May 2 2024
116 Top Free SEO Tools via @sejournal, @jonleeclark

Software makes the SEO world go round. From analyzing your website data to performing research, effective SEO relies on a series of tools to assist humans in decision-making.

Paid subscription tools can be highly effective and usually come with support. But if you don’t have a large monthly budget, they might be out of the question.

The good news is that there are plenty of free tools. With a bit of time and know-how, you can create a free stack of software that helps you achieve your SEO goals.

What Are SEO Tools?

Think of SEO tools as your digital magnifying glass and toolkit for your website. They’re not just about providing numbers and graphs; they’re about offering insights and strategies to enhance your website’s visibility and performance.

These tools are the compass and map for navigating the vast world of search engine optimization, helping you pinpoint exactly where you stand and what steps you need to take to improve and boost visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Each SEO tool has a unique function, just like how a hammer is distinct from a screwdriver in a traditional toolbox. They offer specialized assistance in various aspects of SEO:

  • Analytics – Understand your website traffic and user behavior.
  • Keyword Research – Discover what your audience is searching for.
  • Links – Analyze your backlink profile and build quality links.
  • Local SEO – Optimize your site for local search results.
  • Mobile SEO – Ensure your site is optimized for mobile users.
  • On-page SEO – Improve the content and structure of your website pages.
  • Research – Dive deep into market trends and competitor strategies.
  • Rank Checking – Monitor where your pages stand in search results.
  • Site Speed – Enhance the loading speed of your pages.
  • WordPress SEO – Optimize your WordPress site specifically for SEO.

SEO tools are incredibly useful, but you must understand how to use them to get the most out of them.

There are even a few toolsets that can help you in more than the areas we just mentioned, giving you more of an all-at-once glance at your SEO performance.

Do You Need SEO Tools?

The short answer is yes, you need SEO tools.

Imagine trying to build a table using only your hands.

You wouldn’t get very far, would you? No.

You will need tools – saws, a measuring tape, a drill, and screwdrivers, to name a few.

Similarly, while you can certainly create a website with basic knowledge and intuition, truly optimizing and understanding its performance requires the right tools.

Without them, you’re essentially playing a guessing game.

Without SEO tools, you’re missing out on:

  • The volume of traffic reaching your site.
  • Alerts on sudden drops in website visits.
  • Identifying and fixing HTML errors.
  • Tracking the quantity and quality of your backlinks.
  • Discovering potential keywords to drive more traffic.
  • And much, much more.

So, while it’s theoretically possible to manage a website without SEO tools, if you’re serious about maximizing its potential and reaching your audience effectively, leveraging these tools isn’t just recommended – it’s essential.

What Are The Best Free SEO Tools?

If you’re looking to get started with SEO or want to achieve better results for the low cost of $0, here are 110 of the best free SEO tools you should be using.

Free SEO Analytics Tools

1. Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics sampleScreenshot by author, May 2022

Google Analytics 4 is an invaluable resource that is virtually indispensable to any digital marketer serious about SEO.

It provides plenty of handy data about websites, such as the number of site visits, traffic sources, and location demographics.

With the detailed information from Google Analytics, digital marketers can tweak their content strategy and figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Google Analytics 4 is one of the best free SEO tools that every digital marketer should be using.

2. Looker Studio (Formerly Data Studio)

Google Looker Studio lets you merge data from varying sources, such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics, and create sharable visualizations.

If you’re just getting started with it, this beginner’s guide to Data Studio will be helpful.

More advanced users can learn how to use CASE statements for better Data Studio segments here.

3. Keyword Hero

Missing keyword data? Leave it to Keyword Hero, which uses advanced math and machine learning to fill in the blanks.

This service is free for up to 2,000 sessions per month. Keyword Hero also provides a 14-day free trial of any of its  plans.

4. Mozcast

Mozcast tracks changes big and small to Google’s search algorithm.

With Google making hundreds of changes every year, keeping abreast of the latest developments helps you ensure you’re doing everything to have the best SERPs.

5. Panguin Tool

The Panguin Tool, provided by Barracuda Digital, lines up your search traffic with known changes to the Google search algorithm.

If you see a drop that lines up with an update, you’ve likely found the culprit and can work on fixing it!

6. Google Search Console Enhancer

A Chrome extension that beefs up your Google Search Console (GSC) with additional features and insights. Google Search Console Enhancer is like putting a turbocharger on your Console, providing you with more detailed data to fine-tune your SEO approach.

7. Better Regex In Search Console

This nifty Chrome extension amps up your Google Search Console experience.

If you’re into the nitty-gritty of SEO data, this tool helps you create more sophisticated search patterns to dive deeper into your website’s search query data.

8. Lost Impressions Index Check

This tool from TameTheBots helps you uncover potential SEO opportunities by identifying where you might be losing visibility in search results.

Free Crawling & Indexing Tools

9. Redirect Path

Redirect PathScreenshot from Redirect Path, March 2024

The Redirect Path Chrome extension will flag 301, 302, 404, and 500 HTTP Status Codes.

Additionally, client-side redirects like meta and JavaScript redirects will also be flagged, ensuring any redirect issue can be uncovered immediately.

HTTP Headers, such as server types and caching headers, as well as the server IP address, can also be displayed with the click of a button.

Furthermore, all of these details can be copied to your clipboard for easy sharing or addition to a technical audit document.

10. Link Redirect Trace

Use this Chrome plugin to make sure all your link redirects are directing people and crawlers to where you want them to go.

11. Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Crawl your website for SEO errors.

Discover HTTP header errors, JavaScript rendering hiccups, excess HTML, crawl mistakes, duplicate content, and more with Screaming Frog SEO Spider.

12. Screaming Frog Log File Analyzer

Upload your log files to Screaming Frog’s Log File Analyzer to confirm search engine bots, check which URLs have been crawled, and study search bot data.

13. SEOlyzer

Another SEO log analysis tool that provides data in real-time and page categorization.

14. Xenu

One of the original free SEO tools, Xenu is a crawler that provides basic site audits, looks for broken links, and the other usual suspects.

15. Where Goes?

Track where redirection URLs and shortened links go with Where Goes?

16. Check My Links

Check My Links sampleScreenshot from Check My Links, May 2024

Check My Links is a nifty Chrome Extension that crawls through your webpage and identifies the status code for each link on the page – including broken links.

Each status code is color-coded with 200 status codes returning dark green, 300 status codes returning light green, and 400 status codes returning red.

Once identified, you can copy all bad links to your clipboard with one click.

17. Robots.txt Generator

Create a correct robots.txt file instantly so search engines know how to crawl your website.

Advanced users can customize their files with Robots.txt Generator as well.

18. HEADMaster SEO

Checks URLs in bulk for status code, redirect status, response time, response headers, and HTTP header fields with HEADMaster SEO.

Get results in real-time, sort and study your findings, and export your work to CSV.

19. Keep-Alive Validation SEO Tool

Check URLs in bulk – or one by one – to see if their servers support persistent connection, which makes your website load faster.

Check what version of HTTP your server is on and whether there are any external connections on your URL with this tool.

20. Hreflang Tag Generator

Generate hreflang tags so that Google knows which language particular pages on your website are in.

This will allow Google to search those pages in that language.

21. XML Sitemaps

Create a site map of up to 500 pages for free without registration.

Download your sitemap as an XML file or get it via email.

22. SERP Checker

Determine the potential ranking difficulty of a keyword with Ahrefs’ free SERP Checker tool.

You can check the top 10 search ranking results from any location without using proxies or location-specific IP addresses.

23. SFAIK Screaming Frog Analyzer

A robust visualization of Screaming Frog crawl data using Google Data Studio.

24. SEOWL Google Title Rewrite Checker

This Google Title Rewrite Checker will allow you to check if Google is rewriting the title of a list of pages, allowing for deeper Title Tag structure analysis.

Free Keyword Research Tools

25. AnswerThePublic

AnswerThePublic for marketingScreenshot from AnswerThePublic, May 2024

AnswerThePublic is a nifty tool that provides content marketers with valuable data about the questions people ask online.

Once you input a keyword, it fetches popular queries based on that keyword and generates a cool graphic with the questions and phrases people use when they search for that keyword.

This data gives content creators insight into potential customers’ concerns and desires, and enables them to craft highly targeted content that addresses those needs.

