ChatGPT can help with various SEO tasks. “Help” being the operative word.

It’s important to acknowledge that:

• There’s a strong chance there are at least a few tasks you’re performing currently that ChatGPT could help you do more efficiently or effectively.
• As AI tools improve, understanding how to get the most out of them (and how to avoid pitfalls surrounding the tools) will be a valuable SEO and marketing skill.
• ChatGPT has plenty of issues and warts, and there aren’t many full functions you can just let ChatGPT (or other AI tools) complete without oversight.

Local SEO is no different on all of these counts. ChatGPT isn’t designed to be a local SEO tool. Many tools will perform specific local SEO tasks better than ChatGPT ever will.

But there are a lot of local SEO tasks that ChatGPT can be useful for, and some of them may surprise you. This article covers how ChatGPT can (and can’t) help in four specific areas of local SEO.

1. ChatGPT and Google Business Profiles

Local businesses can make plenty of tweaks and optimizations to their Google Business Profile (GBP). 

While ChatGPT can’t directly interface with your listing, it could help with the following:

Google Business Profile categories

A quick way to get ideas for categories is to look at what your competitors are doing. Let’s see if ChatGPT can help there:

This is a pretty good list of local cheese shops nearby. Let’s see if ChatGPT can give us their GBP categories:

Pretty quick and impressive! Keep in mind that ChatGPT outputs are not always accurate.

The tool is “not connected to the internet, and it can occasionally produce incorrect answers. It has limited knowledge of the world and events after 2021 and may also occasionally produce harmful instructions or biased content,” according to its FAQs.

So I wanted to find out how it got this information:

Uh-oh. Again, ChatGPT is not connected to the internet.

I’ve highlighted this issue before, but if you ask ChatGPT to explain the process it used to get an answer, it will often give you a summary of how *one* might get that answer that can’t really be how *ChatGPT* got that answer.

That was the case here:

OK, so how did ChatGPT actually generate these categories?

It guessed! And upon closer inspection, two of the competitors ChatGPT listed don’t exist.

This highlights a significant limitation of ChatGPT for local SEO: much of the information it has access to will be outdated, so you have to take the outputs with a grain of salt.

Be sure you’re not relying on the tool for anything that would require a high degree of precision when it comes to local business information.

That said, one of the areas where ChatGPT can be helpful is idea generation (provided you’re willing to vet the ideas):

Google Posts content

If you keep in mind what Google’s said about AI content and all the potential downsides, you can use ChatGPT to help create posts for your business profile.

This can be an interesting option since many local businesses have busy employees who wear multiple hats, and writing may not be a strong suit for some.

ChatGPT doesn’t currently follow the character or word counts you specify. Generally, the output will map roughly to what you ask – but if you specify 750 words, you may get 400-500.

Not bad! As you can see from the post, ChatGPT mentioned various types of cheeses, so you need to check. The more information you can feed into your prompt, the better the output is likely to be.

Videos

If you need video content ideas, you can ask ChatGPT to give you relevant questions for an FAQ or Q&A video:

It could help you with a script for a video:

Products

ChatGPT can help create descriptions for your product features in GBP:

Question and answers

You can also use ChatGPT to respond to questions in the question and answer section of your Google Business Profile. Again, proceed with caution here. 

This is an essential section of your profile, and ChatGPT may flat-out say incorrect things. If you have the bandwidth and can write concisely, it’s certainly better to answer these yourself.

Still, if you struggle with writing these responses and have a large volume of questions, ChatGPT can structure answers here as a starting point. Be sure you edit for accuracy.

You need to include better context in your prompt, so it can produce something usable:

Edit the response to match how you’d want to answer these questions.

2. ChatGPT and Google reviews

Getting as many high-quality reviews as possible is a major component of local SEO. Here are a few ways ChatGPT can potentially help.

Draft an email template to encourage reviews

Emailing customers and creating handouts are good ways to get reviews for your business.

Ensure you know Google’s specific guidelines on user reviews and that the output you create with ChatGPT complies with the rules.

(As you may have guessed from previous warnings: you do need to proceed carefully and vet the output!)

Review sentiment analysis

One interesting use for ChatGPT is to quickly surface the best or worst out of a set of reviews. This can be useful for a local business in a few ways:

• If you get a lot of reviews, quickly surfacing the best and worst by sentiment (not just stars) could be helpful both in highlighting positive testimonials and even problems. Different customers will have varying standards regarding star ratings. Looking at sentiment may help you discover a major issue a 3-star review has or find a great quote from someone who left a 4-star review.
• Similarly, if one of your competitors gets a lot of reviews, you can quickly see what customers love and hate about their store. This could give you ideas for enhancements to your business or what to include in your marketing copy.

If you’re using the web interface and have any volume of reviews, you’ll have to paste reviews into several prompts, as the character limit is 2,000. (You can also now remedy this through the API):

After that, I took all the reviews I had grabbed and pasted them into ChatGPT in ~2,000 character chunks. (You can export your reviews from your GBP account, copy-paste or scrape competitor reviews.)

Here’s the output:

You’ll get some great ideas here, especially if you already have many reviews. (You could even batch all of your competitors’ reviews together to analyze.)

If this was my business, I could pull positive reviews to feature on a store poster or a testimonial page on my website. The negative reviews can point me to specific issues that must be addressed.

Conversely, if this were one competitor or a group of competitors, I would have some good takeaways, too:

• Local cheese fans seek variety, a knowledgeable staff, and quality cheese. That may be obvious, but I can feature those things in my messaging around my store. You may find a specific item or feature pops in this analysis (e.g., having an outdoor seating area, a particular product, something unique to a competitor’s space, etc.)
• Suppose people are frustrated with competitors’ store policies, pricing or quality. In that case, I can call out those things in my marketing copy (with a slogan or a quality guaranteed offer).

Responding to reviews

If you find yourself at a loss of what to write or aren’t confident in your English in responding to these reviews, ChatGPT can help get you started with review responses.

Here is an example of a response to a positive review:

And to a negative review:

3. ChatGPT and local on-page SEO

I’ve covered how ChatGPT can help with traditional content and SEO tasks, plus some keyword research prompts you can try. 

Many of those can apply to specific local SEO tasks as well.

