Jan 23 2025
Brand Performance Unlocked: Advanced Strategies for SEO and Marketing Synergy via @sejournal, @sejournal

Balancing brand and performance marketing has nothing to do with giving each side its amount of time in the limelight.

There’s no magic harmony you’re going to create that delivers some sort of marketing tactic equilibrium and equality.

This is the most controversial article I have ever written. A lot of people reading this will not be happy about what I have to say. For the record, there’s a bit of irony in this, considering I have said way more controversial things about marketing and SEO in the past.

Yet, here we are as I am about to tell you that the only way to balance brand and performance marketing is to give brand supremacy.

Let the fireworks begin.

Balance Brand & Performance Marketing? Why Is There Even A Problem?

In keeping with espousing heresy I will not start this post with “What is brand marketing?” and/or “What is performance marketing?” nor will I dive right into how to balance the two.

Instead, I’m going to challenge the very premise of the article so that you can better understand why this question is even worth your time.

While I see the problem as basically being self-evident, let’s flush it out a bit. The way I see it, there are two fundamental issues at play here (there are more, but this post is going to be long enough as it is):

1. Mindset

The mindset required for good brand marketing is, at times, lightyears away from the performance mindset.

I’m not saying that they intrinsically have to be this way. As I’ll get into later, I think the two ways of thinking complement each other.

However, at the risk of generalizing, there does tend to be a strong divergence between how the two types of marketers think. At least, this has been my experience over the past decade or so as someone who straddles both marketing disciplines.

I often find performance marketers very focused on the immediate. What’s bringing traffic right now, and how do we get more of it?

For the record, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Nor is it unreasonable (I mean, it is, but it’s not).

This hyperfocus on immediate performance metrics is quite logical since performance marketers are graded on immediate ROI. Is it thus any surprise they focus on the immediate? (So, performance marketers, it’s not you…it’s the system.)

Brand has an entirely different goal. With brand building, the focus is on exactly that: building. Building an identity, associations and sentiment, messaging, positioning, etc.

All of that takes time. You don’t immediately leave an imprint on someone. If you want to create an impression with an audience, it’s pretty obvious it’s going to take time.

This process is also far more compounded and less linear than performance marketing is often perceived. It’s not like getting a page to rank well and driving in traffic who will convert.

You’re creating a reputation for yourself that involves micro-moments and micro-activities compounding over an extended period (like how any association is formed).

(For what it’s worth, I would argue that performance-based activities, such as SEO, also compound over time. You’re not going to rank for that meaty keyword on day one).

Brand marketing naturally lends itself to a bit more of a holistic long-term mindset whereas performance-based marketing lends itself to focusing more on the immediate impact of a given activity.

These divergent mindsets make it entirely difficult to properly balance brand and performance. They’re almost at war with each other.

To sum it all up: Performance marketing (to its detriment) looks at the end result and often doesn’t care about context, environment, and ecosystems. Brand, on the other hand, is all about contextualization and understanding the environment and ecosystem the brand is operating within.

Now, you might be thinking, well a lot of brand marketers also seem to care less about context, environment, and ecosystems and generally operate in the here and now much like a performance marketer might.

Which brings me to my next point.

2. Misunderstanding What Brand Is

Part of what makes balancing brand and performance marketing almost an inherent difficulty is the lack of understanding of what “brand” actually is.

Too often, what we call “brand marketing” is really performance or product marketing disguised as brand marketing.

What happens is that a company will put emphasis on brand when in reality it’s just another form of performance marketing. The net result is a lack of balance but without even realizing it.

Imagine a TV commercial that doesn’t have a message or any positioning but rather simply tells you what the product is and what it does. Is this brand marketing? I say no. This is just product marketing. It’s pure product awareness.

The web is filled with the equivalent of this.

You talking about your product or service across the internet is not brand marketing; it’s product marketing.

Brand marketing is entirely about who you are in the context of who your audience is and how you want to then be perceived. It is fundamentally associative. If it’s not associative, it’s probably not genuine brand marketing. That is a hot take right there.

Branding is about putting yourself in a position to grow; it is not growth per se. If brand marketing were farming, it wouldn’t even be planting the seeds; it would be sowing the soil so that you could eventually plant the seeds.

Brand is concerned with perception and momentum, not adoption. I know that sounds crazy, and half of y’all out there on both the brand and performance side of marketing are shaking your heads, if not your fists, right now.

But it is the truth. Real brand marketing, the kind you see the Cokes and Lexuses of the world doing, is about perception that leads to momentum. It’s about putting you in a position to grow and to have opportunities that you can capitalize on.

How Do You Then Balance Brand And Performance?

Brand is the setup for performance. Brand creates the opportunity, and performance captures it.

It’s all one dance.

Allow me to explain.

Brand Is Primary, And Here’s Why

Balancing performance and brand marketing isn’t about some sort of give-and-take between the two approaches. If you’re thinking about balance in terms of scales, that’s not how this is going to work.

It’s about knowing where each discipline sits in the “marketing hierarchy” and how the two interact.

This is why I am telling you brand is primary – and it’s not even close.

There are two fundamental ways brand is primary to performance marketing (I was going to insert another, but I think for now these two are the most important):

The Ultimate Goal Is To Have People Come To You

Brand is primary in the very goal it sets out to achieve – to bring audiences to you (as opposed to you chasing your audience across social and search screaming “Pick me! Pick me!”).

It’s like the old line from the Cheers theme song, “You wanna go where everybody knows your name.” No one wrote a line in a sitcom theme song that said, “You wanna go chasing everyone around the block screaming like a mad person so that they will know your name.”

Consumers knowing who you are and seeking you out is self-evidently more advantageous than trying to chase after your consumer base and hoping to heaven you found them at the right moment in the buyer journey.

In case it’s not entirely self-evident (because I have heard performance marketers say the complete opposite), people coming to you creates more momentum and opens up new revenue possibilities than the inverse ever could.

Buzz is contagious. I’m not saying you need to go viral or anything like that, but creating momentum naturally leads to more momentum. The momentum your brand creates for itself leads to all sorts of new possibilities.

Being sought after on whatever level builds upon itself. If done with care and patience it can create real stable opportunity growth for you. This is really what any serious company wants: long-term stable growth. Nothing is more long-term and more stable than being sought after and enticing.

Serious connections with your audience are hard to create but they are hard to really break as well.

Unless you become a known quantity in your niche, no amount of performance marketing is going to help you achieve what you really want: self-sustained staying power.

Brand helps fulfill the ultimate goal any company has: to be a market leader.

Brand Is What Allows Performance To Perform

Can pure performance marketing perform (for lack of a better word)? Yes, obviously.

Can it reach its true potential without brand? No.

Brand marketing is what creates the willingness to invest and interact with your performance marketing.

Imagine you’re on a train, and some random goofball starts waving at you. Are you gonna wave back? And even if you do, are you really interested in interacting with this person?

