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Author: Mordy Oberstein There is a revolution occurring: The relatively new widespread availability of AI content has sparked renewed conversations around content quality, and it’s not an understatement to say that it is reshaping everything we know about web content and SEO .  The mere notion of AI-written content (let alone the various “ scandals ” surrounding large brands that have implemented it) has led more users to scrutinize the quality of the content search engines are sending them to. This conversation (ironically one that is very often without words) is redefining what our audiences expect from the content we’re creating. It’s one of the least discussed aspects of the “AI wars” and it comes at a time when content consumption trends are already on the move.  So, let’s have this conversation and take a hard look at how web content is changing and how the greatest source of web traffic on earth, Google, has already been adjusting and will continue to adjust.  Buckle up.  Table of contents: The accelerated future of web content: How we got here The future of content creation: How to align The future of content on the Google SERP The human touch and its role in content The accelerated future of web content: How we got here For years, SEOs have been talking about the need to double down on web content. I trace the height of this conversation all the way back to Google’s Medic Update (AKA the August 2018 Core Update). This update was the first time the “modern-day” conversation around Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) sites really came to the forefront (in the context of what was then Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness [E-A-T, now E-E-A-T ]).  To me, this is because there was a marked shift in what Google was able to do in terms of distinguishing quality content from the chaff of the web. It was a qualitative leap forward for Google’s ability to parse content quality.  Was it perfect? Not at all. But, it was the beginning of a very slow burn towards raising the standard on what could and could not rank well on Google’s SERP . Expectations outpaced Google’s ability to identify quality content  In fact, it was such a slow burn that public perception began to outpace Google’s technological abilities. I would say circa 2021 publications started to release articles calling out the quality of Google’s results. The perception that Google’s search results have declined isn’t limited to journalists. I have meticulously tracked the outcomes of Google’s algorithm updates for the better part of 10 years. The notion that the results were getting worse is almost nonsensical (this is a different question from “Are the results good enough?”). Personally, I (as well as others such as Lily Ray and Glenn Gabe ) have seen Google do some amazing things with regard to its understanding of content quality.  Improving the technology behind the algorithm, as I mentioned, is a slow burn. What I think happened, and it’s something former Googler (and also former CEO of Yahoo!) Marissa Mayer alluded to , is that our expectations outpaced what Google was able to do from a technological standpoint. As the number of allegations against big tech companies increased (often resulting in them appearing before Congress), so too did the skepticism around the content we were consuming on the web. In other words, the content incentive cycle at this point had hinged almost entirely on the search engine’s quality thresholds. If Google was able to parse out quality content to the N th  degree, then content creators and SEOs produced content to match that degree of quality. If Google could parse out quality to X th  degree, then we shifted and slowly started to create content that met the new quality threshold. But, very rarely did “we” think about the ultimate needs of the user and their demands. The algorithm became the North Star.  This inertia was disrupted by an outside voice—namely people becoming far more skeptical about the content they were consuming as more and more CEOs showed up to explain themselves in front of Congress. Generative AI adds fuel to the fire It’s safe to say that generative AI  has exacerbated this issue. The ease with which volumes of content can be generated (and the questionable accuracy of that content ) has taken people’s skepticism and injected it into their veins like Barry Bonds juicing up to hit another home run (for the record, it has not been proven that Barry Bonds took steroids).  What AI did to the great content conversation amounts to throwing a propane tank onto what was already a house on fire (i.e., web content). The net result is the emergence of new content trends—the most notable of which has been this consensus that audiences want content from actual people, not brands or corporations.  There are all sorts of studies and surveys showing that the “young folks” prefer TikTok  to more “traditional” mediums, such as search. Even SEOs have gotten on this bandwagon and have begun talking about TikTok as a source of content ideation .  “‘BookTok,’ ‘cottagecore,’ ‘hair theory’—the list goes on. None of these terms existed before TikTok emerged, but they now have a huge impact on how people search across platforms.” — Abby Gleason , SEO Product Manager This trend obviously didn’t arise in a vacuum. Nor is it all about “AI”—again there was a serious buildup to this moment that, in my opinion, has been brewing for years (the very “formative” years of the web’s younger users).  What I am saying is that the shift in content consumption trends is very real and it will continue to get increasingly “real,” real fast as we’re not anywhere close to the end of the “AI content conversation” (again, it’s less a conversation and more Thanksgiving dinner with your dysfunctional family).  Now that we know where we are and how we got here (a very underestimated facet of dealing with the web and its future), what does that mean for content generation? The future of content creation: How to align  I want to offer some concrete content strategies that I think will become more prominent going forward. I feel that a lot of the dialogue I see out there around “content by people, for people” is oversimplified (which is usually the trend with these sorts of things).  Instead of identifying the demand and abstracting out from there to develop concrete tactics, we (as digital marketers) tend to get very “linear” with things. We focus more on a tactic than on the underlying principle we can then apply in a variety of ways.  In our case, there’s been a heap of talk about “influencer content” as again, people want content from people, not corporations. To me, that is akin to not being able to see the forest for the trees. Aside from the superficiality, the content format simply doesn’t apply to half the content out there. What are you going to do? Ask Kim Kardashian to record a video for every landing page on your site? Let’s instead focus on the underlying concept: People don’t want to be spoken at; they are looking to engage on a more personal level, as this fosters a sense of trust, security, and overall quality.  It’s entirely possible to meet this need without leveraging some form of influencer marketing. Below are two ways that come to mind. Situational writing: The value for users and SEO I want to challenge the idea of “creating a personal connection” between the content and its audience.  Yes, the most obvious way to make that connection is with content from actual people speaking directly to your audience (much the way a TikTok video could). However, if the North Star conceptually is not a media format, but instead simply creating content that directly and substantially engages with  the audience, then the possibilities are, in a way, endless.  In other words, you need content that makes a connection. One very powerful, yet hardly discussed way to show you are thinking about the reader and their pain points is to predict their needs. Predicting the needs of your readers (and being quite explicit about it within your content) is, however subtly, having a conversation with your audience.  A fabulous way to do this is with what I call “situational content.” It’s not very complicated but I think it’s very powerful.  Imagine I’m writing an article about how to get your kids to bed (a pain point for me, no doubt) and in this article, I offer five ways to get your kids to bed quickly. They might be good tips but I’m not conversing with you. I’m speaking at you or (at best) to you.  Now imagine I write the same post but for each tip, I run through the scenario that the tip doesn’t work under and then offer you a follow-up recommendation. Lo and behold, we are having an implicit conversation. I offer the tip. I assume you say it didn’t work and then reply back to you with another follow-up tip. There’s an implied conversation going on. A latent back and forth.  Situational writing assumes an implicit reaction on the reader’s part and latently incorporates that dialogue into the content itself. This way, I’m communicating with you by assuming your response. The net result is conversational content. From an SEO perspective, it’s not fundamentally possible to create situational content without either having first-hand knowledge and experience related to the topic or a high level of expertise. Thus, situational content is rooted in strong E-E-A-T and (all other things being equal) would align with the signals Google uses to synthetically align with strong E-E-A-T. The case for taking a conversational tone with your content What about your typical landing page? How do you connect to your audience and have a conversation with them via content like your run-of-the-mill landing page?  Again, you’re not going to embed some influencer’s video short  onto all your landing pages. I mean you could, but folks are going to see right through that. This is especially true as time goes on and readers become inundated with influencers here, there, and everywhere.  To me, this really highlights the fundamental problem in a lot of the advice around “the future of content.” Yes, people want to hear from actual people and not brands, but as a brand you can just stick influencers into everything you do. But, most of the pages on the web probably don’t align with that very generic advice.  Now, you can do things like feature customer reviews  and social proof  on a page to build trust. But trust isn’t necessarily conversation. If the goal is conversation, then this won’t work.  What to do, what to do?  The first thing I think to do is to accept the reality that you cannot have a substantial level of conversation with every asset or every web page you create. That’s just not how the internet works.  Sometimes, the best thing you can do is to be as conversational as possible. And I’ll tell you the hard truth: We all want to have whatever influencer pitch our product for us, but we don’t want to take our foot off the acquisition gas pedal in any way, shape, or form. However, this is precisely what I’m advocating for.  If our audiences want to receive more conversational content, then we as content creators and contributors should offer them a more conversational tone.  Content is going to become increasingly conversational. You know those old used car commercials you see in movies from the 1970s? That’s what a lot of our content—particularly acquisitional content—is going to sound like in a few years from now. It will sound like an overly overt sales pitch because it is  fundamentally an overly overt sales pitch.  Marketing catchphrases, buzzwords, and subliminal overselling are going to stand out, but not in a good way. It will feel (if it doesn’t already) like the content is talking at you and not even to you—let alone with you.  Again, part of the demand for conversational content is the skepticism behind our current state of content. Pages that don’t align are going to be treated with mass skepticism by the target audience. As counterintuitive as it may sound, take your foot off the acquisitional gas pedal and give your audience some breathing room by taking a more explanatory (and therefore conversational) tone with your content that aims to sell.  Sometimes you can have an actual conversation with your audience and sometimes the best you can do is create a situation where the audience is willing to hear you. As time goes on, taking a more conversational tone with your acquisitional content will enable your audience to lay their guard down so that they can assimilate what you are trying to convey. The future of content on the Google SERP  So, how does web content rapidly changing (for the reasons I outlined above) play out on the SERP? I predict that: Google will meet the demand for experience-based content Language profiles and parsing are the future of search—not SGE Google will meet the demand for experience-based content  It’s not a matter of “if,” it’s just a matter of “how” and “when” (and really how effectively). It’s really not a complicated equation: If Google doesn’t meet user demands, users will go somewhere else.  You can argue that Google has already begun exploring these waters. From adding an additional “E” for “experience” to E-E-A-T  to the role of first-hand experience in the Product Review updates , Google now leans heavily into a focus on first-person knowledge.  This trend is all the more obvious when you look at some of Google’s more recent tests and announcements. Just to mention a few:  Google began testing “Notes”  in 2023. Regardless of how effective you think the feature may be (I’m a little skeptical myself) it’s a clear sign that Google wants real voices on the SERP. In mid-November of 2023, Google talked about notifications for topics you are following . What does this have to do with a more “personal” take on the SERP? I speculate that the sort of content found on forums and microblogs would be a perfect fit. Speaking of forums, Google said they are looking to make algorithmic changes to better “surface hidden gems.”  This is basically Google looking to reward actual human perspectives and experiences from social media and from forums (and the like) on the SERP. Continuing with forums, Google also announced it would support structured data markup  that would result in rich results for content pulled from “social media platforms, forums, and other communities” meant to propagate first-person knowledge and perspectives. Google’s “Perspectives” section shows content that people have shared on forums, Q&A sites, and social media platforms. Google’s ability to do all of this effectively is a legitimate question. As I said above, for me it’s just a matter of “when” Google will get it right—not “if.” It has no choice but to get it right. The demand for first-person content is only going to increase. Google understands how the AI conversation  is a driving force behind this and is looking to balance out the SERP accordingly. If it doesn’t get this right, users (particularly younger users) will flock to platforms like TikTok. The future of forums and the SERP Yes, the above is an H4 —it’s that kind of post. I want to address “forums.” For SEOs, the second we hear the word “forum,” all we think about is spam and ranking manipulation.  I want to challenge our a-priori notions here just a tad. We associate “forums” and “SEO” with all sorts of spammy and less-than-legitimate practices . I would be very cautious of thinking about forums based on our experiences of the past so as not to throw the baby out with the bath water. I don’t believe I am being controversial by saying “social media is not what it used to be.” Online communities have been seeking refuge in a host of platforms like Slack, WhatsApp groups, etc. as social media (to an extent) has lost a bit of its perceived luster.  What happens as Google starts to rank content from communities more regularly and (as Wix’s own Kobi Gamliel  pointed out) when online community organizations realize they can use their own ecosystem and not someone else’s?  The incentive cycle on the web over the past 20 years has revolved around what Google shows on the SERP. If Google presents more forums, it will spark people to start forums.  This doesn’t mean that what a forum was 20 years ago will be what a forum is today vis-a-vis the SERP. Creating genuine E-E-A-T with a forum, or a microblog, or whatever else is going to come into focus and become more of a part of a website’s organic strategy. Language profiles and parsing are the future of search—not SGE Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE). There, I said it.  The future of the SERP is not SGE (Search Generative Experience). I am not saying that SGE won’t be a part of the future of the SERP , but I see it more as a facilitator than anything (I’ll elaborate on that in just a bit).  The future of SERP at any point is dictated by two factors:  The desires and behaviors of users  The technological ability to meet those desires We’ve already talked a lot about user desires and demands. Now, we need to talk about Google’s ability to meet them—SGE is not that.  SGE, if I can be a bit brash, was a response to Bing’s AI chat  beating Google to the punch. A punch that did not have much “oomph” to it, at least not for Bing as it did not increase the company’s market share . Don’t think for a minute Google did not take notice of that little fact.  Let’s go back to the root of users’ demands. Because of various developments, including the proliferation of “AI this” and “AI that,” users are far more skeptical about the content they see on the web. They also want to be in greater contact with personal experience via their content consumption, which aligns with the need for trust in an ocean of skepticism. Think of it like the B side of a record (and… I just lost my audience under the age of 30).  Which one of those problems does SGE solve, exactly? Neither.  Let’s discuss two actual solutions.  How Google fundamentally rewards experience on the SERP  Let’s start with experience on the SERP. Aside from pulling in more content from social media or forums, etc., how can Google adequately reward “experience” within the core search results?  We don’t really need to look into a crystal ball for this: Google has already been rewarding experience with the Reviews update (where it calls for first-hand experience) and it is my belief the search engine has been doing the same within the core updates, the Helpful Content Updates (HCU), and so on.  The question is: How?  It’s not very far-fetched when you get into it. Machine learning is essentially built to profile language and language structure. I always go back to a statement John Mueller made  back in 2019: “It is something where, if you have an overview of the whole web or kind of a large part of the web, and you see which type of content is reasonable for individual topics then that is something where you could potentially infer from that.” — John Mueller, Senior Search Analyst at Google Countless tests, experiments, and breakthroughs in using machine learning to dissect language patterns  have been published over the past few years. It’s what machine learning was built to do.  In terms of ranking experience-based content, how does this play out on the SERP?  Let’s use a product review example in line with the Reviews update. For argument's sake, assume we’re reviewing a vacuum cleaner.  By default, I might lean on some relatively generic language, such as “It was a great vacuum cleaner but didn’t do well on carpet.”  Conversely, if I am relatively good at communicating my experience to others (in this case, about using the vacuum), I would be more apt to use language such as “Great on carpet but I had a difficult time sucking up cat hair.”   The language structures here are worlds apart. The level of modification and even the first-person language easily sets the latter expression apart from the “generic” content I created. It is not far-fetched to imagine that Google can implement machine learning to better score the likelihood that the content’s language structure indicates firsthand experience.  Language structures and profiles are (and will be) an increasingly important component of what Google does to decipher overall quality and include firsthand experience within the content it shows on the SERP.  This is perhaps best expressed by Pandu Nayak, Google’s VP of Search, who (at Google’s antitrust trial) was quoted as saying :  “DeepRank not only gives significant relevance gains, but also ties ranking more tightly to the broader field of language understanding.” — Pandu Nayak, VP of Search at Google For SEOs, it all brings what our mothers have been telling us for years to the forefront: watch your language.  I think this is true across the board for all emerging content trends Google looks to align with. The only real tools it has at its disposal are profiles—both language profiles and user behavior profiles. The combination of the two can be very powerful.  To highlight this, I’ll offer you an overly-simplistic example: Let’s assume that the trend for more creator voices within content continues to the point where content creators are utilizing more first-person language. Now let’s assume some of this content ranks.  Accordingly, we have content that does include the creator’s voice and the content of yesteryear that generally does not.  Now, assume that when users click on a page and see the typically stoic content, they bounce back the SERP in favor of content that does  include the creator’s voice (read: first-hand experience). Machine learning systems, like RankBrain and DeepRank, could (in theory) identify this type of first-hand language and create a new profile for that subset of topics. Namely, a profile that indicates “creator voice” must be part of the language structure.  This is, in a sense, what has been happening on the SERP since about 2015. We’ve only seen this process expand its reach and impact, and we are only going to see what I think are huge advancements here.  How Google can handle skepticism around content There’s a lot more to addressing user skepticism (and downright cynicism) than just firsthand knowledge and experience.  Fundamentally, it boils down to offering a quality content experience to the user (again, firsthand knowledge being a part of that when necessary). The question is, how do we parse “a quality experience” in the context of increased skepticism around web content?  We parse it with parsing.  Users need to know that Google is offering them  results—not just presenting a spattering of content for them to wade through. Users then need to feel that the content itself speaks to them  and their specific needs.  To put it more concretely, if I feel like I am presented with content that has my specific needs in mind or if I am presented with an ecosystem (such as the Google SERP) that has my specific needs in mind, then I am more inclined to trust what I am consuming.  To that end, specificity is key. The need for specificity speaks to my point about SGE being somewhat of a distraction in a way (and in other ways, not, which I’ll elaborate on shortly).  