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Web Design and Development San Diego

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What’s actually happening in branded search

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

A single SERP brings together multiple layers:

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

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

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

In practice, this creates a mismatch. 

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

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

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

What PPC teams see (and often miss)

From a PPC perspective, teams focus on these signals:

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

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

But this is where context changes everything.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This creates a gap.

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

What SEO teams see (and often miss)

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

The most common signals look like this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why PPC and SEO issues are actually connected

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

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

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

Changes within that environment rarely affect just one side:

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to improve branded search performance

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

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

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

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

Tools for branded search monitoring such as Bluepear provide: 

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

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

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

This creates a reliable record of what actually happened:

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

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

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

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

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

Final takeaways

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Ensuring continuous discoverability with agentic AI for SEO

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In our Rethinking SEO in the age of AI article, we briefly explored how AI might move beyond simple prompt-and-response interactions. One emerging direction is agentic AI. Systems that can take action, not just generate answers. While this space is still evolving, we’re already seeing early signs of tools that can identify gaps, suggest improvements, and adapt to changing trends with minimal input. If these capabilities continue to develop, they could reshape how we think about maintaining continuous discoverability in SEO.

Table of contents

Key takeaways

  • Agentic AI for SEO represents a shift from traditional visibility and ranking to being trusted and understood by AI systems
  • The web’s structure remains stable, but interaction through AI agents changes how content is accessed and consumed
  • SEO must evolve to focus on being structured, reliable, and adaptable for AI interpretation
  • Challenges include data quality, integration complexity, and balancing automation with human judgment
  • The future of discoverability in an agent-driven web emphasizes collaboration between AI and human insight, expanding SEO’s role beyond just ranking

Understanding the coexistence of web and AI agents

Before understanding agentic SEO, let’s first look at the role of AI in shaping the web. Is it staying the same, or quietly changing?

For a long time, the web has been more than just a collection of pages. It has functioned as an interconnected graph of entities. Websites representing people, businesses, ideas, and concepts, all linked together through content, context, and trust. This structure, often referred to as the open web, has remained relatively stable for decades. Humans created content, users discovered it through search or links, and meaning was formed through exploration.

What seems to be shifting now is not the structure itself, but how that web is accessed and consumed.

Earlier, discovery was largely a direct interaction between humans and websites. You searched, clicked, read, compared, and formed your own conclusions. Today, AI systems are increasingly stepping into that journey. They sit between the user and the web, interpreting, summarizing, and sometimes even deciding which information to surface.

This is where the idea of AI agents begins to emerge. Not just as tools that generate responses, but as systems that can navigate the web, retrieve information, and potentially act on it. Early examples, such as experiments in natural language interfaces like NLWeb, hint at a web that can be interacted with more conversationally, without losing its openness and interconnectedness.

Some refer to this shift as the beginning of an “agentic web.” But it’s important to see it less as a complete transformation and more as a layer forming on top of the existing web. The open web still exists, content is still created by people, and links still matter. What’s evolving is how that content is discovered, interpreted, and used.

And that shift in interaction is where things start to get interesting for SEO.

Read more: Yoast collaborates with Microsoft to help AI understand Open Web

What will SEO mean in agentic web?

If AI agents are starting to reshape how people interact with the web, it naturally raises a follow-up question: where does that leave SEO?

For years, SEO has largely been about helping users find your content. You optimized for rankings, improved visibility on search engines, and relied on users to click, read, and navigate. But if AI agents begin to mediate that journey, not just retrieving information but interpreting and acting on it, then SEO may need to expand its role.

Not necessarily replace what exists, but build on top of it.

From ranking pages to being selected by systems

In a more agent-driven environment, discoverability may no longer depend solely on where you rank, but also on whether your content is selected, trusted, and used by AI systems.

That introduces a subtle but important shift:

  • It’s not just about being visible
  • It’s about being understandable, reliable, and usable by machines

AI agents don’t browse the web the way humans do. They:

  • Parse structured and unstructured data
  • Look for clear signals of authority and accuracy
  • Combine information from multiple sources before presenting it

So instead of optimizing only for clicks, SEO may also involve optimizing for inclusion in AI-generated responses and workflows.

What stays, what evolves, what gets added

Let’s ground this a bit. Traditional SEO doesn’t disappear. Many of its fundamentals still apply, but their role may shift.

What stays relevant

  • High-quality, original content
  • Clear site structure and internal linking
  • Strong technical SEO foundations
  • Authority and trust signals (E-E-A-T)

These remain essential because AI systems still rely on the web as their source of truth.

What evolves

  • Keywords → Intent modeling: Less about exact-match phrases, more about covering topics deeply and contextually
  • Rankings → Presence across surfaces: Visibility may extend beyond SERPs into AI summaries, assistants, and agent outputs
  • Clicks → Influence: Users may not always visit your site, but your content can still shape their decisions

What gets added

  • Structured, machine-readable content: Schema, clean formatting, and semantic clarity become even more important
  • Content designed for extraction: Clear answers, definitions, step-by-step explanations
  • Topical authority at the entity level: Being recognized as a trusted source for a subject, not just ranking for a keyword
  • Freshness and adaptability: Content that evolves as trends and information change

So, what does SEO really become?

It starts to look less like a discipline focused purely on rankings and more like one focused on continuous discoverability.

Or, as Alex Moss puts it in his article The Same But Different: Evolving Your Strategy For AI-Driven Discovery, the web itself may be evolving into two parallel experiences:

This has created a split from a completely open web into two – the ‘human’ web and the ‘agentic’ web… SEOs will have to consider both sides of the web and how to serve both.

That framing makes the shift clearer.

Your content still needs to rank. But it also needs to work at a second layer of the web, where AI systems interpret, select, and sometimes act on information before a human ever sees it.

So now, your content needs to be:

  • Understood without ambiguity
  • Trusted enough to be referenced
  • Structured well enough to be reused

In that sense, SEO doesn’t disappear in an agentic web. It stretches.

From helping users find information…

to helping systems choose it.

Role of agentic AI in SEO

If the web is gradually being experienced through both humans and AI agents, then it’s worth asking what role these agents might begin to play in SEO itself. Not as a replacement for SEO teams, but as a new layer within how SEO work gets done.

What we’re starting to see is a shift from SEO as a set of periodic tasks to something more continuous, assisted, and adaptive. Some early tools already hint at this. They don’t just analyze data, they suggest actions. In some cases, they even implement changes. If this direction continues, agentic AI could become less of a tool you use and more of a system you collaborate with.

Let’s break down where this role might start to take shape.

How agentic AI may reshape SEO workflows

Shift Traditional SEO approach (how it typically works today) With agentic AI (emerging direction)
Audits → Always-on optimization SEO teams run audits at set intervals (monthly, quarterly) using tools such as site crawlers.

Issues such as broken links, missing metadata, or slow pages are identified and then manually fixed over time.

Improvements often depend on when the audit is conducted.

 Systems continuously monitor site performance, flag issues as they arise, and may suggest or implement fixes in real time.

Optimization becomes ongoing rather than dependent on manually scheduled audits.
Reacting → Anticipating Actions are usually triggered by visible changes.

For example, a drop in rankings leads to an investigation, or an algorithm update prompts content revisions.

SEO is often a response to what has already happened.

 AI systems analyze patterns in search behavior and performance data to detect early signals.

This could mean identifying emerging topics, shifting intent, or declining engagement before it significantly impacts performance.
Manual execution → Guided systems Tasks such as keyword research, clustering, content optimization, and internal linking are performed manually or with tools.

SEO specialists interpret the data and execute changes step by step.

 AI assists with these tasks by identifying keyword opportunities, grouping topics, suggesting optimizations, and even applying specific changes.

SEOs shift toward guiding strategy, reviewing outputs, and setting priorities.
Static content → Adaptive content Content is created, published, and revisited occasionally.

Updates are often triggered by performance drops, outdated information, or scheduled content refresh cycles.

 Content evolves more dynamically.

Systems can recommend updates based on performance, refine sections for clarity, or restructure content to better match user intent and AI consumption patterns.
Generic UX → Contextual journeys Most users experience the same content and navigation structure.

Personalization is limited or rule-based, such as basic recommendations or segmented landing pages.

 Experiences become more contextual.

Content, navigation, and recommendations can adapt based on user behavior, intent, or journey stage, creating more relevant and engaging interactions.
Technical maintenance → Intelligent infrastructure Technical SEO involves periodic checks for issues such as crawl errors, indexing problems, and schema gaps.

Fixes are prioritized manually based on impact and resources.

 AI systems continuously monitor technical health, automatically prioritize issues, suggest fixes, and, in some cases, implement them.

Structured data, internal linking, and site architecture can be dynamically optimized.

A quick example: structuring content for machines, not just humans

If agentic systems rely on structured, connected, and machine-readable content, then this isn’t entirely new territory for SEO.

In many ways, we’ve already been moving in this direction through structured data and schema. What’s changing is how important and foundational it may become.

For example, features like schema aggregation in Yoast SEO bring together different pieces of structured data across a site and connect them into a more unified graph. Instead of treating pages as isolated units, they help search engines better understand how entities, content types, and relationships fit together.

This might seem like a technical detail, but it reflects a broader shift.

If AI agents are parsing, combining, and interpreting content across multiple sources, then clarity and connection at the data level become more important. Not just for visibility in search results, but for how content is understood and reused.

So while agentic AI may feel like a new layer, some of the foundational work, like structuring content, defining entities, and building semantic relationships, is already part of modern SEO. It just becomes more critical in this context.

So, where does this leave SEO teams?

If there’s one pattern across all of this, it’s not replacement, but redistribution.

Agentic AI may take on:

  • Repetitive tasks
  • Data-heavy analysis
  • Continuous monitoring

Which leaves humans to focus more on brand-building aspects like:

  • Strategy and positioning
  • Editorial judgment and brand voice
  • Deciding what should be done, not just what can be done

In that sense, agentic AI doesn’t redefine SEO overnight. But it does start to reshape how it’s practiced.

Understanding the risks and challenges of agentic AI for SEO

So far, agentic AI might sound like a natural evolution of SEO. But, as with most shifts in technology, it may also come with trade-offs.

Not because the technology is inherently problematic, but because it introduces new dependencies, new layers of complexity, and new decisions for SEO teams to navigate. In that sense, adopting agentic AI isn’t just about adding a new capability. It may also involve rethinking how much control to delegate and where human judgment continues to play a critical role.

Here are some of the challenges that could emerge as this space evolves:

1. High technical and integration complexity

Agentic systems are unlikely to operate in isolation. They may need to connect with your CMS, analytics tools, and multiple data sources.

This could introduce challenges such as:

  • Managing integrations across platforms
  • Ensuring consistent and reliable data flow
  • Defining clear workflows across systems

For many teams, this might not be plug-and-play. It could require time, experimentation, and coordination across different roles.

2. Data quality and dependency

Agentic AI may be heavily dependent on the quality of data it receives. If the data is:

  • Outdated
  • Incomplete
  • Poorly structured

Then the outputs could reflect those gaps.

At scale, even small inconsistencies might influence multiple recommendations or decisions. Which is why maintaining clean, reliable data sources may become even more important in an agent-driven setup.

3. Risk amplification and the need for governance

One of the strengths of agentic AI is speed. But that same speed might also amplify unintended outcomes.

Without clear guardrails:

  • Content updates could introduce inaccuracies
  • Technical changes might lead to issues like broken links or indexing errors
  • Best practices may not always be consistently followed

This is where governance frameworks and approval checkpoints may become essential, not to slow things down, but to keep them aligned.

4. Hallucinations and accuracy considerations

AI systems can sometimes generate outputs that sound plausible but aren’t entirely accurate.

In an SEO context, this might look like:

  • Misinterpreted data
  • Inaccurate keyword insights
  • Fabricated or blended information

The challenge is that these outputs can be difficult to spot at a glance. This suggests that validation and source-checking may remain an ongoing part of the workflow.

