Mithilesh Joshi - SEO & Growth Consultant

Google I/O + GML 2026: How SEO, Ads, and Marketing Teams Work Together in This New World (Part 3 of 3)

2026-05-23T23:35:49.727+05:30

This is Part 3 of a 3-part series. Part 1 covered what to stop and start by team. Part 2 covered the why behind every shift. This part is about the how - the operating model that actually works when three teams need to move together.

Why This Part Is the Hardest One to Write

Parts 1 and 2 were relatively straightforward. Here is what changed. Here is why it changed. The research is there, the evidence is clear, the implications are logical.

Part 3 is harder because it is about people. About team structures, internal politics, competing KPIs, and the deeply human challenge of getting three groups of specialists - who have historically worked independently, reported separately, and optimised for different outcomes - to function as one coherent system.

I have had versions of this conversation dozens of times. With in-house teams trying to break down silos. With agencies trying to coordinate across departments. With CMOs trying to explain to their board why brand investment matters for paid performance.

And the honest truth is this: the reason most teams fail to integrate is not that they lack strategy. It is that they lack a shared language. They do not have a common framework that shows how each team's work feeds the next team's performance.

Google I/O 2026 and Google Marketing Live 2026 actually gave us that framework - whether they intended to or not. Because every single announcement from both events points to the same system. And understanding that system is what makes integration feel necessary rather than optional.

Let me show you what I mean.

The Old Model and Why It Is Now a Liability

For the last decade, digital marketing teams have operated in a structure that looked something like this:

SEO team: Responsible for organic traffic. Measured on rankings, impressions, clicks, and organic sessions. Reports to the content or growth team. Works on a long-term horizon.

Paid media team: Responsible for paid traffic and conversion. Measured on ROAS, CPA, CTR, and conversion rate. Reports to the performance or demand generation team. Works on a short-term horizon.

Brand team: Responsible for awareness and perception. Measured on reach, share of voice, brand sentiment, and sometimes NPS. Reports to the CMO or communications team. Works on an even longer horizon that is notoriously hard to attribute.

Three teams. Three measurement frameworks. Three sets of goals that sometimes conflict and rarely reinforce each other.

This structure made sense when organic, paid, and brand operated as genuinely separate channels with separate audiences and separate conversion paths. It made sense when a user either found you organically, or clicked an ad, or heard about your brand - and those were largely distinct events.

That separation no longer reflects how Google works.

Here is what GML 2026 revealed, when you look at the full picture:

Attributed Branded Searches measure when a paid ad leads a user to search for your brand later. That is a paid media event creating an organic signal. Qualified Future Conversions link upper-funnel ad activity to future sales via branded search behaviour. That is brand investment creating paid performance. Meridian in Analytics 360 models the cross-channel contribution of every input - organic, paid, and brand - into one unified attribution view.

Google is not building tools for siloed teams. Google is building tools for integrated ones. The teams that adapt their structure to match will have a measurable performance advantage over those that do not.

The Unified Signal Loop: How It Actually Works

Let me introduce a framework I have been using with teams to explain the integration. I call it the Unified Signal Loop.

The premise is simple: every team generates signals. Those signals do not stay within one team's domain - they flow into adjacent channels and affect performance across the whole system. The goal is to make that flow deliberate and visible rather than accidental and invisible.

Here is how the loop works in practice:

Step 1: Brand builds the foundation

The brand team invests in PR coverage, community presence, Wikipedia citations, review platform data, and branded content. These are not soft awareness plays. They are the raw material that Gemini's model uses to determine whether your brand is credible, trustworthy, and worth citing in AI-generated answers.

When brand does its job well, Gemini starts surfacing your brand in AI Overviews and AI Mode answers. Users who encounter your brand in AI answers are more likely to search for you directly.

Step 2: Brand investment lifts branded search

Branded search volume is not just a vanity metric. It is a signal that Google's systems use to understand real-world demand for your brand. When branded search volume rises - because users are encountering your brand in AI answers, in PR coverage, in community discussions - it creates a compounding effect across the rest of the system.

In Search Console, you will see this as growth in branded query impressions and clicks. That is your leading indicator that the brand investment is working.

Step 3: Branded search feeds paid attribution

Here is where the brand and paid connection becomes measurable for the first time at scale.

Attributed Branded Searches in Google Ads show you when a paid ad impression or click preceded a user searching for your brand within a 7 to 30 day window. This means your Performance Max campaign from three weeks ago that generated a YouTube impression is now traceable to a branded search that happened today.

This data sits in your All Conversions column - not your main Conversions column. Most teams are not looking at it. Check it this week.

Step 4: Paid activity generates Qualified Future Conversions

Qualified Future Conversions are Gemini-powered predictive signals that link your current ad spend to future sales through the branded search behaviour it generates. QFCs essentially answer the question: "Based on the branded intent signals this campaign is creating, what future revenue can we predict?"

This is the first time Google has given advertisers a reliable way to justify upper-funnel spend in the language of commercial outcomes. Use it in every budget conversation going forward.

Step 5: QFCs and brand data feed Meridian

Meridian, now integrated directly into Analytics 360, takes QFCs, first-party data, and cross-channel performance signals and runs a Marketing Mix Model that shows the true contribution of every channel to business outcomes.

The teams that feed Meridian clean, complete data - organic performance from Search Console, paid performance from Google Ads, and brand signals from Attributed Branded Searches - get a materially more accurate picture of budget allocation than teams operating with incomplete inputs.

Step 6: Meridian insights improve brand investment

With better attribution data from Meridian, the CMO can make a concrete case for brand investment - not based on reach metrics, but based on its measurable contribution to branded search volume, QFC generation, and ultimately revenue. That confidence leads to better brand investment decisions, which feeds back into Step 1.

The loop compounds over time. Teams that run it see their signals reinforce each other. Teams that do not run it see each channel optimising independently, often in ways that actually undercut the others.

What Each Team Needs to Share - Practically

Understanding the loop is one thing. Operationalising it is another. Here is what cross-team information sharing needs to look like on a weekly basis.

What SEO Shares With Paid

Branded query growth data from Search Console

When branded queries are growing in Search Console, that is a signal that brand investment or AI citation is working. The paid team should know this because it directly affects Attributed Branded Search volume and QFC potential. Share a weekly branded query trend line - not a full report, just the trend.

Pages with strongest E-E-A-T and organic authority

The pages that rank well organically and get cited in AI answers are the pages Google trusts most. These are also the highest-trust landing page options for paid traffic. If the paid team is sending high-intent clicks to weak landing pages while the SEO team has strong authoritative pages on the same topic, that is a direct performance gap. SEO should flag its highest-authority pages for paid landing page testing.

Dark and direct traffic trends

As covered in Part 2, Information Agents strip referral attribution and hit as direct traffic. When direct traffic rises on specific pages or topics, it signals that agents are proactively surfacing that content. The paid team should consider amplifying those topics with targeted campaigns - because if agents are sending users there organically, paid amplification of the same intent is likely to perform well.

What Paid Shares With SEO

Converting keywords from Google Ads

The keywords generating actual conversions in paid campaigns are the highest-value intent signals in your entire marketing operation. They represent queries where users not only searched but took commercial action. SEO should be targeting the same intent organically - not necessarily the same exact match keywords, but the same user intent and decision stage.

Direct Offer performance categories

When Direct Offers are generating clicks and conversions for specific product categories or discount types, that tells SEO which commercial terms have the highest purchase intent right now. SEO should build or update content targeting those exact commercial terms - comparison pages, category pages, "best X for Y" content.

QFC and Attributed Branded Search trends

QFC volume is a leading indicator of which brand content is actually driving future commercial intent. If QFCs spike after a particular content push or campaign, SEO should double down on that content territory. If Attributed Branded Searches are high for certain campaign types, SEO should be building organic authority in those same topic areas to reduce long-term dependency on paid.

What Brand Shares With Both Teams

PR placement data with domain authority context

When a PR placement lands - especially in a high-domain-authority publication - SEO should track whether branded search volume lifts in the following 2 to 4 weeks. This is the clearest way to demonstrate brand investment's SEO impact. Paid should track whether Attributed Branded Searches lift in the same period.

Community conversation data

Where is your brand being discussed - Reddit, LinkedIn, industry forums, review platforms? These are the exact locations where Gemini pulls trust signals from when constructing AI answers. SEO should be building structured content that addresses the questions raised in those communities. Paid should be retargeting the audiences in those communities with relevant offers.

Brand sentiment shifts

When brand sentiment improves - after a product launch, a thought leadership piece, or a PR moment - both SEO and Paid should see signal improvements. Branded search volume rises. QFCs may increase. Paid CTR on branded terms often lifts. Connecting brand sentiment shifts to downstream performance changes is one of the most powerful things a brand team can do to justify its budget.

How to Restructure the Reporting Conversation

One of the biggest practical barriers to team integration is that each team reports in a different language to the same leadership team. The result is that leadership gets three disconnected stories instead of one coherent one.