Now imagine instead that some random whacko your friend sees you on the train and waves. Would you wave back? Wave? You might go on mosy over and have an actual conversation.

Performance without brand is randomly waving at people and hoping that they converse with you. Sometimes they might, but you’re fighting an uphill battle.

Creating a connection with your audience that exists beyond utility is what enables your performance marketing to perform the way you want it to.

To use an SEO analogy, trying to get your product or service to perform without brand is like trying to get a single page on a new website to rank for a highly competitive keyword without any other content history to support it.

Effectively establishing your brand is what enables you to make the pitch that can covert at the appropriate time.

That’s why I would say 99% of brand marketing is not about trying to build revenue. It’s about building the possibility of building revenue. It’s about building cadence and momentum so that the part of your marketing that asks folks to open their wallets works.

Brand puts you on the doorstep of performance. In effect, brand creates the lead, and performance signs the deal.

Like I said earlier, if marketing were a farm, then branding wouldn’t even be planting the seeds. It would be sowing the ground so that you could plant them. And like a field, if you don’t sow it first, you will not have a crop.

If you want revenue without fighting an uphill battle, you have to realize that brand is primary. It is what allows your other marketing activity to perform as you really want it to.

This goes back to what I was saying earlier about people not understanding what brand is.

As far-out as it sounds, brand is not about revenue, it’s about building the opportunities that will eventually lead to revenue. Understanding this one point puts you so far ahead of everyone else.

The Problems In Giving Performance Primacy In A Balanced Approach

Let’s take this from the other side of the coin. What would happen if you gave performance primacy, not brand?

If performance is the building block of the marketing strategy you’re setting yourself up for significant problems down the road.

There are more than a few reasons why this is true, here are some of the more notable ones:

Performance First Means Working With Your Hands Tied Behind Your Back

I don’t even know where to start with this one because a performance-first mindset limits you in so many ways.

Broadly speaking, performance being primary, as I mentioned earlier, means fighting an uphill battle. You’re constantly trying to find the right audience at the right time and then convincing them to funnel through.

Yes, you can get to a good place that way but it’s never really working on its own for you. You never really become a “thing” this way and can’t naturally build momentum upon your activities the same way.

Again, a) I spoke about this at length above b) I am sure you will find me a case where I am wrong – that’s not my point.

On top of that, performance generally tends to be siloed – an obvious inefficiency. Link builders do link building, PPC does paid, etc. – there’s a general lack of broader strategy and comms when performance takes the lead.

Each team has its own KPIs and does whatever it takes to meet them, resulting in obvious inefficiency.

Performance Will Pigeon-hole You Every Time

Because performance marketing is very here-and-now, it generally lacks the flexibility to build for the future.

Doing what’s best for the KPIs is too often doing what’s best in the immediate only.

That means a lack of flexibility in both structure and activity.

I’ll give you a great example of what I mean when I say performance limits a business structurally.

While this case may sound “far-fetched” today, SEOs who have been around a while will search their feelings for they know what I am about to say to be true.

Back in the day, if I had a site that sold DVDs, “the SEO play” would be to name the site “buydvds.com,” or whatever.

It’s generally not a good idea to name your brand after a specific tech asset as, well, tech assets change. In this case, DVDs are basically defunct.

Now the business here may have pivoted to streaming media but now has to deal with a whole rebrand (including a site migration) and all of the immense headaches that come with it. What they should have done at the onset was name the site something like “entertainmentmedia.com” or whatever.

Why didn’t they? Because the performance play became primary, and the brand play was discarded.

Performance, by its very nature, lacks breadth and as a result, will often limit the scope of how the business is able to function or structure itself.

The other way performance limits a business relates directly to the marketing activities performance signs off on and doesn’t sign off on.

Now, if you think I’ve been a bit salty thus far…hold my beer.

What performance-based marketing does to overall marketing activities is the equivalent of a marathon runner deciding to amputate their foot mid-race while maintaining the expectation to break a world record.

To see this in action, look no further than what happens when performance owns a content strategy.

What is the value of content in the context of performance? Impressions, clicks, traffic, conversions, etc.

You see this all the time in the SEO space. You can’t go a week without seeing someone somewhere ask, “If a keyword has 0 search volume should I bother writing content for it?”

Every time I see this question, a piece of me dies.

Not because it might not be true. There might not be a ton of search volume but because that’s a not reason not to write a piece of content.

Leave aside the fact that your current users may expect that content to be there on your site, it could signal the same expectation to new consumers hitting the site for the first time. Also, content is a corpus. You have to build it up to the point where you can write that post for that money keyword.

Performance marketing never asks, “What does writing this content allow me to do next?”

Instead, it’s always, “Why does this content do for me right now?”

Pigeon-holed.

Folks Might Use You, But They Also Might Hate You (And Is That What You Really Aim To Do?)

My sister recently told me how she’s so reliant on Amazon but hates using them at the same time due to how they allegedly treat their workers.

It’s entirely possible that folks may consume your offering but will not be fond of you when doing so. It’s also almost certain that your brand can’t get away with it the way Amazon can.

If all you’re thinking about is traffic KPIs and conversions, etc., you’re missing the most fundamental aspect of success – likability.

It doesn’t even have to be so extreme. Look at the oversaturation of content between Marvel and Star Wars (and even my personal favorite, HBO’s Hard Knocks NFL documentary series).

Sure, they get viewers, but it all comes with negative sentiment. While the end product of Hard Knock’s new preseason series was actually not bad, New York sports radio (the series featured a New York team) trounced HBO before its release.

For a week, every sports host was basically shaking their heads at the idea of having to watch a whole series about phone calls between General Managers making trades, etc. So HBO got the numbers but accumulated a lot of brand baggage to do it.

How smart is that as a long-term strategy?

That’s, fundamentally, a testimony to the fact that brand can assess a move qualitatively while performance just can’t.

That’s not to say performance’s quantitative measurement isn’t vital. It’s a very important part of this brand balancing act.

If Brand Builds, Then Performance Course Corrects

I don’t want you to walk away thinking that performance marketing doesn’t hold value. This article isn’t about brand being better. It’s about the balance.

Brand needs performance to leverage its full power, just like performance needs brand. Again, brand can set you up, but performance closes the deal. Brand, for example, can set up a business to have the authority it needs to pull in organic traffic.

But you need a genuine SEO strategy that includes things like keyword targeting, etc. In this specific case, a performance-based mindset is what will take the brand from potentiality to actuality.

Very often, brand course corrections should be based on the data performance marketing provides.

If there’s a drop in whatever KPI whether it be sign-ups or traffic or whatever, it’s often a change in brand and business strategy that’s needed. That change can’t occur unless you have the data insights performance marketing provides.

Take Starbucks. At the time of this writing, they’ve seen a decline in business, and there are multiple reasons for it. What I found interesting was the user sentiment towards Starbucks’ “corporate identity.”