In 2021, Google introduced us to MUM  (Multitask Unified Model). A big focus around the “MUM conversation” has been its ability to unify content mediums. For example, MUM enables you to take a picture with Google Lens and add a text input  as well (so you can, for example, take a picture of a pattern you like and ask Google to find socks with that matching pattern). A demonstration of MUM’s capabilities at Google’s Search On event in 2021. Source: Google. When Google demoed MUM for the first time, it also showed us how MUM could theoretically handle a search query. The example query Google used was “I’ve hiked Mt. Adams, and now want to hike Mt. Fuji next fall, what should I do differently to prepare?” Of course, SEOs were awed by MUM’s ability to parse the various aspects of this complex query. What struck me, however, was how MUM dealt with the very simple phrase “to prepare.” To quote Google, MUM “could also understand that, in the context of hiking, to ‘prepare’ could include things like fitness training as well as finding the right gear.” Topical parsing is how you bring specificity to the SERP. It takes a mundane query like “go to yankees game” and morphs the results from a bunch of links to buy tickets to content around transportation to the game, what the game experience is like and what to expect, what costs are involved with going to a game, etc. Unlike the SERP of yesteryear, SGE is already parsing the topic. In order to deliver a targeted experience to users, you have to be able to parse the topic. And while MUM is not terribly integrated into the algorithm in this regard (as of yet), it and other machine learning technologies offer Google a tremendous amount of potential.  Elements like MUM, to me, should be the focus of the SERP and the focus for SEOs and content creators, not an SGE box. Content portals: How SGE can help Based on the need for stronger topical parsing, the future of the SERP, to me, lies in content portals (i.e., the ability of the SERP to facilitate the deep exploration of the various aspects subsumed under a given topic).  A portal-like experience would enable me to go down the rabbit hole and come back out just so I can go down a new one. Continuing with Google’s “hiking” example, I could explore the training regiments I would need to “prepare” with a wide variety of media and resources, and then explore “preparing” vis-a-vis equipment needed in the same way, without friction.  This is where SGE can effectively come into play. SGE as the end product doesn’t entice me. I don’t think it fundamentally aligns with the core needs of the users with regard to where content (as a commodity) is heading. What it does provide is a nice starting point accented by more entry points.  SGE, as a facilitator, is extremely interesting to me. What I think SGE can do very well is present the user with a quick, contextual look at the topic and then facilitate the portal-like exploration I’m staunchly advocating for.  If I search for [I’ve hiked Mt. Adams, and now want to hike Mt. Fuji next fall, what should I do differently to prepare?], SGE could provide some basic content about the various types of hiking each mountain requires, etc., and then present cards that would enable me to explore various facets, such as the numerous ways to prepare for the hike.  In fact, when you look at SGE’s initial phase, we can see the early signs of this. Initially, SGE had a secondary section that broke down the initial summary into its smaller parts, thereby parsing the overall topic with accentual link-cards.  An early preview of SGE from Google I/O 2023. As SGE has evolved, you essentially have the same result via the link attribution format that allows for the revealing URL cards within specific sections of the generated copy.  This acts like a very lightweight entry point to the various subsets of topics covered within SGE’s synopsis. While this is a long way away from being an actual portal that allows for genuine exploration, it has potential. More so, it points to what I think is the proper way to leverage SGE on the SERP.  Where I think you really see this concept shine through is in Google Gemini. In a demo , Google shows that it: A) Creates custom layouts tailored to best fit the results so that they align with the query’s intent B) Allows for users to ask follow-up questions related to a specific piece of information provided within the initial response Both of these characteristics align with the notion I am proposing. A result layout customized to fit the intent of the user is entirely about putting topical exploration at the forefront of the overall experience. Being able to follow up on information (parenthetically, this is another positive of SGE in general) is again, facilitating a tailored exploration experience. The net result is more user engagement as well as less content apprehension (read: skepticism). There’s no doubt in my mind that Gemini will be an ever-increasing factor on the SERP  and it has real potential to engage with users and web content and not to simply “replace” it.  The bottom line is : a generative AI experience has a place on the SERP and (should it facilitate parsing topics and user exploration) it has the potential to tackle some of the more substantial latent user concerns. The human touch and its role in content Existential and psychological factors play a far greater role in content consumption than we typically give credit for. Imagine I wrote a piece of content and by some great cosmic coincidence, AI wrote the same exact piece of content. Now imagine I told you that you had to choose which one to read. Would you choose the piece written by AI or the one I wrote?  I’ve asked this question to a dozen people over the past few weeks and, every time, the answer is that they would read my version of the content. I don’t think these people were trying to placate me. I think they were alluding to fundamental reality—we want to feel a human connection. So, yes, if you read the AI version of the content in this wild scenario, you would not miss anything in terms of content, but you would not feel any connection to the source of the information.  There is an underlying and quite legitimate need to touch the source of the information we consume. It is fundamentally why we care to know if something was or wasn’t written by AI. We don’t care so much because of the quality but because of the connectivity. Does the content have a source that I can see? That I can somehow connect with even in a very sublime way?  This very basic but powerful human need is at the core of the content trends I’ve discussed here. It’s also why there is (in my mind) no chance that AI-written content will pervasively replace human-generated content . In a way, the improper use of AI to write content undermines this need.  The future of web content isn’t some new direction or technology. It’s quite old, if not as old as time itself. The future of web content, now more than ever, is in its ability to bring parties into contact and connection with each other. Mordy Oberstein - Head of SEO Branding, Wix   Mordy is the Head of SEO Branding at Wix. Concurrently he also serves as a communications advisor for Semrush. Dedicated to SEO education, Mordy is one of the organizers of SEOchat and a popular industry author and speaker. Twitter  | Linkedin

Author: Joshua George Selling products online starts with getting those products in front of your potential customers. If you want to use Google to do that, then you need to ensure that your products and content are discoverable. This is where technical SEO comes in. By pairing your critical thinking with the best practices I’ll explain in this guide, you can maximize the odds of getting your products to show on Google as well as improve user experience by speeding up load times and prioritizing usability.  Let’s learn how to approach technical SEO for eCommerce websites for better rankings and even better revenue. Table of contents: Why online stores need technical SEO Technical SEO for online stores: Get started step-by-step Establish a baseline by benchmarking your shop’s SEO performance Conduct a comprehensive SEO audit Secure your site for customers Optimize website architecture and URL structures Ensure important pages are crawled and indexed Identify and address 4xx pages Identify and assess 3xx pages Manage and canonicalize duplicate content Implement breadcrumb navigation Speed up site pages Compress images Set up a responsive, mobile-friendly design for your store Add structured data markup Why online stores need technical SEO Technical SEO helps ensure that search engines can crawl and index  your online shop’s web pages by optimizing your site’s: User experience (load times, functionality, etc.) Security Architecture Structured data Etc. When properly optimized (as I’ll show you in the following sections), these elements tell search engines about the relationship between your pages while encouraging users to peruse your offerings and, ideally, make a purchase. While technical SEO will never be more important than relevance for Google (or for your audiences), the search engine has said that your page experience (which depends on your technical SEO) can be a tie-breaker , making it potentially even more important for store owners in highly competitive sectors. Technical SEO for online stores: Get started step-by-step Now that you know why technical SEO is a foundation for pretty much every successful eCommerce site, let’s delve into specific practices that can help search engines find your site pages faster and more efficiently: Establish a baseline by benchmarking your shop’s SEO performance Conduct a comprehensive SEO audit Secure your site for customers Optimize website architecture and URL structures Ensure important pages are crawled and indexed Identify and address 4xx pages Identify and assess 3xx pages Manage and canonicalize duplicate content Implement breadcrumb navigation Speed up site pages Compress images Set up a responsive, mobile-friendly design for your store Add structured data markup 01. Establish a baseline by benchmarking your shop’s SEO performance To better understand the current state of your online shop’s SEO, you must establish metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor. These can include: Organic traffic  — The number of visitors coming to your site from unpaid search engine results. Keyword rankings  — The positions your website holds in search engine results pages for targeted keywords. Clicks  —   The number of users who click on your site’s listings in search engine results pages ( SERPs ). Impressions — The number of times your pages appear in SERPs. Bounce rate — The percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page. This data can also give you clues to identify potential issues hindering your site’s organic visibility. For example, if you’ve properly mapped your keywords  to your store pages, then Google Search Console  (GSC) not only tells you about how pages perform for those keywords, but it can also tell you about duplicate content, redirect errors, and other issues that impact your SEO. To get started, use a rank tracking  tool to monitor the keywords you’re optimizing for (you need to do this for your own domain but it can also be enlightening to track your competitors keyword rankings as well). A third-party tool like SE Ranking  can help you get the job done—just enter the keywords you want to track to receive daily updates on your pages’ ranking positions. If you connect SE Ranking with your GSC account, you can add the search terms you’re getting impressions from on Google Search as well. If you want data directly from Google Search (and for free), use GSC to check out which queries Google shows your site pages for and their average positions. Unlike third-party rank tracking tools, this tool shows you your site’s organic traffic or its pages based on the queries they’re ranking for. In GSC, select Performance > Search results  from the left-hand navigation menu to see your eCommerce site’s traffic overview. You can see your site’s traffic trend over time (as far as 16 months ago) and assess whether your SEO efforts have improved its traffic. Scroll down to see the Queries tab, which shows a table with the number of users who see your pages for particular keywords (impressions) and how many are clicking on them (clicks). If you want to analyze page-level traffic, select the Pages tab, choose the desired page from the table (you can even sort by clicks or impressions), and then click the Queries tab to see the keywords that specific page ranks for (and receives traffic from). The data from these tools help you evaluate your store’s SEO to see whether your strategies and tactics are ultimately helping out your revenue. It allows you to see patterns and trends in your site’s performance in search results, which can uncover potential issues to resolve before diving further into technical SEO improvements or as a way of identifying them in the future. 02. Conduct a comprehensive SEO audit Once you finish your initial SEO analysis, conduct a technical SEO audit of your store. This allows you to look deeper into the problems holding back your site from ranking higher.  Instead of scrutinizing keyword optimization and content quality, an SEO audit  focuses on factors that affect the crawlability and indexability of your eCommerce website.  In other words, a poorly constructed website makes finding its pages more difficult for search engines. As a result, they may not show up on SERPs for their respective keywords. If this is your first time conducting this type of analysis, I recommend Ahrefs Webmaster Tools  (sign up for free). The only requirement is that you need to connect your GSC account to verify site ownership. After verifying with your GSC account, you can run the SEO audit (which could take hours depending on the size of your site). If you have a lot of URLs and files, expect the audit to take longer. Once the tool is done auditing your site, you will get a ‘Health Score’—the higher the score, the more technically sound your site is. To help you make sense of the score, the results also show you the issues your site suffers from and recommendations to address these problems. In addition to a tool-based SEO audit, it’s also a good idea to: Use the inurl:-https Google search operator to find URLs indexed by the search engine without an SSL certificate . This issue (called ‘mixed content’), happens primarily due to faulty site migrations . Check for site pages written for a specific year using the intitle:[PreviousYear] search operator. This lets you find pages you need to update and optimize for the current year. Add (or remove) a trailing slash to a page URL (e.g., https://example.com/fish to https://example.com/fish/) and see what happens. Some sites would redirect to the previous URL, while others would show a different page altogether (or point to a 404 page). If the latter happens, it’s best to investigate further why this is happening. Browse the site for an hour and explore its pages and features (like an actual visitor would). This will help you spot issues that no other tool can ever find, like usability, lackluster CTAs, and more. Moving forward, you can use the information from your audit to determine factors affecting your site’s technical SEO, which I will further discuss below. 03. Secure your site for customers For online stores, strengthening website security is a top priority  because it protects both your customers and your business. From an SEO standpoint, making your site as safe and well-protected as possible can help increase search rankings . More importantly, website security allows you to gain trust with potential customers, paving the way for them to purchase on your site without putting their personal information at risk. The best and easiest way to secure your eCommerce site is to install a SSL certificate on your domain to enable HTTPS. This encrypts almost all the information between the client or visitor and the site, preventing unauthorized access and ensuring confidentiality.  This means that every time visitors enter their credit card information, an HTTPS site obfuscates the details they entered so hackers won’t be able to see them and steal the information. HTTPS is automatically enabled on your site when using Wix as your eCommerce platform, among other security measures . 04. Optimize website architecture and URL structures When structuring your eCommerce site, aim to make the site as flat as possible. This means all your site pages should take three or fewer clicks to access from the homepage. By making your click depth as shallow as possible (which is a good thing), you not only make the pages more accessible to visitors and help them find what they’re looking for, but you also help search engines crawl and index these pages much more easily. Some online shops ignore the value click depth brings to their SEO. Not linking their pages closer to the homepage forces search engines to work harder to dig deeper into your site and find the pages. And because search engine bots have a limit on crawling your site (AKA ‘crawl budget’), this greatly reduces the chances that they’ll show your pages properly in search results (if at all). Crawling and indexing becomes even more difficult for search engines if you have orphan pages (i.e., pages with no internal links  pointing to them). Since Google relies on links and your sitemap to discover your pages, if your page has no links pointing to it (and isn’t included in your sitemap), then it probably won’t show up in search results. Avoid these issues by planning your website architecture before building your site pages (if your site is already live, then you can plan this out for your next website overhaul). Plot out how the pages will not only link from the homepage but to each other as well. Ensure all pages have at least one link each to eliminate orphan pages. Building content silos, which are groups of related pages interlinked with one another, is a good approach to site structure. Each silo has a pillar page (or a product page, in the case of eCommerce sites) and supporting articles that link to the page. There are many ways you can interlink these pages with each other to form a silo; Kyle Roof’s approach is one of the better ones, especially if you also have a comprehensive article that works as a pillar page. You can even combine related silos with product and article pages as pillar pages, like in the diagram below. Source: Kyle Roof. Building silos this way helps you inform search engines of the relationship among the pages on your site. By grouping related pages closely together, Google can better assess your authority on the topic, potentially helping your content and products  on the SERPs. 05. Ensure important pages are crawled and indexed Even if you optimize your site architecture, search engines won’t show your pages in search results if you inadvertently set them to noindex . You can refer to Google Search Console to double-check unindexed pages on your site. In the left-hand menu, go to Indexing > Pages to see the pages that have been indexed and deindexed over time. The report also shares reasons why some pages aren’t indexed so you can make the necessary changes. For pages that are crawled and currently not indexed, you can try submitting requests to index the page (as shown below).  If you want a non-indexed page to be indexed, inspect your URL on Google Search Console and request it for indexing. If important pages aren’t getting crawled, check your robots.txt file  to ensure that you haven’t disallowed search engines from crawling those pages. You can also facilitate crawlability by setting up a sitemap  that includes these pages. Search engines use sitemaps to identify the pages on your site that are available to crawl. After configuring your sitemap, submit its URL to your Google Search Console (go to Indexing > Sitemap). 06. Identify and address 4xx pages 4xx status codes  refer to pages that can’t be found. When visitors land on these pages (perhaps via a mistyped URL within an internal link ), they encounter an error page instead of the page they were looking for, disrupting their user experience. If left unaddressed, 4xx pages can leave a bad impression on your users and may cause them to abandon your website. For the same reason, this may cause your site to drop in search rankings as well. To check for 404 status codes in GSC, go to the Page Indexing report (Pages > Indexing) and select “Not found (404)” or “Soft 404” in the table beneath the chart. If your site has pages with 404 status codes, either recover the page and restore them to their 200 response code state or redirect their URLs to a relevant page. Other 4xx status codes, like Unauthorized (401) and Forbidden (403), may appear properly to users but be difficult to crawl for search engines. In this case, you need to find the right solutions for each issue, including clearing your browser cache, modifying your file permissions, and restoring your .htaccess file. 07. Identify and assess 3xx pages In the section above, I mentioned redirecting non-existent URLs to relevant ones on your site to fix 4xx errors. However, redirection (or 3xx status codes) may also pose issues for your online shop. Not all are necessarily problems, but they can become problems if you don’t address the potential issues they could be causing. For instance, you redirect a URL on your site that no longer exists to a different page, but some of your pages still link to the non-existent page. While the link automatically redirects users to the new page, loading this page takes longer due to the redirection rule. Ideally, instead of keeping the old links in place, you would update them by linking directly to the new page instead. If you’re using Ahrefs’ Webmaster Tools to audit, then the Audit Report should reveal these issues under the Redirects section (as shown below). You can also go to the Page Indexing report in GSC and review the “Page with redirect” section. You need to analyze the pages individually to see whether you need to take action.  Here’s a scenario: You unknowingly used a 302 redirect instead of a 301 redirect . The former (302) indicates that the redirect rule is temporary, meaning the original page retains its link equity and search engine rankings. The latter (301) is when you want to permanently transfer the authority of the redirected page to the new one. In this case, you want to change the 302 redirect to a 301 if you removed the old URL or it no longer exists. This enables you to help search engines show the correct page on SERPs. 08. Manage and canonicalize duplicate content Duplicate content  refers to when two or more pages on your site contain the same content. This can happen when you copy the same generic product descriptions provided by the product manufacturer and have different URLs for variations (size and color) but have the same content across all those variants’ URLs. As powerful as search engines are, they only provide limited resources for crawling your site (i.e., ‘crawl budget’). In this case, duplicate content becomes an SEO issue by allowing search engines to crawl multiple versions of the same URL. This can cause your site to exceed its crawl budget, preventing search engines from indexing all the pages you want people to find in organic search. To optimize your crawl budget, review duplicate content issues in your site audit report. This typically shows you pages with the same text, title, meta description , and header tags . Ahrefs Webmaster Tools shows duplicate content distribution across your site, from title tags to page content. This technical SEO issue can result from keyword cannibalization . It’s possible you ran an ad campaign for a page with URL parameters (to track its performance) only for Google to index these URLs as unique. You can fix this by establishing the rel=”canonical”  version of the page. When enabled, search engines are directed to ignore the URL variations with parameters and only index the page with the canonical tag. 09. Implement breadcrumb navigation Breadcrumbs are links (generally on top of the page, just below the header) showing your site’s page hierarchy. They help search engines (and users) understand the site’s structure and allow them to crawl the pages on these navigational links easily. For Wix store owners, setting up breadcrumbs on your eCommerce site  is easy. You only need to enable the Dev Mode  to add breadcrumbs from the Menu & Anchor  elements. 10. Speed up site pages Website speed is a ranking factor because it can affect visitors’ user experience. The longer your site pages take to load, the greater the chances visitors will leave your site and seek out alternatives instead.  