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Pinterest SEO: Your guide to brand discovery

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Pinterest SEO- Your guide to brand discovery

Search is evolving, and social platforms are now at the heart of discovery. 

Pinterest, in particular, has emerged as a powerful visual search engine, driving traffic and engagement for brands, bloggers, and businesses.

Unlike traditional social media, which thrives on conversations and real-time interactions, Pinterest is built for intent-driven discovery – where users actively seek inspiration, ideas, and products.

This presents a unique opportunity for search marketers.

Pinterest users often arrive with high intent, making it an invaluable platform for organic visibility and referral traffic. 

To maximize discoverability, understanding how Pinterest search works along with SEO best practices is essential.

This article breaks down:

  • How Pinterest functions as a search engine.
  • The key ranking factors that influence visibility.
  • The best ways to optimize your content for discovery. 

How Pinterest works as a search engine

At its core, Pinterest is more than just a social platform – it’s one of the original discovery engines.

Unlike Instagram or Facebook, where content is driven by social interactions and chronological feeds, Pinterest prioritizes search intent and content relevance. 

Users come to Pinterest with a purpose:

  • To find inspiration.
  • To plan projects.
  • To discover new ideas. 

More importantly, they arrive with intent – often high purchase intent – making them ready and willing to become customers of the brands they discover on the platform.

Dig deeper: How Gen Z is redefining discovery on TikTok, Pinterest, and beyond

Pinterest’s Smart Feed: How content is ranked

Pinterest does not display content in simple chronological order. Instead, it uses a proprietary algorithm called the Smart Feed, which ranks and curates content based on user behavior, engagement, and search activity.

Key factors that influence Pinterest rankings include:

  • Relevance to the search query: Pinterest relies heavily on keywords in Pin titles, descriptions, board names, and even image alt text. Optimized content with clear intent performs better in search.
  • Engagement metrics: Pins with high engagement (saves, clicks, and close-ups) signal value to Pinterest, increasing their likelihood of appearing in feeds and search results.
  • Freshness of content: Pinterest favors newly created Pins over reshared or older content. Consistently uploading fresh, high-quality content boosts visibility.
  • Pinner authority and board quality: The credibility of the account posting the Pin matters. Established accounts with well-organized, keyword-rich boards tend to have better visibility.
  • Image quality and format: Pinterest prioritizes visually appealing, vertical images (2:3 aspect ratio) that encourage engagement. Clear, high-resolution images with compelling overlays perform best.

Differences between traditional search vs. Pinterest search

While Pinterest and traditional search engines like Google are search-capable platforms, their mechanics differ in several ways.

Table - Differences between traditional search vs. Pinterest search

Keyword research for Pinterest SEO

Just like with traditional SEO, keyword research is the foundation of Pinterest SEO.

Since Pinterest functions as a visual search engine, understanding how users search for content is essential to optimizing your Pins, boards, and profile. 

Unlike Google or Bing, Pinterest doesn’t provide exact search volume data. 

However, it offers valuable insights through autocomplete suggestions, the Pinterest Trends toolkit, and third-party tools.

Conducting keyword research using Pinterest’s search bar

One of the easiest ways to find relevant keywords is by using Pinterest’s search bar autocomplete feature. Here’s how.

  • Start typing a broad keyword: Enter a general term related to your niche, such as “home decor.”
  • Look at Pinterest’s auto-suggestions: As you type, Pinterest displays popular search queries based on previous user behavior. These suggestions indicate high-interest topics.
  • Refine and expand keywords: Click on a suggested keyword to see additional related opportunities. This can help identify long-tail keyword variations.

Example: Typing “summer outfit” might generate suggestions like “summer outfit ideas,” “summer outfit for vacation,” or “summer outfit aesthetic.” 

These variations can be valuable additions to your Pins and boards if you aim to rank for that type of query.

Pinterest summer outfit

Using Pinterest Trends for search volume and seasonality insights

Pinterest Trends allows search and social teams to:

  • Track rising and declining trends over time.
  • Compare keyword popularity.
  • Identify seasonal patterns to plan content accordingly.

By analyzing search interest fluctuations, you can determine when specific topics gain traction and adjust your posting schedule to maximize visibility and engagement.

Pinterest Trends

To use Pinterest Trends:

  • Visit trends.pinterest.com or access it from your Pinterest Business account.
  • Enter relevant keywords to see interest over time and related trending searches.
  • Identify peak times for specific topics (e.g., searches for “Halloween costume ideas” spike in September and October).
  • Adjust your content calendar to publish content before peak trends to increase engagement.

Example: If searches for “Christmas gift ideas” peak in November, start publishing optimized Pins for that keyword in September or October to gain traction before competition increases.

Tools and methods to discover high-performing keywords

In addition to Pinterest’s built-in search and trend tools, external resources can help refine your keyword strategy. Here are a few options:

  • Pinterest Ads Manager: Provides keyword suggestions when setting up an ad campaign. Even if you’re not running ads, you can use it for organic research.
  • Google Keyword Planner: While not Pinterest-specific, it helps identify related search terms that users may also search for on Pinterest. You can then verify these terms using Pinterest-specific tools.
  • Buzzabout.AI: Helps analyze social media conversations around specific topics, offering insight into potential keyword opportunities.

Dig deeper: SEO beyond Google: Building your brand on Reddit, Quora, TikTok and more

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Optimizing Pins for search discovery

Now that we understand keyword research and content trends, the next step is optimizing your Pins.

Since Pinterest is a visual-first platform, the design, format, and metadata of your Pins play a crucial role in performance. 

Well-optimized Pins rank higher in search results and attract more saves, clicks, and engagement – fueling further algorithmic distribution.

An Anthropologie pin that showcases several of our recommended best practices
An Anthropologie pin that showcases several of our recommended best practices.

Best practices for Pin design

The visual appeal of a Pin directly impacts its discoverability and engagement. Follow these design best practices:

  • Use the optimal image size: Pinterest recommends a 2:3 aspect ratio (1,000 x 1,500 pixels) to prevent cropping.
  • Include clear text overlays: Readable text on images improves engagement and quickly communicates the Pin’s value.
  • Maintain consistent branding: Use brand colors, fonts, and logos to establish recognition and build trust.
  • Choose high-quality visuals: Bright, high-resolution images with minimal clutter perform best. Lifestyle and product images tend to receive higher engagement.
  • Create fresh Pins regularly: Pinterest favors new content, so repurposing blog posts or redesigning Pins with updated visuals helps maintain visibility.

Example: A food brand sharing a recipe should use a high-quality image of the dish, add a clear text overlay with the recipe name, and subtly place the brand logo in a non-intrusive spot.

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

Writing optimized pin titles and descriptions

Like traditional search engines, Pinterest relies on text-based metadata to understand and rank content. 

A well-crafted title and description with relevant keywords increases a Pin’s visibility in search results.

Tips for title optimization

  • Keep titles between 40–100 characters – concise yet descriptive.
  • Front-load primary keywords at the beginning.
  • Use an engaging hook to attract attention.

Tips for description optimization

  • Write detailed descriptions (up to 500 characters) incorporating primary and secondary keywords naturally.
  • Use a conversational, engaging tone to encourage interaction.
  • Include a clear call to action (CTA) when appropriate.

Example:

  • Pin title: “Best Morning Skincare Routine for Glowing Skin”
  • Pin description: “Looking for a simple yet effective morning skincare routine? This guide covers the best products and steps for glowing skin. From gentle cleansers to SPF protection, discover the essentials for healthy skin. Save this Pin for your daily routine inspiration!”

Analytics tools to monitor your performance

Pinterest SEO doesn’t stop at keyword research and Pin design.

Ongoing performance tracking is essential for refining your strategy.

Pinterest’s built-in Analytics provides insights into:

  • What’s working.
  • What’s not.
  • How to optimize content for better visibility and engagement. 

Additionally, Google Analytics offers deeper insight into Pinterest-driven website traffic and conversions.

How to track performance using Pinterest Analytics

Like traditional search, Pinterest Analytics helps measure content performance. 

Available for Pinterest Business accounts, it provides valuable data on Pin engagement, audience behavior, and trends.

Key Pinterest performance metrics include:

  • Impressions: The number of times a Pin appears in feeds, search results, or category pages.
  • Saves (Repins): The number of times users save a Pin to their own boards. Saves signal value to Pinterest, boosting visibility.
  • Outbound clicks: The number of times users click a Pin to visit your website. A high click-through rate (CTR) indicates effective content.
  • Close-ups: The number of times users tap or zoom in on a Pin. A high close-up rate suggests interest but may indicate the need for clearer CTAs.
  • Engagement rate: A combination of saves, clicks, and interactions that indicate a Pin’s overall effectiveness.

Top tip: If a Pin has high impressions but low outbound clicks, test different images, headlines, and descriptions to improve engagement. 

If a Pin has low impressions, revisit your keyword strategy to ensure alignment with user searches.

Using Google Analytics to track Pinterest’s impact

While Pinterest Analytics tracks in-platform engagement, Google Analytics offers insight into Pinterest’s impact on website traffic and conversions.

To track Pinterest referrals:

  • Open Google Analytics and navigate to Acquisition > Traffic Sources.
  • Filter by Referral Traffic and locate Pinterest as a source.
  • Analyze bounce rate, session duration, and conversions to evaluate Pinterest’s role in driving valuable traffic.

Final thoughts

I’ve long been an advocate for a “search everywhere” approach – and Pinterest is proving why that strategy is essential.

It’s clear that Pinterest is more than a social media platform. It’s a powerful discovery engine that lets you connect with an audience that is actively searching for inspiration and solutions.

By applying familiar SEO techniques like keyword research and combining them with social-driven best practices – such as high-quality visuals and a strategic posting schedule – you can enhance discoverability and drive consistent traffic to your website.

Whether you’re a blogger, ecommerce brand, or content creator, mastering Pinterest SEO gives you a competitive edge in today’s evolving search landscape. 

Dig deeper: Search everywhere optimization: 7 platforms SEOs need to optimize for beyond Google

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How to get better results from Meta ads with vertical video formats

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How to get better results from Meta ads with vertical video formats

Meta ads are evolving, and understanding the right video formats can make a big difference in your ad performance. 

Here’s how 9:16 and 4:5 videos can help you get better results in Meta, and even across TikTok and YouTube Shorts.

The power of Meta’s video innovation

Many ecommerce brands have found success using Meta ads.

However, many of these brands don’t understand the formatting details that, when used correctly, can drive better results.

For context, Meta has undergone more changes than other platforms like Google Ads (which together form the digital advertising duopoly). 

While Google Ads is older, Meta continues to innovate. It first entered the vertical video space by launching Stories as a direct competitor to Snapchat.

Today, Meta is in a similar competition with TikTok through Reels.

Different placements work for different advertisers, so it’s important to understand where your brand performs best to succeed.

Dig deeper: Why video is key to building brand identity and engagement

Meta’s video advertising focus

Over the past three months, I’ve spoken with Meta reps, agency owners, and clients to better understand where Meta is focusing its efforts.

The answer?

9:16 and 4:5 video ad formats. 

These formats perform well on Meta’s platform and work as effective creative for TikTok and YouTube Shorts.

Both vertical placements are key to getting the most out of your ad campaigns.

  • The 9:16: Maximizes the area within the Story placement.
  • The 4:5: Provides the largest creative space within the newsfeed and Reel placements – and more space means more opportunity.

At our agency, we work with 30 brands, giving us a broad view of trends and patterns. And we’ve noticed one key thing:

Reels (9:16) are more cost-efficient but convert less immediately for most brands. 

There is a clear difference between engagement, shareability, and research within Reels compared to In-Feed and Stories.

Why does this matter to you as an advertiser?

Because Meta is getting more expensive, you need to be more efficient. 

Instead of simply saying, “Jump on Reels, they’re cheap,” I want to share data-backed tactics you can use right away.

3 ways to get more from 9:16 and 4:5 Meta video ad formats

With a million different tactics floating around on the internet, use these 3 to make a dent in your media buying:

1. Optimize Reel placement

Start by creating varied content, then refine it through testing within the Reels placement to gather feedback and increase exposure at a lower cost.

Next, identify which creative drives performance versus engagement. 

Focus on growing sales, top-funnel reach, and boosting engagement through shares and Google searches.

On Reels, creative is the variable that multiplies

2. Pay attention to your ad’s safe zones

In Meta advertising, “safe zones” are areas within Stories and Reels ads where key creative elements – such as text and logos – should be placed to prevent them from being obscured by interface features like profile icons or call-to-action buttons.

Safe zones have become one of the biggest talking points with our clients heading into 2025.

