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10 tips to streamline your blog content workflow

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Content production seems quite simple, in principle. You develop an idea, write about it, do SEO checks, and click publish. Simple, right? It never turns out that way, especially when working with a team. Miscommunications, last-minute changes, and confusion about what needs to happen when. We’ve all been there! Try these ten tips to streamline your digital content workflow and eliminate much stress.

Table of contents

Before we start

Before we start, remember that the ‘perfect’ content workflow probably doesn’t exist. After all, every piece of content is unique, so a one-size-fits-all process is unlikely to produce the highest quality results. If your high-quality, unique content is taking forever to finish, you might struggle to meet deadlines or keep to a schedule. If that sounds like you or your organization, take a look at our tips and see how you can improve.

1. Start the process with clear goals

Whether you’re working alone or as part of a bigger team, it’s important to have a clear idea of all the steps involved and how long each step might take. Not every digital content process is the same. For instance, social media posts don’t need to be optimized for search engines, while blog posts targeting organic traffic do. Regardless of your end goal, the first step is always to start with clear goals.

Want to cover all your bases? Try to answer as many of these questions as you can, as clearly as you can:

  • What topic are you focusing on? How in-depth will you go?
  • Who are you writing for? Who is your audience?
  • What are you trying to achieve? More website visits, increased sales, and more social shares?
  • How will people be able to find your content? Where will you share it, and when?

If you specify your ideas and plans clearly at the beginning, it can help you and your team align your plans. It also helps you to stay on track, which can save you a lot of back-and-forth later on!

Read more: Audience research: how to analyze your audience »

2. Identify contributors and stakeholders

If you’re working in a team, our next tip is as important as the first. Why? Even if you’re clear about your goals, does everyone involved agree with your action plan? That’s why you need to identify your essential contributors and key stakeholders.

Depending on how big your organization is and how well-developed your process is already, making a list of contributors and stakeholders could be a lot of hard work, or a total no-brainer. If you sometimes find that your digital content workflow reaches a bottleneck (or descends to total chaos) because blockers arise from unexpected sources, it could be a sign that you need to do more work in this area.

Once you’ve come up with your plan, it’s a good idea to share it with any essential colleagues who need to give approval in the end before you start doing the real work. If you can get these people to agree with your initial plan, you can refer back to this later to explain creative choices and decisions you might need to make. When you let key parties know what to expect, you can avoid a lot of “What is this? What were you thinking?” kind of conversations.

3. Visualize your content workflow

It can be beneficial to visualize your content workflow, even if it seems daunting. At a minimum, you should write out the basic steps. If you add boxes and arrows to link the steps together, this can help to make the journey through the steps clearer (especially if there are moments when you need to loop back and repeat an earlier step). You can create this however feels comfortable to you — you could choose basic office software like Microsoft Word or Google Docs (Yoast SEO has a handy Google Docs add-on), you could try more advanced software like Visio or Lucidchart, or you could sketch it out on paper. It’s up to you!

For instance, your workflow could look like the first example written out in steps, or like the image below if you use a visualization tool. If, like us, you’re working in WordPress or Google Docs with the Yoast SEO plugin enabled, you can incorporate the features that you use into your workflow too.

Use Yoast SEO in Google Docs

Optimize as you draft for SEO, inclusivity, and readability. The Yoast SEO Google Docs add-on lets you export content ready for WordPress, no reformatting required.

Get Yoast for Google Docs add-onOnly $5 / month (ex VAT)

 

Content workflow example 1

  1. Create a content brief with the agreement of any necessary colleagues
  2. Carry out keyword research using Google Trends and the Semrush keyword data tool in Yoast SEO Premium
  3. Create an article outline using a title and headings that relate to your keywords and the expected search intent
  4. Check if your stakeholders agree with the article outline: If yes, then continue; If no, go back to steps 1-3
  5. Write your draft in WordPress or Google Docs, taking the readability and SEO optimization suggestions from the Yoast SEO plugin into account
  6. Add a featured image in the Post Settings tab and a social image in the Social media appearance tab
  7. Make sure the SEO title, meta description and slug are all a suitable length and describe the content well
  8. Use the Public Preview option in WordPress to share a preview of the post with everyone who needs to give feedback or approval
  9. If feedback needs to be implemented, then implement it! If you’ve made any important changes, go back to get feedback and approval again!
  10. Once everyone who needs to has approved it, your post is ready to publish.

Content workflow example 2

An example of a content workflow made with Jira software
An example of a Jira workflow for tracking blog projects

Read more: How to optimize a blog post for search engines: a checklist! »

4. Assign activities and responsibilities to team members

Even if you have a solid content workflow on paper, it’s important to ensure that each time you go through it, everyone is clear about who is doing what. Not only that, but how and when will different team members communicate with each other to hand over tasks or ask questions? Clearing these kinds of things up in advance can save a lot of hassle for everyone involved.

If these tasks aren’t a regular part of your team’s working day, they’ll also need to manage their own schedule to accommodate the tasks. If so, make sure that they have time to work on your planned content. It’s also worth checking what other priorities your contributors are juggling, as these could prevent progress if they become too demanding. Maybe you have the authority to make your planned content a top priority. If that’s your intention, make sure everyone involved knows that this should be #1 on their to-do list!

5. Set sub-deadlines and contact moments

Naturally, you’ll want to set a deadline for when your content is going to be published. But if you think you can just send out an initial set of instructions, with one final deadline for all the tasks, and nothing concrete in between… Then things are quite likely to go wrong.

To achieve a much more reliable plan of action, you should include sub-deadlines and contact moments at key points in the content process. These help to keep everyone’s work aligned as the piece of content is developed, and can help you to avoid process bottlenecks by identifying issues early on. It’s also wise to schedule your own internal deadlines to have your content ready at least a week before you intend to publish it. That way, you can avoid last-minute changes (and all the mistakes that are likely to come with them). We’ll come back to this point later.

6. Agree on standards and priorities

So at this point, if you’ve followed all of our tips, you might be planning in sub-deadlines like ‘rough draft is ready’ or ‘final draft for approval’. Before you build all your hopes and dreams around these mini-deliverables, you’ll need to clarify how rough this rough draft can be! After all, you don’t want to end up disappointed because you only received a basic article outline and a few bullet point lists when you were expecting something almost finished.

If you’re using tools like Yoast SEO, you’ll also want to make it clear what results are acceptable to you: for instance, do you expect the readability analysis to always be green, but the SEO analysis doesn’t have to be when it’s not written for ranking purposes? Do you expect the internal linking suggestions to be added as a requirement, or are these just to be used as suggestions? Make sure everyone agrees about how you use your tools and what the end goal is.

7. Allow time for final checks and changes

If you have a regular content publishing schedule that you want to keep to, it’s a good idea to prepare your drafts with a decent amount of time to spare. That way, you can avoid stressing about deadlines and last-minute changes. Here are a few things that really ought to be on your pre-publication checklist, especially if they’re not already incorporated in your content development process:

  • Check the SEO of your post using the Yoast SEO analysis. Is it good enough?
  • Check the readability of your post using the readability analysis. Is it good enough?
  • Have you added a featured image?
  • Have you added an OG image and title for optimized social sharing?
  • Is the slug short and descriptive?
  • Have you added internal links to and from other relevant pages on your site?
  • If you use tags/categories, have you selected all the right options?
  • Are comments enabled/disabled according to your preferences for this post?
  • Is the correct date/time set for your post?
Yoast SEO for Google Docs add-on
Using Yoast SEO in Google Docs makes it much easier to work across teams

As you can see, there’s quite a lot to do even after a post is written, so don’t underestimate how long these checks will take.

Got a good basic content process, but still having issues? This is what to check:

8. Do you create unnecessary work?

Sometimes tasks become more complicated than they really need to be. Are there times when one small change causes a cascade of new issues to deal with? This can be a sign that you need to rethink the order of your steps and who is involved. Small changes should be easy, right?

Often, it’s obvious who should be doing what and how the process should continue. But it’s not always. For instance, if you have a graphic design team, do they need to make every change themselves? Can you make things easier by enabling your writing team to change text and background colors themselves, for instance?

Another type of problem can arise if you don’t have a clear decision-maker in place. Sure, there might be lots of people who should have a say about the content in the end. But who makes the final decisions? If it’s not clear who is responsible for which decisions, you might end up with all your best experts trying to reach an agreement about every little thing. That can be tricky, and it can waste loads of time! Make it easier by giving specific individuals ownership of specific aspects of the process.

9. Are things not going according to plan?

Sometimes things go wrong, in spite of your best efforts. But if things are often going wrong in your content production process, you should investigate the cause of your problems. It’s always a good idea to reach out to the people involved in the steps that are going wrong. What challenges are they facing? Does the existing process make things easier for them or more difficult? And very importantly, ask if they have any ideas to improve the process!

Don’t be afraid to try something new if what you’re doing isn’t working. Even if your new idea doesn’t work out any better, you can always learn from it and try something different next time! Or put it this way: trying anything is better than burying your head in the sand and continuing with a broken content development process.

10. Doing extra tasks that aren’t part of the plan?

Last but not least: are you making life harder by adding in ‘nice-to-have’ extras that weren’t part of the plan? It’s an easy mistake to make! After all, when you really care about the content you’re creating, your natural instinct is to keep improving and make it the best that it can be. Even though that means making a whole new infographic. Even though that infographic wasn’t a part of the original plan. Your team can make it happen, right? Or else you can just push the deadline back…

It’s great to aim high when it comes to making quality content. But if you’re ambitious, late-arriving ideas become a burden to the process, you might want to start categorizing them into “must-have” and “nice-to-have” content elements. That way, everyone knows which parts to prioritize and which parts can be left out if they’re too difficult to achieve within the original plan. And don’t forget that one of the biggest advantages of publishing digital content is that you can continue to improve it and share it again whenever you want!

Streamline your content workflow, but don’t let it rule you!

Those are our ten tips! It can be really worthwhile to streamline your content workflow, especially if you’re experiencing issues and bottlenecks in the process. Naturally, every situation is different, and each piece of content comes with its own opportunities and challenges, too. So you need to think about what works for you and what doesn’t in order to adapt your content process.

Try to keep a balance and avoid making a content process that’s too strict or inflexible. You don’t want to set up a rigid process that dictates your editorial decisions and rules your creative output. It’s a creative process, after all! So it’s always good to keep some room for flexibility, but just how much is up to you.

Remember: whatever your content workflow looks like, WordPress, Google Docs, and the Yoast SEO plugin can help you! From your main topic and focus keyphrase, through to the final touches you add just before publishing, the tools can form checkpoints to easily align your team and your goals.

Read more: Adapting your content SEO strategy »

The post 10 tips to streamline your blog content workflow appeared first on Yoast.

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12 AI tools that will elevate your SEO game

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In the last few years, we have seen loads of exciting developments in AI. New tools are popping up left and right, helping with a wide range of tasks. AI is finding its place in every market, from writing to keyword research to fact-checking. The rise of this phenomenon is undeniable. Let’s explore a few AI tools that can support your SEO efforts.

We’ve listed 12 tools that can help you with your SEO in different ways. That said, it’s important to maintain a healthy balance between AI support and human input. AI can help us greatly, especially with getting started and saving time on easy tasks. Authenticity and trustworthiness still matter, both for your audience and SEO.

Don’t let AI take over entirely or erase your unique perspective.. Don’t underestimate your importance in this process and always stay critical of the output. Check the tone of voice and the facts, and rewrite anything that feels off. In the end, this human element will get you to the top of the search results.

1. ChatGPT (Plus)

Let’s start with a tool you’ve probably heard of: ChatGPT. This is a text-based AI model that interacts with you in a conversational way to answer any question you have. Or fulfill any content request you have. This means ChatGPT can assist with a broad range of tasks.

Another great feature is the ability to tweak your request as you go. So if you ask ChatGPT to write an introduction for a blog post on a specific topic and the answer it comes up with is too long, you can then ask it to shorten it and it will do so. If you’re not happy with the tone of voice, you can ask it to change that. Or if you don’t like it at all, you can ask ChatGPT to rewrite it altogether. You can also craft more specific prompts to get better results from the start. This allows you to keep tweaking the text until you’re satisfied with it.

Screenshot of AI tool ChatGPT
Screenshot of ChatGPT and the model options showing

 If you use ChatGPT plus, which is the paid version, you can also use the dropdown at the top left corner to select a model fitted to your needs. As you can see, these other models give you more options. But the free version of ChatGPT can still handle most basic content requests.

2. Yoast SEO & WooCommerce SEO

Yoast SEO comes with several AI features. The most recent one is Yoast AI Optimize, which helps you improve your content based on the feedback you get—inline, where you are working. Yoast AI Optimize highlights suggested changes for certain assessments in the Yoast SEO Analysis, allowing you to easily apply or dismiss them. This ensures that the final decision always remains in your hands.

Yoast AI Optimize gives you inline suggestions and a one-click solution to improve your content

The second AI feature generates SEO titles, meta descriptions, and social snippets for you. It looks at the content already there and gives you a few options with the click of a button. This saves you the hassle of doing it manually and provides you with relevant titles, meta descriptions, and social snippets to increase your click-through rates.

screenshot of AI tool Yoast SEO
Screenshot of the AI meta description generator in Yoast SEO Premium

The AI features are part of our paid plugin, Yoast SEO Premium. This comes with a yearly subscription plan, but an affordable one. We want to make our features available to as many people as possible.

Unlock AI features in Yoast SEO Premium

Get this feature and much more for your WordPress site with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin!

Get Yoast SEO Premium Only $99 / year (ex VAT)

We’ve also added this feature to Yoast WooCommerce SEO a short while back. This helps you make your products stand out on the search result page and get those clicks to your website. So if you have an online shop and are looking to optimize your product pages, it’s worth taking a look at that product as well.

3. Jasper

Another tool you can use to produce content is Jasper. But it is more focused on producing marketing content like blog posts, social posts, email and website copy. Where ChatGPT targets a wider audience, Jasper focuses on people working in marketing and entrepreneurs who do their marketing themselves. Utilizing the AI tool works pretty similarly, where you put in a request and Jasper provides you with content specifically created for a newsletter or post (or something else).

It also allows you to upload a style guide or examples of your content so that it can learn your preferred tone of voice. In addition, you can also give it information about your company like the products or services you provide, your audience and even a campaign brief. Jasper uses all of this to understand the goal of the content you’re requesting and to create content that is on-brand and detailed. What’s cool about this tool is that it also comes in the form of a browser extension. Allowing you to use it while you’re working on your content in WordPress, Gmail and other places.

screenshot of AI tool Jasper used in Gmail
Screenshot of Jasper browser extension being used in Gmail

It’s good to know that Jasper works with a monthly (or yearly) subscription plan, so this is a paid tool. They have a few options you can check out and a free trial if you want to give it a try before subscribing.

4. Keyword Insights

A vital but time-consuming part of SEO is keyword research. That’s why one of the AI tools we’ve picked is focused on that specifically. You can use Keyword Insights to find new keyword ideas and cluster them. By filling in a keyword it gives you loads of related keywords and their search volumes. Keyword Insights also helps you categorize keywords by clustering them properly and it allows you to upload other files to get those keywords in there as well. It gives you a nice overview of all your keywords per cluster and all the relevant data to figure out which ones you want to work on. The tool actually uses an algorithm to quickly show you which keyword is the best choice at the moment.

screenshot of AI tool Keyword Insights
An overview of related keywords in Keyword Insights

After you’re done with that, you can actually use the writing assistant to get started with writing. What’s cool about this writing feature is that it gives you an overview of the top headings of other websites that rank high on that keyword. Or it can even generate an outline for you. Which can be great inspiration to get started with the structure of your text. It also helps you write the text by suggesting relevant content for the article you’re working on.