To avoid this, choose a lightweight theme or design for your website. After deciding on a theme (or if your site is already live), run your site on Google PageSpeed Insights  to see how fast and efficiently your site loads. Run your URL on Google PageSpeed Insights to learn how fast and efficiently your site loads. PageSpeed Insights shows your site’s overall score across various factors as well as ways to improve the score under the Diagnostics section. Triage these issues and take them to your dev team to see how they can help. Bear in mind that you may need to secure buy-in from additional stakeholders to get your technical SEO recommendations implemented . 11. Compress images Image file sizes are another factor that affects site speed. This is crucial for eCommerce sites due to the volume of high-quality images used for product pages. If your website’s CMS doesn’t automatically optimize your image file sizes ( Wix does ), then you’ll need to use bulk image compression software to reach a middle ground between image quality and user experience. 12. Set up a responsive, mobile-friendly design for your store Google uses mobile-first indexing , in which the search engine prioritizes your site’s mobile version for the purposes of indexing and ranking. If your site still uses an outdated, unresponsive design that doesn’t adapt to the visitor’s screen size, don’t expect your site to appear at the top of SERPs (or even rank at all, for that matter). For Wix store owners, mobile-friendly versions of your site are created from your desktop site.  13. Add structured data markup To help increase your click-through rates, provide search engines with more context about your page via schema markup. This provides structured data  that communicates what your page is about.  More importantly, search engines can show the structured data as rich snippets  in search results (as shown below). Check your site audit report for structured data issues. Auditing tools will identify pages with schema.org   validation errors . View the issue for each affected page so you know what pages search engines have problems reading your schema markup on. Wix Store pages come with pre-formatted structured data, but if you don’t have structured data on your pages, you can create markup using the Schema Markup Generator by   TechnicalSEO.com. Choose the markup you wish to create and fill in the blanks with the page information. After you generate the code, implement it on your web page  and repeat the process for all relevant pages. Once you’ve done this on all your eCommerce site pages, run another SEO audit report to see if there are issues with the newly created markup or if the codes you tried fixing still have ideas. Combine technical SEO, content, and backlinks for superior eCommerce SEO Remember, just because search engines can easily find your online store doesn’t automatically mean your pages will appear at the top of Google Search. Technical SEO is just one extension of your SEO strategy. You also need to cover your store’s on-page SEO  by optimizing for the appropriate keywords that give you the best chances of getting in front of potential customers. And, you may even want to launch an off-page SEO campaign for building backlinks  on authoritative sites, which might involve outreach campaigns or taking on an agency partner. By ensuring that your SEO strategy is firing on all cylinders, starting with technical SEO, your eCommerce website is well on the way to generating the traffic it deserves! Joshua George - Founder of ClickSlice   Joshua is the founder of ClickSlice , a results driven SEO agency in London. He has almost a decade of experience as an SEO consultant and has provided SEO training for the British government. Twitter  | Linkedin

Author: Adriana Stein When OpenAI launched ChatGTP in November 2022, it unleashed an AI tidal wave. It’s been all over the news—for better or worse. It’s flooded my LinkedIn feed to the point where I’ve honestly had to take a break. Everywhere you turn, AI seems to be gaining popularity. This makes it inevitable that AI will eventually make an even bigger splash in eCommerce marketing tools, content creation, and especially SEO. So, regardless of whether you’re for or against AI, it’s here to stay because of one crucial element: Perceived efficiency. Why? Many people perceive AI as improving the efficiency of tasks that humans currently perform manually (whether that’s actually true still remains to be seen). Ironically, AI isn’t all that new. Ever wondered how Facebook seems to read your thoughts? Or maybe you use a voice powered assistant like Alexa at home? These are powered by AI and we’ve long used them to make certain tasks and processes more efficient. Because AI involves processing how humans communicate in order to create more natural speech patterns and AI-human interactions, the wide array of use cases is hard to ignore. All of these factors have tremendous implications for eCommerce businesses and their marketing and SEO strategies. This leaves us with some important questions: Just because we can use AI, does it mean we should? Is AI as efficient as some people claim? Can we truly use AI to complement our eCommerce marketing efforts or will we begin to rely on it to the point where there’s no human creativity and everything sounds the same? Here, I’ll explore both sides of the argument and consider what that might mean for the future of eCommerce marketing and SEO. Table of contents: How AI has already changed eCommerce AI for eCommerce: Competition or collaboration? Accuracy issues are still common in AI-generated content The technical basics: Differentiating AI vs. Human writing Algorithmically detecting AI content Google doesn’t care whether you use human or AI writers How to create unique, human-centric eCommerce content using AI Examples of various eCommerce content generated by ChatGTP Product description Blog article Instagram post Facebook ad Landing page Nurturing email eCommerce SEOs can use AI to enhance—not replace—their work The past is prologue: How AI has already changed eCommerce One of the best frame of references to think about how AI can be used in eCommerce in the future is to examine the ways in which it’s already being used. Some of the most popular uses of AI in eCommerce today include: Fraud prevention: AI can analyze transactions and uncover suspicious behavior. This is extremely difficult for people to do in real time, especially as businesses grow in size. Product recommendations: AI can start to recognize patterns in shopping behavior based on demographics, which could help with more targeted product recommendations over time. It’s also able to recognize IP addresses in order to create a more personalized experience based on previous purchases and browsing history. Dynamic pricing: AI can analyze market trends and look at competitors to give you a better understanding of the current price point for your products and services. Virtual shopping assistants: AI-powered chatbots have been around for a while but they’re getting increasingly more intelligent/responsive. Teaching AI how to interact with customers can create a stronger user experience. This allows for 24/7 responses to consumers around the world. With all of these existing applications, are SEOs’ new found fear of AI truly unprecedented? Jumping into the unknown always seems a little scary, but AI has already proven to be pretty helpful. So, how do we as eCommerce marketers and SEO strategists move forward? From my perspective, it’s all about how AI is used. AI for eCommerce: Competition or collaboration? Widespread use of AI is just beginning to break into the world of eCommerce content creation and SEO. Although there are already several different AI tools available that can help with content creation, they haven’t been discussed to anywhere near the level of ChatGTP. ChatGTP is said to have revolutionized AI technology . It’s being used for everything from business plans and press releases, to content creation and eCommerce marketing strategies. So, how will this change the playing field moving forward? In the past, content has been primarily written entirely by human content writers and marketing specialists . Now, with the introduction of various AI platforms gaining popularity in 2023 , people are wondering whether AI-generated content is going to take over and replace content writers altogether. Accuracy issues are still common in AI-generated content However, there are some major concerns about the factual accuracy of some of these tools. Since AI generates information that’s taken from a wide variety of sources, it’s difficult to confirm their reliability. The sources they pull information from may not have been fact-checked, causing the AI to put out content that is questionable to say the least. In fact, ChatGPT even warns users about the risk of misinformation when you first create an account: With that being said, AI doesn’t seem like it’s anywhere near ready to take over the role of human writers. We still need to make sure that things are accurate, reliable, and unique in order for content to carry any weight online. The technical basics: Differentiating AI vs. Human writing To ensure that eCommerce content and SEO strategies are held at a high standard—and to reduce the chance of penalties/issues based on AI-driven SERP manipulation —it’s helpful to understand how search engines perceive and detect AI. Google and other major search engines want to make sure that SERPs are filled with valuable websites, not spammy content. Google has long striven to incorporate ways to remove low-quality spam content and AI is no exception . So, how would Google do that? Natural language processing (NLP) was created to understand and mimic human writing, but it can lack human-level originality. This is problematic for the SEO world because without differentiation , AI-generated content would quickly fill up the SERPs with repetitive, generic pages that might not even help users find what they’re looking for. Algorithmically detecting AI content Several tools have been created to check whether content was created by AI. These tools are based on an understanding of how language modeling works and one of the most effective ones is the Giant Language model Test Room ( GLTR ), created by MIT-IBM Watson AI lab and Harvard NLP. GLTR analyzed the machine-generated demo text below based on word variety and placement. Green highlights indicate the most frequently used terms, while purple indicates less frequently used terms. GLTR defines this text as machine-generated because the words lack variety and are too predictable. You can see another demo of a human-written excerpt here. Notice that the text contains more purple words, indicating that there is a higher level of word variety. Comparing these two analyses, the differences are slight and nearly indiscernible for the human reader. Although GLTR has access to the GTP-2 language model and ChatGTP has now progressed to GTP-4 , the foundations for AI detection are likely to remain similar. Google doesn’t care whether you use human or AI writers Currently, Google is not against AI-generated content, nor does it technically violate guidelines. As long as AI content isn’t used for spam or to manipulate rankings and provides quality, helpful information , Google seems largely on board with it. Google’s guidance emphasizes originality, quality, and E-E-A-T, regardless of whether humans or AI generated the content. Despite the rosy approach from Google, this comes with major implications for eCommerce SEO and content generation: Relying solely on AI-generated outputs is highly likely to get redundant. And the more businesses do that over time, the harder it will be for audiences to differentiate brands—which is incredibly harmful when it comes to providing a good customer experience. The bottom line is that it’s incredibly important to manually review all AI-generated content and improve its uniqueness. How to create unique, human-centric eCommerce content using AI I strongly believe AI will become a typical part of the eCommerce marketing tech stack, whether we want it to be or not. So, the most productive way eCommerce marketers can respond to these changes is to learn to harness its power for your advantage. Here are my top suggestions for doing that: 01. Be as specific as possible with your prompt: Providing generic questions or requests will lead to generic outputs. Instead, include within your prompt: The marketing channel the content will be written for Word count Target audience Messaging Intent You should also consider building an outline first (which could also be done with AI), then entering the outline in subsequent prompts to ensure the generated content is consistent. This is one of the areas where input from human strategists is still heavily required . 02. Adapt AI outputs for the specific channel, best practices, purchase intent level, and general readability: A lot of the content that’s spun from AI is redundant and reads at a very low level. This is another area where input from human strategists needs to be prioritized. AI doesn’t differentiate well between an eCommerce product description, blog article, and landing page. That’s where you (as the strategist) need to ensure content is structured for success. 03. Don’t copy and paste exactly what the AI generates: Doing so will defeat the whole purpose of your content creation, as you’ll start sounding exactly like everyone else. Not to mention the content could include misinformation and incorrect product data. 04. Meticulously fact-check everything the AI generates: While this might seem like an obvious step, there are some sites that have used AI to write articles without any fact checking involved. They then published said articles as is, without seemingly reading them first, leading to PR nightmares like The Washington Post’s article about CNET entitled “ A news site used AI to write articles. It was a journalistic disaster .” If you want customers to buy from you, they need to trust your reliability, so don’t be the brand spreading misinformation—take the time to thoroughly fact check. 05. Add the human element through real-life experience and real-world examples: Center your content around a technical subject matter expert, real customers, quotes, relevant product information based on how someone actually uses it, and factual sources that can help your target audience better understand how a product or service can address their pain points. ToFu -style generic content has come to an end—that, AI can certainly already produce. eCommerce marketers and SEOs now need to up their game with content personalization. Mordy Oberstein, head of SEO branding at Wix sums it up perfectly: Examples of eCommerce content generated by ChatGTP To give you a better understanding of how you can utilize eCommerce content generated by AI, I’ll use some examples based on the company Glowforge . I’ve chosen a rather technical eCommerce product with a unique target audience to test ChatGTP in a real and complex scenario. Glowforge is a company that sells 3D laser printers that allow users to create various items at the push of a button. It can score, engrave, and cut different materials, allowing for a variety of potential applications. Notably, its target audience is stay-at-home moms in the US who are looking for creative ways to grow their own business and work from home. Product description AI contains the fundamentals necessary to generate eCommerce product descriptions , though the outputs are rather basic and need to be edited by an SEO Strategist. In order to use AI for writing product descriptions, you just need to enter a prompt that directs the AI on what to do. It seems like some descriptions might be better curated with the use of an outline prompt, but in the example below, I used the following prompt: Write a 300 word production description for the keyword “3D Laser Printer” to target moms who want to build at home businesses by making custom items with a 3D Laser Printer An experienced eCommerce marketer would see that this is a terrible product description because it lacks the majority of elements eCommerce SEO product descriptions need, including keyword optimization in headings, ease of readability through the proper content structure, and generally vague messaging in relation to the brand. So, herein lies the importance of my above advice: Provide a detailed prompt that’s more suitable for the channel Consider creating an outline first, editing that, then using that as a new prompt for the full product description Edit the full product description for SEO and content optimization best practices The big lesson here: Effectively using AI for eCommerce SEO is not a simple copy/paste job. You still need to know how SEO functions and how to use prompts to generate useful outputs for specific content types. SEO-focused blog article You can also enter a prompt for AI to generate an entire SEO-focused blog or article. In the example below, I used the following as a prompt (with a bit more detail than the product description example above). Write a 1000 word blog article targeting the keyword “how to use laser engraving machine” with “how to” information to target moms who want to build at home businesses by making custom items with a 3D Laser Printer. The post should focus on the story of other similar customers who used the product and had success gaining financial independence and building a business around their passion. Click to expand. This blog article output is better because I told it to focus on “how-to” content (the intent here is informational because the reader is trying to learn and not yet ready to buy). Nevertheless, it could be better with some help from a human SEO strategist: Create an outline prompt first, then generate a full draft based on that for a stronger output The big text blocks are way too formulaic to be human-written, are difficult to read, and need to be broken up (these are clear indicators of AI-generated content) Typical content optimization best practices need to be applied There are no real customer stories, so it massively lacks personalization Internal links to conversion landing pages and external links for citations need to be added Well, AI still has a long way to go before it replaces human SEOs! Organic Instagram post I also wanted to test AI’s capability for non-SEO eCommerce content. Here, I entered the following prompt into ChatGPT: Write an organic instagram post with “how to” information that targets moms who want to build at-home businesses by making custom items with a 3D Laser Printer. The post should focus on the story of Lisa, who recently did the same. This is definitely the strongest output so far; however, it still needs a human review to: Add the actual steps Lisa took, including what product she bought, what she created with it, and how she sold it. It’s completely lacking concrete detail. Edit the formatting for Instagram. More good news for eCommerce content marketers, AI can get close but no cigar! Facebook ad Let’s now test AI with a Facebook ad. I used the following prompt: Write a Facebook ad creating curiosity around moms and how they can stop their unfulfilling full-time job and build the at-home business of their dreams by making custom items with a 3D Laser Printer. The ad should focus on the story of Lisa, who recently did the same. Although this was actually the most passable content AI generated so far, it can still be better. I would improve this by: Telling the story directly using Lisa’s words rather than just including one quote. Again, there just needs to be more concrete detail about Lisa’s story. Adjust format slightly for readability and Facebook standards so there's only one sentence per line. What I can tell at this point is that AI is better at short-form content rather than long-form content. So depending on how well AI outputs work for your products, there may be other ways to integrate AI than with a full SEO blog article. Landing page Let’s now assess how AI does with a conversion landing page. This was my prompt: Write a 500-word conversion landing page selling the “3D Laser Printer” to target moms who want to build at-home businesses by making custom items with a 3D Laser Printer. The post should focus on the story of Lisa, who recently did the same. As you can see, this one fell entirely short. However, I think that’s likely because the prompt was a little vague. And it’s clear that ChatGTP doesn’t understand what a conversion landing page is. This needs a heavy hand from a marketing strategist to improve elements like: Using conversion copy headlines Generally adjusting all of the content structure for conversion landing page best practices Placing relevant CTAs throughout the text This is a content type that needs some true testing to determine whether it’s actually efficient to use AI (as opposed to just building your own page outline and working with a knowledgeable conversion copywriter). From this low-quality example, I’d suggest sticking with a copywriter. Nurturing email Lastly, let’s give an eCommerce product nurturing email a try. I used the following prompt: Write a 200-word nurturing email selling the “3D Laser Printer” to target moms who want to build at-home businesses by making custom items with a 3D Laser Printer. The “heart” of good nurturing conversion copy is certainly absent here. An experienced eCommerce content strategist still needs to improve on this copy by: Removing the P.S. portion (or any other repetitive parts), as they seem out of place and too salesly Adjusting the formatting for email by breaking up text blocks, adding CTAs, and links. Adding real customer stories and personalization The trend I’ve seen across all these outputs is the lack of structure and personalization. AI is nowhere near ready to generate any kind of content at ready-to-publish levels. Even with AI, you still have your work cut out for you. eCommerce SEOs can use AI to enhance—not replace—their work The best way to use AI is to enhance, rather than replace. Think of AI-generated content as a rough, rough draft. Instead of copy/paste, make strategic enhancements to structure and integrate real-world, user-first personalization . These elements are absolutely essential if you want to prevent your content from getting lost in the heap. AI professionals even say so themselves: Whether we use it or not, AI has already grown deep roots in eCommerce marketing. It seems to offer efficiency (or at least perceived efficiency from a business perspective), so we’re probably going to see a lot more of it in the future. This means that as an eCommerce SEO, it’s time to jump on the bandwagon and adapt, or be replaced by someone who has. Adriana Stein - CEO and Founder at AS Marketing Originally from the US and now living in Germany, Adriana Stein is the CEO and founder of the marketing agency AS Marketing . She leads a team of multi-language SEO experts who develop holistic international marketing strategies for global companies. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Veruska Anconitano Visitors from various countries may come to your website because they want to buy something, interact with your content, or avail of something you offer. The more intuitively they interact with your pages, the faster they see the benefits you offer and start trusting your brand. Naturally, your business will benefit from more leads and/or conversions, too. If they can see the content in their language, the experience will undoubtedly be more rewarding and fulfilling. For this reason, going international is a smart, prudent move for many companies (not necessarily for everyone, though). And through SEO, those businesses can boost reach, revenue, and brand awareness to gain a competitive advantage. Going international without a solid strategy in place may be a waste of resources or even detrimental to your brand. And, a solid global SEO strategy doesn’t only mean minding every technical detail and translating bits and bobs to start seeing an ROI. It takes effort and time to become a fully international company and ensure that your product and content can be consumed across multiple countries in multiple languages. In this article, I won't discuss international SEO strategies and “must-do’s” per se, but I will introduce you to the concept of cultural relevance in international SEO, which can be make-or-break for your visibility and your conversions. This includes: The importance of cultural identities and relevance in international SEO Cultural relevance in action for better international SEO Why cultural relevance is crucial for international SEO Why international SEO is more than keywords How to incorporate cultural awareness and relevance in your SEO strategy Before we dive in, here are a few statistics to put things into perspective: There are nearly 8 billion people in the world. There are 7,151 living languages . Of that, just 23 languages account for more than half the world’s population. English is spoken by 1.5 billion people worldwide if we count both native and non-native speakers in 67 countries (146 countries if we include the places where it's not an official language). Chinese is used by 1.3 billion people and is spoken in 38 countries. Approximately 548 million people speak Spanish in 21 countries. There are roughly 274 million French speakers in 29 countries. None of these countries speak the same exact version of English, French, Spanish, Chinese, or any other language. Interaction and search habits also vary by country. And so do expectations and needs. This is where cultural relevance comes into play. The importance of cultural identities in international SEO Cultural identity is the sense of belonging to a particular culture or group, and it’s based on various categories, including nationality, ethnicity, language, race, social behaviors, art, literature, cuisine, and much more. Cultural identity is formed through our interactions with others and is strongly connected to the social, cultural, and political contexts in which we live. To simplify: I was born in southern Italy, and like most Italians from the south, I grew up thinking that Sunday lunch was sacred. To this day, and despite where I live now and all the experiences that have brought me far from Italy, it immediately brings back memories when I see something related to a Sunday family lunch. Image: Mudita Consultancy As another example, take a look at the image above. When Pampers entered Japan in the seventies, it used the image of a stork delivering babies, not knowing that in Japan, babies are said to come from a giant peach floating down a river. Not being able to identify with the image, Japanese people completely overlooked Pampers. Cultural identities are shaped on a personal and a community level by constantly absorbing, interpreting, adapting, or even rejecting the beliefs, values, social behaviors, language, and norms of their communities. Cultural identity is a changing process because of different social, cultural, historical, and personal experiences, and every time it changes, it alters the way we perceive things around us. The reason behind this is simple: identifying with a particular culture provides people with a sense of belonging and security, and makes them feel somehow in control of their world. Image: Otakukart. Have you ever heard of ARMY (the BTS fans)? They created a specific cultural identity, something to belong to and share: they have their language and slang, their colors, their logos, and their own lingo. To win them over, companies have started to create products that appeal to this demographic and market existing products using references that strongly speak to this cultural identity. Image: Otakukart. Cultural identities play a big part in how people interact online at every stage of the sales and marketing funnel . These identities manifest in many different ways when we search online, including (but not limited to): Using singular vs. plural search terms Using infinitive vs. present tense (plural or singular) Searching for a specific type of content (e.g., reviews) or a generic head term Familiarity with a brand Searching for brand vs. non-brand content Searching for time-sensitive content or only for evergreen content Searching for images or text based on the context Using split and compound versions of nouns Cultural identities also manifest in how different people from different parts of the world engage and consume online content. Oversimplifying the matter: Germans may be known for being among the most demanding in assessing quality and value. They also research in-depth information and evaluate pricing, competitors, features, and reviews. French people trust the word of mouth and the referral system. Also, according to Salsify Consumer Research , 44% of consumers abandon their shopping cart if they cannot find relevant product information. Italians tend to prefer products and services that are “Made in Italy.” Sustainability and care for the environment influences 4 out of 10 Spanish consumers in at least 60% of their purchasing decisions, according to the Jealsa Consumption and Sustainability Observatory . Japanese people tend to prefer quality over mass consumption and are attracted to products imported from countries perceived as "specialized," such as Swiss watches and French wines. But, why should we be concerned about cultural identities in international SEO? When we go international and want to reach users organically, we must focus on targeting their interests, values, and expectations . If people belonging to a group of any kind are not convinced by what you sell and, most of all, how you sell it, they’re unlikely to click on your content, or if they do so, they may soon bounce. Cultural identities go hand in hand with cultural relevance, and both shape the way international SEO should be done (and, consequently, they influence your results as well). The importance of cultural relevance in international SEO Every online business’s goal should be to reach and engage with people in a way that is consistent with their cultural identities as well as the context and values of their communities. To simplify, this means making them feel at home. It starts with the theory of recall and recognition used in psychology (and widely accepted in UX ). Recognition is our ability to “recognize” a piece of information as familiar, while recall refers to retrieving details about specific events from our memory. For example, when we see someone we know on the street or at an event, we can recognize this person, but if we haven't seen them for a while, we may not recall their name. Image: Web Design Review. Think of your memory as a big container divided into compartments: Each compartment talks to the others to ensure that information is retrievable and accessible. For example, when we recognize a ladder, we are reminded of how to use it. The more we use a compartment, the more specific information surfaces quickly. The more a compartment is associated with a positive or negative feeling, the easier a piece of information will surface by association (have you ever heard of the Madeleine Effect ?). How easily information can be retrieved from our memory depends on how often we’ve interacted with that information, how recently we’ve used it, and how relevant it is to what we’re experiencing in real-time. This is as simple as it sounds: the more you listen to a song, the more you get used to it. The same is true for every experience, both in real life and online. The more you see a brand popping up everywhere, the more acquainted you get and the more prone you become to buying or interacting with the brand. This happens because recognition is more manageable than recall, and it doesn’t require a significant effort to retrieve information essential to complete an action: the more we see a brand, the more we recognize it, and the easier we can process the information we get from the brand if it aligns with our values or needs. Image: Aaker, "Brand Awareness," 63. In International SEO, we can call this principle “cultural relevance.” People want to engage with companies and businesses that feed them with elements they recognize and can easily associate with a feeling, an emotion, a memory, or simply the resolution (or the cause) of a problem. What users can quickly process and understand without too much effort is culturally relevant to them. And, they want to do it from the very first moment they search for something. As an example, try searching for “football” in the UK and “football” in the US and look at the differences : culturally speaking, football for British people is what soccer is for Americans, and on the flip side, football is just American football. Can you imagine how British users might respond if a page title used the term “football” with the American meaning for football in the British sense? Image: Business Insider. The goal of international SEO should be to offer users that speak a different language, adhere to different values, and use the web differently with an easy way to interact with a product or brand, making them feel included and, most of all, “seen.” That involves, for example: Market-based keyword research Correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation References to culturally recognizable elements Sensible use of images Appropriate use of sensitive terms (for example, avoiding terms that are considered discriminatory) Contextual use of slang, idioms, and cultural references Avoiding stereotypes and clichés Taking seasonality, celebrations, and anniversaries (and the customs associated with them) into consideration If you think cultural relevance and sensitivity have no influence over SEO, think twice: The SEO strategy you adopt is strongly connected to the overall business approach to internationalization . If a business wants to go international by simply translating elements into another language—without trying to achieve the so-called product-market fit —your SEO strategy will be affected (and potentially useless). Cultural relevance in SEO: A practical example Let’s say we need to optimize a travel booking search engine. One of the categories of the website is “villas.” The business wants to go international and optimize this category page in Italian, so keyword research and on-page optimization are required. In English, a villa is “a large and luxurious house” or “a country estate.” This is one type of villa: Image: Booking.com. If we opt for a 1:1 translation, we can easily use “villa” (and its plural, “ville”) in Italian since this term has the same meaning as the English one, and search volumes are pretty good. On top of this, some of our competitors are using it, and the market seems aware of this term. Here are the associated search volumes (data from Semrush): As you can see, the term villa has a relatively large search volume, but is it relevant for our audience? Things are never so easy when it comes to language: The first thing that comes to mind to Italians when hearing the word “villa” is probably a property surrounded by well-tended gardens and ample space. Hence, it is perceived as luxurious and culturally linked to an opulent way of living and traveling—at a certain point, that can be much more than a potential user is searching for in a vacation rental and could throw them off. “Villa” is also used to describe big, ancient mansions (like the palaces you can visit in the Veneto region , for example); hence the search intent for the term “villa” may simply be unclear and too broad for a category page. A native knows that “villa” in Italian can be at least four things: Villa (English: villa) Villino (English: cottage) Casa di campagna (English: country house) Casa vacanze (English: holiday home) Now, let’s analyze our fictional example website a bit more in-depth: The properties offered on our website range from luxurious to average to accommodate our audience’s needs. Furthermore, the target audience is far larger than just luxury travelers To perfectly capture this target audience and their needs in Italian, it would be better to target terms with smaller search volumes and higher CTRs (such as “villino” and “casa di campagna,” as shown below). Those are the terms that an Italian looking for a place to stay for a holiday would use during the discovery phase: At first glance, these four keywords (as you can see, plural and singular have different search volumes in Italian) have sensibly lower volumes compared with our initial keyword, “villa.” But, they correspond to higher-intent audiences and capture both the company’s offer and the market’s needs . On top of this, they are appropriate for the market we want to enter. By making this choice, SEO brings real value to the business, allowing it to consciously and effectively break into the market. The key takeaway is that before moving into proper research , we need to study our offerings, the market, and the cultural background of the country we’re looking to compete in if we’re to be successful with international SEO. In this case, any native would agree that the term “villa” only partially captures the spirit of the page, and by implementing adjacent and more relevant keywords, our business will appeal to the right users and their search intents, which should allow for more conversions. Prioritizing relevance over search volume is crucial for businesses seeking to grow internationally, and showing cultural sensitivity makes users feel included. Why cultural relevance is crucial in international SEO Cultural relevance and sensitivity are essential to succeed in the “ glocalization phase ” and beyond. When a website is optimized to include culturally relevant elements from the user’s first interaction to their last, it can help them decide whether to engage with the brand. Here are some of the user benefits of incorporating cultural relevance into your international SEO strategy: Being hyperlocal helps cross-cultural awareness and can improve your understanding of the user’s perspective on information and what’s important to them. This, in turn, improves user satisfaction, brand affinity, loyalty and overall conversions. It’s an opportunity to guide users through their journey. Since how individuals process information can differ according to culture, the more you’re able to meet users’ expectations along their journeys, the easier it will be for you to guide their decision-making process. It helps your business meet local users’ needs and potentially create more demand. Cultural relevance is also beneficial to your business. In fact: It can increase CTR. It can lower bounce rate. It gives you a competitive advantage when it comes to analyzing your users’ behaviors. It allows you to hone in on what users want, potentially opening up more business opportunities. Thanks to hyperlocal and relevant content, the brand can show customers (and prospects) they cater to their specific needs at every point of their journey. Amazon takes this seriously, developing content for specific countries. In Italy, for example, you can browse and buy products from the “Made in Italy” section ; in France, you can browse and buy “ Produits Fabriqués en France ” (Made in France). More interestingly, you can also buy Made in Italy products on Amazon Germany : search volumes, geographical proximity, and cultural relevance made this section the perfect candidate for cross-optimization. International SEO is more than keywords If we move from considering international SEO as a way to simply be visible in a given market and instead think of it as one of the main drivers of awareness and revenue, we can conclude that (when working in an international environment) keywords are just a part of something bigger. Images, buttons, colors, and the position of the elements on a page all play a big part in how a website will rank, how it will be seen by locals, and, of course, how it will convert. Once again, this seems utterly unrelated to SEO, doesn’t it? Well, once again, it is very relevant . Let’s say you brought some to your landing page with a captivating title and exciting topic. As soon as they enter the page, they leave. What benefits did SEO bring to the business? A million site visitors isn’t very valuable if none of them convert due to a lack of proper localization. We are facing a new era in search. Every element on a page is a potential conversion factor because today, more than ever, companies expanding internationally don't just compete against other companies, but also against the best experiences people have had with a similar product or service. Suppose a customer had an excellent experience with a website or a company. In that case, this experience will be stored in their unconscious mind and become the minimum expectation they want everywhere. In other words, companies need to create a long-lasting experience to win consumers over . It's like when we go to a Michelin star restaurant: the food is only a part of the adventure, and if the entire experience is as satisfying as the meal, the place will remain in our minds, and it could become our personal benchmark for all the other starred restaurants we visit. This may not be on your radar if you’re marketing in your home country, but it's strategically essential in international SEO. Users have different expectations across countries, and understanding customer priorities in a given market can help companies identify opportunities for differentiation and growth. How to incorporate cultural relevance in your SEO strategy We always assume that if a formula works for the primary market (or any market), it can (and should) be easily replicated in every other market. In international SEO, this is impossible because of the cultural implications we’ve reviewed so far. Instead, we can and should incorporate cultural relevance in our strategy by following a few rules. Do not translate keywords Translating keywords from source to target language is one of the greatest sins you can commit. This approach rarely works, not even for countries close to each other that potentially share some cultural values. Imagine your Australian website has a page about natural disasters that needs to be optimized for two international markets: the Philippines and Germany. If you decide to replicate the information on the source page for these two markets by translating the keywords from Australian English to Standard German and Tagalog, you will waste resources and an opportunity: natural disasters in the Philippines differ from those in Australia, and both differ from those in Germany. In addition, people have different sensitivity to catastrophes, and what can be seen as an extraordinary event in one country may not be seen as such in another. This means you may need to not only review your content but also its tone of voice. Localize instead of translating content As with keywords, content should never be translated word-for-word. Instead, it should be transcreated and localized to ensure that it fits local audiences’ needs and customs. For example, Austrians do not share Oktoberfest with Germans. They have their own celebration called the Wiener Wiesn. What use would a page about Oktoberfest translated from German be when the audience is likely looking for a specific page about the Wiener Wiesn and its traditions? During the research phase, you will end up with URLs that may not have a local equivalent in all languages, and this is 100% fine: if something doesn't make sense in a particular country, it shouldn't exist on that country’s version of the website. Optimize for conversions We tend to think that conversion rate optimization is something SEOs deal with only sporadically and only when it comes to CTAs . This couldn’t be more wrong in an international environment. The way potential customers interact with a company is shaped from the first interaction (usually via search engines), especially if the company is entering the market and needs to be visible. Hence, it is crucial for everyone engaging in international SEO to optimize their title tags and meta descriptions for optimal conversions. In the example above, the Skyscanner Spain team uses a clearly conversion-oriented key phrase, best offers ( mejores ofertas ), to attract people looking to book a flight. In doing so, they also invite users to do something actively (“encuentra,” Spanish for “find”) rather than serving them with pre-selected choices. Cultural relevance pairs perfectly with conversions: The more local you go, the better it is. If your tone of voice allows it, you can also use slang, conversational words, acronyms, and trendy elements that your target group will easily recognize and potentially identify with. Use data to assess the situation No need to be a data scientist or a Python master to take advantage of the data. Grab some information from Google Analytics and Search Console and start shaping your next move. CTR and bounce rate are two of the most critical indicators for international SEO: if a user lands on a page and immediately leaves, it means something is wrong. If you get traffic but no conversions, it means something is wrong. During your analysis, you may discover that it’s not a problem you can solve from an SEO standpoint, and you will have to pass the ball to other teams. But before doing so, make sure you sit down and consider everything that is within your control. If it’s not a technical SEO issue, it may be happening because of cultural irrelevance: a Finnish user doesn’t need the same information as a Portuguese user, and a Portuguese user doesn’t need the same information as a Spaniard, and so on. If information is irrelevant, the data will reflect that and help you make informed decisions. Optimize per country, not per language When we optimize per language, we start from the assumption that since a language is spoken in multiple places, our content would be digested the same way in all those places. The truth is that not only can the language slightly vary, but users’ needs will also vary from country to country, and content in one language won’t be enough to address all the users you want to reach. This is a common issue when it comes to Spanish-speaking countries . Using one variant of Spanish to address all users in Spain and Latin America is one of the biggest mistakes a company looking to go international can make. Every language reflects a society’s cultural, political, and economic elements ; on top of this, the marketing and users’ needs differ based on their location, even if they all speak Spanish. Imagine feeding Spanish users with content written in Mexican Spanish: they can understand more or less everything, but there will always be a reluctance in moving from stage one (interaction) to the final stage (conversion). And, many of them won’t even start a conversation with your business if your page title shows in Mexican Spanish on Google.es. Avoid publishing irrelevant content and pages You may be tempted to translate everything from source to target to capitalize on the resources spent to create the articles in the first place. If the content you’re about to localize doesn’t resonate with the audience of your local website, you may severely hurt your local website by filling it up with irrelevant and useless content. In this scenario, we’re referring to content that a local user won’t ever see or search for and can be easily considered low-quality content: this type of content will waste crawling time and resources, add noise, and send search engines the wrong signal. You can hide content by unlinking it from the language switcher, like Hubspot . Don’t overlook low-volume keywords In international SEO, keywords with the highest search volumes don’t always work within the context of your content. A targeted, local keyword may have a significantly lower search volume but can perform better, be more appropriate given the context, and work well to attract local, high-intent users. Use a translation management system, not Google Translate Machine translation is not necessarily the culprit when it comes to many international websites’ problems. By leveraging AI, machine translation can actually simplify the job of local translators and writers. Implement a translation management system (TMS) to streamline the SEO localization process and ensure that native speakers revise every piece of content for context. Smartling and Phrase are two popular platforms that can be integrated to manage international content. Create an SEO glossary matching volumes, search intent, and cultural relevancy into your TMS so that every time a specific term comes up, it gets translated in the same way. Key takeaways When a business chooses to go international, the first thing to be mindful of is the market they’re entering, search habits, users’ habits, common perceptions, stereotypes to avoid, standard customs, sensitive events/holidays, and anniversaries. Being culturally relevant and keen to adapt is vital to succeeding in international SEO. In fact: A person’s (or group’s) culture influences online processes and behaviors. Getting hyperlocal is the key to breaking the barriers to enter a new market. Cultural relevance helps a company engage with users, making them feel included and creating a strong foundation for brand loyalty. Users don’t want to spend too much time deciphering information (which is likely to occur on a poorly localized site). When this happens, they just move on. We now know that cultural biases affect people’s expectations when searching for something. That’s why, nowadays, if you want to go international, you need to plan a customized SEO strategy for each market, considering cultural identities, cultural relevance, and cultural sensitivity. By aligning your values to the community you want to serve, you will realize the potential of SEO in generating awareness and revenue for your brand. And most importantly, you will help users find what they are looking for and expect to see. Veruska Anconitano - International & Multilingual SEO Consultant Veruska is an SEO consultant that works at the intersection of SEO and localization to help companies enter non-English-speaking markets. She follows a culturalized approach to SEO and localization, leveraging cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and data. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Anastasia Kotsiubynska So you’ve nailed down the technical aspects of SEO, targeted the appropriate keywords, and optimized the right pages for them—but you’re still not ranking. The problem could be your website authority.  Website authority isn't a concrete metric, but rather a concept that estimates how credible and trustworthy a website is from the perspective of search engines. To increase your website authority, you need to build authoritative links to your site. This process can also improve your E-E-A-T , which contributes to SEO performance. You can find some link building opportunities on your own as you browse the web or build relationships with other website owners. To do it in bulk, analyze the backlink profiles of your successful competitors. This guide will explain what competitor backlink analysis is and share beginner-friendly techniques for executing it. What is a competitor backlink analysis? + why it’s essential Competitor analysis is a necessity in digital marketing  and SEO. In marketing, part of success comes from knowing best practices and part from experimenting. Being a trailblazer can be expensive, as it means spending a portion of your marketing budget on strategies that may not produce results. Analyzing what your competitors do saves resources because you can learn from other people’s mistakes and successes. It also allows you to get a better understanding of smaller details. Articles and webinars can describe the techniques in general terms. Looking at how others successfully implement them in real-world cases provides more information. Backlink competitor analysis lets you see what websites link to your competition, how authoritative those websites are, and the context of the links. This data will help you understand how link building is done in your industry and gather hundreds of sites to reach out to. The most important thing in competitor backlink analysis is not to blindly copy whatever backlink strategy they use. Instead, analyze it and understand what you can borrow. Identify your competitors  Before you examine the competition, find websites you compete with. You’re looking for competitors who: Rank for the keywords you target Target a similar audience Offer similar types of products or services The easiest way to assess your competition is to Google your brand name. If your brand is well-known, your competitors may place ads for branded keywords. Then, Google your main keyword to see who competes for it. In some cases, you may see articles with lists of your competitors in the SERP. Sometimes, especially if you’re doing backlink analysis in the eCommerce niche, you’ll see large marketplaces like Amazon or Etsy in the search results. You can disregard those, as they’re not your direct competitors. Their backlink strategy isn’t going to be useful to you. You might also find a list of competing companies in the knowledge panel. To complement this, search for informational keywords related to your industry. Ranking blog pages may belong to your competitors. You can search for competitors with AI search tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. To simplify your competitive analysis process, consider using a tool like SE Ranking  for Wix, which provides actionable insights directly within your website dashboard. This tool yields a list of competitors based on the keywords your site competes with others. SE Ranking shows organic competitors SE Ranking also has a suite of other instruments, including a backlink checker tool . We’ll use it to showcase research techniques. How to do a competitor backlink analysis Once you have a list of competitors, sift through them one by one. There are five major techniques for backlink competitive analysis. Examine competitor link building strategies Analyze link quality Leverage common and uncommon link sources Conduct a backlink gap analysis Monitor competitor's new and lost backlinks 01. Examine competitor link building strategies The first step is getting a general overview of your competitors’ link building strategies by putting their sites through a competitor backlink analysis tool, like the one mentioned above. It will return a long list of backlinks. Pay close attention to common patterns. Check how many backlinks and referring domains your competitor has. In this case, we’re starting with a major competitor, so it has a lot. Backlink overview via SE Ranking The next step is to view referring domains and analyze how they link to your competitor. You may want to filter domains by domain authority and traffic. You’ll sometimes see spammy links from domains with zero traffic, like this one. A low-quality link Many spammy websites link to reputable ones. Some steal content and forget to delete internal links, while others place these links to pursue a shady SEO goal. These websites are irrelevant to link building efforts. To avoid them cluttering your view, filter the list of domains by setting the minimum website traffic to 3-5K. This is around the median number of sessions  for an average website, and filtering for it will show you websites with an audience. Now, inspect each backlink closely to understand how your competitors received that link. Look at the page that links to them, the page linked, and the anchor text. You can also visit the page that links to your competitor and look at the context the link is placed in. Let’s look at some examples. Backlink from a listicle The above link is from a listicle that describes a collection of tools. This competitor is pretty popular, so it might have received the link naturally. You can reach out to editors or the authors of articles like these and offer to review and add your tool to the list if it fits. Tap into your PR team’s resources if you have one at your company. Backlink to a resource page The above backlink is from a blog post and leads to a resource page on a competitor’s site. The anchor text is not straightforward, so it’s best to look at the page to see the context. Context of a link placement It’s clear that the author is talking about remote work and links to a competitor’s page that lists companies that hire remote workers. This link is likely not due to active outreach efforts but rather a helpful page attracts visitors, and people link to it naturally. You can emulate this by creating resource pages—statistics, research, templates, checklists, or any other helpful material to people in your industry. Promote the page, and you’ll start getting links to it. This resource page has attracted over 200 backlinks. A likely guest post link If a competitor is a well-known brand or has a lot of helpful resource pages, people will naturally link to its site, and you’ll see multiple links from a single domain. When you see a single link from a domain and the anchor text contains a keyword, it’s likely the result of guest posting efforts by a competitor. Save these domains to reach out to them with an article idea. You can find more sites like these by exploring links with the same anchor text. Don’t just explore keyword-rich anchors, as informational ones can also be the result of guest posting efforts. Link from a review website Some links will come from review websites. This website has three articles centered around reviews of a competitor. At times, these sites will pick up your brand on their own. If they don’t have reviews on your brand, you can reach out and suggest your website for consideration. Directory links A portion of backlinks come from directory websites. These sites act as large catalogues of businesses, sometimes constricted to a single industry or location. You can get a profile there and list your site, typically for a small annual fee. Press release link Articles announcing internal news about a competitor are most likely press releases. You can save the sites that post those press releases and publish your own. It typically involves a fee. News website link A rarer type of backlink you’ll see is from news websites, like the above. You can get those by pitching industry news to journalists or by answering journalists’ requests on digital PR platforms. It may take a long time to get one, though. Some good links are irrelevant for your link building efforts. For instance, links from business partners or job websites. If you want to rank a page for a particular keyword, you can quickly view pages in SERP and the number of backlinks they have by running a keyword analysis in SE Ranking and looking at the SERP Overview. SERP Overview shows domain metrics and backlinks As you go through your list, analyze competitors’ backlinks and note patterns in the links. Which types of links do they get? Which type dominates the backlink profile? What pages do these sites link to? What sites link to them? If a website links to your competitor, it might also link to you, so save those websites to reach out to them. You can find similar sites that don’t link to your competitors and build links that they don’t have. Don’t copy their strategy, though. For instance, if your competitors have links from press release websites that cost a lot to post, don’t rush to spend on PR. Instead, try working with news websites to get backlinks or create a resource page that can earn hundreds of links. 02. Analyze link quality Outreach takes time and resources, so you should work with websites that can provide a lot of SEO value. Once you have a list of websites that link to your competitors, analyze their quality, and only reach out to the ones you think are good. Here’s how to do competitor backlink analysis. Pay attention to these areas: Relevance to your business niche High number of backlinks Low number of spammy, low-quality backlinks Decent traffic numbers Good traffic dynamics You can judge relevance by visiting the site and checking what it does and what its blog is about. It doesn’t need to match perfectly; it just needs to make sense. If an automotive blog links to an email marketing tool, it isn’t relevant. If it links to a car insurance website, it is. For simplicity, many SEO tools use these factors to produce a relative website authority metric. In the case of SE Ranking, it’s called Domain Trust (DT). Domain Trust calculates the number and quality of backlinks a site has to estimate how likely it is to rank high in Google. It ranges from 0 to 100. The higher the number, the better a backlink from it would be. The same metric is calculated for each page, called Page Trust (PT). To simplify link quality analysis, filter your list of websites by DT, setting it at a minimum of 30 or 40, depending on your industry. If your industry isn’t invested in SEO, most sites won’t have as many backlinks, so a lower DT rating is normal. Set the traffic volume at a minimum of 3-5K to filter out websites with little to no traffic. If you want to determine whether a site is good for outreach efforts, look at each factor more closely. First, inspect the backlink profile of this site. Preferably, you want to see a lot of backlinks and referring domains. If backlinks outnumber referring domains, this might mean one site links to it hundreds of times, which can mean they were using shady SEO practices. Check the list of sites that link to it and look for reputable domains. If you see high-quality links, it’s a good sign. Now, how do you check competitors’ backlinks for spam? You can run a toxic backlink check to find out how many shady links this site has. A few poor backlinks are normal, but if you see a lot of them, it means this site might be bad for you. Backlink toxicity score You can also perform a search for spammy content on the site. Use the search operator “site:” with this website to only see results from it, and type in a keyword associated with shady industries, like “site:example.com casino.” If you see multiple pages centered around a shady topic, the site is probably selling links, and its link might hurt your SEO. The next big area to check is traffic. You want to see traffic on the site; the more, the better. If traffic is declining like this, it might mean the site was hit with a Google penalty or was using poor SEO practices that stopped working and resulted in a drop in ranking across the site. Especially if it’s a sharp decline. Traffic decline over time One problem isn’t enough to prevent you from getting a link from a site. If you see multiple issues with it, it’s best to avoid it. If you’re still in doubt, run a quality check on the site. Browse it for ten minutes and note whether it has a good UX, covers topics from different angles instead of producing generic content, and publishes content regularly. All of these are signs of a good backlink opportunity. Not in the least because it may grow in popularity in the future since its content quality is high. 03. Leverage common and uncommon link resources When you’re starting with link building, it’s best to go for low-hanging fruit. Building links that are easy to get helps you create a strong foundation so you can start improving your ranking. To do this, concentrate on the sites that link to multiple competitors by running a backlink gap analysis with multiple competitors and selecting ones that link to all. Another method is to search a website you want to build a link from with the “site:” operator and include brand names of your competitors. For instance, “site:example.com Zapier.” Those websites will have a higher probability of linking to your site. Those are directory sites, review sites, or websites that accept guest posts. Check that these websites are authoritative and reach out. The other avenue is pursuing websites that rarely link to your competitors. Those links are harder to get, so it’s best to save your efforts and only reach out to the best. The upside is that few competing websites will have those high-quality links. Most likely, you’ll see news links and links from blogs that don’t accept guest posts. Many SEO specialists will avoid working with a website if it doesn’t have a content submission policy. However, you’ll find that if you find the site’s editor and reach out with a good enough pitch, you may get a backlink. 04. Conduct a backlink gap analysis If you've been doing link building for a while and have created links, run a backlink gap analysis to get competitor backlinks. It will show you a list of sites that link to your competitors but don’t link to you. Backlink gap analysis Some will likely be unattainable. For instance, links from other businesses that your competitor partnered with. Many others present a viable backlink opportunity. Analyze them to ensure they fit your link building goals and reach out to them. Conducting an SEO gap analysis  is a great idea in general, not just for backlink analytics. It can highlight your differences with the competition and help you improve your site’s SEO. 05. Monitor competitor's new and lost backlinks A handy way to keep track of competitor link building efforts is to track their new and lost backlinks. You can view links added to your competitor's site in the last month in SE Ranking. Some are spam links that appear from time to time, but seeing a lot of new links can indicate active, ongoing link building campaign. New and lost backlinks report This competitor consistently adds more links than it loses. Looking at those links closely shows you how your competitor does off-page SEO now and helps you inform your strategy with current practices. New link report in SE Ranking You can either find new techniques and websites to reach out to or conclude that your competitor is engaging in outdated SEO practices and that you can outrank them easily. Plan your outreach After performing competitor backlink analysis, learn the strategies your competition uses, and have a list of websites that might link back to you. Then, it’s time to reach out. You can get directory links by filling out company profiles. To earn links to resource pages or infographics , come up with helpful content ideas. For many other links, like guest posts and listicle placements, you’ll have to reach out to an editor with a relevant idea. That takes a planned approach. First, you’ll want to go through the list and group those sites into similar categories. Separate them by the link building strategy being used, like guest posting or reaching out to get included into listicles. This makes it easier to scale the outreach while keeping it somewhat personalized. You’re sure to find outliers, whether websites with high authority that aren’t likely to link to you easily or that require more effort to reach out to. Put them in a separate category and create a personalized approach to each. Create email templates for each category. The first email in the sequence should include: A brief introduction The reason you’re reaching out The reasoning as to why it’s worth it for them In the introduction, don’t talk about your company and what it does. For an editor, it’s irrelevant. They would prefer to know about who you are as an author and what your expertise is. For listicles, explain why your company is good enough to be included in the list. Provide the number of users you have, or branded keyword search volume—both these factors show that online users would be interested in reading a brief description of your company. For guest post articles, explain how your topic benefits their audience. Don’t stop at just one email. People’s inboxes are full of unread emails, and it might take several follow-ups to have your email read. According to an informal survey, following up can bring in 40% more links . Reaching out to the right person is just as important as following the best practices of email marketing . Here’s how you can find them. Search “site:example.com write for us” or “site:example.com contribute.” This will give you the company’s designated content outreach email if they have one. Search the site’s team page for the editor’s contact information. Search Linkedin for their editor. Use an email finder tool to find their editor’s LinkedIn or email address. If all else fails, contact them via a generic website email address or contact form. In large companies, contact the editor. Smaller ones may not have one, so you’ll be looking for their Head of Content, Head of Marketing, or a person with a similar title. Once you’ve contacted a person responsible for their content and gotten a link, foster a working relationship  with them. You both can help each other out with content if needed and exchange backlink opportunities. If you’re working on acquiring a guest post, publish it under your name as a contributor writer. Having your name mentioned on multiple sites builds up your authority and improves E-E-A-T. This means Google’s algorithms learn you’re an expert in the field, and articles on your site will be more likely to rank well. Anastasia Kotsiubynska , Head of SEO at SE Ranking Anastasia Kotsiubynska is the Head of SEO at SE Ranking. She is passionate about online marketing, analytics, and the technical aspects of SEO. Linkedin