AnswerThePublic also provides keyword suggestions using prepositions such as “versus,” “like,” and “with.”

It is an excellent research tool that can help you create better content that people will enjoy and be more likely to share.

26. Keyword Explorer

This keyword research tool will give you up to 1,000 keyword suggestions, a keyword difficulty score, a click-through rate date, and SERP analysis.

You get three free searches per day.

27. Keyword Planner

Google’s Keyword Planner is designed for ad campaigns, but you can use it for keyword research by seeing how keywords perform in ads.

28. Keyword Sheeter

Get keyword volume, cost per click, and competition data with this free keyword tool.

29. Keywords Everywhere

Keywords Everywhere sampleScreenshot from Keywords Everywhere, May 2024

Keywords Everywhere is a must-use keyword research tool due to the massive list of sites that it provides free search volume, CPC, and competition data for:

  • Google Search.
  • Google Trends.
  • eBay.
  • AnswerThePublic.
  • Google Keyword Planner.
  • Bing.
  • Etsy.
  • Soovle.
  • Google Search Console.
  • YouTube.
  • Ubersuggest.
  • Majestic.
  • Google Analytics 4.
  • Amazon.
  • Keyword Sheeter.
  • Moz Open Site Explorer.

It’s available for Chrome and Firefox.

30. Ahrefs Keyword Difficulty

This tool lets you discover how difficult it will be to rank in the top 10 search results for any keyword.

Simply enter your term and choose your location, and Ahrefs will give you a score, with 0 being easy and 100 being extremely difficult.

31. Also Asked

Find out what questions people are asking about particular keywords so that you can write content that answers those questions with Also Asked.

Conduct searches by country and in different languages. You can claim three free searches to start.

32. Google Trends

With Google Trends, you can see the interest in a particular term from as recently as an hour to as far back as 2004.

Sort by categories, country, and type of search. See related topics, popularity by region, latest most frequently searched-for terms, and compare to other terms.

33. Glimpse – Google Trends Search Extension

This Chrome extension brings Google Trends right to your browser, offering instant insights into trending topics.

It’s a goldmine for SEO strategists looking to tap into current interests and emerging searches.

34.  Keyword Surfer

This Chrome extension shows you the search volume in your Google search results. You can also see the word count and the number of keywords for top-ranking pages.

35. CanIRank

CanIRank homepageScreenshot by author, March 2024

As the name implies, CanIRank helps you determine if you can rank on the first page of search engines for a particular keyword.

Unlike other tools that merely provide data about how competitive keywords are, CanIRank lets you know the probability that you’ll rank for a search term and uses AI to give you suggestions on how to better target keywords.

CanIRank provides great competitive analysis data and actionable steps to get your site ranking higher with better SEO.

36. Seed Keywords

Come up with a question or topic you want to research, send it to your contacts, and have them select the keywords they would search for to get the information you want with Seed Keywords.

37. Exploding Topics

Similar to Google Trends, Exploding Topics will help uncover topics that are about to become popularly searched before they become popularly searched!

38. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest exampleScreenshot by Ubersuggest, May 2024

Ubersuggest is a simple keyword research tool that scrapes data from Google’s Keyword Planner for keyword ideas based on a keyword you provide.

The tool also returns handy data for each keyword, including the search volume, CPC, and level of competition.

An excellent feature of Ubersuggest is its ability to filter out keywords you’re not interested in from search results.

The tool has recently added a feature where you can type in a competitor’s domain to get better keyword ideas.

39. Keys4Up

Get the related keywords, also known as semantically linked keywords, for any search with Keys4Up.

40. Wordtracker Scout

Wordtracker Scout will help discover what keywords people search for when they’re ready to make a purchase.

41. KWFinder

With KWFinder, you can discover long-tail keywords – those more specific, less frequently used keywords that yield higher results because of how specific they are.

42. Keywords People Use

Get into the minds of your audience by discovering the exact phrases and questions they use.

This tool helps you align your content with real user searches, making your site more visible and relevant.

Free Link Tools

43. Disavow Tool

Use Google’s Disavow Tool to free yourself from toxic backlinks.

44. Moz Link Explorer

See the backlink profile and domain authority of any URL with Link Explorer.

45. Link Miner

Discover if a given URL has any broken links and discover the metrics of those links, including both search and social data with the Link Miner extension.

46. Backlink Checker

Use this Backlink Checker to discover all the backlink data about a particular URL.

See the number of referring domains, the number of backlinks, the domain and URL rating, and its Ahrefs Rank, a domain’s position in Ahrefs’s list of most powerful sites.

47. The Anchor Text Suggestion Tool By Outreach Labs

Discover the best anchor text to use for any URL with this Anchor Text Suggestion Tool.

48. SendPulse

SendPulse allows for the configuration of chains of emails, notifications, and SMS messages based on user actions, variables, or events.

49. Scraper

This Chrome extension lets you scrape data from any URL and export the info into a spreadsheet.

50. Help A Reporter (HARO)

Help A Reporter is a resource that connects journalists and experts who act as sources for stories.

51. Streak

Convert your Gmail inbox into customer relationship management (CRM) software with this free extension.

Local SEO

52. Google Business Profile

Connect with customers across Google Search and Google Maps using a free Google Business Profile.

53. Whitespark Google Review Link Generator

Use this tool to find your Google Review listing and generate a shortened link to your page.

54. Local Search Results Checker

Conduct local searches using Google Search or Google Maps with Brightlocal’s Local Search Results Checker.

55. Moz Local Check Business Listing

Confirm that your company’s details appear correctly on various directories with Moz’s Local Business Checker.

56. Whitespark Local Citation Finder

Track your citations, discover new opportunities, and get the citations your competitors have with this Local Citation Finder.

57. Review Handout Generator

Print instructions on how to leave a Google review via desktop or mobile device for your business with Whitespark’s Review Handout Generator.

58. Fakespot Review Checker

This Chrome extension lets you know if the product you’re about to buy comes from a reputable seller and, if not, provides an alternative.

59. Mobile SERP Test

See your local SERPS on various mobile devices with Mobile SERP Test from Mobile Moxie.

Mobile SEO Tools

60. WebPageTest

webpagetest mobile seo toolScreenshot by author, March 2024

Get visual insights for Core Web Vitals, including the primary image responsible for low LCP scores, scripts responsible for render-blocking, and .gif examples of cumulative layout shifts from the WebPageTest.

61. Merkle Mobile-First Index Checker

See how your website stacks up relative to SEO best practices, depending on whether it’s your desktop or mobile version, with Mobile-First Index Checker.

62. Google Page Speed Insights

Test your website’s mobile-friendliness with Google’s Page Speed Insights tool.

63. GTMetrix

See how quickly your website loads with GTMetrix.

Discover what’s keeping it from loading as fast as possible, and see what steps to take to optimize load speed.

64. Cloudflare

A free content delivery network (CDN) is a network of servers that speeds up content loading by using the server closest to the person doing the loading.

65. Reddico SERP Speed Test

Reddico’s SERP Speed Test tool allows you to compare your page speed at keyword level with the rest of the pages ranking on page 1.

The best part? Most countries are supported – simply choose your local from the drop-down.

Free Multi-Tools

66. Semrush Free Account

Semrush for SEJScreenshot from Semrush, March 2024

Semrush is an excellent keyword research SEO tool that, among other things, makes it easy to find out what keywords any page on the web is ranking for.

It provides detailed information about those keywords, including their position in SERPs, the URLs to which they drive traffic, and the traffic trends over the past 12 months.

With this feature-packed tool, you can easily find out what keywords your competitors are ranking for and craft great content around those terms and phrases.

Semrush also offers more features and unlimited access with various paid plans.

While they’re not cheap, you can get started with a 14-day free trial to test the premium features. Or follow the company’s guide on how to use features with a free account.

67. Chrome DevTools

Edit pages in real-time using tools that are built into Google Chrome DevTools.

Diagnose problems as you encounter them.

68. Marketing Miner

Get SERP data, ranking, tool reports, and competitive analysis all in the form of convenient reports with Marketing Miner.

69. MozBar

MozBar sampleScreenshot from Mozbar, March 2024

MozBar is a free SEO toolbar that works with the Chrome browser. It provides easy access to advanced metrics on webpages and SERPs.