5. Limited understanding of nuance

SEO often goes beyond data and structure. It includes tone, context, and intent. Agentic systems may not always fully capture:

  • Brand voice and positioning
  • Legal or compliance nuances
  • Subtle differences in user intent

This could result in outputs that are technically sound, but not always contextually aligned. Human input may still play a key role here.

6. Balancing automation with human judgment

A broader question that may arise is how much to automate.

  • Too much automation might: Reduce control over strategy or brand
  • Too little might: Limit efficiency and scalability

Most teams may find themselves balancing the two. Using agentic AI to extend their capabilities, while still guiding direction and decision-making.

7. High initial investment and learning curve

While agentic systems may offer long-term efficiency, getting started could take time. This might involve:

  • Learning how the systems work
  • Setting up workflows and integrations
  • Aligning outputs with business goals

There’s also a level of uncertainty here. The technology is still evolving, and so are the tools built around it. Which means costs, capabilities, and best practices may continue to shift.

For many teams, adoption may not be immediate. It could happen gradually, through testing, iteration, and figuring out what actually works in practice.

8. Zero-click experiences and shifting traffic patterns

As AI systems become more involved in surfacing information, zero-click experiences may become more common.

Users might:

  • Get answers directly within AI interfaces
  • Interact without visiting the original source

This doesn’t necessarily reduce the importance of SEO, but it may shift how success is measured. Visibility and influence could become just as relevant as traffic.

What discoverability might look like in an agent-driven web?

Agentic AI may open up new possibilities for how SEO is done. But alongside that, it may also introduce new considerations.

It could require:

  • Stronger data foundations
  • Clear governance and review processes
  • A thoughtful balance between automation and human input

In many ways, the goal may not be full automation. It may be a better collaboration.

Even if agents take on more execution, the responsibility for direction, accuracy, and trust is likely to remain human. And maybe that’s the more interesting shift here. Not whether AI agents will “take over” SEO, but how they might reshape what good SEO looks like.

If discoverability is no longer just about ranking, but also about being selected, interpreted, and reused by systems, then the role of SEO starts to expand. It becomes less about optimizing for a single interface and more about preparing content to exist across multiple layers of the web.

So the question isn’t just:

“How do we rank?”

It might slowly become:

  • How to stay understandable across multiple LLMs?
  • Do we remain trustworthy enough to be referenced?
  • How do we design content that works for both humans and machines?

We don’t have all the answers yet. And maybe that’s okay.

Because this isn’t a fixed destination. It’s something that’s still taking shape.

And as it does, SEO may continue to evolve alongside it. Not disappearing, not being replaced, but adapting to a web that is becoming more dynamic, more layered, and a little less predictable.

The post Ensuring continuous discoverability with agentic AI for SEO appeared first on Yoast.

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Web Design and Development San Diego

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

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Watch this video on YouTube

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PPC clicked faster than SEO

Marvin started on the SEO side at a small agency.

Then the paid search manager went on holiday.

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

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

That speed changed everything.

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

Google won by moving faster

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

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

Marvin believes the difference was focus.

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

Early PPC was painfully manual

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

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

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

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

Search Engine Land became the industry’s newsroom

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

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

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

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

The search community has always been different

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

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

That culture of learning helped define the industry.

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

AI is not as new as people think

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

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

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

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

Consumer behaviour is changing search

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

It is how people search.

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

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

Success still means business outcomes

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

It still comes down to business outcomes.

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

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

The next 20 years will reward curiosity

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

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

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

The same thing is happening with AI.

PPC marketers say they love change — until it happens

Marvin’s reality check for the industry was simple.

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

Her advice is to take a longer view.

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

Her advice: start experimenting

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

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

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

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

What she is proudest of

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You need structure.

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

Marketing Strategy Framework

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

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

Marketing Strategy Workbook

Step 1: Define Your Primary Business Goals

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

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

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

  • Demand generation
  • Brand awareness
  • Retention or expansion

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

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

Smart Goals

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

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

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

Here’s an example:

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

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

Fireflies – Referral program

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

Why?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marketing Strategy Workbook – Step 1

Step 2: Pinpoint Your Unique Value Proposition (UVP)

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

Why should someone choose you over the best alternative?

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

Here’s how to figure it out:

First, identify and analyze your best customers.

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

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

Once you’ve built that list, ask yourself:

What do these customers have in common?

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

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

Marketing Strategy Workbook – Step 2

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

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

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

Anchor your UVP to a real outcome.

Then, define your defensible difference.

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

That could be:

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

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

Finally, pressure test your analysis.

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

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

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

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

DoorDash – Homepage

This simple UVP defines:

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

The same story shows up everywhere.

Homepage messaging. App story copy. Email newsletters.

Most Convenient Week Ever

The result of having that solid UVP?

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

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

Step 3: Perform Audience Research

Your UVP is your hypothesis.

Now, it’s time to validate it.

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

  1. Customers
  2. Market perception
  3. Competitors

Simple Audience Research Framework

First, let’s start with customer research.

Your goal: understand what your customers actually care about.

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

Then, answer these four questions:

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

You don’t need months of research.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reddit – Omnisend comment

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

Google SERP – Omnisend

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

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

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

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

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

AI SEO – Brand Performance – Omnisend – Key business drivers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Animalz – Flagship content frameworks

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

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

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

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

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

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

Step 4: Choose Your Marketing Channels

You can’t reasonably “be everywhere.”

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

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

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

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

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

Hubspot – Masters in marketing

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

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

Google AI Mode – Best savings accounts – Nerdwallet

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


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

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

TikTok – Duolingo

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

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

TikTok – Lenkalul – Glossier

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

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

Google SERP – Shopify ad

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

Advertising Research – Shopify – Ad history

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

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

Notion – Templates

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

Ask:

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

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

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

Marketing Strategy Workbook – Step 4

Step 5: Solidify Your Messaging and Differentiation by Channel

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

This step is about finding the right balance.

For each channel, define:

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

But your core promise stays intact.

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

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

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

Marketing Strategy Workbook – Step 5

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

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

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

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

TikTok – Duolingo video

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

Instagram – Duolingo

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

Facebook – Duolingo

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

LinkedIn – Duolingo

Same brand. Same core message. Different execution.

That’s what you’re aiming for.

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

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

Step 6: Assign Project Owners and Resources

A marketing strategy only works if someone owns it.

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

Before assigning that owner, do a quick reality check:

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

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

Marketing Strategy Workbook – Step 6

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

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

Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed

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

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

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

Step 7: Establish KPIs and a Reporting Plan

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

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

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

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

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

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

TikTok – Nike

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

How does this tie back to revenue?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is enough to get started.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marketing Strategy Workbook – Step 7

Evolve Your Marketing Strategy as You Grow

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

You now have a clear structure with:

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

That clarity makes execution easier.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Best Social Media Management Tools for 2026

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Key Takeaways

  • The best social media tool depends on your goal. Scheduling, analytics, listening, and content creation all require different platforms.
  • All-in-one tools save time. Platforms like Hootsuite or Sprout Social help manage posting, engagement, and reporting in one place.
  • Automation improves consistency. Scheduling tools help you stay active without manually posting every day.
  • Analytics tools drive better decisions. The right platform shows what’s working so you can double down on high-performing content.
  • Social listening is underrated. Tracking mentions and conversations helps you understand your audience and spot opportunities.
  • Collaboration features matter for teams. Approval workflows, shared calendars, and role permissions make scaling easier.
  • Free tools can work, but they have limits. As you grow, paid tools usually offer better insights, automation, and integrations.

Social media is more than just a way to waste time online.

Social media is a big business.

Over 2.7 billion people are active on social networks, which accounts for approximately 37% of the global population.

Screen Shot 2017 01 24 at 12.45.19

Here’s how that user base breaks down among the top 7 social networks.

Facebook is by far the biggest.

social media statistics 580x290

That’s why I recently made a video about how to grow your Facebook brand.

Facebook isn’t the only channel, though. They’re all vital.

Marketing is important, but we’ll also need to track data to quantify our efforts and keep track with social media trends.

This post is a listing of the most powerful tools to organize, track, and quantify your social media efforts.

We’ll start with the free tools.

Free tools

I’m a big fan of free tools.

The freemium business model is alive and well in social media marketing tools.

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While many of these tools have premium plans and features, the free versions are still useful.

I don’t like to spend a lot of money on digital marketing, so I try using the free tools first.

So should you.

Here are the best I’ve come across (in no particular order).

1. Social Mention

Social Mention is a free, web-based app that can track brand mentions across blogs, microblogs, your bookmarks, social media, and more.

Here’s how my website, NeilPatel.com, looks.

Neil Patel Social Mention

Sentiment is a great measurement tool you don’t get by default on social platforms.

My mentions are almost entirely neutral and positive, which is what marketers tend to be interested in.

Negative reviews have a place too, though. Understanding the context of mentions is just one Social Mention stat.

Learn keywords, mention frequency and reach, and more through the API or a custom RSS feed.

2. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is one of the best social media automation tools on the market.

Not only that, but this tool also allows you to customize streams to monitor and search for brand mentions across channels.

Neil Patel Hootsuite

This is done by typing the keyword you wish to monitor into the stream or streams you want to monitor it on.

I regularly use Hootsuite to automate social media for clients.

It’s an all-in-one tool for managing and analyzing your social media initiatives.

3. TweetDeck

X has definitely gotten better about data analysis over the years.

You can see your Tweet impressions and interactions relatively easily in the default API.

Still, X acquired TweetDeck in 2011 when it was still Twitter to provide a separate interface option.

TweetDeck

Using TweetDeck, you can monitor and administrate multiple accounts from one place.

It also includes power-user features like the ability to sort by and search for hashtags, keywords, trends, favorites, and more.

TweetDeck is the perfect app for agencies or companies that work with multiple X accounts.

It’s exclusive to X, however, and it no longer supports other social networks like Facebook.

4. SumAll

SumAll is one of the most comprehensive cross-platform reporting tools.

The amount of data reporting available is astounding, and you’ll receive regular email digests that track trends automatically.

View your X, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook engagement, reach, audience quality, and more with this handy tool.

sumall8 e1427219868797

This is one of my favorite features.

What’s the point of having a large following if most of them are fake?

SumAll helps you find that out and more.

With daily and weekly email updates, you’ll always know exactly where you stand on social media.

You’ll also be able to track that information historically.

5. Followerwonk

Another tool that focuses entirely on X, Followerwonk, is a tool by Moz to provide deep insights.

The free version can monitor one account, analyze up to 25,000 followers, and compare your account to accounts with up to 150,000 followers.

followerwonk

You’ll have to pay for pro features to download reports, but the free version still provides plenty of power.

With Followerwonk, you can search through X bios, connect with influencers, and more.

It’s best used to help plan, research, and implement social influencer and micro influencer programs.

6. HowSociable

The best feature of HowSociable is the ability to see, at a glance, how you’re doing on each social network.

The visual interface for the free version shows mentions across 12 sites, including Tumblr, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google Plus, Reddit, WordPress, Blogger, and Foursquare.

With a premium account, you’ll be able to view up to 36 platforms.

Neil Patel HowSociable

You’re given a score based on several metrics, and you can check out competitors, too!

I’m clearly lagging most in my Google Plus, LinkedIn, and YouTube accounts. Now I know where to dedicate my resources.

If you need a big-picture social scoreboard, look no further than HowSociable.

7. Klout

Klout is another platform that provides a simple score to show your social media reach.

It also shows what subjects you’re influential in.

klout

Simply log in and connect your X, Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress, Blogger, and YouTube accounts.

You’ll then be presented with cross-channel measurements of your reach and engagement.

Brands also use Klout to connect to micro-influencers and to schedule social posts.

It’s not the final word in your social reach, but it’s a great barometer.

8. TweetReach

TweetReach is another X-exclusive tool that’s useful for finding out more about your followers and brand mentions.

Check out how my username, @NeilPatel, stacks up.

Tweetreach

I reach 481,939 people, nearly twice my actual follower count.

This is useful information to determine how influential your followers are.

You can use this data to guide your influencer programs and to determine who to follow.