In an interview with CBS, one customer said, “Starbucks started really feeling like corporate America in a way it hadn’t before.”

If I were Starbucks, I would at least explore the idea of creating a sub brand that is more niche and local. Much the way the beer companies did when they saw craft beer sales surge (hence Coors created Blue Moon).

That sort of shift in brand strategy can’t possibly occur without the insights offered by performance marketing. You have to have sound performance marketing processes in place to effectively run your brand marketing.

So when I say brand is “primary,” I mean that in the sense of the stages of marketing thought and activity.

Not necessarily importance (I do think brand is fundamentally more important, but that’s, again, not what this post is about). You literally have to balance (maybe integrate is a better word) performance into your brand marketing in order to be effective.

Can’t Performance Build Up The Brand?

Doing this is like trying to pull a whale through a needle hole.

Yeah, I guess it might be technically possible, and someone out there did it – but it is not the norm. Upon considering this, I am sure no one has pulled a whale through a needle hole, but I think you get my point.

You are trying to build up a tidal wave one raindrop at a time. Yes, it is possible, but it goes against the very foundation of what you’re trying to actually do – gain momentum.

I’ve heard the argument that by ranking for this and that query and everything in between, you will become an established presence – a brand.

That can be possible. And yes, your content strategy (SEO and beyond) is a big part of your brand strategy. But thinking about something like Google Search as being the method to establish a brand reputation is a chaotic way to go about building a brand.

To start, Search isn’t a medium where your audience may even be interested in “hearing from you.” They may have a specific need at a specific moment that brings them to search. Once that need is met does the user really care to explore more about your product or service? It’s a toss-up at best.

It’s like trying to have a conversation with someone in the middle of a lecture – it’s just not conducive.

You want to have a conversation and make a connection in a place and time that is meant to have a conversation and connection (social media, YouTube, live events, etc.).

Using something like Search to establish a distinctly recognizable brand is just not what Search is.

SEO and search engines are a great way to supplement and reinforce the messaging and positioning you establish on more suitable platforms.

If a consumer sees you on social and interacts with you over time and then goes to search and keeps seeing your results pop up it can reinforce your positioning. It may even make it likely to get a conversation out of it.

What makes performance hard in terms of it being the method to establish a brand is that the assets usually associated with it (PPC, SEO, etc.) are secondary branding assets in the context of how users discover them.

They can supplement, accent, and reinforce, but they are not designed to be primarily effective at establishing a brand identity and audience connection.

Think of it like the difference between someone specifically coming to your blog after interacting with your brand for years on social versus someone who finds a single post on Google.

Yes, they both might read the same content but in the latter case, there is no identity contextualization. They don’t know who you are and how that post fits in with your overall identity and positioning. They get the information in the post but in terms of getting “you,” it’s not very direct.

The way the audience interacts with your brand via performance marketing activity is far too limited and narrow in scope for identity contextualization to easily take place.

So it can happen, and it does happen a bit each time that person interacts with your content (say via search), but it’s piecemeal and disjointed.

Better Balance Means Better Marketing

Balancing brand and performance means knowing the role and place of each marketing discipline. It means allowing the two areas to interact and influence each other at the right time and in the right way.

While it all starts with branding at the onset, the relationship between the two areas of marketing should grow to be reciprocal. Brand should open the doors for performance and performance should help the brand evolve.

For too long, the digital marketing space has siloed these two areas, with inefficiency (and more) being the net result.

The future of marketing is being able to unite these two concepts effectively. I think there is a lack of attention given to how brand impacts performance efficacy (and vice versa).

Uniting the two areas of marketing will better align with where the web and its user base are headed.

More resources: 

Featured Image: Jack_the_sparow/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Jan 23 2025
Google Ads Introduces Advanced Targeting For Performance Max via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google Ads updates Performance Max with advanced controls, improved reporting, and smarter targeting to optimize campaign performance.

  • Advertisers get more control over AI with new targeting and exclusion tools.
  • Improved reporting provides clearer insights into search and asset performance.
  • Updates focus on transparency, actionable data, and high-value customer targeting.
Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Jan 23 2025
Why Your SEO Playbooks Need To Collaborate With Sales And Brand Teams via @sejournal, @TaylorDanRW

An SEO playbook acts as a guide for creating, executing, and sustaining effective SEO strategies.

It ensures that all participants, from marketers to developers, adhere to a unified and methodical approach.

Typically the playbook encompasses essential elements that steer SEO initiatives, aligning them with business goals and promoting teamwork across different teams.

Communicating and working with the majority of the C-suite is rewarding and collaborative. Although overall “SEO knowledge” might not be as high (which is why we, as specialists, are brought into the fold), the core objectives provide common ground to align on:

  • Creating effective contribution of SEO (as a channel) against overall marketing key performance indicators (KPIs).
  • Effectively communicating with all business departments (C-suite, product, brand, sales, engineering) and getting “SEO buy-in.”
  • Reaching your Serviceable Available Market (SAM), Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM), and Total Addressable Market (TAM) with relevant brand touchpoints.

This is where developing SEO playbooks come into effect.

In my experience, your SEO playbook needs to be put together in collaboration with other MarComm teams and agencies and teams like product and engineering.

When I was consulting with Gitlab, one of the biggest opportunities we found was from holding a call with the product team and asking them for their unfiltered opinions and input on how products were being represented on the website.

Combining these insights from engaging non-marketing teams enabled more streamlined buy-in for SEO initiatives.

By integrating SEO into every aspect of an organization’s marketing communication strategy, brands can ensure that all channels function together effectively to enhance visibility, engage audiences, and contribute towards the overall, meaningful KPIs.

Developing SEO Playbooks

The first step in developing a successful SEO playbook in collaboration with sales, brand, and engineering teams is to understand the unique goals, priorities, and workflows of each team.

While all teams are pulling in the same direction to the overall business goals, their individual team goals, KPIs, and how they contribute to the bigger picture will differ.

By understanding and respecting each team’s unique priorities, you can create a foundation for a collaborative and impactful SEO playbook, as well as how to more effectively communicate how your SEO initiatives can positively impact their objectives.

Sales Team Priorities

The sales team’s main focus is on converting leads into customers and driving revenue. Their priorities (and direct responsibilities) often include:

  • Using data to improve the likelihood that prospects will complete desired actions (e.g., signing up for a product demo, a trial, or making a purchase).
  • Understanding pain points, objections, and decision-making factors of potential customers. Then, providing feedback to other MarComms teams on how products/features are being represented at the various touchpoints.
  • Meeting or exceeding monthly, quarterly, and annual sales targets.
  • Ensuring that leads generated through SEO efforts are effectively managed and nurtured.

Brand Team Priorities

The brand team’s goal is to create a cohesive and compelling identity that resonates with target audiences.