With MozBar and a free Moz account, you can easily access the Page and Domain Authority scores of any page or site.

The Page Analysis feature lets you explore elements on any page (e.g., markup, page title, general attributes, link metrics).

You can find keywords on the page you’re viewing, highlight and differentiate links, and compare the link metrics of different sites in SERPs.

If you need to do detailed SEO research on the go, MozBar is one of the best options.

You can unlock even more advanced features, such as Page Optimization and Keyword Difficulty, with a MozPro subscription.

70. SEO Minion

Conduct on-page SEO analysis, check for broken links, get a SERP preview, and more with this Chrome extension.

71. SEOquake

See SEO metrics and conduct an SEO audit with this Chrome extension.

72. Sheets For Marketers

Learn how to automate tasks in Google Sheets and discover the best automation templates and tools via this curated list.

73. Sheet Consolidator

Create workbooks using CSV exports with a table of contents and enabled hyperlinks using this simple Excel Sheet Consolidator tool.

74. Google Search Console

Google Search Console sampleScreenshot by author, May 2022

This list wouldn’t be complete without a mention of Google Search Console.

Aside from the fact that the data comes from Google, Google Search Console is rich with insights related to:

  • Keyword and URL performance.
  • Indexation issues.
  • Mobile usability.
  • Sitemap status.
  • And much more!

75. Small SEO Tools

A suite of tools to make it easier to create content, including a plagiarism checker, article rewriter, grammar check, word counter, spell checker, paraphrasing tool, and more.

76. Internet Marketing Ninjas

From social tools and schema generator tools to webmaster tools and web design tools, check out the free suite of tools from Internet Marketing Ninjas.

77. Ahref’s SEO Toolbar

Get SEO metrics and SERP details from Ahrefs free Chrome or Firefox extension.

78. Bing Webmaster Tools

Featuring keyword reports, keyword research, crawling dates, and more.

Unlike Google Analytics, Bing Webmaster Tools only focuses on organic search. It’s a must-have for anyone who wants to be ranked on Bing.

79. Woorank

WoorankScreenshot by author, May 2022

Woorank is a handy website analyzer that provides useful insights that can help you improve your site’s SEO.

It generates an SEO score for your site and an actionable “Marketing Checklist,” which outlines steps you can take to fix any problems with your site’s SEO.

Another cool feature of this free tool is the social shareability pane. This section provides social network data such as the number of likes, shares, comments, backlinks, and bookmarks across popular social networks.

Woorank also has a great mobile section where you can find information on how your pages render on mobile devices and how quickly they load.

80. SEObility

Find a suite of SEO tools that includes a site auditor, a SERP tracker, a backlink tracker, and more with SEObility.

81. Dareboost

This tool will provide you with an audit of your technical SEO, content, and website’s popularity.

You can also find out which keywords you should add to your pages.

82. Siteliner

Discover duplicate content, broken links, and page authority, and get both an XML sitemap and a detailed report of key site information with Siteliner.

83. InLinks

InLinks is about enhancing your content’s SEO by understanding and optimizing for the context of your topics, not just keywords.

It’s like having an SEO coach who helps you make your content more relevant and engaging through internal linking recommendations, AI content generation, content brief automation, and more.

On-Page SEO

84. Named Entities Indexing Checker

Part of InLinks, this indexing checker tool checks how well search engines understand the named entities (people, places, things) in your content.

Ensuring your content’s context is spot-on for better SEO performance is crucial.

85. JSON Crack

While more technical, this online JSON tool can help SEO professionals work with JSON, a common data format, making it easier to analyze and utilize structured data for SEO purposes.

86. Counting Characters Google SERP Tool

Counting Characters homepageScreenshot by author, May 2024

While counting characters has been a long-standing approach to evaluating meta description and title tag length, the reality is Google doesn’t count the meta title and description in the number of characters. It uses pixels instead.

The Counting Characters tool will provide both the character count and the pixel count to ensure you are creating meta tags that are not cut off by an ellipsis – represented by (…).

87. Natural Language API Demo

Use machine learning to determine the sentiment of text with the Natural Language API Demo.

New customers get $300 in free credits to spend on Natural Language. Use this data to improve your product or site design.

88. Rich Results Test

The Rich Results Test will discover if your website can support rich results, which is when your Google result includes non-textual elements like images.

89. Structured Markup Validator

Google’s structured data tool no longer exists. The Schema Markup Validator is the recommended alternative.

90. Ryte Structured Data Helper

The Ryte Structured Data Helper will provide you with a handy overview, showing you how to quickly and clearly validate your page’s Schema markup.

91. Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager allows you to manage your website tags without editing any code!

92. View Rendered Source

See how your browser renders a page with this Chrome extension, including modifications made by JavaScript.

Differences between raw and rendered versions are shown line-by-line.

93. Higher Visibility Google SERP Snippet Optimization Tool

Find out what your SERP snippet will look like with Higher Visibility’s Google SERP Snippet Optimization Tool.

94. Merkle’s Schema Markup Generator

Merkle’s Schema Markup Generator tool will help create JSON-LD markups for articles, breadcrumbs, events, FAQ pages, and how-to guides.

95. Animalz Revive

Find out which of your pages needs an update or an upgrade with Animalz Revive.

You can see the traffic for your pages, including the percentage of traffic your page lost since its peak.

96. Copyscape Free Comparison Tool

Copyscape’s Comparison Tool will help you check the percentage of shared text between two different pages to weed out plagiarism.

97. Internal Linking Tool

An internal linking tool to help you weave a web of internal links on your website, boosting your SEO by making your site more navigable and interconnected. Think of it as laying down a network of roads within your website, guiding visitors and search engines alike.

SEO Research Tools

98. Hunter

Hunter will help find all the important email addresses associated with a given domain.

99. SimilarWeb

Conduct competitor analysis with SimilarWeb that shows you a given domain’s traffic, top pages, engagement, marketing channels, and more.

100. Wappalyzer

Wappalyzer will help you determine if a given website is using a CMS, CRM, ecommerce platform, advertising networks, marketing tools, or analytics.

101. Wayback Machine

See a website throughout time, including pages that are no longer on the web with the Wayback Machine.

Bonus* check out the Compare tool to visualize how a page has changed based on specific timestamps.

wayback machine compare datesScreenshot by author, March 2024

102. SEO Explorer

SEO Explorer is a free tool for keyword and link research.

103. RedditInsights.ai

This is a cool tool for peering into the vast world of Reddit to uncover trends and topics.

Understanding what’s buzzing on Reddit can guide content creation, helping you tap into what your audience is interested in to inform your keyword and content strategy.

104. Thruuu Page Comparison Tool

Dive into side-by-side SEO comparisons of different web pages with the Thruuu Page Comparison Tool.

You can use this to help you understand how to optimize your own content.

Free Rank Checking Tools

105. Ahref’s SERP Checker

See the domains that place in the top 10 for any given keyword in 243 countries, and get robust analytics from Ahref’s SERP Checker.

106. SERPROBOT

Find a dedicated SERP tracking tool with the appropriately named SERPROBOT.

Set up automatic alerts, choose the frequency with which your SERP is checked, and get visual representations of changes.

107. Bulk Google Rank Checker

See your website’s SERPs for various keywords en mass with the Bulk Google Rank Checker.

Free Site Speed Tools

108. Lighthouse

This is Google’s open-source site speed utility. Lighthouse provides audits of performance, accessibility, web apps, SEO, and more.

109. WebpageTest

WebpageTest conducts site speed tests from different locations using different browsers.

110. Web Vitals

This GitHub extension measures Core Web Vitals, providing instant feedback on loading, interactivity, and layout shift metrics.

Here is an additional list of plugins to improve site speed.

WordPress SEO Tools

WordPress is a robust SEO-friendly CMS platform with numerous plugin options available to improve SEO.

While this post isn’t a WordPress-specific list of plugins, it is worth mentioning a handful of key plugins worth considering.

111. RankMath

A newer SEO suite for WordPress, RankMath has 15 modules and provides SEO guidance using 30 different types of improvements.

112. Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is the most installed SEO suite for WordPress, with regular updates and new tools.

113. Ahrefs WordPress SEO Plugin

The Ahrefs WordPress SEO plugin will provide you with content audits, backlink checking, and tools to monitor and grow your organic traffic.