Here is a simple unified reporting structure that works for cross-team alignment:

The three numbers that matter across all teams:

Branded search volume growth (measured in Search Console): This is the leading indicator of brand authority building and AI citation working. SEO, Paid, and Brand all contribute to it. All three teams should own it.
Attributed Branded Search volume (measured in Google Ads All Conversions): This connects paid activity to brand impact. It is the bridge metric between Paid and Brand.
Qualified Future Conversion volume (measured in Google Ads): This connects upper-funnel brand and content investment to future commercial outcomes. It is the bridge metric between Brand and revenue.

When all three teams report on all three numbers - not just their own channel metrics - leadership gets a unified story. The conversation shifts from "SEO is down, paid is flat, brand spent X with no measurable impact" to "our brand authority building is lifting branded search, which is generating QFCs that predict strong commercial outcomes in the next 90 days."

That is a fundamentally different - and far more defensible - conversation.

The One Meeting That Changes Everything

You do not need a restructure to start. You do not need a new tool, a new reporting dashboard, or a new hire.

You need one meeting.

One shared weekly meeting - SEO, Paid, Brand - focused on a single question:

"What signals are we generating this week that feed the next team's performance?"

Not "how did our channel perform." Not "what are we working on." Specifically: what are we generating for each other?

SEO answers: we generated these branded query trends and these dark traffic signals for Paid.
Paid answers: we generated these converting keyword insights and these QFC trends for SEO and Brand.
Brand answers: we generated these PR placements and these community insights for both teams.

Run this for four weeks. The compounding effect of each team seeing how their work flows into the others' performance is genuinely transformational. Teams stop protecting their own metrics and start optimising for the system.

How to Explain All of This to Leadership

Every CMO, every marketing director, and every client I have spoken to this week has asked some version of the same question: how do I explain Google I/O and GML 2026 to my leadership team without overwhelming them or triggering a budget freeze?

Here is the framing that works consistently:

"Google is no longer a search engine. It is a task-completion engine. Users are getting answers, recommendations, and completing purchases without leaving Google's ecosystem. Our job is to be the source AI cites in its answers, the brand agents surface when they search for users, and the merchant AI completes transactions with. None of our individual teams can do that alone. We do it together - through a unified signal loop where brand authority feeds paid attribution, paid data feeds organic targeting, and organic authority feeds AI citation. The teams that operate this way will outperform the ones that do not. Here is what we need to change to get there."

That is the pitch. It is one paragraph. It does not require a 40-slide deck. It connects the strategic shift to a concrete operational change.

The Honest Summary of This Entire Series

Three parts. Three weeks. One goal.

Part 1 gave you the actions - what to stop, what to start, by team, without fluff.

Part 2 gave you the understanding - why each shift is happening, what the mechanism is, and how to explain it to anyone who pushes back.

Part 3 gave you the operating model - how the three teams feed each other, what to share, what meeting to run, and how to tell the story to leadership.

What I want to leave you with is not a checklist. It is a mindset shift.

For most of the last decade, digital marketing has been optimisation work. Finding the keyword with the best volume-to-competition ratio. Finding the bid adjustment that improves ROAS by 12%. Finding the landing page variant that lifts conversion by 8%.

That work is not going away. But it is no longer the work that determines who wins.

The work that determines who wins now is architecture work. Building the brand signals that AI trusts. Creating the content depth that AI cites. Integrating the team structure that feeds Google's unified measurement system. Adopting the commercial protocols that put you inside Google's agentic shopping layer.

These are not quick wins. They compound slowly and then suddenly. The teams that start this architecture work today will have an enormous structural advantage over the teams that wait until the SERP shifts force them to.

Start now. Not because the sky is falling. Because the foundation is being laid and you want to be part of it.

More signal, less noise. Always. 🙏

Sources referenced in this post: Google I/O 2026 official announcements · GML 2026 Google Blog · GML 2026 full recap - Search Engine Land · Meridian in Analytics 360 · Meridian developer documentation · Universal Cart and AP2 - Search Engine Land · Information Agents - Search Engine Land · Qualified Future Conversions and Meridian - Search Engine Land · Direct Offers and GML features · Google Search I/O 2026 updates

Google I/O + GML 2026: The Why Behind Every Shift — And What It Means Deeper Down (Part 2 of 3)

2026-05-22T17:24:10.595+05:30

This is Part 2 of a 3-part series. Part 1 covered what to stop and start - by team, no fluff. This part goes deeper into the why behind each shift. Part 3 covers how SEO, Ads, and Marketing teams work together in this new structure.

Why Part 2 Exists

Part 1 gave you the what. Stop doing this. Start doing that.

But here's the thing about tactics without context - they don't stick. And they don't hold up when you're sitting across from a client whose impressions just dropped 18%, or a CMO asking why the PPC team wants to overhaul attribution mid-year, or an e-commerce director who thinks UCP "sounds like a future thing."

You need the why. Not just to convince others - but to be genuinely confident in the direction yourself.

So let's go through every major shift from Google I/O 2026 and Google Marketing Live 2026 and explain what's actually happening underneath.

Why Impressions Will Drop - Before Clicks Do

Let me start with the metric that's going to cause the most panic in the next 3–6 months.

Impressions. Specifically, impressions on informational and top-of-funnel content.

Here's what's happening: Google's new Intelligent Search Box - the biggest redesign of the search input in 25 years - now predicts and completes full search intent before a user finishes typing their query. The box expands dynamically. It suggests complete queries. It resolves vague intent into structured searches.

The result: broad, exploratory, informational queries are being completed and answered inside the box itself. The user never submits a full search. No submitted query means no impression recorded for your content.

This isn't a ranking penalty. This isn't a site issue. This is a fundamental behaviour shift baked into the product.

And here's the data that should already be on your radar: U.S. Google desktop searches per user fell nearly 20% year-over-year between 2024 and 2025, according to a Datos/SparkToro report - and that was before the Intelligent Search Box launched.[cite:118] The new search box will accelerate this trend significantly in 2026 and beyond.

The question your client will ask: "Why are our impressions falling? We haven't changed anything."

The answer: "Users are resolving their queries before they finish typing. Google answered them before the search was submitted. That's a platform behaviour shift - not a site performance issue."

What impressions will hold: specific, intent-rich, decision-ready queries. "[Product A] vs [Product B] for [specific use case]." "[Service] in [City]." "[Brand name] review 2026." These queries are precise enough that the AI can't fully resolve them with an autocomplete suggestion. They still get submitted. They still generate impressions. Those are the impressions worth fighting for.

Why Thin Content Is Now Invisible - Not Just Low-Ranking

This is the one that most SEOs haven't fully internalised yet, because the old mental model was: "thin content ranks low, we optimise to rank higher."

The new reality is fundamentally different.

Gemini 3.5 Flash is now the default model powering AI Mode in Google Search globally.[cite:114] It's not just a better ranking algorithm. It's a generative model that actively constructs AI answers by selecting which sources to pull from, synthesise, and cite.

That selection process is where thin content gets filtered out - entirely.

When Gemini 3.5 Flash generates an AI Overview or AI Mode answer, it is looking for:

Depth - does this page go beyond the surface level?
Perspective - does this page have a point of view, or is it just aggregating public information?
Experience - is there evidence that a real person with real expertise wrote this?
Specificity - does this page answer the actual question with precision, or give a generic answer?

Content that fails these filters doesn't rank #10. It doesn't get a featured snippet. It simply doesn't enter the generation pool. It is invisible to the AI layer.

The practical implication: if your content strategy has been built on publishing volume - targeting large numbers of keywords with moderately useful, largely similar content - that strategy is structurally broken now. Not weakened. Broken.

The question your team will ask: "We have 400 blog posts. Do we delete them all?"

The answer: No - but you should audit them ruthlessly. Content that has genuine depth, a clear perspective, and real specificity? Keep it and update it. Content that is generic, undifferentiated, and covers topics Gemini can answer with a two-sentence AI Overview? It's not helping you - and it may be diluting your site's overall topical authority signal.

The new content model is simple to say and hard to execute: fewer pieces, far more depth, written by or attributed to people with genuine expertise. First-hand experience, real case studies, named authors, actual opinions. E-E-A-T is no longer a checklist - it's the filter between existing in AI answers or not.[cite:115]

Why Information Agents Are a Bigger Deal Than Anyone Is Saying

Most of the coverage on Information Agents has focused on the user-facing experience: "agents that monitor the web for you." That's accurate but it misses the deeper strategic implication for publishers and marketers.

Here's the mechanism. Information Agents work proactively - they monitor websites, social platforms, news sources, and shopping outlets in the background, 24/7, and surface relevant updates to users without those users ever typing a search query.[cite:104]

Now think about what this does to the relationship between search volume and user interest.

Historically, keyword research worked on a simple assumption: if users are interested in a topic, they search for it, and that search activity shows up as measurable volume in tools like Google Search Console, Keyword Planner, or Ahrefs.

Information Agents break this assumption.