What makes safe zones complex is how primary placements (Stories, Reels, and In-Feed) interact with other placements (video feed, Explore, search, etc.). 

This complexity increases when you expand to other platforms like YouTube Shorts and TikTok, which present content differently to users.

When optimizing safe zones, ensure clear communication between:

  • Media buyer.
  • Client.
  • Creative team.

A strong safe zone strategy is key to increasing click-through rates (CTR) and engagement (shares, saves, comments, and reactions).

This improved engagement helps the algorithm lower costs (CPM) while collecting valuable data on how users respond – both positively and negatively – to your ads.

Safe zones across placements

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3. Embrace creative variation

The most important factor in creative development is variation.

Take one of our clients, for example – a company specializing in ergonomic home products.

They’ve developed an unmatched product, and we’ve created personalized dashboards to track their ad account at the founder’s creative level.

This helps us better understand their return on ad spend (ROAS) alongside engagement metrics like shares, saves, and comments.

Meta ads - analytics dashboard

Data visualization allows us to quickly see how each creative performs:

  • Some drive high shareability.
  • Some generate more purchases and stronger ROAS.
  • Others encourage comments.

If you aren’t analyzing this information, you’re missing key insights that could improve your creative performance.

By understanding how each founder-led creative performs, we can refine those assets and expand into new variations. 

For this brand, founder creative was the most impactful and engaging – but it shouldn’t be the only focus. 

We found that the “health” creative category drives both purchases and ROAS. 

This type of content is ideal for retargeting – potentially in a carousel format through the feed for users already familiar with the brand.

Meta ads - video ad campaigns

But let’s dig a level deeper.

Within the “health” category, we discovered that “spine-specific health” content is both engaging and high-performing. 

This makes it a strong candidate for evergreen ads in both prospecting and retargeting.

This high-performing creative can now be iterated and repurposed in different ways, such as:

  • Featuring a new UGC spine expert.
  • Highlighting a target audience user.
  • Using an overhead shot of the product with a voice-over about spine health.

One successful ad can branch into multiple creative opportunities.

When you combine these variations with 9:16, 4:5, and safe zones, you create ads that are optimized for lasting success.

Dig deeper: Meta introduces generative AI video advertising tools

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Google now sees more than 5 trillion searches per year

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Google processes more than 5 trillion searches per year. This is the first time Google has publicly shared such a figure since 2016, when the company confirmed it was handling “more than 2 trillion” queries annually.

By the numbers. Google revealed the new figure in a blog post today, saying it is based on internal Google data:

  • “We already see more than 5 trillion searches on Google annually.”

Google added another tidbit in the same blog post: that “the volume of commercial queries has increased” since the launch of AI Overviews. However, Google didn’t share any data or a percentage to explain how much commercial queries have increased.

Searches per second, minute, day and month. Now that we have an updated figure, we can also estimate how many Google searches there are pretty much down to the second. Here’s a breakdown based on this new Google data point:

  • Searches per second: 158,548
  • Searches per minute: 9.5 million.
  • Searches per hour: 571 million.
  • Searches per day: 14 billion.
  • Searches per month: 417 billion.
  • Searches per year: More than 5 trillion.

Google searches per year, over time. Curious about how the number of Google search queries has grown over time, at least based on what Google self-reported? Here’s a brief recap:

  • 1999: 1 billion. This figure was based on 3 million searches per day, reported in August 1999 by John Battelle in his book, “The Search.”
  • 2000: 14 billion. This figure was based on 18 million searches per day for the first half of 2000 and 60 million for the second half, as reported by Battelle.
  • 2001–2003: 55 billion+. This figure was based on reports by Google for its Zeitgeist in 2001, 2002 and 2003.
  • 2004–2008: 73 billion. This figure was based on Google saying it was doing 200 million searches per day in 2004. After that, it said only “billions” in Google Zeitgeist for 2005 and 2007. No updates were shared in 2006 or 2008.
  • 2009: 365 billion+. A Google blog post, Google Instant, behind the scenes, said Google was doing more than 1 billion searches per day. No updates for 2010 or 2011)
  • 2012–2015: 1.2 trillion. This figure is based on a 100-billion-per-month figure Google released during a special press briefing on search in 2012. Google repeated this figure in 2015, when expressing it as 3 billion searches per day.
  • 2016-2024: 2 trillion+. Google confirmed to Search Engine Land that because it said it handles “trillions” of searches per year worldwide, the figure could be safely assumed to be 2 trillion or above.
  • 2025: 5 trillion+. This figure is based on internal Google data and was reported in Google’s blog post, AI, personalization and the future of shopping.

Why we care. Since 2016, we’ve known that Google processes “at least 2 trillion” searches per year. Now, nearly nine years later, we have a new official figure from Google for how many searches are conducted on Google annually: 5 trillion.

5.9 trillion? Hours after we published our story, Rand Fishkin published new research that estimated the number of Google searches per year to be 5.9 trillion. From the study:

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

Dig deeper. Americans search Google 126 times per month on average: Study

Read more at Read More

Google Merchant Center renames Conversion Settings as Key Event Setup

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Top 5 Google Ads opportunities you might be missing

Google updated its conversion terminology in Google Merchant Center, renaming “Conversion settings” to “Key event setup” in the Google Ads UI.

The terminology change aligns Google Merchant Center with Google Analytics 4’s shift from “conversions” to “key events,” creating more consistent language across Google’s marketing platforms.

The big picture: This change reflects Google’s broader move toward standardizing measurement terms across its suite of marketing tools, which began with Google Analytics 4’s introduction of the “key events” terminology in March 2024.

Why we care. The alignment with Google Analytics 4 means you will need to adapt your workflows, reporting, and possibly your strategic approach to measuring customer interactions.

Between the lines: The shift from “conversions” to “key events” represents more than just a naming convention – it’s part of Google’s evolving approach to how businesses track and measure meaningful user interactions.

First seen. We were first made aware of this update by Emmanuel Flossie when he posted about seeing the change on LinkedIn:

What to watch: As Google continues to align terminology across its platforms, marketers should expect similar updates to appear in other Google marketing tools to create a more unified measurement framework.

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Organic Traffic: What It Is & How to Increase It (6 Ways)

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Growing your website starts with reaching the right people.

Not random traffic.

People actively searching for the solutions you provide.

That’s where organic traffic shines.

Unlike paid advertising or social media, organic traffic attracts visitors with clear intent.

At Backlinko, organic traffic brings us over 571K monthly visitors—each one specifically interested in SEO and digital marketing.

GA – Backlinko – Users

In this guide, you’ll learn all about organic traffic, including how to measure and increase it.

Let’s start with what organic traffic is and how it differs from other traffic sources.

What Is Organic Traffic?

Organic traffic refers to visitors who land on your website or blog from unpaid search engine results.

Think of it as people finding your content naturally when they search for information, products, or services.

These unpaid clicks are organic traffic.

For example, if someone searches “seo competitor analysis” on Google and clicks on a regular (non-ad) result, that counts as organic traffic.

Google SERP – SEO competitor analysis

The key word here is “unpaid.”

While you might see “sponsored” or “ad” results at the top of search results, clicks on these aren’t organic traffic—they’re paid traffic.

Google SERP – CRM software – Sponsored

You earn organic traffic by creating high-quality content that matches what people are searching for (search intent) and optimizing it for search engines (SEO).

Understanding Organic vs. Other Traffic Sources

Search engines aren’t the only way people find websites.

Visitors might come from social media, email newsletters, or by typing your URL directly.

Here’s how different traffic sources compare:

Traffic Source How It Works Best For
Organic Users find you through unpaid search results Building long-term authority and consistent traffic
Paid search Users click your ads in search results Quick traffic for specific campaigns
Direct Users type your URL or use bookmarks Returning visitors and brand awareness
Social Users find you through social media Brand awareness and community building
Email Users click links in your emails Nurturing leads and customer retention
Referral Users click links from other websites Building authority and partnerships

Why Organic Traffic Matters

Organic traffic isn’t just about reaching your target audience.

It’s about building assets that continue delivering value long after you create them.

Here’s why investing in organic search makes sense for businesses of all sizes.

Cost-Effective

Organic traffic is one of the most affordable ways to attract qualified visitors to your website.

This is especially true when you compare it to paid advertising, which costs anywhere from $0.11 to $0.50 per click, according to a WebFX survey.

Now, let’s consider a leading home improvement site, The Spruce, as an example.

The Spruce – Homepage

They attract 9 million organic visitors monthly.

This traffic would cost them an estimated $7.1 million if they paid for it through Google Ads.

Organic Research – The Spruce – Overview

Pretty impressive, right?

As you can see, organic traffic can deliver incredible ROI compared to the ongoing costs of paid advertising.

Myth vs. fact: While organic traffic doesn’t require paying per click, it’s not exactly “free” either. At a minimum, you’ll be investing time into content creation and SEO. Many businesses also hire writers and editors to scale content production.

Builds Authority

Consistently ranking for search terms helps establish your site as an industry leader.

NerdWallet demonstrates this perfectly.

With 13.2 million monthly organic visitors and 5.2 million backlinks, they’ve become the go-to source for financial advice.

Domain Overview – NerdWallet – Overview

Their approach?

Creating comprehensive content that displays E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) signals:

  • Author credentials and expertise
  • Regular content updates with accurate information
  • Citations to credible sources
  • Real-world experience and testing
  • Clear website policies and contact information

NerdWallet – E-E-A-T content

When they rank #1 on Google for terms like “best high yield savings account” or “how to invest in stocks,” it reinforces their position as a trusted voice in personal finance.

Google SERP – How to invest in stocks

And helps them build website authority and confidence with every click.

Drives Targeted Traffic

When someone finds your site through organic search, they’re currently looking for what you offer.

Think about someone searching for “how to optimize a blog post.”

They’re not casually browsing—they’re sitting at their computer, working on content, and need guidance right now.

Google SERP – How to optimize a blog post

If your site ranks highly for this search, you’re reaching them at the perfect moment:

When they’re most likely to read your advice, implement your tips, or purchase a solution that helps them succeed.

That’s the power of organic traffic.

By consistently appearing in these high-intent searches, you connect with people precisely when your expertise matters most.

Further reading: How to Create an Effective SEO Strategy

Generates Long-Term Leads

While paid campaigns stop delivering the moment you pause them, organic traffic compounds over time.

The key is creating content that matches what your audience is searching for at every funnel stage.

Including when they’re researching a problem, comparing solutions, or ready to make a purchase.

This builds a sustainable pipeline of qualified leads that continues growing long after you publish the content.

The best part? You don’t have to depend on daily ad spend.

The Value of Paid vs. Organic Traffic 

Important: Consider organic traffic an investment rather than a quick win. While your exact timeline will vary based on industry, competition, and content strategy, it can take four to six months (or more) before you start seeing significant organic traffic growth.

How to Check Organic Traffic

Tracking your organic traffic reveals which content drives visitors and growth opportunities.

It also proves your SEO ROI.

These three tools make it easy.

Organic Research

Semrush’s Organic Research tool goes beyond basic traffic metrics to show you the full picture of your organic performance.

Note: A free Semrush account gives you 10 searches in Organic Research per day. Or you can use this link to access a 14-day trial on a Semrush Pro subscription.

Start by entering your domain and clicking “Search.”

For this example, I used Sweet Peas and Saffron, a meal prep site.

Organic Research – Sweetpeasandsaffron – Search

Right away, you’ll see interesting data on your site’s organic performance.

For example, I learned that Sweet Peas and Saffron has:

  • 88.8K ranking keywords
  • 110.2K monthly organic traffic
  • $33.8K in traffic value

Organic Research – Sweetpeasandsaffron – Overview

Click the “Positions” tab to discover every keyword you rank for.

Filter by “Positions,” “Volume,” “Intent,” “SERP Features,” and more for deeper insights into your search performance.

Organic Research – Sweetpeasandsaffron – Positions – Filters

I filtered Sweet Peas and Saffron’s results by “Position #1” and learned they have 791 organic keywords in the first spot on Google.

Terms like “air fryer chickpeas” and “asian salad dressing” drive consistent organic traffic to this site every single month.

Organic Research – Sweetpeasandsaffron – Organic – Position filters

The “Position Changes” report shows where you’re gaining or losing ground in search results.

This helps you spot trends and react quickly to ranking drops.

Organic Research – Sweetpeasandsaffron – Position Changes Trend

For example, Sweet Pea and Saffron’s post, “Easy Homemade Fajita Seasoning,” has recently seen a 2.6K decrease in traffic.

Organic Research – Sweetpeasandsaffron – Position Changes – Top Page Changes

When you see drops like this, you can:

  • Check if your content needs updating
  • See if competitors have published better content
  • Look for technical issues affecting the page
  • Review if the search intent has changed

The sooner you identify these issues, the faster you can fix them and recover your rankings.