Here are additional lists of Google Analytics plugins and plugins to improve site speed.

Free AI SEO Tools

Last but not least, we cannot ignore AI.

For better or worse, artificial intelligence has completely shaken up the digital world. While it should never replace your current SEO activities, it can certainly enhance them.

Here are some free AI SEO tools; we’ll also explain how to use them.

114. OpenAI Chat (ChatGPT)

chatgpt seo toolScreenshot by author, March 2024

Perhaps the most famous AI tool out there, ChatGPT can be a great help in your SEO efforts.

You can ask for advice, generate content ideas, and even get help with keyword research. It’s like having an SEO buddy you can brainstorm with anytime.

While the Premium ChatGPT, i.e., ChatGPT 4, is paid, ChatGPT 3.5 is free of charge.

115. AIRPM for ChatGPT

Think of AIPRM as your personal assistant to supercharge ChatGPT’s capabilities.

It helps you craft prompts that get straight to the point, whether you’re looking for keyword suggestions, content ideas, or SEO strategies, making your interactions with ChatGPT even more fruitful.

116. SEO.AI

This innovative tool leverages AI to analyze your content’s alignment with SEO best practices and offers suggestions for improvement.

It can provide insights into keyword optimization, readability, and other on-page SEO factors, helping you refine your content to better match search engine algorithms and user expectations.

You can get 10 content audits free!

Time to Take Your SEO Efforts To New Heights

In today’s digital landscape, standing out is not just about having a great website; it’s about making sure it’s seen.

With well over 100 free SEO tools at your disposal, the power to elevate your online presence is literally at your fingertips.

We’ll leave you with some parting tips to help you while using these free SEO tools:

  • Start with a goal – Have a clear objective before diving into the sea of tools. Are you looking to increase traffic, enhance user engagement, or improve your search engine rankings? Knowing your goal will help you select the right tools and focus your efforts effectively.
  • Experiment and explore – Don’t hesitate to try different tools to see which ones resonate with your workflow and provide the most valuable insights. What works for one site might not work for another, so exploration is key.
  • Integrate SEO into your routine – Make SEO a regular part of your content creation and website maintenance routine. It’s not a one-off task but a continuous effort that pays dividends over time.
  • Stay updated – The world of SEO is dynamic, with search engines constantly updating their algorithms. Keep abreast of the latest trends and adjust your strategies accordingly to maintain and enhance your site’s visibility.
  • Use data wisely – Leverage the data and insights from these tools to make informed decisions. But remember, data is most powerful when combined with creativity and a deep understanding of your audience.
  • Patience is key – SEO results don’t happen overnight. Be patient, keep refining your strategies, and the results will come.

So, whether you’re a seasoned SEO strategist or just starting, the wealth of free tools available means there’s no excuse not to optimize your site.

Dive in, explore, and watch as your website climbs the ranks, attracting more visitors and turning clicks into customers.

More Resources:

Featured Image: EtiAmmos/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
May 2 2024
New Anthropic Claude Team Plan Versus ChatGPT Team via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Anthropic announced a new Team plan that gives businesses the opportunity to access more powerful features with increased management and security controls that make it a strong option for companies to consider.

Generative AI For Teams

Modern SaaS technologies for businesses generally come with a team version that allows collaboration within a company and also gives security and control to management so that proprietary documents don’t accidentally leak to the public.

Open AI launched their ChatGPT Team plan in January 2024, which offered a secured workspace for users within a company at a reasonable monthly and yearly subscription model. Anthropic has finally launched their own Team version of Claude with features that exceed what’s offered by ChatGPT Teams.

Claude Team Compares To ChatGPT Team

Claude is known as a great model for creative purposes and a team version that’s more powerful than the regular paid version makes it even more attractive but the important question is how does it compare to ChatGPT Team?

ChatGPT Team is $5/month cheaper (on the yearly billing plan) than Anthropic’s collaborative plan. Otherwise they are both priced at $30/month per user.

Claude Team is a step up from ChatGPT’s Team in one important way and that’s the context window. A context window is a metric of how much data a model can process at one time. The larger the context window the more data the model can analyze in one batch.

ChatGPT Team offers a context window of 32k but Anthropic Claude Team users enjoy a whopping 200k context window which is about 150,000 words or 500 pages of text.

Team Versus Pro Version

When it comes to collaborating within a company, Claude Team is a better value than the regular Pro version because it provides more usage than the regular Pro plan which means that individual users can do more work than users on the Pro plan. The Team version also offers collaborative features like the ability to create a shared database that can be used for projects. Beyond that it offers administrative tools for managing users and billing.

More features are on the way according to the official announcement:

“In the coming weeks, we will be releasing additional collaboration features, including citations from reliable sources to verify AI-generated claims, integrations with data repositories like codebases or CRMs, and iterating with colleagues on AI-generated documents or projects—all while maintaining the highest standards of security and safety.”

Read the announcement here:

Introducing The Claude Team Plan

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
May 2 2024
Female Founders, Are You Ready To Build A High-Growth Business?

This chapter is an extract from Female Founders’ Playbook by Anne Boden ©2024 and is reproduced with permission from Kogan Page Ltd.

Are you ready to build a high-growth business?

If you realize that, yes, you are an entrepreneur at heart and accept that you have many advantages you hadn’t previously even considered, there is a decision to be made: Do you want to be an entrepreneur?

Are you truly passionate about building a business that could change everything and make the lives of your customers-to-be infinitely better?

This is a decision not to be taken lightly. Don’t be swayed by the potential for wealth and fame (if that is what motivates you). As outlined at the beginning of the chapter, the odds of failure are high.

It’s not the easiest path. This is the moment to consider what becoming a female founder will mean to you. Will you be happier if you embark on this journey?

When reflecting upon your motivations, there are a number of elements to consider. The first is timing. There is never a perfect time to start a high-growth business.

However, you do need to consider how it will impact your personal circumstances. This means your relationships, but it also refers to money.

It helps to have a little money behind you because you will need to eat and pay the bills while on this entrepreneurial adventure. But, and this may sound counter-intuitive, it is best not to have too much money.

There are entire industries devoted to relieving inexperienced entrepreneurs of their cash. It is very easy to spend money thinking it is helping you to make progress.

However, if you have very little spare, you’ll be much more likely to scrutinize every decision more carefully. Personal finances are an important consideration, but they shouldn’t be a deal breaker.

Consider, also, what else is going on in your life right now. Most entrepreneurs assume their business will be successful in a couple of years and they will exit in five years.

The reality is quite different. If it does succeed, and that is a big if, then it can take 10 years or more.

Rates of entrepreneurialism fall sharply among women after the age of 35, which means children must be a consideration for many potential female founders. In most cases, it is a joint decision to have a family, so partners play a role and, all being well, an equal one.

Indeed, as Sheryl Sandberg wrote in her book Lean In,

“I truly believe that the single most important career decision that a woman makes is whether she will have a life partner and who that partner is.”

Even with help, it will be challenging raising young children and growing a business.

Sophie Adelman, whose first child was six months old when she started with Multiverse, and who subsequently had another child three years into building the start-up, says conscious trade-offs need to be made.

Another concern is how the ecosystem around high-growth businesses views female founders who start families while scaling.

In particular, this means investors who are making the decisions about whether to back these firms. The world has, thankfully, moved on a long way and there are robust maternity protections for women in the workplace.

However, it has not been unheard of for investors to openly question female founders about their intentions when it comes to children, or their decision to have them. This somehow manages to slip through a loophole in the law.

While the Financial Conduct Authority regulates investors, there is no employment contract between the various parties, so discriminatory comments can slip through with little recourse.

Fortunately, this is becoming rarer and the majority of VCs take a more enlightened approach. Again, awareness and open discussion are key.

For a high-growth business to have a chance of success, the timing has to be right in both the market itself and from a personal point of view.

Once female founders feel they have the right idea, they can do themselves some favours by pausing to validate that they are personally ready.

The final motivation is closely linked to the subject of the next chapter, and that is the business you want to create.

Is your idea driven by a sense of mission and purpose, a desire to make the world a better place? Or do you just want to be your own boss?

The former is a much stronger reason to start a high-growth business, and the passion for it will sustain you through the tough times.

When I set up Starling Bank, I wanted to start a business that had a huge impact and was going to break boundaries. I didn’t think about the personal benefits.