It’s a great tool to scout the competition, as well.

9. Crowdfire

Crowdfire is a powerful tool for growing your X and Instagram followings.

Whether online through the web app or on a mobile device, you can analyze your accounts and engage in real time.

crowdfire screenshot 2.png1435062217

Learn what your friends talk about, blacklist or whitelist followers, automate posts, and more.

This robust tool has a simple UI and can be used as your go-to social media reader.

On top of these features, it helps you share relevant content as you browse the web. It even provides suggestions.

Crowdfire is like having your own social media assistant.

10. SocialPilot.co

SocialPilot rivals Hootsuite and Buffer as one of the top social media automation tools around.

The free version lets you connect up to 5 social media profiles. From each of these, you can post up to 10 times per day.

Socialpilot connect account

Using one app to post while you’re on the go frees up a lot of space on your mobile device.

Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr are supported.

You can also access Pages and Groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ — a feature that Hootsuite lacks.

The app team is great about fixing bugs and engaging with the community across social media and the app stores.

Great support makes for a better user experience.

11. Buffer

There are a ton of debates online that compare Buffer versus Hootsuite, and I prefer Buffer simply for its ability to schedule Instagram posts.

It’s also as good as SocialPilot at accessing Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ Pages and Groups.

Here’s an interactive guide to connect a Pinterest account to Buffer.

authorize a pinterest account with Buffer

Buffer runs all links through its servers to shorten the URLs. This is an awesome feature for those who don’t like Bit.ly.

It’s an all-in-one social media tool that’s available on desktop and mobile devices.

While it’s more a matter of preference than anything, I prefer Buffer over SocialPilot, as well, in my own personal use.

That’s not to say they don’t both have comparable features.

12. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo has become my preferred tool for checking out how my blogs (and my competitors’ blogs) perform across the Internet.

It includes a great breakdown of social shares, too.

Content marketing

You’ll need to pay for the premium service to see a deeper breakdown of X users.

It can be invaluable information if you’re not able to scrape it yourself from X’s API or gather it from other free apps.

buzzsumo marketing technology influencers

You can find your page and domain authority, locate your followers, reply to other users, retweet content, and even follow users directly from the UI.

Since blogging fuels a lot of my social content, BuzzSumo has proven invaluable to me.

13. Cyfe

Everyone who knows me knows that I love data. Cyfe has one of the best data-analytics dashboards this side of Google.

It’s even better than Google Analytics because it goes where Google can’t.

Cyfe scans social media for its demographic data.

dashboard startup

Customized dashboards show how visitors are coming in from all around the world.

You can track revenue, your marketing funnel, social media, and more.

This business-intelligence dashboard is a game changer for social media marketing. It provides a holistic view of your overall efforts.

I’d even shell out for a premium version of Cyfe.

It’s that good!

14. Postific

Although not as refined as Cyfe, Postific is still worth mentioning.

It’s a great social media data-analytics tool in its own right, specializing more in social media demographics.

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Get breakdowns of likes and shares across Facebook, X, and LinkedIn by demographic.

Use Postific to guide your social media marketing efforts and see what hits and what doesn’t.

15. SharedCount

If you want to see how your URLs are doing on social media, SharedCount is a great place to go.

After signing up for a free account, you’ll be able to access the API and perform up to 1,000 queries per day.

Log in with your Facebook account to raise the limit to 10,000!

It even exports to CSV so you can import it wherever you’d like.

SharedCount

With a high-level overview, you can see how posts rank on SERPs versus social engagement.

This insight can change the entire course of your content marketing efforts.

16. LastPass

It’s easy to underestimate how many social accounts a marketing agency can have.

Even a single client can have dozens of logins.

Working on a virtual team compounds the problem.

LastPass resolves them.

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With LastPass, you can store and share logins anywhere. No longer will you fumble with whose Facebook or X account you’re posting in.

All your passwords for all your accounts can be stored in one spot.

This also helps when you need to revoke employee accounts after terminating them from your company.

Never underestimate the importance of operational tools in your marketing efforts.

Paid Tools

Sometimes you need more power than the free tools can provide.

Maybe you just need to simplify things, or perhaps your favorite social media tool went paid-only.

These are my favorite paid social media tools if you’re still not finding something you like.

1. Simply Measured

Simply Measured is a great data-analytics tool.

These BI dashboards can track your reach across social networks. It even mines data from Klout.

Simply Measured Klout Screenshot

This team can scrape all your social data and provide valuable insights into how to become a better marketer.

Whether you’re a social marketer, content marketer, or full-service digital agency, Simply Measured takes your analytics further.

Understand facts about the ages, locations, genders, and more about your followers.

Learn the time of day and day of the week when your posts perform best.

Simply Measured is worth the price, although the cost varies.

2. Mention

If you’re hoping to scale your social efforts to an entire team, Mention is a great place to start.

This simple UI monitors brand mentions across the web and social media, providing a ton of personalized insights.

mention dashboard

What I love most about Mention are the real-time alerts.

You can use Google Alerts to a certain extent, but they’re often way behind Mention.

I’ll typically find a mention of myself before my Google Alerts do.

Mention beats me to the punch every time. The plans start at $29 per month.

3. Klear.com

Klear is an influencer marketing dashboard that lets you search for and connect with influencers.

You can also use it to see how you rank as an influencer against your followers.

For example, let’s search cycling.

klear dashboard

Here we can find the most influential people who are discussing cycling in any country we want to target.

We can also check related keywords like biking, bikes, and cyclists.

From there, we can connect with these influencers and partner with them to promote our brand.

Cool, right?

The cost varies by the number of influencers you want to target.

4. Sentiment

Sentiment metrics help you analyze social performance across channels.

You’ll understand how customers engage with your brand, and you can even publish directly from the dashboard.

OneSM

Plans start at $250 per month, and this site gives you all the tools necessary to manage a team of 10 social media analysts.

Built-in CRM, SLA, and scheduling tools make Sentiment a valuable asset for marketing agencies.

Even an in-house social marketing team could use it. Sentiment gives managers a way to quantify social media efforts and ROI.

5. ZoomSphere

ZoomSphere has a great graphical interface that reminds me of an amped-up WordPress dashboard.

Color-coded projects, channels, and modules can be created to manage your social efforts within a drag-and-drop interface.

1

At $400 a month, it’s not cheap, but it’s one of the best social media management tools on the market.

This one-price-fits-all model is great for businesses that overuse other social platforms and end up paying enterprise premiums.

Set up reports, access online and phone customer service, and gain valuable insight into your cross-platform digital marketing efforts.

6. Meltwater

Formerly IceRocket, a free, real-time social search engine, Meltwater provides powerful analytics and insights.

Companies like Johnny Rockets, LogMeIn, and the University of Michigan use it to great success.

Plans are priced according to your specific needs and cover a wide array of social analytics and tracking services.

Dashboard logmein3

Real-time analytics are sorted into colorful graphs and charts that make it easy to see exactly where your brand stands online.

You can also view your live feed and interact across social channels in one place.

Meltwater will explain at a glance who’s talking about you, where they’re mentioning you, and how they feel about you.

7. Webhose.io

The Webhose.io API scrapes data feeds all across the web and social media.

If you’re mentioned anywhere from major media to a tiny blog or even a Tweet, Webhose will find it.

This data analytics company is basically selling all the data you can eat!

Webhose

Hook up a hose and grab as much as you can afford to find the most up-to-date information about any topic.

You may remember Webhose when it was known as Omgili (Oh My God I Love It!).

9cc6316e2f65caab717e7de3c2cfd90c

It was almost as good an Internet portal as Google itself.

Now it’s a paid service that you can use to make sense of data feeds around the Internet.

Don’t underestimate it because your competitors are likely using this type of data already.

FAQs

Which social media tool is best for small teams?

Buffer and Later are strong options for small teams. They’re easy to use, affordable, and focus on scheduling and basic analytics without overwhelming you. If you need more collaboration features, Hootsuite is a step up.

Which social media tool offers the best value?

Buffer gives solid value if you mainly need scheduling. Hootsuite and Sprout Social cost more, but they bundle scheduling, analytics, and engagement tools into one platform. The best value comes down to how many features you’ll actually use.

How many social media tools should a content team use?

Most teams only need two to three tools. One for scheduling (like Buffer or Later), one for analytics or management (like Sprout Social or Hootsuite), and optionally a listening or design tool. More than that usually creates friction.

Should you use an all-in-one tool like Hootsuite or separate tools like Buffer and Later?

All-in-one tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social work well if you want everything in one place. Separate tools like Buffer and Later are better if you want simplicity or lower costs. Start simple, then upgrade if your needs grow.

What features matter most when choosing a social media tool?

Look at scheduling, analytics, and ease of use first. Tools like Sprout Social and Hootsuite stand out for reporting and team features, while Buffer and Later excel at straightforward scheduling. Pick based on how your team actually works.

Conclusion

Social media is one of the biggest channels for marketing in 2017 and beyond.

Everyone’s on social media, and brands are rushing to reach consumers where they congregate online.

Unfortunately, it can be a difficult task to stay active on so many social feeds.

Digital marketing agencies don’t have it any easier.

An analyst working at an agency could be in charge of dozens of Facebook, X, Instagram, and LinkedIn feeds at any given moment, and need to have the best social media content for each channel.

Keeping track of everything is difficult without the right tools.

I showed you my favorite social media tools. Now show me yours. If you need help choosing a social media agency, my team can help with that too.

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SEO 101: Basics for 2026

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Key Takeaways

  • SEO fundamentals don’t require a lot of technical expertise. Even beginners can get results by starting with keyword research, then building content quality and site structure around what they find. 
  • Strong SEO and AI visibility are built on the same principles. Authoritative content and a clear site structure help you rank in traditional search and get cited in AI-generated answers. 
  • User experience directly affects SEO. Page speed, mobile optimization, and easy navigation are confirmed Google ranking factors.
  • Links from high-authority sites signal trust to search engines and AI systems alike. Quality always beats quantity when building your backlink profile. 

Search engine optimization (SEO) remains one of the most reliable ways to drive consistent, targeted traffic to your site. 

That hasn’t changed. 

What has changed, though, is the environment in which it operates.

The difference now is that strong SEO doesn’t just help you rank on Google. It positions your content to be cited by the AI systems that increasingly shape what users see first.

This guide covers the SEO basics you need to build a foundation that holds up in both traditional and AI-driven search. If you’re new to SEO or tightening up an existing strategy, this is the right place to start.

SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s how you get your website to show up when people search for what you offer. 

More specifically, it’s the process of improving your site’s performance, authority, and structure to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), including the AI Overviews (AIOs) that now sit at the top of many results pages.

Google search results page showing an AI Overview answer

Google gets more than 80 billion visits every month. That’s a lot of potential customers, but modern digital marketers have to consider more than Google alone.

Social SEO’s potential to reach new customers is off the charts, too. Nearly half of consumers use TikTok as a search engine, and more and more people (Gen Zers, in particular) use social platforms like YouTube and Instagram to find content that answers their questions.

Visibility on those platforms (and in AI systems) follows many of the same principles of traditional SEO: authoritative content, clear structure, and direct relevance to what people are actually asking. 

The same is true for AI systems. Well-structured, credible content is what earns citations in AI Overviews and social search alike.

Why Is SEO Important?

AI taking up more SERP real estate doesn’t change the fundamentals of your marketing strategy. 

The best way to reach and convert your target audience is to focus on the keywords they’re most likely to search for and the intent behind those searches. Those fundamentals hold true across both traditional blue links and AI-generated answers citing your content.

According to seoClarity’s analysis of 432,000 keywords, 97 percent of AI Overviews cite at least one source from the top 20 organic results, proving ranking well is a reliable path to AI visibility. 

If that tells us anything, it’s that ranking well in traditional search and earning visibility in AI-generated answers are built on the same foundation. 

That foundation is helpful content built around Google’s experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trust (E-E-A-T) framework. It applies just as directly to AI visibility as it does to traditional rankings.

The businesses writing off SEO as dead are the ones that will fall behind. 