A topic can have enormous user interest - agents are actively monitoring it for thousands of users - with zero measurable search volume, because none of those users are typing queries. The agents are doing the searching for them.

This means:

Keyword volume becomes a lagging metric - it measures what users searched for in the past, not what agents are monitoring now
Content freshness and update frequency become primary signals - agents prioritise fresh, frequently-updated content for monitoring queues
Structured data becomes even more critical - agents need machine-readable content to parse and surface efficiently
Publishers without clear topical focus will get deprioritised - agents build monitoring queues around trusted, authoritative sources in specific topics

The question your content team will ask: "If people aren't searching, why are we creating content?"

The answer: "Because agents are reading it for them. The goal shifts from 'rank for the query' to 'be the source agents trust to monitor.' That's not less important - it's harder to achieve and more durable once you have it."

Information Agents are available to AI Pro and Ultra subscribers initially, rolling out more broadly over time.[cite:119] But the agents are crawling content now. The groundwork you lay today determines whether you're in their monitoring stack when they scale.

Why U.S. Search Volume Was Already Falling - And What Accelerates It Now

Before we even talk about the new features from I/O 2026, it's worth grounding this in actual data.

U.S. Google desktop searches per user fell nearly 20% year-over-year in 2024–2025.[cite:116] That's not a rounding error. That's a structural shift in how users engage with search.

And the cause, according to Rand Fishkin and the SparkToro/Datos research: users are getting what they need without running multiple follow-up searches.[cite:118] AI-powered answers and zero-click results are resolving intent faster. Users are doing fewer total searches per session.

Importantly - this happened before the Intelligent Search Box, before Information Agents, and before Gemini 3.5 Flash became the default. These features will only accelerate the trend.

What does this mean strategically?

Total impressions across the industry will compress - this isn't your site underperforming, it's the market shrinking for certain query types
Traffic quality matters more than traffic volume - a smaller number of highly-intent visitors converts better than a large number of exploratory ones
Share of voice in AI citations is the new market share metric - being cited inside Gemini's answers is the equivalent of owning page 1 in 2019

Why UCP and AP2 Are Urgent for E-Commerce Right Now

Here's the framing I keep using with e-commerce clients, because it cuts through immediately:

"Amazon built a system where users shop inside Amazon. Google just built the same thing - except it works across every merchant on the internet, simultaneously."

Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is the technical standard that connects merchants, platforms, and AI agents into one shopping layer. Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) is the payment infrastructure that lets AI agents complete purchases on behalf of users, within defined spending limits, without requiring user intervention at checkout.

Together, they create a world where: a user tells Gemini "buy me the best noise-cancelling headphones under ₹15,000" - and the agent browses, compares, selects, and completes the purchase. Without the user visiting a single product page.

This is live in the United States today. Expanding to Canada, Australia, and the UK imminently.

The reason UCP urgency is being underplayed in most coverage is that it feels like a technical integration story - something for dev teams, not marketing teams. But the strategic consequence is a marketing story:

Merchants inside UCP = visible to agents in the purchase flow.
Merchants outside UCP = invisible to agents, regardless of how well they rank on Google Shopping.

Your SEO ranking, your Shopping campaign bid, your product page optimisation - none of it matters if the agent making the purchase decision on behalf of the user can't access your inventory through UCP.

The question your e-commerce director will ask: "How long do we have before this matters?"

The answer: "It matters today for US merchants. The merchants moving first are claiming agent-layer visibility right now. This is not a 2027 consideration."

First-mover advantage in protocol adoption is real. The shelf space inside Google's agentic shopping layer is finite and it is being occupied right now by merchants who are integrating.

Why Brand Authority Just Became a Hard Performance Signal

This is probably the most important shift for CMOs and marketing leaders to understand - and the hardest one to explain to performance-focused teams who think in CPC and ROAS.

When Google's Information Agents and AI Mode surface recommendations to users - or when Gemini constructs an AI Overview answer - they are not running a real-time keyword match. They are making trust-based decisions informed by what the model has learned about which brands, sources, and entities are credible, authoritative, and relevant.

That trust is built from signals like:

PR coverage in credible publications - editorial mentions that confirm your brand is real and recognised
Wikipedia presence - arguably the highest-trust entity signal the AI has
Review platform data - Google Reviews, Trustpilot, G2, industry-specific platforms
Community mentions - Reddit, forums, LinkedIn conversations, industry communities
Backlink authority - who's linking to you and whether those sources are themselves trusted
Branded search volume - when people search for you by name, it signals real-world demand and recognition

Every one of these signals is something that has traditionally lived in the "brand and awareness" budget, separate from SEO and paid performance budgets.

That separation is now a structural problem.

Because if your brand signals are weak - if Gemini's model doesn't "know" your brand from credible external references - your content is less likely to be cited in AI answers, your products are less likely to be surfaced by agents, and your ads are less likely to benefit from Attributed Branded Searches and QFCs.

Brand investment is now bottom-of-funnel infrastructure. It is not separate from performance marketing. It is performance marketing - it just operates on a longer attribution cycle.

The question your CFO will ask: "How do we measure the ROI of brand investment?"

The answer: "Through Attributed Branded Searches in Google Ads, through Qualified Future Conversions, and through branded search volume growth in Search Console. For the first time, Google has given us measurable attribution for brand impact on commercial outcomes. Use it."

Why Google Is Building a Closed Loop - And Why That's the Real Story of I/O 2026

Let me step back and name the pattern that ties every single announcement together.

Look at the full list:

Intelligent Search Box → keeps users inside Google longer at the point of query
Gemini 3.5 Flash in Search → resolves more queries without users clicking to external sites
Information Agents → surfaces content for users without search queries being typed at all
AI Mode with seamless AI Overviews flow → takes users deeper into AI conversation, away from blue links
Universal Cart → keeps shopping inside Google across all surfaces
AP2 → completes purchases inside Google without users visiting merchant sites
Direct Offers → surfaces promotions inside AI search journeys
Business Agent for Leads → handles lead qualification inside ads
Ask Advisor → handles campaign management and reporting inside Google's tools
Meridian in Analytics 360 → handles attribution and measurement inside Google's ecosystem
Qualified Future Conversions → connects ad activity to future sales inside Google's data model

Every single one of these moves in one direction: less reason to leave Google.

This is not accidental. This is the deliberate architecture of a closed commerce and intelligence loop - where:

Users don't leave to find information
Users don't leave to shop
Advertisers don't need external tools to manage campaigns
Advertisers don't need external tools to measure attribution
Google participates in every transaction, every insight, every conversion

Understanding this is what separates teams that adapt strategically from teams that react tactically to each feature announcement.

The features are not the story. The architecture is the story.

And your job - as an SEO, a paid media manager, an e-commerce lead, or a CMO - is to figure out how to remain valuable, visible, and commercially relevant inside a system that is deliberately designed to complete tasks without requiring external destinations.

What's Coming in Part 3

Part 3 is the practical one - and in some ways the hardest one to get right.

It's about how SEO, Ads, and Marketing teams work together in this new structure. Not the theory. The actual operating model: what signals each team generates, how those signals feed the next team's performance, and what a unified intelligence loop looks like in practice.

It also covers how to have the conversation with leadership - the framing that holds across all three teams and doesn't require a 40-slide deck to explain.

More signal, less noise. Always. 🙏

Sources referenced in this post: Google I/O 2026 official announcements · GML 2026 Google Blog · Gemini 3.5 Flash announcement · Gemini 3.5 Flash on TechCrunch · Google Search I/O 2026 updates · Intelligent Search Box - Search Engine Land · Information Agents - Search Engine Land · Universal Cart + AP2 - Search Engine Land · Google searches per U.S. user fell 20% - Search Engine Land · Google searches drop 20% - MarTech · Meridian in Analytics 360 · GML 2026 full recap - Search Engine Land

Google I/O + GML 2026: What Every SEO, Advertiser & Marketer Needs to Do Right Now (Part 1 of 3)

2026-05-21T12:20:37.325+05:30

This is Part 1 of a 3-part series breaking down Google I/O and Google Marketing Live 2026, not the hype, but the actual implications for your daily work. Part 2 covers the why behind all of it. Part 3 covers how your SEO, Ads, and Marketing teams work together in this new world.

Why I'm Writing This in Three Parts

Honestly? Because one post wasn't going to do it justice.

Google I/O (May 19–20, 2026) and Google Marketing Live (May 20, 2026) landed back to back, and together, they represent the biggest shift in how Google Search and Google Ads work in years. Not just new features. A structural change in how users search, how agents shop, and how your content and ads get surfaced.

I've been going through everything, the official Google I/O 2026 announcements, the GML 2026 ads blog, the Search Engine Land full recap the developer keynote notes, and I want to share what I found in a way that's actually useful for teams doing the work.

So here's how I've split it:

Part 1 (this post): What to stop doing and what to start, broken down by team
Part 2: Why all of this is happening, the deeper shift most people aren't naming clearly
Part 3: How SEO, Ads, and Marketing teams work together in this new structure

Let's get into Part 1.

