Google is piloting a Labs section inside the Google Ads platform, giving advertisers a centralized place to access early-stage experiments and tools.
Why we care. Instead of quietly testing features across scattered accounts, Google appears to be consolidating experiments into a single hub, making it easier for advertisers to discover and try new features before full rollout.
Details.
The Labs section shows up at the bottom of the left-hand menu in select accounts.
Early tests include features like “missed growth opportunities,” which highlight potential campaign improvements through bid or budget adjustments.
Not all advertisers will have access to it.
First seen. The update was first spotted by Vojtěch Audy, PPC specialist at Na volné noze.
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Google is enhancing Meridian, its open-source Marketing Mix Model (MMM), to help marketers make smarter, more precise budget decisions.
Why we care. Understanding ROI across channels is increasingly critical. These new Meridian updates allow for a more precise understanding of what drives sales, factoring in both media spend and non-media variables like pricing and promotions.
The big picture. Here’s what’s new:
Non-media variables: Marketers can now include pricing, promotions, and other business levers to measure their impact on sales more accurately.
Channel-level contribution priors: New features let you guide the MMM with your own business knowledge, improving the relevance of insights.
Longer-term effects: Enhanced binomial adstock decay functions track how upper-funnel media influences purchases weeks later.
Optimized spending: Marginal ROI (mROI) priors help pinpoint where the next dollar delivers the highest return, using past campaign performance.
Support and community. Meridian now has 30 certified global partners and an active Discord community, offering guidance to deploy the tool effectively and translate insights into business growth.
The bottom line: These updates aim to transform Meridian from a measurement tool to a strategic partner for budget allocation. This means Meridian can help marketers optimize spend across immediate conversions and longer-term brand impact.
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The history of search offers clues about where we’re headed in the AI era – but there’s more to learn and more to do to move forward with practical steps.
AI changes the way people search. Instead of short queries that once required digging through blended results, users can now ask complex questions and get direct answers.
Much of the work to optimize for AI, though, overlaps with what SEO professionals have been doing for years. Our community is already adapting and well-positioned to take on this shift.
This article outlines practical steps to navigate the evolving landscape.
SEO, AEO, GEO: Defining the new terms
Before diving in, it’s worth addressing the terminology. It’s still new, and no single label has fully crystallized for this AI layer on top of SEO.
Two terms have gained traction:
AEO (answer engine optimization), which focuses on optimizing content so it’s chosen as the answer in AI-driven results like Google’s AI Overviews.
GEO (generative engine optimization), which describes a broader approach across generative AI platforms.
Neither feels perfect. AEO is a bit clunky, and GEO risks confusion with geography and local search.
Still, these are the terms currently in use. For simplicity, I’ll use GEO in this article.
While tools like ChatGPT are undoubtedly cool – and early adopters, myself included, are spending a lot of time tinkering – the broader story is different.
For most people, AI will matter less as a standalone tool and more through its integration into phones, web browsers, and search engines.
GEO is a new layer that sits above SEO.
Often, tools like ChatGPT will search and compile information.
These tools provide a layer of abstraction and do much of the grunt work.
They still scan the digital world and then collate that information to simplify things for the user, while search engines like Google continue to provide the best overall digital map of the world.
If traditional SEO was about matching keywords, AEO is about being the best answer – and the easiest to integrate into an AI response.
GEO: Strategic foundations
There’s no firm consensus on GEO tactics, but most of what’s recommended is simply good SEO.
That said, tactics that lost ground in the zero-click landscape may regain utility in AI Mode, where the AI does the deep dive and collates information for users.
Here are some basic strategic foundations to put in place to set yourself up for visibility in AI tools.
1. Focus on your customers
I’ve long championed bringing traditional marketing thinking into SEO, and GEO is the natural evolution of that approach.
Know your audience. Create personas, gather feedback, and define their goals, pain points, and the jobs they rely on your product or service to support.
Customer insight is key to building a customer-first strategy that helps you stand out in the age of AI.
2. Real expertise wins
The web is full of derivative content that does little to stand out. This creates a problem for AI.
Model collapse happens when AI keeps training on AI-generated content without new signals, leading to increasingly stale and inaccurate results.
The solution is what humans are still best at – fresh insights from:
Interviews.
Original research.
Proprietary data
These provide AI with something new – and worth citing.
That’s an opportunity. Have a voice, and bring something original to the table.
AI is helping people research and make purchase decisions. Your role is to be part of the discussion.
Modern SEOs are in good shape – much of what AI requires builds on the strategic SEO work we already do.
Add in some PR, social media, and content creation (which often sit under the SEO umbrella), and you’re well on your way to a functional GEO strategy.
Getting started is crucial. To stay ahead:
Create content worth quoting: Write the piece an AI (or a human journalist) would want to reference. That means clear answers, evidence, original insights, and a point of view – not filler.
Anticipate the full conversation: Don’t just answer the first question – answer the follow-ups, too. If someone asks, “How does AI change SEO?” they’ll also want to know, “What should I do about it?” Build that into your content.
Structure for machines and humans: Use headings, lists, FAQs, and concise summaries to help AI parse your work. But don’t forget the narrative depth that keeps people reading.
Diversify your discovery footprint: Don’t rely on Google alone. Research your audience, understand their hangouts, and publish in the formats and places where they ask questions today: LinkedIn, YouTube, podcasts,and industry forums. AI tools crawl all of it.
Focus on authority signals: Show the human behind the content. Add author bios, cite sources, and link to your work elsewhere. AI engines, like search engines before them, lean on trust and authority.
Experiment, measure, refine: Try different formats, test and measure how your content shows up in AI summaries, track brand mentions, and adapt. SEO has always been iterative – this new era is no different.
The opportunity in the chaos
As SEO evolves into GEO – or whatever it may end up being called – this really is the best approach.
There’s no doubt a lot of change is happening.
But much of it is part of the same gradual evolution we’ve seen before, where clicks declined and Google started answering questions directly.
AI now makes it even easier for customers to find the information they’re looking for.
They may not read it on your site – at least not initially – but the AI will, and that’s the point.
Another strength we have as SEOs is that change is constant.
If you’ve been in SEO for any length of time, you’ve lived through Panda, Penguin, Mobilegeddon, BERT, helpful content updates – the list is long (and may cause PTSD for many of us).
The key is to treat this as the next evolution. AI is being integrated into search, and it will likely become the way the masses adopt the technology.
Don’t see this as the death of SEO.
Instead, view SEO and AI (or GEO/AEO, etc.) as close, contributing partners, and evolve your plan to match the changing landscape.
Your job as a marketer is to feed these tools the information they need to point customers to you and your clients.
This shift will likely mean fewer short-term manipulations and tactical opportunities – but better results for businesses that do the basics well.
At its core, good SEO/GEO is just good marketing: understanding your customers, meeting their needs, and communicating clearly.
Amid the chaos lies opportunity. For those willing to embrace the challenge, experiment with new tools, and keep going.
That’s what we’ve always done as SEOs, which is why we’re best positioned to embrace this new world.
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Before this, figuring out what AI Max was doing felt like looking into a black box.
Now, we can finally see the data and make smarter decisions.
Evaluating AI Max: Metrics that matter
When you’re looking at AI Max performance, start with the basics.
Open your search term tab and look for the Search terms and landing pages from AI Max option.
This lets you see AI Max results separately from your exact match, phrase match, and broad match keywords.
Compare conversion share and budget share
The first thing to check is how many conversions come from AI Max versus your regular keywords.
If AI Max is bringing in 30% of your conversions but eating up 60% of your budget, you know something needs attention.
Look at the cost per conversion, too.
AI Max might cost more at first, but that’s normal while Google learns what works for your business.
Look beyond cost – focus on conversion rates
Don’t just focus on the cost. Pay attention to conversion rates.
AI Max often finds people who are ready to buy but use different words than you expected. These new search terms can be gold mines if you spot the patterns.
One of AI Max’s biggest benefits is finding search terms you never thought to target.
Look at your search terms report and filter for AI Max queries. You’ll probably see some surprises.
Let’s say you sell running shoes and target “best running shoes.” AI Max might show your ads for “comfortable jogging sneakers” or “shoes for morning runs.”
These are people who want the same thing but use different words. The smart move is to add these high-performing terms to your regular keyword lists.
Identify irrelevant traffic
If you’re getting clicks from people searching for “cheap shoes” when you sell premium products, add “cheap” as a negative keyword.
AI Max respects negative keywords, so use them to guide the system toward higher-quality queries.
Every AI system needs time to learn, and AI Max is no different.
Plan for a learning phase
The first few weeks often look expensive because Google is still figuring out what works. Don’t panic if your costs jump initially.
Track your performance daily during the first month
As AI Max learns your patterns, you should see costs stabilize and conversion rates improve. If things keep getting worse after three weeks, then it’s time to make changes.
Keep an eye on the types of search terms AI Max finds over time
Early on, you might see lots of random queries. As the system learns, the terms should become more relevant to your business goals.
The biggest mistake people make is changing too much, too fast.
AI Max needs data to work properly, and constantly adjusting things prevents the system from learning.
That said, some problems need quick fixes.
If AI Max is spending money on completely irrelevant searches, add negative keywords immediately.
If the AI creates ads that violate your brand guidelines, remove those assets right away.
Watch your overall account performance, not just AI Max numbers.
Sometimes, AI Max might look expensive on its own, but it actually helps your other campaigns perform better by capturing different types of traffic.
Planning for the future
AI Max is still evolving, and Google keeps adding new features.
To adapt:
Build reporting systems that can grow with these changes.
Set up automated reports for the metrics that matter most to your business.
Don’t try to control everything.
The businesses seeing the best results from AI Max are the ones that:
Set clear goals.
Provide good data.
Let the system do its job.
Your role shifts from managing keywords to managing strategy.
Start testing AI Max on a small scale if you’re nervous about it. For example:
Create one campaign with AI Max enabled and compare it to your existing campaigns.
Run an AI Max for Search campaign experiment and let Google evaluate if the experiment is statistically valid.
Once you see how it works for your specific business, you can decide whether to expand.
Case studies: AI Max in action
These are early results from a limited data set and shouldn’t be viewed as statistically significant.
I’m sharing them to illustrate what I’ve seen so far – but the sample size is small and the timeframe short. Take these numbers with caution.
Case 1: Tourism and travel
This advertiser already had a solid search setup and was seeing good results.
Growth, however, was difficult because of heavy competition and the fact that strong keywords were already in play within a modern search structure.
Match type
Avg. CPC (€)
CVR (%)
AI Max
€0.11
1.47%
Broad match
€0.09
3.79%
Exact match
€0.53
9.00%
Exact match (close variant)
€0.22
7.11%
Phrase match
€0.16
6.25%
Phrase match (close variant)
€0.11
3.27%
AI Max generated additional conversions, but relative to the existing setup the impact was limited.
The conversion rate was much lower than other match types.
Because the average CPC was low, there was no cost spike, but performance still lagged.
Broad match – also known for surfacing broader, newer queries – had an even lower CPC (€0.09) and a conversion rate more than twice that of AI Max.
In this account, AI Max’s contribution was minor.
Search term overlap analysis showed AI Max had a 22.5% overlap rate, meaning 77.5% of queries were new to the campaign.
That’s a fairly good sign in terms of query discovery.
Case 2: Fashion ecommerce
This account focused on women’s clothing and already had a well-optimized campaign.
The goal was to expand reach during the competitive holiday season, when exact match keywords became increasingly expensive.
Match type
Avg. CPC (€)
CVR (%)
AI Max
€0.08
2.15%
Broad match
€0.12
2.89%
Exact match
€0.67
8.45%
Exact match (close variant)
€0.28
6.78%
Phrase match
€0.19
5.92%
Phrase match (close variant)
€0.14
4.11%
AI Max performed well here, delivering the lowest CPC at €0.08 and a respectable 2.15% conversion rate.
Although conversion rates were lower than exact and phrase match, the cheaper clicks kept cost per acquisition competitive.
AI Max also captured fashion-related long-tail searches and seasonal queries that the existing keyword set had missed.
Notably, AI Max outperformed broad match with both lower costs and better conversion rates.
This suggests its ability to better understand product context and user intent – especially important in fashion, where search terminology is diverse.
Search term overlap analysis showed only an 18.7% overlap rate, meaning 81.3% of queries were completely new.
That level of query discovery was valuable for extending reach in a highly competitive market.
Case 3: B2B SaaS
This account promoted project management software and had a mature strategy focused on high-intent keywords.
Conversion tracking was strong, measuring both MQLs and SQLs.
The client wanted to test AI Max for additional lead generation opportunities.
Match type
Avg. CPC (€)
CVR (%)
AI Max
€0.89
0.76%
Broad match
€0.72
1.23%
Exact match
€1.84
4.67%
Exact match (close variant)
€1.22
3.91%
Phrase match
€1.05
3.44%
Phrase match (close variant)
€0.94
2.88%
In this case, AI Max struggled. Despite a reasonable CPC of €0.89, the conversion rate was just 0.76%.
That pushed CPA well above the client’s target, making AI Max the worst-performing match type in the account.
It tended to capture too many informational searches from users not yet ready to convert.
Even broad match, typically associated with lower-intent traffic, outperformed AI Max with a 1.23% conversion rate at a lower CPC.
The complexity of the B2B buying cycle favored exact and phrase match keywords over AI Max’s broader interpretation.
Search term overlap analysis showed a 31.4% overlap rate, leaving 68.6% of queries as new.
However, these were mostly low-intent informational searches that didn’t align with SQL goals – underscoring the importance of high-quality conversion tracking when evaluating AI Max.
Wider industry sentiment
Advertiser feedback so far mirrors these mixed results.
In a recent poll by Adriaan Dekker, more than 50% of respondents reported neutral outcomes from AI Max, while 16% saw good results and 28% reported poor performance.
Tips to analyze AI Max search terms
You can analyze AI Max queries in Google Sheets using a few simple formulas. If your search term report has the term in column A and match type in column B:
To check whether a search term appears in both AI Max and another match type:
To count how many match types trigger a given term:
=COUNTIFS($A:$A;A2) can be used to count how many match types trigger on that search term.
To measure query length with an n-gram analysis:
=(LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1," ","")))+1
These checks show whether AI Max is surfacing unique queries, overlapping with existing match types, or favoring short-tail vs. long-tail terms.
Because AI Max is still in early stages, it’s hard to draw firm conclusions.
Performance may improve as the system learns from more data, or remain flat if your setup already covers most transactional queries.
That’s the question advertisers will answer in the coming months as more tests and learnings emerge.
So far, results can be positive, neutral, or negative.
In my experience, neutral to negative outcomes are more common – especially in accounts with strong existing setups, where AI Max has fewer opportunities to add value.
A Google Ads script to uncover AI Max insights
To make analyzing AI Max performance easier, I created a Google Ads script that automatically pulls data into Google Sheets for deeper analysis.
It saves hours of manual work and includes the exact formulas mentioned earlier in this article, so you can immediately spot overlap rates and query patterns without manual setup.
The script creates two tabs in your Sheet:
AI Max: Performance Max search term data with headlines, landing pages, and performance metrics.
Search term analysis: A full comparison of all match types, including AI Max, with automated formulas.
The analysis covers:
Overlap detection between AI Max and other match types.
Query length analysis (short-tail vs. long-tail).
Match type frequency counts to identify competitive terms.
Automatic cost conversion from Google’s micro format into readable currency.
How to use it:
Create a new Google Sheet and copy the URL.
In Google Ads, go to Tools > Scripts.
Paste the script code and update the SHEET_URL variable.
Run the script to automatically populate your analysis.
With this setup, you can quickly calculate the same metrics I used in the case studies – like the 22.5% overlap rate in the tourism account or the 81.3% new query discovery in fashion.
The automated workflow makes it easier to see whether AI Max is surfacing genuine new opportunities or simply redistributing existing traffic.
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Google AI Mode is getting more visual by providing a more graphical response to some of your queries, including your shopping search queries. Google can do this by using its new visual version of the query fan-out technique it has used with AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Google AI Mode, for certain queries, particularly those related to shopping, will respond with images and graphics. These are aimed at sparking inspiration, Robby Stein, VP of Product Management at Google Search, told Search Engine Land.
AI Mode will be able to not just understand your query in a text-based manner, but also understand your query visually and respond with both textual and visual responses. It is a new and updated fluid, ongoing conversation in AI Mode that “sparks inspiration,” Google said.
Visual search fan-out technique. Google’s fan out technique is able breaking down your question into subtopics and issuing a multitude of queries simultaneously on your behalf. Now, Google can also do this visually by looking at the image and text query input for query analysis and various image region analysis, including meta data and context around the image. Then Google AI Mode can render a visual grid of responses to your query.
“This means AI Mode can perform a more comprehensive analysis of an image, recognizing subtle details and secondary objects in addition to the primary subjects – and then runs multiple queries in the background. This helps it understand the full visual context and the nuance of your natural language question to deliver highly relevant visual results,” Google wrote.
AI Mode is more visual. Now when you search for some queries in AI Mode, the responses will be much more graphical and visual, right up front. Yes, AI Mode may have responded with images before, but now the images are higher and more prominent in some of the responses.
Plus, you can conduct follow up questions on the visual responses.
“You’ll see rich visuals that match the vibe you’re looking for, and can follow up in whatever way is most natural for you, like asking for more options with dark tones and bold prints. Each image has a link, so you can click out and learn more when something catches your eye. And because the experience is multimodal, you can also start your search by uploading an image or snapping a photo,” Google added.
Shopping in AI Mode. Lilian Rincon, VP Product Management Google Shopping, told us one of the best places for a visual experience is with shopping in Google Search. A more visual AI Mode helps you shop conversationally with fresh shopping data, can lead to a better shopping experience.
With the addition of Google’s Shopping Graph of 50 billion product listings, where 2 billion products are refreshed daily every hour, the responses are not just inspirational but detailed and helpful.
AI Mode for Shopping can not just give you ideas on what to put in your living room but also help you find the perfect article of clothing, in your color, style and fit.
Here is a video of this in action:
More details. This is launching today in Google AI Mode in the US in English. These are free listings, not shopping ads, and currently have no paid model, including no affiliate model. While Google has ads in AI Overviews, Google is only experimenting with ads in AI Mode, and there are no more details on ads right now for this experience.
Agentic experiences, like helping you buy and find what your looking for, is here for some areas now in Search Labs. But Google said they want the final purchase to happen directly on the retailer’s site.
Why we care. A new, more visual and graphical experience in AI Mode, may be a better search experience for some searchers and for some queries. Google is experimenting with a lot of changes to Google Search and is rapidly trying new interfaces and technologies.
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Engineering teams usually have a quality assurance (QA) process.
Without it, they risk releasing work that hurts the user experience and creates unforeseen technical issues – including major SEO problems.
That’s where SEO QA comes in. Adding SEO-specific checks to existing QA protocols helps teams catch and fix issues before they go live.
But this step is less common than you’d think. Too often, it’s overlooked.
This article outlines what it takes to build an effective SEO QA discipline and provides a checklist SEOs and QA engineers can use to cover their bases.
Why SEO QA gets overlooked
Unless SEO is fully integrated with engineering, SEO-specific QA often gets overlooked.
As a result, SEOs may not flag problems until a tech audit – or worse, when they show up as organic KPI declines.
This is especially common when SEO teams sit under marketing instead of product or engineering, since they’re excluded from regular milestones and lifecycle meetings.
That makes it harder to communicate SEO’s importance, win buy-in, and establish it as part of everyday development.
Having a QA team within engineering is also no longer a given.
In agile environments, some teams prioritize speed over fully clean rollouts.
Others rely on AI tools to automate QA or monitor for technical issues, instead of employing dedicated QA engineers.
In short, there are plenty of reasons many teams lack a well-developed SEO QA practice.
What are the benefits of SEO QA?
For SEOs to be able to proactively find and resolve issues before they go out into the world, they need two things on a regular basis:
Opportunities to view upcoming engineering tickets and flag any that may have potential SEO impact. (A great reason for an SEO representative to be a part of sprint planning meetings.)
A chance to QA any of the flagged tickets before they hit production.
This has a few key benefits for the business:
Minimize the chances of deploying code that hurts SEO.
Catch and correct errors that hit production before they register with search engines.
Capitalize on SEO opportunities related to engineering work that’s already slotted for development.
The last bullet is just as much of a reason to implement SEO QA as the first two.
It’s not just about catching bugs, it’s about maximizing value while minimizing resources.
When SEOs have a chance to see what’s coming up, it allows them to connect the dots between SEO roadmap items and upcoming engineering initiatives to find potential areas of overlap.
In turn, the business reaps the SEO benefits of work that’s already in motion, rather than spending additional resources to achieve the same goal later.
Best practices: The 4 Ws of SEO QA
Alright, now that we’ve established why brands need SEO QA, let’s get into the logistics.
Structured data: Is it crawlable, parsable, accurate, and reflecting visible information on the page? (Note: Google’s Schema Markup Testing Tool won’t work on staging URLs since crawlers are (hopefully!) blocked.)
You can see CSS issues because they visually impact the page.
For JavaScript issues, you’ll need tools to understand whether crawlers can access critical content.
Unless you’re already running a sitewide crawl with JavaScript enabled, test one or two pages from the affected template (i.e., blog, listing, product detail) using a tool like Rendering Difference Engine.
Page elements applicable to the template are available and functioning as intended, including pop-outs, filtering, sort function, and pagination.
Even worse, until it’s fixed, that’s historical data that you won’t get back.
Before launch on staging, check if:
All pages and templates have tracking code available.
The day after launch, verify that:
Internal analytics platform doesn’t show significant declines in KPIs or discrepancies with external reporting tools (e.g., GSC).
Optional: A/B testing
Not all A/B testing tools distinguish the control and variant for crawlers.
They’re usually served one or the other version of the page randomly, which means your variant could impact SEO.
Aside from the variable, the pages should be identical to a crawler.
Refine over time
With every round of QA, engineers and SEOs will learn nuances and find new connections.
You’ll discover that certain types of updates are more likely to cause certain types of SEO issues, certain plugins are linked to certain types of problems, etc.
Your SEO QA checklist is a living, breathing document and a place to document all of this to make SEO QA more effective – and avoid repeating mistakes – no matter who’s carrying it out.
Start with the list below and make it your own over time.
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Wondering why your site’s not ranking or showing up in large language model (LLM) results, even though your content is solid?
The answer might be backlinks. Specifically, the lack of high-quality ones.
Tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews are starting to summarize answers without always linking to a source. That means fewer clicks, more brand mentions, and a big shift in how SEOs need to think about authority.
It’s important to remember, though, quality backlinks are still one of the strongest signals of trust and relevance even as search evolves. They play a key role in how Google evaluates which brands earn visibility and can increase the chances of a source being cited or surfaced in AI-generated answers.
If you want to show up in AI Overviews, earn brand mentions, or rank higher in organic search, you need a solid backlink strategy: one that’s built on quality, not shortcuts.
Let’s break down what that looks like in 2025, and exactly how to do it.
Key Takeaways
High-quality backlinks still matter, even in an AI-driven search world.
One link from a trusted, relevant source beats 100 weak ones.
Quantity and quality both have a place in your strategy, but quality should lead.
You can earn strong links through content, partnerships, and digital PR.
Smart SEO means earning links by adding value, not tricking Google.
Why Building Backlinks Is Important
Backlinks are votes of confidence for your site. Each tells Google, “Hey, this content’s worth checking out!”
Sites with more (and better) backlinks tend to rank higher. In fact, a study from last year noted that over 96% of websites ranking in Google’s top 10 positions had more than 1,000 backlinks from unique domains.
But—and this is a big one—not all backlinks are created equal.
Low-quality links from shady sites can hurt your content more than help. What you want are editorial, relevant, and trusted backlinks that align with your content and brand. These quality links can:
With that in mind, how do you know the difference between a high-quality backlink and a poor one?
What Makes A Quality Backlink?
High-quality backlinks check three boxes:
Relevance: The linking site is topically related to yours. Backlinks from respected tech blogs to your AI tool are good as gold.
Authority: The linking domain has strong credibility and trust. Think of industry publications, .edu sites, or even top-ranking competitors.
Natural placement: You’ve earned this link editorially. No one paid for it or jammed it into a comment thread.
As Alex Horowitz, Digital PR Specialist at NP Digital, explains: “A good backlink comes from a site with solid domain authority (DA 35+), consistent organic traffic of at least 1,000 visitors a month, and content that’s trustworthy and relevant to the client. A poor backlink opportunity usually is on sites with little to no traffic, low authority, or content that feels spammy or off-topic. If the link won’t add value for readers or align naturally with the brand, it’s likely not worth pursuing.”
There are other bonus factors to consider, too. Keyword-rich anchor text, used sparingly, can help. So does placement high in the page’s content. The signals are even better if the page linking to you has strong traffic or links.
Getting these links takes work, but the payoff lasts for a long time.
The Quality vs Quantity Backlink Debate
How many backlinks do you need? This is a common question, and the answer is every SEO’s favorite:
“It depends.”
Do you need hundreds of backlinks? Not really.
Would you like to earn hundreds of great backlinks? Absolutely.
Quality and quantity both matter, but quality always wins. Quantity helps build a diverse link profile, especially from mid-tier, niche, or enthusiast sites. Quality delivers the real authority, trust, and rankings boost.
The problem is when people and marketers chase quantity for the sake of it by buying links, trading links, or spamming blog comments. That behavior isn’t just unsustainable, it’s unwelcome. It’ll tank your reputation among those sites you want cachet from and won’t help your rankings long-term.
Tips to Build Quality Backlinks
We know backlinks matter. We know good backlinks matter. How do we get them?
Never fear. These 14 tried-and-true strategies can help you earn high-quality backlinks in 2025 and beyond.
1. Emphasize What Benefits the Site Gets
Asking specific sites to link to you can work, but it requires being strategic. When reaching out, make it about them, not you. Instead of asking, “Can you link to my blog post?” you might try a message like,
“Your readers might find this guide helpful. It includes a breakdown that expands on your section about [topic].”
Show them the value their audience will get. If it plugs into content already performing well for them, even better.
2. Write Relevant and Competitive Content
People don’t link to average content. They link to the best. That means standing out among the crowded pack. What does that look like?
Go deep. Cover the topic more thoroughly than your competitors.
Add visuals, statistics, and original research.
Include expert quotes or insights.
Match search intent. Don’t write a blog post when searchers want a product comparison.
No matter what you create, ensure your content reflects E-E-A-T: experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness.
You should be able to find several ways to make your content stand apart from the existing results, whether that’s creating a more in-depth and actionable article or citing research no one else has.
That’s the exact approach my digital marketing agency used to get 20 top-tier media links like CNBC and Retail Wire for one of our clients in the personal finance industry.
We created a data-driven asset that resonated with a large audience and was different from anything else out there. This allowed us to pitch to dozens of relevant media outlets that were more than happy to give us a link in return for a good story.
3. Prove Your Site Is Legitimate
Getting links is a lot easier if your website positions you as a professional, trustworthy, and legitimate organization.
There are several elements that signify trust, and I recommend including as many of them as possible:
HTTPS certification (as well as other certificates)
A branded domain
High-quality web design
Links to your social profiles
Contact information, including the address of your company
E-E-A-T signals like an about page, editorial standards, and author bios.
You can see I’ve got almost all of these elements in place in my website’s footer:
4. Make Your Pitches Short
Want to increase the response rate of your pitches? Practice brevity to make it easy for recipients to understand your pitch.
There are many single lines, and it’s easy to find and click on the links. The email is to the point, and there’s no question what it’s about.
Here’s my advice for making your pitches concise and clear:
Keep paragraphs to two sentences or fewer
Write no more than five sentences
Use bullet points and bold font to make it easy for readers to spot the key points
State what you are asking for clearly
5. Leverage Digital PR
Digital PR (DPR) may initially feel like a focus on building a personal brand, but that’s not the real focus. Instead, consider creating newsworthy stories for journalists, bloggers, and industry outlets to cover and link to.
This matters because PR campaigns can often land backlinks from the highest-authority sites; places like Forbes, TechCrunch, or industry trade publications are significant wins. Those links carry way more weight than dozens of smaller blogs.
Here’s how to use it:
Data-driven stories: Package up survey results or industry insights. Journalists love citing fresh numbers.
Expert commentary: Offer quick takes on trending news. Tools like HARO or Qwoted connect you with reporters in real time.
Unique hooks: Tie your brand to bigger conversations. For example, a fintech startup might publish a “State of Student Debt in 2025” report.
High-quality backlinks come when your story provides genuine value to readers and publishers. A strong DPR campaign earns more than mentions. You get citations that boost rankings.
6. Do an Original Study
Original research is often a backlink magnet. Why? Because everyone needs data to support their content, and they’d rather cite your study than come up with their own.
You don’t need to be a research firm to pull this off, though. Here’s how:
Run a survey with your customers or audience.
Use public datasets and analyze them in a new way.
Combine anonymized data from your own tools (if applicable).
For example, look at my agency’s route when building links for a logistics client. We used multiple, varying datasets to see how different roadside restaurants in America compared to one another for truck drivers and roadtrippers.
The trick is to tell a compelling story with your data, the kind journalists will want to write about. In our case, every driver wants to know the best place to stop, and the geo-specific nature of the report meant local news outlets could report on truck stops in their state.
As a result, we garnered over 1,400 shares, likes, and comments across social media, a massive amount for such a niche industry. We also won a host of new rankings like “best truck stop food”.
7. Create an Infographic or Original Image
Infographics aren’t dead. They’re just evolved. In 2025, they’re bite-sized knowledge hubs that provide real value to readers.
These visuals are often easier to share, embed, and link to than walls of text. A great infographic travels across social media and blogs and can even get picked up by news outlets.
Here’s how to do it right:
Use tools like Canva or Venngage to create professional designs.
Focus on one core statistic, process, or concept. Don’t cram everything in.
Include embed codes so other sites can easily share and link back.
Look at this infographic example from Venngage that talks about the psychological impact of font choices on audiences. It’s a pretty robust dive into the typography of several popular Netflix shows and how title choices can play with mood and genre:
This one’s simple, but it works. Companies love showcasing happy customers. When they feature your testimonial on their site, they usually link back to you. Here’s how to make it happen:
Reach out to SaaS tools, agencies, or vendors you use.
Offer a detailed testimonial that highlights specific results.
Make sure to include your full name, role, and website.
See examples below from MarketHire:
These links aren’t just filler. They come from trusted, established brands that want to show off real customer success. That credibility makes them high-value backlinks, and all you did was share your experience.
9. Link Externally and Then Reach Out
Linking out to other sites doesn’t mean you’re giving away visibility. The trick is to follow through. Here’s how this works:
Write a blog post and naturally link to a relevant site, tool, or expert.
Reach out to the site or personality and tell them they’ve been included.
Start a conversation. Eventually, they may return the favor with a backlink.
You can strengthen this strategy with your own internal linking. Google sees that your page is well-connected both internally and externally, boosting your crawlability and authority.
This is not an overnight backlink hack. Instead, it’s a trust-building move that snowballs into collaborations, mentions, and citations from quality sites.
10. Comment on Other Relevant Blog and Social Posts
Comments on blogs and social media posts are a great way to build relationships with people in your industry and occasionally snag yourself a backlink.
But before you start passionately commenting on posts and throwing out backlinks everywhere, let me explain something.
You might occasionally have an opportunity to include a backlink in your comment. However, the comment should primarily focus on building a mutual relationship with the author:
If you don’t know what to say, make the author’s day.
If you want to share a bit more, you can add some meaningful insight into the topic at hand.
If you want to craft a comment that merits a response from the author and helps build the relationship, add your own commentary to the discussion.
Here’s an example from Leanne Wong on how a comment can start a conversation that might lead to a backlink:
Whatever you do, add value with your comment. The more value you can add, the stronger your relationship will become— and that’s a recipe for a future backlink if ever I saw one.
11. Align Social Signals
If you’re serious about building out your link building strategy and rising through the ranks, then aligning social signals is a must.
Social signals communicate to search engines how active and updated your website is. The more active your website, the better your rankings. You’ll notice I link to all of my social profiles in the footer of this website and keep them all updated:
You may not have the time to leverage every single social platform. In that case, choose one or two that you can keep up with, and post at least once a day on the platforms you’ve chosen.
Check that all of the information on your social profiles matches the information on your website. The company name, address, and phone number need to be aligned to communicate to search engines that your website is up to date.
This is a simple but effective way to build your rankings with very little extra work.
12. Find What’s Newsworthy
Timing is everything. If you can tie your content to breaking stories or trends, you can increase your odds of earning backlinks from journalists and bloggers covering it. Seek out opportunities in the following spots:
Picture this: Google rolls out a major algorithm update, and an SEO agency could publish a quick analysis within 24 hours. Journalists writing about the update may cite that content, earning authoritative backlinks.
Prefer a real life example?
My agency used this tactic to get backlinks from sites like The New York Times and The Atlantic for our client in the entertainment industry. Competitor research told us that a rival website had a lot of high authority backlinks to a page where fans could watch a trending television show from our client. But the link sent users to a broken page.
Our strategy was simple. We contacted every linking publisher and asked them to swap the broken link for our client’s, letting fans actually watch the show.
13. Find Brand Mentions
People may already be talking about your brand but not linking to it. That’s low-hanging fruit.
“Hey [Name], thanks for mentioning us in your piece on [Topic]. Would you mind adding a link so readers can easily find the resource?”
These links are easy wins. The writer already trusts you enough to mention your brand—now you’re just helping readers (and your SEO) with a clickable source.
14. Look At Competitor Backlink Profiles
Your competitors’ backlinks are a roadmap for your strategy. If it’s working for them, it could work for you. But how do you start and what should you look for?
Use Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, or Semrush to pull competitor backlink reports.
Examine their homepage links, most-linked blogs, and referral domains.
Identify patterns: Are they earning links from industry directories? Guest posts? Data-driven reports?
Once you know what they’re doing, ask the big question:
Can I create something better?
If your competitor earned a link for “2024 Social media Trends,” why not publish a deeper “2025 Social media Playbook?” Provide more value. Pitch it to the same sites.
Competitor backlinks are more than insights. Use them as valuable opportunities for growth and wins.
Writing the Pitch to Get Your Backlink
Your content or idea may be strong, but the pitch determines whether you actually earn that backlink.
Today’s editors, journalists, and site owners are bombarded with outreach. Generic templates don’t cut it. A valuable pitch is:
Short and personal: Under 100 words, customized for the recipient.
Value-driven: Show how your resource improves their article or helps their readers.
Clear: Include the exact link and context—don’t make them dig.
Credible: Reference your expertise, unique data, or why you’re a trusted source.
Timely: Tie your pitch to something current—like a trending topic or recent update.
Here’s an example of a pitch that works in 2025:
Hi [Name], I really enjoyed your recent piece on [Topic]. I noticed you mentioned [related stat], and we just released a new study with fresh data on this in 2025. I thought it might add value for your readers. Here’s the link: [URL]. Would you consider including it?
This kind of outreach blends relevance, authority, and timeliness: the same qualities that make backlinks valuable in the first place.
FAQs
How to get quality backlinks?
Use digital PR, original studies, expert content, and smart outreach strategies. Focus on building real relationships and offering value, not tricks.
How many high quality backlinks do I need?
For those in competitive spaces like finance or software, more high-quality backlinks will help you stand out. But it’s not just about the overall total. A good benchmark for many key pages is 20-30 strong backlinks. This number can make a real difference. Even five to 10 backlinks from top-tier domains can beat out hundreds from low-authority sources.
What is a high quality backlink?
It’s a link from a trusted, authoritative site relevant to your content and placed editorially.
How can I leverage social media to build backlinks?
Promote your content, join conversations, and tag influencers. When people see and share your content, backlinks tend to follow.
Is it okay to pay for backlinks?
Technically, it’s against Google’s guidelines. Tread carefully and focus on sponsored content, not spammy link buys.
How do I approach website owners to request backlinks ethically?
Be personal, brief, and helpful. Show them why linking to your resource benefits their readers.
How can I identify websites that are relevant and authoritative for link building?
Look for sites in your niche with real traffic, strong content, and domain authority (DA). Tools like Ubersuggest or Ahrefs help.
Conclusion on How to Get Backlinks
If you focus on creating content worth linking to and getting it in front of the right people, you’ll earn links that matter. These links improve rankings, boost traffic, and build long-term authority.
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OpenAI is launching Instant Checkout inside ChatGPT to Plus, Pro, and Free users in the U.S.
Users will be able to buy products from Etsy sellers.
Purchases are powered by the new Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), co-developed with Stripe.
How it works. Users search in plain language (e.g., “gifts for a ceramics lover”). Then:
ChatGPT returns product recommendations ranked by relevance, not payment.
If an item supports Instant Checkout, users tap “Buy,” confirm shipping and payment details, and complete the order without leaving chat.
Orders, payments, and fulfillment run through the merchant’s existing systems; ChatGPT passes information securely.
Merchants pay a small transaction fee; shoppers pay no extra cost.
Between the lines. OpenAI said products are ranked only by relevance – not sponsorship or whether Instant Checkout is enabled. Merchants remain the merchant of record, keeping control over fulfillment and customer relationships.
What’s next. Coming soon, according to OpenAI:
Multi-item carts.
Expansion to Shopify’s million-plus merchants (e.g., like Glossier, SKIMS, and Spanx)
More regions beyond the U.S.
Why we care. If AI chat becomes a mainstream way for people to discover products, OpenAI is now at the start of that purchase journey. For brands or businesses selling products, this could mean a new channel to optimize for – one that bypasses traditional search and funnels discovery straight into checkout.
How to sign up. Merchants can apply to have their products included in ChatGPT search results and enable Instant Checkout via ACP.
Etsy and Shopify sellers are already eligible and don’t need to apply.
OpenAI is onboarding merchants on a rolling basis through an online application form.
Different from Google. OpenAI is taking a different approach than Google’s agentic search capabilities. Whereas OpenAI is going all the way to completing purchases on behalf of users, Google (for now at least) is letting users take the final conversion action.
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TikTok is introducing a new ad solution, Travel Ads powered by Smart+, designed to help brands connect with travelers during the discovery and booking phases.
Why now. Travel is one of TikTok’s fastest-growing verticals. According to internal TikTok data:
66% of users say the app is their most helpful source of travel inspiration.
Users are 2.6x more likely to book after searching on TikTok.
How it works. Travel Ads leverage TikTok’s travel intent model and catalog integration to automatically serve personalized creatives at scale. Smart+ AI powers campaign setup, creative generation, and delivery optimization, aiming to convert discovery into bookings seamlessly.
Why we care. TikTok Travel Ads put hotels, flights, and destinations in front of a massive audience already using the app for trip planning, with two-thirds calling it their top source of travel inspiration. Smart+ AI tools then streamline setup and optimization, helping brands scale personalized ads that influence bookings at the earliest, most impactful stage.
The details:
Ads can showcase hotels, flights, and destinations using dynamic, visually rich formats.
Advertisers can choose among:
Single video ads: A hero video paired with personalized travel cards (hotel name, flight route, price).
Catalog video ads: Auto-built from product catalogs with tailored calls to action.
What they’re saying. David Hoctor, TikTok’s head of US verticals for travel and gaming, said:
“Travel on TikTok goes beyond the For You feed, unlocking real-life travel experiences. Every swipe can be a step toward conversion.”
Between the lines. By integrating catalog feeds with intent signals, TikTok is pitching Travel Ads as a direct competitor to Google and Meta in the lucrative travel advertising market, where inspiration and conversion increasingly overlap.
Thanks to AI-generated answers, CTRs are failing fast, and even page-one rankings no longer guarantee clicks. Google’s top organic results saw a 32% CTR drop after AI Overviews launched, plummeting from 28% to 19%. Position #2 fared even worse, with a 39% decline. Meanwhile, 60% of searches in 2024 ended without clicks; also, the projections show zero-click searches could surpass 70% by 2025. What does this mean for measuring success?
AI-generated answers are drastically reducing CTRs, with top rankings seeing significant declines in clicks.
Traditional SEO metrics are no longer sufficient; marketers should adopt AI-powered SEO metrics to measure influence and visibility.
Six new metrics, including AI brand mention rate and semantic relevance score, provide insights into AI-driven search success.
Businesses must optimize for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) by ensuring content clarity and authority for AI responses.
Tracking AI visibility and implementing structured data are essential for maintaining brand relevance in an AI-first search landscape.
The era of measuring SEO success purely through traffic metrics is coming to a standstill. AI systems like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode deliver instant answers; therefore, brand visibility increasingly happens without clicks. Marketers will turn to AI-enabled discoverability metrics that capture actual influence.
This guide explains why it’s important to go beyond CTR. It reveals six AI metrics that predict success in AI-driven search, plus strategies to measure and optimize your visibility when clicks disappear.
How does this disrupt traditional SEO?
Google’s AI Overviews (and similar features on Bing, etc.) generate a concise, multi-sentence answer at the top of the results page. These summaries cite source links, pulling content from high-ranking pages and knowledge panels. To the user, this is convenient: you get an instant answer without scrolling.
For marketers, however, it means the user’s query can be resolved on-page. From the publisher’s standpoint, these overviews satisfy search intent without generating a click, effectively extending the trend of zero-click searches. In other words, the page may be used (quoted in the answer) but not clicked.
AI Overviews significantly accelerate zero-click behavior. A finding suggests that zero-click searches jumped from ~24% to 27% year-on-year in early 2025. A Bain survey reports that about 60% of searches end without users clicking through to another site.
In practice, organic listing CTRs are under siege. Top-ranked pages are losing share because AI answers capture attention. We see that Google’s new summarization features are faster and more convenient, which might mean that these become the default way people search, shifting discovery away from traditional blue links.
Evidence of a drastic CTA decline
Multiple independent studies show massive CTR drops wherever AI summaries appear. Recent industry data paints a stark picture of CTR decline across prominent search positions:
Position
2024 CTR
2025 CTR
Decline
1
28.0%
19.0%
-32%
2
20.8%
12.6%
-39%
3-5 Average
15.2%
12.5%
-18%
This data, compiled from over 200,000 keywords across 30+ websites, coincides directly with Google’s aggressive AI Overview expansion. From just 10,000 triggering keywords in August 2024, AI Overviews now appear for over 172,000 queries by May 2025. In practical terms, a top-ranking page that used to draw nearly three out of 100 searchers now gets under one.
Paid search is hit, too. In one study, paid CTR roughly halved in queries with AI Overviews: dropping from 21.27% without an AIO to 9.87%. In other words, even ads share the fate of organic results, AI answers grab a lot of the click-through “real estate.”
These shifts mean many queries that once sent healthy website traffic now keep users on the SERP. In short, AI Overviews are dragging down CTRs significantly across positions and query types.
AI Overviews are the zero-click accelerator
Google’s AI Overviews represent more than a UI change because they reshape user search behavior. When AI Overviews appear:
Organic CTR drops 70% (from 2.94% in the previous year to 0.84% in 2025)
Paid CTR falls 54% (from 21.27% to 9.87%)
Featured content gets answered directly without requiring website visits
Major publishers report even more dramatic impacts. MailOnline found that CTRs plummeted to under 5% on desktop and 7% on mobile when AI Overviews were present, a blow to traffic-dependent business models.
These drops aren’t limited to one sector. Industries heavily reliant on informational queries (health, science, how-to guides, etc.) report the biggest hit. For instance, Semrush notes that sites in health and science categories see the most AI Overview inclusion and significant organic traffic losses.
AI Overviews primarily trigger informational and long-tail queries (definitions, tutorials, general knowledge), precisely the traffic that blogs, knowledge bases, and affiliate sites depend on.
The evidence is clear. Zero-click search is rapidly rising, and organic CTRs are falling wherever AI-powered answers are available.
What CTRs miss in the AI search era?
Traditional CTR metrics miss a big part of the picture: invisible brand exposure. Your brand may be mentioned in AI responses without generating a single click, highlighted in knowledge panels without direct attribution, or recommended through voice search on smart devices. Even AI-generated summaries from platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini draw on your content. These shape user perception without leaving a measurable trail.
The false correlation problem
High CTR no longer equals high visibility in AI systems. Consider this example:
Brand A ranks #1 organically, receives 500 monthly clicks
Brand B gets cited in 50 AI Overview responses, receives 50 clicks
Traditional metrics favor Brand A, but Brand B influences thousands more users through AI
This disconnect means businesses optimizing solely for CTR may miss massive audience reach in AI environments.
These numbers confirm the trend. A large (and growing) chunk of search queries never leads to an external click, instead being resolved by AI/Google. This doesn’t mean all organic traffic is lost; many queries (mainly transactional, local, or brand-specific) still send clicks, but the landscape is clearly shifting toward answering directly.
Six AI LLM optimization metrics
With traditional click metrics weakening, SEO must evolve. CTRs and ranks still matter, but they’re incomplete indicators now. We must measure how content performs within AI-generated answers, even when no one clicks. As Cyberclick observed, your content might be “cited, referenced, or sourced by AI systems”, which they call zero-click visibility, yet none of that shows up in Google Search Console or analytics. In other words, your page could be the knowledge behind an answer, building authority, without any direct traffic trace.
To account for this, experts recommend new AI metrics:
1. AI brand mention rate
Definition: Frequency of brand appearances in AI-generated responses across major platforms (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews).
This metric is critical because it has the strongest correlation with AI Overview visibility. The top 25% of brands receive over 169 monthly AI mentions, compared to just 14 for the next tier. Meanwhile, 26% of brands have zero AI mentions at all, revealing massive gaps and untapped opportunities in brand visibility.
How to measure:
Manual query testing across LLM platforms using brand-related searches
Custom monitoring scripts to track brand mentions in AI responses
Competitive benchmarking against industry leaders
Optimization tactics:
Create quotable, cite-worthy statistics and insights that AI systems prefer
Build topical authority through comprehensive content coverage
Increase web mentions across trusted, high-authority sources
Develop thought leadership content that positions your brand as an expert source
Pro tip: Yoast AI Brand Insights can help track and optimize your brand’s visibility across AI platforms, giving you actionable data to improve mention frequency and context.