Author: Constance Chen As AI continues to change the way users engage with information, the introduction of Model Context Protocol will further accelerate this evolving relationship. With many AI companies such as OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Cursor already adopting Anthropic's MCP framework, a number of LLMs now have capabilities that go beyond what we’ve seen with generative AI. This new framework not only changes how developers design and build applications; it can also unlock agentic capabilities to power up and transform your marketing workflows. Let’s take a deeper look at MCP servers and how we can harness their power in our marketing stack. What is Model Context Protocol? Model Context Protocol, also known as MCP, is an open protocol framework first developed and introduced by Anthropic in November 2024. This protocol acts like a USB connector, allowing AI systems to standardize how information is shared with an LLM and how an LLM can take actions. By connecting to an MCP server, an LLM is able to leverage external tools and data straight from a source and can use it to perform actions, including triggering automated workflows. For example, if Nike created its own MCP server containing information about its newest running shoe (with specs, pricing, variants, costs, SKUs, and the like), a user who is prompting an LLM like ChatGPT would be able to connect to this MCP server and ask about Nike’s latest shoe.  The user could ask a personalized question, such as “is this new running shoe available in blue and in a woman’s size 8?” and the LLM would be able to provide the information based on real-time product details from the Nike MCP server. The user could then ask the LLM to purchase the shoes for them. And if the MCP server has a “buy shoes” functionality, the LLM could make the purchase directly. The Wix MCP Server How MCP Servers Expand an LLM’s Capabilities By connecting to an MCP server, an LLM can potentially increase its ability to call tools and functions, which opens up new possibilities for automation. Imagine the capabilities you get when you combine ChatGPT with your Google Analytics 4  data. Through an MCP server, LLMs can easily access performance metrics within a platform like Google Analytics 4 and perform actions such as creating new conversion goals. Instead of manually exporting your data from Google Analytics 4 and uploading it to an LLM for analysis, you could “plug in” ChatGPT to your GA4 account through an MCP server, and create a month-over-month performance report with a simple prompt.   One robust example is Zapier’s MCP server, which expands the possibilities of how this connection can go beyond an LLM’s generative text capabilities. Illustration by Constance Chen How to Use an MCP Server for Marketing Zapier has an MCP server that gives a client access to its entire library of app integrations, including Salesforce, Gmail, Google Ads, Slack, Mailchimp, and Wix Studio. (Read more about how to automate your digital marketing funnel with Wix Studio & Zapier .) LLMs are already quite impressive as a standalone tool, but with these added integrations, you can upgrade an LLM’s ability to perform tasks such as managing data, sending emails, adjusting ad campaigns, and updating CRM records. Explore the following use cases for integrating MCP servers into your marketing flows.  01. Get Instant Data and Create Reports with Google Analytics 4  By connecting ChatGPT to Google Analytics 4 through the Zapier MCP, creating performance reports will be much easier as you can use conversational prompts to pull traffic data. You can: Tell ChatGPT to pull last month’s session data and check which pages received the most pageviews Ask ChatGPT to analyze the top performing pages and provide key insights from the data Prompt ChatGPT to provide a few takeaways based on last month’s conversion metrics and engagement rate 02. Automate Your Keyword Rankings Report One of the biggest advantages of using an MCP server is the ability to connect a single LLM to multiple tools simultaneously. This means that you can connect to as many MCP servers as you’d like and have the MCP client decide which tools to use to execute the task at hand. With Zapier’s MCP and numerous app integrations, you can tell an LLM to connect with the SE Ranking, Google Sheets, Gmail, and Asana integrations to create an entire workflow around monitoring SEO keyword performance and automate weekly reporting.    With these added tools, you can then: Tell your LLM to export the week’s keyword performance data from SE Ranking, then organize the rankings data in a new Google Sheets spreadsheet Have the LLM to create a weekly task in Asana to review the Google Sheets tab Each week, prompt the LLM to create a short summary of the keyword ranking performance Then, instruct your chosen MCP client to email the weekly keyword ranking report to your recipients This is just one of many agentic workflows made possible with an MCP server. 03. Improve Your Content with Hubspot’s MCP Server  Hubspot also has its own MCP server where LLMs can interact with marketing data stored in an account. By connecting to the Hubspot server, you can prompt the LLM to: Pull keyword rankings data, and get insights and recommendations to refine your content marketing strategy Import your blog drafts from HubSpot and receive recommendations to further align with Google’s E-E-A-T  and Helpful Content guidelines Review keyword data to optimize on-page content  and generate new title tags and meta descriptions  Apply your brand voice to both new and existing content to maintain brand consistency Repurpose well-performing content into new content across different channels More Ways to Use MCP Servers in Your Marketing Stack Your marketing automations can go beyond the SEO channel! MCP servers can build faster, smarter, and more powerful workflows to make your entire marketing stack more efficient. Here are other ways to apply them in your marketing channels. 04. Update Your Website with Wix’s MCP Server Wix recently announced their own MCP server, which gives users a variety of ways they can update their websites, making website management more efficient and easy. Here are just some of the possibilities with the Wix MCP server : Prompt your LLM to create an entirely new website or a new page for your website Generate copy for a collection page, product detail page , or product descriptions for your eCommerce shop Create buttons for your customers to book or reschedule appointments on your service website Customize and update your menu and its items for your restaurant’s website Set up more ways for customers to process payments on your website The Wix MCP Server 05. Improve Your Google Ads Campaigns through Hubspot Improve the performance of your Google Ads campaigns by connecting your LLM to Hubspot’s MCP server. Through Hubspot’s integration with Google Ads, you can:  Build an automated process that helps you create an ad audience whenever you get a new batch of contacts in Hubspot Have the LLM set up a new ad campaign under your Google Ads account Generate new headlines and ad copy in your brand voice Get insights and recommendations to evaluate, refine, and improve your ad campaign over time Use the LLM to evaluate engagement metrics and suggest content variations for different ad audiences  06. Create a Marketing Plan on Notion and Add Tasks to Jira By connecting to MCP servers from Notion and Jira, you can tackle your team’s project management tasks and scale for efficiency. For example, if you need to create a new marketing strategy, you can: Use Notion to draft an initial 3-stage plan for your marketing strategy. Then, prompt your chosen LLM to fill in the gaps with detailed objectives, action steps, and deadlines. Prompt the LLM to map out a timeline on your Notion calendar for each goal in your marketing strategy. Using Jira’s MCP Server, have the LLM review the strategy’s goals and deadlines, then convert each item into tasks with due dates in the designated Jira project board. 07. Add New Leads to Google Ads Audience List Integrate with Salesforce through Zapier’s MCP server, and with the help of an LLM, you can grow and refine your Google Ads audience list. This type of setup will allow the MCP client to access your Salesforce CRM data, segment your contacts, and improve your Google Ads audience list. Start by: Prompting the LLM to automate adding new contacts from Salesforce into your Google Ads audience list Instructing the LLM to refine audience lists by reviewing the engagement metrics to filter out unqualified leads based on activity levels Get the LLM to analyze and review your Salesforce and Google Ads data to further optimize campaign performance to improve conversion rates over time 08. Design Your Email Framework with Figma For eCommerce brands looking to design a spring email campaign, you can now use Figma’s MCP server to design your email template with the help of an LLM. Start by: Prompting the LLM to generate attention-grabbing subject lines, headlines, body copy, and calls-to-action for the email Describe to the LLM the desired visual layout and brand design features to include in the email template Have the LLM collaborate with Figma to design a template that matches your concept Tweak and adjust the look of the template and continue to build on your design 09. Design True-to-Brand Social Posts with Figma  Connect to Figma’s MCP server and design new social media posts from start to finish. From design ideation to execution, the LLM can help you create social posts that are fully aligned with your brand voice and identity:   Use the LLM to generate titles, copy, captions, and content ideas in your brand voice.   Submit examples of designs that represent your brand identity to the LLM, and have it generate a visual layout design through Figma for your social post.  Instruct the LLM to collaborate with Figma to automate creating new designs for your social posts that express your brand identity. Make adjustments to the designs through your prompts. How to Set Up an MCP Server To set up an MCP server, you’ll first need to know what MCP client you want to connect to. Whether you choose Claude, ChatGPT, or another MCP-enabled client, you can connect with as many MCP servers as you’d like. However, note that the process for each MCP client and MCP server may be different, so be sure to review documentation. In the two examples below, learn how to set up Claude with Wix’s MCP server, and ChatGPT with the Zapier MCP server. In this first example, I’ll show you how to set up the Wix MCP server to connect to Claude. Before you set up Wix’s MCP server, you’ll need to install Claude desktop . For the Wix MCP Server, you'll also need to have the latest version of Node.js  installed. How to Set Up Wix’s MCP Server First, copy the code below. (You'll also find it on the website for Wix MCP Server .) { "mcpServers": { "wix-mcp-remote": { "command": "npx", "args": [ "-y", "@wix/mcp-remote", "https://mcp.wix.com/sse" ] } } } Open your Claude Desktop App, and open “Settings.” Click on Developer. Next, click "Edit Config." Open the config file called “claude_desktop_config.json.” Paste the code from the Wix page, and save the file. After saving the file, quit Claude desktop, and restart it. Go back to Claude's settings, and click Developer again. If done correctly, the Wix MCP server should show up in your dashboard. Once the connection is created, you can now prompt Claude and see what it can do! How to Set Up Zapier MCP Server In this second example, I’ll show you how to set up your Zapier MCP Server to connect to OpenAI. First, visit the website for Zapier’s MCP Server . Log into your Zapier account and you should see an empty dashboard. Click “New MCP server” Select your MCP client from the dropdown list. For this example, I chose OpenAI. Name your MCP Server. For this example, I named this one, "OpenAI Server." Copy the MCP Server API Key Once the MCP server is created, go to the top and click “Connect.”  Find the API Key that is generated and copy the API key. Connect to OpenAI MCP Client Visit OpenAI’s Developer Platform  and log in to your account. In the upper right hand corner, click Playground. Then, in Tools, click the dropdown and select “MCP Server.” Then, in the window, select Zapier. Add the API Key copied from your Zapier MCP Server and click “Connect." Configure Your Functions and Tools In the Zapier MCP server dashboard, configure what your server can do by selecting the integrations and tools you'd like to add. Select the tools and functions you'd like to add. Once you’ve selected and added the tools, test the connection by writing a prompt in the Open AI playground. If connected correctly, OpenAI will call your Zapier MCP server, which executes the action and returns a response. In this example, I prompted the LLM to “create a new spreadsheet called “May 2025 data” Check the results, and adjust the prompt if needed. It looks like it was a success! Continue to add more integrations to expand what OpenAI can do through your MCP server. Extend your AI workflows with Wix’s MCP Server Generate code to build and manage Wix-based projects directly from supported LLMs, like Claude AI and Cursor. Learn more about the Wix MCP Server . Constance Chen - Director of Search Marketing at Moving Traffic Media Constance specializes in marketing strategy, building Gen AI-driven marketing systems, technical SEO, and content strategy. She studies and explores AI developments and machine learning, writing about industry advancements and providing insights on emerging innovations.

Author: Debbie Chew First off, congrats! You aced your interview and landed an offer. Your experience is what got you the new gig, but this is just the beginning of the journey. Knowing what to focus on during your first three months is crucial to success in your new role, especially now that SEO is in the midst of an overhaul. New SEO hires are now being looked at from a different lens in the age of conversational search . Although this guide will be written for someone starting a new in-house role, most of the concepts mentioned are relevant to SEOs experiencing leadership or organizational changes, joining a new agency, or consultants taking on a new client. Or, if your responsibilities are shifting because of LLMs, this guide can help you approach your “newly updated” role. The general framework discussed in this post is based on the book The First 90 Days  by Michael Watkins, a professor and advisor experienced in leadership development, but I revised it through the lens of an SEO practitioner. If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend reading it as a supplement to this post. Before your start date During your interview process, you should have come away with a general sense of the company’s needs, the level of buy-in for SEO, what your responsibilities will be, and how your role is expected to contribute to the company’s goals. Most importantly, how will your success be measured? This needs to be clear, as your first 30-60 days will be exploring the “how.” If some (or all) of these are fuzzy, that’s totally fine! Once you start having conversations with your new colleagues, you may find out that certain aspects of the company or role are different from your initial impression, so don’t worry, and be open to adjusting your expectations. Your first 90 days in a new SEO job Instead of talking about your first 90 days as a whole, I’ll break it down into 30-day chunks. The table below is an overview of what I’ll cover in the remainder of the post: Day 1-30 Days 31-60 Days 61-90 Theme Observe and absorb Prioritize Execute and share Priorities Know your company/product(s)/service(s) Understand your responsibilities and how they relate to the wider organization Meet with key stakeholders Diagnose  Identify where to focus your time, starting with small wins Build rapport throughout the organization Manage upwards and outwards Share your wins Reflect on your first 90 days and plan out your next 90 days Feel free to jump forward to the timeframe most relevant to you: Your first month: observe and absorb Your second month: prioritize Your third month: execute and share Your first month: observe and absorb Your first week will likely be filled with loads of HR paperwork, trying to remember everyone’s names, and back-to-back onboarding sessions. Now that you’re getting the insider’s perspective on your new company, it’s time to listen and start taking notes. First, you’ll want to understand the company at three altitudes—bird’s eye view, street view, worm’s eye view—and in that order. The bird’s eye view of the company is to learn and understand the product (what’s being sold) and its users (who’s buying). Understanding the products and users helps you build a user journey map  and evaluate the existing gaps on the website, which will later inform your SEO strategy. Street view is about figuring out how the company operates (how things get done). Why are certain roads curved when they could have been straight?  You’ll need context to do this, which you typically will get from your manager and cross-functional partners. Knowing how to navigate these streets is crucial to being able to execute your plan, so we’ll focus on what these conversations should cover in the next two sections. Lastly is the worm’s eye view. Given the learnings from the first two views, you can then focus on figuring out the details of your SEO strategy and what direction you’ll start inching towards. Make sure you’re tying things back to the company and team’s goals, utilizing the context you have from the bird’s eye and street view. This includes considering how your team is resourced and if you have the tools you need. Keep in mind that one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to assume you can just copy and paste your last SEO playbook. For example, the CMS the team is using may be different from what you’ve used before. Or, SEO sits in the marketing org when in your previous role, SEO was in product. These factors can completely overthrow your previous playbook, so approach it as if you’re building a custom playbook for the nuances of your new company. This is even more true now that the SEO industry is rethinking which KPIs we should focus on due to the impact of LLMs on organic traffic and user behavior. Photo courtesy of Debbie Chew One-on-ones with your manager Although you probably have had one-on-ones with a manager before, the ones you have in the first 90 days of your new role should look different from a manager you’ve built rapport with. If your new manager hasn’t already set expectations on one-on-ones, such as frequency and how they should be structured, and how what you’ll typically discuss (compared to other forms of communication), you can initiate the conversation so that you both are aligned.  After you’ve established the basics, work on making sure that your KPIs (key performance indicators) are clear and how they ladder up to the greater company’s goals. Toward the end of your first month, once you’ve become more familiar with the company’s products, discuss ideas you have for “small wins” and build momentum for bigger wins. A small win could be as simple as removing a noindex tag on a key page. For future one-on-ones, I’d recommend quarterly check-ins to get feedback from your manager. This is a good time to discuss what’s working, what’s not working, and how you’re tracking toward your goals.  One-on-ones with cross-functional partners Aside from regularly meeting with your manager, your first month should be focused on having one-on-ones with folks in adjacent teams. Discuss with your manager to get a list of key partners within areas like content, engineering, demand generation, and growth. You should also find time to meet with your skip-level (your manager’s manager). Going back to the analogy earlier, these meetings help inform your “street view” of the company. You want to come out of those meetings with a better understanding of processes, pain points, and constraints throughout the different teams and levels within the organization.  As you have these conversations, another crucial area to focus on is learning how to get buy-in within the company. Chances are, part of your responsibilities will include proposing SEO initiatives. You’ll want to identify who are the key decision makers and how to convince them. Be sure to observe and learn from individuals who are good at getting their ideas above the line. As you have meetings with the above groups, you should get a sense of the communication style as this is also an important aspect of being able to convince others about your idea. Communication styles can be broken down into different dimensions, such as: Async vs. sync Written vs. verbal Memo vs. presentations Story-oriented vs. factual Remember that what your immediate team prefers can be different from what the greater marketing or product team prefers. At large enterprises, what the executive leadership team prefers can also be completely different. Photo courtesy of Debbie Chew Getting the full picture No matter if you’re meeting with your manager or cross-functional partners, what I’ve found most helpful is to anchor your questions to help you understand these three areas: What’s the past/present/future state of SEO look like at this company? How do things get prioritized and worked on? Are there any constraints or (potential) reasons for pushback? Another framework that I find really helpful is to understand the SEO maturity of the company. I recommend using the framework and free template that Petra created to help you identify where your company sits in the Organizational Maturity Graph ( OMG  for SEO). Your second month: prioritize Since you’ve done a lot of the groundwork, your strategy should be coming together. As you take stock of the aspirations that people have for SEO and start making progress, it’s important to avoid spreading yourself too thin. This means staying away from shiny object syndrome and focusing on the wrong things. That’s why the main theme for your second month is prioritization. To do this, it’s helpful to first diagnose the company against Watkins’ STARS framework. The STARS framework STARS stand for the five different scenarios that companies  (or teams) can be grouped into based on the current state of the affairs:  Startup You’re at a company that has never had an SEO hire. Your focus areas should include aligning with leadership on what SEO is at a high level, forecasting the TAM (total addressable market) for SEO, advocating for headcount, and mapping out the IA (information architecture) of the site for future-proofing. Turnaround The company’s organic traffic has been declining. You’ll need to figure out what happened and why, which may be through conducting a technical SEO audit, investigating if content needs to be pruned, or auditing backlinks to reverse a penalty. Accelerated growth The SEO program has had some notable wins and are beginning to expand their team and reach. This could mean investing resources into running tests to improve visibility and citations or improvement sentiment for your brand in AI search.  It could also mean leaning into areas like international SEO and programmatic SEO to build on a solid foundation of the existing website. Realignment Right now, many companies or teams may find themselves at this stage. Since SEOs are seeing organic traffic plateau or decline across different industries, it’s important to realign expectations with stakeholders to build a path forward. This means reevaluating key levers that have historically performed well. Focuses include talking to customers to understand how they’re now searching for your product or service, adjusting existing SEO processes such as content optimization, cross-team collaboration, and revisiting KPIs. Sustaining success You’ve joined a SEO team that has a strong track record of success in organic search. At this point, the focus is on scaling the team, operationalizing processes and automation (probably with AI), and taking on riskier SEO projects. Think: “high risk, high reward” experiments. Review each of them to identify which scenario best matches the situation your new company is in. This helps align your priorities with the most urgent needs. Photo courtesy of Debbie Chew Building out your roadmap Now that you understand the product/service, the team, its resourcing (or maybe even lack thereof), and other constraints you need to work with, it’s time to start creating a sketch of your roadmap. At this point, you can audit the site as you normally would. Start categorizing what you should focus on in the next few weeks vs. months vs. quarters. Though tempting, don’t try to do everything immediately, because small things can add up. This can detract from the bigger picture, and may not contribute directly to your KPIs. And as you follow through with what was discussed in those 1:1s with either your manager or cross-functional partners, make sure to mention this to them to help build rapport. It might sound like this: “Remember when you mentioned that we should document our SEO QA process? I’ve started one and wanted to get your feedback.” Your third month: execute and share Regardless of whether or not you’re a people manager, it’s important to recognize the importance of managing up and across. Managing upward means aligning on expectations with your manager (and those above your manager in the company hierarchy) about your short and long-term priorities. Managing across is to do something similar but for cross-functional partners, with a focus on collaborating on projects and making sure everyone is on the same page. Managing up At the three-month mark, you should have a few small wins you’ve completed that you can share with your manager while highlighting the impact of that work. Discuss what types of wins are worth sharing broadly with the team and what the best format is. This helps maximize the visibility of your work as well as the contributions of the SEO team. As you become more seasoned, it’s helpful to understand: When you should ask your manager something versus when to figure it out yourself The key priorities you need to focus on now versus later Managing across Managing across can be tough due to different processes and varying goals. The larger the organization, the more difficult this becomes. This was something I had to quickly learn about enterprise SEO: bigger companies mean bigger budgets but with higher complexity. And when resources are tight, competing goals can slow down progress. Be careful about trying to please every stakeholder and keep in mind that every decision has tradeoffs. Therefore, it’s important to choose your battles and manage your energy wisely. Let’s say you’re creating category pages for the blog and the team is adamant on certain nomenclature for the URL slug that might be a bit long or unnecessary from an SEO point of view. If the decision isn’t going to have a significant impact on SEO performance, and if there are other more important issues to align on, then you’ll need to decide if this is something worth sliding on despite best practices. What I’ve found helpful is to carve out time to reflect and seek feedback after a project is completed. The “start, stop, continue” framework is really useful to help you do this: what should you start/stop/continue to do? Reflect on the answers to these questions yourself, then get feedback from your manager, colleagues you’ve collaborated with, and any other relevant stakeholders to get a thorough retrospective. Then, take these learnings and apply them to your future projects. Planning your next 90 days As you reach your first 90 days, it’s time to start planning out your next 90 days. Continue to have one-on-ones with your manager (ideally weekly). For cross-functional partners, mutually agree about meeting on a monthly, quarterly, or ad hoc basis. When you’re in the weeds of executing on SEO projects, it may be easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. Every quarter or half, add a reminder on your calendar to reflect on the following areas: What seeds do you need to sow today so that your initiative will be in a mature state a few months from now so that you can execute on it then? What are key initiatives that will move the needle in a way that aligns with your success metrics? What projects do you need to say “no” to? What are the tradeoffs? How will you communicate this? Do you need to reevaluate where the company falls in the STARS framework? How does this affect your KPIs? Thriving in your new role Your first 90 days sets the stage for how you and your work is perceived at the company. Focus your time on observing in the first month, prioritizing in the second month, and then executing (as well as iterating and planning) in the last month and beyond.  Although this isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, having some structure can guide you and help reduce feelings of overwhelm when you start a new role. The first 90 days aren't about surviving or proving yourself, it’s about learning the ropes to thrive in your role and make an impact. Debbie Chew - Global SEO Manager   Debbie Chew is an SEO manager at Stripe and an organic growth consultant with over 10 years of experience in digital marketing. She specializes in content and link building, and she's passionate about sharing her learnings with other marketers. Twitter  | Linkedin

Watch this webinar on AI Tools for SEO: From LLM Workflows to MCP Generative AI is opening up powerful new workflows for SEOs—and knowing how to use large language models (LLMs) effectively can give you a major edge.  In this webinar, Gus Pelogia (Indeed) shows you how to use ChatGPT and Colab to automate SEO analysis through code, even if you're not a developer. He’ll walk through practical use cases like measuring traffic and revenue overlap across URLs and finding seasonal performance patterns per page.  Download Gus Pelogia's Presentation Constance Chen (Moving Traffic Media) will introduce you use MCP (Model Context Protocol) for SEO , a new standard that helps LLMs interact more effectively with other web applications. You’ll leave with a clear understanding of what it is, why it matters, and how it could be utilized in your marketing. Download Constance Chen's Presentation And, Wix Studio's Crystal Carter will give you a preview of resources to help you get the most out of Wix Studio's MCP server  to expedite SEO and website management. What you'll learn: How to use LLMs to generate code for common SEO tasks and analysis An overview of Model Context Protocol (MCP) and what it means for SEOs and site owners How Wix’s MCP server helps you optimize for search and expedite site management The session offers advanced SEO workflows . Those new to the topic may wish to explore more about semantic search , brand visibility in LLMs , and content creation for AI. Meet your hosts: Gus Pelogia SEO Product Manager, Indeed Gus Pelogia is a journalist turned SEO since 2012. He’s currently an SEO product manager at Indeed, the #1 job site in the world. Every day, he writes tickets for small and large initiatives and works in a cross-functional team with writers, UX, engineers, and product managers. Twitter  | LinkedIn   Constance Chen Search Marketing Director, Moving Traffic Media Constance Chen is the Director of Search Marketing at Moving Traffic Media in New York. She specializes in marketing strategy, building Gen AI-driven marketing systems, technical SEO, and content strategy. She studies, explores, and writes about AI developments and emerging innovations. LinkedIn   Crystal Carter Head of SEO Communications, Wix Crystal is an SEO and Digital Marketing professional with over 15 years of experience. Her global business clients have included Disney, McDonalds and Tomy. An avid SEO Communicator, her work has been featured at Google Search Central, OMR, brightonSEO, Moz, DeepCrawl (Lumar), Semrush and more. Twitter  | LinkedIn

SEO Webinar on Conversational Search with Mike King Is your website ready for the rise of conversational search in the era of AI-powered search on Google? This webinar provided SEO strategies for creating content that ranks and resonates in the age of conversational search on LLMs like ChatGPT. Learn how to move beyond outdated keyword tactics and develop a future-proof semantic SEO approach that prioritizes natural language, user intent , and direct answers. This webinar explores how search engines are adapting to conversational queries and provides actionable takeaways to ensure content thrives in the years to come. Hosted by Mike King , Founder of iPullRank Agency and SEOWeek , alongside Wix Studio’s Crystal Carter and George Nguyen . In this webinar replay, you will learn about: How to evolve your content tactics for the AI age How to prioritize natural language and user intent in your content creation Which tactics will help you future-proof content for presence on Google's AI Overviews and ChatGPT How to use Astro Agentic AI Assistant in Wix Studio to support semantic content optimizations How the Wix Blog's Content AI to support you as you refresh content for semantic search. Download the deck Download the Mike King's deck on Conversational Search and Crystal Carter's deck on Wix Studio tools to help marketers improve content for semantic search . The session offers advanced SEO strategies and insights. Those who are new to the topic may wish to explore more about semantic search , brand visibility in LLMs and content creation with AI tools . Meet your hosts: Michael King Founder and CEO, iPullRank An artist and a technologist all rolled into one, Mike is the Founder and CEO of digital marketing agency, iPullRank. Mike consults with companies all over the world, including brands ranging from SAP, American Express, HSBC, SanDisk, General Mills, and FTD, to a laundry list of promising eCommerce, publisher, and financial services organizations. Twitter  | LinkedIn   Crystal Carter Head of SEO Communications, Wix Crystal is an SEO and Digital Marketing professional with over 15 years of experience. Her global business clients have included Disney, McDonalds and Tomy. An avid SEO Communicator, her work has been featured at Google Search Central, brightonSEO, Moz, DeepCrawl (Lumar), Semrush and more. Twitter  | LinkedIn   George Nguyen   Director of SEO Editorial, Wix George Nguyen is the Director of SEO Editorial at Wix. He creates content to help users and marketers better understand how search works and how to use Wix SEO tools. He was formerly a search news journalist and is known to speak at the occasional industry event. Twitter  | LinkedIn

Prepare Your Website for the European Accessibility Act Watch this webinar for insights as SEO professionals and site owners gear up for the introduction of the European Accessibility Act . It’s crucial to assess whether your website accessibility meets the new standards. Ensuring your website's compliance with accessibility guidelines not only enhances user experience, but your SEO and accessibility goals can often help you add value and growth to your website audience. Watch this Webinar on Website Accessibility This informative webinar is tailored for SEO professionals and site owners who are eager to create more accessible and user-friendly websites. Join digital accessibility expert, Flora Bazie, and Wix’s own Accessibility Product Manager, Tal Bavli, as we share effective tactics and tools to ensure your website is compliant with the European Accessibility Act. Hosted by George Nguyen and Crystal Carter, this is not one to miss. What You'll Learn Understanding the European Accessibility Act and its implications for your website Best practices for improving website accessibility Tools and resources to help you assess and enhance your website's accessibility Strategies to integrate accessibility into your SEO efforts Resources from this webinar: Download Flora Bazie's presentation on Accessibility & SEO Essentials Download Tal Bavli's presentation on Accessibility Tools on Wix and Wix Studio Download real-time webinar transcript Meet your hosts: Flora Bazie Accessibility Expert, LinoraTech Flora Bazie is a digital accessibility expert and speaker. She helps organizations meet legal compliance, boost SEO, and design for all abilities. Founder of LinoraTech Inc., She empowers and inspires teams and professionals. LinkedIn   Tal Bavli Accessibility Product Manager, Wix Tal Bavli is a leading Product Manager for accessibilty on Wix. Her team manages the pioneering Wix Accessibility Wizard and contributed to making Wix the Most Accessible Web Builder in 2024. LinkedIn   Crystal Carter Head of SEO Communications, Wix Crystal is an SEO and Digital Marketing professional with over 15 years of experience. Her global business clients have included Disney, McDonalds and Tomy. An avid SEO Communicator, her work has been featured at Google Search Central, brightonSEO, Moz, DeepCrawl (Lumar), Semrush and more. Twitter  | LinkedIn   George Nguyen   Director of SEO Editorial, Wix George Nguyen is the Director of SEO Editorial at Wix. He creates content to help users and marketers better understand how search works and how to use Wix SEO tools. He was formerly a search news journalist and is known to speak at the occasional industry event. Twitter  | LinkedIn

Author: Gus Pelogia Learning to code was an aspirational goal I had for years. I’ve tried many times across several coding languages, but didn’t quite learn enough to create the applications I had in mind. Declare variables? API? Test environment? I know the words and what they do, but I would quickly get frustrated with my broken code and move on to something else. But that was all back when the only way to create applications was to pay someone or learn how to do it yourself. Large language models  opened a new world of possibilities for people like me to write usable code and create small applications.  In this article, I'll show you how easy it can be to ask ChatGPT to write code for you and how to use Google Colab to simply copy and paste the code, creating a useful application in just a few minutes. You’re free to use my prompts and applications or create your own improved versions. Depending on what you want to build, you’ll need two or three different applications: An LLM to prompt and generate your code (e.g. ChatGPT) A connector, like an API Google Colab, available in Google accounts for free, to run your code Table of contents: What is a prompt? What is a connector? What is Google Colab? How to run your Colab notebook Why use Colab instead of ChatGPT directly? How to generate code for Google Colab Example 1: Traffic and revenue overlap Example 2: Knowledge panel explorer Example 3: Best and worst month analysis Example 4: Crawler with AI prompts Example 5: ChatGPT query extractor Example 6: Related articles What is a prompt? If you use ChatGPT  or any other LLM, you’ve already written prompts. A prompt is just what you ask the LLM.  For ChatGPT, write your prompt in the box labeled ‘Ask ChatGPT anything’. Since prompting is a step into creating your own apps, here’s an example prompt I’ll explain with more detail later in this article: I need a Python script that calculates and displays the cumulative percentages for both traffic and revenue, showing how many pages represent 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, and 100% of the total. Plot two graphs: one for cumulative traffic and one for cumulative revenue distribution across the pages. Find the URLs that represent 50% of the traffic and revenue. Remember that you can keep iterating your prompt on ChatGPT and other LLMs. If you’re not happy with the results (i.e., your code doesn’t do exactly what you want), you can continue the ‘conversation’ until the results are satisfactory. What is a connector? For the purposes of this tutorial, a ‘connector’ is any external tool you need to collect information (e.g., an API or SEO tool ). This allows you to pull information from a Google knowledge panel or extract vector embeddings using a crawler like Screaming Frog. This is an optional step, depending on the tool you want to build. It can be as simple as providing the API key that requests the information you’re asking for.  Once we get to the examples, I’ll show exactly how to use them and how simple they are. What is Google Colab? First of all, Colab is short for “Colaboratory.” And, as described in its FAQ , “Colab is a hosted Jupyter Notebook service that requires no setup to use”.  In other words, it’s a Python environment that runs on your browser, requires no software installation, and comes with several pre-installed packages. If you have a Google account (e.g., Gmail), you probably already have access to Google Colab. It’s free to use and you can share your code the way you would any Google Doc. How to run your Colab notebook Plain and simple:  You tell ChatGPT (or your preferred LLM) what you want in your code. ChatGPT generates the Python code. You copy and paste the code in Google Colab and click on “Run.”  While this is a straightforward task, errors are likely to come up. Don’t worry too much, because you can return to ChatGPT to identify errors and fix them. After pasting your code, click on the Play button to run the code. Make sure to ask for “Python code for Google Colab,” so your code is limited to packages available there. If you ask for Python code without specifying Google Colab, it might try to use packages that are not available . If you start getting errors, show ChatGPT which errors you had and it’ll adapt the code for you. It usually takes me up to three interactions to get the results I’m looking for. Little prompt tweaks are enough to solve issues. Why use Colab instead of ChatGPT directly? If ChatGPT is generating the code for you, couldn’t you just ask it directly for the results? The answer is yes, you could. However, not everyone is comfortable or allowed to upload their company data into ChatGPT. Even with the option to prevent your prompts from being used to train models, I still don’t feel like uploading sales, revenue, or conversion numbers directly. This is a workaround, since the files are run in Google Colab, which uses your Google Drive or files you upload directly.  This way, ChatGPT will never see your data, so it couldn’t possibly train on it. How to generate code for Google Colab I hope you’re still hooked on the idea of creating your own tools. I explained all the technical steps above, but you still need to know what (and how) to ask ChatGPT to generate your code. Let’s focus on that now. Depending on your use case, you’ll still need to learn some concepts or explain that you want to use a certain connector, like an API. Here’s an example: Write a Python script that calls the Google Knowledge Graph API, searches for a specific query (e.g., 'Taylor Swift'), and prints the fields @id, name, @type, description, url, and resultScore. In this case, I’m connecting to the Google Knowledge Graph API  and need to know which fields are available to pull data from.  Sometimes an idea is clear in your head and, when talking to a human, you can make a lot of assumptions (e.g., your colleagues know what a ‘conversion’ means in your company), but the LLM doesn’t, so be very explicit in your prompt.  For instance, say things like: Adapt this code to Google Colab I will upload a CSV with headers [A, B] I want a file that downloads automatically after the numbers are calculated Combine both results in one CSV file Change the input source to use Excel files If your code doesn’t do what you expected, just ask ChatGPT your next request, copy and paste the new code and test again. Tweak your prompt with new requests to get an updated Python code. Example 1: Traffic and revenue overlap A while ago, I was at a crossroads: we could only invest in optimizing a percentage of pages. One KPI was to protect traffic, another was to grow revenue. Not every page has the same potential, so how could I address both? By creating a small app on Google Colab, I could upload all my data and put together some groups of pages showing the percentage of traffic represented by those groups. I found that 20% of the pages represented nearly 80% of all traffic. You can find your ideal group (e.g., 50% traffic, 50% revenue) and drive the conversation with stakeholders  by proposing to only optimize a percentage of pages and listing exactly which ones. An easy table to show how much ‘coverage’ a group of pages represents. Prompt example I need a Python script for Google Colab that can:  Calculate and display the cumulative percentages for both traffic and revenue, showing how many pages represent 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, and 100% of the total. Plot two graphs: one for cumulative traffic and one for cumulative revenue distribution across the pages. Find the URLs that represent 50% of the traffic and revenue. Try to overlap URLs as much as possible, but it's ok if there's no perfect match. Traffic or revenue might be a little higher than 50%. The input will be given by a CSV file I'll upload. Combine the URLs into one file and automatically export this data to a new CSV file. Use your intuition to adapt this prompt to your needs. This prompt shows that you can create an application with graphs and how specific your prompt instructions should be. You’re saying the results don’t need to be an exact percentage (which is nearly impossible to reach), that you’ll upload the data in a spreadsheet, and that you want the results to be downloaded automatically. This way, you’re not rambling through Google Colab to find where the file saved. While it’s not hard to locate the output file, this will save you a few minutes each time. Beyond the table with the results shown above, you can also plot some graphics that will facilitate the conversation when you’re pitching an SEO initiative . This graph shows that 30% of pages return around 70% of revenue. This graphic was automatically generated using Google Colab. Example 2: Knowledge panel explorer I’ve written on Wix about how to get a knowledge panel —this tool allows you to extract the confidence score Google has for specific entities, such as a person, company, or any other ‘thing’ (e.g., concepts, books, events, etc). Similar versions of this tool already exist, but I wanted to see if I could make my own just for the learning process. I also made an improved version where you can automatically track your confidence score  daily, but let’s stick to the basics below. Prompt example Write a Python script that calls the Google Knowledge Graph API, searches for a specific query (e.g., 'Taylor Swift'), and prints the fields @id, name, @type, description, url, and resultScore. If the query doesn't return a valid result, please print the message ‘Query is not present on Knowledge Graph panel’. This is meant to work on Google Colab. This is a case where you’d use a connector—the Google Knowledge Graph API.  To get an API key, to create your own Google Cloud API . It’ll generate an API key (a random mix of letters and numbers, such as 4gD2yB5lf9rqWiAm2nqGCkTyoU3&2x) that you need to copy and paste into your code.  Create an account on Google Cloud to generate your API key. Add your API key in the first red box and the query you want to check on the second. When you get it right, it should look like the example below: Google Colab output for ‘Semrush’ entity. Example 3: Best and worst month analysis This is an example of how a small application can save you precious time.  Traffic and conversions to different pages go up and down at different times. If you’re analyzing to find out when pages performed the best, the first step is to know when a page was at its peak and then compare your ranking positions at that time vs. now. This is quick to do for a handful of pages, but if you need to find the best and worst months for hundreds of pages, just finding the dates is a manual and boring task—all of that before analyzing what happened and putting together a recovery plan. This tool looks at your full list of pages and extracts the best and worst month for any metric (traffic, conversions, revenue), as long as the data is present in the source.  Prompt example Write a Python script for Google Colab that checks the best and worst month of traffic for a URL. I'll upload a CSV file with Date, URL and Sessions headers, including sessions for every month over a large period. Once you read the data, automatically export a CSV file including the Date, URL and Session for the best and worst month for every URL. The output should look like this: You can make adjustments on how you want to display the data, but this looked good enough for me. The first column is the URL, then the month, and number of sessions. Example 4: Crawler with AI prompts There are plenty of SEO crawlers on the market, so I’m not suggesting you should create your own to compete with them. I just wanted to see if it's possible to create a simple crawler that would extract the page content and pass through a ChatGPT prompt, all in a Google Sheet. It works, and it is surprisingly easy! The prompt example you see below worked in the first attempt. Always keep in mind that LLMs are overly confident. Sometimes you could ask it to read the content inside a URL, and it would throw an answer, even though it didn’t really read it. I tested this one more time, asking for the first phrase in each article. If it had hallucinated, it’d be easy to spot. Now I know it’s actually reading the page since these are exact phrases that exist on each crawled page. One of the most popular SEO crawlers in the market, Screaming Frog, has multiple AI-related features where you can do the same as I did here, and much more. For instance, you can extract only segments of a page (e.g. exclude headers and footer, for example), generate alt text automatically and plenty more using OpenAI's API. If, for some reason, you can’t afford a license or need a free option (apart from the OpenAI API keys usage), this could do the trick.