Before Anything Else, The One Thing Everyone's Getting Wrong

The most common reaction I've seen this week:

"AI Mode is taking over. SEO is dead. Everything is changing overnight."

It's not. Here's the truth:

AI Mode is NOT the default search experience. It is NOT dominating the SERP right now.

Lily Ray, one of the most credible voices in search, said it clearly. Google has confirmed AI Mode is the future, but has given no timeline for making it the default. Traditional organic results are alive. Blue links are still ranking, still getting clicked, still driving business.

So before your team panics or your client fires off an email, bookmark this and share it.

Now, here's what DID change and what it means for your work.

🎯 For SEOs: What To Stop and Start

I was in a call with an SEO team last week and someone asked:

"Should we just stop creating blog content altogether?"

No. But the type of content and the intent you're targeting? That needs a hard rethink.

Stop Doing This

→ Optimising "what is X" and definition-style content as a traffic strategy

Gemini 3.5 Flash, now the default model powering Google Search globally, answers these queries inside AI Overviews before anyone clicks. Ranking #2 for "what is content marketing" is not a strategy anymore. It's a vanity metric.

→ Using keyword volume as your primary targeting signal

This one is going to sting for a lot of teams. Keyword volume is becoming a lagging, unreliable metric. Google's new Information Agents work proactively, they surface content for users without a search query being typed. A topic can have massive user interest with zero measured search volume. Volume-based research is measuring the wrong thing.

→ Building content that could have been written by anyone, about anything, at any time

If your content has no perspective, no first-hand experience, no named author, and no real depth, Gemini doesn't just rank it low. It skips it entirely in AI answer generation. It simply doesn't exist in the AI layer.

Start Doing This

→ Target decision-intent queries

The Intelligent Search Box, Google's biggest search box redesign in 25 years, handles vague, broad queries with AI. What it still sends to blue links are queries where users want accountability and a real source:

"[Product A] vs [Product B] for [specific use case]"
"[Service] in [City]", local intent is highly resistant to AI absorption
"[Brand name]", branded queries are the new bottom of funnel
Anything requiring real data, case studies, or expert opinion

→ Audit your structured data immediately

Information Agents crawl the web proactively in the background. If your schema is missing, broken, or your last update was 2023, agents skip you for fresher, cleaner sources. Prioritise FAQ, HowTo, Article, and Product markup this week. Not next quarter. This week.

→ Build E-E-A-T to get cited by AI, not just ranked

The new goal isn't position #1. It's being referenced inside an AI answer. That only happens with genuine depth, topical authority, named experts, and strong trust signals. Write like a practitioner, real examples, real opinions, real experience.

→ Track direct traffic separately, dark traffic is rising

Here's one most teams are missing entirely. When Information Agents surface your content for a user proactively, it often hits your analytics as direct traffic, referral data gets stripped. If your direct traffic is rising post-IO, that's likely agents finding you. Track it separately and monitor the trend.

→ Treat branded search growth as your most important health metric

When agents search on behalf of users, they default to brands they recognise. Branded search volume rising = you're building the kind of authority that AI trusts. Make this a weekly dashboard metric.

📢 For PPC and Google Advertisers: What To Stop and Start

I've had a version of this conversation three times this week:

"Our CTR is fine right now. Do we really need to change anything?"

Yes, because the changes from GML 2026 aren't just new features to bolt on. They're shifting the fundamental structure of how ads perform and get measured.

Stop Doing This

→ Over-indexing on last-click attribution

Last-click is telling you an incomplete, and increasingly misleading, story. With Qualified Future Conversions (QFCs) now linking upper-funnel ad activity to future sales via branded search behaviour, last-click misses the entire upstream chain. You're optimising for the last step of a journey your data can't see.

→ Treating landing page copy as your primary persuasion layer

Business Agent for Leads allows users to ask Gemini questions directly inside a lead gen ad before they ever land on your page. The AI handles objection-handling, FAQ, and pre-qualification inside the ad conversation. Your landing page is now a closer, not a persuader. Write it accordingly.

→ Running promotions only through sale pages

Direct Offers, Google's new personalized discount feature, surfaces exclusive discounts and bundles inside AI Search journeys, triggered by purchase intent the AI detects. Your promotion-driven blog post or sale landing page? Getting squeezed from both organic and paid ends.

Start Doing This

→ Enable Attributed Branded Searches tracking NOW

This is the most overlooked GML announcement. Attributed Branded Searches measure when your ads lead users to search for your brand later, connecting upper-funnel spend to branded intent. Critically: it sits in your "All Conversions" column, not your main Conversions column. Most teams are looking at the wrong number. Check it today.

→ Adopt Qualified Future Conversions (QFCs)

QFCs are Gemini-powered predictive signals that link your current ad activity to future sales via branded search behaviour. They show up now in reporting, and Google plans to feed them directly into Meridian's MMM model over time. Advertisers adopting QFCs early will have structurally more accurate attribution models than those who don't.

→ Set up Direct Offers with clear discount logic

You set the offer. Gemini decides when to surface it based on detected purchase intent. The practical implication: define your discount logic clearly (percentage off, free shipping, bundle deals) and let the AI do the targeting. It's not your traditional promo schedule, it's intent-triggered personalisation at scale.

→ Experiment with Business Agent for Leads

For lead-gen advertisers, this is the most underrated announcement from GML 2026. Users can ask questions and get answers from an AI agent inside your ad before hitting your form. The drop-off between ad click and form submission shrinks dramatically when objections are handled in the conversation. Test it now while competition is low.

→ Integrate Meridian into Analytics 360

Google is integrating Meridian directly into Analytics 360, combining first-party data, media signals, and cross-channel performance into one unified measurement model. Teams inside this ecosystem will have materially better budget allocation data than teams outside it. This is not optional for serious advertisers.

🛒 For E-commerce Teams: What To Stop and Start

This is the section where I need you to sit down if you haven't already.

"We rank well on Google Shopping. We're fine."

That framing is about to become very expensive.

Stop Doing This

→ Treating Google Shopping as a standalone channel

Google Shopping is merging into a broader agentic commerce layer.

Universal Cart syncs products across Search, YouTube, Gemini, Gmail, and Maps. It's not a shopping tab anymore. It's infrastructure.

→ Relying on product page traffic as your primary conversion path

Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) means AI agents can browse, compare, and complete a purchase without the user ever visiting your site. The conversion path you've optimised for years, ad click → product page → cart → checkout, can now be bypassed entirely inside Google's agent layer.

→ Ignoring UCP integration because it "feels like a future thing"

Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is live in the US today. It's expanding to Canada, Australia, and the UK shortly. Merchants inside the UCP ecosystem are visible to agents. Merchants outside it are invisible in agentic shopping flows. First-mover advantage in protocol adoption is real, the shelf space inside Google's agent layer is being claimed right now.

Start Doing This

→ Prioritise UCP integration, start the dev conversation this week

Not next quarter. This week. Talk to your development team about UCP integration. The merchants who move first get the agent-layer visibility. Those who wait will be playing catch-up in an ecosystem that's already settled.

→ Ensure product feeds are live across YouTube, Maps, and Gmail

Universal Cart syncs products across all Google surfaces. If your product feed isn't active and optimised across YouTube, Maps, and Gmail, you're missing inventory placement in surfaces that are becoming purchase touchpoints.

→ Optimise for native checkout inside AI ads

Native checkout inside AI-powered ads reduces friction between discovery and purchase. Every step you remove between "agent finds your product" and "purchase completed" increases conversion. Audit your checkout flow specifically for the native Google checkout path.

→ Expand product feed quality, not just coverage

Richer feeds = better AI agent matching. Title quality, attribute completeness, image resolution, pricing accuracy, review data, these feed signals determine how well agents understand and surface your products. Feed quality is now a competitive advantage, not just a compliance checkbox.

📊 For CMOs and Marketing Leaders: The One Framing You Need

Every team is going to come to you with different versions of the same anxiety this week.

Your SEO team will say impressions are dropping.
Your PPC team will say attribution is getting harder.
Your e-commerce team will say Google Shopping is changing.

Here's how to hold all of it in one frame:

"Google is no longer a search engine. It is a task-completion engine. Our job is not to rank pages, it is to be the source AI cites, the brand agents recognise, and the merchant AI buys from."

Three strategic priorities that follow from this:

1. Brand authority is now infrastructure

PR, Wikipedia citations, review platform presence, community mentions, these are not soft awareness metrics anymore. They are hard signals that determine whether Google's AI agents trust and recommend your brand. Brand investment is bottom-of-funnel SEO and paid performance now.

2. Measurement is becoming a competitive moat

Teams using Meridian + Analytics 360 + QFCs will have structurally better attribution data than teams who don't. This is not a minor capability gap. Over time, it compounds into a material budget allocation advantage. Invest in measurement infrastructure now.