In this chapter, we’ve talked a lot about the positive qualities, even superpowers, that might make you a perfect entrepreneur. But, if you know yourself well, you will understand that you do have some personality traits that can also hold you back.

You might be averse to uncertainty, or dislike change. You may even be a perfectionist. How will these characteristics impact your journey to create a high-growth business?

If you consider all of this and still have a burning desire to build a high-growth business, that’s great news.

Now, you just need to get on with it.

To read the full book, SEJ readers have an exclusive 25% discount code and free shipping to the US and UK. Use promo code SEJ25 at koganpage.com here.

More resources: 

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
May 2 2024
Sam Altman says helpful agents are poised to become AI’s killer function

A number of moments from my brief sit-down with Sam Altman brought the OpenAI CEO’s worldview into clearer focus. The first was when he pointed to my iPhone SE (the one with the home button that’s mostly hated) and said, “That’s the best iPhone.” More revealing, though, was the vision he sketched for how AI tools will become even more enmeshed in our daily lives than the smartphone.

“What you really want,” he told MIT Technology Review, “is just this thing that is off helping you.” Altman, who was visiting Cambridge for a series of events hosted by Harvard and the venture capital firm Xfund, described the killer app for AI as a “super-competent colleague that knows absolutely everything about my whole life, every email, every conversation I’ve ever had, but doesn’t feel like an extension.” It could tackle some tasks instantly, he said, and for more complex ones it could go off and make an attempt, but come back with questions for you if it needs to. 

It’s a leap from OpenAI’s current offerings. Its leading applications, like DALL-E, Sora, and ChatGPT (which Altman referred to as “incredibly dumb” compared with what’s coming next), have wowed us with their ability to generate convincing text and surreal videos and images. But they mostly remain tools we use for isolated tasks, and they have limited capacity to learn about us from our conversations with them. 

In the new paradigm, as Altman sees it, the AI will be capable of helping us outside the chat interface and taking real-world tasks off our plates. 

Altman on AI hardware’s future 

I asked Altman if we’ll need a new piece of hardware to get to this future. Though smartphones are extraordinarily capable, and their designers are already incorporating more AI-driven features, some entrepreneurs are betting that the AI of the future will require a device that’s more purpose built. Some of these devices are already beginning to appear in his orbit. There is the (widely panned) wearable AI Pin from Humane, for example (Altman is an investor in the company but has not exactly been a booster of the device). He is also rumored to be working with former Apple designer Jony Ive on some new type of hardware. 

But Altman says there’s a chance we won’t necessarily need a device at all. “I don’t think it will require a new piece of hardware,” he told me, adding that the type of app envisioned could exist in the cloud. But he quickly added that even if this AI paradigm shift won’t require consumers buy a new hardware, “I think you’ll be happy to have [a new device].” 

Though Altman says he thinks AI hardware devices are exciting, he also implied he might not be best suited to take on the challenge himself: “I’m very interested in consumer hardware for new technology. I’m an amateur who loves it, but this is so far from my expertise.”

On the hunt for training data

Upon hearing his vision for powerful AI-driven agents, I wondered how it would square with the industry’s current scarcity of training data. To build GPT-4 and other models, OpenAI has scoured internet archives, newspapers, and blogs for training data, since scaling laws have long shown that making models bigger also makes them better. But finding more data to train on is a growing problem. Much of the internet has already been slurped up, and access to private or copyrighted data is now mired in legal battles. 

Altman is optimistic this won’t be a problem for much longer, though he didn’t articulate the specifics. 

“I believe, but I’m not certain, that we’re going to figure out a way out of this thing of you always just need more and more training data,” he says. “Humans are existence proof that there is some other way to [train intelligence]. And I hope we find it.”

On who will be poised to create AGI

OpenAI’s central vision has long revolved around the pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI), or an AI that can reason as well as or better than humans. Its stated mission is to ensure such a technology “benefits all of humanity.” It is far from the only company pursuing AGI, however. So in the race for AGI, what are the most important tools? I asked Altman if he thought the entity that marshals the largest amount of chips and computing power will ultimately be the winner. 

Altman suspects there will be “several different versions [of AGI] that are better and worse at different things,” he says. “You’ll have to be over some compute threshold, I would guess. But even then I wouldn’t say I’m certain.”

On when we’ll see GPT-5

You thought he’d answer that? When another reporter in the room asked Altman if he knew when the next version of GPT is slated to be released, he gave a calm response. “Yes,” he replied, smiling, and said nothing more. 

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
May 2 2024
A US push to use ethanol as aviation fuel raises major climate concerns

Eliminating carbon pollution from aviation is one of the most challenging parts of the climate puzzle, simply because large commercial airlines are too heavy and need too much power during takeoff for today’s batteries to do the job. 

But one way that companies and governments are striving to make some progress is through the use of various types of sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs), which are derived from non-petroleum sources and promise to be less polluting than standard jet fuel.

This week, the US announced a push to help its biggest commercial crop, corn, become a major feedstock for SAFs. 

Federal guidelines announced on April 30 provide a pathway for ethanol producers to earn SAF tax credits within the Inflation Reduction Act, President Biden’s signature climate law, when the fuel is produced from corn or soy grown on farms that adopt certain sustainable agricultural practices.

It’s a limited pilot program, since the subsidy itself expires at the end of this year. But it could set the template for programs in the future that may help ethanol producers generate more and more SAFs, as the nation strives to produce billions of gallons of those fuels per year by 2030. 

Consequently, the so-called Climate Smart Agricultural program has already sounded alarm bells among some observers, who fear that the federal government is both overestimating the emissions benefits of ethanol and assigning too much credit to the agricultural practices in question. Those include cover crops, no-till techniques that minimize soil disturbances, and use of “enhanced-efficiency fertilizers,” which are designed to increase uptake by plants and thus reduce runoff into the environment.

The IRA offers a tax credit of $1.25 per gallon for SAFs that are 50% lower in emissions than standard jet fuel, and as much as 50 cents per gallon more for sustainable fuels that are cleaner still. The new program can help corn- or soy-based ethanol meet that threshold when the source crops are produced using some or all of those agricultural practices.

Since the vast majority of US ethanol is produced from corn, let’s focus on the issues around that crop. To get technical, the program allows ethanol producers to subtract 10 grams of carbon dioxide per megajoule of energy, a measure of carbon intensity, from the life-cycle emissions of the fuel when it’s generated from corn produced with all three of the practices mentioned. That’s about an eighth to a tenth of the carbon intensity of gasoline.

Ethanol’s questionable climate footprint

Today, US-generated ethanol is mainly mixed with gasoline. But ethanol producers are eager to develop new markets for the product as electric vehicles make up a larger share of the cars and trucks on the road. Not surprisingly, then, industry trade groups applauded the announcement this week.

The first concern with the new program, however, is that the emissions benefits of corn-based ethanol have been hotly debated for decades.

Corn, like any plant that uses photosynthesis to produce food, sucks up carbon dioxide from the air. But using corn for fuel rather than food also creates pressure to clear more land for farming, a process that releases carbon dioxide from plants and soil. In addition, planting, fertilizing, and harvesting corn produce climate pollution as well, and the same is true of refining, distributing, and burning ethanol. 

For its analyses under the new program, the Treasury Department intends to use an updated version of the so-called GREET model to evaluate the life-cycle emissions of SAFs, which was developed by the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Lab. A 2021 study from the lab, relying on that model, concluded that US corn ethanol produced as much as 52% less greenhouse gas than gasoline. 

But some researchers and nonprofits have criticized the tool for accepting low estimates of the emissions impacts of land-use changes, among other issues. Other assessments of ethanol emissions have been far more damning.

A 2022 EPA analysis surveyed the findings from a variety of models that estimate the life-cycle emissions of corn-based ethanol and found that in seven out of 20 cases, they exceeded 80% of the climate pollution from gasoline and diesel.

Moreover, the three most recent estimates from those models found ethanol emissions surpassed even the higher-end estimates for gasoline or diesel, Alison Cullen, chair of the EPA’s science advisory board, noted in a 2023 letter to the administrator of the agency.

“Thus, corn starch ethanol may not meet the definition of a renewable fuel” under the federal law that mandates the use of biofuels in the market, she wrote. If so, it’s then well short of the 50% threshold required by the IRA, and some say it’s not clear that the farming practices laid out this week could close the gap.