Keyword Insights is a paid tool, that has several pricing options depending on your needs. A few of those options also enable team sharing, which comes in handy when you have multiple people working on your SEO. It has loads of interesting features to do keyword research in an organized way. But a very important sidenote is that it can be tempting to let the tool also do all the writing for you. Which might result in content that is far from original and authentic and will not get you that top result in Google. As it will be mainly based on what’s already out there. So make sure to check out the keyword features, but be mindful of how you use the writing assistant.

5. Semrush SEO Writing Assistant

Another writing tool powered by AI is the SEO Writing Assistant you can find in Semrush. This tool analyzes your text in terms of SEO, readability, originality and tone of voice. It gives you suggestions based on this analysis and also comes with a few features to optimize your text, such as the Rephraser, Compose and Ask AI. What’s great about the Originality section is that this helps you create content that’s not like everyone else’s, something you risk when using AI in your content creation. This can help you figure out whether you need to change your angle and it also checks your content for plagiarism.

screenshot of AI tool Keyword Insights
The SEO Writing Assistant in Semrush

Another reason we’re mentioning this tool is because Semrush in general is a great tool for SEO. So having this option in there is a great addition to their set of tools. The SEO Writing Assistant is part of Semrush’s Content Marketing Platform, which is included with two of their three subscription plans. You can also sign up for a free trial to give it a whirl.

6. MarketMuse

When looking at AI tools that can help you elevate your SEO, MarketMuse is another one we want to mention. In short, MarketMuse is content planning and optimization software that comes with loads of SEO and automization features. The idea is that it puts everything you need in one place and automates content audits for you. Helping suggest what to work on next instead of guessing or speculating what does or doesn’t work.

screenshot of AI tool MarketMuse
The Topic Navigator section in MarketMuse

It can help you do keyword research, plan your content and write. All based on personalized data, as they analyze your website and also look at competitors in your field. Which can save you loads of time and help you make informed decisions. Without having to switch between different tools and documents or sheets. It’s all in one place. As most AI tools discussed so far, MarketMuse works with a monthly subscription plan and gives you a few options to choose from.

7. Originality.ai

The name might already be an indicator of what this AI tool can do for you. Originality.ai helps you fact-check your text and also checks it for plagiarism. Being trustworthy is an important factor in SEO right now, and will probably remain important, so you need to get your facts straight. And make sure you’re not accidentally committing plagiarism, a growing risk in today’s AI-heavy landscapes.. Funnily enough, it also comes with an AI Content Detector which is pretty good in detecting content written by AI. Even if it has been paraphrased.

screenshot of AI tool Originality.ai
The fact checker in Originality.ai

Originality.ai comes with a monthly subscription option and a pay-as-you-go option which gives you a bunch of credits to get started. Unfortunately, there is no free trial, but if you go to their website you can find loads of information (and some examples) of how the features work. There’s also a demo of their fact checker if you want to give that a try!

8. Grammarly

Grammarly is a tool that’s quite popular with the writers here at Yoast. It shows you when you’ve made an error when it comes to spelling and grammar, and works on different platforms and in different places. Which is very helpful when you write a lot of online text. Now that Grammarly also comes with the power of AI, it can do even more for anyone who writes online content.

Grammarly now comes with a generative text feature, which allows you to give it a prompt and get a draft right away. It also includes a rewrite feature to adjust the tone of your content. You can also teach it what your personal tone of voice is, so that it can give you specific suggestions that fit your communication style. Lastly, it can help you with brainstorming and outlines by giving suggestions based on your task at hand. It’s a neat little AI tool that you can use on the go.

screenshot of AI tool Grammarly
Screenshot of Grammarly functionality, showing some of its AI features

Grammarly has a free plan, which gives you access to their basic AI assistance and 100 AI prompts per month. They have a few paid monthly subscription plans if you need more and want access to more prompts and advanced features.

9. Gemini

Gemini is Google’s generative AI chatbot. It’s designed to handle a wide range of tasks including text generation, image analysis, coding, and data processing. Integrated into tools like Google Docs and Gmail, Gemini provides users with loads of options to improve their content on the spot. It also integrates with Google’s AI Studio for prototyping and testing.

Gemini is designed to serve both casual users and developers. Through the Gemini web app (formerly Bard), users can interact conversationally with the model, ask complex questions, or get help writing code and documents. This app also offers Gems, premade or custom prompts that can be saved for future use and help you with specific needs.

Screenshot AI tool Gemini by Google
The Gem manager in Gemini

Gemini offers a free and paid subscription. The free version of the Gemini web app gives users access to Gemini Flash, a fast and cost-efficient model suitable for everyday tasks. For more advanced capabilities, Google offers Google AI Pro, which provides access to Gemini Pro, integrations in Google apps, and a few other more specific features.

10. Perplexity

Perplexity AI is a free AI-powered search and answer tool. It presents direct answers backed by real-time web sources, making it especially useful for research, current events, and factual information. It uses a conversational interface similar to a chatbot, allowing users to ask follow-up questions and refine their search naturally. 

One of Perplexity’s standout features is its focus on citations and transparency. Each answer is accompanied by linked sources, allowing users to verify information or explore the topic further. This makes it a valuable tool for professionals, students, and writers who need trustworthy results quickly. The platform also includes features like “Research,” allowing deep research on any topic.

Screenshot of AI tool Perplexity
Example of answer provided by Perplexity, showing the sources at the top.

Perplexity offers a free option that provides access to fast and accurate answers using its standard models, along with web-sourced citations. For users who need more powerful tools, Perplexity offers different plans depending on your needs. Pro is aimed at individuals looking to use a more powerful and up-to-date version of the tool. Sonar API gives developers API access for any custom applications or automations they might want. Finally, Enterprise Pro is the choice recommended for organizations looking to use this tool within the team.

11. Claude

Claude is a conversational AI designed with a focus on safety and transparency. Named after Claude Shannon, the father of information theory, this model excels at tasks involving text comprehension, summarization, creative writing, and code generation. What sets Claude apart is its training method that aligns the model’s behavior with human values by using a set of ethical guidelines.

Users can interact with Claude through a chat-style interface. It also supports uploads of various file types (like PDFs or CSVs) for direct analysis, making it a powerful tool for research, document review, and data interpretation. Anthropic’s Claude includes three variants, Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus. Opus being the most advanced, particularly strong in reasoning and complex problem-solving tasks. Sonnet is also a great option for coding tasks.

AI tool Claude
Example of Claude being used to visualize data.

Claude comes with a free option and several paid options. The free version gives users access to Claude’s chat and allows them to generate code, create content and analyze text and images. When it comes to their paid plans, there are options for individuals looking to integrate Claude into their terminal or workspace. But also options for organizations or developers or businesses looking to get access to the API. I would recommend having a look at the options to see what would be a good fit for you.

12. NotebookLM

NotebookLM is an AI-powered note-taking and research tool developed by Google. It was designed to help users interact with their own documents using generative AI. It allows you to upload sources such as PDFs, Google Docs, YouTube-video’s or audio files, and then ask questions or generate summaries based on that content. Unlike other AI tools, NotebookLM uses the user’s uploaded material, which makes its responses more contextually accurate and personalized. 

One of the standout features of NotebookLM is its ability to create structured summaries, highlight key themes, and generate helpful outlines based on the uploaded sources. You can interact with the model by asking detailed questions, getting explanations of terms, or generating content like FAQs or briefing docs. This productivity tool blends note-taking, research, and brainstorming in one interface.

Screenshot of AI tool NotebookLM
The NotebookLM interface showing sources, the chat and other options.

As of now, Google offers NotebookLM for free. The tool is available to users in supported regions through their Google accounts and is still positioned as an experimental product.

Read more: Generative AI and SEO: Revolutionizing content creation »

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7 Powerful AI Marketing Tools You Need (Tested)

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Seen your LinkedIn lately? AI marketing tools are everywhere.

And each one promises a bigger ROI than the last.

The truth? It’s not necessarily hype. AI tools actually deliver impressive returns.

In fact, you get a 3.7x return for every dollar you invest in generative AI.

GenAI Impacts Both Top and Bottom Lines

But ONLY if you pick the right tools.

So, to save you the guesswork, I tested seven popular AI marketing tools for various tasks. Including writing, video creation, and customer research.

Check out my in-depth reviews below for the full picture.

Short on time? View each tool’s highlights here:

What Are the Best AI Marketing Tools?

AI Tool Best for Pricing
ChatGPT All-purpose AI marketing assistant $20+/month
Semrush Full-stack marketing with AI integration $139.95+/month
Flick Social media marketing on a budget £14+/month
Canva Fast visual content creation $15+/month
Synthesia Video creation without filming $29+/month
AdCreative.ai Scaling high-performing ads $39+/month
HubSpot AI marketing automation $20/month/seat

1. ChatGPT

Best all-purpose AI marketing assistant

Price: $20+/month; limited free plan available

ChatGPT – Buyer Personas Overview

I can’t write about the best AI tools for marketing without starting with ChatGPT.

The large language model (LLM) isn’t just popular.

It actually gets more searches than “AI.”

Google Trends – ChatGPT & AI

What makes it so good?

It can handle just about any marketing task, customized to your industry.

From a quick Instagram caption for your DTC skin care company to a detailed content strategy with audience segmentation, ChatGPT does it all.

But here’s the not-so-secret secret: ChatGPT is only as good as your prompts.

Bad prompts = bad answers.

But learn how to communicate with ChatGPT effectively (aka prompt engineering), and it becomes the ideal AI tool for marketing teams.

Create Relevant First Drafts

ChatGPT helps you go from blank page to first draft on any topic, fast.

(For more, check out our guide: How to Use AI for Writing Exceptional Content.)

The tool can significantly speed up the content creation process, no matter the format.

This includes SEO blog posts, product descriptions, email campaigns, and more.

ChatGPT – Relevant first drafts

For example, I often use it to organize my ideas and draft marketing content more efficiently.

I typically provide it with custom inputs like:

  • A content brief and project guidelines
  • Data from tools like Semrush
  • Competitive intelligence
  • Initial research notes

By feeding this information up front, the output becomes more relevant to the project goals.

But this isn’t copy-paste content writing right out of the gate. Every output still needs a human pass.

You’ll also likely need to refine your prompt multiple times to get the highest quality results from ChatGPT.

Pro tip: For some projects, I use the AI-first method. I start with a prompt to spark momentum. Then, it becomes a back-and-forth process. I add my expertise, and it refines my thinking. I shape the direction, and it suggests new angles. I lay out an idea, and it points out any flaws. It’s less AI writer. More collaborative partner.

Accelerate Customer Research

ChatGPT is a powerful support tool for customer research.

Use it to:

  • Write better survey questions
  • Analyze sentiment
  • Extract actionable insights from raw feedback

For example, voice of customer (VoC) research used to be my biggest time-sink for conversion optimization projects.

I’d spend weeks organizing data and tagging themes.

Now, I run the same process with ChatGPT in a fraction of the time.

I attach dozens of customer reviews from Google, TrustPilot, and internal surveys. Then, ask it to identify sentiments and motivations.

It takes care of the grunt work and identifies patterns fast.

(So, I can focus on finding valuable insights, not just sorting through data.)

ChatGPT – Review sheet and prompt

This same process also gives me the exact language customers use to describe their challenges.

I then use that language to write copy that resonates and build experiences that address customer pain points.

ChatGPT – Review Insights

Pros and Cons

Pros Cons
Multi-purpose AI assistant that adapts to any marketing task

Customizable to your brand voice, tone, and messaging style

 Answers are only as good as your prompting skills

Prone to hallucinations. Need subject-matter expertise to avoid generic or inaccurate content.

2. Semrush

Best for full-stack marketing with deep AI visibility

Price: $139.95+/month; AI Toolkit and Enterprise AIO require separate plans

Organic Research – Backlinko – Topics

Semrush is quickly becoming one of the most versatile AI-powered marketing platforms out there. It’s no longer just an SEO tool.

Whether you’re building an SEO strategy, planning content, launching paid campaigns, researching competitors, or tracking how your brand shows up in AI-generated answers — Semrush has a solution for it.

And unlike many startups racing into the AI space, Semrush brings something most don’t: infrastructure. It’s backed by more than a decade of data, crawling power, and product development.

Here’s how you can use Semrush to get ahead in the AI-powered marketing landscape:

Track Your Brand in AI Search

The most powerful thing Semrush offers in the AI space is visibility. Specifically: How is your brand showing up in AI-generated answers across LLMs?

That’s where Enterprise AIO comes in.

Semrush Enterprise – AIO Overview

It tracks your brand across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews — measuring:

  • Brand, product, and concept mentions
  • Sentiment and quote-level context
  • Share of Voice compared to competitors
  • Citations and sources used in AI responses
  • Visibility trends by region, topic, or model

If you’re an enterprise or managing a well-known brand, this is the most advanced solution available.

See What AI Platforms Say About You

The Semrush AI Toolkit is built for SMBs, lean teams, and growing brands that want to understand how AI platforms talk about them — and where they can improve.

For $99/month per domain, you can:

  • Monitor your brand’s presence in ChatGPT, SearchGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and more
  • Track Share of Voice and sentiment over time
  • Discover high-intent queries and emerging topics
  • Get recommendations on where to improve content and messaging

It’s not “lite” — it’s focused. And for many teams, it’s exactly what they need to stay visible in the AI-driven search landscape.

Semrush AI Toolkit – Dashboard – AI Strategic Insights

It even provides recommendations based on AI query data and sentiment trends.

This means you can quickly jump on emerging topics in your industry.

Or address user concerns before they become a problem.

For example, when I entered the domain warbyparker.com (an eyeglass company), the AI Toolkit revealed that users repeatedly asked about unclear payment and financing options.

The tool also made a helpful recommendation to solve this problem:

Clearly communicate financing details on the website and in the checkout flow.

Semrush AI Toolkit – Backlinko – AI Strategic Opportunities

That’s the real value here: The Semrush AI Toolkit doesn’t just give you data.

It also surfaces patterns from user queries. So you can identify pain points and fix them before they can hurt conversions.

Keep Social Content on Brand

The Semrush Social Media Toolkit uses AI to help you create and organize a social strategy.

It lets you easily create weeks of on-brand content in minutes. And schedule it across major platforms so your posting stays consistent.

Here’s how it works:

The AI-powered tool finds trending topics your audience cares about. (And updates daily.)

Social Content AI – Backlinko

Select any topic, and the tool will auto-draft a post that aligns with your brand voice and campaign goals.

Customize it further with AI-generated hashtags, images, or scripted videos.

Finally, schedule and publish across Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and more, with the click of a button.

Bada bing bada boom!

Social Content AI – Backlinko – Generated results

Pros and Cons

Pros Cons
AI integration throughout the entire platform, including SEO, PPC, and social

Tracks how your brand shows up in AI answers so you can stay ahead as search behavior evolves

 Some features (like the AI Toolkit and Enterprise AIO) cost extra beyond the base plan

May feel overwhelming at first for smaller teams or new users

 

3. Flick

Best for social media marketing on a budget

Price: $18+/month; 7-day free trial available

Flick – Welcome Page

Want to look like you have a full content team without paying for one?

Use Flick.

This AI tool builds your social media marketing strategy, writes engaging posts, and maintains your publishing calendar.

Set your content pillars once in the Brand Hub, and Iris (Flick’s AI tool) will handle the rest.

This includes:

  • Auto-generating post ideas that align with your strategy
  • Repurposing blog posts into ready-to-publish social content
  • Creating a publishing calendar for Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Facebook

It’s perfect for founders and marketers juggling 17 other priorities.

(Or anyone who knows they should be posting more but never has time to sit down to plan it all out.)

Create a Social Media Calendar

Most social tools just help you schedule posts.