Topic ideation

ChatGPT can be beneficial as a starting point to brainstorm ideas (that you’ll want to vet against a keyword research tool with competition and search volume data).

I like to start with a couple of broad prompts to get some general topic ideas, like getting a sense of the top publications writing about the topic:

And the types of posts they write about:

Then you can get some more specific topic ideas for your site:

Not bad! Again I’d now want to go through a thorough process for finding things like recipe ideas or pairing terms that my site would be able to rank for, but this is a good starting point for topic ideas.

Schema

Depending on your business type, various schema may be relevant for your site. ChatGPT can help you quickly generate the schema.

ChatGPT-generated schema can be a hit or miss, so make sure you have a developer QA’ing the code.

This data will be from 2021, so if things like address, phone number, or hours have changed, input this data manually or use a different tool for this purpose.

Location pages 

While you must be careful with location pages in the wake of recent Google updates, they can still be a valuable tool for local businesses if executed properly.

(Proceed carefully before cranking out many location-specific pages with ChatGPT-generated content.)

First, we can quickly get a list of towns:

Then we can get a list of relevant terms (basically whatever we’ve determined our core keywords to be here):

We can ask ChatGPT to give us some points of interest for cheese fans and relevant information about our shop in relation to the town:

Some may be out of business or inaccurate, so I must vet the information. Still, these are great potential additions to a town-specific page about my cheese shop. At the very least, I now have ideas for types of businesses to include. 

I can also get ChatGPT to generate meta descriptions for these pages once I’m ready to get them live on my site:

4. ChatGPT and local link building

Local links and citations are key signals for local search.

If you’re willing to vet the lists, you can get ideas for organizations to sponsor:

Awards to win or organizations to join:

I can also use ChatGPT to get a sense of the top local websites:

And the types of items they write about related to local businesses:

I can see that things like openings, new offerings, and charitable donations are highlighted on these sites and might be ideas to pitch for a story.

You could also use ChatGPT to help you write outreach emails if you’re pitching stories or looking to be added to a list of resources.

If you keep in mind what ChatGPT does and doesn’t do well, I’m sure you’ll find other applications for the platform to help make your local SEO efforts more effective and efficient.

The February 2022 product reviews update created more volatility in Google’s search results than past versions of the update, according to Semrush and Rank Ranger data.

About the Google February 2023 product reviews update. Google released the February 2023 product reviews update around 5 p.m. ET on Feb. 21. It ran for 14 days after it was announced and ended on March 7.

This was the sixth product reviews update and the first Google applied to additional languages. In addition to English, 10 languages were impacted.

Data providers show the February 2023 update was more significant

Semrush. Semrush data showed that the February 2023 update was more significant than the July 2022 product reviews update.

Why did Semrush compare it to the July update instead of the September 2022 product reviews update? Because of overlapping Google updates – the September 2022 core update was rolling out at the same time.

“February 2023 product reviews update reflected a significantly more volatile update than what we saw in July,” said Mordy Obersterin, from Wix and Semrush. “The February 2023 product reviews update showed a volatility increase that was 156% more significant than the July update,” when he looked at U.S. desktop search data.

The volatility for the July 2022 update, the baseline prior to the update was 1.8 on the Semrush Sensor’s scale to a 2.7 on the Semrush Sensor’s scale for July product reviews update. Compare that to the February 2023 update that had a basement of 3.1 and it went to a 5.4 – that showed a much bigger change.

Look at the rank change comparison of volatility – it shows huge differences in volatility between the July 2022 and February 2023 product reviews update.

Here is a chart that now shows the volatility by category for the February 2023 product reviews update:

And then comparing by niche from the July 2022 and February 2023 product reviews update:

Here is the Semrush Sensor by day for the past month, where you can see the various spikes in volatility by day:

RankRanger. Similarweb’s RankRanger compared the new February 2023 product reviews update to the September 2022 product reviews update. So Semrush and RankRanger are looking at different data sets.

In any case, the February 2023 update was more volatile than the September 2022 update, even with the core update overlapping, according to Rank Ranger. Here is their chart showing the average position change between those two updates:

Even if you look at it by position groups, still the February 2023 update was more volatile than the September 2022 update:

RankRanger also broke it down by niche, like Semrush. Here is that chart:

And here is the Rank Ranger Risk Index tool to see the volatility by day:

Community. I also track what the SEO community is saying about these algorithm updates. And it appeared that there was a lot of “chatter” within the SEO community around Feb. 25, March 1, and March 4. It calmed down a lot after that, which shows a similar pattern to the charts above.

More on the February 2023 product reviews update

Google product reviews update. The Google product reviews update aims to promote review content that is above and beyond much of the templated information you see on the web. Google said it will promote these types of product reviews in its search results rankings.

Google is not directly punishing lower-quality product reviews that have “thin content that simply summarizes a bunch of products.”

However, if you provide such content and find your rankings demoted because other content is promoted above yours, it will definitely feel like a penalty. Google is trying to reward sites with more insightful review content with rankings above yours.

Technically, this update should only impact product review content and not other types of content.

And the February update now works with more languages than just English, it added Spanish, German, French, Italian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Russian, Dutch, Portuguese and Polish.

What to do if you are hit. Google has given advice on what to consider if you are negatively impacted by this product reviews update. We posted that advice in our original story over here. In addition, Google provided two new best practices around this update, one saying to provide more multimedia around your product reviews and the second is to provide links to multiple sellers, not just one. Google posted these two items:

• Provide evidence such as visuals, audio, or other links of your own experience with the product, to support your expertise and reinforce the authenticity of your review.
• Include links to multiple sellers to give the reader the option to purchase from their merchant of choice.

Google added the following criteria for what matters with the March 2022 product reviews update:

• Include helpful in-depth details, like the benefits or drawbacks of a certain item, specifics on how a product performs, or how the product differs from previous versions
• Come from people who have actually used the products, and show what the product is physically like or how it’s used
• Include unique information beyond what the manufacturer provides — like visuals, audio or links to other content detailing the reviewer’s experience
• Cover comparable products, or explain what sets a product apart from its competitors

Google added three new points of new advice for this third release of the products reviews update:

• Are product review updates relevant to ranked lists and comparison reviews? Yes. Product review updates apply to all forms of review content. The best practices we’ve shared also apply. However, due to the shorter nature of ranked lists, you may want to demonstrate expertise and reinforce authenticity in a more concise way. Citing pertinent results and including original images from tests you performed with the product can be good ways to do this.
• Are there any recommendations for reviews recommending “best” products? If you recommend a product as the best overall or the best for a certain purpose, be sure to share with the reader why you consider that product the best. What sets the product apart from others in the market? Why is the product particularly suited for its recommended purpose? Be sure to include supporting first-hand evidence.
• If I create a review that covers multiple products, should I still create reviews for the products individually? It can be effective to write a high-quality ranked list of related products in combination with in-depth single-product reviews for each recommended product.  If you write both, make sure there is enough useful content in the ranked list for it to stand on its own.