3. Google is quietly eating the MarTech stack

Ask Advisor, Google's unified AI assistant across Ads, Analytics, Merchant Center, and GMP, does what your agency dashboards, Looker Studio reports, and third-party optimisation tools do. For smaller advertisers, the need for external tools is dropping. For agencies, the "campaign management" value proposition is getting commoditised. Audit which third-party tools in your stack still earn their cost.

What's Coming in Part 2

Part 1 gave you the what. Part 2 goes deeper into the why.

Why are impressions going to drop before clicks, and how to explain it to leadership without losing the room
Why thin content is now completely invisible, not just low-ranking, and what Gemini 3.5 is actually doing differently
Why brand authority just became a hard performance signal, the mechanism behind it, not just the claimAnd the deeper pattern from IO + GML 2026 that nobody is naming clearly yet, the one thread that connects every single announcement

More signal, less noise. Always. 🙏

Sources referenced in this post:

Google I/O 2026 official announcements · GML 2026 Google Blog · Search Engine Land GML recap · Meridian in Analytics 360 · Google Universal Cart + AP2 · Intelligent Search Box · Information Agents · Gemini 3.5 Flash · Meridian developer docs

The Next 400 Million Aren’t a Market. They’re a Mindset Shift.

2026-03-31T22:59:00.005+05:30

There’s a line I came across recently that I just can’t get out of my head:

“Growth will belong to those who decode dreams, not just demographics.”

It hit hard. Because it’s something I’ve felt for a while - just didn’t have the words.

Most of us working in content, SEO, brand, or media were taught to think about India’s consumers in buckets:

Tier 1 vs Tier 2.
Urban vs Rural.
Middle class vs HNI.
SEC A/B/C

remember that?

But when you actually look around - talk to people, watch their online behavior, notice what they’re buying, searching, and dreaming about - it’s clear these old buckets don’t work anymore.

Let me explain.

The new Indian consumer isn’t new. We just weren’t looking.

My cousin in Bhavnagar earns ₹18–20k/month. No credit card. Not a metro city. But last month she bought a ₹2,300 Korean skincare product. Why? Instagram. Reviews. YouTube videos. Took 3 months to save, but she wanted it.
A friend’s house-help in Gurgaon asked how to open a demat account. Her son told her about SIPs. She now wants to invest ₹1,000/month. Doesn’t fit any "traditional" finance persona - but here she is, asking smarter questions than many salaried folks.
Students in Indore are learning SEO on YouTube, running Shopify stores, earning ₹10–15k/month. They’ll spend ₹5k on Instagram ads - and still bargain for ₹30 on Swiggy.

This isn’t about income. It’s about ambition. About identity. About wanting more - not in a show-off way, but in a “why not me too?” way.

Middle Class 2.0 is aspirational, not rational.

For years, marketers treated India’s middle class like a value-hunting, conservative group. But that lens is outdated.

Today’s middle class:

Trusts creators more than brands
Wants to feel seen, not sold to
Will earn ₹25k but spend ₹1.5k on a perfume that makes them feel good
Follows global trends, shops local, and posts Amazon hauls with pride
Doesn’t want the cheapest - they want what feels premium for them

And this shift shows up everywhere:

In how they buy. How they search. How they consume content. How they talk to their friends. How they make choices that used to be “urban” or “elite.”

So what does this mean for SEO, content, and digital strategy?

If you’re building a brand, running an agency, or deep in SEO/content work - this changes the game.

1. Search is no longer about “needs.” It’s about identity.

Old SEO logic: “User searches budget shoes = show cheap options.”

New logic: “User searches best sneakers like Nike under ₹1500” = they already have taste, aspiration, context.

This is where the real SEO opportunity is now. Not just volume - but emotional depth behind queries.

People are aspirational even while they search.

2. Personas are dead. Behavior is the new gold.

Your audience might be:

A 19-year-old in Guwahati
A mom in Bhopal
A startup guy in Surat

But they all follow the same creators. Watch the same reels. Buy similar products.

So stop targeting by age/location/income. Start targeting by signals:

What are they saving on Instagram?
Which YouTube comments are they replying to?
What’s rising on Google Trends that no one’s talking about?

SEO now = decoding intent + aspiration, not just keywords.

3. Aspirational content will win the next decade.

People aren’t just searching for “solutions.” They’re searching for a feeling. A sense that “this brand gets me.”

So content can’t stop at comparison blogs or product lists. You need:

Story
Relatability
Creator energy
Cultural fluency

The best content marketers today aren’t just writers - they’re observers. They listen deeply and write to the version of their audience that’s still becoming.

And this isn’t just an India story. It’s global.

If you think this is only happening in Bharat - you’re missing the bigger picture.

We’re seeing this everywhere.

In Southeast Asia - mid-income users in Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines are buying luxury skincare, watching financial YouTube, and shopping niche brands. TikTok, Shopee, and YouTube are driving both impulse and ambition.
In Europe - creators from Romania to Portugal are growing fast by sharing relatable upgrade journeys, not luxury lifestyles.
In the US - even post-inflation, millions of low-income Gen Z users follow “quiet luxury on a budget,” “starter skincare,” and side hustle content. Search trends back it up.

Same shift. Different packaging.

Globally, people want the same thing: → Not the cheapest. → The best version of themselves — at their price.

And as marketers, SEO folks, and content builders that’s the unlock. The behavior, content formats, and funnels may change. But the mindset shift? Universal.

So what should we do differently?

Whether you're building for India 2030 or globally post-2025 here’s what I’d focus on:

Segment by mindset, not Tier
Prioritize search signals, not just volume
Make aspiration the center of your content
Study platforms like TikTok (yes, even if banned here) it's shaping culture everywhere
Look at behavior clusters, not just demographics
Go deep into YouTube comments, Reddit threads, Q&A boxes that’s where real insight lives

And most importantly - respect your user. They’re more informed, more inspired, and more ready than we think.

India’s next 400M aren’t waiting to be discovered. They’re already building, browsing, and dreaming.

Same thing’s happening in Jakarta, Manchester, Austin, Nairobi. Different languages, same energy.

If you want to win this decade - Don’t just decode where people are. Decode who they’re becoming.

Would love to hear what you’re noticing in your world. DMs open - always up to jam.

The Great SEO Loophole: How to Rank for Anything on Google

2025-05-12T18:00:00.006+05:30

After doing SEO for over 11 years, I’ve realized something strange.

Ranking on Google isn’t hard anymore.
Not if you have authority. Not if you’re a “big enough” brand. And definitely not if you stop caring about relevance, ethics, or logic.

I know that sounds wild. But let me walk you through a system that’s working right now.

You can call it a “hack” if you want. But it’s really just a loophole that Google’s pretending doesn’t exist.

Step-by-step guide to ranking for anything on Google (seriously)

Step 1:
Pick a topic with high search volume.
Does it relate to your product? Doesn’t matter. Just find a connection that sounds half-reasonable.

Like:
“We sell loans, and people travel using loans, so let’s write about travel.”

Step 2:
Write the most generic blog you can think of.
Make it look clean. Add headings. Steal format from top-ranking pages.
Zero originality needed.

Step 3:
Drop a link or two to your actual product page.
“Planning a trip to Varkala? Don’t forget to check our personal loan options!”
Beautifully irrelevant, but now Google thinks it’s topical.

Step 4:
Publish. Interlink. Submit sitemap.
Done.

And now, somehow, your site that sells financial products is ranking above travel bloggers, mobile review platforms, and health portals.

At this point, maybe you’re thinking:

“Bro… I already knew this. This is old-school content farming.”

Yeah. Exactly.

You know it. I know it.
We’ve all seen it.
We’ve all ignored it.

But this time, it’s gone too far.

This isn’t smart SEO. It’s just Google being blind.

Let’s stop calling it strategy. There’s nothing clever about spamming 200 travel blogs on a finance site.

And yet, it’s working.

Let me show you how ridiculous it’s gotten:

A financial site like Bajaj Finserv ranking on Page 1 for queries like:

“Spiti Valley trip cost”
“Varkala trip cost”
“vivo x200 ultra”
“Used cars in Delhi NCR”

And yes - they’re outranking Cars24 and GSM Arena on some of these.

An insurance company like Acko publishing blogs on:

“Bent penis”
“Health benefits of eating almonds”
“How to treat anxiety naturally”

And somehow that ranks above actual health publications.

Housing.com is giving tutorials on:

“How to file ITR online”

Not making this up. A real estate portal telling you how to handle taxes.

Even Google.com is doing it.
They rank #1 for “travel” with their Flights page - technically affiliate content scraped from other websites.

So while SEOs debate “site reputation abuse,” Google is literally setting the worst example.

Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do, and what is right to do.
– Potter Stewart

In a world of noise, trust is the only filter that matters.
– Me (because sometimes we need to quote ourselves)

The Helpful Content Promise vs The Reality

Let’s be honest - Google’s “Helpful Content Update” should be renamed “Selective Content Privilege Update.”