There is substantial overlap here with the SEO team. More likely, we see elements of the brand team in any content tone of voice guides we receive. Their main responsibilities include:

  • Ensuring all communications reflect the company’s tone, voice, and values.
  • Building strong relationships with customers through storytelling and emotionally resonant content.
  • Maintaining a consistent look and feel across all digital and offline touchpoints.

Engineering Team Priorities

The engineering team plays a critical role in ensuring the technical infrastructure supports SEO initiatives and provides a seamless user experience.

Understanding their processes from the get-go is imperative to not only implementing any technical SEO recommendations you provide, but also to proactively keep you in the fold and informed of any deployments that could affect SEO performance.

Depending on the structure of the engineering team, their responsibilities will range from proactive development and bug fixing to managing infrastructure.

Define The Objectives Of The Playbook

The basic definition must outline a playbook for SEO purposes so that all teams have collective common goals.

Such goals create the guiding principle behind measuring SEO impact with the business and sales priorities of the brand.

Establish clear objectives to align SEO with business priorities:

  • Increase organic traffic, improve conversion rates, and boost brand awareness.
  • Track keyword rankings and clicks from keyword clusters (aligned with stages of the funnel/your audience segments).
  • Measure organic leads, SEO-driven conversions, and revenue attribution.
  • Branded search volume, content alignment, and engagement (measured through events in Google Analytics 4).

These objectives create a measurable framework for success.

Create Playbook Sections For Each Team

Create specific sections for each team in order for the playbook to ensure actionability and relevance to teams.

Specific strategies and guidelines should stem from the goals and responsibilities of each section.

Encourage sales team members to submit content addressing typical objections or questions from prospects, ensuring SEO efforts bring in qualified leads and the content not only ranks for search terms but resonates with prospects at a level that keyword research tools and basic level intent classification don’t tell us.

Brand teams should contribute clear guidelines for brand consistent maintenance of meta-descriptions, headings, alt texts, and other SEO elements.

They need to share positive reviews, customer testimonials, and stories to help build trust and credibility and provide a better understanding to the SEO teams on what the target audience values pre- and post-conversion.

Engineering teams need to contribute and (working with the SEO team) define a process for issue raising, prioritization, and deployment.

They should also share their overall processes and include the SEO team in scrum notes or agendas so any major potential issues can be understood and mitigated if necessary.

Feedback Loops And Reporting

Regular check-ins create a continuous cadence for teams to hear updates on progress and address issues.

Weekly or bi-weekly meetings would provide an opportunity to review ongoing SEO initiatives, address impediments, and maintain alignment across departments.

Sessions of this nature would also provide an open platform for communication and keep the focus on the same objectives.

Cross-departmental reporting interlinks core SEO performance metrics like keyword rankings and organic traffic to tangible business outcomes like conversion and brand engagement.

This would illustrate the impact SEO efforts have on revenue or the brand’s visibility to stakeholders concerning the strategic worth of SEO and its continued investment.

An SEO Playbook Is A Dynamic Resource

Your SEO playbook should contain actionable insights to guide the next steps in underperforming pages, highlighting technical issues or suggesting areas for strengthening conversion paths so that teams could address such problems quickly and seize new opportunities for growth.

Data visualization takes these further. Instead of dashboards, charts, or interactive tools, show stakeholders the different possibilities the data presents.

Monitoring and analysing metrics at a more granular level will allow you to better visualize user engagement, making it a lot easier to spot trends, measure progress, and prioritize strategic actions.

Incorporating structured feedback loops and transparent reporting turns an SEO playbook into a dynamic, ever-evolving resource.

It adapts continuously, driven by new data, open communication, and collective insights, ensuring each SEO initiative delivers maximum value.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Face Stock/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Jan 23 2025
Data On Fastest Growing Sites Yields Surprising Insights via @sejournal, @martinibuster

The competitive research tool similarweb released its Digital 100 list of sites with the largest growth in traffic, providing insights into what’s driving traffic growth across various informational and shopping categories.

Gig Economy Shows Strong Growth

The website with the most growth is JustAnswer.com, a gig economy platform that enables consumers to consult with experts such as doctors, home repair experts, lawyers, and veterinarians. JustAnswer.com experienced 81% year over year visitor growth, soaring from 11.6M monthly unique visitors (MUVs) in 2023 to a whopping 21M visitors.

JustAnswer.com’s performance highlights the popularity of the gig economy with consumers and freelancers who are able to share their expertise without the overhead of a storefront and traditional advertising

ChatGPT Shows Strong Growth

ChatGPT kept on growing in 2024, surging by 33% from 28.8M monthly unique visitors (MUVs) to 38.2M MUVs.

News Site Category Experiences Growth

Fifty percent of the top ten fastest growing sites were in the news industry. Growth in traffic to news sites increased year over year with the recent American election driving a large part of that growth.

  • Newsweek.com 71% growth, increasing from 27.2M in 2023 to 46.4M in 2024.
  • APNews.com experienced 47% growth, increasing from 26.1M to 38.4M visitors in 2024.
  • Traffic to ABCNews.go.com grew by 35% year over year, growing from 19.6M visitors in 2023 to 26.4M site visitors in 2024.
  • Fortune.com experienced 33% growth with traffic soaring from 12.6M to 16.7M visits in 2024.

The surprise winner in the news category is Substack, the news outlet for trustworthy independent news content. Substack is a platform that allows journalists and other writers to monetize their talent, keeping 90% of their earnings. Substack experienced 37% growth in traffic, increasing from 13.8M visitors in 2023 to 18.9M visitors in 2024.

Similarweb shared:

“Unsurprisingly, in an election year, news sites saw high growth. The real surprise? Half of the top 10 fastestgrowing US sites were news-focused. Like Newsweek (up 71%). But among the traditional sites is Substack — our
overall Digital Winner. Its success suggests consumers are increasingly seeking independent news sources.”

Apparel Websites

Similarweb’s statistics for apparel websites shows where consumer trends are and also has surprises related to the kinds of top level domains consumers feel comfortable with.

Similarweb’s insight on this category:

“The sportswear and sneakers craze shows no signs of slowing down. JD Sports emerged as the overall Digital Winner in the category — 150% growth in monthly active app users and 35% in web visitors. Additionally, the growth of Discount Divas and Depop reflects the rising demand for sustainability and affordability in fashion.”

Biggest Growth In Apparel Category

Peppermayo.com experienced the strongest growth for apparel websites, rising from 416% from 58.8K monthly unique visitors in 2023 to 303.7K in 2024. T

Most Actual Traffic

The apparel website with the most actual traffic is Quince.com, a fashion company that offers fashionable clothing for men and women at reasonable prices. They’re not fast fashion but focus on every day staples as well as clothes that an adult man or woman might wear on a night out or on vacation. Judging by the images posted on their site it looks like they’re focusing on a relatively underserved segment of the clothing consumer from the thirties on up and they’ve certainly cracked it because their monthly unique visitors jumped 176% from 2.06 million monthly unique visitors to 5.68 million visitors. How did they do it? Something that may be contributing to their success is that Quince encourages their customers to leave reviews with images, which in turn makes it easier to see how the clothes fit on real people and read the reviews on the clothes. The discounts offered to repeat customers and their liberal return and exchange policies encourage a positive user experience, a strategy that made a company like Zappos wildly popular in the early 2000s.