Previous product review updates. This is the sixth release of the product reviews update. The previous five were launched:

Why we care. If your website offers product review content, you will want to check your rankings to see if you were impacted. Did your Google organic traffic improve, decline, or stay the same? Long term, you are going to want to ensure that going forward, you put a lot more detail and effort into your product review content so that it is unique and stands out from the competition on the web.

We hope you, your company, and your clients did well with this update.

By now, we already know how AI tools like ChatGPT can aid us in content creation, keyword research and other SEO-related tasks. It’s the latest shiny object, but not without drawbacks.

If you’ve started using AI tools, it’s vital to ensure your content outputs won’t get you in trouble.

Follow these 17 tips to make your AI-assisted content writing process even better.

1. Use research prompts to find the best content

I’ve been playing with research prompts lately, and it’s pretty interesting. Use an AI tool like ChatGPT and use the prompt:

• “Give me a list of the best content on (insert topic).”

It will throw back a list that will be inaccurate.

By this, I mean the content is unlikely to exist or be real.

Once Microsoft Bing and Google launch their respective in-SERP AI tools, you’ll probably get an accurate response. But for now, we’ll use this differently because that’s not where the magic lies in this approach.

The AI tools give you a response that they think you’ll like. You get some quite creative titles of articles.

So, here’s how I’ve been using this approach.

Take items on that list and throw them into Google, one by one.

You’ll find that you’ll get back results similar to what you’ve searched for in an AI tool.

This is a super long-tail search query you probably haven’t encountered before.

Google (or whatever search engine you use) will give you the closest matching content to the article title AI suggests.

This approach unlocked some creative ideas I’d never considered and gave me new content to read as part of my research. I think this tip might evolve as AI does. We’ll see.

2. Use articles discovered to build your brief

When you find articles you like as part of your research, take their H2s to help you build a more comprehensive brief for an AI writing tool.

You can use a Chrome extension, like Detailed SEO, to list the headers.

It’s a quick copy and paste from here into a document or spreadsheet.

As you generate more H2s for your content, you can add them into a brief for an AI writing tool later.

3. Use AI to create a brief to rank on Page 1

AI tools can help you build a brief designed to rank on Google. Here’s how.

Go to your chosen SERP analyzer tool, such as Frase or Surfer SEO, and follow their steps to research the SERP.

You’ll be able to grab the H2s for all of the top-ranking content and pull them into a brief creator.

At this stage, depending on the tool you are using, they might also have an AI tool that can write the content.

A word of warning: Google has specifically told SEOs that it is against their guidelines to use AI just to rewrite content.

So, I wouldn’t advise that.

What you’re doing here is researching the SERP.

You’ll always want to mix human and AI content and add something new.

This brings me to the next tip.

4. Use AI to add something new to the content

Don’t just copy the top rankings. 

Use AI to add something new and stand out from the crowd of existing content.

To do this, go to the tool you used to assemble the brief, or add your own brief and place it within a tool such as ChatGPT.

Use a simple prompt such as:

• “The following is a brief for an article on the complete guide to home security. Please tell me what subjects I am missing to make it a better and more complete article able to rank on google on page 1 for the target (insert keyword) 1+ (insert brief).”

ChatGPT will give you something like this as a response.

The tool will add more aspects that you haven’t considered.

You’ll be able to do this several times to ensure you have everything.

5. The fast first draft

With a brief, you can create a first draft at breakneck speed.

The idea isn’t to create a wonderful article. It’s to let the AI tool do more of the heavy lifting.

To do this, use your favorite AI writing tool and add your brief.

Next, use the tool to create a fast first draft.

You’ll end up with something that reads OK and is probably quite wordy, but that’s fine. It’s helped you to generate something useful.

Now, the real work begins.

6. The first skim and trim

Once you have the fast first draft, you must read, review and trim.

Look at the article, and see what’s good, what’s awful and what could be better.

Remove anything awful on the first trim.

This is just about removing fluff at this stage.

7. Research each area

What? You thought you’d get away without research? Not a chance.

You have a brief with the help of AI, and it’s added some good content already. Now you need to go and learn.

Research a section of the brief at a time. Let’s say you’re writing a section of your article on “broken link building.”

I suggest reading the articles on Page 1 and watching videos on YouTube.

You must know the topic to ensure the AI gives you the truth.

8. Improve the paragraph

Based on your research, as you tackle each section, use AI again to help you improve the paragraph.

First, write a paragraph based on your knowledge, then use AI to improve it.

For example, Jarvis has a content improver, as do many AI tools.

Use them to ensure each paragraph is as good as it can be.

9. The 50/50 technique

As you write your thoughts in the document, try using AI to complete the paragraph for you.

Aim to make it 50% human and 50% AI.

For example, here’s what I wrote.

And here’s how an AI tool finished it for me.

You’ll be surprised how quickly you can write this way and how AI can come up with interesting finishes to your paragraph starters.

10. Detect plagiarism from AI content

One of the issues with AI is how it can take from other articles. To avoid this, use a tool like Copyscape to see if you’ve borrowed too heavily from other content.

If you spot any, get rid of that content or alter it.

11. The second draft

OK, you wrote your first draft and added plenty of human elements.

Now it’s time to use AI to help you to polish things.

Tools like Wordtune and Jasper can improve your copy.

Wordtune is a browser extension and online tool with free and premium options.

It provides various options for making paragraphs or sentences better.

12. Add expert elements

I covered this in a recent article on improving your content, but here are nine ways to create useful SEO content that humans love:

• Add your own data.
• Add design.
• Add facts.
• Insert videos.
• Add unique H2s (that don’t feature in the SERPs).
• Add quick answers.
• Add specifications, details and numbers.
• Commit to real answers.
• Get quotes from business leaders.

Adding these elements to your content will make it more human and less AI.

13. Use AI to detect content quality

By this time, you should already have a reasonable draft. Now, you can head to tools to make it perfect.

Use content tools like Grammarly to leverage AI processes and ensure your grammar and tone are bang on.

I’ve been using Grammarly Pro for years, and it’s saved my neck on more than one occasion.

But be warned: as with any AI tool, be careful not to let them strip the humanity from your content.

14. Optimize the hooks

Ensure that the article hooks readers. The title and headers must compel them to read on.

To do so, use ChatGPT to give you keyword-focused catchy titles and headers.

Just ask the tool for a list of catchy H2s to replace the one you have created.

You’ll be surprised by what it can come up with.

15. Fact-checking and expert approval

Before you publish, ensure you fact check anything you create.

If you have any information that needs to be verified, ask an expert in the field. 

It would be even better to state in the article that an expert reviewed and approved the piece, then link to their website or LinkedIn profile.

Remember, this is all about ensuring that you’re producing factual, helpful content so that if a quality rater comes across the content, they’ll know it was reviewed and approved by an expert, if not written by one.

Meta descriptions are often more of a tick-box exercise these days in SEO.

We know Google can show whatever it wants, but it’s still best practice.

As such, use AI tools to write them for you.

17. Content design

Many people forget about content design. We’re talking about ensuring that your article looks great and reads well.

Consider using AI tools to create images for your content. Several AI tools are focused on images only but, admittedly, they take a bit of getting used to.

And being brutally honest, the results can be all over the place.

However, I have had some great wins using AI images.

So it’s worth a try and a lot cheaper than quality stock imagery.

If I was to offer one solid piece of advice to everyone, start using AI tools today.

By that, I mean experiment.

AI isn’t going anywhere. But some tools will.

Some will die, some will be bought by competitors and absorbed, and some will be useless.

Only by experiencing them will you start to see how you can use these AI tools in your workflows. 

Dive in, take the free trials, experiment and keep asking yourself, “how can I use this?”

That’s how you’ll win with AI.

Along with the deluge of AI tools in the market, a host of AI “experts” suddenly appeared. New litanies of “SEO is dead” and “AI will take your jobs” abound. 

The reality is neither of those is true, or at least not true in the way many people are considering. 

SEO is not dead, AI will not take your job

People have been predicting the end of SEO as far back as the late ’90s. (I even penned a fun song to the tune of Neil Young’s “Hey Hey, My My” to poke a little fun at those predictions.) 

But we know SEO is constantly evolving – and will continue to change. AI is not really all that new to SEO, either. Google has been using machine learning and AI to sharpen its search results, detect spam, and improve matching searcher intent to website content. 

SEO did not die, and those who evolved their SEO work flourished. We adapted to the changes and started improving how we optimize websites to earn more attention in organic search. 

Despite all the recent hype, SEO tools have used AI for a few years. Now that it’s more ubiquitous, AI is not limited to premier tools or those who can write code.

It’s been said many times by many people, but it bears repeating:

“AI will not replace you. A person who’s using AI will replace you.”

What should SEOs do in this new era?

Fabrice Canel reiterated, “SEO will never be dead, but it will change. Stick with the same SEO playbook as before.” 

That advice came with caution. “Keep watch as usage increases, transforming the way people search.” Those are things we should be doing anyway.

Relying solely on AI for content is doomed to fail. It won’t fail because the search engines can detect AI-generated content and automatically mark it as spam, but because the quality won’t be there. High-quality content will always beat lower-quality content over the long haul. 

You can use AI-generated content, but as Google’s Gary Illyes advised, “Be sure it’s reviewed by humans to ensure quality and accuracy. As smart as AI platforms can be, they cannot yet replace human experience, perception, and expertise. Generative AI can also have trouble in languages with complex grammar.” 

Illyes pointed out that AI content in Japanese can be inaccurate. For that reason, humans should review AI translations.

Generative AI can do mundane tasks like writing HTML titles, meta descriptions, and schema tags more quickly and efficiently. Content generated this way should still be reviewed by a person, but reviewing is much faster than writing from scratch.

Are you getting the idea here? AI cannot replace humans. It may be able to sometime in the future, but not yet.

Another great use of AI is keyword research. Never before have we been able to sift through vast amounts of information quickly to arrive at solid, data-driven recommendations. This will only get faster and more accurate over time. 

Stay ahead of the game

Learn to leverage AI in this capacity to save time and make better content optimization recommendations. Keep watch as this type of service becomes more of a commodity and price points decrease.

I’ve heard some digital marketing professionals liken what’s happening now to when Google first came out or when Twitter came onto the scene. There’s much to be excited about with all the possibilities on the horizon. 

Happy Frediversary

In 2017, there were strong signs of a Google algorithm ranking update that had actually started on March 7.

At first, it seemed to be a spam algorithm update related to links. However, a later Search Engine Land analysis of Fred indicated that the update targeted low-value content sites that put revenue above helping their users – and that many affected sites saw up to a 90% drop in traffic.

Many called this the Fred Update, which came from Google’s Gary Illyes, who had jokingly suggested that all updates be named “Fred.” It stuck with this update.

Illyes wouldn’t confirm Fred until SMX West on March 23, when he said the update targeted specific techniques that were well-documented within the Google webmaster guidelines. Though he didn’t elaborate on which guidelines specifically were targeted by the Fred update.

Read about it in New, unconfirmed Google ranking update ‘Fred’ shakes the SEO world.

Also on this day

How Google search personalization works: Professors and politicians just don’t understand

2022: Google has told us how search works. We know plenty about how it works. But a professor seemed confused about search personalization.

Google Hotel search showing free listings in results

2021: Google opened the door to more hotels by offering free hotel listings, separate from paid results. 

Google My Business tells businesses affected by the coronavirus to update listings

2020: You could update your business hours, description, phone number and even add Google Posts.

Google people also ask boxes not showing as often now?

2020: RankRanger said the people also ask was showing for 40% of queries, down from 52% of queries.

Google Search is showing YouTube Music links on album queries

2020: On mobile, the link appeared in the “Listen” carousel of streaming music services; on desktop, it appeared within a list of streaming services in the album’s knowledge panel.

Reddit’s new ‘Trending Takeover’ ad unit lets brands appear on top of Popular feed, Search tab

2020: The ad unit had a campaign life of 24 hours and was designed to align brands with the most popular and relevant trends of the day.

Video: Fili Wiese, an SEO that used to work in Google search quality

2020: A number of topics were discussed, including managing Google penalties, how Google penalizes websites, the disavow link tool and nofollow link attribute.

Google My Business adds ‘women-led’ icon & attribute to business listings

2018: After adding the attribute, a “women-led” icon would appear in the business attributes section of their business listing.

Google tests showing answers under ‘people also ask’ feature

2018: Instead of just showing additional questions people might ask around a query you entered into the search results, Google was testing showing a snippet of the answer directly below the question.

Search in Pics: Craig Newmark at Google, Snow at NYC office & Women @ Google cupcake

2018: The latest images showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have and more.

Google adds emoji & GIF suggestions, translations & more to GBoard for Android

2017: Android users gained access to emoji and GIF suggestions as they typed and the ability to share GIFs in supported apps.

RIP Google PageRank score: A retrospective on how it ruined the web

2016: While Google would remove PageRank scores from public view in the coming weeks, the way those scores dramatically reshaped the web remained.

Google begins massive migrations of their blogs from blogspot.com to googleblog.com

2016: The reason: to help users understand that these were official blogs managed and operated by Google.

Destinations on Google delivers new travel planning experience for mobile users

2016: A mobile search for a continent, country or state, along with the word “destination” or “vacation,” would return a series of travel options.

Google Says They May Flag Broken Security Certificates In The Search Results

2015: Google’s Gary Illyes also said that Google was working on possibly boosting the ranking of secure login pages even more than they did with the normal HTTPS ranking boost.

EU Settlement Nearly Done, Google Antitrust Drama Shifts To India

2014: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) had the power to impose a fine of up 10% annual revenues, averaged over a three year period.

Bad Merchant? Google May Drop Your Rankings Later This Year

2013: Google didn’t want low-quality experience merchants to be ranking in the search results.

“Trulia Suggests” Search Results Without Searching

2013: Trulia Suggests took a range of data from users’ interactions with the site and to offer personalized home recommendations.

Pew Report: 65% View Personalized Search As Bad; 73% See It As Privacy Invasion

2012: Even though personalized search had been the norm at Google for over two years and at Bing for just over a year.

Search In Pics: Google Fish, Yahoo 17th Birthday & Googlighting Tie

2012: The latest images showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have and more.

Federal Appeals Court Allows Keyword Bidding On Competitor’s Names

2011: A California federal court ruled that it is allowed to bid on a competitor’s name for search ads.

Microsoft AdCenter Intros Quality Score That Mimics Google’s

2011: Microsoft said scores wouldn’t directly influence how ads were ranked – it was more of a reflection of how well the ads were performing in the marketplace.

Blekko Blocks More “Spam” Domains: 1.1 Million Of Them

2011: Search engine was using a new system it called “AdSpam.”

Twitter Awareness At 92%, But Usage Just A Fraction Of That

2011: Research suggested that most Americans were well aware of Twitter … they just weren’t using it.

Search Technology Behind iPad Magazine “Zite”

2011: The iPad app used the same search and machine learning capabilities developed by Worio to create a personalized magazine that got “smarter” as you used it.

Twitter Gets Its Own URL Shortener To Stop Scams; Good Marketers Need Not Fear

2010: Twitter: “routing all links submitted to Twitter through this new service, we can detect, intercept, and prevent the spread of bad links across all of Twitter.”

New MSN Out Of Beta, Driving Nearly 50 Percent Of Bing Queries

2010: Microsoft formally launched its much improved MSN portal.

Math Engines: For Multiplying Mixed Fractions, It’s Wolfram Alpha Over Google & Bing

2010: Wolfram Alpha proved useful for the multiplication of fractions.

Google Image Search Adds “Exact Size” Advanced Search Option

2009: Google Image search added an option to the advanced search page to enter in the exact image size you are looking for.

Google Searching For Energy Solutions Because “It’s The Right Thing To Do”

2009: “It’s also good for our business because we’re in the information business. And a lot of the energy solutions involve a lot of information…”

California State Legislator Wants To Limit Info On Maps To Block Terrorists

2009: Satellite images of schools, places of worship, government buildings and medical facilities would need to be blurred.

Former Yahoo Engineer Charged As Alleged Terrorist In India

2009: He was allegedly the “media chief” of the Indian Mujahideen, a terror group charged with the September 2008 bombings in Delhi.

Stealth Tour Of Google Audio’s Dallas Office

2007: Documenting an undercover tour of a Google office in Dallas, Texas that appeared to be the new home of the Google Audio group.

Google Asked To Remove “Mount Hitler” From Google Maps

2007: Google Germany called this a “technical accident.”

Former Microsoft Search Chief Bill Bliss On Early Search Missteps

2007: “Microsoft could have been the one to buy Inktomi and Overture instead of Yahoo, and the world would be much different now for both companies.”

Revamped My Yahoo Launches Amid Intensifying Competition

2007: There were a number of improvements and upgrades.

Nokia Jumps Into Mobile Ads With “Nokia Ad Service” Program

2007: Plus a “white label” Nokia Advertising Connector a program for others who want to run mobile ad programs.

UFO Crawler: The Truth Is Out There & Searchable

2007: IBM and Yahoo teamed up on UFOCrawler, a search engine about finding sources on “UFO Sightings, time travel, conspiracy theories and anomalies.”

From Search Marketing Expo (SMX)

Past contributions from Search Engine Land’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

These columns are a snapshot in time and have not been updated since publishing, unless noted. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

< March 8 | Search Marketing History | March 10 >

Google has rolled out the site names, updated favicons, and sponsored labels on desktop search after launching this on mobile search last October. Google has been testing the desktop version since last November, and now it is officially live both on desktop and mobile search.

What it looks like. Here is a screenshot of the new Sitename and updated favicon in desktop search – note, the old interface just had the URL, not the site name or the favicon:

Here is the “sponsored” label that replaces the “ad” label:

Controlling site names. Google back in October explained that Google Search uses a number of ways to identify the site name for the search result. But if you want, you can use structured data on your home page to communicate to Google what the site name should be for your site. Google has specific documentation on this new Site name structured data available over here.