Further reading: 41 Best SEO Tools (Free & Paid)

Google Analytics

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) shows you where your organic traffic comes from and how visitors behave on your site.

Here’s how to check your organic traffic on this platform:

Click “Reports” in the left-hand menu.

GA4 – Reports

Click “Life cycle,” > “Acquisition” > “Traffic acquisition.”

GA4 – Reports – Traffic acquisition

Now, you’ll see an overview of your site’s performance, including organic search.

GA4 – Traffic acquisition report

For a breakdown of which search engines drive the most organic traffic to your site, scroll to the traffic acquisition report.

Next, click the plus sign to add a secondary dimension.

GA4 – Traffic acquisition report – Plus sign

Select “Session source.”

GA4 – Session source

Now, you’ll see an organic traffic breakdown by search engine.

GA4 – Organic Search – Session source

Pro tip: Want to see which individual pages get the most organic traffic? Go to “Engagement” > “Pages and Screens” and add a secondary dimension of “Session source / medium.”


Google Search Console

While GA4 tracks all search engines, Google Search Console (GSC) focuses solely on Google traffic—giving you detailed data about your Google search performance.

Start by opening your GSC account and clicking “Performance” > “Search results” in the left sidebar.

Google Search Console – Performance – Search Results

Scroll to see the top queries and pages that attract organic traffic to your site.

You’ll learn how many clicks and impressions each one gets.

And each term’s position on the search engine results pages (SERPs).

GSC – Performance – Pages

How to Increase Organic Traffic in 6 Steps

There are dozens of ways to improve organic traffic.

But these six high-impact tactics consistently deliver the best results.

Organic Traffic Growth Checklist

1. Fix Technical Issues

Technical problems can limit your organic traffic growth.

This is why it’s important to identify and fix them.

First things first:

Make sure Google is indexing your content.

Go to Google Search Console and click “Indexing” > “Pages.”

If you see lots of non-indexed pages, don’t panic just yet. This number will vary for every site.

And preventing certain pages from being indexed can actually be a good thing.

What matters is that your most important pages are properly indexed.

GSC – Backlinko – Page indexing

View the “Why pages aren’t indexed” report to check for issues.

This helps you distinguish between:

  • Intentionally excluded pages, such as duplicate content, form submissions, paginated pages, or anything else you don’t want indexed
  • Important pages that should be indexed but aren’t due to redirect errors, accidental noindex tags, and other issues

GSC – Why pages aren't indexed

Click any error to get details and request immediate indexing if needed.

This can be a fast and easy way to recover lost organic traffic.

GSC – URL is not on Google

Next, use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to check your site’s loading speed and Core Web Vitals—Google’s key metrics for measuring user experience.

Slow, poorly performing pages drive visitors away and hurt your rankings.

PageSpeed Insights – Backlinko – Mobile

The tool will tell you if your site passes or fails the assessment.

It’ll also tell you what went wrong and how to fix it—like resizing images and reducing JavaScript execution time.

PageSpeed Insights – Reducing JavaScript execution time

For a complete technical health checkup, use Semrush’s Site Audit to scan your entire site.

It uncovers hidden issues that could be limiting your organic growth:

  • Crawlability problems
  • Internal linking errors
  • Performance issues
  • Site structure problems

Site Audit – Backlinko – Overview

Review the list of “Errors” first—these are critical issues that could have the biggest impact on your organic traffic potential.

Like duplicate content, broken internal links, and returned status codes.

Site Audit – Backlinko – Errors

2. Select Keywords with Low Difficulty for Your Site

Want to know the secret to ranking faster?

Don’t go straight for keywords with the highest monthly search volume.

Start with lower-difficulty terms that are easier to rank for.

Here’s how to do it with Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool:

Enter a broad term like “LinkedIn marketing” and click “Search.”

Keyword Magic Tool – LinkedIn marketing – Search

Note: A free Semrush account gives you 10 searches in the Keyword Magic Tool per day. Or you can use this link to access a 14-day trial on a Semrush Pro subscription.

The tool will return a long list of keywords and metrics for each one.

Including:

  • Search volume: How many times per month a keyword is searched
  • Keyword difficulty (KD): This is a score from one to 100, showing how hard it’ll be to rank in Google’s top 10 for the given term
  • Intent: The reason behind a user’s search: they want information (informational), they want to compare options (commercial), they’re trying to find a specific site (navigational), or they want to buy something (transactional)

Keyword Magic Tool – LinkedIn marketing – Keywords

“LinkedIn marketing” gets 4,400 searches per month but has a daunting keyword difficulty of 95.

Let’s filter the results so we can find terms with lower difficulty.

Click “KD” on the menu and enter “0” and “49.”

Now, you’ll see only terms that are “easy” or “possible” to rank for.

Keyword Magic Tool – LinkedIn marketing – KD filter

As you review the list, look for terms that have:

  • Search intent aligned with your content type (how-to, product reviews, etc.)
  • Realistic competition levels for your site
  • Enough monthly searches to be worth targeting

Pro tip: Enter your domain into the AI-powered search bar in the Keyword Magic Tool. You’ll get a personalized difficulty score that shows which keywords are actually within reach for your site.

Keyword Magic Tool – LinkedIn marketing – AI powered – Backlinko

3. Refresh Existing Content

Want faster results?

Update existing content instead of only creating new posts.

Since Google already knows these pages exist, you’ll be more likely to see improvements quickly.

Your first step is to identify underperforming content that could benefit from a refresh.

Head to Google Search Console and click “Performance” > “Search results.”

Filter for pages with a low click-through rate (CTR) (under 3%).

Click the filter menu icon in the right-hand corner and select “Clicks.”

Performance – Search results – CTR – Filter by clicks

Select “Smaller than” and enter “3.”

Click “Done.”

GSC – Filtered by clicks & smaller then

Now, you’ll only see pages on your site with a 3% (or less) CTR.

Take note of the pages that have decent impressions.

Keep in mind that what’s decent for you will depend on your site, but think 500+.

These pages should have the highest potential to gain ground quickly because Google is showing them to users already.

GSC – Pages – Filtered results

Next, create a tracking spreadsheet for this project.

This can be a simple Google or Excel spreadsheet.

Google spreadsheet – Content Refresh Project

Then, search for your target keyword and analyze the top five ranking pages.

Look specifically for:

  • Search intent: Does their content better match what searchers want?
  • Visuals: Do they use more helpful images, tables, infographics, or pro tips?
  • Content depth: What topics, examples, or case studies do they cover that you don’t?
  • Updated information: Are they citing newer stats or trends?
  • Metadata: Are their title tags and meta descriptions more compelling?
  • Structure: Is their content easier to scan and understand, with descriptive subheads?
  • Writer expertise: Do they show more authority on the topic?

Make targeted improvements based on your findings.

Some pages might need a complete rewrite, while others may only need updated statistics or better examples.

Track your results in Google Search Console and Google Analytics.

Look for increases in:

4. Target Evergreen Topics

Unlike news articles or trend pieces that quickly fade, evergreen topics maintain consistent organic search volume because they solve timeless problems.

Think about searches like “how to tie a tie” or “how to cook quinoa”—these questions never go out of style.

Case in point:

The search term “how to cook quinoa” gets 33.1K monthly searches.

Keyword Overview – How to cook quinoa

If you search Google for this term, you’ll see countless articles.

But one of the top-ranking articles is from a recipe site called Love & Lemons.

Google SERP – How to cook quinoa

Love & Lemons gets 149K organic visitors every month from this single article.

So, how’d they turn one evergreen topic into a massive organic traffic source?

Organic Research – Love and Lemons – Traffic

They chose a topic they knew would interest their target audience: cooking quinoa.

And created a guide that included:

  • Clear explanations of quinoa basics and nutrition facts
  • Detailed, tested cooking instructions
  • Expert tips from real kitchen experience
  • Multiple cooking methods for different preferences
  • Strategic internal links to related quinoa recipes

This comprehensive approach works because it answers every question a reader might have about cooking quinoa.

What is quinoa

How can you do this, too?

The key is choosing topics that solve ongoing problems and answering fundamental questions.

(Decent search volume helps, too.)

Find keywords like this for your site by using tools like Exploding Topics, Google Trends, and Google autocomplete searches.

Google Suggest – How to cook

5. Add Internal Links

Internal linking helps Google find, index, and understand your content.

Which is why it’s helpful for increasing organic traffic.

But it can also keep visitors around for longer. Meaning you retain more of the traffic you worked so hard to get.

Start by looking for pages on your site with no internal links (also called “orphan pages”).

Use a tool that automates the process of finding orphan pages, like Site Audit or RankMath.

Site Audit – Backlinko – Issues – Orphan pages

But don’t add just any links.

Your internal links need to:

  • Match the context of the surrounding content
  • Use descriptive anchor text that explains the destination
  • Help users find related information they want

For example, instead of “click here,” use specific anchor text like “AI writing tools” for an AI writing tools comparison page.

Or “keyword research guide” for a keyword tutorial.

This helps Google and visitors understand what they’ll find on the linked page.

Backlinko – ChatGPT Alternatives – Linked page

Pro tip: Every time you publish a new post, spend five to 10 minutes adding relevant internal links from your existing content. This can help Google discover and rank your new content faster.

Bonus Step: Optimize Your Link Flow

  • Prioritize link equity by linking from high-authority pages to newer or lower-performing ones
  • Use topic clusters to organize related content into silos that strengthen overall relevance
  • Ensure crawl efficiency by avoiding excessive links on a single page

6. Build a Backlink Strategy

Backlinks remain one of Google’s strongest ranking signals.

The more relevant sites that link to you, the more organic traffic you can attract.

But how do you earn these valuable links?

Start by creating content that naturally attracts them.

The most linkable content types we’ve found include:

  • Original research and industry studies
  • Comprehensive how-to guides that fill knowledge gaps
  • Free tools and templates
  • Expert roundups with unique insights
  • Attractive visuals (like infographics)

For example, we created a detailed analysis of Google’s ranking factors that has attracted 33.7K backlinks to date.

Backlink Analytics – Backlinko – Ranking Factors – Backlinks

Why did it work so well?

Because it’s a comprehensive resource with over 200 ranking factors.

And we constantly update it to ensure it features the freshest information and studies.

Backlinko – Google Ranking Factors

But creating linkable assets isn’t your only option for boosting backlinks and organic traffic.

Build genuine industry relationships by joining relevant Slack, Facebook, and Reddit communities and participating in discussions.

Focus on adding value first—answer questions, share insights, and build real connections.

Only include links to your site when relevant and helpful (and if allowed by the community).

Reddit – r/NativePlantGardening

Want to accelerate your link building?

Study what’s already working in your industry.

Use Semrush’s Backlink Analytics to monitor your competitors’ backlinks.

Backlink Analytics – Aznps – Overview

When studying competitor backlinks, look for patterns.

Do certain topics or content formats consistently earn more links?

Use these insights to create similar (but better) resources.

And reach out to those same sites to start building your backlink profile.

Future-Proof Your Traffic Strategy

You now have a proven system for growing organic traffic.

But this is just one part of a successful traffic strategy.

Relying solely on organic traffic is risky, even for the most experienced SEO or marketer.

Here’s why:

  • Algorithm updates can instantly impact your rankings
  • Core updates happen multiple times per year
  • Industry shifts can change how people search
  • New competitors can push you down in search results

The smarter approach?

Building a diversified traffic strategy that includes everything from organic and social to email marketing.

Get started by reading 28 Ways to Increase Traffic to Your Website, featuring proven multi-channel strategies.

The post Organic Traffic: What It Is & How to Increase It (6 Ways) appeared first on Backlinko.

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What Is JavaScript SEO? 6 Best Practices to Boost Rankings

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JavaScript has enabled highly interactive and dynamic websites. But it also presents a challenge: ensuring your site is crawlable, indexable, and fast.

That’s why JavaScript SEO is essential.

When applied correctly, these strategies can significantly boost organic search performance.

For instance, book retailer Follet saw a remarkable recovery after fixing JavaScript issues:

JavaScript SEO Improvements

That’s the impact of effective JavaScript SEO.

In this guide, you’ll:

  • Get an introduction to JavaScript SEO
  • Understand the challenges with using JavaScript for search
  • Learn best practices to optimize your JavaScript site for organic search

What Is JavaScript SEO?

JavaScript SEO is the process of optimizing JavaScript websites. It ensures search engines can crawl, render, and index them.

Aligning JavaScript websites with SEO best practices can boost organic search rankings. All without hurting the user experience.

However, there are still uncertainties surrounding JavaScript and SEO’s impact.

Common JavaScript Misconceptions

Misconception Reality
Google can handle all JavaScript perfectly. Since JavaScript is rendered in two phases, delays and errors can occur. These issues can stop Google from crawling, rendering, and indexing content, hurting rankings.
JavaScript is only for large sites. JavaScript is versatile and benefits websites of varying sizes. Smaller sites can use JavaScript in interactive forms, content accordions, and navigation dropdowns
JavaScript SEO is optional. JavaScript SEO is key for finding and indexing content, especially on JavaScript-heavy sites.

Benefits of JavaScript SEO

Optimizing JavaScript for SEO can offer several advantages:

  • Improved visibility: Crawled and indexed JavaScript content can boost search rankings
  • Enhanced performance: Techniques like code splitting deliver only the important JavaScript code. This speeds up the site and reduces load times.
  • Stronger collaboration: JavaScript SEO encourages SEOs, developers, and web teams to work together. This helps improve communication and alignment on your SEO project plan.
  • Enhanced user experience: JavaScript boosts UX with smooth transitions and interactivity. It also speeds up and makes navigation between webpages more dynamic.

Side note: JavaScript can impact PageSpeed and Core Web Vitals scores.

How Search Engines Render JavaScript

To understand JavaScript’s SEO impact, let’s explore how search engines process JavaScript pages.

Google has outlined that it processes JavaScript websites in three phases:

  1. Crawling
  2. Processing
  3. Indexing

Googlebot – Crawl Render Index

Crawling

When Google finds a URL, it checks the robots.txt file and meta robots tags. This is to see if any content is blocked from being crawled or rendered.

If a link is discoverable by Google, the URL is added to a queue for simultaneous crawling and rendering.

Rendering

For traditional HTML websites, content is immediately available from the server response.

In JavaScript websites, Google must execute JavaScript to render and index the content. Due to resource demands, rendering is deferred until resources are available with Chromium.

Indexing

Once rendered, Googlebot reads the HTML, adds new links to the crawl list, and indexes the content.

How JavaScript Affects SEO

Despite its growing popularity, the question often arises: Is JavaScript bad for SEO?

Let’s examine aspects that can severely impact SEO if you don’t optimize JavaScript for search.

Rendering Delays

For Single Page Applications (SPAs) — like Gmail or Twitter, where content updates without page refreshes — JavaScript controls the content and user experience.

If Googlebot can’t execute the JavaScript, it may show a blank page.

This happens when Google struggles to process the JavaScript. It hurts the page’s visibility and organic performance.

To test how Google will see your SPA site if it can’t execute JavaScript, use the web crawler Screaming Frog. Configure the render settings to “Text Only” and crawl your site.

Note: You’ll need an SEO Spider Licence to access this setting.

Screaming Frog – Crawl Config – Rendering

Expert tip: Use Screaming Frog’s “Disable JavaScript” feature. It simulates how search engines crawl your site without executing scripts. This allows you to identify missing content or rendering issues.

Indexing Issues

JavaScript frameworks (like React or Angular, which help build interactive websites) can make it harder for Google to read and index content.

For example, Follet’s online bookstore migrated millions of pages to a JavaScript framework.

Google had trouble processing the JavaScript, causing a sharp decline in organic performance:

Impact from Rendering Issues

Crawl Budget Challenges

Websites have a crawl budget. This refers to the number of pages Googlebot can crawl and index within a given timeframe.

Large JavaScript files consume significant crawling resources. They also limit Google’s ability to explore deeper pages on the site.

Core Web Vitals Concerns

JavaScript can affect how quickly the main content of a web page is loaded. This affects Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), a Core Web Vitals score.

For example, check out this performance timeline:

LCP Breakdown – Render Delay

Section #4 (“Element Render Delay”) shows a JavaScript-induced delay in rendering an element.

This negatively impacts the LCP score.

JavaScript Rendering Options

When rendering webpages, you can choose from three options:

Server-Side Rendering (SSR), Client-Side Rendering (CSR), or Dynamic Rendering.

Let’s break down the key differences between them.

Server-Side Rendering (SSR)

SSR creates the full HTML on the server. It then sends this HTML directly to the client, like a browser or Googlebot.

Server Side Rendering Process

This approach means the client doesn’t need to render the content.

As a result, the website loads faster and offers a smoother experience.

Benefits of SSR Drawbacks of SSR
Improved performance Higher server load
Search engine optimization Longer time to interactivity
Enhanced accessibility Complex implementation
Consistent experience Limited caching

Client-Side Rendering (CSR)

In CSR, the client—like a user, browser, or Googlebot—receives a blank HTML page. Then, JavaScript runs to generate the fully rendered HTML.

Client Side Rendering Process

Google can render client-side, JavaScript-driven pages. But, it may delay rendering and indexing.

Benefits of CSR Drawbacks of CSR
Reduced server load Slower initial load times
Enhanced interactivity SEO challenges
Improved scalability Increased complexity
Faster page transitions Performance variability

Dynamic Rendering

Dynamic rendering, or prerendering, is a hybrid approach.

Tools like Prerender.io detect Googlebot and other crawlers. They then send a fully rendered webpage from a cache.

Dynamic Rendering Process

This way, search engines don’t need to run JavaScript.

At the same time, regular users still get a CSR experience. JavaScript is executed and content is rendered on the client side.

Google says dynamic rendering isn’t cloaking. The content shown to Googlebot just needs to be the same as what users see.

However, it warns that dynamic rendering is a temporary solution. This is due to its complexity and resource needs.

Benefits of Dynamic Rendering Drawbacks of Dynamic Rendering
Better SEO Complex setup
Crawler compatibility Risk of cloaking
Optimized UX Tool dependency
Scalable for large sites Performance latency

Which Rendering Approach is Right for You?

The right rendering approach depends on several factors.

Here are key considerations to help you determine the best solution for your website:

Rendering Option Best for When to Choose Requirements
Server-Side Rendering (SSR) SEO-critical sites (e.g., ecommerce, blogs)

Sites relying on organic traffic

Faster Core Web Vitals (e.g., LCP)

 Need timely indexing and visibility

Users expect fast, fully-rendered pages upon load

 Strong server infrastructure to handle higher load

Expertise in SSR frameworks (e.g., Next.js, Nuxt.js)
Client-Side Rendering (CSR) Highly dynamic user interfaces (e.g., dashboards, web apps)

Content not dependent on organic traffic (e.g. behind login)

 SEO is not a top priority

Focus on reducing server load and scaling for large audiences

 JavaScript optimization to address performance issues

Ensuring crawlability with fallback content
Dynamic Rendering JavaScript-heavy sites needing search engine access

Large-scale, dynamic content websites

 SSR is resource-intensive for the entire site

Need to balance bot crawling with user-focused interactivity

 Pre-rendering tool like Prerender.io

Bot detection and routing configuration

Regular audits to avoid cloaking risks

Knowing these technical solutions is important. But the best approach depends on how your website uses JavaScript.

Where does your site fit?

  • Minimal JavaScript: Most content is in the HTML (e.g., WordPress sites). Just make sure search engines can see key text and links.
  • Moderate JavaScript: Some elements load dynamically, like live chat, AJAX-based widgets, or interactive product filters. Use fallbacks or dynamic rendering to keep content crawlable.
  • Heavy JavaScript: Your site depends on JavaScript to load most content, like SPAs built with React or Vue. To make sure Google can see it, you may need SSR or pre-rendering.
  • Fully JavaScript-rendered: Everything from content to navigation relies on JavaScript (e.g., Next.js, Gatsby). You’ll need SSR or Static Site Generation (SSG), optimized hydration, and proper metadata handling to stay SEO-friendly.

The more JavaScript your site relies on, the more important it is to optimize for SEO.

JavaScript SEO Best Practices

So, your site looks great to users—but what about Google?

If search engines can’t properly crawl or render your JavaScript, your rankings could take a hit.

The good news? You can fix it.

Here’s how to make sure your JavaScript-powered site is fully optimized for search.

1. Ensure Crawlability

Avoid blocking JavaScript files in the robots.txt file to ensure Google can crawl them.

In the past, HTML-based websites often blocked JavaScript and CSS.

Now, crawling JavaScript files is crucial for accessing and rendering key content.

2. Choose the Optimal Rendering Method

It’s crucial to choose the right approach based on your site’s needs.

This decision may depend on your resources, user goals, and vision for your website. Remember:

  • Server-side rendering: Ensures content is fully rendered and indexable upon page load. This improves visibility and user experience.
  • Client-side rendering: Renders content on the client side, offering better interactivity for users
  • Dynamic rendering: Sends crawlers pre-rendered HTML and users a CSR experience

Rendering Options

3. Reduce JavaScript Resources

Reduce JavaScript size by removing unused or unnecessary code. Even unused code must be accessed and processed by Google.

Combine multiple JavaScript files to reduce the resources Googlebot needs to execute. This helps improve efficiency.

Pro tip: Use PageSpeed Insights to find JavaScript issues, like render-blocking scripts. Follow its suggestions, such as deferring non-critical scripts or minifying code.

4. Defer Scripts Blocking Content

You can defer render-blocking JavaScript to speed up page loading.

Use the “defer” attribute to do this, as shown below:

http://your-script.js

This tells browsers and search engines to run the code once the main CSS and JavaScript have loaded.

5. Manage JavaScript-Generated Content

Managing JavaScript content is key. It must be accessible to search engines and provide a smooth user experience.

Here are some best practices to optimize it for SEO:

Provide Fallback Content

  • Use the <noscript> tag to show essential info if JavaScript fails or is disabled
  • Ensure critical content like navigation and headings is included in the initial HTML

For example, Yahoo uses a <noscript> tag. It shows static product details for JavaScript-heavy pages.

Yahoo – Noscript tag

Optimize JavaScript-Based Pagination

  • Use HTML <a> tags for pagination to ensure Googlebot can crawl each page
  • Dynamically update URLs with the History API for “Load More” buttons
  • Add rel=”prev” and rel=”next” to indicate paginated page relationships

For instance, Skechers employs a “Load More” button that generates accessible URLs:

Sketchers – Load More

Test and Verify Rendering

  • Use Google Search Console’s (GSC) URL Inspection Tool and Screaming Frog to check JavaScript content. Is it accessible?
  • Test JavaScript execution using browser automation tools like Puppeteer to ensure proper rendering

Confirm Dynamic Content Loads Correctly

  • Use loading=”lazy” for lazy-loaded elements and verify they appear in rendered HTML
  • Provide fallback content for dynamically loaded elements to ensure visibility to crawlers

For example, Backlinko lazy loads images within HTML:

Image loading – Lazy

6. Create Developer-Friendly Processes

Working closely with developers is key to integrating JavaScript and SEO best practices.

Here’s how you can streamline the process:

  1. Spot the issues: Use tools like Screaming Frog or Chrome DevTools. They can find JavaScript rendering issues. Document these early.
  2. Write actionable tickets: Write clear SEO dev tickets with the issue, its SEO impact, and step-by-step instructions to fix it. For example, here’s a sample dev ticket:

    Sample – Dev Ticket

  3. Test and validate fixes: Conduct quality assurance (QA) to ensure fixes are implemented correctly. Share updates and results with your team to maintain alignment.
  4. Collaborate in real time: Use project management tools like Notion, Jira, or Trello. These help ensure smooth communication between SEOs and developers.

By building developer-friendly processes, you can solve JavaScript SEO issues faster. This also creates a collaborative environment that helps the whole team.

Communicating SEO best practices for JavaScript usage is as crucial as its implementation.

JavaScript SEO Resources + Tools

As you learn how to make your javascript SEO friendly​, several tools can assist you in the process.

Educational Resources

Google has provided or contributed to some great resources:

Understand JavaScript SEO Basics

Google’s JavaScript basics documentation explains how it processes JavaScript content.

Google JavaScript – Basics

What you’ll learn:

  • How Google processes JavaScript content, including crawling, rendering, and indexing
  • Best practices for ensuring JavaScript-based websites are fully optimized for search engines
  • Common pitfalls to avoid and strategies to improve SEO performance on JavaScript-driven websites

Who it’s for: Developers and SEO professionals optimizing JavaScript-heavy sites.

Rendering on the Web

The web.dev article Rendering on the Web is a comprehensive resource. It explores various web rendering techniques, including SSR, CSR, and prerendering.

Webdev – Rendering on Web

What you’ll learn:

  • An in-depth overview of web rendering techniques
  • Performance implications of each rendering method. And how they affect user experience and SEO.
  • Actionable insights for choosing the right rendering strategy based on your goals

Who it’s for: Marketers, developers, and SEOs wanting to boost performance and visibility.

Diagnostic Tools

Screaming Frog & Sitebulb

Crawlers such as Screaming Frog or Sitebulb help identify issues affecting JavaScript.

How? By simulating how search engines process your site.

Key features:

  • Crawl JavaScript websites: Detect blocked or inaccessible JavaScript files using robots.txt configurations
  • Render simulation: Crawl and visualize how JavaScript-rendered pages appear to search engines
  • Debugging capabilities: Identify rendering issues, missing content, or broken resources preventing proper indexing

Example use case:

  • Use Screaming Frog’s robots.txt settings to emulate Googlebot. The tool can confirm if critical JavaScript files are accessible.

Screaming Frog – Robots Settings

When to use:

  • Debugging JavaScript-related indexing problems
  • Testing rendering issues with pre-rendered or dynamic content

Semrush Site Audit

Semrush’s Site Audit is a powerful tool for diagnosing JavaScript SEO issues.

Key features:

  • Crawlability checks: Identifies JavaScript files that hinder rendering and indexing
  • Rendering insights: Detects JavaScript-related errors impacting search engines’ ability to process content
  • Performance metrics: Highlights Core Web Vitals like LCP and Total Blocking Time (TBT)
  • Actionable fixes: Provides recommendations to optimize JavaScript code, improve speed, and fix rendering issues

Site Audit – Backlinko – Overview

Site Audit also includes a “JS Impact” report, which focuses on uncovering JavaScript-related issues.

It highlights blocked files, rendering errors, and performance bottlenecks. The report provides actionable insights to enhance SEO.

Site Audit – Backlinko – JS Impact

When to use:

  • Identify rendering blocking issues caused by JavaScript
  • Troubleshoot performance issues after implementing large JavaScript implementations

Google Search Console

Google Search Console’s Inspection Tool helps analyze your JavaScript pages. It checks how Google crawls, renders, and indexes them.

GSC – URL Inspection – JS Console Messages

Key features:

  • Rendering verification: Check if Googlebot successfully executes and renders JavaScript content
  • Crawlability insights: Identify blocked resources or missing elements impacting indexing
  • Live testing: Use live tests to ensure real-time changes are visible to Google

Example use case:

  • Inspecting a JavaScript-rendered page to see if all critical content is in the rendered HTML

When to use:

  • Verifying JavaScript rendering and indexing
  • Troubleshooting blank or incomplete content in Google’s search results

Pro tip: Use GSC’s “Coverage Report.” It can find resources blocked by robots.txt or delayed by heavy JavaScript. Regularly reviewing this report helps maintain optimal crawlability.

Performance Optimization

You may need to test your JavaScript website’s performance. These tools granularly break down performance:

WebPageTest

WebPageTest helps analyze website performance, including how JavaScript affects load times and rendering.

The screenshot below shows high-level performance metrics for a JavaScript site. It includes when the webpage was visible to users.

Webpagetest – Page Performance Metrics

Key features:

  • Provides waterfall charts to visualize the loading sequence of JavaScript and other resources
  • Measures critical performance metrics like Time to First Byte (TTFB) and LCP
  • Simulates slow networks and mobile devices to identify JavaScript bottlenecks

Use case: Finding scripts or elements that slow down page load and affect Core Web Vitals.

GTMetrix

GTmetrix helps measure and optimize website performance, focusing on JavaScript-related delays and efficiency.

Key features:

  • Breaks down page performance with actionable insights for JavaScript optimization
  • Provides specific recommendations to minimize and defer non-critical JavaScript
  • Visualizes load behavior with video playback and waterfall charts to pinpoint render delays

GTmetrix – Waterfall – Images – Report

Use case: Optimizing JavaScript delivery to boost page speed and user experience. This includes minifying, deferring, or splitting code.

Chrome DevTools & Lighthouse

Chrome DevTools and Lighthouse are free Chrome tools. They assess site performance and accessibility. Both are key for JavaScript SEO.

Key features:

  • JavaScript execution analysis: Audits JavaScript execution time. It also identifies scripts that delay rendering or impact Core Web Vitals.
  • Script optimization: Flags opportunities for code splitting, lazy loading, and removing unused JavaScript
  • Network and coverage insights: Identifies render-blocking resources, unused JavaScript, and large file sizes
  • Performance audits: Lighthouse measures critical Core Web Vitals to pinpoint areas for improvement
  • Render simulation: It emulates devices, throttles network speeds, and disables JavaScript. This alleviates rendering issues.

For example, the below screenshot is taken with DevTools’s Performance panel. After page load, various pieces of data are recorded to assess the culprit of heavy load times.

Chrome – Performance report

Use cases:

  • Testing JavaScript-heavy pages for performance bottlenecks, rendering issues, and SEO blockers
  • Identifying and optimizing scripts, ensuring key content is crawlable and indexable

Specialized Tools

Prerender.io helps JavaScript-heavy websites by serving pre-rendered HTML to bots.

This allows search engines to crawl and index content while users get a dynamic CSR experience.

PreRender – Cache Manager

Key features:

  • Pre-rendered content: Serves a cached, fully rendered HTML page to search engine crawlers like Googlebot
  • Easy integration: Compatible with frameworks like React, Vue, and Angular. It also integrates with servers like NGINX or Apache.
  • Scalable solution: Ideal for large, dynamic sites with thousands of pages
  • Bot detection: Identifies search engine bots and serves optimized content
  • Performance optimization: Reduces server load by offloading rendering to Prerender.io’s service

Benefits:

  • Ensures full crawlability and indexing of JavaScript content
  • Improves search engine rankings by eliminating blank or incomplete pages
  • Balances SEO performance and user experience for JavaScript-heavy sites

When to use:

  • For Single-Page Applications or dynamic JavaScript frameworks
  • As an alternative to SSR when resources are limited

Find Your Next JavaScript SEO Opportunity Today

Most JavaScript SEO problems stay hidden—until your rankings drop.

Is your site at risk?

Don’t wait for traffic losses to find out.

Run an audit, fix rendering issues, and make sure search engines see your content.

Want more practical fixes?

Check out our guides on PageSpeed and Core Web Vitals for actionable steps to speed up your JavaScript-powered site.

The post What Is JavaScript SEO? 6 Best Practices to Boost Rankings appeared first on Backlinko.

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Semrush Pricing: How to Choose the Right Plan

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Choosing a Semrush plan isn’t always obvious.

Paid plans start at $139.95 and go up to enterprise solutions. Not to mention the various add-ons and apps.

You don’t want to overpay for features you don’t need. Or pick a cheaper plan that limits your ability to grow.

In this guide, you’ll learn which Semrush plan matches your needs, whether you’re a solo blogger tracking 100 keywords or an agency managing 40+ client websites.

Semrush’s Core Pricing Plans Explained

Semrush offers four main subscription tiers:

  • Pro plan at $139.95/month: Best for freelancers and startups
  • Guru plan at $249.95/month: Caters to growing businesses and small agencies
  • Business plan at $499.95/month: Serves larger agencies and enterprises
  • Enterprise plan (custom pricing): For organizations that need custom solutions

Semrush Pricing

Beyond these core plans, Semrush also offers a range of other tools through the App Center. This is where you can add specialized tools for needs like local SEO and social media management.

There’s also a free plan, and you can get a free trial of the Pro and Guru subscriptions too.

Note: The Semrush free trial is usually 7 days, but you can use this link to access a 14-day trial on a Semrush Pro subscription.

Pro Plan ($139.95/month): Entry-Level Features

Semrush’s Pro plan offers a wealth of keyword research, backlink analysis, and competitor research features.

At $139.95/mo, it’s Semrush’s cheapest plan, and is ideal for freelance SEOs, bloggers, and small business owners.

Semrush Pricing – Pro

The Pro plan lets you set up 5 projects and track up to 500 keywords with Position Tracking.

But these limits don’t apply to things like keyword and competitor research. Instead, you’re limited in the number of daily “requests” you can make.

This is the number you’ll want to pay attention to if you plan to use the tool suite for more than just tracking your own projects.

With the Pro plan, you can generate up to 3,000 reports per day across various analytics tools, with each report showing up to 10,000 results.

For example, in the Keyword Magic Tool to generate thousands of keyword ideas:

Keyword Magic Tool – Content creation – Keywords

You won’t have access to historical data in these reports. But you’ll still be able to filter for metrics like search volume, keyword difficulty, search intent, and more.

In terms of technical SEO, Pro plan users can crawl up to 100,000 pages with Site Audit. This is enough for beginners and owners of smaller sites. But it can be a bit limiting for large ecommerce stores or agencies managing massive sites.

You won’t get API access with the Pro plan (probably not a concern for most people). You also won’t get access to some content marketing features (see the Guru plan section below).

Pro Plan Limits

  • 5 projects
  • 500 keywords to track
  • 3,000 daily reports
  • 100,000 pages to crawl
  • 10,000 results per report
  • 250 keyword metrics updates per month
  • 500 SEO Ideas Units (used in tools like the On Page SEO Checker)
  • 5 scheduled PDF reports

Guru Plan ($249.95/month): Advanced Features for Growing Teams

Semrush’s Guru plan significantly expands on the Pro plan’s capabilities.

At $249.95/mo, it’s ideal for growing marketing teams and small agencies that need more comprehensive tools and data access.

Semrush Pricing – Guru

The plan increases your project limit to 15 and lets you track up to 1,500 keywords.

Other limit increases over the Pro plan include:

  • 5,000 reports per day (vs. 3,000)
  • 30,000 results per report (vs. 10,000)
  • 1,000 keyword metrics updates per month (vs. 250)
  • 300,000 Site Audit URL crawls (vs. 100,000)

You’ll also get access to tools like:

Topic research, for finding and prioritizing new content ideas:

Topic Research – Organic coffee – Content Ideas

Content Marketing Template, to streamline your optimizations:

SEO Content Template – Recommendations

You’ll also be able to integrate with Looker Studio, which further expands your reporting capabilities.

And you’ll get access to historical data within Semrush itself—all the way back to 2012:

Domain Overview – Backlinko – Historical data

The Guru plan gives you access to the essential Semrush toolkit. And its limits are likely enough for most SEOs and business owners, with the exception of large agencies, big ecommerce stores (300K+ pages), and enterprises.

Guru Plan Limits

  • 15 Projects
  • 1,500 keywords to track
  • 5,000 daily reports
  • 300,000 pages to crawl
  • 30,000 results per report
  • 1,000 keyword metrics updates per month
  • 800 SEO Ideas Units
  • 20 scheduled PDF reports

Business Plan ($499.95/month): Enterprise-Grade Capabilities

The Business plan, at $499.95/mo, targets larger agencies and marketing teams that need extensive data access and advanced features.

This plan also offers much higher limits than the Pro and Guru plans across the board.

Semrush Pricing – Business

Business plans allow for 40 projects, 5,000 keywords to track, and 10,000 daily reports.

You can use Semrush’s most advanced features, including API access, extended limits for site audits, and white-label reporting options.

You’ll also get access to new metrics, like Share of Voice for tracking your overall online presence compared to your competitors:

Position Tracking – Backlinko – Share of Voice

And for PPC optimization, you’ll also be able to see up to 50,000 results per PLA listings report (as opposed to 10 on the Pro and Guru plans):

PLA Research – Ebay – PLA Copies

These capabilities make it particularly valuable for agencies managing multiple client accounts. It’s also ideal for large in-house teams coordinating complex marketing campaigns.

For example, the API access allows teams to integrate Semrush data directly into their custom reporting dashboards or internal tools. This can streamline workflows and provide more customizable (and therefore more impactful) data analysis.

Business Plan Limits

  • 40 projects
  • 5,000 keywords to track
  • 10,000 daily reports
  • 1,000,000 pages to crawl
  • 50,000 results per report
  • 5,000 keyword metrics updates per month
  • 2,000 SEO Ideas Units
  • 50 scheduled PDF reports

Enterprise Plan: Custom Solutions for Large Organizations

The Enterprise tier moves beyond Semrush’s standardized pricing to offer customized solutions for large organizations with complex needs.

Unlike the fixed-price plans, Enterprise solutions are tailored to each organization’s specific requirements and scale.

Semrush – Enterprise plan

The Semrush Enterprise platform is an entirely separate solution from the “core” Semrush platform. You get access to everything in the Business tier, but you also get a completely new dashboard with enterprise-level SEO and automation tools and capabilities.

Keyword winner/loser summary

You’ll also get access to vetted SEO experts, seamless document sharing functionality, and extensive reporting and automation features.

It’s designed for enterprise-level businesses (think Samsung, Salesforce, and SAP). This means it’s way beyond what the average person needs.

But for those with huge data, automation, and optimization requirements, Semrush Enterprise is an incredibly powerful platform.

Free Plan vs. Free Trial

Semrush’s free plan offers a solid introduction to the platform’s capabilities. You can access basic keyword research, site auditing, and competitive analysis features
for free.

This makes it an excellent option for those just starting their SEO journey or wanting to test the platform before committing.

However:

The free plan comes with significant limitations in terms of the number of reports you can generate and the depth of data you can access.

You’re limited to:

  • 10 daily requests in many of the tools
  • 1 project
  • 100 URL crawls per month

Arguably, the most notable restriction is that you can only track 10 keywords. So you can’t monitor a full SEO campaign effectively.

That’s why the free trial of Semrush’s paid plans offers a better way to evaluate Semrush’s full capabilities.

For 7 days, you can access all features of your chosen plan, helping you make an informed decision about whether the investment makes sense for your needs.

Note: Test out the paid plan features for an extra week with a 14-day trial on a Semrush Pro subscription.

Other Semrush Pricing

Semrush offers a range of add-ons you can tag onto your subscription. These include local SEO packages, the .Trends suite for market research, and a social media management platform.

Here’s a breakdown of the add-ons and their pricing:

Add-on Pricing Key Features
Extra users $45-$100/month, depending on plan Add extra users to your plan (with shared limits)
Local Essential/Advanced $50-$60/month Listing management, GBP optimization, and map rank tracker
.Trends $289/month per user Consumer trends and market research tools
Social Media Management $19.99-$39.99/month Social posting, tracking, and analytics
Agency Growth Kit $69-$249/month Lead management, CRM, and client portal
ImpactHero $200/month Buyer journey optimization

Semrush also has an extensive App Center. Here, you’ll find apps to help with pretty much every aspect of SEO and digital marketing.

Semrush Apps Collection

You can get free trials of many apps, and their prices vary.

Semrush Pricing Plans Compared to Competitors

Semrush is often a bit pricier than some of its competitors, at least at some of the plan levels.

But price isn’t everything, and it’s worth comparing the different platforms in detail to understand the value each one can provide for YOUR specific situation.

Semrush vs. Ahrefs Pricing

Semrush and Ahrefs have fairly similar pricing structures. Semrush is slightly more expensive in each of the three pricing brackets, but notably only by $0.95 in the middle tier (Guru/Standard).

Ahrefs – Pricing

On the face of it, the two options in all three cases are fairly similar:

  • Semrush offers 5, 15, and 40 projects, while Ahrefs offers 5, 20, and 50 projects
  • While Semrush lets you track 500, 1.5K, and 5K keywords, Ahrefs lets you track 750, 2K, and 5K
  • Semrush lets you audit 100K, 300K, and 1M URLs, while Ahrefs’ limits are 100K, 500K, and 1.5M

But it’s worth noting that Ahrefs’ cheapest (Lite) plan limits you to just 500 credits across various tools per month.

With a Semrush Pro subscription (the cheapest one Semrush offers), the limits are 3,000 reports/requests per day.

But the numbers aren’t everything. There are other differences between the two tools that you’ll need to factor in when making your choice.

For more on that, check out our full guide to Semrush vs. Ahrefs.

Semrush vs. Moz Pricing

Moz offers two cheaper pricing plans than both Semrush and Ahrefs. These are pretty limited (with the cheapest only letting you track 50 keywords per month).

But they’re still viable options for those on a budget that are just starting out with their first SEO tool.

Moz – Pricing

Moz does offer feature-rich plans at higher price points, but often with lower limits than Semrush plans.

For example, the most expensive Moz plan still only lets you track 25 sites (compared to 40) and 3,000 tracked keywords (vs. 5,000 on a Semrush Business plan).

It’s also worth noting that beyond the pricing plans, the two platforms are very different. For example, Semrush’s database has more than 26.4 billion keywords compared to Moz’s 1.25 billion.

To read more about the main differences between the two, check out this Semrush vs. Moz comparison.

How to Choose the Right Semrush Plan

The most basic way to choose between the different Semrush pricing plans is to consider your budget and your reporting needs.

Rght Semrush Plan

If you have a limited budget, the free and Pro plans are going to be the obvious choice. But once you start needing larger reports or to track 1500+ keywords, the Guru and Business plans are the ones to go for.

But let’s see which plans are best for which types of business and website owners.

Solopreneurs and Bloggers

For solopreneurs and blog owners, the Pro plan is usually going to be enough. You can manage up to 5 projects, and 500 keywords will be enough tracking capabilities for most small sites.

The reporting limits are generous enough too, and most beginners won’t max out on them.

But many people will be fine with the free Semrush plan—particularly if you have pretty limited keyword research needs and your site is smaller than 100 pages. It’ll give you a good feel for the platform’s core features before you sign up for a subscription.

You’ll want to upgrade to the Pro plan when you:

  • Track more than 10 keywords
  • Need daily position monitoring
  • Have a site that grows beyond 100 pages (for Site Audit crawls)
  • Want to analyze backlink opportunities

Note: Test out the Pro plan’s features with a 14-day free trial.

Small Business Owners

Small businesses typically find the sweet spot with the Guru plan. The additional keyword tracking and content marketing features make it ideal for sites of all sizes with moderate content production workflows.

The Pro plan suits you if:

  • You manage a single business website
  • You need basic competitive analysis
  • Content creation isn’t your primary focus

The Guru plan becomes a better option when:

  • You manage multiple business websites, or multiple client sites
  • Content marketing is a key part of your strategy
  • You need access to historical data
  • You need to crawl up to 300K pages per month (Site Audit)

Medium-Sized Businesses and Ecommerce Stores

Mid-sized companies often benefit most from the Business plan—particularly if they’re managing multiple websites or serving many clients.

The Guru plan becomes essential for teams or individuals that:

  • Create 10+ pieces of content per month
  • Require advanced topic research tools
  • Send lots of reports to stakeholders or clients
  • Manage multiple sites or brands

Agencies

Agencies are going to be better off with the Business plan in most cases. The limits of the lower plans are just unlikely to be enough for agencies with many clients.

However, if your agency is just starting out, the Guru plan offers a cost-effective way to serve up to 15 clients with some powerful tools.

Note: If you need to increase any particular limit, you can contact the sales team or pay for more via your subscription dashboard.

Semrush – Subscription info

Start with Guru if you:

  • Serve up to 15 clients
  • Need white-label reports
  • Require content marketing tools
  • Want historical data access

Choose the Business plan when you:

  • Manage 15+ client accounts
  • Need API access
  • Require advanced white-labeling
  • Share reports across large teams

Semrush also offers the Agency Growth Kit. This starts at $69/month (on top of your subscription) for a CRM, client portals, and white-lable PDF reports.

Semrush – CRM

But for those who want to boost their visibility on the Agency Partners platform or who need unlimited client portals, pricing increases to $149 and then $249 per month.

Enterprise Businesses

Enterprise organizations should consider the custom Enterprise tier. This platform was built from the ground up for enterprise-scale operations.

The platform offers a range of enterprise-specific solutions and features the core subscriptions don’t offer. You can read more about Semrush Enterprise here.

The Business plan is the best of the three core plans if your business isn’t quite ready for the enterprise offering. Its generous limits, integration capabilities, and API access mean it’s a cost-effective choice for many big brands and businesses.

Still Not Sure Which Plan to Choose?

Choosing the right Semrush plan ultimately depends on your specific marketing goals and resources.

To dive deeper into Semrush’s capabilities and make a more informed decision, check out our comprehensive Semrush review and complete guide to using Semrush effectively.

The post Semrush Pricing: How to Choose the Right Plan appeared first on Backlinko.

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Scaling content creation without compromising quality (with template)

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SEO is, for a large part, all about getting the right content in front of the right audience. When you’ve been doing that for a while, there comes a time when you want to scale content production. Scaling content creation means you aim to make more content to reach new targets. While that’s a good idea, you need to find a way to scale while keeping the same level of quality you’ve always had. Let’s go over how to scale your content production step by step, showing common problems and solutions.

Table of contents

What is content scaling?

Content scaling is about making your content process more efficient. The goal should be to make more content without lowering the quality. First, you must examine every step of your content creation process — from brainstorming to research, editing, publishing, and reporting. Once you have the process detailed, you can find ways to do those tasks faster and predictably. 

A well-scaled process helps you create a lot of content. This approach helps you build a solid system rather than adding more articles. For instance, your content team could develop a checklist to help review articles, introduce a content calendar to improve planning and set up clear tone-of-voice guidelines. These steps help you stay consistent and true to your brand — whether you produce one weekly article or dozens. 

Why scaling content matters

Scaling content production can directly help your business. If you actively publish high-quality content on your site, search engines will understand that your site is active and reliable. By targeting the right audience with the right search intent and message, you could improve your search visibility and generate more traffic for your content. Search engines are likelier to see you as trustworthy when you publish high-quality content.

In addition, producing content more consistently and following a plan can help you reach a bigger audience. More articles mean more opportunities to write about topics that interest your different audience groups. In the end, this will broaden your brand’s presence. You’ll have a bigger chance of people seeing you as a trusted source if you offer helpful insights and solutions to their problems.

All your content can help potential customers make decisions. This content is another way to address their concerns and answer questions. By doing this strategically, you can continue to engage your audience and nudge them closer to making that final decision. Of course, whether that decision is a sale, information request, or newsletter signup doesn’t matter.

Scaling your content production also supports your branding. When you create well-organized content over a longer period, you can support your brand voice and recognition. That reliability helps build trust and strengthens your reputation. 

The biggest challenges in scaling content

If you want to scale your content production, you must overcome several hurdles, which, if you don’t consider, will impact the quality and consistency of your content. 

Quality control and consistency

When you produce more content, you need to make sure that every piece represents your brand well. However, catching errors or maintaining the proper tone becomes harder because you have more content to review. If you don’t do this well, there’s a risk that your articles will vary in tone or style. Without proper guidelines or a good editorial process, your content quality may suffer when you publish more and more.

For example, you can miss issues like tone, formatting, or factual errors without a standard editing checklist. If you do this for a while and people start to notice, they can form a different view of your brand. It would almost look like you don’t care about these issues. You need to set clear quality benchmarks and a solid review process. Consistent editing with fixed content rules helps everything you publish meet the same standards.

Handling different audience needs

In an ideal world, you write for different groups. You cannot target one group only. Every segment has its own interests, problems, and ideas. But if you scale your output, you risk writing mainly generic articles. No one will like that content.

If you haven’t yet sorted your audience, do so and focus your content on these specific groups. As a result, your content will be more useful for the people in those groups.

Process difficulty and extra management work

More content means more parts to manage. Each article needs research, writing, review, checking, and then publishing. This is fine if you publish a few posts a month because you can handle these steps by hand. But growing your output complicates things when you face many deadlines, writers, or quality checks.

Complexity leads to bottlenecks. If you struggle with one thing, that might eventually slow down everything. Think of it like this: when you don’t scale your editorial process, you will eventually have a pile of articles that need approval. This grinds your publication flow to a halt. Develop a system that divides tasks into repeatable steps. Use content calendars and checklists to track progress and make managing projects easier. 

Balancing speed and thoughtfulness

Scaling content production can lead to pressure to cut corners to meet deadlines. When the speed of publication comes into play, there’s a high chance that content will become less developed. This shouldn’t happen. Every piece of content should be carefully planned and produced. Rushing only leads to content that lacks depth, accuracy, or clarity. 

Of course, this is easier said than done. You have to find ways to increase efficiency without sacrificing the quality of your content. Start by streamlining your process, breaking it up into smaller tasks. Set up a system that monitors quality while giving you enough room to be flexible.  

Building a repeatable content creation process

Scaling your content production reliably requires setting up a solid content process. That process should be easily repeatable and have clear tasks, which will help keep your team on track. 

Map the entire content workflow

Describe each content task and work your way through the list of what has to be done. Write down a list of all phases, ranging from conception through publication. This will help you understand where delays or errors creep in. Consider drawing a flow diagram or another visual. This list will act as your directive.  

Create a content calendar

Use a content calendar to plan your publishing schedule. Proper planning helps you keep track of deadlines, even if they are for different outlets. Thanks to your content plan, your team can write content in advance and, hopefully, without stressing out about deadlines too much.

Develop detailed briefs and outlines

Content briefs are a great way to align writers — see below for an example. A brief like this should, at least,  include the subject, target audience, key messages, and keywords that the writer should target. Once approved, create an outline for the content and fill in the structure. A good content brief speeds up the writing process while ensuring that content is targeted well. 

Implement a style guide

A style guide can help you ground every piece of content in a consistent tone of voice and formatting. This guide should include rules for tone, punctuation, formatting, and whatever else makes sense to share. You can easily share this guide with anyone on your team; even freelancers enjoy using it. 

Use checklists for each stage

You’ll find it easier to manage once you break the process down into small tasks. Make a checklist for tasks such as researching, writing, and editing. Having a proper checklist helps you make sure that you don’t forget anything. This could be checking facts, improving readability, or using proper SEO tactics. Your lists will help you scale your content production while maintaining quality output.

Standardize tools and platforms

Use well-known tools to manage tasks in your team. Think of project management tools like Jira or Asana, shared calendars in CoSchedule, Canva for visual designs, and document templates in Microsoft Office. Many companies use Google Docs to collaborate on documents. In those cases, you can use one of the standardized Google Docs extensions, which are easier to scale.

Write a good manual or checklist for these tools so that anyone — from in-house writers to external freelancers — follows the same steps. Standardization makes this work and helps apply important SEO best practices properly.

All of these things help your team routinely produce quality content. Making the process repeatable reduces the chance of errors and wasted time, so you can scale without losing what makes your content awesome. 

Strategies to scale without losing quality

Careful planning is one of the best ways to scale your content without lowering its quality. Another great option is to use clear methods to make your work more effective. 

Develop a strong content strategy and workflow 

As always, start with a solid plan that includes your goals, topics, and the audience you want to reach. Creating content for your audience is much easier when everyone truly understands who those people are. A good workflow avoids delays and helps people move from one task to another.

Use a detailed content calendar

We’ve discussed the importance of content calendars, and you really have to see these as your roadmap. A calendar shows all upcoming publications, deadlines, and the status of various projects. A good calendar keeps everyone up to date at all times and makes sure the work is nicely spread out. Good planning prevents missed deadlines.

Use template structures

Templates help you standardize your work, as they offer a reusable structure for common types of content. Each type of content can have its own structure to fill in. These templates help writers speed up their work while maintaining consistency across articles. 

Repurpose content thoughtfully

Look at what you already have and see how it can be adapted into a different form. For example, you can split a long-form article into several videos or a series of shorter posts. This strategy saves time while also delivering fresh material in new formats. Make sure to adapt the new content to the correct audience. 

Assign clear roles within your team 

Find out your team members’ strengths and have them do what they do best. A  writer should handle the initial draft while an editor reviews the work. Your trusted subject matter expert should check the content for accuracy. Clear roles help people do what they do best, which helps preserve content quality.

Maintaining high-quality content at scale

It isn’t easy to maintain content quality when scaling content production. To make the process more manageable, you should establish habits and use tools that help you make sure that every piece of content meets your standards. 

Follow your style guide

Setting up a good style guide keeps your writing consistent. Your style guide should include information on your content’s tone of voice, the terminology you can and can’t use, and how you structure and format it. Share this guide with your team.

Schedule periodic audits

Similarly, regularly review your existing content to see if it’s outdated or needs to adapt to changes in your brand messaging. This helps keep your older content relevant and accurate. 

Use tools when appropriate

Tools can help scale your content production. Even a tool like our Yoast SEO plugin can help your content work. Good content tools can help with formatting, improving readability, checking for keyword placement, and some even help with on-page SEO.

Using Generative AI for scaling content output

Using AI to scale content production might seem like a good idea, but please be careful. Generative AI can definitely be a valuable tool for content processes. However, AI is not without issues and needs interaction from real people.

Human oversight makes sure that the output aligns with your brand’s voice and content standards. You can use generative AI as a starting point or a helpful assistant, but not as a complete replacement for your real writers. Your use of AI should have a clear process to bring the content up to your desired quality level.

Conclusion to scaling content production

Scaling up content production shouldn’t mean lower quality. Mostly, it’s about knowing the content process inside out. Once you have that, you can lay out the steps for everyone to follow. With a good process, you can meet your goals and still maintain the quality of the content. Be sure to set up content templates, calendars, and clear roles for your team. Make the adjustments and see how this can lead to better results. 

Bonus: Content brief template for SEO

Are you looking for a basic content brief template that helps scale your content production? Check out the one below:

Content brief section Details
Title/headline suggestion [Insert title]
Primary keyword [Main keyword]
Secondary keywords [Keyword 1], [Keyword 2]
Search intent [Informational, commercial, transactional, etc.]
Audience persona [If needed, description of audience persona]
Content objective [What is the content meant to achieve]
Benchmark content [URLs of best-in-class content about this topic]
Word count range [Word count]
Tone and style guidelines [Tone and style]
Outline/sections Introduction;
Main points/headings;
Subheadings;
Conclusion
SEO requirements Meta title: [Title];
Meta description: [Description];
Header tags: H1, H2, H3;
URL: [Proposed URL for content]
Call to action [What do you want people to do/click on?]
Internal and external links Internal: [Links]
External: [Links]
Visuals and multimedia [List of visuals]
Examples/references [Links to examples/references]
Deadline and submission details [Deadline and submission instructions]

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A guide to web crawlers: What you need to know

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A guide to web crawlers: What you need to know

Understanding the difference between search bots and scrapers is crucial for SEO. 

Website crawlers fall into two categories: 

  • First-party bots, which you use to audit and optimize your own site.
  • Third-party bots, which crawl your site externally – sometimes to index your content (like Googlebot) and other times to extract data (like competitor scrapers).

This guide breaks down first-party crawlers that can improve your site’s technical SEO and third-party bots, exploring their impact and how to manage them effectively.

First-party crawlers: Mining insights from your own website

Crawlers can help you identify ways to improve your technical SEO. 

Enhancing your site’s technical foundation, architectural depth, and crawl efficiency is a long-term strategy for increasing search traffic.

Occasionally, you may uncover major issues – such as a robots.txt file blocking all search bots on a staging site that was left active after launch. 

Fixing such problems can lead to immediate improvements in search visibility.

Now, let’s explore some crawl-based technologies you can use.

Googlebot via Search Console

You don’t work in a Google data center, so you can’t launch Googlebot to crawl your own site. 

However, by verifying your site with Google Search Console (GSC), you can access Googlebot’s data and insights. (Follow Google’s guidance to set yourself up on the platform.)

GSC is free to use and provides valuable information – especially about page indexing. 

GSC page indexing

There’s also data on mobile-friendliness, structured data, and Core Web Vitals:

GSC Core Web Vitals

Technically, this is third-party data from Google, but only verified users can access it for their site. 

In practice, it functions much like the data from a crawl you run yourself.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Screaming Frog is a desktop application that runs locally on your machine to generate crawl data for your website. 

They also offer a log file analyzer, which is useful if you have access to server log files. For now, we’ll focus on Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider.

At $259 per year, it’s highly cost-effective compared to other tools that charge this much per month. 

However, because it runs locally, crawling stops if you turn off your computer – it doesn’t operate in the cloud. 

Still, the data it provides is fast, accurate, and ideal for those who want to dive deeper into technical SEO.

Screaming Frog main interface

From the main interface, you can quickly launch your own crawls. 

Once completed, export Internal > All data to an Excel-readable format and get comfortable handling and pivoting the data for deeper insights. 

Screaming Frog also offers many other useful export options.

Screaming Frog export options

It provides reports and exports for internal linking, redirects (including redirect chains), insecure content (mixed content), and more.

The drawback is it requires more hands-on management, and you’ll need to be comfortable working with data in Excel or Google Sheets to maximize its value.

Dig deeper: 4 of the best technical SEO tools

Ahrefs Site Audit

Ahrefs is a comprehensive cloud-based platform that includes a technical SEO crawler within its Site Audit module. 

To use it, set up a project, configure the crawl parameters, and launch the crawl to generate technical SEO insights.

Ahrefs Overview

Once the crawl is complete, you’ll see an overview that includes a technical SEO health rating (0-100) and highlights key issues. 

You can click on these issues for more details, and a helpful button appears as you dive deeper, explaining why certain fixes are necessary.

Ahrefs why and how to fix

Since Ahrefs runs in the cloud, your machine’s status doesn’t affect the crawl. It continues even if your PC or Mac is turned off. 

Compared to Screaming Frog, Ahrefs provides more guidance, making it easier to turn crawl data into actionable SEO insights. 

However, it’s less cost-effective. If you don’t need its additional features, like backlink data and keyword research, it may not be worth the expense.

Semrush Site Audit

Next is Semrush, another powerful cloud-based platform with a built-in technical SEO crawler. 

Like Ahrefs, it also provides backlink analysis and keyword research tools.

Semrush Site Audit

Semrush offers a technical SEO health rating, which improves as you fix site issues. Its crawl overview highlights errors and warnings.

As you explore, you’ll find explanations of why fixes are needed and how to implement them.

Semrush why and how to fix

Both Semrush and Ahrefs have robust site audit tools, making it easy to launch crawls, analyze data, and provide recommendations to developers. 

While both platforms are pricier than Screaming Frog, they excel at turning crawl data into actionable insights. 

Semrush is slightly more cost-effective than Ahrefs, making it a solid choice for those new to technical SEO.

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Third-party crawlers: Bots that might visit your website

Earlier, we discussed how third parties might crawl your website for various reasons. 

But what are these external crawlers, and how can you identify them?

Googlebot

As mentioned, you can use Google Search Console to access some of Googlebot’s crawl data for your site. 

Without Googlebot crawling your site, there would be no data to analyze.

(You can learn more about Google’s common crawl bots in this Search Central documentation.)

Google’s most common crawlers are:

  • Googlebot Smartphone.
  • Googlebot Desktop.

Each uses separate rendering engines for mobile and desktop, but both contain “Googlebot/2.1” in their user-agent string.

If you analyze your server logs, you can isolate Googlebot traffic to see which areas of your site it crawls most frequently. 

This can help identify technical SEO issues, such as pages that Google isn’t crawling as expected. 

To analyze log files, you can create spreadsheets to process and pivot the data from raw .txt or .csv files. If that seems complex, Screaming Frog’s Log File Analyzer is a useful tool.

In most cases, you shouldn’t block Googlebot, as this can negatively affect SEO. 

However, if Googlebot gets stuck in highly dynamic site architecture, you may need to block specific URLs via robots.txt. Use this carefully – overuse can harm your rankings.

Fake Googlebot traffic

Not all traffic claiming to be Googlebot is legitimate. 

Many crawlers and scrapers allow users to spoof user-agent strings, meaning they can disguise themselves as Googlebot to bypass crawl restrictions.

For example, Screaming Frog can be configured to impersonate Googlebot. 

However, many websites – especially those hosted on large cloud networks like AWS – can differentiate between real and fake Googlebot traffic. 

They do this by checking if the request comes from Google’s official IP ranges. 

If a request claims to be Googlebot but originates outside of those ranges, it’s likely fake.

Other search engines

In addition to Googlebot, other search engines may crawl your site. For example:

  • Bingbot (Microsoft Bing).
  • DuckDuckBot (DuckDuckGo).
  • YandexBot (Yandex, a Russian search engine, though not well-documented).
  • Baiduspider (Baidu, a popular search engine in China).

In your robots.txt file, you can create wildcard rules to disallow all search bots or specify rules for particular crawlers and directories.

However, keep in mind that robots.txt entries are directives, not commands – meaning they can be ignored.

Unlike redirects, which prevent a server from serving a resource, robots.txt is merely a strong signal requesting bots not to crawl certain areas.

Some crawlers may disregard these directives entirely.

Screaming Frog’s Crawl Bot

Screaming Frog typically identifies itself with a user agent like Screaming Frog SEO Spider/21.4.

The “Screaming Frog SEO Spider” text is always included, followed by the version number.

However, Screaming Frog allows users to customize the user-agent string, meaning crawls can appear to be from Googlebot, Chrome, or another user-agent. 

This makes it difficult to block Screaming Frog crawls. 

While you can block user agents containing “Screaming Frog SEO Spider,” an operator can simply change the string.

If you suspect unauthorized crawling, you may need to identify and block the IP range instead. 

This requires server-side intervention from your web developer, as robots.txt cannot block IPs – especially since Screaming Frog can be configured to ignore robots.txt directives.

Be cautious, though. It might be your own SEO team conducting a crawl to check for technical SEO issues. 

Before blocking Screaming Frog, try to determine the source of the traffic, as it could be an internal employee gathering data.

Ahrefs Bot

Ahrefs has a crawl bot and a site audit bot for crawling.

  • When Ahrefs crawls the web for its own index, you’ll see traffic from AhrefsBot/7.0.
  • When an Ahrefs user runs a site audit, traffic will come from AhrefsSiteAudit/6.1.

Both bots respect robots.txt disallow rules, per Ahrefs’ documentation. 

If you don’t want your site to be crawled, you can block Ahrefs using robots.txt. 

Alternatively, your web developer can deny requests from user agents containing “AhrefsBot” or “AhrefsSiteAudit“.