Something else that’s interesting about the apparel website rankings is that there are two .US top level domains, one .SHOP generic top level domain, and one site with a hyphen in it, showing how consumers are okay with domains that aren’t dot coms and that a hyphenated domain name can still work fine.

Here are the top ten by year over year growth (2023 to 2024) for apparel websites:

  1. peppermayo.com 416% (58.8K to 303.7K MUVs)
  2. babyboofashion.com 210% (80.2K to 248.6K)
  3. sopula.com 207% (38.9K to 119.3K)
  4. jeanpaulgaultier.com 198% (85.9K to 256.2K)
  5. edikted.com 182% (167.1K to 471.8K)
  6. quince.com 176% (2.06M to 5.68M)
  7. retro-stage.com 167% (69.3K to 184.6K)
  8. disturbia.us 154% (78.9K to 200.2K)
  9. amberjack.shop 140% (55.6K to 133.7K)
  10. clubllondon.us 139% (111.5K to 266.5K)

Serving Niche Product Consumers

Other notable rankings are in consumer electronics which shows the value of offering useful products at a reasonable price point to value ratio like SharkNinja vacuums. SharkNinja.com improved their traffic by 187%, going from 98.9K to 283.7K monthly unique visitors. SharkNinja offers popular and well reviewed products.

The other notable consumer electronics brand making big strides in traffic is Yotoplay.com, which offers a unique product that may be higher cost but appeals to parental values. The screen-free children’s audio player electronics company Yotoplay.com increased traffic by 130%, going from 199K monthly unique visitors in 2023 to 457.6K monthly visitors in 2024. Their secret is offering parents a screen-free way to engage young children with stories, music and learning with a device that’s easy for little kids to use together with their parents.

Both of these sites show how profitable it can be to focus on a narrow niche, understand your customers and deliver a quality product and experience.

Read similarweb’s post about their data:

Digital 100 – The Official 100 Fastest-Growing Companies Online in 2024

Read the PDF version of the report that contains detailed data.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Gearstd

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Jan 23 2025
How Use WordPress Multisite To Create a Website Subdirectory via @sejournal, @atuljindal01

WordPress Multisite is a feature for managing the structure and multiple sites from a single WordPress installation.

In this article, I’ll share the step-by-step approach to creating a new WordPress website or converting an existing WordPress website into a WordPress Multisite.

But before that, let’s understand the basics of WordPress Multisite.

What Is WordPress Multisite?

WordPress Multisite enables you to create and run multiple websites on the same WordPress installation. It is like having one central hub to control an entire network of sites.

Websites on a Multisite network share core files and databases, making it easy for network administrators to manage all websites from one WordPress user account.

The reason why businesses opt for Multisite is because it helps save both time and money. Plus, it takes less server space than separate installations.

To know WordPress Multisite better, let’s look at some of its significant features:

  • Centralized management: Allows you to control all your websites from one single dashboard.
  • Shared themes and plugins: Use your website anywhere after you install these shared themes and plugins.
  • User management: Enables you to create super admins to oversee the entire network.
  • Domain mapping: Facilitates you assigning unique domains to each site in your network.

How Does WordPress Multisite Work?

To understand the functionality of WordPress Multisite, you need to understand WordPress user roles and how they differ. By default, a standard WordPress site has five user roles:

  • Administrator (site Admin).
  • Editor.
  • Author.
  • Contributor.
  • Subscriber.

However, for WordPress Multisite, there is one more user role called super admin. There are six user roles for WordPress Multisite:

  • Super Admin (own/control – all sites of multisite network).
  • Administrator (site Admin) – controls one website of the network.
  • Editor.
  • Author.
  • Contributor.
  • Subscriber.

For a regular WordPress website, the site admin has administrative access to only one website. As there is just one website on the network, the admin controls only that website.

Site admins can add users, but only to the websites they administer. They cannot install WordPress plugins or themes, but they can choose which ones to activate or deactivate.

However, in WordPress Multisite, the super admin has access to more than one website.

The super admin, also known as the network admin, controls a whole network of websites and has activated Multisite initially.

They also have access to every website’s network admin setting and dashboard within the network. Super admins can also map custom domains.

Pros And Cons

After weighing the pros and cons of WordPress Multisite, it will become easy for you to decide if it aligns with your specific needs and technical expertise.

The Pros

  • Easy To Manage: With Multisite installation, you can control multiple sites from one admin panel. There is no need to switch and log each site separately.
  • Efficient Updates: You can apply core updates, plugin updates, and theme changes across all your websites with just a few clicks.
  • Easier Delegation: WordPress Multisite enables you to assign site-level admins to network sites to make it easy to share site management tasks.
  • Scalability: The best part about Multisite websites is that you can scale it as your business grows, as unlimited WP subsites are allowed under one URL. It will also enable you to delete the old ones that are not required without impacting the rest of the network.
  • Targeting Marketing And Branding: Multisite websites let you create tailored experiences for different geographic regions, product categories, and customer segments. For instance, if you’re doing SEO and link building, you can promote content in a much more geographically or niche-relevant way.
  • Greater Control: When you use multisite, you have greater control over using plugins and themes for each site. This lessens the risk of bad plugins or themes, which can compromise the security or performance of the entire network.
  • SEO-Friendly: WordPress multisite can help with SEO as well. You can properly structure your website and content for languages, locations, topics, products/services, etc. Having a well-structured website helps Google to understand your website easily. Also, you can track and understand which part of the site is performing well (even for Google algorithmic updates) and adjust your SEO strategy accordingly.

The Cons

Here are some of the drawbacks of using multisite:

  • Performance Issues: One of the major challenges with Multisite is that users may face performance issues in situations when one site gets adversely impacted; it affects the other sites as well.
  • Steep Learning Curve: Multisite has its own set of complexities. If you are not a technical expert, the initial setup and management can be quite challenging for you.
  • Limited Plugin Compatibility: Not all plugins are compatible with a Multisite setup, which can limit your options. In fact, various premium plugins may require a license per subsite, which can lead to an increase in cost.
  • Backup And Migration Challenges: Migrations can be challenging as every site shares one database. Migrating one site off your network is very challenging; therefore, ensure that you have a solid backup strategy in place.

Use Cases: When To Use A WordPress Multisite

Here are some use cases when using a WordPress Multisite is a good idea:

Franchise Businesses

If you have a franchise business, opting for Multisite can be one of the best decisions.

Every franchise will get a separate website, but you will have control over the look and functionality of all of them.

Subway, McDonalds, Dominos, and many other brands use this to give every location a unique online presence while ensuring brand consistency.