How AI SEO Works

AI SEO shares the same foundation as traditional SEO, but they serve different purposes. 

Traditional SEO earns you visibility in organic SERP links. AI SEO earns you citations inside the AI-generated answers that now sit above them. 

Here’s how the two compare at a high level:

Traditional SEO AI SEO
Primary goal Rank in organic search results Get cited in AI-generated answers
Key signals Keywords, backlinks, on-page optimization E-E-A-T, brand mentions, structured data, topical authority
Content format Keyword-optimized, intent-matched Clear structure and direct answers, ideally in FAQ format
Success metrics Rankings, organic traffic, click-through rate (CTR) AI citations, brand mentions, share of voice
Technical foundation Crawlability, site speed, HTTPS, mobile Same, plus schema markup and structured data

Strong SEO basics build the infrastructure that AI systems draw on when deciding what to cite. 

Nail the basics, and you’re not just competing for blue links. You’re competing for the answer, too.

Setting Yourself Up for SEO Success

Before getting into the SEO basics, make sure you have the right foundations in place.

Your domain name matters more than people think. Something straightforward and related to your business will perform better in search. A .com extension is the gold standard, but .net and .co are solid alternatives.

Your hosting platform is equally important. Choose one that prioritizes security and facilitates fast page loading. Page speed is a confirmed Google ranking factor, and a slow site hurts both your rankings and your users.

A logical site structure helps search engines find and index your pages. It also helps visitors quickly and intuitively navigate to whatever they’re looking for.

Kim's Restaurant website site structure diagram example

You’ll notice Kim’s Restaurant (above) as an example. 

The homepage branches into four main category pages: Menu, Locations, Catering, and About. Only one of those categories (Locations) goes a level deeper, with a dedicated page for each neighborhood. Every page has a clear parent, and the structure mirrors how a real user would navigate the site.

None of this needs to be perfect on day one. Jonathan Hoffer, SEO Manager at NP Digital, puts it well: 

“Often, when starting an SEO program, perfection is the enemy of starting. Zeroing in on your audience and what they’re searching for can help. The path to the top of the SERPs begins with a single article being published.”

Common SEO Myths

Before going further, it’s worth clearing up a few common SEO misconceptions that tend to trip people up:

  • SEO produces instant results. It doesn’t. Most strategies take three to six months before you see meaningful movement in rankings.
  • More keywords mean better rankings. Keyword stuffing actually hurts your rankings. Google rewards relevance and context, not repetition.
  • You only need to do SEO once. Search is a moving target. Algorithms are always being updated, and competitors are constantly adapting their strategies.
  • AI has made SEO obsolete. As we covered above, strong SEO is still the most reliable path to both organic and AI visibility.

SEO Subtypes

SEO breaks down into several subtypes. Depending on your target audience and your goals, certain types of SEO will matter more than others. Here’s a quick breakdown:

  • On-page SEO optimizes the content and HTML elements on individual pages, including keywords, title tags, meta descriptions, and headings. These are foundational elements in ranking for the right queries.
  • Off-page SEO builds your site’s authority through external signals, primarily backlinks from credible websites. More trust from other sites means more trust from search engines. 
  • Technical SEO optimizes your site’s infrastructure so search engines can crawl and index your content correctly. This covers site speed, mobile-friendliness, HTTPS, and structured data.
  • Local SEO improves your visibility in location-based searches. It’s critical for brick-and-mortar businesses and service providers targeting customers in specific areas.
  • International SEO optimizes for audiences in different countries and languages. It’s particularly relevant for brands looking to grow beyond their domestic market.
  • Social SEO optimizes your presence on social platforms like TikTok and YouTube, which increasingly function as search engines in their own right.

SEO, GEO, and LLMO

AI-powered search tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Mode have sparked the creation of two more SEO subtypes: generative engine optimization (GEO) and large language model optimization (LLMO). 

GEO focuses on structuring your content so generative AI systems pull from it when composing answers. 

LLMO goes a step further, optimizing your brand’s presence across the large language models that power those systems.

The underlying principles closely mirror conventional SEO. Traditional ranking signals like strong E-E-A-T and clean site structure carry weight in GEO and LLMO, just as they do in traditional search. 

SEO Basics #1: Keyword Research

Keyword research is the process of identifying the specific words and phrases people use when looking for information on search engines.

For example, a vegan restaurant could use keywords like “vegan restaurant near me” and “best vegan burgers” in its website copy and blog posts to help it rank on the first page of Google. 

Good keyword research can reveal:

  • How many people are searching for a specific keyword or phrase.
  • The search intent behind those queries. Are people looking for information, or are they ready to buy?
  • How relevant a keyword is for your target audience and content.
  • How competitive a keyword is based on what other sites are ranking for it.
  • Long-tail keywords that surface your audience’s pain points and suggest content topics.

Start by brainstorming relevant topics for your business, then run them through a keyword research tool like Ubersuggest or Semrush. Use what you find to shape your content strategy. 

Here’s a look at the keyword opportunities our friends at the vegan burger restaurant might have:

Ubersuggest keyword ideas for vegan burger search terms

Source: https://app.neilpatel.com/en/ubersuggest/keyword_ideas/

Also, remember that search results are always changing. Be sure to revisit your strategy regularly as algorithms and competitors evolve.

Quick Tips for Keyword Research

  • Brainstorm seed keywords. Start with basic terms relevant to your business and industry, and use those as the foundation for deeper research. 
  • Understand your audience. Identify the exact words and phrases potential customers type when searching for your product or service. 
  • Target long-tail keywords. More specific phrases people use when they’re closer to a buying decision tend to have less competition and higher conversion rates. 
  • Analyze competitor keywords. Look at what your competitors rank for to find gaps and opportunities worth targeting. 
  • Explore related keywords. Identifying terms closely related to your primary keywords helps you avoid keyword cannibalization. 
  • Consider search intent. There are four types: informational (question-based queries), navigational (website- or webpage-specific queries), transactional (product or service queries), and commercial (research-based queries featuring words like “best” or “review”).

SEO Basics #2: Create Effective, Optimized Content

Good content is fundamental to SEO.

Useful content, from articles and infographics to videos and e-books, earns links from other websites. Prospective customers will also see you as a reliable, credible source of information.

Here’s what my colleague Matthew Santos, Chief Product Officer at NP Accel, has to say about content marketing:

“Over the past 20 years, we have seen so many new features come out from Google that have caused SEOs to adopt new tactics, but one constant we have never seen Google move away from is the importance of high-quality content. As we have continued to double down on high-quality content, we have seen thousands of customers over the last five years survive every single one of the major core algorithm updates.”

Regularly creating informative, relevant, and optimized content is one of the primary ways to grow your organic presence. It’s not a guarantee, but it stacks the deck in your favor alongside other SEO best practices.

Add your keywords where they feel natural and relevant. Stuffing keywords into your copy can make it unreadable and much less effective, causing your pages to drop in the rankings.

It also helps to add a key takeaways section at the top and an FAQ section at the bottom of your blogs. Both improve readability for human visitors and make your content significantly easier for LLMs to parse and cite. 

Here’s what each looks like in practice:

Key takeaways box example from NP Digital SEO blog
FAQ accordion section from NP Digital SEO blog post

Source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/keyword-cannibalization/

Quick Tips for Content Creation

  • Brainstorm content ideas based on audience needs. Use your target keywords to generate topics. A plumbing business targeting “how do I fix a sink” could turn that into an article explaining why hiring a professional is better than DIY. 
  • Write clearly and concisely. Provide helpful information and cut the fluff. Use headings, bullet points, and formatting to improve readability and make content skimmable. 
  • Implement E-E-A-T. Write well-researched and accurate content supported by expert quotes. Cite your sources, and build author bio pages that showcase each contributor’s credentials, demonstrating their status as subject-matter experts (SMEs). 
  • Incorporate relevant keywords. Include your target keywords to optimize content for SEO, but always prioritize natural, readable prose over keyword density. 
  • Use proprietary data. First-party statistics and unique insights give AI systems and readers something they can’t find anywhere else. 
  • Try different content formats. Different formats serve different purposes. Infographics, for example, work well for data and case studies build authority, while blog posts drive ongoing organic traffic.
  • Repurpose and refresh old content. Repurposing your old content is one of the best ways to get the most value from it. For example, long-form content could be compiled into an e-book or published as a newsletter series. Updating dated references, stats, and facts keeps older posts relevant and valuable over time.

SEO Basics #3: Optimize Your Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

Title tags and meta descriptions tell search engines what your site is about, helping them match your pages to the right search queries.

Optimizing them drives more traffic to your site and gives searchers a clearer picture of what you offer. They also directly influence your click-through rate, the percentage of users who see your listing in a SERP and decide to click it.

Title tags signal to visitors what they can expect to read. They should spark curiosity and encourage your audience to go deeper into your content.

Think of meta descriptions as a quick sales pitch. They’re your chance to attract and engage your audience right from the search results page, before they ever reach your site.

Urtopia meta description example in Google search results

Urtopia’s meta description above tells e-bike shoppers exactly what they’ll find before they click. It provides a clear signal that pulls in the right audience and filters out the wrong one.

Quick Tips for Crafting Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

  • Include relevant keywords. Keywords in title tags and meta descriptions boost your content’s visibility in search results, just as they do in body copy. 
  • Place keywords close to the beginning. Search engines prioritize the most relevant content. Front-loading your keywords sends a clear signal about what the page covers. 
  • Keep them focused and concise. Aim for 150–160 characters in a meta description that conveys the main benefit or unique selling proposition. 
  • Use action-oriented language. Words like “now” and “today” create urgency, while action verbs like “discover” and “learn” can draw readers in. 
  • Test variations. Try different keywords and sentence constructions to see which drives the highest click-through rates.

SEO Basics #4: Focus on User Experience (UX)

User experience (UX) refers to how easily people can use your website and find what they need. It’s one of the most overlooked areas of basic SEO for a website, as it’s consequential for rankings.

A user comes to your site to find a product or information. Your design and visuals can add real value, but they can’t compensate for a slow, confusing, or inaccessible site. 

Google knows this. 

Page speed and mobile-friendliness are confirmed ranking factors, and ease of navigation sends strong signals about usability, too. A site that frustrates users sends negative signals to search engines, while one that keeps visitors engaged sends positive ones.

According to Google, 53 percent of mobile users will abandon a site that takes longer than three seconds to load, confirming that mobile-friendliness and page speed are non-negotiable UX factors.

A positive user experience keeps visitors on your site longer and encourages them to explore multiple pages. Engaged visitors are also more likely to sign up for a newsletter or download a resource, leaving behind the engagement signals that tell search engines your site is useful.

Quick Tips for Improving UX

  • Increase site speed. Page speed is one of the most important ranking factors. Compressing images and removing unused plugins or third-party widgets can meaningfully improve load times.
  • Simplify navigation. Your main menu should be logical and easy to understand. Use submenus or drop-down menus to organize additional pages rather than overwhelming visitors with too many options at once. 
  • Reduce clutter. Too many ads and pop-ups are distracting, particularly on mobile devices. 
  • Provide clear calls to action. Don’t make visitors hunt for a way to schedule an appointment or view a demo. Most won’t stick around long enough to find it. 
  • Make your website accessible. An accessible website means everyone can use it and keeps you compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

SEO Basics #5: Prioritize Mobile Experience

Mobile devices now account for more than 62 percent of global website traffic, and that number keeps climbing. Catering to mobile users is a must if you want your content to rank.

Google uses a mobile-first approach to indexing, meaning it crawls the mobile version of your website to understand and rank your pages.

A mobile-responsive website is essential. That means designing and coding your site so it automatically adjusts based on the device being used.

One of the best ways to test your mobile performance is Google’s Lighthouse tool for Chrome. It generates a detailed report like the one below, and tells you exactly what to fix.