Agricultural practices

Nikita Pavlenko, who leads the fuels team at the International Council on Clean Transportation, a nonprofit research group, asserted in an email that the climate-smart agricultural provisions “are extremely sloppy” and “are not substantiated.” 

He said the Department of Energy and Department of Agriculture especially “put their thumbs on the scale” on the question of land-use changes, using estimates of soy and corn emissions that were 33% to 55% lower than those produced for a program associated with the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization.

He finds that ethanol sourced from farms using these agriculture practices will still come up short of the IRA’s 50% threshold, and that producers may have to take additional steps to curtail emissions, potentially including adding carbon capture and storage to ethanol facilities or running operations on renewables like wind or solar.

Freya Chay, a program lead at CarbonPlan, which evaluates the scientific integrity of carbon removal methods and other climate actions, says that these sorts of agricultural practices can provide important benefits, including improving soil health, reducing erosion, and lowering the cost of farming. But she and others have stressed that confidently determining when certain practices actually and durably increase carbon in soil is “exceedingly complex” and varies widely depending on soil type, local climate conditions, past practices, and other variables.

One recent study of no-till practices found that the carbon benefits quickly fade away over time and reach nearly zero in 14 years. If so, this technique would do little to help counter carbon emissions from fuel combustion, which can persist in the atmosphere for centuries or more.

“US policy has a long history of asking how to continue justifying investment in ethanol rather than taking a clear-eyed approach to evaluating whether or not ethanol helps us reach our climate goals,” Chay wrote in an email. “In this case, I think scrutiny is warranted around the choice to lean on agricultural practices with uncertain and variable benefits in a way that could unlock the next tranche of public funding for corn ethanol.”

There are many other paths for producing SAFs that are or could be less polluting than ethanol. For example, they can be made from animal fats, agriculture waste, forest trimmings, or non-food plants that grow on land unsuitable for commercial crops. Other companies are developing various types of synthetic fuels, including electrofuels produced by capturing carbon from plants or the air and then combining it with cleanly sourced hydrogen. 

But all these methods are much more expensive than extracting and refining fossil fuels, and most of the alternative fuels will still produce more emissions when they’re used than the amount that was pulled out of the atmosphere by the plants or processes in the first place. 

The best way to think of these fuels is arguably as a stopgap, a possible way to make some climate progress while smart people strive to develop and build fully emissions-free ways of quickly, safely, and reliably moving things and people around the globe.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
May 2 2024
Charts: Investment Trends in Operations Q1 2024

Most U.S. operations and supply chain officers say technology investments haven’t delivered the expected results. That’s according to PwC’s 2024 “Digital Trends in Operations Survey.”

PwC, the accounting and consulting firm, surveyed 600 operations and supply chain executives in the U.S. in January and February 2024 across consumer markets, energy, utilities, mining, health services, pharmaceuticals, industrial products, and technology and telecommunications. The survey revealed a notable difference between the executives’ expectations of new technology and the actual outcomes.

–

Most survey respondents say their companies are somewhat involved in generative AI.

–

Growth and cost reduction remain top priorities for respondents seeking digital operations solutions. Yet many cite a lack of investment objectives, which could have long-term impacts.

–

Regulatory priorities such as cybersecurity and data privacy drive many decisions when investing in operations and supply chain technology.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
May 1 2024
Holistic B2B Marketing: How To Drive Pipeline With A Silo-Free Strategy via @sejournal, @hethr_campbell

When it comes to B2B strategy, a holistic approach is the only approach. 

Revenue organizations usually operate with siloed teams, and often expect a one-size-fits-all solution (usually buying clicks with paid media). 

However, without cohesive brand, infrastructure, and pipeline generation efforts, they’re pretty much doomed to fail. 

It’s just like rowing crew, where each member of the team must synchronize their movements to propel the boat forward – successful B2B marketing requires an integrated strategy. 

So if you’re ready to ditch your disjointed marketing efforts and try a holistic approach, we’ve got you covered.

Join us on May 15, for an insightful live session with Digital Reach Agency on how to craft a compelling brand and PMF. 

We’ll walk through the critical infrastructure you need, and the reliances and dependences of the core digital marketing disciplines.

Key takeaways from this webinar:

  • Thinking Beyond Traditional Silos: Learn why traditional marketing silos are no longer viable and how they spell doom for modern revenue organizations.
  • How To Identify and Fix Silos: Discover actionable strategies for pinpointing and sealing the gaps in your marketing silos. 
  • The Power of Integration: Uncover the secrets to successfully integrating brand strategy, digital infrastructure, and pipeline generation efforts.

Andrew Seidman, COO/Co-Founder of Digital Reach Agency will show you how to seamlessly integrate various elements of your marketing strategy for optimal results.

Don’t make the common mistake of using traditional marketing silos – sign up now and learn what it takes to transform your B2B go-to-market.

You’ll also get the opportunity to ask Andrew your most pressing questions, following the presentation.

And if you can’t make it to the live event, register anyway and we’ll send you a recording shortly after the webinar. 

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
May 1 2024
[PPC] Automation & AI: What Humans Should Be Doing For Success via @sejournal, @CallRail

Paid media’s main job is to increase visibility and drive traffic for your brand.

And as digital marketing evolves, so, too, will your strategy.

In the current state of paid, the main overarching theme is, you guessed it, AI and machine learning.

As paid media platforms get smarter and constantly find ways to infuse AI into campaign workflows and optimizations, marketers must find a way to keep up with the platforms.

The other side of the coin is maintaining user privacy all the while trying to use AI effectively.

So what major changes should you make to your paid media marketing strategy in 2024?

Here are seven changes you should incorporate without a second thought.

Paid Media Marketing In 2024: 7 Changes Marketers Should Make

1. Review & Revise Google Tags

If you rely on Google tags for conversion tracking, this change should not be ignored.

In January 2024, Google made an update to its Consent Mode for its Google tags, which will, for now, affect any marketers who run ads targeted to users in the European Economic Area (EEA).

This update requires marketers to take action by March 2024 in order to keep using ad personalization and remarketing features in Google Ads.

Simply speaking, the Consent Mode will need to be updated to adjust its tracking behavior based on how a user interacts with a website’s consent banner.

The two new parameters introduced to Consent Mode are:

  • ad_user_data: This controls whether user data can be sent to Google for advertising purposes.
  • ad_personalization: This controls whether personalized advertising (remarketing) can be enabled for the user.

As privacy measures continue to become stricter in the United States, it would not be surprising if this becomes required for US advertisers in the somewhat near future.

Keep in mind that in 2024, we’ll have to get comfortable being uncomfortable with imperfect data because of privacy regulations.

2. Make Influencers Part Of Your Marketing Model

Small and large influencers alike are an awesome resource at your fingertips, just as long as your audiences align.

Even brands with a few thousand followers can utilize influencer marketing to make a big difference and gain traction in the market.

Go on a hunt to find the top influencers in your space. Then, figure out the cost per acquisition (CPA) for working with each of them (because you have to court influencers, especially the bigger ones).

From there, you can create a win-win partnership that gets you more leads while the influencer earns income.

Pro Tip: You can use influencer marketing tools to help you in your journey to integrate core influencers into your business model. Some of the most popular include AspireIQ, BuzzSumo, Upfluence, and NeoReach.
Whichever you choose, make sure the influencers you find are big enough to provide real value to your brand — and that you’re paying a CPA that makes sense for your budget and overall goals.

3. Strategic Audience Management On Multiple Platforms

2024 is the year to nail your audience management strategy, both from a holistic perspective and within each encapsulated platform.

That means before building your audiences, you need to understand at a high level who your target customer is.

Further, identify what platforms those types of user-profiles spend their time on.

Once you’ve identified your ideal target customer, then it’s time for the first step in this process:

Building audiences.

From there, you must set up a strategy to target folks within every stage of the funnel – from upper to lower – and decide which networks make the most sense for the different audience cohorts.

Perhaps the most crucial part of this process is analyzing and refreshing your audiences as the year goes on.

You should definitely plan on retargeting and testing new audiences throughout the year.

If you fail to incorporate this part, you run the risk of targeting the wrong sector of people, ultimately throwing money down the proverbial drain.

However, if you retarget and refresh your approach, you’re bound to find a dynamic audience that correlates with your vision.