Learning Management System (LMS) Websites

Imagine a university where every department needs its own website. Using Multisite, offers each department its own space while maintaining brand consistency and centralized management.

LMS websites are created for various schools and universities, but they have a similar structure and functionality.

Multi-Language Websites

WordPress Multisite can be a great idea for businesses that target a global audience. It also offers a solution for managing multiple language versions of a website.

Every language gets its own site, which makes it easier to manage translations and localized content.

Business Or Ecommerce Sites

Using WordPress Multisite is a perfect option for ecommerce sites. It creates different versions of the same service or product website.

For instance, you can create different sites on the same product line, accounting for differences in language and culture. Furthermore, you can delegate network administrator control to business representatives in every region.

Social Commerce Integration

WordPress Multisite can be a powerful tool for businesses looking to leverage social commerce.

By creating separate subsites for different product categories or target audiences, businesses can tailor their offerings and marketing messages to specific demographics.

Additionally, plugins can be integrated to allow for direct product sales from social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, creating a seamless shopping experience for customers.

A Multisite installation could be useful for government sites, SaaS businesses, educational organizations, magazines and media publications, ecommerce, etc., or simply where you want to create a well-structured website with an easy approach.

When Using A WordPress Multisite Is Not Recommended

Here are some of the use cases that explain when you should think twice about using WordPress Multisite capability:

1. Have Different Website Requirements

WordPress Multisite is not recommended for websites with varied functionalities, structures, plugins, or purposes.

For example, if you have three types of businesses that provide healthcare, LMS, and SaaS services, Multisite won’t help.

2. Can’t Afford Sufficient Hosting

WordPress Multisite is resource-intensive, especially when your business grows.

It requires substantial hosting plans, as inadequate hosting can lead to slow load times across all your sites. To avoid this, you should ensure that you have a WordPress Multisite optimized hosting for your website.

3. Security Risks

All the websites in a multisite network share a single database, potentially compromising data isolation. This shared structure might also not comply with industry-specific regulations.

Thus, if you have security concerns, it might not be an ideal choice for you.

4. Don’t Have A Permanent Programmer

If you run a small company without a dedicated programmer or IT team, opting for Multisite might get you in more trouble than it’s worth.

Multisite demands more technical know-how to set up and maintain, so if any issues arise, they will be challenging to diagnose and fix without expert help.

Steps To Create A WordPress Multisite

Before you start creating a WordPress Multisite, you need to choose a domain structure for Multisite – either a subdomain or subfolder structure.

Example of Sub-domain structure:
blog.website.com/
uk.website.com/
Examples of Sub-folder structure:
website.com/blog/
website.com/uk/

WordPress Multisite also allows using a different domain for each website of the network. For example, you can use the website.us domain for the USA-targeting website and website.ca for the Canada website.

You can follow this guide to set up domain mapping for your WordPress website.

Once you have these essentials, you can start with the process of creating a WordPress Multisite.

Step 1: Enable The WordPress Multisite Network Feature

To enable this, you need to install a new WordPress as you normally do. You need to enable a WordPress Multisite network feature on an existing WordPress website if you want to convert it into a Multisite.

But before that, you should completely back up your website.

Follow these steps to enable the Multisite feature:

  1. Set up an FTP connection to your website or Cpanel > file manager and edit the wp-config.php file.
  2. Navigate to the wp-config.php file. Scroll down to the bottom and add this code before the /* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */. line:
/* Multisite */ 
define( 'WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true );

Save the changes and close the wp-config.php file.

Step 2: Setting Up The Multisite Network

deactivate-plugins-bulk-Screenshot from WordPress, December 2024

Before doing anything, you need to deactivate all of your plugins to complete the process.

Then go to Tools > Network Setup page.

create-network multisite Screenshot from WordPress, December 2024

Now, you should choose between subdomains (e.g., site1.yourdomain.com) or subdirectories (e.g., yourdomain.com/site1) for the Multisite structure. Then Click “Install.”

Now, WordPress will show you some code snippets to add to your website’s wp-config.php and .htaccess files.

wp multisite enable-networkScreenshot from WordPress, December 2024

Step 3: Edit The wp-config.php And .htaccess Files

You need to edit the wp-config.php file and add the code just below the line (code) you added before.

Then, edit the .htaccess file and replace the existing code with the new code of the WordPress Multisite installation.

Don’t forget to save the changes.

After finishing it, you need to re-login to your website to access the Multisite network.

Step 4: Configure Network Settings

After logging in to your website, go to Network Dashboard to add new sites and change network settings. For this, go to My Sites > Network Admin > Dashboard.

multisite network-dashboardScreenshot from WordPress, December 2024

Settings and other things are the same as those for the normal WordPress installation.

It’s done. This is how you can create your first site in your Multisite network.

If you want to convert your existing website into a Multisite, then here are the steps.

How To Convert An Existing Site To Multisite?

By default, WordPress allows you to convert an existing WordPress site into a Multisite sub-domain only.

If you want to convert a WordPress Subdomain Multisite, then you can follow the above-mentioned steps.

But if you want to convert an existing site into a Multisite Subfolder, then follow these steps:

(Pro tip: Take a complete website backup before starting the process.)

Step 1: Enable The WordPress Multisite Network Feature

You need to edit the wp-config.php file and add this code:

/* Multisite */ 
define( 'WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true );

Before the line: /* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

Step 2: Deactivate All Plugins

deactivate-plugins-bulk-Screenshot from WordPress, December 2024

To do this, go to Dashboard > Plugins. Then select all and deactivate them.

Step 3: Network Setup

You need to refresh the page to see changes.

Then, go to Appearance > Theme Editor > Theme Functions to edit the functions.php file, and add the following code at the end.

add_filter( 'allow_subdirectory_install', create_function( '', 'return true;' ) );

Save it.

Now, you can find and choose the subfolder option for your Multisite. To do this, go to Tools > Network setup.

create-network multisite Screenshot from WordPress, December 2024

Then, choose the Subfolders option, and click the Install button.

Step 4: Enable The Network

You need to add the code shown by WordPress to the wp-config.php and .htaccess files, as shown above in Step 3 of creating a new multisite.

Once you have done it, you can create your first subfolder site. For this:

add-new-sites wp multisiteScreenshot from WordPress, December 2024

Go to My Sites > Network Admin > Sites.

Congratulations! You’ve successfully converted your WordPress site to a Multisite.

WordPress Multisite FAQs

What is the difference between WordPress Multisite vs. managing separate installations?

Here are the major differences:

  • In separate installations, you have full control and customization for each site, whereas WordPress Multisite offers limited individual site customization.
  • WordPress Multisite has a centralized dashboard for all sites, whereas separate installations demand individual management for each site.
  • Multisites generally use server resources more efficiently; on the contrary, for separate installations, each site uses its own resources.

What are the best tips for managing WordPress Multisite?