Google Lighthouse report showing 97 performance score

Quick Tips for Improving Mobile Experience

  • Design for touch interaction. Larger buttons and clickable elements make it significantly easier to navigate on a small screen. 
  • Keep content concise and scannable. Users reading on phones move fast. Short paragraphs, clear headings, and bullet points help them find what they need quickly. 
  • Streamline forms and checkout processes. Minimize the number of fields and make error messages clear and easy to see on a small screen. 
  • Optimize images for mobile. Large, uncompressed images are among the most common culprits of slow mobile load times. Compress them and use responsive image sizing. 
  • Test across devices. Your site may look fine on one phone and break on another. Regular cross-device testing catches issues before your users do.

SEO Basics #6: Build Links

Backlinks from high-authority, relevant sites send a trust signal to Google. It’s like having somebody vouch for you. The more credible sites that link to yours, the more likely you are to rank well in the SERPs.

For example, here’s the Ubersuggest backlinks report for my own site. I’ve got a strong spread of backlinks across a range of sites, which signals to search engines that my website is a reliable and trustworthy source of information.

Ubersuggest backlinks report for neilpatel.com domain

Source: https://app.neilpatel.com/en/seo_analyzer/backlinks?domain=neilpatel.com&lang=en&locId=2840&mode=domain

AI systems like Google’s AI Overviews and ChatGPT increasingly favor sources with strong third-party credibility. Brand mentions and citations across the web all signal that your content is worth referencing. 

Quick Tips for Building Links

  • Create valuable, educational resources. Original research, comprehensive guides, and data-driven content are the types of assets other sites naturally want to reference and link to. 
  • Fix broken links. Use tools like Ubersuggest’s Site Audit feature to identify broken links on high-authority sites in your niche, then reach out and offer your content as a replacement. 
  • Pursue media requests. Platforms like Connectively (formerly HARO) connect you with journalists looking for expert sources. A single mention in a major publication can earn a high-authority backlink and boost your AI visibility at the same time. 
  • Run a competitive analysis. Identify which sites are linking to your competitors but not to you. Those are warm prospects. If your content is stronger, you have a compelling reason to reach out.

SEO Basics #7: Don’t Neglect Technical SEO

Good content won’t perform if your site has technical issues preventing search engines from finding and understanding it. 

Technical SEO is the foundation that makes everything else work.

Without it, even your best content may never get indexed or ranked. Addressing the technical side of your site makes sure search engines can interpret your content and serve it to the right audience.

Tips for Improving Technical SEO

  • Optimize your site structure. Create a logical, hierarchical structure for your website. This helps both users and search engines navigate easily. 
  • Improve site speed. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to identify and fix issues slowing your site down. Compressing images and leveraging browser caching are good starting points. 
  • Implement SSL. Secure your site with HTTPS. It protects user data and is a confirmed Google ranking factor. 
  • Create and submit a sitemap. Generate an XML sitemap and submit it through Google Search Console. This helps search engines discover and index your pages more efficiently. 
  • Fix broken links. Regularly check for and repair broken links. Tools like Ubersuggest or Screaming Frog can help identify them quickly. 
  • Manage duplicate content. Use canonical tags to indicate the preferred version of a page when similar content exists across multiple URLs. 
  • Optimize your robots.txt file. Make sure to configure your robots.txt file correctly to guide crawlers on which parts of your site to index and which to ignore. 
  • Monitor crawl errors. Check Google Search Console regularly for crawl errors and address them promptly to keep your important pages indexed.

SEO Basics #8: Measure Your Results

Monitoring your SEO strategy’s performance over time lets you make data-driven decisions to improve it and boost your rankings.

Analyzing SEO metrics helps you spot opportunities to replicate high-performing content and catch technical issues that drag your content down. 

It also helps you adjust your strategy to ensure you’re producing relevant, keyword-optimized content that targets the right audience. That’s what leads to higher organic traffic and better business outcomes that demonstrate SEO’s value to stakeholders.

With the rise of AI visibility, measurement now goes beyond rankings and clicks. So, you’ll need to monitor your presence in AI systems, too.

Tools like Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit and Otterly.ai let you track how often your brand is cited across AI-generated answers on platforms like ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews. 

Semrush domain overview showing AI visibility metrics

Source: https://www.tryprofound.com/blog/semrush-ai-visibility-toolkit-review

As AI search continues to grow, brands that measure both traditional SEO performance and AIO or GEO results will have a clearer picture of where they actually stand in search.

Quick Tips for Measuring Results

  • Define clear key performance indicators (KPIs). Choose the KPIs most relevant to your business that you can act on and improve, including traditional metrics like rankings and CTR, as well as AI visibility signals like citation frequency and share of voice. 
  • Use analytics tools. Good tools to get started include Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Ubersuggest for traditional SEO. For tracking AI visibility, platforms like Ahrefs Brand Radar and Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit are helpful. 
  • Create a regular tracking cadence. Consistent monitoring helps you identify performance changes and uncover new optimization opportunities. 
  • Benchmark your performance. Compare your results against industry standards and competitors to understand where you stand in both traditional search and AI-generated results. 
  • Conduct A/B testing. Test different content variations, keyword approaches, and structural changes to see what performs best across both search and AI platforms. 
  • Act on your results. Tracking your KPIs only matters if you take steps to resolve issues and build on what’s working.

FAQs

What is SEO?

SEO is the process of optimizing your website to increase the chances of it ranking high in search engine results. 

It includes a wide range of elements, including keyword research, content creation, backlinks, and mobile responsiveness.

How do I do SEO?

Start by auditing your existing content. Make your pages more readable, add keyword-optimized headings, and create unique title tags and meta descriptions. From there, work through the fundamentals covered in this guide.

What is on-page SEO?

On-page SEO is the process of optimizing the content and HTML elements on individual pages, including keywords, title tags, meta descriptions, and headings, to rank for the right queries.

What is technical SEO?

Technical SEO covers the infrastructure of your site, including speed, mobile-friendliness, crawlability, and structured data, ensuring search engines can find and index your content correctly.

What is local SEO?

Local SEO is the process of optimizing your online presence to appear in location-based searches, which is critical for brick-and-mortar businesses and service providers targeting customers in a specific area.

Conclusion

Modern-day digital marketing is often like trying to fire an arrow at a moving target. Learning the SEO basics makes it much easier to hit the mark, and there’s a lot you can do to boost your rankings, even with limited technical skills.

Start by reviewing your existing content. What can you do to add value to your pages and make it easier for visitors to find what they need? 

In today’s SERPs, hitting the mark means more than ranking on page one. It also means producing authoritative, well-structured content that also earns visibility in AI-generated answers.

Think of your audience and the search engines when working on your site. 
As your strategy matures, explore advanced SEO techniques and study the latest search engine trends to stay ahead of the curve.

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What are Backlinks and Why are they Crucial for SEO?

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 Key Takeaways

  • Backlinks are links from other websites to yours, and they still matter because they help search engines evaluate how authoritative and trustworthy your site is. 
  • Not all backlinks are equal. A few relevant, high-quality links from authoritative sites are usually more valuable than many weak or spammy ones. 
  • Backlinks support AI visibility because generative engines and language models favor content from authoritative, trustworthy sources, and backlinks are one of the clearest signals of that authority. 
  • Tracking backlinks means monitoring quality and growth. Pay attention to referring domains, anchor text distribution, and link stability over time. 
  • The best way to build backlinks is to earn them through useful content and targeted outreach. You will need to keep refining your approach based on what works. 

AI is reshaping search, but one traditional SEO practice has held its ground: backlinks.

A backlink in SEO is a link from another website that points to yours. These mentions across different websites help search engines understand how you fit into the overall picture of your industry, and sites that reference you repeatedly signal authority and trust to Google. That authority also carries weight in AI-driven search experiences, where AI platforms favor content from sources they consider trustworthy.

Backlinks still matter, and the case for them has only grown stronger as AI reshapes how search works.

So, What Exactly Are Backlinks?

A backlink forms when another site links to your page, signaling to search engines that your content is worth referencing. You may also hear them called inbound links or incoming links.

The screenshot below shows what a backlink looks like in practice, with one site linking directly to another as a reference.

Example backlink of Wikipedia linking to Plausible.io

Source: https://plausible.io/blog/backlinks-seo-guide

Nikki Brandemarte, Senior SEO Strategist and Local SEO Team Lead at NP Digital, explains it well: “Getting backlinks from reputable sources can demonstrate to Google that you have expertise on the topics you cover. I like to think of quality backlinks as a ‘vote of confidence’ that you know what you’re talking about.” 

Backlinks help search engines understand which pages other websites find useful and authoritative enough to mention. That same authority can also support visibility in AI search experiences, even if backlinks are not the main ranking factor there.

I’ll go into what makes a “good” and “bad” backlink later in this article. For now, the key thing to know is that backlinks are one of the clearest ways authority gets passed around the web.

Backlink Examples/Types

Dofollow backlinks are the standard links most site owners want. They allow search engine bots to crawl and index your site, passing authority signals that typically have the biggest SEO impact. These are the links worth prioritizing in your outreach and content efforts.

Dofollow HTML example: <a href=”https://example.com/”>anchor text</a>

Nofollow backlinks work differently. They carry a special HTML attribute that tells search engines not to pass authority, but they still drive referral traffic and keep your link profile looking natural. You’ll commonly find them on social media, forums, and sponsored content. Since 2019, Google has treated nofollow links as hints rather than strict directives, meaning some may still carry indirect value.

Nofollow HTML example: <a href=”https://example.com/” rel=”nofollow”>anchor text</a>

A healthy backlink profile includes both. Pursuing only dofollow links can signal to search engines that your links are artificially built rather than earned, which can work against you.

Why Are Backlinks Important For SEO?

Even as search has changed, backlinks still help search engines understand when other websites see your content as worth referencing. Authority and trust still influence rankings, especially for competitive topics.

Backlinks serve as a seal of approval from one site to another. They strengthen your site’s credibility and make it easier for search engines to surface your content in results. They’re also critical for driving targeted, quality traffic to your site. When someone clicks through from a relevant site, they arrive already interested in what you offer.

Backlinks also play a bigger role in the broader visibility ecosystem around search. Strong mentions and links earned through strategies like digital PR can support your presence across traditional and AI search.

Backlinks require ongoing attention, though. They aren’t “set it and forget it” things. A strong backlink profile is built over time and needs regular review. It’s an investment in your site’s long-term success and one of the clearest ways to build durable SEO authority.

Ubersuggest’s backlink profile displaying Ubersuggest’s domain authority and credibility.

Source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/free-backlink-tool/

Why Quality Backlinks Matter

Quality beats quantity when it comes to backlinks. 

A single backlink from a high-authority, relevant site can do more for your SEO than dozens of low-quality links. High-quality backlinks strengthen your site’s authority and can push your rankings higher in search results.

Going after links without caring about their quality is a recipe for trouble. It’s like inviting a bunch of strangers to your party without checking if they vibe with your crowd. This approach can tarnish your site’s reputation and lower its ranking.

High-quality backlinks share a few common traits:

  • Relevancy: A link from a site in a related or complementary field helps Google see your link as more valuable.
  • Domain or page authority: When authoritative sites link to yours, Google assumes your site is more trustworthy as well.
  • Dofollow links: These pass authority signals to your site and are worth prioritizing in your outreach efforts. That said, a healthy backlink profile includes nofollow links too, since an all-dofollow profile can signal to search engines that you built your links artificially.
  • Anchor text: Relevant anchor text can provide an even bigger potential boost to rankings.

What counts as a quality backlink can also vary by industry and competition level. In more competitive spaces, you may need stronger, more relevant links to stand out. That’s especially true for ecommerce link building, where product and category pages aren’t naturally linkable and quality links are harder to earn.

Low-quality backlinks typically come from sites unrelated to your niche, sites with questionable content, or known spam sources. Paying for links or accepting them indiscriminately puts your SEO at risk, regardless of how tempting a shortcut it may seem. 

Infographic: good vs. bad backlink quality traits

Are Backlinks Important For AI?

Backlinks are still important in AI-driven search, though not as a direct ranking factor. Google has confirmed that the same core SEO guidance applies to AI features like AI Overviews and AI Mode, and backlinks are part of that foundation.