Upgrading the favicon. Google also recommended revisiting the documentation for favicons for the latest best practices. Google is now also suggesting you provide an icon that’s at least 48 pixels and follows the existing favicon guidelines.

Ads. This is also rolled out to the Google search ads on desktop, so the size of the site name, favicons, and also the ad label will be more prominent in mobile search. In fact, Google rolled out the “Sponsored” label in mobile search last October and today on desktop, officially replacing the “Ads” label from January 2020.

Why the change. Google last October said the difference is to help provide “even more information about the sites that you see so you can feel confident about the websites you visit.” Here is more from Google on these changes:

Why we care. With any change to Google Search and the design of the search results, searchers may click differently. So monitor your click-through rate in Google Search Console and see if you need to make changes to your site name and/or favicon to make any improvements to your click-through rate from Google Search.

This change went live on mobile months ago, but there is a possibility that it can impact desktop search differently.

Did Google move too slowly with AI? Is that why Google is now scrambling to put AI into everything? Two new reports paint two entirely different pictures of Google before – and since – the launch of ChatGPT.

The Google search revolution that never happened. Two Google researchers created a chatbot that supposedly would “revolutionize the way people searched the internet and interacted with computers,” more than two years ago, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.

But executives were reportedly risk-averse, fearing putting out the AI product could hurt its $200 billion+ search advertising business and its reputation. And sure enough, Google took a significant reputational hit with its rushed Bard debut.

What are Google’s AI principles? One reason for Google’s slow approach could be due to its AI principles. Google believes AI applications should:

1. Be socially beneficial.
2. Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias.
3. Be built and tested for safety.
4. Be accountable to people.
5. Incorporate privacy design principles.
6. Uphold high standards of scientific excellence.
7. Be made available for uses that accord with these principles.

So if Google had this AI technology ready more than two years ago, perhaps Google’s leadership felt it wasn’t as ready as those researchers did.

And along came OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Code Red. Google co-founder Larry Page, a decade ago, warned that “incrementalism leads to irrelevance over time, especially in technology, because change tends to be revolutionary, not evolutionary.”

Love it or hate it, ChatGPT was revolutionary technology. Shortly after the launch of ChatGPT in late November, Google declared a “code red” and sought help from Page and co-founder Sergey Brin. This was part of an effort to add chatbot features to Google Search this year.

Then, Google rushed to introduce Bard, it’s answer to ChatGPT, on Feb. 6. That was one day before Microsoft had planned to unveil the new Bing with ChatGPT.

Since that announcement, Google has tried to clarify that Bard is not search. The AI-powered chatbot features coming to search are based on similar technology, but Bard is a standalone product.

Google AI = the new Google Plus? Google is now reportedly “stuffing” generative AI into more products, according to Bloomberg:

“Some Google alumni have been reminded of the last time the company implemented an internal mandate to infuse every key product with a new idea: the effort beginning in 2011 to promote the ill-fated social network Google+. It’s not a perfect comparison—Google was never seen as a leader in social networking, while its expertise in AI is undisputed. Still, there’s a similar feeling.”

Google pushed back on this, saying much of Google’s internal efforts involve having Googlers test and improve Bard. One Googler also told Bloomberg:

• “There is an unhealthy combination of abnormally high expectations and great insecurity about any AI-related initiative.”

Why we care. Is Google panicking or moving too slowly? Both could be true – or the actual truth may be somewhere more in the middle, where Google is really living by its AI principles. Call it a slow rush – as Google can afford to sit back right now and watch and learn from Microsoft and other generative AI players and avoid any (further) costly mistakes.

Google has launched a new look and feel for the Google Trends portal. This update brings a new look, with real-time trends on the home page, updated hourly with links directly to publishers’ news articles, the company announced.

What it looks like. Here is a screenshot of the top portion of the Google Trends home page from this morning:

What is new. Here is what appears to be new with the revised Google Trends.

• Real-time trends are now on the home page.
• These trends are updated every hour.
• Plus there are links to relevant news articles, which may send you traffic.

Why we care. Google Trends is an excellent tool to find what is trending online, so content creators and writers can come up with content ideas. Also, now that the new Google Trends links to articles directly from here, you may see some more traffic from Google Trends in your analytics.

What do you like best about the new Google Trends, let us know on @sengineland.

With a looming recession, every penny invested in marketing must deliver ROI. When misalignments exist between a CMO’s vision and SEO, getting buy-in won’t be easy. You must prove the value of organic search to the business and, ultimately, the significance of your job.

Have you ever submitted an SEO report and been immediately asked to “put something in the calendar” to go through it? Chances are, the report was too long to read, so they want you to present a summary in person. 

To avoid these time-consuming hazards, understand what information matters to the C-suite and what will likely be ignored. 

What makes an SEO report inadequate for the C-suite?

A poor SEO report for the C-suite possesses one or more characteristics.

Misalignment with the wider strategy

17% of marketers reported that their team was not closely aligned with the company’s overall strategy, according to a HubSpot survey. 

To ensure that SEO is seen as a critical part of the business, focus on creating reports closely aligned with the overall business strategy.

Poor emphasis on revenue

This is perhaps the most crucial element when sending an SEO report to your CMO. Reports that fail to emphasize SEO’s influence on revenue can make the C-suite think the channel is unproductive. 

For instance, reporting on a website change is insignificant for the C-suite if organic traffic and revenue impact is not tracked. 

Demonstrate SEO’s value in your reports by including metrics such as customer acquisition, conversion rates, and revenue from organic traffic.

Misconceptions about forecasting

Forecasting refers to making data-driven estimates on traffic, behavior, and sales. 

Predicting exact traffic and revenue figures for a set period can be problematic in SEO given the many variables that affect search. 

If not properly addressed, such growth and other metrics forecasts can cause confusion.

Excessive text and jargon

The C-suite will see through an SEO report containing jargon. Corporate fluff may lead them to perceive that nothing has been implemented. 

You’ll appear like you are struggling to get investment and as a result, SEO won’t be taken seriously.

Avoid jargon and technical terminology that may be difficult for non-experts to understand. 

• Initialism: CWV, CSS, JS, API, GA4, XML, CTR, CMS, CPC, DA, LSI.
• Jargon: SEO-friendly, link juice, PageRank, SEO quick wins, etc.
• Corporate fluff: Circle back, touch base, agile working, low-hanging fruit, caveats, bandwidth, cascade to the wider business, take things on board, utilize all the tools in the box, results-driven, reinvent the wheel, etc.

As an in-house SEO, I have seen pitches from great people who clearly put in the effort. However, little correlation with revenue, insufficient images/graphs and excessive jargon distract from the overall messaging.

Your SEO reports should be as short as possible and include visual aids to help people quickly understand key takeaways. Less and simple is always more. Avoid the old 32 pages report or 60 slides deck. 

Lack of focus on relevance

SEO reports may not directly relate to the C-suite’s specific responsibilities. Your job is to connect the dots and present your report in a way that focuses on metrics relevant to each stakeholder’s area of responsibility (i.e., financial performance for CEOs, marketing results for CMOs, etc.).

Make daily annotations of every change deployed, new campaigns launched, new landing pages implemented, and more. Consolidate your findings and highlight how SEO initiatives drove traffic and revenue results. 

This is the kind of information the C-suite wants to see. Positive or not-so-positive, they prefer to see a strategy’s impact on revenue targets and how your work as an SEO agency/consultant will contribute to their objectives. 

How the best-in-class communicates with the C-suite

To overcome these challenges and ensure that SEO reports are attractive to key decision makers, ensure the following.

Show value

C-suite executives always want to reduce costs and improve efficiencies, making SEO a vital boardroom item. (Here is an excellent article on effectively communicating SEO with the C-suite.)

SEOs must clearly:

• Communicate and prove the channel’s value to the C-suite and senior management.
• Highlight the impact of SEO on key business metrics, such as website traffic, revenue, and customer acquisition. 
• Mention when you delivered positive returns on the amount spent on paid campaigns.

Additionally, SEOs can work with CMOs and other senior managers to ensure they present reports in an easy-to-digest and relevant manner.

Alignment to wider business strategy

Focus on creating a documented strategy closely aligned with the overall business strategy. This helps ensure that: 

• SEO is seen as a critical part of the business rather than a technical afterthought. 
• The metrics and data included in SEO reports are relevant and meaningful to senior management.

Relationships and training

Do you hold a senior position in SEO in your company or agency? Great, if so, does anyone in the C-suite know your name? If not, then it is an excellent time to start working on building a healthy relationship with key stakeholders.

Being known doesn’t mean you have to be attention-seeking on Twitter or the social channels in your company. Instead, when there are social events (i.e., company town halls, presentations or conferences), leave your comfort zone, let go of impostor syndrome, and chat with them. 

Report structure for the C-suite

An effective SEO report for the C-suite should follow a consistent structure and contain thorough, well-thought-out responses to the client’s questions.

Important: Make it as visual as possible with graphs and charts. A report filled with text will make people instantly switch off and instead ask you for a meeting to “go through it” (which, as mentioned earlier, means TL;DR!).

Here is an excellent (paid template): Dashboard Elements PowerPoint Template.

An expert in effective communication, Barbara Minto is one of the first female consultants at McKinsey. She created the Pyramid Principle based on the idea that two things can’t be mutually exclusive and collectively exhausting (MECE).

The MECE structure ensures that within each data bucket (like a single discovery) all information is:

• Mutually exclusive (ME) – meaning either set does not overlap with the other set.
• Neither group is missing important information or has clear information gaps.

To give the client useful advice, recommendations should be clear and to the point. Think of them as the main points of the report that are easy to remember and share with others. 

In a management consulting report, you can present recommendations in any of the following ways:

• “To address X, we recommend introducing Y because of Z.”
• The results of our data study showed that applying Z can solve the problem X, which prevents Y from being achieved.
• We used [the tool/method/technology] X to investigate the issue Y and recommend Z as the best fix.

The executive summary should be completed last. By writing doing so, you can select the most important results and ideas and place them at the beginning of the report. 

Riverside FM’s Gerry White , who has worked in-house for BBC and Just Eat, conducted extensive research into successful SEO reporting for the C-suite.

Below is a diagram he suggested:

Aleyda Solis’s compelling Learn SEO roadmap has a comprehensive section on SEO reporting. Look at the resources and samples and adapt them to the process described here. 

Remember, always make it revenue-driven and relevant to the wider strategy.

In-house SEOs on reporting for the C-suite

I asked in-house SEOs for their insights on reporting to the C-suite. Here’s what some had to say:

Ash New, SEO Lead, Virgin Mobile

• “A senior business leader will usually not care about the finer detail of how one keyword group is performing over another. They simply want to cut through to the important details, such as:
  • How is this channel helping us hit our target?
  • Is this channel performing better or worse than we expected, and why? 
  • What does this channel need to do to reach the target? 
• If you help them cut through the noise, they will be more interested in what you say. Of course, the finer details are great to have to hand should there be follow-up questions to your reporting.”

Several in-house SEOs also pointed out the lacking elements in agency reports.

Dixon Jones, CEO, Inlinks 

• “…[L]ack of ‘what to do next'”‘ actions (with a why). A hundred actions/insights are no help. The next three ‘to-dos’ given with confidence is better (for me).”

Aymen Loukil, CEO, Speetals

• “When doing reporting to C-suites or CMOs, be concise and go to the essential points. Also, include the wins and the losses with a short-term action plan to address issues.”

Martijn Scheijbeler, SVP Marketing, RVshare

• “Too much detail. Period.”

Brian Sabin, SEO, Razorfish

• “Data without context. Unless a report contains…
  • What this means.
  • Why it matters.
  • How you/the client should respond. 
• …then, it probably shouldn’t exist.”

As an ecommerce retailer, having an appealing virtual store is essential. 

Without a brick-and-mortar space to decorate, you must create an engaging online store, especially in a competitive marketplace like Amazon. Even the tiniest details can make a huge difference.

Setting up an Amazon Store is quick and easy. Below are best practices to help you stand out from the crowd. 

What is an Amazon Store?

All Amazon sellers, vendors, and agencies enrolled in the Amazon Brand Registry program are eligible to create their own Amazon Store. It’s a free DIY platform that enables brand owners to create and design multi-page stores to showcase their products and brand story. 

The idea behind Amazon Stores is to drive shopper engagement. Amazon provides all the tools to create a unique store that allows you to feature custom collections of products you’d like to promote.

With the ability to create up to three levels of multiple pages, you have plenty of space to showcase your brand. Combining your products in one place is no different than stocking the shelves of a physical location. (You’ll never have to worry about cleaning up on aisle four!) 

An Amazon Store provides benefits for both you and your customers, including:

• Promoting all your products in a single place.
• Introducing your brand to new customers.
• Capitalizing on both internal and external traffic.
• Driving sales by boosting organic rankings on Amazon SERPs.
• Offering an enhanced mobile experience.

Your Amazon Store also gives you a unique URL, allowing you to attract customers using ads and other marketing activities anywhere. You aren’t just limited to Amazon. 

The Insights page provides you with all the metrics you need to determine traffic sources and sales, helping you see what is working and where you could improve.

7 steps for setting up your Amazon Store

No special skills or programming knowledge is needed to set up an Amazon Store. 

You can easily create a customized, professional-looking virtual store with an array of pre-designed templates and drag-and-drop tiles.

Simply upload existing files and arrange them however you’d like. Best of all, you don’t need to write a single line of code. 

Follow these seven steps to set up your own Amazon Store.

Step 1: Create a professional seller account

A professional seller account is worth the investment if your monthly sales volume exceeds more than 40 units per month. 

You’ll have access to a host of inventory tools not available on individual accounts, and creating one is the first step in setting up your Amazon Store. 

After providing basic information, Amazon will verify your details and eligibility.

Step 2: Register with Amazon Brand Registry

You must register your brand through the Amazon Brand Registry (ABR) to gain full control of your product pages. 

Signing up for an ABR also gives you access to various tools, such as Brand Analytics and enhanced marketing and advertising services. It also protects your brand from counterfeit sellers. 

Step 3: Design your store’s homepage

Select a template for your store by choosing one of four themes best suited to your business needs. 

You can focus on sharing your brand story, highlighting a specific product, displaying a grid view of related products, or building from scratch. Remember, no coding is required!

Step 4: Create your store pages

Once you’ve set up your homepage, you’ll want to build additional pages to focus on products, categories, promotions, discounts, and more. 

Design these pages much as you would if you had your ecommerce website by focusing on easy navigation. You want to make the shopping experience easy for your customers. 

Step 5: Add content tiles to your pages

After setting up an easily-navigable page hierarchy, add content tiles to each page. 

These consist of content your customers will interact with, including titles, images, galleries, videos, or product grids. 

Step 6: Upload your products

When your design layout is complete, it’s time to upload your inventory.

You can add one product at a time or every single SKU at once as long as you have assigned each product an ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) or UPS code.  

Step 7: Submit your store for review and publish

Review your created pages for proper grammar and spelling. Make sure branding and images are consistent, and double-check your navigation. 

Once satisfied with everything, submit your pages to Amazon for review. When they’re approved, you can go ahead and publish them. 

Congratulations! Now you’re live and ready to start selling.

3 tips for maximizing your Amazon Store

Now that you’ve created your Amazon Store, you’ll want to get the most out of it. Keep in mind that optimizing your store is an ongoing process. 

Just as you wouldn’t keep a physical display window the same all year long, nobody wants to see Santa Claus in June! 

Constantly refresh your Amazon Store to take advantage of new trends, promotions, product launches and seasonality. 

Updating content frequently is another crucial way to achieve success. Do this when unveiling new products, running promotions or rebranding.

Here are three ways to take advantage of the resources at your disposal. 

Use the Brand Analytics tool

The Brand Analytics tool is a great way to measure your sales performance. While third-party plug-ins are available, they are costly and provide estimates in place of hard data. 

Amazon’s Brand Analytics tool displays top-performing keywords and search terms, allowing you to optimize your product pages and create targeted ads based on customer demographics.

Increase sales through Amazon ads

There’s no disputing the power of advertising as long as you are doing it strategically. Anybody can place an ad on Amazon, but to be genuinely effective, targeted Amazon ads are best. 

These appear on Amazon’s results page, offering excellent visibility. That, in turn, leads to higher sales and revenue. 

They also appear everywhere on Amazon – even on detailed product pages.

Adopt best practices when building your brand

This means:

• Focusing on consistent messaging.
• Creating engaging and rich content that spotlights your unique value proposition.
• Ensuring your Amazon Store offers easy and intuitive navigation. 

Learn when – and how – to make adjustments

Sometimes, your Amazon Store might fail to meet your expectations despite your best efforts. 

Issues can usually be resolved quickly, as long as you pay attention to signs that your store could benefit from freshening up. Look for indications such as:

Low daily traffic

If you don’t see a lot of traffic, chances are, people are having a hard time finding you.

Consider promoting your Amazon Store on social media and through paid advertising campaigns. Double-check to make sure your product ASINs are linking properly to your store. 

Good traffic but poor sales

What if traffic numbers to your store are high, but people aren’t purchasing your product within 14 days of their last visit, and visibility isn’t an issue?

Your products may be pricey or dependent upon high consumer trust.

Consider building brand awareness through additional content or Sponsored Brands videos.

If the issue is high product turnover rates, try adding tiles that make it easy for customers to purchase products (e.g., a product grid or individual tiles with an “Add to Cart” button). 

Good conversion rates on category pages with low traffic

If your pages are converting well, but traffic rates remain low, try targeting Sponsored Brands campaigns around those pages.

Your Insights dashboard can provide information on orders/visitor or units/visitor to help you figure out the correct source tags. 

Good traffic on category pages with low sales

When pages have good visibility but don’t have the sales expected from visitor traffic, it might be that the pages only feature one product or provide more information on your brand than products for sale.

Try adding multiple products through a grid tile to increase your conversion rate.

No traffic or sales

Are there pages with no traffic or sales? You might be providing information customers don’t find helpful, or your products may be difficult to find.

Remedy this by making a specific page more visible on your homepage or setting up a Sponsored Brands campaign to drive traffic.

Optimizing your Amazon Store should be an ongoing process

Remember, your Amazon Store isn’t all that different from a traditional brick-and-mortar retail space. Through trial and error, you’ll learn what works and what doesn’t. 

You can adjust your store’s inventory, layout, or design to appeal to a wider range of customers and boost your sales.