In the end, audience management alone can be worth its weight in gold.

4. Prepare For Video Content Dominance

You’ve likely heard this phrase before in marketing: content is king.

With a slight tweak for 2024, the new hot phrase should be: video content is king.

Not only is video taking over social platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat, but it’s also asserting its dominance in YouTube Ads. YouTube Shorts, the platform’s short-form video offering, is booming.

With this new form of video comes a new ad format: vertical video ads.

Not only should marketers focus on video marketing in general – 2024 is the year to get more sophisticated with video strategy.

Marketers should prioritize creating engaging and high-quality video content that’s appropriate for each platform on which it will be delivered.

If the thought of creating video content for multiple platforms scares you, just remember that a little goes a long way.

Start by creating evergreen content about your brand and test those with different lengths.

These can be used and recycled on multiple platforms and can be used for organic and paid video content simultaneously.

Just remember to create a variety so that your users don’t see the same message or content on the same platforms, which can reduce the effectiveness of video marketing.

5. Don’t Sleep On Microsoft Ads

Microsoft Ads continues to enhance its advertising platform year after year.

Not only does it have many of the same coveted features as Google Ads, but it has added features that are unique to the platform.

As a marketing professional, your brand will surely benefit from digging into it more in 2024.

Some of the most notable updates Microsoft Ads launched in the last twelve months include:

  • Video and CTV ads: Microsoft unveiled these new ad types on its platform in September of 2023. Advertisers can choose from online video ads or connected TV ads that are non-skippable while a user is streaming content. This gives advertisers big and small a leg up on what once used to be a very complicated process of buying TV ads.
  • Three new generative AI solutions: Also announced in September 2023, Microsoft came out with three new AI features to help grow and scale. These include Compare & Decide ads, ads for Chat API, and Copilot campaign creation.
  • Data-driven attribution reporting: Gone are the days of last-click measurement! Microsoft Ads enhanced its UET tagging solution and implemented data-driven attributing modeling. It uses machine learning to calculate the actual contributions of each ad interaction.

While Microsoft still holds a lower share of the available search engines, just remember that you’re leaving a whole slew of potential customers behind by not considering this underestimated ad platform.

6. Focus On Optimizing The User Experience

Between a mix of shorter human attention spans and limited marketing budgets, every interaction and website experience counts.

If you find that your pre-sale metrics are favorable – such as high engagement or high CTR – but never result in a sale, you likely don’t have an ad problem. You have a user experience problem.

In 2024, consumers expect more from brands, especially if they’re spending their hard-earned money with that company.

Ask yourself, when was the last time you sat down and went through your website’s checkout process through the lens of a customer?

If you’re not sure where to start on optimizing your website experience for users, here are some ideas to get you started:

  • Use tools like Hot Jar or User Testing to get real-life analytics of how your customers are interacting and what their pain points are.
  • Review the website landscape on desktop and mobile. While this may be a no-brainer, many websites still forget to optimize for mobile!
  • Make sure that any relevant call-to-actions (CTAs) are above the fold – yes, on mobile, too!
  • Check your site speed.

These are items that should continuously be monitored and not a “set and forget,” which unfortunately happens quite a bit.

Optimizing the website user experience can have a positive impact on those paid media campaigns and can make those dollars go further in the future.

7. Use AI Tools To Your Advantage

Let’s face it: Machine learning and AI aren’t going anywhere.

For marketing leaders, 2024 really is the time to lean into its advantages instead of running away from the inevitable advances.

It’s not a question of whether to use AI or not. It’s a matter of how to use AI to your advantage.

While companies are tightening their budgets and scaling back staff, PPC marketers are constantly being asked to do more with less.

This is where AI comes in.

In fact, using AI can strengthen your ROI for paid media campaigns of all kinds (whatever channel you prefer).

Just make sure you don’t sacrifice your brand’s personality for a little efficiency.

One way you can do this is with Google’s generated AI assets (currently in beta). Using its Gemini-powered AI solution, the tool allows for more streamlined campaign creation and generated ad assets, including images, headlines, and descriptions for ads, and more.

Additionally, you’re likely already using one of Google’s Smart Bidding strategies to automate the bidding process.

With a combination of creativity and machine learning, your ads have the potential to go farther than ever before.

Your 2024 Plan Should Not Be Static

If the past year(s) have taught us anything in marketing, it’s to be fluid.

In some cases, tactics that used to be tried and true are now more volatile than ever.

Take advantage of advances in AI to boost your strategic advantage, and keep in mind platforms that you’ve typically shied away from – the time may come to incorporate them into your 2024 strategy.

What changes are you most excited to try this year?

More resources:

Featured Image: Sutthiphong Chandaeng/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
May 1 2024
The Big Disconnect: Charting The Growing Disconnect Between Google And SEOs via @sejournal, @Kevin_Indig

SEO Twitter reacted strongly when I shared Sundar Pichai’s statements about Search Generative Experience (SGE) from Alphabet’s Q1 earnings call (bolding mine):

“Based on our testing, we are encouraged that we are seeing an increase in search usage among people who use the new AI overviews as well as increased user satisfaction with the results.”

“People question whether these things would be costly to serve, and we are very, very confident we can manage the cost of how to serve these queries. People worried about latency. When I look at the progress we have made in latency and efficiency, we feel comfortable.”

“There are questions about monetization. And based on our testing so far, I’m comfortable and confident that we’ll be able to manage the monetization transition here well as well.”

I get it. Our perception of SGE doesn’t match the CEO of Alphabet suggesting that SGE is ready for prime time. There are only two options: We live in a bubble or it’s PR talk.

The book, “The Facebook Effect: The inside story of the company that is connecting the world,” has a story about how users complained about Facebook’s newsfeed but heavily engaged with it anyway. The public perception was the complete opposite of what eventually happened. There is a real chance the same phenomenon is happening with SGE.

Life taught me that outraging things are often not the way they seem at first. Surprises bear learnings. I’m naturally quick to judge situations and people, but I’m always happy when I pause and take a closer, second look. This could be one of those situations.

Maybe Sundar knows more than we do. If that’s true and users actually enjoy SGE, we, in the SEO community, have a larger disconnect with the average Google user than we might think.

However, there is also a real chance that Pichai’s comments are PR based on Google’s trust-eroding misses over the last 24 months.

Boost your skills with Growth Memo’s weekly expert insights. Subscribe for free!

Friction

Google’s position and public perception are head-butting in several departments:

Lawsuits

The Department of Justice’s 2020 antitrust lawsuit against Google surfaced documents that prove the heavy use of user signals for ranking, which Google vehemently denied for decades.

Another lawsuit filed the same year about Google tracking user data in Chrome’s incognito mode just settled with Google deleting billions of data points, improving its disclosure and stopping to track when users switch to incognito mode.

From Elephant in the Room:

For years, SEOs suspected user behavior to matter for Google’s Search ranking systems, but Googlers either denied or belittled the point. Internal documents that surfaced in the 2020 US vs. Google anti-trust lawsuit prove the elephant’s existence.

We now have track records, footprints, and photos of the elephant. The house owner doesn’t need to acknowledge it exists. But the biggest takeaway is that we had our mental model of how Search works upside down.

AI Fumbles

Then, there are fumbled AI product launches.

Google’s first reaction to ChatGPT’s stunning success was a stunning failure. The introduction of Bard in February 2023 cost Alphabet $100 billion in market value due to false facts in the announcement.

In December 2023, an impressive demo of Gemini turned into a PR disaster when it turned out to be fake.

In March 2024, Alphabet’s shares dropped by -5% when it turned out Gemini delivered heavily biased and obscure historical images.

Google wants to get AI right so badly that it’s willing to cut corners. It’s not something you’d expect from the company that invented the underlying LLM technology (Transformers) in the first place.

Algorithm Updates

Then, there is communication around algorithm updates. First called out by The Verge, Google’s SEO documentation is quite broad for how search evolved:

There’s an inherent contradiction in what Google promises is the best way to succeed on Search. Publicly, Google representatives like search liaison Danny Sullivan give a simple, almost quaint answer to business owners who want help: you just need to make great content for people, not Google’s robots.

At the same time, Google’s SEO Starter Guide is nearly 9,000 words long with dozens of links to additional material.