Backlinks support visibility across generative engine optimization (GEO), large language model optimization (LLMO), and answer engine optimization (AEO), the three major AI optimization frameworks shaping modern search. In GEO, which focuses on getting your content cited in generative summaries, backlinks signal the depth and authority generative engines favor. In LLMO, which shapes how language models understand and reference your brand, backlinks reinforce the consistent authority signals models rely on. Even AEO, which targets direct answer boxes and featured snippets, stronger backlink profiles help pages earn those placements more easily.

AI platforms tend to surface content from sites they consider authoritative. Semrush analyzed 1,000 unique domains and found a strong positive relationship between authority score, which reflects backlink quality, and how often a domain appears in AI-generated answers. The Pearson correlation of 0.65 and Spearman correlation of 0.57 from the study indicate a strong relationship, meaning sites with stronger backlink profiles show up in AI search results more consistently.

Publishing crawlable, useful content remains the priority, but backlinks across reputable sites reinforce that you are a trusted source worth surfacing.

Microsoft’s guidance on AI search visibility reinforces the same point, noting that traditional SEO fundamentals, including crawlability, backlinks, and content authority, remain central to whether content gets surfaced in AI-generated answers.

The chart below shows how different backlink metrics correlate with AI visibility across 1,000 unique domains. Authority Score, which reflects overall link quality, shows the strongest relationship by a significant margin.

Semrush’s bar chart showing the correlation between backlink metrics and AI visibility across 1,000 unique domains.

Source: https://www.semrush.com/blog/backlinks-ai-search-study/

For AI search, backlinks are one signal among many, but they remain a meaningful one.

How to Track Your Backlinks

Tracking your backlinks is just as important as building them. Backlink analysis tools show you which sites link to yours and help you catch problems before they affect your rankings.

A backlink analysis tool like my free backlink checker lets you:

  • Examine the quality of your backlinks.
  • Spot any links that could be dragging your rankings down, such as links from spammy or irrelevant sites.
  • Identify opportunities for higher-quality or more links.

You also want to understand which sites are linking to you, whether those sites are relevant to your niche, what anchor text they’re using, and whether your referring domains are growing over time. My backlink checker surfaces all of this in one place, giving you a clearer picture of whether your backlink profile is getting stronger or just getting bigger.

The tool also makes competitive analysis straightforward. Enter a competitor’s URL and you can see everyone linking to them but not to you, turning that gap into a list of actionable link-building opportunities. Advanced filtering lets you narrow results by region, anchor text, domain score, page score, and URL, and you can choose to view only dofollow or nofollow links. Once you’ve refined your results, you can export them to CSV for further analysis.

As you get more backlinks, monitoring them manually takes too much time and effort. The right backlink analysis tools make maintaining them much easier and help you make smarter link-building decisions and catch problems early.

Backlink Building Best Practices

You’re ready to start building backlinks, but you can’t just fire off pitches to every publisher with a major name. Here’s what Kimberly Deese, Director of Digital PR at NP Digital, has to say about it:

“Two factors that impact building high-quality backlinks are the target page you are trying to build links to and the number of opportunities that currently exist that are relevant to that target page. Personalize content to personas and specific use cases to create more opportunities to reach out and build that personalization into your pitch and call to action.”

The biggest best practice is relevance. Start creating content that’s valuable and relevant to your niche. Focus on content people want to cite, like original research or genuinely helpful guides.

You should also look for broken-link opportunities. When a site in your space points to an outdated resource, you can suggest your content as a replacement.

Media requests are another strong play. Journalists and editors regularly need expert quotes, and a strong response earns you authoritative links and mentions.

It also helps to study what’s already working. Competitive backlink analysis can show you which sites, formats, and outreach angles are earning links in your niche.
These are some core moves, but backlink building rewards consistency. Check out our full guide on how to build backlinks for a deeper look at execution.

FAQs

What are backlinks?

Backlinks, also known as inbound links or incoming links, are links from one website to a page on another website. Search engines treat them as endorsements, using them to evaluate your content’s credibility and relevance, which can improve your visibility and rankings. They also play a role in AI search visibility. AI platforms tend to surface content from authoritative sources, and backlinks are one of the clearest signals of that authority.

How do I build backlinks?

Building backlinks ethically means creating content that earns links organically and reaching out to reputable sites in your industry. The strongest approaches include original research that journalists want to cite, digital PR campaigns that earn coverage on authoritative publications, and broken-link outreach that positions your content as a replacement for outdated resources. Quality and relevance matter more than volume.

How do I check my backlinks?

Ubersuggest’s free Backlink Checker is a strong starting point. It shows you which sites link to yours, flags links that look spammy or weak, and tracks referring domains, anchor text, and new or lost links over time. Those metrics together tell you whether your backlink profile is genuinely strong or just large.

Conclusion

Backlinks are one of the most important parts of a solid SEO strategy. They build credibility and authority, and search engines notice. That same authority carries into AI-driven search, where platforms consistently favor content from sources they trust.

The work is ongoing. You need to track what you have, pursue broken link opportunities, cut what’s hurting you, and keep earning better links over time. When you approach backlinks correctly, the payoff compounds. Stronger links mean stronger rankings, and stronger rankings mean more of the right people finding your content.

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What is Connected TV Advertising?

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Key Takeaways

  • CTV advertising delivers video ads within streaming content on internet-connected TV devices, with targeting and measurement precision that linear TV never had.
  • Streaming accounted for 45.6 percent of all ad-supported TV viewing in Q4 2025, while only 36 percent of U.S. adults still subscribe to cable or satellite.
  • Inventory is expanding fast. Amazon has repositioned its demand-side platform (DSP) as a cross-screen programmatic platform, and Pinterest’s acquisition of tvScientific has brought discovery-based audience data into the CTV mix.
  • CTV advertising rewards intentional spend. Set clear outcome goals, keep frequency under control, and track metrics that connect to real business results rather than just impressions.
  • Not every business is a natural fit for CTV advertising, but self-serve buying tools have lowered the barrier significantly, making meaningful tests possible without a traditional TV budget.

According to Pew Research, 83 percent of U.S. adults watch streaming services, while only 36 percent subscribe to cable or satellite TV at home. In Q4 2025, 74.2 percent of all TV viewing was ad-supported, with streaming accounting for 45.6 percent of that share, the largest of any category, per Nielsen. 

Ad dollars are following the audience. According to IAB, CTV ad spend grew 16 percent year over year in 2024, and digital video surpassed linear TV (traditional scheduled television delivered via cable or satellite) for the first time that year, capturing 51 percent of total TV and video ad spend.

Here is what you need to know about CTV advertising to reach the right viewers on the biggest screen in the house.

What is Connected TV?

Connected TV (CTV) is exactly what it sounds like; televisions that connect to the internet. But it’s so much more than just smart TVs. CTV encompasses any device that allows you to stream content on your TV screen—think Roku, Amazon Fire Stick, and gaming consoles as well.

The shift towards CTV has been dramatic. In 2023, cable TV subscribers dropped to 72.2 million from 98.7 million in 2016. Why? Because 82% of American adults say streaming entertains them more than cable TV. It’s not just about cutting the cord—it’s about gaining control over what, when, and how we watch.

What Is CTV Advertising?

CTV refers to internet-connected devices that enable viewers to stream video content on a TV screen. This includes smart TVs like LG and Samsung, streaming sticks like Roku and Amazon Fire TV, and video game consoles like Xbox or PlayStation. 

CTV advertising is a form of digital advertising that delivers video ads within that TV streaming content. Ads can appear across ad-supported tiers of streaming services like Hulu and Peacock, free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels like Pluto TV and Tubi, and apps on streaming devices.

CTV ads give you the full-screen, lean-back viewing experience of traditional TV ads, with the reporting and optimization of paid digital. Google Display & Video 360 (DV360), for example, lets advertisers layer CTV-specific audience segments on top of first- and third-party data, going well beyond the demographic filters available in standard Google Ads campaigns. 

The screenshots below show the difference in targeting controls between the two platforms. Google Ads operates within Google’s own data signals, while DV360 lets you bring in your own customer relationship manager (CRM) lists and third-party data on top of that.

Google Ads vs DV360 CTV targeting options comparison
Google Ads vs DV360 CTV targeting options comparison

Source: https://improvado.io/blog/dv360-vs-google-ads

That kind of targeting sophistication is becoming the standard across the industry, and the major players have taken notice. Amazon has repositioned itself not just as a streaming platform but as a full-funnel, cross-screen programmatic ecosystem, reflective of broader trends in paid media. 

Through Amazon’s DSP, advertisers can now access inventory across its own distribution channels and third-party platforms like Netflix and Disney. Layering Amazon’s first-party shopper data on top of that inventory creates targeting and attribution capabilities that go well beyond standard streaming buys.

CTV advertising’s reach is expanding just as quickly as its targeting capabilities. Netflix’s ad tier generated $1.5 billion in revenue in 2025 and is expected to nearly double to roughly $3 billion in 2026. CTV ads on LinkedIn have also entered the mix, enabling B2B advertisers to reach professional audiences on connected TV screens through partners like Roku, Samsung, and NBCUniversal.

Metro Vein Centers is a good illustration of what CTV advertising precision looks like in practice. The clinic used CTV’s geotargeting to reach women in specific demographic groups near its physical locations, layering in a retargeting campaign to re-engage previous site visitors. The result was an 85 percent reduction in cost per site visitor.

How Does CTV Advertising Work?

Here’s how the CTV advertising process works from the moment a viewer hits play:

  1. Viewer Initiates: A viewer selects content to watch on their connected device. This could be anything from a Netflix show on a smart TV to a YouTube video on a gaming console.
  2. Publisher Transmits Data: The publisher (like Hulu or Roku) sends available viewer information to an ad exchange. This data might include device type, content genre, and any known viewer demographics.
  3. Auction Begins: An automated bidding process, known as real-time bidding (RTB), starts for this specific ad opportunity. This happens in milliseconds, before the content even begins to load.
  4. Platforms Share Information: Supply-side platforms (SSPs) provide more detailed information to potential buyers. This could include the viewer’s approximate location, the time of day, and the type of content being watched.
  5. DSPs Bid: DSPs with matching criteria automatically bid for the ad slot. If you’ve set up a campaign to target, say, sports fans in Chicago, your DSP will bid on this opportunity if it matches.
  6. Exchange Selects Winner: The highest-bidding DSP wins, and their ad is placed. If that’s your ad, it’s then served to the viewer as part of their streaming experience.

This entire programmatic advertising process happens in less than a second, across millions of devices simultaneously, matching your ad to the right viewer before content even loads.

There are three main ways to buy CTV ads:

  1. Open auction or RTB: Prices are determined during a real-time auction.
CTV programmatic buy supply chain diagram

Source: https://www.getpublica.com/blog/dont-chase-cookies-learn-how-ctv-targeting-really-works-the-state-of-ctv-targeting-1-2

  1. Private marketplace (PMP): An invite-only version of an open auction.
  2. Programmatic direct: Direct sales at a fixed price, bypassing the auction.
CTV direct buy supply chain diagram

Source: https://www.getpublica.com/blog/dont-chase-cookies-learn-how-ctv-targeting-really-works-the-state-of-ctv-targeting-1-2

The key players in this process are:

  • DSPs: Advertisers use them to manage bids and targeting. 
  • SSPs: Publishers use them to make inventory available to buyers. 
  • Ad exchanges: These are the digital marketplaces where SSPs and DSPs transact.

The buying process is getting smarter, too. NBCUniversal teamed up with agency RPA and ad server FreeWheel to test agentic AI systems that handle campaign planning, activation, and execution across both linear TV and streaming, including live sports. The goal is to let AI handle the operational grunt work so teams can focus on strategy.