Some of the best tips for managing WP multisite are:

  • Choose network-wide themes carefully.
  • Implement two-factor authentication.
  • Set up regular, automated backups of your entire network.

Wrapping Up

Setting up a WordPress Multisite network is like creating a digital theme park where visitors can effortlessly explore all your attractions.

Converting a WordPress site to a Multisite subdirectory is a powerful solution whether you are managing multiple brands, creating a network of niche sites, or simply planning for future growth.

Use this guide to create a WordPress Multisite for your business.

More Resources:

Featured Image: VectorMine/Shutterstock

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Jan 23 2025
Implementing responsible AI in the generative age

Many organizations have experimented with AI, but they haven’t always gotten the full value from their investments. A host of issues standing in the way center on the accuracy, fairness, and security of AI systems. In response, organizations are actively exploring the principles of responsible AI: the idea that AI systems must be fair, transparent, and beneficial to society for it to be widely adopted. 

When responsible AI is done right, it unlocks trust and therefore customer adoption of enterprise AI. According to the US National Institute of Standards and Technology the essential building blocks of AI trustworthiness include: 

  • Validity and reliability 
  • Safety
  • Security and resiliency 
  • Accountability and transparency 
  • Explainability and interpretability 
  • Privacy
  • Fairness with mitigation of harmful bias 
DOWNLOAD THE REPORT

To investigate the current landscape of responsible AI across the enterprise, MIT Technology Review Insights surveyed 250 business leaders about how they’re implementing principles that ensure AI trustworthiness. The poll found that responsible AI is important to executives, with 87% of respondents rating it a high or medium priority for their organization.

A majority of respondents (76%) also say that responsible AI is a high or medium priority specifically for creating a competitive advantage. But relatively few have figured out how to turn these ideas into reality. We found that only 15% of those surveyed felt highly prepared to adopt effective responsible AI practices, despite the importance they placed on them. 

Putting responsible AI into practice in the age of generative AI requires a series of best practices that leading companies are adopting. These practices can include cataloging AI models and data and implementing governance controls. Companies may benefit from conducting rigorous assessments, testing, and audits for risk, security, and regulatory compliance. At the same time, they should also empower employees with training at scale and ultimately make responsible AI a leadership priority to ensure their change efforts stick. 

“We all know AI is the most influential change in technology that we’ve seen, but there’s a huge disconnect,” says Steven Hall, chief AI officer and president of EMEA at ISG, a global technology research and IT advisory firm. “Everybody understands how transformative AI is going to be and wants strong governance, but the operating model and the funding allocated to responsible AI are well below where they need to be given its criticality to the organization.” 

Download the full report.

This content was produced by Insights, the custom content arm of MIT Technology Review. It was not written by MIT Technology Review’s editorial staff.

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Jan 23 2025
Charts: U.S. Small Business Trends Q4 2024

Small businesses are vital to the U.S. economy. Micro, small, and medium enterprises (up to 500 employees) generate 58% of jobs and 39% of the “value-added” economy, the portion beyond the cost of production. That’s according to an October 2024 report by McKinsey Global Institute titled “America’s small businesses: Time to think big.”

–

Micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) significantly influence certain U.S. industries. For instance, in the construction industry, MSMEs employ over 75% of the workforce and contribute more than 75% of the value added. Additionally, MSMEs represent more than half of the employment and value-added in professional services and accommodation and food services.

–

Per the McKinsey report, since 2000 a substantial share of publicly traded companies with a market capitalization of $10 billion or more began as MSMEs. Small technology firms have achieved some of the most notable successes, with nearly a quarter of large public tech companies having originated as MSMEs over the last 25 years. Likewise, many of today’s major manufacturing firms trace their roots to small factories.

–

McKinsey computed the opportunities for productivity improvements among U.S. businesses compared to other advanced economies and then allocated the opportunities by industry sector. Retail and wholesale trade, manufacturing, construction, and technology represented the top opportunities owing to their impact on the overall economy.

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Jan 22 2025
Google Expands AI Overviews In Circle To Search via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google is rolling out updates to the “Circle to Search” tool, making it more helpful for marketers, businesses, and Android users.

Circle to Search lets you circle, scribble, or tap on anything visible on your phone screen to instantly search the web without switching apps.

With expanded AI Overviews, the tool is better equipped to deliver useful insights—especially for visual searches.

AI Overviews Now Cover More Visual Searches

The most significant update is the expansion of AI Overviews to handle a broader range of visual search results.

You can circle objects like a trending product, a competitor’s ad, or a storefront logo to get an instant, AI-powered summary.

Screenshot from: blog.google/feed/circle-to-search-new-features/, January 2025..

For example, suppose you spot an interesting product in a social media post. In that case, you can circle it to generate an overview of the brand, pricing, related products, and links to explore further.

This makes it easier to research trends, analyze competitors, and stay on top of what resonates with audiences.

Navigational Searches

Google is improving Circle to Search to make it easier for you to find and use information. You can now quickly visit a URL, send an email, or call a phone number.

Circle to Search will recognize numbers, email addresses, and URLs on your screen so you can act with just one tap.

Why This Matters

Visual search can assist marketers with understanding consumer behavior and identifying opportunities.

Through Circle to Search, you can extract information from social media posts, competitor materials, or real-world items like event signage or product displays.

This access to insights can help with making data-driven decisions faster.

Availability

These new features are rolling out now for Android users.

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Jan 22 2025
Ask Maps Is Google Q&A’s AI Replacement: Here’s What It Means For Marketers

Google is starting to roll out an AI-based Q&A feature to Google Business Profiles (GBP) on Google Maps for mobile.

This feature will very likely replace Google Q&A, which has silently gone missing on some listings.

The “Ask Maps about this place” AI feature was first announced in late October 2024, along with a number of other Google Maps AI enhancements, but has not been widely available or visible.

At the time, Google also noted that “you’ll also see similar experiences in the coming months on Search – including AI-powered review summaries and the option to ask detailed questions about places.”

Currently, the feature is available on the Google Maps app, buried on the profile in the Overview tab, beneath the basic business NAP details and the review summaries.

How Does It Work?

Ask Maps allows users to input open-ended questions into a query box. While it offers and suggests pre-formed queries tailored to the business, users can also ask specific questions.

Pre-formed queries can differ significantly by business location (for multi-location businesses), with businesses sharing minimal overlap. And sometimes, similarly formulated questions might deliver slightly different answers.

The query field allows for compound questions. Although, the more you ask, the more likely you will be told that there isn’t enough information about this place to answer your question.

Screenshot from Google Search, January 2025

Ask Maps often, but not always, suggests six pre-formed queries – a kind of local version of People Also Ask – to help the searcher more quickly get their potential questions answered.

Some listings have no questions, and a few have two to four of these suggested queries.

These pre-formed queries vary by location, with even locations tied to the same brand sharing minimal overlap.

In looking at four or five different store locations, there were only a few of these questions that were duplicated.