To be fair, I do appreciate the work Danny Sullivan, Martin Splitt, John Mueller, Gary Illyes, and others do. I know it’s a tough and thankless job. You can’t really win.

I also acknowledge that The Verge is not a big fan of SEOs, a.k.a. Content Goblins. And yet, there is something to be said about the critique of the SEO guidelines.

We’re also experiencing a growing disconnect between what we hear from Google spokespeople and what we see.

In November, Sullivan came to Brighton SEO San Diego and announced to “buckle up” because “major changes to search ranking” are coming. 

A Twitter screenshot showing a tweet by Barry Schwartz quoting Google's SearchLiaison tweet discussing improvements in search results and ongoing updates.Image Credit: Kevin Indig

We had the longest Core Update ever in March 2024, with a 45-day roll-out time that apparently overshot its goal of reducing low-quality results by 5 percentage points. But the effect is barely noticeable.

Google also said this helped reduce low-quality and unoriginal content in search results by 45%, which is up from their estimate of 40%.

What stung was that Google’s official X (Twitter) account announced the completion of the update 7 days late.

Now, you could argue that Google can do whatever it wants and has no obligation to notify SEOs (timely). And that’s correct.

But a couple of years ago, that wouldn’t have happened – especially since Google’s updates have become more hardcore, and owners of negatively affected sites desperately wait for updates.

It seems the transparency between Google and the SEO community has changed.

Public Complaints

Then, we have the (not new) critique of big domains dominating search results.

The Verge published an article about the “best printer” that’s clearly optimized with old-school SEO techniques. But it works and proves that big sites get away with much more than small ones.

Screenshot of a Google search engine results page displaying various links and summaries for Image Credit: Kevin Indig

In the last 12 months, we’ve seen more complaints from marketers and owners of small sites like Housefresh and Retro Dodo for being on the brink of death because of Google.

To be fair, it’s difficult to say whether Google truly prefers big brands or whether users do, and if small publishers are missing something important that matters for SEO.

But brands publishing blog articles about how Google is killing them is new and doesn’t help with Google’s image.

Church And State

Lastly, the separation between church and state seems to fall.

Google now allows ads to appear below the top organic results for specific queries, which would have been unthinkable even five years ago.

It doesn’t help that internal emails surfaced in the DOJ lawsuit, showing how Google’s ads team put significant pressure on the organic search team to make changes that would result in more searches.

We don’t know whether that happened or not, but it doesn’t look great. Neither does the testimony that Google raised cost-per-click (CPC) prices.

Journalist Ed Zitron recently published a story titled “The Man Who Killed Google Search” on his blog that went viral. It’s an extreme take, but it resonates so strongly because of the long list of Google’s misses over the last years paired with record-breaking earnings.

Unbiased Referee

On top of it all comes the growing disconnect between our subjective perception of search quality and Google’s statements (also subjective).

Jeff Bezos wrote, “Customers are always beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied…” in his 2016 annual shareholder letter.

It’s possible that we all have gotten used to search and are baseline dissatisfied. But it’s also possible that search has become worse, and we just lack an objective way to measure it.

We only have a few data points:

1. A study from Germany titled “Is Google getting worse?” finds:

  • “An overall downwards trend in text quality in all three search engines” despite Google’s regular updates targeting low-quality content, which has only a short-lived impact.
  • “Higher-ranked pages are on average more optimized, more monetized with affiliate marketing, and they show signs of lower text quality.”

2. A Google satisfaction score based on a survey (n=~8,000) shows a downward trend.

Line graph depicting U.S. customer satisfaction with Google from 2002 to 2023, showing fluctuations in SEOs' satisfaction over the years.Image Credit: Kevin Indig

3. A Semrush zero-click study from 2022 found more than half of users refine their queries, indicating potential dissatisfaction with results.

We can see that about 55% of the times two searches are performed in a user’s journey contain keywords with a similarity rating of 0.6 (60%) or more, which could mean that many users aren’t satisfied with the results of the first SERP and need to refine their queries.

We need an unbiased referee on the field. But it’s unlikely we’ll get one.

Way Forward

The disconnect with Google leads us to three conclusions:

  1. Guidance around algorithm updates and data about what’s going on in search is unlikely to become more specific.
  2. The search results landscape and how it changes is increasingly complex.
  3. Businesses that rely on organic traffic for survival have a high risk.

We, as SEOs, made two mistakes: saying organic traffic is reliably sustainable and free.

I remember one of the big arguments for SEO that sounded like this: “When you turn ads off, you don’t get any more traffic. When you turn SEO off, traffic keeps coming in.” I’ve used it, too.

But the quickly changing search landscape plus Google’s intransparency make SEO a volatile channel that can bring traffic to our site but doesn’t guarantee that well to keep pouring water.

Rather, we should think about how to bring organic visitors to channels where we can build deeper relationships with our audience.

One way to build closer relationships is to incentivize users to sign up for our email list, download our app(s), and create log-ins.

Then, we need to answer the question of how to nurture them by building trust over time with exclusive, high-quality, and personalized content. What is the second-click experience on your site?

Today, SEO is anything but free. It has much lower variable costs compared to advertising, but fixed costs nonetheless. Those fixed costs have skyrocketed since the bar for high-quality content is so much higher than we think.

Driving traffic takes original research, graphic assets, high-quality writing, and experts who need to be paid.

Tighter SEO unit economics can manage expectations and alleviate volatility because bigger investments lead to higher chances of thriving in search.

We might be disconnected from Google, but we can still connect with our audience.

Google CEO Calls Some Gemini AI Output ‘Completely Unacceptable’

Google’s best Gemini demo was faked

Google’s AI blunder shows risks in scramble to catch up to Microsoft

The Perfect Webpage

X (Twitter) post by Google SearchLiaison, November 14, 2023

Google March 2024 Core Update Finished

X (Twitter) post by Google Search Central, April 27, 2024

Google Is Killing Retro Dodo & Other Independent Sites

How Google is killing independent sites like ours

Google Updates Definition Of ‘Top Ads’ In Search Results

Emails Show Google Search & Ad Execs Working Together To Increase Ad Revenue

Google quietly raised ad prices to boost search revenue, says executive

The Man Who Killed Google Search

Is Google Getting Worse? A Longitudinal Investigation of SEO Spam in Search Engines

U.S. customer satisfaction with Google from 2002 to 2023

Zero-Clicks Study

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
May 1 2024
Wix Proposals Tool Helps Businesses Win More Clients via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Wix announced a new a feature that allows businesses to create business proposals and manage payments, streamlining the process of converting prospects into clients and setting up payments.

Proposals Powered By Prospero

The new feature, called Wix Proposals, is powered by the Prospero business proposal platform which streamlines the process of creating a professional-looking proposal and automates invoices and contracts.

There are three key features

  1. Proposal Design
    There are templates that Wix users can use or build their own.
  2. Payment Scheduler
    This makes it easy to create multiple ways to pay such as one-time payments or multiple payments.
  3. Digital Signature Support

Helps Businesses Convert More Clients

Wix Proposals features are designed to help businesses be more successful by streamlining tasks related to winning more business and receiving payments.

According to the announcement:

“‘Wix Proposals offers business owners the tools needed to create, manage, and finalize proposals with ease,” said Asaf Remler, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Wix. “By empowering businesses to take control of their long-term financial engagements, and with a focus on user-friendly design and powerful features, we believe it will redefine the way professionals across various industries approach proposal creation and management. We’re enabling users to manage long-term financial engagements with several payments milestones, ultimately helping Wix to capture new GPV that was usually being processed offline”

“At Prospero, we believe proposals are more than just documents – they’re the first handshake, the elevator pitch, the decisive turning point in a crucial business negotiation. Wix Proposals helps businesses to tell their stories with captivating proposals built for conversion,” said Tomer Aharon, Prospero Co-Founder and CEO. “Through the seamless integration of Wix’s innovative platform and Prospero’s industry-leading expertise, businesses in any industry can unlock a potent competitive advantage, ensuring their proposals not only stand out but win the deal. We are thrilled about this partnership and proud that our platform is included in Wix’s offering, empowering users with cutting-edge tools to elevate their proposal game.’”

Read more on how to get started with Wix Proposals

Wix Proposals by Prospero: Adding and Setting up Proposals

Featured Image by Shutterstock/monticello

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments