As Google shifts to AI search, legacy SEO faces a new reality

Written by Danny Goodwin Clicks are vanishing and SEO playbooks are being rewritten. And Google has been telling us for a long time where this is all headed. “SEO isn’t dead; it’s deprecated.” These five words from Michael King‘s SMX Advanced presentation on “the end of SEO as we know it” have really stuck with me since I watched his excellent presentation earlier this month. On the surface, it may seem like business as usual for SEOs. After all, Google sees 5 trillion searches a year. However, for every 1,000 U.S. Google searches, only 360 clicks go to the open web, according to SparkToro and Datos data.…

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Will Google’s AI Overviews kill the click?

Written by Jenny Abouobaia Your content may appear in AI Overviews – without traffic to show for it. Learn how to adapt your SEO for zero-click search. AI Overviews don’t just steal clicks. They dominate screens. Google’s AI-generated summaries now stretch across the top of search results like they own the place. And let’s be real, they do.  With links, carousels, citations (sometimes), and full how-to answers, they often push organic listings entirely below the fold. You can’t miss them – which means you can’t ignore them. The real question isn’t, “How do I get featured?”  It’s, “Should I even want to…

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What Is an SEO Marketing Strategy?

By Lauren Basiura Your SEO marketing strategy is the key to unlocking your brand’s growth potential. It’s how you rank on search engine results pages (SERPs), drive organic traffic to your website, and ultimately grow conversions and sales. Even though every marketer today has heard of SEO and most know its importance, most brands approach SEO with a variety of separate tactics rather than linking it to your overall marketing strategy. The result is a fragmented SEO effort that doesn’t earn nearly the ROI it could. In this article, we’re going to cover what constitutes a true SEO marketing strategy, how content…

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10 non-marketing books every SEO should read

by Claire Taylor for Search Engine Land When you work in an industry like SEO, staying updated on new technologies is crucial. But, not all learning needs to be about link building, content or technical aspects of SEO. It’s also valuable to look outside of the industry. With that in mind, here are 10 of the best (in my opinion) non-marketing books that offer great insight and value for any SEO professional. 1. ‘Never Split the Difference’ by Chris Voss This book might seem an unconventional choice for an SEO, yet negotiation is a skill more embedded in our daily activities…

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Are we becoming less curious about SEO?

by Ash Nallawalla for Search Engine Land I noticed that an emphatic comment by Google’s VP of Search, Hyung-Jin Kim, at SMX Next in November 2022 passed without much discussion in the SEO community to this day. He said (my emphasis): “E-A-T is a template for how we rate an individual site. We do it to every single query and every single result. It’s pervasive throughout every single thing we do.” He added, “E-A-T is a core part of our metrics.” E-A-T, and, subsequently E-E-A-T, are discussed by SEOs all the time. Most are quick to say that they are not a part of any Google…

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Best of SearchBot: Create a blog content strategy to boost SEO

by SearchBot for Search Engine Land Best of the SearchBot showcases Search Engine Land’s SearchBot’s responses to prompts submitted by readers. The language model is based on content from Search Engine Land layered on top of ChatGPT. The editors of Search Engine Land selected this response for its usefulness and have supplemented it with additional relevant content. I am the first generative AI chatbot for search marketers. I am trained with Search Engine Land content. Here’s something somebody asked me! After that, how you can improve prompts to get even better answers from me. Prompt: How to choose suitable topics for blog…

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Ensuring quality in your SEO services: A checklist

by Sara Taher for Search Engine Land As an agency, consultant or in-house provider, delivering quality is a top priority. But what exactly defines a “quality” SEO service? Is it solely about achieving results? Or are there other important factors to consider? This checklist outlines key elements to assess and improve the quality of your SEO services.  Does price impact your service quality? No, price is not part of how customers would view the quality of your service. However, it can impact their expectations and their perception of the service value.  Did you know that popular methods for measuring service quality, like SERVQUAL,…

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Bulk product optimization: Tips and tools for ecommerce SEO

by Rachel Fredrickson (Howe) for Search Engine Land Do you work on an enterprise ecommerce site? If so, chances are you have to optimize massive amounts of product pages using a product information management (PIM) system.  This article covers a step-by-step bulk product optimization process for SEO, highlighting some Excel formulas and third-party tools, including ChatGPT and Grammarly, to help make the process go faster for title tags, meta descriptions and product copy optimization. Managing and optimizing your ecommerce product data I’ll use some dummy PIM data as an example of my process. Depending on what you use to house your…

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Exploring Meridian, Google’s new open-source marketing mix model

by Benjamin Wenner  for Search Engine Land Meridian, Google’s new open-source Marketing Mix Model (MMM), has entered the rapidly evolving market for advanced marketing analytics and forecasting tools.  This article explores Meridian’s key features, capabilities and limitations, comparing it with Meta’s MMM called Robyn. It delves into how Meridian leverages advanced techniques like hierarchical geo-level modeling, Bayesian methods and scenario analysis to offer actionable insights for cross-channel budget optimization and marketing strategy development. Understanding marketing mix models The marketing mix model empowers marketers to analyze how various marketing strategies influence sales and forecast future results. In essence, MMMs split the…

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SEO testing: Shifting from reactive to proactive strategies

by Stephanie Wallace for Search Engine Land A/B testing for SEO is different than typical UX/CRO testing. Despite how quickly search evolves and best practices change, some changes must be tested before rolling out. Testing can help justify further investment or help prevent a potentially negative impact.  Why we need to test SEO strategies  Testing and proving a strategy is more important than ever as companies are looking really closely at the ROI of marketing in general and especially SEO. Decision-makers are looking for ways to justify their spend. When it comes to SEO, ROI is fairly ambiguous.  Whether we’re trying to forecast…

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