But Flick also helps you figure out what to post.

Flick – Plan Content Calendar

Its AI assistant helps you create a social media calendar without hours of brainstorming.

For example, I used Flick to create a 30-day calendar in under five minutes.

Here’s how I did it:

First, I set up the Brand Hub with my content pillars.

  • Conversion copywriting
  • AI
  • Funnel optimization for SaaS and ecommerce

Then, I defined my brand voice and target audience.

Flick – Business Info

Next, I selected a time frame (I went with a full month).

And in under a minute, Iris generated a list of post ideas aligned with my content pillars.

Flick – Plan Content Calendar – Confirm Ideas

Its suggestions included:

  • Create a video showcasing five SaaS companies with standout value propositions
  • Share three AI prompts marketers can use to boost email subject line performance
  • Post before/after funnel results from a client that highlight how I increased signups

All I had to do was click “Add to scheduler,” and my content calendar was set.

Flick – Content Calendar

I now have a month of content ideas that I can easily turn into posts.

(Yep, Flick’s AI can write, too.)

Repurpose Long-Form Content

Got a blog post or YouTube video you worked hard on?

Flick’s “Repurpose” feature turns that content into social-ready posts.

The process is simple:

Click “Iris” > “Repurpose Blog Post.”

Iris – Repurpose long form content

Then, enter the URL.

This can be a blog post, YouTube video, or newsletter. And that’s all you have to do.

I tested this using my AI SEO tools article.

Within seconds, Iris analyzed it and came up with four social post ideas.

Iris – Social post ideas

I picked one.

And the AI generated a post that captured the article’s core message.

It was perfect for social.

AI generated a post

For each post, you can:

  • Adjust text length from one line to full caption
  • Refine hashtags for better reach
  • Attach media
  • Schedule posts

You also have the option to customize each post for different social media platforms.

Customize each post for different social media platforms

Pros and Cons

Pros Cons
Scheduler is integrated with AI features, so you can go from idea to post without switching tools

Built-in brand voice training means the AI can mimic your brand voice and tone in all your posts

 Limited to social content. Not ideal for broader marketing tasks

No analytics or cross-platform ad management like you’d find in tools like Semrush

4. Canva

Best for fast visual content generation

Price: $15/month; free plan available

Canva – Visme – Fast visual content generation

You probably already know Canva.

This graphic design tool lets you create anything from a tweet graphic to a full marketing campaign.

But now it’s added AI into the mix with its Magic Studio.

Provide a prompt, and the tool will design a graphic, write image text, and even generate code.

From first idea to final creative, Canva’s AI speeds up marketing design without leaving the platform.

Two things impressed me the most:

  • The learning curve was negligible. I didn’t need a tutorial to get started.
  • The AI Image generation tool created exactly what I had envisioned

Turn Ideas into Visual Assets

Canva’s AI can generate full visual assets, including presentations, social posts, infographics, and more.

Inside Magic Studio, you’ll find various options:

  • Design for me: Creates on-brand templates for things like social posts and presentations
  • Create an image: Generates images from text prompts
  • Draft a doc: Writes blog posts, emails, social posts, and more
  • Code for me: Creates code for interactive elements like website pages, quizzes, and more

Canva AI

I put this to the test by asking it to create a slide deck based on a Backlinko article.

My prompt included copy for each slide.

Canva AI design for me presentation prompt

So, how did Magic Studio do?

It generated four slide decks for me to choose from that were pretty good.

But it didn’t follow the exact copy from my prompt.

Canva – AI results

So, I had to tweak the text and update the images. (Which was super easy.)

While the AI image generator made generating visuals simple, I wouldn’t exactly call it “fast.”

It would’ve taken me at least an hour to build Canva slide decks from scratch.

But with Magic Studio, it took me about 15 minutes. Not bad.

Check out the final output below.

What do you think?

Canva – Magic Studio – Final output

Pros and Cons

Pros Cons
Designs match Canva’s modern, ready-to-use template quality

Offers multiple layout options per prompt so you can easily choose the best fit for your content

 AI doesn’t always follow detailed prompts closely

No dedicated format for visual assets like LinkedIn carousels

Needs a bit of refinement to get it just right

5. Synthesia

Best for video creation without filming

Price: $29+/month; free plan available (no downloads)

Synthesia – Workspace

Synthesia is one of the fastest ways to turn your ideas into presenter-style videos.

Use it to create:

  • Product demos
  • Staff training content
  • Explainer or onboarding videos
  • Global communications in different languages

With over 200+ AI avatars and support for over 140 languages and voices, it’s great for teams that need professional multilingual videos fast.

Even better?

You don’t even have to step in front of a camera.

Create Videos Without Filming

Synthesia lets you create a video from a file, URL, prompt, or script.

You start by entering your inputs into the AI Video Assistant.

For this test, I used this URL: https://www.semrush.com/kb/801-advertising-toolkit.

I wanted to create a promotional video for Semrush’s PPC Advertising Toolkit.

Synthesia’s AI assistant guided me through the process.

It prompted me to enter the URL and fill out key details: video length, audience, tone, objective, and speaker.

Synthesia – AI video assistant

Synthesia then generated a video outline.

From there, I could:

  • Add or delete chapters
  • Change the avatar and voice
  • Tweak the script for each scene
  • Add music, transitions, or new slides

Synthesia – Video Editor

I made a few changes that included swapping out my avatar from dozens of options.

(You can also record yourself to create a personal avatar.)

Synthesia – Avatars

Was the result flawless? Not quite.

The script needed a little polishing, and the AI avatar was… obviously AI.

But for an AI-generated video, with no filming, editing, or voiceover work, it was impressively functional.

 

Localize Videos

Synthesia’s AI recreates videos in over 140 languages and dialects.

Synthesia – Workspace – AI Dubbing

This means global brands and organizations can create localized video content without hiring voice actors or re-recording footage.

For my test, I uploaded one of my TikTok videos and asked Synthesia to generate a version in French.

Synthesia – AI Dubbing

The result? Uncannily good.

Hearing “myself” speak in French was impressive, surreal, and erm…hilarious.

But it worked. And it worked fast.

Pros and Cons

Pros Cons
More than 200 customizable AI avatars means you don’t have to appear on camera

Creates videos in 140 languages so you can quickly make versions for different markets

 Avatars feel a bit robotic, with limited emotional tone

Video limits are tight: the Pro plan ($29/month) gives you only 10 minutes of video per month. For additional video time, you’ll have to upgrade to the next tier.

6. AdCreative.ai

Best for scaling high-performing ads

Price: $39+/month; free plan available (up to 10 downloads)

AdCreative – Always stay ahead

Running paid ads? You need AdCreative.ai.

It builds complete ads (visuals + copy + CTAs) for every major platform in minutes. Including Meta, Google Ads, LinkedIn, and more.

The game-changer?

It’s trained on billions of high-performing ads, so every output is based on proven conversion patterns.

This means you’re not just getting random designs.

You’re getting pre-optimized ad creatives based on what’s already working in your niche.

Create Ads at Scale

Adcreative.ai keeps you on track when you’re working on multiple campaigns and drowning in last week’s ad copy rewrites.

Start by setting up a basic brand profile with your logo, colors, and short description.

Then, choose the type of asset you want to create: static, video, or text-based ads.

AdCreative – AI-Generated Asset Selection

I tested this tool using one of my Backlinko articles.

First, I had it scan the site so it could understand the brand.

AdCreative – Ad Package

It automatically pulled in Backlinko’s brand details.

Then, I entered the article URL so it could scan for relevant content.

After that, I customized the ad including:

  • Choosing LinkedIn as the ad platform
  • Picking an ad format
  • Uploading a background image (optional)

I clicked “Generate” and within seconds, I had a full batch of ad variants ready for use.

AdCreative – Generate batch of ad variants

Each ad came with a layout, copy, and a “Conversion Score” — AdCreative’s prediction on how well the ad will perform.

Pretty cool.

The results weren’t perfect — a few looked a little rough out of the gate.

But every element was editable in the Creative Studio, so with a few quick tweaks, they were publish-ready.

Side note: Notice a pattern here? AI marketing tools work best with detailed information and manual refinement. (For now, at least.)

AdCreative – Zoom in on ad variant

Pros and Cons

Pros Cons
Built-in “Conversion Score” helps you prioritize top-performing variants

The tool analyzes your brand assets and automatically learns your goals, ideal customer, and brand voice

 Some default designs feel generic or visually cluttered

Ad downloads are capped monthly, which adds up quickly when running high-volume campaigns

7. HubSpot

Best for AI marketing automation

Price: $20+/month/seat; free tier available (basic CRM)

HubSpot – Copilot

HubSpot integrates email, ads, content, automation, and customer tracking with your CRM.

Their AI (called Breeze) learns from your actual data, such as your:

  • CRM records
  • Campaign performance
  • Customer behavior

This means you get insights specific to your audience and your sales process.

Not generic AI advice based on everyone else’s data.

That makes it feel less like software and more like a teammate who gets your business.

Identify High-Intent Leads

HubSpot’s Breeze Intelligence identifies qualified leads from your website traffic.

It tracks how visitors interact with your site.

Like what they click, how long they stay, and which pages they’ve visited more than once.

Then it combines that behavior with public data sources (like reverse IP lookup) to identify which companies they likely work for.

HubSpot – High intent leads

For example, Breeze might find a visitor from a Fortune 500 company:

  • Checking out your pricing page (obvious buying signal)
  • Reading through case studies (evaluating your results)
  • Making repeated visits (consistent interest)

HubSpot – Find a visitor

That’s someone interested in your product. In other words, the kind of leads your sales team should be talking to.

You can also personalize your outreach to what these prospects have already viewed.

That’s huge.

Say the right thing at the right time to the right person, and you don’t have to do the hard sell.

The momentum’s already there. You just help it along.

Side note: Breeze typically identifies companies rather than specific individuals (unless visitors fill out forms or self-identify), making it particularly useful for B2B businesses.

Pros and Cons

Pros Cons
Comprehensive AI integration throughout marketing, sales, and customer service

Provides deep customer behavior insights for more targeted marketing

 Full AI functionality (like Agents and Breeze Intelligence) is only available in paid accounts

Effectiveness is dependent on the quality of your existing data

3 AI Marketing Tool Runner-Ups

These AI tools for marketers didn’t make the top spots.

But they have standout features for specific marketing tasks that make them worth considering.

1. Hootsuite

Best for advanced social media analytics

Price: $149+ per user/per month

Hootsuite – Social media analytics

Hootsuite uses AI to streamline social media publishing on all your social channels.

Its OwlyWriter AI generates post ideas, repurposes top-performing content, and writes captions in your brand voice.

But what sets Hootsuite apart is its AI social listening model, Blue Silk AI.

Hootsuite – AI Social listening model

It scans millions of conversations, on and off social, to detect brand mentions and analyze audience sentiment in real time.

Then, it:

  • Suggests the best times to post based on engagement patterns
  • Identifies organic content worth boosting with paid ads
  • Surface trending topics in your niche

These AI features let your social team move faster and make data-driven decisions.

But it’s more complex than beginner tools like Flick.

It also comes with a higher price tag. (It starts at $149 per user/month compared to Flick’s $18/month.)

Still, if you’re managing multiple brands on all major platforms and need AI to help you plan and optimize at scale, Hootsuite is tough to beat.

2. Claude

Best LLM for content creation

Price: $17+ per month; free plan available

Claude – Start page

Claude is an LLM, much like ChatGPT.

But it runs on a different framework called Constitutional AI, designed to make it more helpful, honest, and human in its responses.

Claude – Stages

In my experience, Claude is great at picking up on nuance, understanding intent clearly, and handling tone with consistency.

Many marketing writers I’ve talked to love it for long-form content.

Why?

Because Claude keeps voice and structure consistent across thousands of words.

That makes it ideal for things like sales pages, reports, and anything that requires flow and cohesion.

Side note: Unlike ChatGPT, Anthropic doesn’t use your chats to train its AI models. So if you’re handling sensitive data — or just don’t want your conversations used as training material — Claude’s a great option.

3. Zapier

Best AI marketing tool for plug-and-play automation

Price: $29.99/month; free plan available

Zapier – Configure your prompt

Want powerful AI workflows without migrating to an all-in-one platform?

Zapier is the answer.

Unlike tools like Hubspot that require you to use their ecosystem, Zapier connects over 8,000 apps. Including Gmail, Mailchimp, Slack, and Salesforce.

This means you can create countless generative AI workflows that save you time.

Here’s an example:

  • A customer emails a question via Gmail
  • ChatGPT analyzes the message and drafts a personalized reply
  • This reply is sent and automatically logged in your CRM
  • A follow-up task is created in your project management tool
  • A summary is sent to Slack to keep your team in the loop

Set it up once in Zapier, and your entire workflow runs on autopilot.

Next Step: Get AI to Talk About Your Brand

AI marketing tools make creating assets faster and easier than ever before.

They also help you scale your business with less effort.

Your next step? Dominating Google’s AI Overviews.

Learn how to optimize your site for AI Overviews to improve (or regain) your organic visibility. Get ahead of the curve and turn AI search into your next growth engine.

The post 7 Powerful AI Marketing Tools You Need (Tested) appeared first on Backlinko.

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Subdomain or Subdirectory? What’s Best for Your Business

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You need to build out a new arm of your website. Do you use a subdomain or a subdirectory?

It’s an often painful decision that can impact your SEO performance and how people interact with your brand.

Despite many SEOs showing bias toward one approach or the other, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer.

But I’m about to help you make the best decision for your specific situation.

In this guide, you’ll get:

  • A simple decision-making LLM prompt to get a recommendation tailored to your business
  • An overview of how subdomains and subdirectories work (and why it matters) with real-world examples
  • Advice from SEO experts to help you make the smartest call for your site

Let’s get into it — starting with a subdirectory vs. subdomain comparison and what each one means for your site.

Useful resource: Check out our decision-making LLM prompt that uses AI-powered insights to help you decide between subdomains vs. subdirectories for your site.

What Is a Subdomain?

A subdomain is an extension of your main domain.

Added as a prefix to your website URL, a subdomain becomes a separate property within your domain.

So, if your main domain is example.com, a subdomain for your blog would be blog.example.com.

For example, Velasca, an apparel brand, uses subdomains for different markets:

  • eu.velasca.com for Europe
  • row.velasca.com for the rest of the world
  • uk.velasca.com for the United Kingdom

Velasca – Subdomains for different markets

Subdomains offer a lot of flexibility, but they also come with trade-offs.

This is especially true when it comes to SEO and technical setup.

Here’s a quick look at the main pros and cons:

Subdomain Pros and Cons
Pros Cons
  • Allows distinct branding/design for different sections
  • Provides clearer separation for content types and use cases
  • Can improve server performance by distributing content across different servers
  • Takes longer to gain SEO authority (treated like separate sites)
  • Requires additional SSL certificates and DNS management
  • More complex to implement and maintain than subdirectories

What Is a Subdirectory?

A subdirectory is a subfolder within your main website that categorizes different pages on your site into folders within the main domain.

A subdirectory for your blog would be example.com/blog.

For example, Backlinko uses subdirectories to organize different resources on its website:

Backlinko uses subdirectories

Subdirectories are a popular choice for SEO-focused sites because they consolidate authority under one domain.

But they’re not always the right fit, depending on your needs.

Subdirectory Pros and Cons
Pros Cons
  • Easier to maintain within the existing domain structure
  • Faster SEO results due to inherited domain authority
  • Clearer performance tracking under one property
  • Can create overly complex URL structures when deeply nested
  • Limited flexibility for different design/branding needs across sections

How Subdirectories and Subdomains Affect SEO

Subdomains and subdirectories can lead to major differences in how your site performs in search.