 Prompt example Please write me a Python code to use with Google Colab. I'll provide you with a URL, which you need to crawl / scrape the content. The URLs are in column A. Then, run this by the prompt in Column B. This will make a call OpenAI (I'll provide an API key) and return the answer in a CSV. Example 5: ChaptGPT query extractor As everyone in SEO is currently trying to discover how ChatGPT works and influence how their brand and clients are mentioned, multiple SEOs took Chrome Dev Tools (a feature inside Google’s browser, Chrome) to find clues. One of these SEOs is Jérôme Salomon . He found out that ChatGPT breaks our long requests into multiple phrases and sends them to Bing to fetch relevant sources (URLs). You can replicate these findings by prompting on ChatGPT. After that, click with the right button on your browser, then choose Inspect > Network > “Conversation” > Response Inside the response, a field called search_query reveals the queries ChatGPT ask to Bing This process happens when ChatGPT needs to consult external sources to validate its answers and display the sources (URLs) to users. This process is part of an AI framework known as RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation). Another SEO professional, Ziggy Shtrosberg , used an LLM to create a bookmarklet you can add to your browser and after doing a search on ChatGPT, you simply click on the bookmarklet and the queries ChatGPT made to Bing are revealed. Ziggy said his process included asking Claude (another LLM) what he wanted, doing one step at a time, and testing it. After reading his blog post and some others on this topic, I learned that the information I want is under a field called search_query. Trying to replicate his steps, I simply asked for a JavaScript bookmarklet that would extract this field in any page (or return an error message). While Ziggy's tool has a better design, I still managed to extract the same information with a two-line prompt. The hardest part was discovering what I should ask. Prompt example I want to create a javascript bookmarklet to add on Chrome. It should extract the contents inside search_query. Example 6: Find related articles This is a more advanced case that I already covered in another blog post , but it was very popular at the time, so it’s worth a mention. You can map pages with similar topics together by using vector embeddings and cosine similarity. This allows you to find related products, add internal links, off-topic pages, and more. In short, vector embeddings are a numerical representation of text that captures its semantic meaning and relationships. This way, you can analyze what a whole page is about. Then, use cosine similarity to compare these pages to each other to find out how similar or different they are. I used Screaming Frog as a connector. They have a feature where you can crawl a page and extract the embeddings at the same time. You could also create a small crawler that extracts vector embeddings to work directly on ChatGPT or on your Google Colab. Remember that you only need to add your API key, press the play button on Google Colab, and upload your spreadsheet—nothing too complicated. Collect vector embeddings at scale and use cosine similarity to measure how similar the pages are. You can even reuse the prompt in example 3 (Crawler + AI) and run everything on your own machine. I've tested and got an error (“You tried to access openai. Embedding, but this is no longer supported in openai>=1.0.0”). To solve it, I've fed the error to my conversation with ChatGPT and got an updated code that works. Here's the Colab Script if you want. Simply add your API key and a spreadsheet with the header “url”. The next step is to use this other Google Colab script to measure the cosine similarity between each page and find the three most similar. Prompt example Please write me a Python code to use with Google Colab. I'll provide you with a URL, which you need to crawl / scrape the content. The URLs are in column A. Then return the embeddings for these pages in column B. This will make a call OpenAI (I'll provide an API key) and return the answer in a CSV. Use a newer version of the openai library (v1.0 or above) Experiment, validate, and iterate to maximize LLMs for SEO Beyond the examples I shared above, this post was meant to inspire you to come up with your own applications based on your specific needs. Start simple, test the tools, and whether the results are actually correct (LLMs sometimes have too much confidence, even if they’re plain wrong). Remember, you can ask for text, tables, graphics, and pretty visuals. There are advanced cases, such as content decay , that also help you tell a story to stakeholders, and making it visual is a great way to strengthen your recommendations. Even a color scale on a table can make a huge difference, and you can ask ChatGPT to include this in your code.  This example shows how many unique queries a website ranks for (per position and per month).    Some of these apps may look very simple, not fully fleshed like the SaaS tools you may be used to, but they are still an improvement from your spreadsheet or manual work. They may be shared in your company or remain your secret. Either way, you can build something powerful!  Gus Pelogia - SEO Product Manager Gus Pelogia is a journalist turned SEO since 2012. He’s currently an SEO product manager at Indeed, the top job site in the world. Every day, he writes tickets for small and large initiatives and works in a cross-functional team with writers, UX, engineers, and product managers. Twitter  | Linkedin

Author: Miriam Ellis The About page is an asset you know you need to have, but if you’re like many site owners, you aren’t quite sure what to fill it with. You are not alone! Most of the clients I’ve consulted, both large and small, seem to freeze when it comes to talking proudly about their business.  I find this kind of humility rather heartwarming—even if we work in marketing, we tend to blush a bit over blowing our own horn.  It’s totally normal to feel like this, but it creates a huge lost opportunity if this page isn’t designed for conversions. The About page can make the difference between being chosen by a visitor with specific criteria they need fulfilled or losing the sale to a competitor. It may be your one chance to prove that you are the best of all the options they are considering, and it deserves to be one of the strongest pages on your site, rather than an afterthought. So, here’s the good news: your About page is not about you—it’s about your visitor. Hopefully this distinction can help you move past self-consciousness and towards creating an About page that converts. Let’s get started. Table of contents: The problem: What typical About pages sound like How your About page should read What belongs on your About page and how should you organize it? 01. Opening statement 02. Summary of core products and services 03. Persuasive statistics 04. Positive reviews and user-generated content 05. Compelling images and videos 06. Ways to connect with your business 07. Mission statement 08. Company timeline 09. Call-to-action The problem: What typical About pages sound like to potential customers Let’s start with an example of how your About page shouldn’t read.  Imagine you’re a homeowner in Marin County, California, who is looking to hire a sustainable landscape designer to turn your non-ecological front lawn into a biodiverse wildlife garden. Here are your priorities as the customer: You want the service provider to both install the landscape design and to maintain it on a quarterly basis. You want a provider that’s local so that you won’t need to pay any extra travel-related surcharges. You want proof that the firm understands and is qualified to undertake native plant landscaping for wildlife and will not use any kind of materials or chemicals that could harm wildlife or your family. You want a company with a proven record of beautiful work and an excellent reputation in the local community. You want transparent information about fees so you know if you can afford this service. You want to work with friendly, communicative people who treat you respectfully and want to form a real relationship with you (since you will be letting them onto your property at least four times a year). With this list of priorities in mind, let’s look at a fictitious example of typical About page content that incorporates elements from multiple real websites: What you see above is one of the most common failings of About pages: The company says “We, we, we,” instead of “you, you, you,” to the visitor and misses the opportunity to check off items on the potential customer’s priority list. There is no mention of location, no sense that the visitor is being directly addressed, and little by way of how choosing this business will benefit the customer.  Let’s fix this with some better examples that will help you turn this important page away from internal-speak about your business and toward the visitor and their needs. How your About page should read to visitors There are three main points your improved About page should address to the customer: 01. Your problem solved Directly address your reader by acknowledging the most common problems that prompt them to contact you. 02. Your life made better Directly explain how your solution improves the lives of clients/customers, whether that means benefits to their home, health, finances, quality of life, or whatever your product or service provides. 03. Your proof Directly showcase all of the aspects of your business that prove you are the best choice. Proof can come in the form of reviews , testimonials, statistics, data, case studies, photos or videos of completed work, awards , and a variety of other assets, all with the goal of demonstrating your credibility. All three points are geared directly toward the customer so that your About page becomes their  resource for discovering whether their priorities will be met by your company. How you design the layout of your page is up to you, but let’s look at a framework for inspiration. What belongs on your About page and how should you organize it? Below, I will walk you through how to create a compelling, customer-first About page that includes the following elements: 01. Opening statement 02. Core products and services 03. Stats 04. User-generated content and reviews 05. Images and video 06. Contact information 07. Mission statement 08. Timeline 09. Call-to-action 01. An opening statement that speaks one-on-one to your visitor We’ve already looked at an example of typical About page text that fails to engage the reader. Take inspiration from this more effective example: This example speaks directly to your potential customer using words like “you” and mentions their needs and budget, suggesting that they can handle a wide range of customer requests and circumstances. 02. A summary of your core products and services Don’t assume that visitors already know what you’re offering. Create a summary of each of your core products and services, with links to relevant landing pages where they can learn more.  If practicable, include pricing information to avoid wasting your time and the visitors’ if their budget doesn’t match your costs. Here’s an example to inspire you: 03. Showcase your most persuasive statistics Numbers tell a story of their own. Whether it’s customers served, projects completed, or the size of your software’s link index, pick three to five stunning stats to highlight, like this: 04. Showcase reviews and user-generated content In surveys I’ve conducted in the past, I discovered that the majority of consumers trust what customers say about a business more than what a business says about itself. Because of this, one of your most influential About page sections should feature your best reviews .  If you have a separate page on the site for reviews and testimonials, you can link to it from this section. In the enterprise arena, this is also where you should showcase your most impressive clients (if you are permitted to do so). Some review platforms enable you to embed reviews from your profiles, but always read the guidelines of each platform before republishing its contents.  05. Include compelling images and videos A video summarizing key factors about your business can provide a shortcut for visitors who don’t want to read through your entire About page (this can be especially true for mobile users).  You should include:  An introduction from the business owner The benefits customers receive from working with you Impressive statistics Snapshots of your reviews Footage of your premises Information about your most important products and services  Video testimonials can also be a major asset for brands in almost any industry. Meanwhile, imagery plays a role in most businesses:  Service area businesses , like plumbers and landscapers, can share photos of company vehicles and uniforms to instill trust. Before-and-after photography works like magic for house painters, carpet cleaners, remediation services, and similar businesses. Brick-and-mortar companies can photograph exterior and interior premises as well as amenities, such as patio dining, gender-neutral restrooms, and accessibility features. For fully virtual businesses, such as software companies, screenshots of your dashboards or reports could add interest to this section.  06. List every possible way to connect with your business If your business is local, you should find room near the top of your About page to list your complete company name, address, and phone number.  In addition, create a list of every possible way in which a potential customer might connect with you: Alternate phone numbers SMS/text numbers After-hours support numbers Links to all your social media profiles Forms Booking buttons and calendars Email addresses Fax numbers 07. Only after all of the above, include your mission statement While a mission statement may be a primary consideration in the non-profit sector, it tends to take second place for customers in most other industries. Only when the contents of your About page have directly addressed as many of your customers’ questions as possible should you dive into the deeper story behind your company.  Once again, even though your mission statement is technically all about your business, orient its language toward the visitor, like this: 08. Instill trust with your company timeline While you don’t have to include a timeline of your business’s history, this can be an excellent way to quickly convey further information that will matter to the visitor. Here is a starter list of points that can make your timeline a sales asset: Founding date Awards won Community involvement Growth or expansion Major projects Acquisitions Relocations Top achievements 09. Add a prominent call-to-action Wix’s About page includes CTAs in the header and within the body. Prompt the visitor to take the next action along their customer journey  after viewing your About page. That next step is likely something on this list: Phone your business Fill out a form Book an appointment Text your business Buy something Visit your premises Move to a different page on the site Contact you via email You can sprinkle calls-to-action (CTAs)  throughout your About page, but don’t forget to close the page out with one. Make it as easy as possible for the visitor to understand what they can do next. Your About page is as much about your business as your customers’ needs There are many additional elements that could be incorporated into your About page. For example, it might be smart to feature notifications of sales and specials, or coupons. You could have links to a Careers page or a Press section. It may even be necessary to disclose your policies, licensing agreements, or similar information. Begin with the basics you’ve learned about in this article and add to it to make your About page as influential as possible. The one rule of thumb to keep in mind is that what you write is meant to solve the visitor’s problems. Answer their questions and meet their needs. Speak directly to the potential customer, as the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard described, “that single individual whom I with joy and gratitude call my reader.” When a visitor to your About page feels that you are speaking to them one-on-one, with genuine consideration for their wishes and feelings, their journey toward conversion will be quicker because you have already met them halfway by proving you know how to serve your audience. Miriam Ellis - Local SEO Subject Matter Expert at Moz   Miriam Ellis is a local SEO columnist and consultant. She has been cited as one of the top five most prolific women writers in the SEO industry. Miriam is also an award-winning fine artist and her work can be seen at MiriamEllis.com . Twitter  | Linkedin