Benefits of CTV Advertising

Here’s what CTV advertising can do for your marketing:

  • Precise targeting: You can reach specific audiences based on interests, behaviors, and locations. 
  • Real-time measurement: You’ll see who watched your ad, for how long, and what they did afterward. This instant feedback tells you what to change and when.
  • Reach expansion: CTV advertising lets you connect with viewers who’ve switched to streaming. 
  • Higher completion rates: CTV advertising’s targeting means your message is more likely to resonate, keeping viewers engaged to the end.
  • Agile campaigns: Unlike traditional TV, you can adjust CTV ads quickly. Spot an underperforming element? Change it immediately and see the impact.

You’ll need enough budget to generate meaningful signal, creative built for a full-size screen, and a clear sense of your target outcome. Self-serve buying tools have made entry more accessible than ever, but you still need enough spend to generate data worth acting on.

How to Plan and Execute a Connected TV Campaign

A strong CTV campaign doesn’t happen by accident. Here is what the CTV advertising planning and execution process looks like step by step:

  • Develop your strategy.
  • Choose the right platform.
  • Create compelling content.
  • Set your budget and bidding strategy.
  • Monitor and optimize your campaign.

1. Develop Your Strategy

Before you spend a dime, you need a clear plan:

  • Define your objectives: Are you aiming for brand awareness, lead generation, or direct sales? Be specific.
  • Identify your target audience: Who are you trying to reach? Provide as much detail as possible about your target audience’s demographics, interests, and viewing habits.
  • Set clear KPIs: Decide how you’ll measure success. It could be:
    • Impressions: Tracks how many times your ad is displayed.
    • Completion Rate: Measures the percentage of viewers who watch your entire ad.
    • Cost Per Completed View (CPCV): Tracks the cost for each viewer who watches your ad through to the end.
    • Brand Lift: Measures changes in brand awareness, perception, or purchase intent after viewing your ad.
    • Reach and Frequency: Tracks how many unique viewers saw your ad and how often.
    • Website Visits: Measures traffic to your website after running the CTV campaign.
    • Conversion Rate: Tracks the percentage of viewers who take a desired action after seeing your ad.
    • Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): Measures the revenue generated relative to your ad spend.
    • Foot Traffic: Tracks increases in in-store visits attributed to your CTV campaign for brick-and-mortar businesses.
  • Align with other marketing efforts: CTV works best when it reinforces messaging across your other paid and organic channels. If you’re running paid search or paid social, make sure your CTV creative is telling the same story.

2. Choose the Right Platform

CTV advertising platforms including Netflix Roku and Hulu

Source: https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en/blog/post/june-2024/making-ctv-accessible-to-everyone

Once your strategy is set, the next decision is where to run your ads. Here are your main options:

  • Smart TV manufacturers: These are TV brands, like VIZIO and Samsung, that have built-in streaming capabilities. They offer ad inventory across their native apps and sometimes partner channels. 
  • Streaming devices: These are external devices that connect to TVs to enable streaming. Roku, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire TV are a few choices, though Roku and Amazon also manufacture their own smart TVs. They provide ad opportunities across their platforms and partner apps.
  • Video streaming services: These content providers stream content directly to viewers and offer ad inventory within their programming streams. Hulu and YouTube are a couple of major players when it comes to CTV, but other apps like Netflix and Disney+ also offer advertising options. 
  • DSPs: These technology platforms enable you to buy ad inventory across multiple CTV sources, offering broader reach and more advanced targeting options. Amazon’s DSP and DV360 are two examples. 
  • Over-the-top (OTT) aggregators: OTT refers to video content delivered over the internet, bypassing traditional cable or satellite providers. CTV is the device used to view that content, like a smart TV or game console. In short, OTT is the delivery method, while CTV is the screen. Platforms like FreeWheel and Magnite aggregate ad inventory from multiple streaming services and devices, giving buyers a single point of access to diverse CTV inventory. Unlike DSPs, which operate on the demand side, aggregators work on the supply side, connecting publishers to potential buyers across multiple platforms.
  • FAST platforms: Free ad-supported services like Tubi, Pluto TV, and The Roku Channel have expanded rapidly into mainstream viewing. Tubi is already reaching more than 100 million monthly viewers, offering broad reach at competitive CPMs.
  • Social platforms: Social media platforms are increasingly entering the CTV space, extending their audience data and ad products to the television screen. Pinterest, for example, announced the acquisition of tvScientific, connecting its discovery-based audience data to TV reach. The platform’s first original CTV series, “Bring My Pinterest to Life,” launched on Roku in March 2026, giving brands a shoppable format that bridges upper-funnel inspiration with connected TV exposure.

Each platform type has its strengths, and the right choice depends on your campaign goals, audience, and budget. Smart TVs and streaming devices give you direct access to viewers, while DSPs and aggregators offer broader reach and more granular targeting. FAST platforms and newer entrants like Pinterest add scale and audience data that didn’t exist in CTV a few years ago. Most advertisers find that a mix works better than any single path.

3. Create Compelling Content

Good CTV creative has one job. It must earn attention on a screen where the viewer did not invite it in. A few principles separate the ads that work from the ones that get ignored.

  • Hook fast, stay clear. You have seconds before a viewer mentally checks out. Lead with the problem, the product, or a visual that demands attention. The message should land cleanly, even if speakers are muted.
  • Design for one takeaway. CTV is a lean-back environment. Viewers are not scrolling past your ad, but they are not taking notes, either. Pick one thing you want them to remember and build everything around it.
  • Give viewers somewhere to go. A QR code, a branded search term, or a simple URL gives engaged viewers a direct path to act. According to Innovid, interactive ads earn an average of 71 additional seconds of viewer time over standard pre-roll, suggesting that engagement formats are worth the extra production effort.
  • Match the creative to the audience. CTV targeting is precise enough to serve different messages to different household segments. A generic spot wastes that advantage. Tailor the message to those watching.
  • Think beyond the 30-second spot. Pause ads, overlay formats, and shoppable units are all part of the modern CTV creative toolkit.
    • Overlay formats appear during content and let viewers scan a QR code or click through to take an action like visiting a site or making a purchase.
    • Pause ads appear when a viewer pauses content and can include QR codes or direct response prompts.
    • Shoppable units let viewers buy directly from their TV when their retail accounts, such as Walmart or Amazon, are linked to their device.
CTV ad format examples including pause and shoppable ads
CTV ad format examples including pause and shoppable ads
CTV ad format examples including pause and shoppable ads

Sources:https://www.sabioctv.com/blog/top-8-ctv-ad-creative-units-to-boost-engagement, https://strikesocial.com/blog/getting-started-with-youtube-pause-ads-what-you-need-to-know/, https://www.collectivemeasures.com/insights/ctv-and-the-addition-of-shoppable-ads

Examples worth studying

Lexus used dynamic countdown creatives paired with a home screen roadblock on LG Smart TVs during the U.S. Open, reaching viewers the moment they launched the app before content even began. The campaign drove a 64 percent lift in brand perception, which is a strong illustration of how matching creative format to a high-attention moment can move brand metrics in a way a standard pre-roll spot cannot.

Another automotive brand used Vizio’s Inscape platform to target households identified as “auto intenders” on CTV, running seven campaigns across six models over three months. The campaign resulted in more than 2,600 vehicle purchases and delivered an average ROAS of $31.91, showing that CTV can drive high-value conversions when targeting is built around purchase intent rather than broad demographics.

Both cases illustrate what separates effective CTV from wasted spend. One shows how matching creative format to a high-attention moment moves brand metrics, while the other shows how building targeting around purchase intent drives measurable conversions. 

4. Set Your Budget and Bidding Strategy

CTV advertising rewards intentional spending over volume.

  • Start with a test budget, not your full commitment. Give the campaign enough room to generate real traction across audiences and placements before scaling. Industry guidance generally points to dedicating 15 to 30 percent of your digital video budget to CTV advertising as a starting point for meaningful testing.
  • Understand how CTV advertising is priced. Most CTV inventory is bought on a cost per mille (CPM) basis, with rates for most U.S. campaigns ranging from $20 to $40 per thousand impressions and many settling around $25 CPM, depending on targeting depth, content type, and inventory quality. Premium direct deals, such as those on Netflix, can push rates significantly higher. Cost per acquisition (CPA) is better thought of as an outcome goal than a bidding model, or something you optimize toward rather than bid on directly.
  • Allocate budget across platforms based on performance. If you are running across multiple publishers or buying paths, let delivery data drive where the money goes. Do not set it and walk away.
  • Set frequency caps. This prevents ad fatigue and stops you from burning budget on viewers who have already seen your ad enough times. Research suggests three to seven exposures optimize impact, while more than 10 can reduce purchase intent.

Spend less time chasing the lowest CPM and more time making sure your budget is working against the right audiences in the right environment.

5. Monitor and Optimize Your Campaign

CTV advertising gives you real-time performance data that most traditional TV buys never could. Here’s how to use it:

  • Track key metrics. Monitor impressions, completion rates, and conversions to understand whether the campaign is delivering and whether viewers are watching through to the end.
  • Analyze viewer behavior. Look at engagement patterns and drop-off points to understand where creative is losing attention and where it is holding it.
  • Adjust in real-time. Many platforms enable you to optimize campaigns while they’re running, rotating creative, or tightening targeting based on what the data is telling you.
  • Test and learn. Try different creative versions or bid strategies. Small tests compound into meaningful performance gains over time.
  • Connect online and offline data. Use attribution tools to understand how CTV exposure influences actions taken on other devices or in physical locations.

Run incrementality tests. Platform-reported metrics often undercount CTV’s true contribution. Comparing exposed households against a control group gives you a cleaner read on whether your campaign is changing behavior, not just reaching people who were already going to convert.

FAQs

What is connected TV (CTV)?

Connected TV (CTV) refers to any device that connects a TV screen to the internet to stream video content, including smart TVs, streaming sticks, and game consoles.

How does connected TV (CTV) advertising work?

Connected TV (CTV) advertising works by placing video ads within streaming content on connected TV devices, either through direct publisher deals or programmatic buying. Advertisers can then target, measure, and optimize campaigns using platform and publisher data.

What is the difference between CTV and OTT?

Connected TV (CTV) refers to devices that connect a TV screen to the internet, such as smart TVs, streaming sticks, and game consoles. Over-the-top (OTT) is the broader method of delivering video over the internet and can include phones, tablets, and desktops. A CTV buy targets that living room device specifically, while a broader OTT buy reaches audiences across all screens.

How much does CTV advertising cost?

Most connected TV (CTV) inventory is priced on a cost per mille (CPM) basis, with rates for most U.S. campaigns ranging from $20 to $40 per thousand impressions and many settling around $25 CPM, depending on targeting depth and inventory quality. Self-serve platforms have made it possible to test CTV without a traditional TV budget, though you still need enough spend to generate data worth acting on.

Conclusion

CTV has earned its place as a core part of any modern media mix. The brands winning on CTV right now are the ones applying the same discipline to testing and measurement that they bring to search and paid media. 

If CTV is not yet part of your 2026 media mix, start by defining your audience and picking a platform that fits your buying model. Strong video creative that holds attention on the biggest screen in the house will do the rest.

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Web Design and Development San Diego

How to build a YouTube analytics report in Data Studio

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How to build a YouTube analytics report in Data Studio

Creating video content takes time and budget, so understanding how it performs is critical.

YouTube’s native analytics in YouTube Studio are robust, but they’re locked behind account access. That can make reporting difficult — especially when you need to share data or don’t have direct login access.

Moving that data into Google Data Studio (formerly Looker Studio) makes it easier to analyze and distribute.

With Data Studio, you can:

  • Pull YouTube data into reports you already use.
  • Schedule automated updates for stakeholders.
  • Customize dashboards around the metrics that matter.
  • Track performance without relying on backend access.

Here’s how to pull your YouTube analytics into a Data Studio report.

Using a template or starting from scratch

You have two options when setting up a YouTube report in Data Studio.

  • If you want something quick and easy, you can use Google’s YouTube Analytics template from their template gallery. It’s a great place to start because it provides a clean, well-designed report with foundational metrics and puts you in a good position to understand which metrics are available. But know that this template has problems you’ll need to fix, which I’ll discuss below.
  • The other option is to create a report from scratch, which is a great choice if you already have a report you want to add a new YouTube Analytics page to, or if you just want to learn how to use Data Studio.

The information below will help you do both.

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If you’re not the YouTube account owner

If you’re setting up this report for a client, or if you’re not the owner of the YouTube account, you’re going to run into an issue where the YouTube account doesn’t show up as a usable source in Data Studio. Here’s how to get around it:

  • Go to YouTube Studio settings > Permissions, and give Manager permissions to the account email that you’re using in Data Studio.
  • Get the Channel ID from the channel’s YouTube URL.
  • Add a YouTube connector to Data Studio, go to Advanced, and paste the Channel ID.

You should now have access to that YouTube account.

Using the Data Studio YouTube Analytics template

From the Data Studio home page, click Templates > Template Gallery. Under the category dropdown, click on YouTube Analytics.

Clicking this will create a brand new Data Studio report that’s mostly ready to use. It loads up with sample data from the Google Analytics YouTube channel. Click the button at the top that says “Use my own data.”

The first time you set up a report, you need to authorize access to your data. Click the Authorize button.

Choose the Google Account connected to your YouTube channel, and then you’ll see any connected channels in the dropdown at the top of the page.

You’ll notice that the data doesn’t change when you select a site here. That’s because this dropdown is connected only to the other dropdowns next to it, not any of the charts on the page.

To update everything else on the page, click the Edit and Share button.

If this is the first time using Data Studio, you’ll also need to do some basic account setup.

Then click the Edit button at the top of the page.

Now you’ll need to add your YouTube channel as a source. Click the Add data button and then search for the YouTube Analytics connector.

If the Google Account is the owner of the YouTube account you connected to this Data Studio report, it’ll show up in the Channel section as an option. 

Your main YouTube channel will be in the My Channel tab, and other channels are in the All Channels tab, as shown below. 

If you don’t own the channel, see the section above to connect other channels that you don’t own, but have access to.

Now you’ll be able to change the data source on any charts on the page. Simply click a chart, and you’ll see the data sources available to you in the right Properties panel.

You can change the source of all of the charts on the page by selecting a chart, right-clicking on it, going to the Select menu, and then choosing “Charts with this data source on page” and then choosing your data source in the Properties sidebar.

You’re mostly done, but as mentioned earlier, there are some errors in this report that you’ll need to fix. The charts at the bottom of the report are using the wrong metrics.

I don’t know why Google hasn’t updated this template. It’s been like this for a long time, so I don’t know if they ever will. In the meantime, you’ll need to update the following.

Change:

  • Likes from “Average Watch Time” to “Video Likes Added”
  • Subscriptions from “Video Link” to “User Subscriptions Added”
  • Dislikes from “Average View Percentage” to “Video Dislikes Added”

The charts in the Comments section are correct, so you don’t need to change anything there.

Click on each of the charts highlighted above, one by one, and change the metric in the Properties sidebar.

And now the report is finished and ready to use. Click the View button at the top of the page to view the report in a view-only format.

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Copying a template into an existing report

Data Studio doesn’t support the ability to add or import templates into an existing report, but you can copy a page from one report to another. Follow the steps above to create a report using the YouTube Analytics Channel template, then copy it into another report.

To do that, go into Edit mode, select all (Ctrl+A or Cmd+A), and copy all (Ctrl+C or Cmd+C). Then, in your existing report, create a new page, and paste everything you’ve copied into the page (Ctrl+V or Cmd+V), or right-click on the page and select Paste.

All of the charts will likely come in broken, but you can easily update them using the tip mentioned earlier – right-clicking a chart, choosing Charts with this data source on page, and then choosing the correct source in the Properties sidebar.

Customizing your report

The YouTube template in Data Studio has most of what you need, but you can add much more.

There are some metrics you simply can’t get in Data Studio that you’d find in the official YouTube Analytics backend, such as revenue, how viewers find your videos, watch behavior, popular viewing times, device types, genders, and retention, so there are some big limitations, but there’s still plenty to work with.

To add more charts to your report, you’ll need to create more space at the bottom. In the menu, click on Page > Current page settings.

In the Style tab of the Current Page Settings sidebar, set the canvas size to something like 3,000 pixels. This will give you plenty of space to work with, and you can always shorten or lengthen it as needed later.

Now you can add many types of charts with a wide range of dimensions and metrics.

You can add multiple metrics to graphs to get the data you need for better analysis. You can also rename headers to clean them up, and make them look less cluttered.

You can pull in quite a lot of data. Here’s what’s currently offered:

Using Data Studio for ongoing YouTube reporting

Setting up a Data Studio report for YouTube is a great way to track your top-level metrics, and can be especially useful for monthly client reporting. It takes siloed, hard-to-share data from YouTube, and puts it into a clean, automated, centralized tool for easier decision-making.

You can also set up scheduling so that Data Studio sends automated PDF exports to your email.

That’s it. As you can see, it’s fairly simple to set up, but you can also add more advanced customizations to track many other KPIs.

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SEO reporting outgrew Data Studio — here’s what comes next

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SEO reporting outgrew Data Studio — here’s what comes next

Picture this: Your company relies on Data Studio for SEO reporting. 

It’s right before your next big meeting when you’re planning to present results… but Data Studio has an outage (again) and suddenly you have nothing to show. 

That’s embarrassing. And it happens more than it should.

It wasn’t even a year ago that I touted the benefits of Looker Studio (now Data Studio) for SEO reporting. Now the platform feels archaic compared to the agentic coding tools available today.  

Here’s how rigid SEO dashboards like those produced in Data Studio are holding you back and why code-driven SEO reporting is the only way to remain efficient and competitive.

The problem with Data Studio 

In the not-too-distant past, Data Studio was considered one of the best ways to customize SEO reporting. 

But things have evolved, and with new technology at our fingertips, Data Studio’s flaws are only becoming more pronounced. 

Here are some common issues that you may recognize when generating reports using Data Studio.

It’s easy to explode your dataset, and then everything breaks

You assume Data Studio can handle massive “Google-scale” data, but it’s buggy. For example, there are low limits on rows and fields, and even adding a few dimensions or joining multiple data sources can break the report at the worst times. 

You’re manually clicking through a slow interface

Every change in Data Studio requires manual updates. You’re clicking, refreshing and waiting to see whether it worked. That makes iteration painfully slow. Even with added AI features, they only address a small part of the report development workflow.

Relatedly, debugging reports is a nightmare

Whereas agents can simply scan files with code-based reports, in Data Studio, a user has to laboriously click around the interface. 

The API is weak

Like a lot of Google services, Data Studio isn’t built as an API-first platform. This is something Google got institutionally wrong decades ago. Not being able to manage the platform using external tools creates bottlenecks.

Despite its recent rebrand, Data Studio hasn’t become any more relevant — not with the technologies that are now in play for SEO reporting.

But it’s not just Data Studio. Really, what SEO teams are up against is the rigidity of any dashboard-based reporting tool. Now all that is changing.

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What’s changed: AI, APIs, and coding 

The shift away from rigid SEO dashboards is now possible because large language models are becoming more capable of generating reliable code, and APIs are accessible across many platforms.

This has led to the rise of AI-driven coding tools, including Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, and Gemini CLI.

At a high level, it works like this: You describe what you want in your SEO report, and they handle the heavy lifting. 

These tools are “agentic” because they can execute multi-step workflows like pulling data, transforming it, analyzing it, and then generating reports with minimal intervention.

You don’t need advanced coding skills to use them, but a basic understanding of data structures and APIs will make the process effective.

In practice, the entire reporting workflow can be done programmatically from start to finish.

They generate code that connects directly to data sources through APIs, removing the need to rely on dashboard connectors or preconfigured data pipelines.  

From there, they can analyze the data and create full reports. This can happen in minutes as you become more familiar with the tools.

While each of the tools I mentioned has different strengths (for instance, some are better at reasoning, others at speed or integrations), they essentially do the same thing: transform SEO reporting from a manual, rigid process into something with endless possibilities. 

The power of this technology is hard to overstate. 

Why AI coding tools are better for SEO teams

AI coding tools are removing the roadblocks between data, development, and reporting for SEO teams. 

Faster SEO reporting and analysis

Speed is the most obvious advantage. 

Agentic coding assistants are enabling SEOs to create reports that previously required support from developers.  

In many cases, tasks that previously took days can be done in hours and tasks that took hours can be done in minutes. 

You can see this improvement even in small interactions.

For example, when data is processed directly in the browser (instead of re-querying a dashboard), it makes filtering, sorting, and slicing data significantly faster. 

Instead of waiting for a dashboard to refresh after every change, you can interact with the data in real time.

That’s just one way these technologies make you more agile.

Flexible and custom reporting workflows

Instead of having to work in predefined templates and a fixed structure, you can build the report for exactly what the situation requires. 

Plus, every major data visualization and plotting library is available on demand in any programming language. 

If you feel like one approach isn’t capturing the whole story in your SEO report, you can switch or combine multiple frameworks in the same output. 

From rankings and traffic trends to keyword clusters or content performance, you can apply nearly any chart. 

The examples below come from Observable Plot, created by data visualization expert Mike Bostock, but many other charting libraries are available.

While setup and onboarding take some initial effort, these tools are accessible to most roles on the team and immediately become more efficient than traditional reporting.

Transparent data constraints

Data limitations are clearer, too. 

For example, when you’re working with browser-based charting libraries, you have a better feel for how many rows you’re handling and what the system can realistically process. 

And when you do hit a limit, you understand exactly what’s happening and how to adjust. This helps prevent misleading or incomplete reporting. 

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Real-world SEO reporting applications

What are some practical ways you can use these agentic coding assistants to run SEO reporting? 

Pre-meeting reports

Before client meetings, you can pull data from Google Search Console and GA4 via APIs, then have it cleaned and segmented programmatically and generate a notebook, dashboard or slide deck in a single workflow.

Technical SEO analysis

Say you need to analyze crawl data or log files. Instead of exporting, filtering, and then visualizing the data manually, you could get the raw data, process it with code, and generate custom visualizations tailored to the exact problem you’re trying to solve.

Ad hoc stakeholder requests

Once data connections are established, last-minute reporting requests no longer have to mean staying up late to pull data and build reports. The next time someone asks for something like “non-brand CTR trends by device over the last 90 days,” you can produce this data with much less effort. 

Really, if you can imagine it, you can do it with these agentic coding assistants. As a result, SEO teams can do more proactive analyses.

What this means for agencies and in-house teams

AI is impacting all knowledge workers, not just SEOs. 

By now, many have seen the viral article “Something Big Is Happening” by Matt Shumer, which paints a startling picture about the future of AI-powered work and adopting an “adapt or die” mentality.  

Research is beginning to show how these types of technologies are impacting productivity. 

One study by Stanford and MIT researchers found that access to AI tools in the workplace increases productivity by at least 14% on average, with a 34% increase for low-skilled workers. 

The bottom line is that anything that can be generated with code is going to be eaten by these CLI tools and agents, because they’re just so much faster. 

Businesses are catching on. Up to 64% of businesses now generate a majority of their code with AI assistance, according to a Business Insider report, and high-adoption teams are producing nearly double the output. 

For SEO teams, they’re experiencing faster reporting cycles, more iterative analyses, and the ability to handle more complex data.

AI coding assistants are also helping analysts become builders. Non-technical users can build and iterate in ways that were previously out of reach.

Ultimately, this shift is becoming table stakes. The SEO teams that integrate these tools into their workflows will move faster and produce better results. 

The competitive advantage is going to those who adopt these technologies first.

Where to begin, though? Consider piloting a small project:

  • Start with one repeatable reporting workflow.
  • Connect a data source like Google Search Console via API.
  • Test and refine a single report before expanding to other use cases.

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The future of SEO reporting is agentic and code-driven

Traditional SEO reporting tools are quickly becoming a bottleneck. 

AI coding assistants are helping SEO teams respond to any type of reporting without the added friction, while delivering faster, better insights. 

The companies that adapt will gain the advantage in SEO execution. Start by replacing one recurring report with a code-driven workflow and build from there.

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