What Google Told Us	What’s Actually Happening
Write content within your area of expertise	Finance sites rank for health, tech, travel, etc.
Show first-hand experience	AI-written generic blogs dominate
Don’t chase search volume blindly	That’s literally the strategy everyone is using now
Avoid content for the sake of rankings	Brands write for rankings only
Provide helpful, original insights	Same recycled content with better domain authority

But some folks still defend this.

Let’s unpack the common arguments and why they don’t hold up.

❌ “If it satisfies the user, what’s the problem?”

Really? You’re telling me someone searching for “tax saving options” wants advice from a site that primarily sells apartments?

Intent without credibility is like a doctor Googling symptoms and calling it a diagnosis.

❌ “They’re just educating users.”

So you’re telling me an insurance company writing about mental health symptoms is doing that to help users - not to grab traffic?

If they cared that much, maybe they’d list the author’s medical credentials.
Oh wait - they don’t.

❌ “How do you know they didn’t hire experts?”

I don’t. And I shouldn’t have to guess.

If you hired experts, show it. Add bios. Cite sources. Provide trust signals.

Topical authority doesn’t work on vibes.

❌ “It’s just marketing. Understand the user journey.”

This is not marketing. This is keyword farming with budget.

If someone searching for “best phones under 20k” lands on a finance site, they’re not there to buy your EMI plan - they’re there because Google failed to show a better source.

Why this is bigger than just one brand

Because now:

Niche creators are losing visibility despite creating better content.
Big brands are abusing domain trust to rank for literally anything.
Google is rewarding authority, not relevance.
SEOs are getting pushed into dumb content playbooks just to keep up.
New SEOs will learn this as “best practice” and kill the craft before they even understand it.

And honestly, that’s why I’m writing this.

Why I’m sharing this now

This post isn’t just frustration - it’s a warning.

Because there’s a new generation of SEOs watching all of this.
Young folks, smart minds entering the field, seeing big companies rank for everything under the sun - health, travel, tech, whatever.

And they’ll think: “Oh, this is SEO? Just publish whatever gets volume?”

If we let this become normal, the next wave of SEOs will never learn the real game.
They’ll never understand topical depth, user trust, authority building, or ethical growth.

And honestly, that’s the part that bothers me the most.

I’m not worried about Bajaj or Acko or Google Flights.
They’ll rank anyway.

I’m worried about the guy sitting in a small agency, learning SEO, thinking “this must be the way.”

If you’re facing this kind of competitor…

I see you.
You run a legit travel blog. Or a phone review site. Or a health advice platform.
You’ve spent years building real expertise.

But now your rankings are stolen by a finance site that writes one generic blog with a ₹500 writer and a .in domain.

And it sucks.
It’s not fair. And no amount of “content quality” can beat brute-force authority right now.

But don’t lose hope.

Here’s what you still have:

Community trust (Your users will come back)
Topical clarity (Your content roadmap won’t burn out in 3 months)
Long-term resilience (Algorithm shifts will swing back your way)

Because relevance isn’t dead. It’s just being ignored temporarily.

But when the next real update comes, the junk will burn.
That’s how it’s always been.

I’m not against growth. I’m against shortcuts.

Let’s be real - ranking matters. Growth matters.
But not like this.

If we want SEO to stay alive - not just as a channel, but as a craft - then we have to draw the line somewhere.

And that line isn’t drawn by Google.
It’s drawn by us - the people actually doing the work.

You might not have the biggest domain.
But you can still have the cleanest strategy.
The most helpful answer.
The most consistent structure.

That’s SEO.
That’s what we signed up for.

At the END

No, Google isn’t perfect right now.
Yes, this loophole is frustrating.
And yes, these brands are winning with half-baked logic.

But we still have control over what we build.

If enough of us stick to relevance, clarity, and real user intent - this industry won’t collapse.
It’ll reset.

And when it does?

It’ll reward those who didn’t chase the shortcut.

In a world full of noise, the only thing that compounds is trust.
– Probably someone who gave a damn about users.

Hold on to that.
Teach it to your team.
Build with it.

That’s how we win.

Real SEO Warriors: Strugglers vs. The Corporate Climbers

2024-10-25T14:29:00.000+05:30

I recently watched "Why Google Search is Falling Apart" by Mrwhosetheboss, and it hit home. His explanation of the struggles with Google’s latest updates and how they’ve changed search results made me think about the SEO industry’s role in this shift. I’ve seen my own work, and many friends’ SEO-driven businesses, face sudden drops in visibility – going from stable to nearly invisible. It’s tough when your whole business hinges on Google, and in a blink, it’s all gone.

What struck me most about the video is the blame placed on the entire SEO industry. But not all SEOs are cut from the same cloth, and it’s not fair to lump everyone together. So, here’s a breakdown of two very different types of SEOs – to help clear things up for anyone feeling a bit lost in the noise of search engines today.

The Successful SEOs: Talking Big, Ranking Big

First, there’s the “Successful” SEO. The guy everyone loves in meetings because he’s the one with “results.” Keywords are ranked, traffic is flowing, and presentations look like a success story on steroids. They know the right things to say, how to impress the bosses, and they know exactly which charts to pull up. Sounds perfect, right?

But here’s the catch. The “Successful” SEO has a few tricks under the hood, and most of them are not about serving the end user. They’ll do anything that pumps up numbers quickly, with no concern about how those numbers really help (or don’t help) users. Their motto? If it ranks, it works. So if ranking a blog post about the “Best Bars in Bangalore” on a bakery website is possible, they’ll do it. Useful to the end user? Not their problem.

They love shortcuts – things like private blog networks (PBNs), backlink farming, and all sorts of black hat tricks. Every loophole in Google’s playbook? They know it. Google algorithm update hits? Their sites feel it the hardest. But they’ll say, “Oh, it’s just Google’s fault!” Then they’ll slide back into work, moving the blame around, like magicians with a disappearing act.

This type doesn’t teach much to their colleagues. Why share the “magic tricks”? They’re more about showing off than helping. They’ll use every tool in the market – SEMrush, Ahrefs, Screaming Frog – and have a dashboard for every little metric. But real value? Not much. They aim for numbers, not quality, and at the end of the day, their work keeps them on the edge because their results live and die by each Google update.

The Strugglers: The Real Warriors of SEO

Then there’s the Struggler. They are the ones quietly putting in the grind, resisting the urge to “game” the system and instead focusing on what’s best for the user. Their keyword research? Thoughtful. They’re after relevance, not just clicks. They want to serve real answers, real solutions, to people searching for them – not gimmicky fluff just to rank.

They spend hours optimizing meta tags, reworking header tags, and fixing technical issues in a way that’ll serve the website’s long-term health. Schema markups, canonical tags, alt tags for images – the whole SEO alphabet soup – these SEOs know it cold and make sure it’s done right, even if it takes longer to show those “winning” results on the traffic charts.

You’ll often find Strugglers deep in Analytics and Search Console, spotting tiny shifts and digging out trends others might miss. They’re the ones flagging tech issues that make dev teams groan, pushing for things like faster page load times, improved mobile experiences, and avoiding duplicate content issues, knowing these will make or break the user experience. And while it might not bring them a round of applause, they do it anyway.

While others obsess over trendy, high-volume keywords, Strugglers focus on understanding user intent. They know the importance of targeting long-tail keywords, so users actually find what they’re looking for, not just a flashy page that bounces in 10 seconds. In their world, it’s about building trust with the search engine – because SEO isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon.

Strugglers are realists. They’ll openly tell clients and teams, “This is going to take time.” They’ll push back against the pressure for fast results because they know SEO done right doesn’t happen overnight. They’re also the folks who, while not chasing the credit, take the time to educate others on the team. They explain why rankings might dip after a technical error, why content should be updated, or why a change in algorithm might hurt or help.

Their work might not always look shiny, but it’s stable, resilient to Google’s whims. And while they don’t get rattled by each algorithm update, it doesn’t mean they’re not feeling the impact. They know that things outside their control can still shake things up, and that’s why they’re always analyzing, learning, and optimizing. They stay humble but ready to adapt, knowing the SEO landscape is constantly changing.

Final Thoughts

So, here we are, caught in the middle of two very different worlds of SEO. Honestly, I don’t know who’s wrong or right. Sometimes, it feels like the flashy tactics of the Successful SEO get quick results, while the Struggler’s careful, user-first approach is what builds a real foundation. It's confusing, and it makes you wonder which path to take.

The truth is, I can’t see the future of SEO. It feels like we’re all trying to figure it out on the fly. What I do know is that SEO has changed dramatically, and I’ve seen a lot in the last decade. But I’ve never experienced such a massive shift as what we’re witnessing now.

These changes bring a lot of questions. Are we heading towards a better future for users? Or are we just navigating through more chaos? Each day feels like a gamble, and that’s not a comfortable feeling. It makes me think about what kind of SEO we really need. Should we chase trends, or should we focus on real value?

With every update and every algorithm change, we’re left guessing. Will the Successful SEO's quick tricks work in the long run? Or will the Struggler’s honest efforts finally get the recognition they deserve? The landscape of SEO is shifting, and we must adapt quickly.

