 4

    Grok 4 – Homepage

    Developer: xAI

    Release Date: July 9, 2025

    Context Length: 256 thousand tokens

    Image Input Support: Available

    License: Proprietary

    What is it? Grok 4 is the latest AI model developed by xAI, Elon Musk’s startup.

    The model utilized a large and varied dataset for training, leveraging xAI’s internal supercomputer, Colossus, which is equipped with 200,000 GPUs.

    Grok 4 can utilize external tools such as search engines and code interpreters. When addressing complex programming challenges or looking for current information on a topic, the model can generate its own search queries and retrieve real-time data from the internet to enhance its responses.

    The model is also capable of analyzing various media types, including images and videos, which helps to increase the relevance and accuracy of its answers.

    2. GPT-4.1

    OpenAI – GPT-4.1

    Developer: xAI

    Release Date: April 14, 2025

    Context Length: 1 million tokens

    Image Input Support: Available

    License: Proprietary

    What is it? GPT-4.1 is a flagship general-purpose model from OpenAI designed for “problem solving across domains”, as the company describes itself.

    The model supports a context window of up to 1 million tokens, allowing for the analysis of larger datasets. GPT-4.1 is a versatile model capable of analyzing both text and images.

    3. Gemini 2.5 Pro

    Gemini 2.5 Pro

    Developer: Google

    Release Date: June 17, 2025

    Context Length: 1 million tokens

    Image Input Support: Available

    License: Proprietary

    What is it? Gemini 2.5 Pro is Google’s most advanced AI model within the Gemini series, designed to address complex problems.

    Recently released in June 2025, it stands out as a multimodal large language model (LLM), capable of processing and analyzing diverse data types, including text, audio, images, video, and entire code repositories. This versatility allows Gemini 2.5 Pro to extract insights and
    generate solutions from a wide array of information sources.

    4. DeepSeek R1 0528

    Chat – DeepSeek

    Developer: DeepSeek

    Release Date: May 28, 2025

    Context Length: 128 thousand tokens

    Image Input Support: Not available

    License: Open Source

    What is it? DeepSeek R1 0528 is the latest iteration of DeepSeek’s R1 AI model, released on May 28, 2025.

    The model’s advanced reasoning features enable it to tackle complex problems more effectively, making it suitable for applications that require deep analytical skills.

    DeepSeek R1 0528 continues to be an open-weight model, boasting an impressive architecture with 685 billion parameters. Of these, approximately 37 billion are active at inference time.

    This improvement solidifies DeepSeek’s position as a comprehensive open-source alternative to leading proprietary models from OpenAI and Google, all while preserving the cost-effectiveness and accessibility inherent in open-source development.

    5. Claude Opus 4

    Anthropic – Claude Opus 4

    Developer: Anthropic

    Release Date: May 22, 2025

    Context Length: 200 thousand tokens

    Image Input Support: Available

    License: Proprietary

    What is it? Claude 4 Opus is the most advanced AI model from Anthropic, the company states.

    Recently released in May 2025, it excels in handling complex, long-running tasks, making it ideal for coding, deep research, and writing.

    The model supports a context length of 200 thousand tokens, which is typical for AI models within the Claude 4 family.

    6. Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507

    Hugging Face – Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507

    Developer: Alibaba

    Release Date: July, 2025

    Context Length: 262 thousand tokens

    Image Input Support: Not available

    License: Open Source

    What is it? Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 is an advanced, open-source language learning model developed by Alibaba Cloud, designed for reasoning tasks.

    Supports a native context length of 262,144 tokens, which is crucial for complex reasoning tasks and can be used in various applications, including code generation tasks and solving math problems.

    7. Claude Sonnet 4

    Anthropic – Claude Sonnet 4

    Developer: Anthropic

    Release Date: May 22, 2025

    Context Length: 200 thousand tokens

    Image Input Support: Available

    License: Proprietary

    What is it? Claude Sonnet 4 is a mid-sized model developed by Anthropic, designed for high-volume applications.

    According to the company, the model strikes a balance between performance and efficiency. Notably, Sonnet 4 excels in managing specific workflows such as code generation, data analysis, and search.

    The post 22 Best Large Language Models (LLMs) in 2025 appeared first on Backlinko.

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    What Is Content Decay? How to Identify and Fix Declining Content

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    Have you ever noticed a blog post that used to drive tons of traffic to your site suddenly isn’t performing like it used to?

    Maybe it ranked on the first page of Google for a few months and brought in steady leads, and then…poof! Nothing. The traffic just disappeared, and you’re left wondering what happened.

    If that sounds familiar, you’re dealing with content decay. Trust me, you’re not alone. Content decay happens when once-successful content loses its search rankings, traffic, and effectiveness over time. It’s frustrating, especially when you put so much work into creating it in the first place.

    The good news is content decay isn’t an automatic death sentence for your copy. Let’s dive into what content decay actually is, how to spot it before it becomes a bigger problem, and how to fix it so your content can start performing again. Because let’s be honest: nobody has time to constantly recreate content from scratch when a little maintenance can bring it back to life.

    Key Takeaways

    • Content decay is about declining user interest, not just old content. When user behavior shifts or new competitors emerge, previously successful content can lose rankings and traffic even if it’s still technically accurate. 
    • Monitor your content regularly using free and paid SEO tools. Google Search Console, Ubersuggest, and SEMrush can help you identify declining traffic and rankings before content decay becomes a bigger problem. 
    • You have multiple strategies to fix declining content. Quick wins include adding videos, tables of contents, and FAQ schema, while more comprehensive approaches involve expanding, consolidating, or pruning your existing content. 
    • Fixing content decay is more cost-effective than starting from scratch. Since your declining content already proved it could rank and drive traffic, strategic updates often deliver better ROI than creating entirely new content. 
    • Early detection is crucial for successful content recovery. Set up regular monitoring and alerts so you can address content decay before your rankings completely disappear from search results.

    What is content decay?

    Let’s get specific about what we’re dealing with here. Content decay is a gradual decline in your content’s performance over time. We’re talking about drops in organic traffic, search rankings, engagement rates, and conversions. It’s not just a bad month or a seasonal dip; it’s a consistent downward trend that shows you’re losing your grip on your audience.

    But here’s the important part: content decay isn’t just about your content getting “old.” It’s actually a symptom of declining user interest, a much bigger issue. Think about it this way. When you first published that blog post, it hit all the right notes for E-E-A-T. It was timely, relevant, and answered questions people actively searched for. But as time goes on, user behavior changes, new competitors enter the space, and search algorithms evolve. Suddenly, once valuable content starts to feel stale or outdated.

    Content decay happens because your audience’s needs and interests are constantly shifting. What they cared about six months ago might not be what they focus on today. They’ve moved on to more advanced topics, or perhaps new trends have emerged that make your content feel less relevant.

    Ultimately, when users stop engaging with your content — by clicking away quickly, not sharing it, or not converting — search engines take notice and start pushing it down in the rankings.

    How declining user interest happens

    User interest decline isn’t a new concept. Think about how search queries for digital cameras completely plummeted after the iPhone was released. People didn’t suddenly stop taking photos. Instead, their interest shifted to a better solution that combined their phone and camera needs.

    The same thing happens with your content. There are several reasons why user interest might drop over time. Sometimes people lose interest in a topic altogether (like how fewer people search for “how to burn CDs” these days). Other times, Google introduces new navigation features or rich results that answer users’ questions directly in the search results, leading to zero-click searches. A big disruptor in the search space, AI Overviews and now AI Mode, reduce the clicks necessary to get answers.

    While personalizing content can be a great way to reach your audience, it can sometimes work against you. It might only rank for certain demographics or geographic areas now, limiting your reach. Algorithm updates can change what Google thinks is relevant, and increased competition means more players fight for the same audience attention. Even seasonality plays a role; your summer suncare content won’t get much love in December.

    But fear not. The key in recognizing content decay often reflects broader shifts in user behavior rather than problems with the content itself. That’s why updating content strategically can bring it back to life.

    How to recognize content decay when it happens

    A tricky thing about content decay is that it can sneak up on you. One day, your content is performing well. The next thing you know, it’s barely getting traffic. There are some warning signs you can see before the decay completely tanks performance.

    First, take a hard look at whether the content is outdated or irrelevant. This is especially true if you write about timely topics or include survey data. Content age does matter. A blog post from 2019 about “social media trends” will feel pretty stale by now, for example. If your content references old statistics, outdated tools, or strategies that aren’t effective anymore, users will bounce quickly.

    Next, do some competitive research. Is your competitor’s content simply better than yours? Maybe they’ve updated posts with fresh data, better formatting, or a deeper dive into the topic. If you’re still writing short blog posts while your competitors have published 2,000-word comprehensive guides with videos and infographics, it can be a big red flag.

    Take a minute to check for other URLs on your site covering the same topics. Content decay can sometimes happen because you’ve accidentally created competing pages that cannibalize each other’s traffic. 

    The most obvious signs of content decay are performance metrics: declining organic traffic, higher bounce rates, lower time on page, and fewer conversions. Pay attention to how this content performs during algorithm updates or new feature rollouts. If your traffic drops significantly after an update, your content might no longer align with what Google considers valuable or relevant. Or, in the case of AI Mode, it might no longer meet the benchmarks that Google uses to serve that information up to customers as part of zero-click search. In cases like this, it can make sense to approach the user’s search priorities from a Search Everywhere perspective.