Screenshot from Google Search, January 2025

We were curious about whether the review corpus or previous Q&A answers were used to generate these pre-formed queries.

We downloaded and analyzed reviews and Q&A content using N-grams, word clouds, and ChatGPT. We found virtually no correlation between the existing Google Q&A or review content and the pre-formed queries presented.

Obviously, a searcher can ask any question of the AI.

As mentioned, however, if Google does not have enough data from the listing attributes, reviews, the business website, or trusted third-party sites, the user will be told: “There’s not enough information about this place.”

Not Every Category

Unlike the soon-to-be legacy Q&A feature, Ask Maps excludes some business categories and is only available in U.S.-based locations.

In our review, the feature wasn’t present on profiles for most healthcare providers, counseling, social services, pregnancy care, and drug rehab centers, although we did find it on dentist profiles.

The feature was also not visible on highly distressed and spammy categories like moving companies, locksmiths, and garage door listings. It was available in categories that are less spam-filled, like HVAC, roofers, and electricians.

Profiles of businesses in legally regulated categories like marijuana dispensaries, tobacco, guns, or dating services did have the feature.

The primary category of the listing determines whether the feature appears or not.

YMCA locations in my area each have slightly different categories, and the one with social services as the primary category did not have Ask Maps, while all the others did.

Screenshot from Google Search, January 2025

Where Does The Information Come From?

Google says:

“All of these features are made possible thanks to Gemini’s powerful creation, reasoning and summarization capabilities — grounded in our trusted data about 250 million places around the world and insights from the Maps community.”

In answering Ask Maps questions, Google appears to rely first on content in the business profile, GBP reviews, and the business website before it will access third-party content.

When Google had images from GBP image uploads relevant to the answer, those were included as well.

While the source for these images, in the example we saw, was represented as the business website, the images all came from Google Business Profile.

Screenshot from Google Search, January 2025

Ask Maps will go out to third-party web sources if needed to answer a question, and the site is trusted.

In the following example, we asked about issues that customers had experienced with this dealership, and the response referenced Carfax.com and Facebook.

Oddly, Ask Maps is currently unable to answer product inventory questions even when Google clearly has the inventory uploaded to Merchant Center, and it shows elsewhere on the profile.

Screenshot from Google Search, January 2025

Reviews From The Web

It’s obvious that consumers value reviews, and Ask Maps gives them access to both summary of the worst and best of Google reviews, as well as reviews from around the web.

The query below, asking about Barbara Oliver Jewelry’s “rating around the internet,” surfaced the review summary (using Local schema) directly from her website with additional data from Facebook.

However, despite numerous attempts, it would not surface her Yelp reviews.

Screenshot from Google Search, January 2025

Your Website As Data Source

The following video demonstrates Ask Maps’ ability, in many situations, to answer questions that previously required a visit to a business website.

On the Barbara Oliver jewelry profile, we asked, “What’s involved in custom ring design?” and got back a 118-word answer that referenced multiple sections and pages from the Barbara Oliver website.

Google Q&A Deprecation 

Clearly, this feature is a major improvement upon Google Q&A, which rolled out in early 2018. Most Q&A answers are user-generated and often repetitive, contradictory, or inaccurate.

Initially, the feature was highly visible on the Business Profile in search, although it has moved down the page more recently.

A contributor in the Google support forums was recently told that the current Q&A feature is being deprecated.

As communicated in our previous email, the Q&A feature is no longer available to any of our users, regardless of their location. Additionally, there is no support link or method through which you can verify this information independently. Please note that this update aligns with Google’s new guidelines. As per these changes, profiles that are updated in accordance with the latest requirements will not have a Q & A option available.

This has yet to be formally confirmed by Google. But it makes sense given that Ask Maps, once it rolls out more widely and to search, does a significantly better job of answering questions than Q&A could ever hope to. Ask Maps does so by using a limited number of reliable sources.

At the moment, Ask Maps is U.S. only. In its current form, it probably violates EU DMA regulations and highlights the massive self-preferencing occurring with Google Local.

It’s, therefore, unlikely to come to Europe anytime soon. Although, it is likely to show up elsewhere soon.

Local Marketing Strategy Response

Google continues to move down the path of more dynamic AI-generated content on your Google Business Profile.

While this behavior changes dramatically by vertical, there is every reason not just to treat your profile as your new homepage but to up your game in that regard.

In a practical sense, it doesn’t really matter whether your leads come directly from Google or from your website as long as they are coming in. And when you can gain an edge by feeding Google, you should.

Website

As the example above demonstrates, Google answers user questions with substantial and meaningful responses.

My colleague David Mihm has long argued that your website content is perhaps best viewed as a feed for search and now AI engines.

You need to be sure that your site has a properly siloed structure and content.

The content must answer all important customer questions about your business. This includes not just what you do, but how and where and how well you do it.

It should show as well as tell, by providing imagery and video on top of text.

Reviews

Given the ability of tools like Ask Maps to summarize your reviews from both Google and from around the web, it’s more important than ever to both diversify your review content and highlight them on one of Ask Maps’ most trusted sources: your website.

Photographs

We have long championed original, high-quality photography (and video) on both your website and GBP.

It leads to increased engagement (a ranking signal) and increased conversions (the ultimate goal). And your photos need to be regularly updated at both places for maximum benefit.

There is no more economical way to get higher returns than great photographs and video.

Social Profiles

Google first looks at GBP data, then reviews, and then the business website. But if the question cannot be answered there, it will then start pulling in information from your social accounts.

Facebook and LinkedIn were common in our testing, and you should be sure that they are up-to-date and accurately reflect your products, services, and reputation.

Citations

Google has long relied on web references (a.k.a. citations) – non-linked branded mentions – from around the web to understand local entities.

This can be seen very clearly in the screen below, where we asked if the business owner supported local volunteer organizations.

Both a news article and the Facebook page for one of the organizations she works with were referenced.

This type of sourcing is also a great research tool to understand the types and sources of valuable citations for your business.

These types of searches should be done for your direct competitors as well to provide additional ideas on where you might be able to get these references.

Screenshot from Google Search, January 2025

The Future Of Local

The growing “zero-click” behaviors in Google Local inevitably lead to declining traffic for small business websites. These types of changes will continue unless the government steps in to regulate it as a monopoly.

For some sectors, like publishing, which depends on traffic for ad sales, this is a potential death knell – in local. However, traffic losses can often be replaced with more leads from GBP if you play Google’s game.

As frustrating as it is sometimes, we think that the game is still worth playing. The leads generated can be significant. But the types of content and signals Google needs these days to rank you well (branding, reviews, engagement, etc.), you should be doing regardless.

That game is increasingly verticalized on Google – or at least user behaviors are.

To really excel in this environment, you need to understand consumer behaviors in your specific vertical and tailor everything you do to address and satisfy them.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Darko 1981/Shutterstock

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