Semrush Bot

Like Ahrefs, Semrush operates multiple crawlers with different user-agent strings. 

Be sure to review all available information to identify them properly.

The two most common user-agent strings you’ll encounter are:

  • SemrushBot: Semrush’s general web crawler, used to improve its index.
  • SiteAuditBot: Used when a Semrush user initiates a site audit.

Rogerbot, Dotbot, and other crawlers

Moz, another widely used cloud-based SEO platform, deploys Rogerbot to crawl websites for technical insights. 

Moz also operates Dotbot, a general web crawler. Both can be blocked via your robots.txt file if needed.

Another crawler you may encounter is MJ12Bot, used by the Majestic SEO platform. Typically, it’s nothing to worry about.

Non-SEO crawl bots

Not all crawlers are SEO-related. Many social platforms operate their own bots. 

Meta (Facebook’s parent company) runs multiple crawlers, while Twitter previously used Twitterbot – and it’s likely that X now deploys a similar, though less-documented, system.

Crawlers continuously scan the web for data. Some can benefit your site, while others should be monitored through server logs.

Understanding search bots, SEO crawlers and scrapers for technical SEO

Managing both first-party and third-party crawlers is essential for maintaining your website’s technical SEO.

Key takeaways

  • First-party crawlers (e.g., Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, Semrush) help audit and optimize your own site.
  • Googlebot insights via Search Console provide crucial data on indexation and performance.
  • Third-party crawlers (e.g., Bingbot, AhrefsBot, SemrushBot) crawl your site for search indexing or competitive analysis.
  • Managing bots via robots.txt and server logs can help control unwanted crawlers and improve crawl efficiency in specific cases.
  • Data handling skills are crucial for extracting meaningful insights from crawl reports and log files.

By balancing proactive auditing with strategic bot management, you can ensure your site remains well-optimized and efficiently crawled.

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PPC budgeting in 2025: When to adjust, scale, and optimize with data

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PPC budgeting in 2025- When to adjust, scale, and optimize with data

Budgeting for paid ad campaigns has long been a static process – set a monthly budget, monitor spending, and adjust incrementally as needed. 

This method works for industries with stable demand and predictable conversion rates but falls short in dynamic, competitive markets.

Still, static budgets aren’t obsolete. In industries with long sales cycles, consistent conversion trends, or strict financial planning – like B2B SaaS and healthcare – planned budgets remain essential.

The key isn’t choosing between static and dynamic budgeting; it’s knowing when and how to adjust PPC spend using data-driven signals.

The role of Smart Bidding and Performance Max in budgeting

Automation has changed our budgeting strategies, but it hasn’t eliminated the need for human oversight. 

While Google’s Smart Bidding and Performance Max (PMax) campaigns help optimize performance, they do not fully control budget allocation the way some advertisers may assume.

Smart Bidding: What it does (and doesn’t do) for budgeting

Smart Bidding (i.e., Target ROAS, Target CPA, Maximize Conversions, and Maximize Conversion Value) uses real-time auction signals to adjust bids but does not shift budgets between campaigns. 

If a campaign has an insufficient budget, smart bidding won’t automatically pull spend from another campaign; this still requires manual adjustments or automated budget rules.

To overcome the budget allocation limitations of Smart Bidding, use:

  • Portfolio bidding strategies: Setting bid strategies at the campaign level lets you use a common bidding approach (e.g., Target ROAS or Target CPA) across multiple campaigns. This enables more efficient spending across campaigns with similar goals without manual adjustments.
  • Shared budgets: Assigning a single budget across multiple campaigns ensures high-performing campaigns receive adequate funding while preventing overspending on lower-performing ones.

Dig deeper: How each Google Ads bid strategy influences campaign success

Performance Max: A black box for budget allocation?

PMax automates asset and bid optimization across multiple Google properties (Search, Display, YouTube, Discovery, etc.), but you don’t control which channel yorur budget goes to. 

Google’s algorithm decides how much to allocate to each network, which can sometimes result in excessive spend on lower-performing placements like Display rather than Search.

Instead of relying solely on PMax, run separate Search campaigns alongside it to ensure an adequate budget is allocated to high-intent traffic.

Dig deeper: How to make search and PMax campaigns complement each other

Balancing automation and control: Avoid these PPC budget pitfalls

While automation streamlines bidding, it can also lead to costly mistakes. 

Watch out for these common budget-wasting pitfalls and learn to stay in control.

Overspending on low-value traffic

Smart Bidding sometimes aggressively increases bids to meet a Target ROAS or Target CPA, which can inflate CPCs without increasing conversion volume.

Solution

  • Set bid caps when using Maximize Conversion Value to prevent excessive CPC increases.
  • Monitor search terms to ensure increased bids aren’t capturing low-intent queries.

Advanced tip

When setting a tCPA or tROAS, allow a 10-20% margin for flexibility to help Google’s algorithm optimize effectively.

For example, if your ideal tCPA is $100, setting it to $115 gives Google room to secure conversions that may exceed your target while still delivering strong performance. 

Since tCPA operates as an average, not every lead will cost the same amount.

Once you are consistently hitting your target, gradually lower the tCPA (or raise the tROAS) to improve budget efficiency without restricting conversions.

Underfunding efficient campaigns

If a campaign has a long conversion delay (i.e., B2B lead gen), Smart Bidding may incorrectly shift the budget elsewhere before enough data accumulates.

Solution

  • Extend conversion windows in Smart Bidding settings. The default is 30 days, but advertisers can adjust the window from one day up to 90 days. 
  • Manually monitor lagging conversions and adjust budgets proactively.

Lack of budget control in PMax campaigns

Performance Max doesn’t allow advertisers to set separate budgets for Search, YouTube, and Display. 

As a result, Google may (advertiser sentiment is that they do) favor low-cost clicks from Display rather than higher-intent Search traffic.

Solution

  • Run branded and high-intent non-branded Search campaigns separately to control budget spend on direct-response traffic.
  • Use brand exclusions in PMax to prevent Google from serving brand search queries within PMax, ensuring that branded traffic remains in the dedicated Search campaign.
  • Apply negative keywords via account-level negatives. While PMax doesn’t allow campaign-level negatives, account-level negative keyword lists can help block irrelevant or redundant queries. The maximum number of negative keywords allowed to be applied is 100. Google has stated that it created this limit because PMax isn’t meant to be a heavily restricted campaign type.
  • By monitoring your search impression share, you can identify when branded queries are slipping into PMax instead of the dedicated Search campaign. This will allow you to adjust bid strategies and audience signals accordingly. 
  • Use audience exclusions in PMax to prevent excessive Display spend on irrelevant audiences.

Advanced tip

Tools like Optmyzr can help advertisers determine how their budget is allocated in PMax with the PMax Channel Distribution feature. 

Although we may not have much control over the allocation, we can at least be aware of it. 

Dig deeper: How to manage a paid media budget: Allocation, risk and scaling

How to use first-party data to improve budget allocation

An underutilized strategy for improving budgeting is leveraging first-party data to allocate spend toward high-value audiences. 

As privacy restrictions tighten and tracking capabilities decline, it’s important to shift your focus from broad automated bidding to first-party audience targeting.

Use customer match to prioritize high-value audiences

Instead of spending equally across all users, advertisers can upload Customer Match lists (based on past purchasers, high-LTV customers, or CRM data) and adjust budgets accordingly.

Example

  • If historical data shows that repeat customers generate a higher ROAS than new users, more budget should be allocated to remarketing campaigns targeting Customer Match audiences.

Advanced tip

To maximize campaign efficiency, consider using value-based bidding (VBB) to ensure your budget prioritizes high-value conversions rather than just the volume of leads. 

By assigning different conversion values based on customer lifetime value (LTV), using Customer Match, GA4 insights, or CRM data, you can direct more spending toward audiences that generate the highest long-term revenue.

Changes to customer match lists

Google recently introduced two key updates to Customer Match lists that will impact how advertisers manage audience data.

To stay compliant and maximize audience targeting, be sure to regularly refresh your lists and align your data collection with Google’s updated policies.

Apply GA4 data for smarter budget scaling

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) provides insights into conversion paths, high-value audience segments, and multi-channel attribution. 

Instead of relying solely on Google Ads conversion tracking, use GA4 to determine which audience segments should receive higher budgets.

Best practice

  • Create custom lists/audiences around users with high engagement signals (repeat visits, add-to-cart actions, lead form interactions) and allocate more budget toward these users.
  • Create custom lists/audiences around low-intent users who bounce after viewing one page. To reduce wasted ad spend, decrease your bids or exclude them.

Dig deeper: How to leverage Google Analytics 4 and Google Ads for better audience targeting

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Budget scaling strategies: When and how to increase PPC spend

Scaling your PPC campaigns requires a structured, gradual approach. 

Increasing budgets too aggressively can cause Smart Bidding to overcompensate, leading to inefficient scaling and missed revenue opportunities.

Incremental budget scaling

Instead of doubling your budget overnight, it is better to gradually increase it by 10-20% daily. 

This gives Smart Bidding algorithms time to adjust without overspending or wasting budget.

This will also allow us better control as we can monitor performance changes due to budget shifts more closely.

Example

  • If a campaign is hitting its conversion goals consistently, increase the budget by 15% per week while monitoring conversion trends.

Cross-campaign budget reallocation

Rather than increasing spend across the board, shift budget strategically between:

  • Branded campaigns (lower-funnel, high-converting).
  • Non-branded search campaigns (high-growth potential).
  • Remarketing campaigns (high-value repeat customers).

Dayparting for more efficient spend

Instead of distributing the budget equally across all hours, allocate more to high-converting time periods.

Example

  • If the lead volume is highest between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m., increase bids and budget during these hours.
  • If your business hours are from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m., lower your bids during the hours you aren’t operating to prevent unnecessary ad expenses.

Industry-specific budgeting approaches

As we all know, no two industries are the same, so the approach to budgeting should also be different. Here’s how different business models should think about budget allocation:

B2B lead generation

Budgeting for B2B lead generation requires a long-term view. 

Unlike ecommerce, where purchases can happen quickly, B2B sales cycles can range from a week to over a year, depending on the contract size and decision-making process. 

As such, budget pacing should be planned over months. Don’t make frequent (i.e., daily or weekly) adjustments that could cause instability in the account. 

Because the cycle is longer, conversions often take some time to materialize, so conversion delays should be considered when evaluating Smart Bidding performance. 

If budgets are adjusted too soon based on incomplete data, campaigns may be underfunded before the true impact of conversions is realized.

Dig deeper: Paid search for lead gen: Tips for new accounts with limited budgets

Ecommerce

Seasonality plays a large role in budgeting decisions for ecommerce brands. 

Aggressively increase budgets ahead of major sales events, like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and holiday shopping, to capitalize on higher purchase intent. 

Reacting to performance mid-season will likely result in missed opportunities if the budget is exhausted too early. 

Also, rather than spreading spend evenly across all potential buyers, prioritize high-LTV customers using Customer Match lists and past purchase data. 

This ensures that ad spend is directed toward audiences likely to generate repeat purchases and higher average order values (AOVs).

Dig deeper: Lead gen vs. ecommerce: How to tailor your PPC strategies for success

Local businesses

Budget allocation for local businesses should be narrowly geo-targeted. 

Instead of distributing spend evenly across an entire service area (although you should have some presence in the area), analyze past geographic conversion data to determine which locations typically generate the highest return. 

The budget should then be allocated accordingly, ensuring that high-performing areas receive the majority of ad spend.

Another important factor is setting up call tracking. 

Since many conversions happen over the phone rather than through online forms, integrate call-tracking data to identify which campaigns generate high-quality leads. 

By analyzing call duration, lead quality, and customer inquiries, you can refine budget allocation to optimize for calls that convert into sales or appointments.

Dig deeper: 9 essential geotargeting tactics for Google Ads

Each industry requires a different budgeting approach tailored to its sales cycles, customer behavior, and conversion patterns. 

Understanding these nuances ensures that your PPC budgets are allocated strategically for maximum impact, whether it’s long-term pacing for B2B, seasonal surges for ecommerce, or localized targeting for service-based businesses.

A smarter approach to budgeting

Budgeting for your PPC campaigns doesn’t involve choosing between static and dynamic models; it involves strategically using both.

  • Smart Bidding and PMax improve efficiency but require human oversight.
  • First-party data should play a bigger role in spend allocation.
  • Budget scaling should be incremental and structured.
  • Industry-specific needs should dictate budget pacing strategies.

The best budgets are adaptable, data-driven, and aligned with long-term profitability rather than short-term spend fluctuations. 

Those who master this approach will gain a competitive advantage in an increasingly automated advertising landscape.

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