    A graphic showing causes of content decay.

    Use SEO tools to find decayed content

    You can look for signs of content decay on your own, but SEO tools make it much easier to identify. Trying to track this information down in spreadsheets gets overwhelming, especially if you have a lot of content.

    Google Search Console is a typical option for many people because it’s free and pretty robust. Checking the Performance report and filtering by specific pages or queries can show you consistent traffic declines over the past six months to a year. You can also look for the “Average position” column to see if rankings have dropped for key terms. If a page used to rank in spots 1-5 and now sits at position 15, it’s content decay in action.

    Ubersuggest is another great tool for tracking content decay. The Site Audit feature can identify pages with declining organic traffic, and the Keyword Tracking tool can monitor how your target keywords perform over time. You can even set up alerts to notify you when rankings drop significantly.

    Finally, there’s SEMRush. This platform takes it a step further with a Position Tracking tool that allows you to see exactly how your rankings change over time. The “Cannibalization” report is especially helpful when identifying multiple pages on your site that compete for the same keywords, a common cause of content decay.

    The key to this is setting up regular monitoring to catch content decay as early as possible. Content repurposing becomes much easier when declining content is identified before it completely disappears from search results.

    Content decay solutions

    Now, for the good news: content decay isn’t permanent. Once you’ve identified which pieces of content are declining, you have several strategies to bring them back to life. The beauty of fixing content decay is that you’re working with content that already had some success, not starting from scratch. The key is choosing the right approach based on what’s caused the decay in the first place.

    Embed a video

    Adding a relevant video to your existing content can help boost engagement and time on page, two factors that often signal to Google that your content is valuable. A quick explainer video or a detailed walkthrough can help your content feel fresh and current. You can post these videos elsewhere (like YouTube or TikTok) for additional “Search Everywhere” relevance.

    Optimize content for SEO

    Sometimes, content decay happens because SEO best practices have evolved since you first published. Update your title tags, meta descriptions, headers, and internal linking structure to align with current SEO standards. You might also need to adjust keyword density or improve the content’s semantic relevance.

    Add FAQ Schema markup

    FAQ schema can help your content appear in rich snippets and AI Overviews, which gives you more real estate in search results. If your content answers common questions, adding this markup can help it regain visibility and attract more clicks.

    Add a table of contents

    Another organizational element that can help improve your content (and user experience)? A table of contents. This helps make your content more scannable, which is especially important for longer pieces that might experience high bounce rates.

    Prune content

    Sometimes, less is more. If sections of your content are outdated or no longer relevant, removing them can actually improve performance. Focus on keeping the most valuable, accurate information.

    Re-promote

    Your declining content might just need a visibility boost. Share it again on social media, include it in email newsletters, or mention it with internal links in newer blog posts to drive fresh traffic and engagement signals.

    Add expertise

    Enhance your content’s authority by adding expert quotes, case studies, or more detailed analysis. If your content feels surface-level compared to your competitors, deeper expertise can help it regain rankings.

    Expand

    Pruning is a great way to refresh content, but sometimes you may need to add something to improve it. If user intent has shifted toward more comprehensive coverage, you should expand content to better match what searchers want. That might look like turning a 1,000-word post into a 2,500-word guide.

    Consolidate

    If multiple pages compete for the same keywords, you could consolidate them into one stronger piece to eliminate cannibalization and concentrate ranking power. Updating content strategically often delivers better ROI than creating brand new content from scratch.

    What is content decay?

    Content decay is when a blog post or page that used to get solid traffic and rankings slowly starts losing visibility over time. Along with age, it happens when user interest shifts, competitors publish stronger content, or Google updates its algorithm. The result? Less traffic, fewer conversions, and lost opportunities. The fix: update, expand, or optimize the content to bring it back to life instead of letting it fade away.

    Conclusion

    Content decay isn’t the end of your hard work. By understanding it’s about declining user interest rather than aging content, you can strategically bring your best-performing pieces back to life.

    The key to catching decay early is to regularly monitor it with the tools you have to work with, like GSC, Ubersuggest, and SEMRush. Once you know what’s in decline, you have options to remedy it: quick wins like videos and adding tables of content to comprehensive expansion or consolidation.

    Fixing content decay is more cost-effective than creating brand-new content, especially when you know these pieces can succeed. They just need strategic updates.

    Feeling overwhelmed by the process of identifying and fixing content decay? Don’t tackle it alone. Reach out to NP Digital for expert guidance on content strategy or check out an Ubersuggest demo to see how our tools can streamline your content decay monitoring and help prioritize which pieces need love first.

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