In this section, I’ll explain how these structures can help or harm your SEO efforts.

Link Equity and Website Authority

A big difference between these two URL structures is how they accumulate and distribute authority.

In a subdirectory, everything exists under one roof.

When a page earns a backlink, the link equity flows directly into your main domain.

In short: All the pages share the same website authority, building a stronger foundation for your website.

Subdomains work differently.

They don’t automatically pass ranking power to each other.

Why?

Because each subdomain is treated as a separate entity.

This means you have to build link equity for each subdomain individually, which can take a long time.

Subdomains vs. Subdirectories

For example, Jakub Rudnik, managing director of SEO at GrowthX AI, saw firsthand how long it takes for Google to trust a new subdomain — even for a high-authority site.

At G2.com, we moved all of our blog content to a new learn.g2.com subdomain. It took months for Google to build trust in that subdomain despite it being on a DR 88 website that was already generating 750k+ traffic each month.

After the first 3-4 months, fresh backlinks, and a ton of new content sending Google signals, we picked up traction quickly. But the delay was significant. In my experience, that would not have been the same timeline if we had moved to a new subfolder.

Ranking Potential

For many SEOs and business owners, the decision boils down to which URL structure delivers better rankings.

Subdirectories have the advantage when it comes to search visibility.

But subdomains can still succeed with the right investment.

Leigh McKenzie, head of organic growth at Backlinko, says:

Subdirectories tend to rank faster because they inherit domain authority more directly. Subdomains can perform just as well over time. But they’re often treated by Google like a separate site, meaning they need to build authority from scratch. If speed to impact matters, subdirectories usually win.

Search Performance Analytics

Using subdomains means you have to set up separate properties in Google Search Console (GSC).

The result: Siloed data.

That said, this makes sense if you want to collect separate insights for each subdomain.

For instance, let’s say you have localized subdomains targeting different countries.

Separate analytics will help you understand market-specific performance and areas of improvement.

With subfolders, all your data lives in one property.

So, you have a 360-degree view of your website and can generate consolidated reports.

International SEO Considerations

For international SEO, the choice between subdomains and subdirectories carries more weight.

With proper hreflang implementation, subdirectories can provide strong geotargeting signals.

They also create a seamless user experience.

Subdomains are better for brands that need separate sites for different languages or markets.

This allows for more customization and flexibility.

Edward Bate, seasoned SEO consultant, offers a word of advice here:

While your website might perform really well in one market, simply creating another subdomain or subfolder for another market doesn’t guarantee ranking success. You’ll need locally relevant backlinks, brand awareness, and search demand in that market to secure better rankings.

Subdomains vs. Subdirectories: 5 Critical Factors to Consider

The choice between subdirectories and subdomains isn’t limited to SEO performance.

It impacts your entire business.

Assess these critical factors to make an informed decision.

Pro tip: As you go through these factors, fill out our decision-making LLM prompt. When you’re finished, drop the prompt in the AI assistant of your choice to get a recommendation tailored to your business.

Decision – Making LLM Prompt

1. Business Objectives

Your URL structure should align with your business setup and long-term growth plans.

When creating or updating your website, ask yourself:

  • Is this your core offering or a separate initiative?
  • Do you want this product/service to have its own identity in the future?
  • How closely should this offering or service be aligned with your main brand?

The choice ultimately comes down to how you want to position your brand.

Want to build content for your core business offering? Go with a subdirectory.

Core business offering – Subdirectory

On the other hand, a subdomain is the better choice for creating distinct, separate content.

(While still associating it with your parent brand.)

Subdomain is better choice for creating distinct content

2. Technical Setup

Your technical resources (CMS, server configuration, and SEO tools) also play into this decision.

Choose a structure that’s the most compatible with your technical stack.

The ideal structure should also support your long-term scalability needs.

  • Subdirectories work well when your CMS can efficiently handle multiple subfolders and pages within the primary domain
  • Subdomains are a good choice when you want technical flexibility for different sections of your business

You can operate each property as technically separate entities with different CMSs, servers, and more.

Further reading: Technical SEO: The Ultimate Guide

3. Analytics and Tracking

Assess which URL structure best serves your data and reporting needs.

Consider questions like:

  • Does a unified reporting setup serve your decision-making process?
  • Do you want to analyze performance separately for different sections of your site?

Subdirectories work best when you need unified data and an easier process for tracking user journeys across the site.

But subdomains are helpful if you want separate analytics for each site.

Useful resource: SEO Analytics: The “I Can’t Believe It’s This Easy” Guide

4. Team Structure

The team responsible for building and maintaining your URL structure (internal or external) has a big role to play.

So, your setup should help them manage the website without any disruptions and errors.

Have a single team managing all the content? Subdirectories give you a better setup to centralize content management and maintain uniformity.

In contrast, subdomains are ideal if you work with many departments or external agencies, each with their own workflows.

Pro tip: When working with external vendors, subdomains make it easier to sandbox their work without affecting your main site’s performance or CMS structure.

5. Scalability

Your URL structure should accommodate future growth plans.

Including:

  • Content volume
  • Website traffic
  • Functionality
  • Evolving business needs

Forecast your expected growth over the next two to three years.

Then, make a decision.

Go for subdirectories if your plan is to expand your setup and scale content within your existing business model.

Subdirectories – To expand your content within existing business model

Consider subdomains if you want to launch different offerings in the future.

And need more flexibility to scale each product/service.

Subdomains – To lounch different offerings in the future

With these decision factors in mind, let’s look at a few reasons when you should choose one structure over the other.

Common Reasons to Use Subdomains

Learning toward subdomains?

Here are a few use cases when they make the most sense.

Website Subdomain Use Cases

International Websites

Global brands need localized content customized to different languages, cultures, and more.

Consider MyProtein as an example.

The brand uses localized subdomains to deliver customized user experiences.

For example, its website copy is translated into German, Arabic, English, and other languages.

Myproteins – German & Arabic Subdomain

The brand also follows a targeted SEO strategy for each subdomain, focusing on buyer needs and behavior in each market.

Below you can see the variations in keywords for MyProtein’s U.S. and Australian subdomains.

Organic Research – US Myprotein – AU Myprotein – Collage

Each subdomain acts like its own site.

This lets MyProtein optimize each domain for different languages and search habits without diluting its core brand.

Branded Properties

Many brands offer a suite of products, services, content, and more.

In a best-case scenario, different teams will manage each subdomain. This makes it easier to build authority and boost organic traffic for each property.

Intuit is a great example of this.

The global fintech company uses subdomains to host its two main products:

  • turbotax.intuit.com: Focused on tax filing services for both individuals and businesses in the United States
  • quickbooks.intuit.com: Dedicated to accounting, payroll, and team management services

Intuit's Subdomain Strategy

Both subdomains target different topics (tax filing vs. accounting), but remain connected to the parent brand.

Separate subdomains make it easy to manage both products without diluting brand authority.

Varied Technical Setups

Do different parts of your website run on different technology stacks?

Subdomains offer a clean separation.

Let’s consider Adobe as an example.

The company uses multiple domains to differentiate and organize its business product, help center, and stock library.

Each subdomain stands on its own with its unique style, functionality, and target audience.

Adobe Subdomain Strategy

Considering this use case?

Pay attention to the “Resources” and “Scalability” sections in our decision-making framework.

Resources & Scalability

Common Reasons to Use Subdirectories

Thinking subdirectories might be the way to go?

Here are some key scenarios when this structure makes the most sense.

Website Subdirectory Use Cases

Simple Website Structure

Most website owners create subfolders to organize different types of content under a root domain.

This clear structure improves navigation and delivers a flawless user experience.

For example, here’s how VEED, a video creation platform, uses subdirectories to organize content on its site:

  • veed.io/ai: Landing pages for all AI-related features
  • veed.io/tools: All the company’s tools
  • veed.io/use-cases: Pages showing some of VEED’s popular use cases
  • veed.io/alternatives: Pages comparing VEED to its competitors

Veed's Subdirectory Structure

Organizing your website with these folders means visitors can easily navigate your site without getting stuck.

Plus, the consolidated website authority builds better search visibility for all the pages.

Theme-Based Content Hubs

Use subdirectories to group thematically related content and put them in one place.

This will help in building topical authority for your root domain and simplify internal linking.

At Backlinko, we use this structure for our resource hubs, including SEO and YouTube.

Backlinko – Collage – SEO/YouTube

Each hub is a subdirectory that houses multiple pages with relevant insights on a topic.

This makes it easier for our audience to get a thorough understanding of a topic without having to search.

Ecommerce Product Categories

Subdirectories create a logical structure for organizing product categories and subcategories on an ecommerce site.

Use folders to:

  • Create intuitive URL structures that mirror your navigation
  • Preserve domain authority across all product pages
  • Simplify monitoring category-wise analytics

REI, a retail brand, uses this approach well.

You’ll find subfolders for all its primary and secondary product categories, such as:

  • rei.com/c/mens-clothing
  • rei.com/c/womens-clothing
  • rei.com/c/camping-and-hiking

This builds a logical hierarchy for both shoppers and search engine crawlers.

Rei's Subdirectory Structure

Subdirectory vs. Subdomain: What’s the Best Fit for Your Needs?

Subdirectories work best for most businesses. They offer consolidated authority, easier content management, and simplified analytics.

On the flip side, subdomains make sense if you’re building international sites or want to differentiate branded assets.

Next step: Use our decision-making framework to make the right call for your business.

The post Subdomain or Subdirectory? What’s Best for Your Business appeared first on Backlinko.

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The SEO KPIs That Actually Matter (And How to Track Them)

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Proving the value of your SEO efforts can seem like an uphill battle.

What’s the cheat code to getting buy-in from stakeholders?

Tracking the right SEO KPIs. Not just the default ones in your dashboards. But the right metrics.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to choose and monitor SEO KPIs that actually mean something. I’ll show you:

  • What makes an SEO metric a true KPI (and what doesn’t)
  • Which SEO KPIs matter most and why
  • Which emerging KPIs to track in the era of AI Overviews and LLM search
  • How to select KPIs based on your goals and maturity stage

What Are SEO KPIs? (And What They’re Not)

SEO KPIs are key performance indicators that tie your optimization efforts directly to business outcomes. They measure whether or not your SEO strategy is achieving its overall purpose.

On the other hand, SEO metrics are more broad. They include all the available data you could monitor in SEO tools and analytics platforms.

But here’s the thing:

Just because you can measure a bunch of different metrics doesn’t mean you should treat them all as KPIs.

SEO Metric SEO KPI
Organic traffic Demo signups from organic traffic
Bounce rate Engagement on the page based by page type
Backlinks Topical or brand authority growth

Why You Need to Measure the Right SEO KPIs

Measuring your SEO KPIs over time is how you prove your SEO work is moving the business in the right direction.

Tracking the right KPIs can help you:

  • Uncover blockers early: If conversions are dipping even though your traffic is increasing, you may have a content or UX issue.
  • Make better decisions: Knowing which actions moved the needle (and when) helps you repeat tactics that work and avoid the ones that don’t.
  • Discover much-needed pivots: Monitoring KPI-linked performance data makes it easier to adjust content, targeting, and resource investment.

SEO KPI Feedback Loop

Let’s take a look at the KPIs that most effectively show how SEO is moving the business forward.

SEO KPIs That Prove You’re Doing Your Job

Which KPIs you choose to measure should reflect where your business is going and what SEO is expected to deliver along the way.

So, not all of the KPIs below are your KPIs. They depend on your specific business model, SEO maturity, and desired outcomes.

With that in mind, we created a free SEO KPI planner to help you build your own custom SEO KPI system.

Backlinko – SEO KPIs Planner Worksheet

This worksheet is a brainstorming tool. It will help you connect your SEO actions to the KPIs you need to monitor to hit your business goals.

It’ll also help you avoid common mistakes like:

  • Overreporting vanity metrics (e.g., rankings without conversion context)
  • Ignoring conversions altogether
  • Treating all SEO metrics as your SEO KPIs
  • Failing to communicate SEO gains in terms the business cares about

Side note: Your KPIs might shift over time depending on whether you’re building brand awareness, driving conversions, or trying to improve user experience and engagement on the page. Use this planner to keep track of things as your business goals evolve.

Conversion and Revenue KPIs

You should track conversion or revenue-related KPIs no matter what stage of SEO investment you’re in.

Why?

Because these are the metrics most clearly tied to your larger goals of lead generation and revenue impact. In other words: goals that drive business growth.

KPI Definition Why It Matters How to Measure Example
Organic-assisted conversions Conversions where organic search appeared in the user’s journey, even if not the final touchpoint Shows SEO’s role in the full customer journey Attribution paths report in GA4 Tracking how often organic content influences purchases (even when social or paid channels get last-click credit)
Demo or trial signups Number of demos or trial signups attributed to organic search Indicator of lead generation from SEO Event tracking in GA4 with source segmentation Monitoring improvements in signups after implementing new content strategy
Form opt-ins Email signups and contact form submissions from organic traffic Measures mid-funnel conversions Event tracking in analytics; form analytics tools Comparing form completion rates across different landing pages
Revenue from organic traffic Earned revenue from organic search visitors Measures SEO ROI Ecommerce tracking in analytics; CRM integration for B2B Determining quarterly organic revenue to justify increased SEO investment

How to Track These KPIs

You’ll need to configure a tool like Google Analytics to track these types of SEO metrics based on your unique needs or goals.

For example, using the Attribution paths report to track organic-assisted conversions:

Attribution Paths Report

And the Key events feature to track conversions and signups:

GA – Traffic Acquisition – Key events

A Note on Tying SEO KPIs to Revenue

There’s some debate in the SEO community about KPIs that tie into business revenue.

I’ve had this discussion with marketing leaders many times:

Should you consider revenue-based SEO KPIs when determining if SEO efforts are successful?

Just take a quick afternoon stroll in the r/SEO subreddit, and you’ll encounter wildly different opinions regarding the tie between revenue and SEO performance.

Some will tell you that revenue-based KPIs are the only ones that matter:

Reddit – Revenue based KPIs

Others will tell you that all that matters is where you rank:

Reddit – Where you rank

They’ll argue that KPIs based on revenue impact are unfair because an SEO team doesn’t control sales team outcomes, brand messaging, product improvements, or conversion rate optimization (CRO).

But:

You’re performing SEO to help the business gain online visibility and drive growth. As long as your KPIs are linked to these broad goals, they’re worth tracking.

Visibility and Awareness KPIs

SEO KPIs related to visibility and awareness are worth tracking if you’re trying to grow a brand.

But we’d argue they’re now essential for all brands to track — no matter the growth stage.

Why?

Because AI Overviews and other AI tools have changed the game. It’s no longer just about ranking at the top of Google. Being included in AI responses is going to become an increasingly important factor in your SEO success.

For example, here’s the SERP for “what’s the best crm”:

Google SERP – What's the best CRM

Notice how the “top” result is an AI Overview that immediately tells the user a few examples of CRMs.

Salesforce and HubSpot would never rank top for such a competitive term on their own. Appearing in an AI Overview gives them a new way to instantly appear as the right choice for a user searching for this term.

How do you increase your chances of appearing in these responses?

By boosting your brand visibility (among other things).

The specifics of how you can do that are a topic for another article. For now, here are some important SEO KPIs you can use to gauge your overall brand visibility:

KPI Definition Why It Matters How to Measure Example
Organic impressions Number of times your website appears in search results viewed by users Indicates overall search visibility and potential reach Google Search Console impressions data Tracking impression growth in targeted categories following content expansion
Branded search Searches for your brand name and variations Indicates brand awareness Google Search Console; Semrush’s Domain Overview (useful for comparing to competitors) Measuring correlation of TV campaign on branded search volume
SERP feature ownership Visibility in featured snippets, knowledge panels, People Also Ask boxes etc. Indicates growing authority signals SERP feature tracking tools, like Semrush Position Tracking Monitoring featured snippet acquisition after implementing FAQ schema

How to Track These KPIs

You can use Google Search Console to monitor organic impressions:

GSC – Backlinko – Performance – Total impressions report

You can also use it to track branded search visibility:

GSC – Backlinko – Queries table

To monitor SERP feature ownership, you can use Semrush’s Position Tracking tool. It shows you which SERP features you appear in for your custom-tracked keywords.

Position Tracking – Backlinko – Domain ranks drop-down

Note: A free Semrush account lets you track up to 10 keywords. Or you can use this link to access a 14-day trial on a Semrush Pro subscription.

Who Should Use These KPIs?

Visibility and awareness KPIs usually include metrics that measure larger goals of brand visibility and authority building. While they’re worth tracking for all brands, they’re particularly important for:

  • Early-stage and growth-stage orgs that prioritize brand authority investment
  • A small business that just started investing in SEO and marketing
  • Established sites that have seen a noticeable decline in branded search

Engagement and Behavior KPIs

You’ll want to monitor engagement and behavior KPIs once you’re past the initial investment in SEO and into stages of SEO growth or maturity. You’re getting decent traffic, and now you want to optimize the site to better engage that traffic.

KPI Definition Why It Matters How to Measure Example
Click-through rate (CTR) Percentage of impressions that result in clicks to your site Indicates relevance of content to search intent Google Search Console CTR metrics Monitoring CTR improvements on pages with new title tags
Scroll depth / engaged sessions How far users scroll; sessions with on-page engagement Measure of content relevance and quality GA4 engaged sessions Measuring engagement for mid-funnel pages after content restructuring
Pages per session Average number of pages users view during a session Indicates content interest and sufficient site structure Analytics platforms (GA4 calls it “Views per session”) Analyzing the effectiveness of updated internal linking strategy
Average engagement time Time users spend actively engaging with content Indicates how well content engages and keeps users interested GA4 engagement time Determining which topics on the site hold user attention to guide content strategy
On-page “hot spots” Visual indicators of where users focus attention Reveals actual user behavior Heatmaps and click maps (using tools like Hotjar, VWO) Monitoring where and when users drop off

How to Track These KPIs

GA4 has a lot of built-in ways to monitor KPIs related to user behavior and engagement:

GA – Reports – Engagement – Overview

But you’ll need to use a specialized tool like Hotjar to monitor more granular page engagement:

Hotjar – Heatmaps

Who Should Use These KPIs?

Your team should measure engagement and behavior KPIs to monitor progress toward goals related to lead generation, revenue impact, and authority building.

Here are a few example scenarios where you’d want to measure these KPIs:

  • SEO teams that focus on driving up on-page engagement
  • Businesses that need to determine which content topics are resonating with their audience
  • Organizations that have built a content library but are noticing underperformance
  • Any team facing low conversion rates with no obvious cause

Authority and Ranking Power KPIs

If topical authority or share of voice drives your strategy, track these ranking-power KPIs:

KPI Definition Why It Matters How to Measure Example
Referring domains or backlinks Number of external websites linking to your site External signal of site authority Semrush Backlink Analysis and Backlink Audit Benchmarking authority backlinks earned from digital PR campaign
Ranking content percentage Portion of indexed content ranking in target positions Indicates content quality and optimization effectiveness SERP tracking tools with position filtering (like Semrush Position Tracking) Monitoring content library pages ranking in positions 1-3 for target topics
Share of voice in key topic clusters Visibility compared to competitors for core topic areas Shows topical authority and competitive position SERP visibility tools, like Position Tracking Measuring share-of-voice compared in core topics after content refresh
Average SERP ranking positions Average position of rankings across tracked keywords Overall indicator of search visibility Google Search Console; rank tracking tools with averaging capabilities Benchmarking growth in top SERP rankings over time for core keywords

How to Track These KPIs

You’ll generally need more specialized tools to track these KPIs. Semrush’s Backlink Analytics shows lots of metrics about your site’s authority.

These include total numbers and trends of backlinks and referring domains:

Backlink Analytics – Backlinko – Overview

Rank tracking tools like Semrush’s Position Tracking can help you work out the percentage of your key content that ranks in target positions. And you can even get at-a-glance data about your share of voice:

Position Tracking – Backlinko – Share of Voice

Finally, use Google Search Console to track your average ranking positions at the page or query level:

GSC – Backlinko – Queries – Average position

Who Should Use These KPIs?

Authority and ranking power KPIs are important for teams working toward brand visibility and authority building goals. Examples include:

  • Organizations that prioritize backlink and digital PR investment
  • Teams that are investing in growing their topical authority or increased topic ownership
  • Established sites that have organic visibility but want to outpace competitors

Emerging SEO KPIs for the AI Era

So much has changed in SEO since the introduction of AI and LLM-based chat and search functions.

And with all this change comes the need to adjust how we monitor SEO success for our stakeholders, teams, and clients.

If you want to show up at key AI-powered search moments, start tracking these new KPIs for AI mentions and visibility:

KPI Definition Why It Matters How to Measure Example
LLM mentions Frequency of brand/product mentions in AI response outputs Indicates visibility in the growing AI search ecosystem Manual testing; Semrush AI Toolkit Monitoring increased brand mentions via LLM models after implementing structured data
AIO visibility and inclusion rate Presence in Google’s AI Overviews Critical for visibility in AI-enhanced SERPs Manual tracking; Semrush Position Tracking Benchmarking growth in AIO optimizations for high-value queries
Topic authority Demonstrates the relevance of your domain to the topic of a selected seed keyword Indicates potential for ranking in key topic areas SEO tools with topical authority metrics, like Semrush; custom scoring Determining increased authority in specific targeted topics
LLM-driven traffic Visitors coming from AI search channels Measures impact of AI tools as a new traffic channel GA4 with source identification; UTM parameters Using GA4 and/or UTM tagging to monitor organic traffic from LLMs

How to Track These KPIs

Tracking AI mentions is still a bit tricky at the moment. You can see some referral traffic from sites like ChatGPT in your Google Analytics account:

GA – Traffic Acquisition – Session source / medium

But monitoring your brand’s inclusion in AI Overviews might be easier than you think.

Using Semrush’s Position Tracking tool, you can filter keywords by those for which you rank in the AI Overview:

Position Tracking – Ebay – Overview – SERP Features menu

How to Choose the Right SEO KPIs for Your Business

Now that you know what SEO KPIs you could track, you need to connect the dots between your business goals and the SEO metrics that matter most.

Use these four approaches (alone or combined) to zero in on the KPIs that matter most to your team.

Four Ways to Choose SEO KPIs

1. Align KPIs to Your Business Model

The way your business operates has a direct impact on which metrics signal success.

For example, a local HVAC service provider and a global SaaS company won’t measure SEO wins the same way.

Here are a few examples of how you might prioritize SEO KPIs based on different business models:

  • Small ecommerce site: Focus on revenue per organic visit, product page visibility in SERPs, and even top-of-the-funnel indicators like newsletter opt-ins or coupon searches.
  • Startup SaaS platform: Track branded search growth, demo or free trial signups from organic visits, and the performance of long-tail, solution-focused keywords.
  • Service-based businesses: Monitor metrics tied to future conversions, like free consultation forms, quote requests, and engagement indicators like page views per session.
  • Local businesses: Prioritize local visibility KPIs like Map Pack presence, Google reviews, and organic visits from users in your service regions.

Pro-tip: There is no one-size-fits-all SEO KPI list. Determine the goals that are important to your clients, stakeholders, marketing leadership, and adjoining teams, and then decide on the ones you’ll monitor over time.

2. Map Your Audience’s Search Journey

To fuel real growth, map out how your audience moves through their search-to-buy journey. Then, focus on the KPIs that matter most to monitoring the goals you want to achieve.

Where is your audience in the search journey

Think through the following questions:

  • Where does your audience search at different points of the journey? Are they using Google, TikTok, Instagram, ChatGPT?
  • How does your target audience search for your product or service? Are they typing in problem-based queries or searching by brand?
  • Are they using Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs) to make decisions, or do they largely ignore them?

Once you have the answers to these questions, you can map out where your brand needs to be seen by your target audience.

Let’s say you have a complex product and your audience has a long sales journey, and they do a lot of research before they make their final decision via several channels.

Impressions across different search platforms, branded search increases, and on-page engagement would be better KPIs than immediate organic conversions or form opt-ins.

Alternatively, imagine your audience is high-intent, they don’t use LLMs as part of their search journey, and your site focuses on providing only bottom-of-funnel content. In this case, you’d want to focus on CTR and organic conversion metrics.

3. Define Strategic Business Outcomes

Your KPIs should reflect business outcomes you expect your strategy to influence.

I like to think of this in four major types of strategic SEO goals:

  1. Brand visibility
  2. Lead generation
  3. Revenue impact
  4. Authority building

SEO KPIs to Track by Goal

4. Match KPIs to Your Site’s SEO Maturity

You’ll also need to consider your KPIs based on your site’s SEO maturity stage.

If you’re in the early stage of SEO investment, you’ll want to zero in on:

  • Content production goals: Report on the number of new blog posts or landing pages published per month.
  • Keyword rankings: Track how many of your target keywords break into the top 20 search results.
  • Visibility growth: Monitor the overall increase in impressions and clicks.

But if you’re further along in your SEO strategy?

Shift your focus from visibility to impact and trust.

If you’re in the advanced stages of SEO investment, rather than just asking “What’s improving?” ask yourself things like:

  1. How many pages rank in the top 10 from our entire content library?For example, if only 10% of your pages rank on page 1, you’ll want to monitor the topic clusters where you’re weakest and set a KPI to improve those over time.
  2. Which pages or topics convert best and why?Let’s say you have a post that drives five demo signups per month, but another page in a different topic cluster drives zero. As you work to better optimize your pages, track demo signup growth by topic to gauge improvement.
  3. Where do we see the least engagement?For example, if you’re experiencing high impressions but low average time on page in one particular topic cluster, your content may be missing the mark. Set a goal to optimize those pages and ensure you’re tracking on-page engagement as a KPI to determine which actions move the needle.

Track the Right SEO KPIs to Get Real Results

Now that you know what KPIs to track (and which metrics to ignore), you’ll want to do the following:

  • Do a KPI audit: Are you tracking what really matters? Use the SEO KPIs planner to help you decide on the right ones for your business or client.
  • Set a review cadence: Monitor your KPIs weekly, monthly, or quarterly based on your goals.
  • Evolve as you grow: Your KPI mix should mature with your SEO strategy. You’ll measure different KPIs in year one of your SEO efforts vs. year three.

This will help you drive real SEO results. Results that grow your business and show your clients the impact of your SEO efforts.

Free resource: Remember to download our free SEO KPI planner to set yourself up for success.

The post The SEO KPIs That Actually Matter (And How to Track Them) appeared first on Backlinko.

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Optimize your content directly in Google Docs with Yoast SEO

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Optimize your content directly inside Google Docs. Yoast SEO’s new Google Docs add-on provides real-time SEO and readability analyses in your writing environment, eliminating the need for multiple apps or CMS logins. You’ll produce fully optimized content faster, collaborate smoothly, and deliver content your audience and search engines love.

Here’s why you’ll love it:

  • Speed up your content workflow by collaborating and optimizing seamlessly in your existing Google Docs environment, reducing back-and-forth revisions.
  • Eliminate unnecessary CMS access, ideal for freelancers and agencies managing multiple client relationships without extra logins.
  • Easily export WordPress-ready content or quickly copy optimized text to your CMS, instantly ensuring your content is publish-ready.
    Gain immediate visibility into your content’s performance with clear, actionable insights for SEO and readability, saving you valuable time.

Yoast SEO Google Docs Add-on features:

Alongside the ability to work across multiple accounts on the same document and export in WP-compatible format or copy to your own CMS, you’ll get:

Yoast SEO Analysis:

Yoast SEO analysis helps you easily optimize your content so search engines can understand and rank it better. The Yoast traffic light system scans your texts, providing practical feedback on your keyword usage, content structure, and overall optimization. This gives you actionable insights on optimizing your content for better SEO.

Yoast Readability Analysis:

Yoast Readability analysis ensures you create content that your audience loves. It checks key readability aspects such as sentence length, paragraph structure, use of headings, and more. This gives you a straightforward insight into improving readability, making your content accessible to wider audiences, and keeping your audience engaged and on your page for longer.

How to get Yoast Google Docs add-on

Visit our Yoast SEO Google Docs add-on product page and follow the steps.

Already a Yoast SEO Premium user?

You get one free linked Google account! You can directly add a Google account to MyYoast and download the Yoast SEO Google add-on. Learn more at by visiting our help article how to get started with the Google Docs add-on.

Pricing

Yoast SEO Premium includes access to one Google account, with additional accounts available for just $60 per year (or $5 per month) per account.

Activate the Google Docs add-on today and streamline your content optimization instantly.

The post Optimize your content directly in Google Docs with Yoast SEO appeared first on Yoast.

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How to find the perfect SEO-friendly WordPress theme

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We’ve seen it happen so often. You have a great blog or site, and at some point, you decide to go for a new look and feel. There are a couple of things you’ll look at, usually in the order: layout/look and feel, usability, and optionally, room for advertising. If the theme meets your needs in all three of these points, you might download and install it. If that sounds familiar, this post describes how to find the perfect SEO-friendly WordPress theme!

Table of contents

Finding the right SEO-friendly WordPress theme

An SEO-friendly theme has quite a few things to take care of, and a lot of themes miss out on these. This overview should help to keep you out of trouble when you’re looking for a new theme. If you’re thinking of installing a new theme, please give the following points some thought. Keep in mind, your new theme should be accessible, compatible, customizable, integrable, and standards-compliant.

Define your needs

Whether you are in the market for a free theme, a premium theme, or want to hire a developer to build one especially for you, the first step is always the same: define your needs. Write down what the theme should do, now and in the future. You might not need an eCommerce option at this time, but what about in a year from now? What should your site look like? Which pages do you need? What types of content are you planning to publish? Once you have a clear picture of the requirements, you have a better chance of finding your dream theme.

Find a trusted reseller or developer. How’s the support?

Should you build a theme yourself? Or will a general free theme do? The discussion on whether a premium theme is better than a free theme continues to rage on. Both sides have their merits. There are loads of crappy free themes, but there are just as many crappy premium themes. What you should do is find a reseller or developer that you trust. Look for social proof; how many reviews does a theme get? Is there an active message board? When did it receive its last update?

While themes on WordPress.org undergo initial scrutiny for safety, it remains crucial to perform your own thorough checks. Also, vetting doesn’t mean they’re awesome. Theme resellers offer loads of premium themes in varying degrees of awesomeness. But just because you pay for them, doesn’t necessarily make them better than free themes. In addition to that, since you only receive the files when you pay for a theme, there’s no way to check the quality upfront. Despite social proof, it’s still a leap in the dark.

How flexible is the theme?

A static theme won’t do you any good when you want to change the page layout in a couple of months. Make sure to choose a theme that is flexible in its appearance as well as its functionality. Be sure that it supports blocks so you can use the block editor to fill the design. Don’t choose a design that screams for full-width images when you only need a well-presented place to write your poetry. Check what happens to a theme when you turn off all massive images; does it still function? And is it possible to change colors, fonts, and other visual elements? Many themes, like Total or GeneratePress, come with a number of demo examples that give you an idea of all the different styles they can handle.

Your SEO-friendly WordPress theme should have room for widgets, plus it should support featured images and offer multi-language support. Lots of themes have a page builder on board; these help you construct your bespoke layout. But, this is something you should be careful with because these could generate less than stellar code that hinders your SEO. Do check if your theme works well with site builders like Elementor. Also, modern themes like the Twenty Twenty-Five default theme work with block patterns that let you fine-tune your design.

Make sure your WordPress theme plays nicely with third-party plugins to boost your site’s functionality and SEO. Themes often come with built-in features, but these can sometimes clash with essential plugins. Make sure your chosen theme is flexible and well-coded to work smoothly with popular plugins like Yoast SEO, WooCommerce, and Elementor. This compatibility lets you enhance your site without dealing with conflicts or performance dips. Checking for plugin support makes sure that you can easily add features while keeping your site running securely and efficiently.

Which post and page templates does the theme support?

Another way to keep things flexible is for an SEO-friendly WordPress theme to offer multiple posts and page templates. That way, you could start off using a basic template with a main content area and a left sidebar, but have the flexibility to change to a full-width content area or one of the many other options. If a theme has only two choices, that might become problematic in the future. Pick a theme with enough sensible templates.

Does it function as a parent/child theme?

Parent and child themes are a great combo. If you use any of the theme frameworks like heavy-hitter Genesis, you know how powerful these are compared to regular themes. A child theme gets its functionality from a parent theme. So if you’re making changes to your child theme, the parent won’t see these. You won’t break the parent theme if you make a mistake. The same goes for updates; if you update your parent theme, which happens often, it won’t wipe the changes you’ve made to your theme because it’s a child and doesn’t contain the functionality.

Whether you need a theme framework depends on your needs. Almost all WordPress projects will benefit from a theme framework, but it might be overkill if you only need a tiny amount of its functionality and you know exactly what kind of theme you need.

Watch out for theme bloat

Many themes are bloated, which increases loading time. If the developer of a particular theme included everything but the kitchen sink, you might get a feature-complete product but an extremely complicated one as well. Try to find a theme that offers everything you need instead of everything there is. Your theme should be lean and mean.

Prioritize security

When choosing a WordPress theme, don’t overlook the importance of security. It’s important to select a theme that is well-maintained and regularly updated to fix vulnerabilities. Check if the theme has a solid security reputation by reading user reviews and checking update logs. Make sure it complies with secure coding standards and supports two-factor authentication and other security measures. Using themes directly from the official WordPress repository or trusted marketplaces adds an extra layer of assurance. Always test the theme with security plugins like Sucuri to identify potential issues before going live.

Check site speed and mobile-readiness

Your website should be mobile-friendly from the start. Its theme should load swiftly and provide an excellent page experience, reflected in strong Core Web Vitals scores. Opting for a lightweight, efficient theme could help you achieve this.

Begin by evaluating the theme’s responsiveness. Use tools like the Google Lighthouse to verify compatibility across various devices. Additionally, input the theme’s demo site URL into Google PageSpeed Insights to uncover any loading issues that might affect performance.

Remember, these tests offer a starting point, but they only provide part of the picture. For a complete assessment, test the theme’s speed on your actual server setup, as server performance can significantly influence load times.

Is the theme really SEO-friendly?

While Yoast SEO fixes a lot of WordPress’s SEO issues, a good theme helps a lot. Most WordPress themes will claim that they are SEO-friendly, but make sure to check them. One of the good examples is Twenty Twenty-Five, which offers a clean design that performs really well. Find out if the theme’s code is nice and clean or an intangible mess. Has it been updated recently? And will it be supported in the future? How many JavaScript libraries does the theme depend on? Does it support Schema.org structured data? If you’re eyeing a free theme, make sure there are no hidden links to the developer’s website, as this can hurt your SEO efforts. In general, keep Google’s Search Essentials documentation in mind when hunting for SEO-friendly WordPress themes.

Is the theme’s code valid?

Some theme authors are more designers than coders, and thus, they sometimes hack around until it finally looks the way they want without bothering to check whether the code they’ve written is valid HTML. If it’s not, current or future browsers might have issues rendering the content correctly. You can check whether the code is valid by using the W3C’s validator.

Test, test, and test again

Once you’ve chosen your favorite new SEO-friendly WordPress theme, it’s time to kick it into gear. Start with a development setup to test your new theme through and through. Run every type of test you can think of. This might be a security check with the Sucuri plugin or a theme check with the Theme Check plugin. Load your site with dummy data from wptest.io to see if every element is represented and functioning. Run pagespeed and mobile-friendliness tests to see if problems arise. Fix the issues, or find a new theme.

Bonus checks

That’s just to get you going. There’s a lot of stuff you can check before you install your brand-new theme. Start with these three checks, if you will:

Hooks

WordPress plugins use so-called “hooks” to be able to perform their designated tasks. These hooks allow, for instance, to add extra output, tracking codes, etc. A lot of issues with plugins will arise for you when a theme author forgets to add these hooks. This is how to check for them:

1. In header.php, it should have a small piece of PHP code that looks exactly like this wp_head(); or this do_action('wp_head');, usually just before a piece of HTML that looks like this: </head>.

2. In footer.php, it should have another small piece of PHP like this wp_footer();, or this do_action('wp_footer');

3. In comments.php and/or comments-popup.php, there should be a piece of code like this: <?php do_action('comment_form', $post->ID); ?>, just before the </form> HTML tag.

Template files

Another wise thing to do when you’re changing themes is to compare theme files. If, for instance, your current theme has an author.php file, which contains the template for your author profiles, and your new one doesn’t have that, that might be an unpleasant surprise when you install the theme. The files you should be checking for in your old and new themes:

  • home.php: the homepage template.
  • single.php: the template for single posts.
  • page.php: the template for pages.
  • category.php: the template for category indexes.
  • author.php: the author template, used when someone wants to find all posts by a certain author.
  • date.php: the date template, used when someone tries to look at, for instance, a certain month of posts on your blog.
  • archive.php: this template is used when either category.php, author.php, or date.php isn’t there.
  • search.php: used when someone searches on your blog, a very important template to look at if you’re concerned about usability, and whether people can find posts on your blog.
  • 404.php is used when WordPress can’t find a certain post or page. It’s a very important template file to have!

How is your theme handling titles?

It’s essential to modernize how your theme manages page titles. While older practices involve directly altering the <title> tag in header.php, consider utilizing add_theme_support('title-tag'); in your theme’s functions.php. This setup allows WordPress and plugins like Yoast SEO to handle titles optimally, ensuring a flexible and SEO-friendly title structure.

// Add to your theme's functions.php
add_action('after_setup_theme', function() {
    add_theme_support('title-tag');
});

Now, Yoast SEO can take care of all the titles. We have a great article on crafting good titles if you want to learn more.

A guide to finding SEO-friendly WordPress themes

If the theme you are looking at fits your goals and the points made in this article, you should be quite okay. For those of you with more tech skills, it’s also an option to go headless with WordPress if you want more flexibility. Good luck with your new theme!

Read more: Need help with WordPress? 10 tips to avoid common mistakes »

The post How to find the perfect SEO-friendly WordPress theme appeared first on Yoast.

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Programmatic SEO: What It Is and When to Use It (+ Examples)

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Imagine if your website could rank for every single keyword related to your niche.

That’s the promise of programmatic SEO.

It’s how Tripadvisor creates “Things to Do in” pages for countless locations across the globe…

Tripadvisor – Things to Do in – Collage

…and ranks for almost 100K keywords featuring the words “things to do in”:

Organic Research – Tripadvisor – Keywords

But the reality is more nuanced. It’s not a magic trick that’ll instantly drive traffic.

And we’ve seen programmatic plays go wrong countless times (more on that below).

The real differentiator nowadays isn’t the ability to create thousands of pages. It’s whether those pages actually deserve to rank.

In this guide, I’ll show you when programmatic SEO works, when it doesn’t, and how you can build your own winning programmatic SEO strategy.

What Is Programmatic SEO?

Programmatic SEO, also referred to as pSEO, is the systematic creation of content at scale using templates and data to target thousands (sometimes millions) of related search queries. The goal is to drive traffic and revenue through these automatically generated pages.

Put another way:

You create landing pages at scale to rank in lots of search results.

In traditional content marketing, you create individual articles targeting specific keywords. With programmatic SEO, you automate page creation based on patterns in search behavior.

Each page uses the same template structure, layout, and core elements. The only things that change are the keywords you’re targeting.

Keywords

You use automation to spin up hundreds or thousands of variations. Each one targets different long-tail keywords with relatively low competition.

The goal is to drive traffic, build authority, and generate revenue for your business — at a volume you couldn’t replicate manually.

4 Successful Programmatic SEO Examples

Use the programmatic SEO examples below to get inspired and understand how to spot patterns that make good candidates for programmatic campaigns.

Note: Some of these sites have millions of pages, and they often run across multiple different types of programmatic SEO efforts. As a result, the number of pages and traffic figures are estimates. But they should still give you a good idea of what is possible when pSEO works well.

1. Wise

Card 1 – Wise

Wise is a global financial platform that helps users send, spend, and receive money internationally.

You’ll see Wise as a common example of programmatic SEO in action, generally for their currency converter pages. But most discussions on the topic don’t properly convey the true scale of Wise’s pSEO play.

The total number of currency converter pages across Wise’s domain (including across different global subfolders like /gb/ and /us/) is a whopping 8.5 million.

Not tens of thousands. Millions of pages. That all look like this:

Wise – Currency converter

How do I know there are that many?

Because Wise’s main sitemap index contains 170 individual sitemaps for the currency converter pages alone (it starts at “sitemap-0”):

Wise – Currency converter – 170 individual sitemaps

And each of those contains 50K individual URLs (except the last one, which has just under 47K):

One Wise sitemap contains 50k individual URLs

All of which are indexable and canonicalized:

Wise – Currency converter – Page URL & code

That includes the variants for specific currency amounts.

That’s right, Wise has created a bunch of pages for various currencies that are prefilled with common amounts of currency to convert. Like “2,000 Maldivian rufiyaas to New Zealand dollars.”

And they rank:

Google SERP – Currency convert – Wise

In fact, Wise ranks for tens of thousands of related keywords, including 36.5K that include the word “convert”:

Organic Research – Wise – Keywords

Wise’s currency conversion pages demonstrate the difference between valuable programmatic content and thin content.

Each page (like USD to EUR) includes real-time rates, interactive calculators, historical charts, bank comparisons, and transactional capabilities. Not just basic templated text with a CTA.

Their pages solve real user problems rather than merely existing to capture keywords.

But that’s not the only way Wise uses programmatic SEO. They also use it for:

SWIFT codes for businesses (1.25 million pages):

Wise – Swift Codes

Stock tickers (280K+ pages):

Wise – Stock Tickers

And they also have:

  • Currency exchange pages (~8K)
  • Account pages (~1K)
  • “Send money” pages (~16K)
  • IBAN pages (~10K)
  • Comparison pages (~38K)
  • Routing number pages (~45K)
  • Various landing pages (~6K)

Overall, the Wise website has more than 10 million pages. Combined, they drive 100+ million visits every month.

Backlinko – Website Traffic Checker – Wise

Note: Want to see traffic metrics for other sites? Try our free website traffic checker tool.

This isn’t necessarily the most relatable example. It would require extensive resources to pull off this kind of automated page creation.

But it does show the sheer scalability and ranking power of programmatic SEO.

Why this works: Wise has massive amounts of proprietary data about currencies and other financial information. Each page also caters to a very specific user need that is globally relevant.

2. Tripadvisor

Card 2 – Tripadvisor

Tripadvisor uses programmatic SEO for its location pages.

Search for “things to do in [city]” and you’ll see how they’ve dominated this pattern.

For example, here’s the result for “things to do in Paris”:

Tripadvisor – Things to Do in Paris

And this is the result for “things to do in New York”:

Tripadvisor – Things to Do in NYC

Each page follows the same structure. But each one is populated with location-specific attractions, reviews, and booking options unique to that destination.

Tripadvisor – Things to Do in – Collage

These pages collectively drive millions of organic traffic to Tripadvisor.

Backlinko – Website Traffic Checker – Tripadvisor

Bonus note: This is just counting the URLs on Tripadvisor’s .com domain. There are similar pages on its global domains too, like .co.uk.

Why does this work so well?

Because Tripadvisor is able to meet the pain points of users all over the world. Travellers are always looking for things to do in different locations.

And Tripadvisor can cater to this need with its vast array of data on landmarks, sights, and activities. Plus, they have proprietary user data (like reviews) that helps make every programmatically generated page unique and useful.

Why this works: Tripadvisor has an Authority Score of 100. Add to that the fact that its pages cover the global travel market and contain heaps of UGC (like reviews) and you have the ideal candidate for pSEO.

3. Zillow

Card 3 – Zillow

Zillow uses programmatic SEO to generate thousands of hyper-local pages for every city, neighborhood, and property type to capture long-tail real estate search traffic.

The site transforms raw data (like home value estimates, price trend visualizations, school information, and walkability scores) into context-rich resources that both rank well and help users make important decisions.

And they have A LOT of listings.

I trawled through their sitemaps and found various groups of pages:

  • Home values by location (173K pages)
  • Miscellaneous listings (9K pages)
  • School districts (146K pages)
  • For sale by agent (1.6M pages)
  • For sale by owner (26K pages)
  • New construction (160K pages)
  • Pending (1.5K pages)
  • Recently sold (7.5M pages)
  • For rent (1.2M pages)

Then there are other sitemaps covering buildings, apartments, off-market, other, and “for sale” suggesting tens of millions of pages.

But one sitemap index for off market homes contained 4999 sitemaps, each with seemingly around 23K URLs. This would suggest there are more than 100 million URLs in this category.

Either there is some overlap on the pages (which would be impossible to manually check for) or Zillow lists pretty much every single home in the US on its site.

Regardless, Zillow has millions of pages. And these rely on programmatic SEO.

The result?

243 million organic visits every month.

Backlinko – Website Traffic Checker – Zillow

Why this works: Zillow has massive authority (Authority Score of 97). When you combine that with masses of proprietary data and a nationwide market, you have a brilliant use case for programmatic SEO.

4. Zapier

Card 4 – Zapier

Zapier is an automation platform that connects different web apps and creates workflows based on these connections.

They generate detailed integration pages for every possible app combination to capture search intent around software integrations. With 590K+ pages, Zapier’s programmatic efforts are impressive.

Zapier – Calendly and Slack

The /apps/ subfolder that contains these integration pages drives more than 610K organic visits every month:

Traffic Analytics – Zapier – Visits & Unique Visitors

Each integration page (like “Connect Calendly to Slack”) offers specific use cases via templates…

Zapier – Set up your first integration

…along with lists of supported triggers and actions:

Zapier – Supported triggers and actions

Why this works: Zapier’s entire tool works around integrating different tools. So they have proprietary data they can lean on (the lists of templates and triggers) that nobody else can replicate. But the key part is that every one of these pages serves a very specific intent in a detailed way.

When pSEO Makes Sense (And When It Doesn’t)

Not every business can or should use programmatic SEO.

So before you spend resources building a system that cranks out thousands of pages, let’s be brutally honest about when this approach actually works.

Marketplace sites, aggregators, and directories are the perfect candidates for pSEO. Think Zillow (property listings), Tripadvisor (travel destinations), or Zapier (software integrations).

Why do these programmatic SEO sites work so well?

Because each piece of content changes enough to justify its own page. Plus, users genuinely need that specific information or functionality.

Key takeaway: If your data or functionality doesn’t meaningfully change between variations, strongly reconsider whether you should use programmatic SEO.

Simply changing “[City] plumbers” to target 500 locations while offering identical generic text isn’t programmatic SEO — it’s spam.

The Dangers of Programmatic SEO

Programmatic SEO can look a lot like spam if you just create a bunch of thin content.

But even if it doesn’t look like spam, if users have a different intent or there are better sources out there, you’ll struggle to rank.

We’ve seen programmatic efforts have negative consequences with the likes of G2 and ZoomInfo.

ZoomInfo’s databases of companies and people still drive significant traffic:

Domain Overview –Zoominfo – Organic Traffic – Days

But nowhere near as much as they used to:

Domain Overview – Zoominfo – Organic Traffic – Months

The same goes for G2.

The product review and comparison site used to drive almost 12 million monthly visits back in 2021. But now it gets less than 1 million:

Domain Overview – G2 – Organic Traffic

Both sites saw major drops in traffic on at least two occasions:

  • Between May-August of 2021, coinciding with several major Google updates (including for spam specifically)
  • In October 2023, again coinciding with major Google updates, and again with one for spam specifically

There are other factors at play too, like the prevalence of AI Overviews in search results, Reddit’s SERP dominance, and more authoritative competition.

But these are two examples of programmatic SEO working very well — until it doesn’t.

How to Know if Programmatic SEO Is Right for You

Before you invest in programmatic SEO, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Do you have lots of proprietary data, user-generated content, or structured information at your disposal?
  • Does your site already have rankings and authority?
  • Will your hypothetical pages each provide real value individually?
  • Would you be proud to show each individual page to any user?

You should be able to answer “yes” to all of these questions. If not, rethink whether programmatic SEO is worth your investment.

How to Build Your Programmatic SEO Strategy in 5 Steps

Step 1: Find Scalable Keywords

The foundation of programmatic SEO isn’t finding high-volume keywords. It’s about identifying patterns that you can target systematically.

What Good Programmatic SEO Keywords Look Like

You’re looking for search queries that follow consistent formats but change one or two variables.

Like these examples:

  • [product] vs [competitor]
  • best restaurants in [city]
  • convert [currency] to [currency]
  • [language] to [language] translation
  • average salary for [profession]
  • cheap flights from [location] to [location]

The key is evaluating whether the underlying search intent stays consistent across variations.

For example, let’s take a closer look at Wise’s currency converter pages:

Organic Research – Wise – Pages – Organic Pages

Someone searching “USD to EUR” wants the same core information as someone searching “GBP to JPY.” They just want to convert different currencies.

Wise – Currency converter – Different currencies

But these pages aren’t just glorified calculators. They also feature historic conversion charts:

Wise – Currency chart – USD to EUR

Tables of the highs, lows, averages, and changes:

Wise – Currency converter – Tables

And a comparison of Wise’s own rates versus competitors:

Wise's rates versus competitors

This is why they dominate these searches: they’re solving the specific problem searchers have with each currency pair. It’s the same intent but with different variables — the right mix for programmatic SEO.

How to Find Your Own pSEO Keywords

Good programmatic SEO keywords consist of two key parts:

  • Head term: The consistent part that appears in all variations (e.g., “Resume templates”)
  • Modifier: The variable element that changes with each page (e.g., job titles like “product managers” or “systems engineers”)

You can use Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool to find keywords like this.

For example, imagine we’re looking to create programmatic content around the head term “SEO tools”:

Keyword Magic Tool – SEO tools – Overview

We’d look for patterns where only one variable changes across multiple keywords.

For example, patterns like “best seo tools for [business type]”:

Keyword Magic Tool – Best SEO tools for – Keywords

Once you’ve identified a potential pattern, you’ll need a variety of modifiers to create your programmatic pages.

The right modifiers expand your keyword targeting exponentially, while maintaining consistent search intent.

Here are some keyword modifiers that work across multiple niches:

  • Geographic modifiers: “in [city]”, “near [location]”, “for [country]”
  • Comparison modifiers: “vs [competitor]”, “alternative to [product]”, “[product] or [product]”
  • Attribute modifiers: “best [product] for [use case]”, “[color] [product]”, “[size] [product]”
  • Professional modifiers: “for [profession]”, “[skill] for [industry]”, “[tool] for [job]”
  • Format modifiers: “[topic] template”, “[topic] calculator”, “[topic] checklist”
  • Question modifiers: “how to [verb] [topic]”, “can [subject] [verb]”, “why does [topic] [verb]”
  • Statistical modifiers: “average [metric] for [category]”, “[topic] statistics [year]”

Pro tip: Use the asterisk (*) search operator in Google to find even more variations (like “seo tools for *”).

Set the Keyword Difficulty to “(KD) < 30” and use the “Include” filter to narrow down to specific patterns (e.g., include “for” to find “seo tools for [industry]”).

Finally, sort by volume to prioritize higher-traffic opportunities.

Keyword Magic Tool – SEO tools – Filtered keywords

Next, check the SERPs for several variations of your pattern and to confirm similar content types appear across variations.

Keyword Overview – SEO tools – SERP Amalysis

This is an important step. Let’s say you were planning to programmatically create pages that list the top SEO tools for different business types.

Your plan was to create pages that contained a simple list with basic facts and stats about each tool, along with some features and pricing info. You have a database with all this information, and you plug in an AI tool’s API to help create unique content for each page.

But then you check the SERP for some common terms and realize that Google seems to be rewarding more detailed lists.

Google SERP – SEO tools for small businesses

Lists that feature:

  • In-depth tool info
  • Expert takes and opinions
  • Screenshots that show the writer has used the tool

Do you think your programmatic content will rank alongside these guides?

Probably not.

That’s why checking the SERP and evaluating the search intent is so important.

But once you do have a list of ideal keywords to target, you can export it and group by modifier types (locations, products, features). This organized data will feed directly into your template planning.

Step 2: Collect and Structure Data

Every successful programmatic SEO project thrives because of its data.

Without unique, valuable information, you’re just going to create thin pages Google will eventually demote.

You have three main options for data acquisition:

  1. Proprietary data: Information you own or generate that competitors can’t access is the gold standard. Think Zapier’s integration data or Tripadvisor’s reviews. If you have proprietary data, your programmatic SEO has built-in defensibility.
  2. Public data with added value: You can transform, combine, or present data from public sources in uniquely valuable ways (like from government databases or APIs). Because anyone else can access this data, how you present it is absolutely key.
  3. Scraped data: This is the riskiest option. If you go this route, focus on adding significant value through analysis, visualization, or aggregation. Remember: scraping should be a starting point, not your end product.

If you’re struggling to find data, here are some free datasets for programmatic SEO across different niches (including stocks, salary data, social media, books, and more).

Just remember that anyone can find these data sets. So it’s best to use them for inspiration rather than hinging your pSEO campaign on them.

Practical Programmatic – Datasets

Step 3: Create Quality Content Templates

Templates are the engine of programmatic SEO. But they’re also where most projects go wrong. It’s easy to generate 100,000 pages. It’s hard to make them genuinely useful.

Start by manually creating 3-5 examples of your target pages. These are your test runs. Use them to validate that your data, structure, and content actually helps users.

Once you’re happy, build your template with the following:

  • 500–1,000+ words of helpful content: Use headings, bullet points, and other visual breaks to improve clarity
  • Conditional content logic: Use if/then rules to tailor each page’s copy, examples, recommendations, or CTAs to match the specific data or topic
  • Rich elements like HTML tables, charts, or maps: Visualize your data to make your page interactive and genuinely informative
  • Internal links: Guide users to related pages, deeper resources, or next steps

Step 4: Technical Setup (Based on Skill Level)

You don’t need to be a developer to launch a programmatic SEO site. But you will need to choose your approach based on your technical comfort and scale requirements.

Here are a few examples of what your setup might look like depending on your skill level:

Level Pages Tools Example Workflow Best For
Beginner / No-code 1-100 pages
  • Google Sheets
  • WordPress or Webflow
  • WP All Import or similar plugins
  1. Export keyword data to spreadsheet
  2. Write templates using variables
  3. Use formulas/find+replace to populate content
  4. Bulk import via plugin
 Non-technical users launching small projects
Intermediate 100-1,000 pages
  • Airtable / Notion
  • Webflow CMS
  • Zapier / Make
  • Jekyll, Hugo (SSGs with data files)
  1. Build structured data in Airtable
  2. Connect to Webflow CMS via Make
  3. Auto-generate new pages when data is added
 Marketers comfortable with no-code automation tools
Advanced 1,000+ pages
  • Custom apps
  • Next.js or similar
  • CMS APIs
  • Databases with caching
  • CI/CD pipelines
  1. Develop custom app (e.g., with Node.js)
  2. Fetch data from database (e.g., PostgreSQL)
  3. Generate and deploy pages with frameworks like Next.js via Vercel
 Developers or teams with engineering resources

Pro tip: Roll out your programmatic SEO efforts in stages. Don’t push 100K URLs live overnight.

Step 5: Monitor and Improve Your SEO

Like any SEO strategy, programmatic SEO is an ongoing effort. Because you might have hundreds or thousands of pages to manage, staying on top of performance and technical issues is key.

Here are some important things to track, and the best tool(s) to use:

  • Indexation rate: What percentage of your pages are in Google’s index? (Google Search Console)
  • Crawl stats: How frequently is Google visiting your pages? (Google Search Console)
  • Traffic distribution: Are certain variations performing better than others? (Google Analytics)
  • Conversion patterns: Which page types drive valuable actions? (Google Analytics)
  • Page-level metrics: What do your loading speeds, bounce rates, and time on page metrics look like? (PageSpeed Insights, Google Analytics)
  • Cannibalization issues: Are your programmatic pages competing with each other? (Google Search Console, Semrush Position Tracking)

Is Programmatic SEO Really the Way to Go?

It’s hopefully clear by now that programmatic SEO can yield some pretty impressive results.

But it should also be clear that it’s not the right choice for everyone.

Unless you have:

  • Existing authority
  • Plenty of resources
  • Unique data

It’s probably not the right approach for your website (at least not yet).

For now, I recommend focusing on growing your site with quality, not quantity. For more on this, check out our guide to creating high-quality SEO content.

The post Programmatic SEO: What It Is and When to Use It (+ Examples) appeared first on Backlinko.

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LLM Visibility: The SEO Metric No One Is Reporting On (Yet)

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You lost half your Google traffic.

But suddenly…more people are searching for your brand. What’s going on?

Welcome to the invisible influence of LLMs, where your visibility goes up even when traffic goes down.

New research from Semrush reveals a seismic shift happening right now: LLM traffic will completely overtake traditional Google search by 2027.

Google and LLM Unique Visitor Growth Projection (Moderate Case)

There’s A LOT to think through here.

The good news?

If you’re already doing quality SEO, you’re 70% of the way there. The next step is to ensure your expertise is recognized by AI systems.

In this guide, you’ll learn:

  • Why Google rankings are no longer your best growth signal
  • What LLM visibility actually means
  • How to track and influence this new layer of search that’s driving brand discovery

Let’s start with what your current analytics are struggling to see.

Your Brand Is Blowing Up in LLMs (You Just Can’t See It)

LLMs are quietly becoming the biggest brand discovery platform on the internet.

Users ask AI about your industry, see your brand mentioned, and then visit you directly later.

The problem is you can’t see this influence in Google Analytics.

What Your Analytics Miss

Almost 90% of ChatGPT’s citations come from search results ranking in positions 21+ — not the top 5 rankings you’re fighting for.

While you optimize for position #1, ChatGPT mines pages 3, 5, and 10 for answers. And users trust those recommendations.

What SEOs Optimize for vs What ChatGPT Actually Cites

This data focuses on ChatGPT, but similar patterns appear across LLMs.

Gemini also favors long-tail sources, and Perplexity shows comparable citation behaviors across the ecosystem.

Looking forward: Google’s massive reach through AI Overviews and the AI Mode rollout positions them as the long-term leader, even as ChatGPT dominates current conversations.

How Discovery Has Changed

Discovery is fundamentally changing:

Old way: Google → Click → Explore → Decide

New way: Ask AI → See mention → Visit directly later

And different generations use LLMs differently.

  • College students treat ChatGPT as an “operating system.”
  • Users in their 20s-30s use it as a “life advisor.”
  • Older users see it as a Google replacement.

Still, each interaction creates invisible brand impressions.

When someone discovers you through an LLM and visits later, it appears as:

  • Direct traffic (typed your URL)
  • Branded search (Googled your name)
  • Untagged referral (bookmarked and returned)

There’s zero attribution to the LLM mention.

So you have to get creative.

4 Signs Your LLM Visibility Is Growing

Your analytics might be telling a story of decline, while your brand influence is actually exploding.

This exact pattern is happening to Backlinko.

Our clicks dropped 15% while impressions surged 54% over the past three months.

GSC – Backlinko – Performance compare report

More people are seeing our content in search results, but fewer are clicking through.

They’re likely discovering us through AI responses, then searching for us directly later.

Here are four signs that LLM visibility might be driving invisible growth for your brand:

  1. Declining organic traffic + stable branded searches: People are discovering you elsewhere first, then searching for your brand directly.
  2. Sales calls mentioning “found you through AI”: Direct evidence of LLM-driven discovery that never shows up in analytics.
  3. Direct traffic holding steady despite fewer Google clicks: Users are bypassing search entirely after AI discovery.
  4. Competitors gaining share with weaker traditional SEO: They’re likely winning LLM visibility while you focus on rankings. (More on what that looks like later.)

How LLMs Find and Cite Content

Historically, SEO has been fairly straightforward. For the most part, it’s predictable cause and effect.

Optimize for keyword X, build Y backlinks, get position Z.

LLM visibility operates differently. It’s probabilistic and contextual.

This emerging discipline is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). It’s the practice of optimizing for AI-powered search systems.

While this guide focuses on measuring LLM visibility specifically, it’s part of the broader GEO strategy.

With that said, think of GEO as an extension of SEO rather than replacing it, as many of the skills overlap.

The fundamental difference:

  • SEO: Deterministic rankings drive traffic
  • GEO: Probabilistic mentions build influence

Why Rankings Don’t Predict LLM Citations

Different LLMs prioritize different authority signals, creating multiple opportunities for visibility.

For example, when you search “best SEO blogs in 2025,” Google’s AI Overview cites established brands.

It mentions Backlinko alongside Search Engine Land, Semrush, and other recognized industry leaders.

Google SERP – Best SEO blogs in 2025 – AI Overview

Open the top three cited posts in the AIO, and they all mention the same blogs.

Ask ChatGPT the same question (logged out in a private browser), you get a similar list.

ChatGPT – SEO blogs to follow in 2025 – Incognito

But here’s where it gets interesting.

When I asked ChatGPT the same question, logged in, I got a completely different answer.

ChatGPT – SEO blogs to follow in 2025 – Logged in

Instead of citing the usual suspects, it focuses on finding diverse, current perspectives across different platforms. It recommends everything from premium newsletters to X/Twitter accounts worth following.

All based on the context of my chat history.

So, Google AI values co-citation patterns, but ChatGPT rewards fresh perspectives and contextual coverage.

This is why your 2023 comparison post might never appear in AI Overviews, but could become ChatGPT’s go-to citation for explaining complex topics.

SEO vs LLM Optimization Priorities

What LLMs Actually Prioritize

Early testing suggests that query fan-out and semantic chunk matching are big drivers of LLM behaviour.

How LLM Query Fan-out Works

LLMs often create several related sub-queries from your original question, especially for complex topics. They pull the best matches from the web.

Traditional SEO vs LLM Semantic Matching

LLMs focus on identifying the most relevant content chunks, rather than the highest-ranking pages.

The result?

While strong Google rankings often correlate with LLM citations, the relationship isn’t perfectly linear.

Content ranking lower in traditional search can still get cited by AI systems when it provides the most relevant, specific answer to what users are asking.

To win this transition, continue building comprehensive topical authority. It’s the same principle that has driven SEO success, but now even more critical for LLM visibility.

Further reading: Topic Clusters 101: How to Level Up Your SEO (with Examples)

How LLM Discovery Works in Practice

Here’s what LLM visibility looks like:

Prompt: “How do I build high-quality backlinks to my website?”

ChatGPT Response: Building quality backlinks requires strategic outreach and valuable content creation. The Skyscraper Technique, popularized by Brian Dean from Backlinko, involves finding top-performing content in your niche, creating something better, then reaching out to sites that linked to the original. Other effective methods include guest posting on relevant blogs…

What happens next: The user doesn’t click anywhere. They continue asking about outreach templates and timeline expectations, then later search “Backlinko Skyscraper Technique” or navigate directly to backlinko.com.

The invisibility factor: Branding just influenced a purchase decision, but you’ll never see it in referral traffic.

Claude – Traditional Google Search vs ChatGPT Response

LLMs present information with or without links. Both drive discovery.

Here’s an example of a Perplexity response with a link:

Perplexity – Backlinks to my website

Trends show that citations without links often feel more trustworthy because users don’t sense they’re being “sold to.”

Note: In these examples, we’re referring to RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation). It’s where the model often conducts additional web searches (query fan-out, etc.) for complex queries.

Why Your Analytics Are Blind to LLM Growth (And How to Fix It)

Your current measurement tools can’t see the biggest growth opportunity in search, but there are ways to track what actually matters.

What Your Dashboard Misses

When someone discovers you through an LLM and visits later, it appears as:

  • Direct traffic (typed your URL or clicked a link that didn’t pass referrer data)
  • Branded search (Googled your name)
  • Unknown or untagged referral (bookmarked and returned)

It’s worth repeating, there’s often zero attribution to the LLM mention.

Why Traditional Metrics Fail

Google Analytics and Google Search Console were designed for a click-based world.

Old customer journey: See result → Click → Convert (trackable)

New customer journey: See AI mention → Research brand → Visit directly later (invisible)

It’s a measurement paradox. Your most effective discovery channel is completely hidden.

Why Traditional Metrics Fail

Quick rant:

Google isn’t adding access to traffic data for AI Mode or AI Overviews.

I believe it’s because it’ll reveal just how little traffic both are actually driving to external websites.

Maybe the tide will turn, and eventually, they’ll add the data to their tools. Time will tell.

How to Track Your LLM Visibility

It’s worth acknowledging that LLM visibility tools are new and evolving.

I’ve been using Semrush’s AI Toolkit as it provides insights into how your brand compares to competitors in LLMs.

For Backlinko, I added four competitors, and here’s what the report looks like for ChatGPT visibility.

Semrush AI Toolkit – Dashboard – Backlinko & Competitors

Semrush leads with a 33% market share, followed by Ahrefs at 25%. Unfortunately, we’re sitting at 5%.

Caveat: we’re not a product company, and we have much smaller brand demand than Semrush and Ahrefs.

This matters because LLM visibility may correlate with brand awareness and search volume. Brands with more online discussion and search demand typically have more content and mentions for LLMs to discover and cite.

Yes, how often you’re being mentioned in LLMs is crucial. But how you get mentioned matters just as much.

Back to the Semrush AI Toolkit, Brand & Marketing dashboard shows shifts in sentiment among LLMs.

Backlinko consistently has a high favorable sentiment share.

Semrush AI Toolkit – Brand & Marketing – Backlinko & Competitors

The Strategic Opportunities section shows where the gaps are and helps you prioritize the execution by timeframe.

Semrush AI Toolkit – Backlinko – AI Strategic Opportunities

So, instead of fighting for the same top rankings, you can build authority in overlooked niches where LLMs need better sources.

Track these metrics monthly:

  • Visibility score changes across different LLM models
  • Branded search correlation in Google Search Console
  • Market share shifts vs competitors

Semrush’s Enterprise AIO offers even more powerful ways to monitor brand visibility in LLMs.

Pro tip: When you see visibility increases, correlate them with branded search spikes in GSC to estimate real business impact.

The Measurement Mindset Shift

Traditional SEO measurement focuses on traffic and tracked conversions.

LLM visibility measurement focuses on influence created.

Instead of asking “How many clicks did we get?” ask “How much authority did we build?”

The businesses that adopt this measurement philosophy first will have a massive advantage in AI-driven search.

Building Authority That AI Actually Recognizes

Here’s the good news:

Building authority for LLM visibility isn’t about throwing out everything you know about SEO.

What makes content trustworthy for people — like clear structure, real expertise, and thorough coverage — also helps AI systems see it as authoritative.

But there are some nuances worth understanding.

Why SEO Authority Still Matters (Mostly)

Again, your existing SEO work isn’t wasted.

LLMs mine the same content ecosystem as search engines, but they have different priorities.

We’re at a critical inflection point where everyone is moving fast and low-quality content is becoming rampant.

Google search used to be messy. I mean, it’s not perfect now, but it’s vastly better than pre-2010.

For LLMs to succeed long-term, they need to maintain and develop ways to promote real authority and trustworthy sources, not just those who cheaply game the system.

The overlap between traditional SEO authority and LLM visibility is significant:

  • Content depth and expertise matter to both systems
  • Clear information architecture helps both humans and AI navigate your content
  • Consistent topic coverage builds authority across platforms
  • Original insights and data get cited by both search engines and LLMs

Building Authority for Both Search Engines & LLMS

Where things diverge is in the details. And those details create opportunities.

Expertise Depth Over Keyword Coverage

You’ve probably heard SEO advice that creates a false choice between keyword optimization and content quality.

But if you’ve been following sound SEO principles, you already know that keywords are simply demand signals.

They’re data points that help you understand what your audience wants to learn and prioritize your content efforts.

LLMs have made this quality-first approach non-negotiable.

The citation analysis shows that AI systems consistently favor sources that demonstrate genuine expertise. Content that covers edge cases, recognises complexity, and shares insights from real experience.

Surface-level content aggregation used to rank well just by optimizing keywords. Now, it gets fewer mentions in AI responses.

This isn’t because LLMs dislike keywords. It’s because they’re better at recognizing and rewarding authentic expertise.

The SEO Evolution: LLMS Validate Quality-first Approach

This means sharing process details, insightful nuances, and clear methods that both people and AI see as trustworthy.

Include the details that only practitioners would know.

Acknowledge when approaches don’t work and explain why.

Be clear and precise in your explanations. This helps both humans and AI systems understand your expertise accurately.

LLMs have simply made the stakes higher for thin content while rewarding the approach that quality-focused practitioners have always advocated.

The Strategic Citation Playbook

If you’ve been building quality backlinks, you’re already 70% of the way to LLM citation success.

The research reveals that citation-worthy content follows similar principles to link-worthy content, with a few critical differences in how citations actually work.

How to Get Cited Alongside Competitors

The research shows a clear pattern among top-cited brands. They consistently appear alongside other authorities in expert clusters.

When industry publications discuss “best practices for X,” they cite multiple experts.

Your goal is to be part of that conversation.

The Co-citation Authority Pattern

Practical focus:

  • Guest post on publications that already cite your competitors
  • Participate in expert roundups where your insights add genuine value
  • Comment thoughtfully on high-authority industry content with detailed expertise

Citations vs. Links: What’s Different

LLM citation patterns mirror what quality-focused SEOs have always known: authoritative sources carry more weight than weak ones.

Citation Value: Quality vs Quantity

But there are key differences from traditional link building.

  • Citations don’t require links: A thoughtful Reddit comment or YouTube video description can carry citation weight without clickable links back to your site.
  • Content depth beats ranking position: LLMs evaluate expertise independently of SERP rankings. Your detailed comparison post ranking on page 6 can become your most-cited asset.

To win LLM visibility, strategically place your expertise where AI systems recognize genuine authority.

Why Your Small Brand Can Compete in LLMs

The LLM visibility shift creates the biggest opportunity for smaller brands since the early days of SEO.

While established competitors fight for the same top rankings, you can build authority in the spaces they’re ignoring.

The Playing Field is Leveling

Remember: Almost 90% of ChatGPT citations come from long-tail results.

Your niche expertise on “B2B SaaS customer onboarding analytics” has the same citation potential as a Fortune 500 company’s homepage about “business software.”

Speed Beats Scale

Big brands move slowly. Committee approvals, legal reviews, and corporate messaging requirements create lag time.

You can capitalize on emerging trends, respond to breaking news in your industry, and share real-time insights that LLMs value for currency and relevance.

When a new platform launches or regulations change, you can publish authoritative analysis within hours while competitors are still scheduling meetings.

The Community Multiplier Effect

Your engaged audience amplifies LLM visibility in ways traditional SEO can’t measure.

When customers share your insights in Slack channels, Discord servers, or LinkedIn comments, they’re creating citation pathways that LLMs discover and value.

A single detailed Reddit comment from a satisfied customer can carry more LLM authority than a generic press release.

Reddit – Comment from a satisfied customer

Start Small, Win Big

Pick one sub-topic where you have genuine expertise. Become THE authoritative voice on that specific area.

Instead of competing for “project management software,” own “project management for creative agencies with remote teams.”

Target long-tail prompts where competition is lighter and your specific experience matters most.

Track your progress with tools like Semrush’s AI Toolkit and Enterprise AIO to see your authority build across conversations that matter to your business.

Lastly, be wary of anyone definitively selling you GEO, AI Search Optimization, or whatever term they’re using.

We’re in a fluid and developing environment, but the fundamentals remain key.

Focus on building a brand and think about how to create the right content that will stand up over time.

Avoid shortcuts and quick wins that are risky.

Your move.

The post LLM Visibility: The SEO Metric No One Is Reporting On (Yet) appeared first on Backlinko.

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What AI gets wrong about your site, and why it’s not your fault: meet llms.txt 

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AI tools are everywhere — from chatbots that answer customer questions to language models that summarize everything from documentation to legal text. But if you’ve ever asked a model like ChatGPT to explain your site, your product, or your API, the results might not feel quite right. In fact, sometimes they’re way off. And no, that’s not your fault. 

The disconnect between websites and LLMs 

Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini are trained to understand a wide range of content. But when they try to interpret your website at runtime, that is, when someone is actively asking them a question, they run into a few core problems: 

  • HTML is noisy. Navigation bars, cookie banners, modal popups, and analytics scripts clutter the page. 
  • Context windows are limited. Most websites are too large for an LLM to process all at once. 
  • Important details are spread across multiple pages or hidden in tables, code blocks, or comments. 
  • Markdown docs may exist, but the model often can’t locate them, or even know they exist. 

So, when you ask an AI tool to “explain what this company does” or “summarize this library API”, it often gets stuck. It either skips key context or grabs the wrong signals from cluttered markup. 

It’s not bad intent; it’s a design limitation. 

Why it’s not your SEO’s fault, either 

You’ve probably invested time and effort into search engine optimization. Maybe your robots.txt and sitemap.xml are in place. You’ve got meta tags, structured data, and clean internal links. Good, but LLMs don’t always work like Google. 

Traditional SEO helps your site get found. However, it doesn’t guarantee that AI tools will understand what a human user would. That’s where a new proposal comes in. 

Meet llms.txt: A simple way to help AI understand your site 

A growing number of developers and AI researchers are adopting a lightweight, human-readable standard called llms.txt.  

What is llms.txt? 

llms.txt is a plain Markdown file placed at the root of your site that provides language models with a summary of your project and direct links to clean, LLM-readable versions of important pages. It’s designed for inference-time use, helping AI tools quickly understand a site’s structure, purpose, and content without relying on cluttered HTML or metadata intended for search engines. 

What it does: 

  • Gives a short summary of your site or project 
  • Links to clean, LLM-ready Markdown versions of key pages 
  • Helps AI tools find exactly what matters, without parsing messy HTML

Is it widely supported? Not yet 

Right now, no major LLM provider officially supports llms.txt. Tools like GPTBot (OpenAI), Claude (Anthropic), and Google’s AI crawlers don’t reference or follow it as part of their crawling behavior. Some companies like Anthropic publish llms.txt files themselves, but there’s no evidence that any crawler is actively using them in retrieval or training. 

Still, it’s a low-effort, no-risk addition that helps prepare your site for a future where structured LLM access becomes more standardized. And LLM-facing tools, or even your own AI agents, can make use of it today. 

Example use cases: 

  • A dev library links to .md-formatted API docs and usage examples. 
  • A university site highlights course descriptions and academic policies. 
  • A personal blog offers a simplified timeline of key projects or topics. 

You control the content and the structure. LLMs benefit from curated, LLM-aware context. And users asking questions about your site get better answers. 

Using our Yoast SEO plugin? 

If you’re already using our Yoast SEO (free or Premium) plugin, generating a llms.txt file is easy. Just enable the feature in your settings, and the plugin will automatically create and serve a complete llms.txt file for your site. You can view it anytime at yourdomain.com/llms.txt. 

Get Yoast SEO Premium

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Read about the llms.txt feature

An LLM-friendly web isn’t the same as a Google-friendly web 

This doesn’t replace SEO. Think of llms.txt as a companion to robots.txt. It tells AI bots: “Here’s the good stuff. Skip the noise.” 

Sitemaps help crawlers find everything. llms.txt tells LLMs what to focus on. 

It’s especially useful for: 

  • Developers and open-source maintainers 
  • Product marketers looking to reduce support load 
  • Teams that want chatbots to pull answers from docs, not guess 

You don’t need a new CMS or tech stack 

All this requires is creating two things: 

  1. A basic llms.txt file in Markdown
  2. Ideally, you’d also have Markdown versions (.html.md) of key pages included alongside the originals, with the same URL plus .md added. 

No new tools, plugins, or frameworks needed, although some ecosystems are already adding support. 

Here’s an example of a file automatically built by Yoast SEO, as it has an llms.txt generator built in:

Generated by Yoast SEO v25.3, this is an llms.txt file, meant for consumption by LLMs. This is the (https://everydayimtravelling.com/sitemap_index.xml) of this website. 
 
# everydayimtravelling.com: Stories from our travels 
 
## Posts 
- [Test video](https://everydayimtravelling.com/test-video/) 
- [A Journey Through Portugal’s Wine Country: A Suggested Wine Tour Route](https://everydayimtravelling.com/a-wine-tour-through-portugal/) 
- [Travel essentials for backpackers FAQ](https://everydayimtravelling.com/travel-essentials-for-backpackers-faq/) 
 
## Pages 
- [Checkout](https://everydayimtravelling.com/checkout/) 
- [Contact us](https://everydayimtravelling.com/contact-us/) 
- [How we started this blog](https://everydayimtravelling.com/pagina-harry-potter/) 
- [My account](https://everydayimtravelling.com/my-account/) 
- [Cart](https://everydayimtravelling.com/cart/) 
 
## Categories 
- [Europe](https://everydayimtravelling.com/category/europe/) 
- [Asia](https://everydayimtravelling.com/category/asia/) 
- [South America](https://everydayimtravelling.com/category/south-america/) 
- [Food](https://everydayimtravelling.com/category/food/) 
- [Western Europe](https://everydayimtravelling.com/category/europe/west-europe/) 
 
## Tags 
- [Budget](https://everydayimtravelling.com/tag/budget/) 
Yoast SEO has an llms.txt generator onboard; you can find it in the API settings
Yoast SEO has an llms.txt generator onboard; you can find it in the API settings

Helping AI help you 

So, if AI is misinterpreting your website, producing erroneous summaries, or skipping critical content, there’s a reason, and it’s fixable. 

It’s not always your copy. Not your design or your metadata. It’s just that these language tools need a little guidance. In the future, llms.txt could be the way to give it to them, and you do so on your terms. 

Do you need help creating an llms.txt file or converting your existing content to Markdown for LLMs? Yoast SEO can automatically generate an llms.txt file for you. 

The post What AI gets wrong about your site, and why it’s not your fault: meet llms.txt  appeared first on Yoast.

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