I just hope this change leads to something good for real users. At the end of the day, they are the ones who matter. If we’re not helping them, then what are we doing? So, as we look ahead, let’s ask ourselves: What kind of SEO do we want to embrace? And how can we make sure our work truly benefits those searching for real answers? The future is uncertain, but the impact we have on users must always be our focus.

The 8-Year(2015-2024) Saga of Mobile Indexing: Google Flips the Phone

2024-07-05T00:04:00.005+05:30

Remember 2015?

Back when flip phones were a distant memory (or a fashion statement for the brave), and the mobile revolution was just gaining steam.

It was in this era, a simpler time filled with grainy Instagram photos and limited data plans, that Google began a journey that would redefine search as we know it: Mobile Indexing.

Eight. Years.

Yes, you read that right.

Google's quest to prioritize mobile content in search results wasn't a sprint, it was a marathon – an epic saga filled with twists, turns, and enough technical jargon to make your head spin.

But on July 5th, 2024, after years of anticipation and website owner scrambling, Google finally crossed the finish line.

A Timeline for the Ages

Let's rewind and relive the drama. Here's a whistle-stop tour of the key milestones in this mobile indexing odyssey:

April 21, 2015: The seeds are sown. Google throws down the gauntlet with the Mobile-Friendly Update, unofficially saying, "Hey webmasters, your mobile sites better be good, because mobile users are taking over!" (They weren't wrong).
November 2016: Google whispers the first words of "Mobile-First Indexing." Webmasters everywhere collectively break out in a cold sweat, wondering what this means for their desktop-first websites. (Spoiler alert: It meant a lot of work!)
December 2018: Google dips its toes in the mobile-first indexing pool, prioritizing mobile versions for new websites added to the search index. The future is officially mobile, folks.
March 2020: The gloves come off. Google announces a deadline for ALL websites to be switched to mobile-first indexing – September 2020, to be precise. (Cue mass website scrambling and existential SEO crises with the pinch of COVID-19).
July 2020: Google, ever the merciful overlord (or maybe just realizing the sheer volume of websites involved), pushes back the deadline to March 2021. (Webmasters breathe a collective sigh of relief).
May 2021: Google, in a surprising turn of events, declares most websites have transitioned and mobile-first indexing is largely complete. (Wait, what? But the deadline… never mind, we'll take it!)
October 31, 2023: After years of crawling and indexing with a mobile mindset, Google triumphantly announces, "Mobile-First Indexing is HERE!" The mobile revolution is finally, officially, undeniably real. (Cue confetti and celebratory high fives for SEO professionals everywhere).
July 5, 2024: The final curtain falls. Google finishes migrating the remaining holdouts, ensuring ALL websites are indexed primarily based on their mobile versions.

More Than Just a Mobile Moment: Related Algorithm Updates

But mobile indexing wasn't a solitary hero in this story. It came hand-in-hand with a series of algorithm updates that emphasized the importance of mobile optimization:

Speed Updates: Remember when waiting for a website to load felt like an eternity? Google prioritized fast-loading mobile sites, making website speed a crucial ranking factor. (Goodbye, sluggish mobile experiences!)
Interstitials Update: Those pesky pop-ups that took over your mobile screen? Google cracked down on intrusive interstitials that hindered the mobile user experience. (Thank goodness!)
Core Web Vitals: A set of metrics focusing on mobile experience, including loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability, became key ranking factors. (Basically, Google wanted mobile sites to feel smooth and responsive).

This wasn't just about Google flexing its algorithmic muscle. It was about recognizing a fundamental shift in user behavior. Mobile has become the dominant way we access the internet, and Google, in its infinite wisdom (and desire to remain the search king), adapted accordingly.

A Glimpse into the Crystal Ball: What's Next?

So, what does the future hold after this monumental mobile indexing migration? While Google remains tight-lipped, here are some possibilities that might pique your SEO curiosity:

The Rise of AI: Artificial intelligence could play a bigger role in understanding search intent and delivering hyper-personalized results, regardless of device.
Voice Search Supremacy: With the rise of smart speakers and voice assistants, Google might prioritize websites optimized for voice search queries.
The Circle of Search: Maybe the traditional linear search results page will evolve into a more interactive, carousel-style format, catering to users who want to explore different facets of a topic.

One thing's for sure:

The search landscape is far from static. Google's never one to rest on its laurels (or search results page), and the next big update could be just around the corner. Here's how you can stay ahead of the curve and ensure your website isn't left behind in the dust (or the mobile search results page, to be more precise):

Mobile-Responsiveness is Mandatory: This might seem like a no-brainer, but it's worth reiterating. Make sure your website seamlessly adapts to different screen sizes and devices. Responsive design is your friend!
Speed is King (and Queen): Nobody likes a slow website, especially on mobile data. Optimize your website for speed using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and prioritize fast loading times.
Content is Still King (and Queen): High-quality, informative content that resonates with your target audience will always be a ranking factor. Don't neglect the power of good content in your quest for mobile SEO dominance.
Embrace Structured Data: Structured data helps search engines understand your content better. Use schema markup to improve your website's visibility and potentially snag those coveted rich snippets in search results.
Stay Updated on Google's Whims: Google's algorithm updates are as frequent as clockwork (sometimes more so). Keep yourself informed about the latest changes and adapt your SEO strategy accordingly. There are plenty of SEO resources and blogs out there to help you stay in the loop.

The Future is Mobile (and Beyond)

The eight-year mobile indexing saga is a testament to Google's commitment to providing the best possible search experience for mobile users.

It's a clear message to webmasters: prioritize mobile, or get left behind. But the story doesn't end here.

The future of search is likely to be shaped by advancements in AI, voice search, and potentially even new ways of interacting with search engines entirely.

The key takeaway?

Stay flexible, stay informed, and prioritize a user-centric approach.

By focusing on creating a website that's fast, mobile-friendly, and delivers exceptional value to your audience, you'll be well-positioned to navigate the ever-evolving search landscape, no matter what Google throws your way next.

Remember, in the world of SEO, the only constant is change. Embrace it, and your website will continue to thrive in the mobile-first future.

Does Google Penalize AI Content?

2024-05-02T23:41:00.003+05:30

Does Google Penalize AI Content?

No!

Do google have any algorithm to detect AI generated content?

Answer is yes, it have capability to notice AI generated content since the launch of EAT in 2014, and other algorithm has also improved over time.

So how I can use AI for content creation?

Try to do AIO(a new term for another field of optimization), similarly like SEO, ASO, SMO its AIO-Artificial Intelligence Optimization.

So, How to do AIO?

I have created a my personal Framework to play around with AI, and I called it as "K.A.R.M.A"!

FYKI, "K.A.R.M.A" Stands for...

K- Keep it Creative
A-Accuracy and Fact-Checking
R- Reader first content
M- Maintain the the voice of writer
A- Add images, visuals, and media

This editing framework will help polish up your content, improving its quality and making it more human-like.

However, it’s still AI content, just upgraded.

At this point, we’ve looked at two kinds of AI content: 100% AI content output and edited AI content.

Both are affected by our question is...

does Google penalize AI content?

Short Answer is No!

Google does not penalize AI content. It penalizes poor content.

Try to understand one fundamental thing about AI, Its created to make your life easy, when you abuse it, it will make you life difficult as well.

So, Have fun with AI, no need to be scared its just about time thing!

Join me on my Social Networks!

Google Blacklist: Understanding What Google Instant Doesn't Like

2024-04-30T23:28:00.003+05:30

So, have you ever felt like Google is peeking into your thoughts as you type into the search bar? Well, you're not alone. Google Instant, the search engine's feature that predicts and displays search results as you type, has a mysterious side: the Google Blacklist.

Now, before you get too intrigued, let me break it down for you. Google Blacklist is like the gatekeeper of decency in the world of instant search. It’s a list of words and concepts that Google Instant avoids showing you in real-time results, just in case you stumble upon something you’d rather not see.

Let’s play a little game. Head over to Google's homepage. Type in something cute like "puppy." Aww, adorable results fill your screen. Now, try typing "bitch." What do you see? An empty screen! Yep, that’s Google Instant playing it safe, shielding your eyes from anything potentially offensive.

But wait, there’s more. Even when your search term isn’t on the blacklist, Google Instant still tweaks the results. For example, type "murder," and you'll get suggestions mostly related to band names. It's only when you hit enter that the darker results appear. Sneaky, right? It shows how content can be controlled and filtered, for better or worse.

Now, let’s dive into the juicy stuff: the actual blacklist. Brace yourself; it's a long list filled with words and phrases you probably wouldn’t want to mention in polite conversation. From explicit terms to peculiar ones you never knew existed, it’s all there.

Want to test it out? Go ahead, type in some of the words listed below, and watch how Google Instant dances around them. It’s like playing a game of censorship bingo!

But hey, we’re not alone in this mission. We're crowdsourcing to compile the ultimate Google Blacklist. If you stumble upon a term missing from our list, shoot us an email.