2. Semantic relevance score
Definition: Measurement of content alignment with search intent through vector embeddings rather than keyword matching
This metric is critical because AI systems rely on semantic similarity rather than exact keyword matches when selecting content. It predicts the likelihood of being included in AI-generated answers across different platforms and measures how accurately content aligns with queries beyond surface-level optimization.
How to measure:
OpenAI Embedding API for content-query similarity scoring
Go Fish Digital’s Embedding Relevance Score tool for automated analysis
A/B testing content variations to identify the highest-scoring approaches
Topic clustering analysis to understand semantic relationships
Optimization tactics:
Focus on comprehensive topic coverage rather than keyword density
Use entity-based content strategies that connect related concepts
Optimize for question-answer formats that AI systems prefer
Create contextually rich content that covers user intent fully
Advanced strategy: Implement structured content hierarchies using clear H2/H3 sections that mirror how AI systems process information for responses.
3. Structured data implementation score
Definition: Percentage of pages with proper schema markup and AI-readable formatting
This is critical because AI systems strongly favor structured, machine-readable data over plain text. Schema markup improves AI comprehension, boosts the chances of being cited, and enables rich snippet appearances that reinforce visibility alongside AI Overviews.
How to measure:
Schema markup validation tools to audit implementation coverage
Percentage of key pages with relevant structured data types
Rich snippet appearance tracking across target queries
Technical SEO audits focusing on markup completeness
Optimization tactics:
Implement FAQ and HowTo schemas for informational content
Use comprehensive schema types (Organization, Product, Service, Review)
Create clean, markdown-friendly content formats that AI can easily parse
Optimize internal linking structure to support entity relationships
Note: Yoast SEO Premium includes advanced schema implementation features that can automate much of this optimization process.
4. Citation quality index
Definition: Quality weighting of attributed mentions and source links in AI responses
This index is critical because it fuels both traffic and trust within AI recommendation systems. Quality citations strengthen brand authority in LLM training, while linked references deliver three times more value than unlinked mentions.
How to measure:
Track citations with proper source attribution across AI platforms
Monitor the authority scores of sites that cite your content
Measure click-through rates from AI citations when available
Create authoritative, research-backed content that merits citation
Build relationships with industry publications and thought leaders
Optimize content for “cite sources” inclusion with clear attribution
Develop proprietary data and insights that become go-to industry references
Advanced tracking: Use tools like Brand24 or Mention.com to monitor unlinked brand citations that may influence AI training without generating trackable links.
5. Query match coverage
Definition: Breadth of related queries where your content appears in AI responses
Query match coverage is essential because AI systems favor comprehensive topical coverage over a narrow focus. And broader query coverage indicates higher entity authority. It also predicts inclusion across multiple AI response types and platforms
How to measure:
Topic clustering analysis to map query coverage
Competitive content gap analysis to identify opportunities
Query coverage mapping across your content portfolio
Definition: Average placement position of your brand/content within AI-generated responses
AI positioning score matters because earlier placement in AI responses gets far more attention. First-position mentions see up to three times higher engagement, and strong positioning directly boosts perceived brand authority.
How to measure:
Track the mention position across AI responses manually
Calculate the average placement across multiple queries over time
Monitor position trends to identify optimization success
Benchmark positioning against direct competitors
Optimization tactics:
Optimize content for primary source citation by AI systems
Build first-party research and proprietary data that AI prefers
Create definitive resources that become category authorities
Focus on expertise signals (author credentials, source authors)
Why CTR still matters (and how to optimize it)
Even as AI visibility metrics rise in importance, CTR still plays a crucial role. Clicks directly drive conversions and sales, making them essential for revenue. A strong CTR also signals clear content-query alignment, which boosts overall visibility. Over time, pages with consistently higher CTR often gain better placement in AI-generated citations, which creates an advantage.
CTR optimization in the AI era
Write for click-desire, not just keywords
Today, writing for click desire is more important than ever. Instead of focusing only on keywords, craft curiosity-driven headlines that promise insights users won’t find in AI summaries. Pair these with benefit-focused meta descriptions that highlight exclusive value, and tease proprietary data or tools that can only be accessed on your site.
Enhanced SERP presentation
Equally important is how your content presents itself in the SERPs. Comprehensive schema markup can unlock rich snippets, while optimized title tags and emotionally engaging meta descriptions help your results stand out. Structured snippets are also powerful for showcasing your unique selling propositions directly on the results page.
Mobile optimization
Finally, mobile optimization ensures that once users click, they stay engaged. Fast page load speeds provide immediate satisfaction, while scannable content structures make information easy to digest on smaller screens. Queries here often carry higher intent, making them a valuable source of qualified clicks.
Curious to know how AI sees your brand?
Unlock instant AI brand visibility insights, track mentions, and boost your authority with our Yoast SEO AI+ package.
Traditional SEO is shifting fast. With AI-driven search platforms like Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity shaping results, businesses now need to optimize for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) or Answer Engine Optimization (AEO).
In simple terms: Instead of fighting for clicks on SERPs, the new goal is to have your content chosen as trusted source material in AI-generated answers.
What GEO/AEO means for your content
AI-powered search engines “read” and select content differently from Google’s classic algorithm. They prioritize:
Clarity & structure → short, factual sentences
Explicit answers → direct responses to common queries
Scannable formats → helpful headings, bullet lists, and one idea per paragraph
Here’s what many miss: AI Overviews strip away logos, design, and slogans. All that remains is text. That means your brand identity must live in your words.
To stand out in AI-generated answers:
Use brand-specific language and stories
Strengthen authority with schema markup and citations
Make sure your brand’s voice and expertise come through clearly
This is where AI Brand Insights comes in. This feature will:
Track how AI assistants mention your brand.
Show how your business is represented in AI-generated answers.
Help refine your brand narrative in the age of AI search.
In short: GEO isn’t about SERP position alone; it’s about what AI “knows” and shows about your brand.
See how visible your brand is in AI search
Track mentions, sentiment, and AI visibility. With Yoast AI Brand Insights, you can start monitoring and growing your brand.
CTRs remain essential but insufficient for measuring true search success
AI brand mentions and citation quality predict long-term visibility better than traditional rankings
Structured data and semantic optimization determine inclusion in the AI-generated responses
Multi-platform visibility tracking is essential as search behavior fragments across AI tools
Ready to optimize visibility in AI search?
The transformation to AI-powered search is already here. Early adopters who implement comprehensive AI visibility measurement today will establish competitive advantages that build over time.
Start tracking your AI mentions immediately using the frameworks outlined above. Audit your content for AI-friendliness and implement structured data optimization. Most importantly, build authority through comprehensive topic coverage and citation-worthy insights that position your brand as an industry authority across traditional search and AI platforms.
The brands that thrive in the next decade will not be those with the highest CTRs; they will be the ones that understand how to build influence and visibility in an AI-first search world.