Oh, and a word of caution: this blog isn’t for everyone. Children, ministers, senators, or anyone easily scandalized, you might want to sit this one out.

So, without further ado, let’s peek behind the curtain and explore the weird, wild world of Google Blacklist.

What’s Off the Table?

The list is vast, covering everything from the anatomy to obscure internet slang. Here’s just a taste of what’s on the blacklist:

2g1c: Remember that shock video? Yeah, don’t expect instant results for that.
4chan: Even the mention of this infamous forum raises eyebrows.
anal: Well, you can guess why this one's on the list.
fetish terms: From “autoerotic” to “zoorphilia,” it’s a rabbit hole of peculiar interests.
racial slurs: Google doesn’t play around when it comes to offensive language.
sexual acts: You name it, it's probably on the list.

Download whole list of Keywords are which are block from Google

What Escapes the Banhammer?

Surprisingly, some terms slip through the cracks:

annie sprinkle: An iconic figure in the world of adult entertainment.
homosexual: Apparently not as offensive as some might think.
necrophilia: Yes, seriously, this one’s okay according to Google.

Download whole list of Keywords are not banned/ block by google

The Bottom Line

Google Blacklist is like a bouncer at the club, keeping out the rowdy and inappropriate content. While it might seem like censorship to some, others see it as a necessary filter in our increasingly connected world.

So next time you type into that search bar, remember: Google’s got your back, even if it means shielding your eyes from the darker corners of the internet. Happy searching, folks!

Beyond "The Man Who Killed Google Search": A Critical Look

2024-04-24T22:42:00.012+05:30

The article "The Man Who Killed Google Search" has ignited a firestorm in the SEO community. While the piece raises intriguing points, a more comprehensive analysis is necessary to understand the current state of Google Search.

Shifting Blame: From Individuals to Systems

Attributing Google Search's perceived decline solely to Prabhakar Raghavan is overly simplistic. Large corporations function as intricate ecosystems, where numerous factors influence decisions. Leadership transitions, like Ben Gomes' departure, undoubtedly impact direction, but Google Search is shaped by a collaborative effort involving engineers, product managers, and executives.

Evolution vs. Stagnation: When Visions Diverge

It's natural for companies founded on idealistic visions to evolve as they mature. Founders often step back, and priorities shift. Apple under Tim Cook isn't a carbon copy of Steve Jobs' Apple, but it's still a thriving company. Similarly, Google's focus may have broadened from its initial goal of organizing the world's information, but this doesn't necessarily equate to a decline.

Profitability and Progress: Can They Coexist?

Let's be clear: businesses exist to generate profit. Google's position as a search leader is undeniable, but even the best make mistakes. Edward Zitron's criticisms regarding Google's direction are worth considering, but a balanced perspective acknowledges the need for financial sustainability. Resources for research and development, often fueled by profits, are vital for innovation.

Innovation Through Trial and Error: The Cost of Progress

The emergence of OpenAI's ChatGPT underscores the pressure to innovate. To stay ahead, Google needs resources for cutting-edge research, which can come from its profits. Experimentation can lead to missteps, but calculated risks are essential for progress. While some of Google's ventures may appear to be imitations, they often represent steps towards more groundbreaking advancements.

Beyond Criticism: The Power of Proactive Solutions

While directing criticism towards large organizations is a legitimate exercise, it's equally important to offer solutions. Rather than simply criticizing Google's perceived shortcomings, proposing concrete improvements demonstrates a more constructive approach.

Deconstructing Zitron's Claims: A Deeper Look

Zitron's use of terms like "rot economy" and "growth-hounds" paints a bleak picture of Google's leadership. While some anxieties are justified, it's important to consider Raghavan's likely objective - to maintain Google's competitive edge in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.

Innovation Beyond Imitation: A Broader View

Zitron suggests a lack of genuine innovation at Google, implying they merely mimic competitors. However, a closer look reveals significant strides in artificial intelligence, self-driving cars, and other areas. These advancements demonstrate Google's commitment to pushing boundaries beyond mere imitation.

Diversity in Leadership: Beyond Identity Politics

Zitron's suggestion that Raghavan faces prejudice due to his ethnicity injects a concerning element into the discussion. Hiring practices should be based on merit and qualifications, not race. Attributing Google's challenges to diversity issues detracts from a more productive conversation about leadership effectiveness.

Focus on Solutions: Learning from Lily Ray

Lily Ray's critiques of Google's search practices offer valuable insights. By focusing on specific issues and proposing solutions, we can encourage Google to elevate the user experience.

Moving Beyond Scapegoating: A Collaborative Approach

Instead of scapegoating individuals, let's shift the focus towards fostering a healthy dialogue about how Google can improve its search engine while ensuring financial viability.

Key Questions for a Constructive Conversation

Here are some crucial questions to consider:

How can Google strike a balance between delivering a superior user experience and meeting advertising needs?
What metrics truly define a successful search engine in today's information landscape?
How can large organizations like Google foster a culture of continuous innovation?

By engaging in these discussions, we can move beyond finger-pointing and encourage positive change within Google Search.

The future of search lies not in assigning blame, but in collaborative efforts to ensure it remains a valuable tool for users worldwide.

How can you hire SEO experts and agencies? By SEO Specialist

2024-02-18T12:01:00.002+05:30

Over the past year, I've been getting a lot of questions about finding the best SEO experts. People often ask, "How do I know if they're good or bad?" SEO is still new in many places, so among the good, you'll find some bad SEO folks too. Making a mistake here can waste a lot of time, resources, and money.

I've interviewed over 100 companies and around 22 individuals, and I've learned a lot from these experiences. But don't worry! Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting, this guide will help you understand how to hire the right SEO professionals and agencies.

Step 1: Finding the Right SEO Fit: Small Team or Big Agency?

Before you dive in, ask yourself:
Do you want a one-on-one SEO buddy or a whole team of experts?

Going solo:
Pros: Affordable, understands your specific niche.
Cons: Limited skills, might get overloaded with work.

Teaming up with an agency:
Pros: Diverse skills (writing, tech, link building), streamlined processes.
Cons: Can be pricier, less personalized attention.

Here's a breakdown to help you decide:

Choose a solo SEO if:
You have a smaller budget.
You have a clear understanding of your SEO needs.
You value close collaboration and a personal touch.

Consider an agency if:
You need a wider range of SEO expertise.
You have a larger budget and complex SEO goals.
You prefer a more structured and hands-off approach.

Step 2: Networking

Spread the word on LinkedIn, Upwork, and industry forums. Don't forget your network - ask for recommendations!

Step 3: During Interview

Solo SEOs:

SEO Savvy: Can they explain complex stuff simply? Ask for past wins to gauge their expertise.
Real-World Skills: Ditch theoretical questions! Give them actual SEO scenarios to solve (screen-sharing bonus!).
Lifelong Learner: Do they have a hunger for knowledge? Assess their ability to adapt and stay updated.

Agencies:

Team Power: Meet the crew! Have they worked with similar businesses? Show me the numbers: what real results have they achieved?
Beyond "Magic Ranks": SEO is a slow and steady climb, not a quick fix. Beware of unrealistic promises!
Honesty is Key: Ask about past challenges they faced and how they learned from them. Are they truly invested in your success, or just the paycheck?

Remember: The right fit depends on your needs. Look for passion, expertise, and transparency, regardless of whether you go solo or agency!

Red Flags to Watch Out for When Hiring an SEO or Agency:

Promises:

Guaranteed rankings: No ethical SEO professional can guarantee specific rankings, as algorithms and competition are constantly evolving. Run away from anyone making such claims.
Quick fixes and black-hat tactics: Be wary of anyone promoting techniques like keyword stuffing, link buying, or hidden text. These can harm your website in the long run.
Unrealistic ROI promises: Be skeptical of claims of instant or dramatic traffic increases. Sustainable SEO takes time and effort.

Transparency:

Lack of clear pricing and deliverables: Unclear contracts or hidden fees indicate potential trouble. Make sure you understand what you're paying for and what results to expect.
Unwillingness to answer questions: A good SEO professional should be happy to answer your questions and explain their strategies in detail. Vagueness or obfuscation is a red flag.
Lack of client testimonials or case studies: Be wary of agencies with limited or no achievements. Ask for references and checkout to actual results via third party tools.

Expertise and Experience:

Lack of industry knowledge: Ideally, your SEO should have experience in your specific industry or a closely related one. Generic tactics may not be effective.
Focus on quantity over quality: Be wary of agencies that boast only about the number of clients they have, not the quality of their work. Look for proven examples that align with your goals.
Outdated or irrelevant techniques: Ensure they use up-to-date, ethical SEO practices aligned with current search engine algorithms.

Communication and Culture:

Poor communication skills: Clear and consistent communication is crucial. Be wary of someone who is unresponsive or evasive.
Lack of cultural fit: If their values and work style don't align with yours, collaboration will be difficult. Assess their communication style and team dynamics during interviews.
High turnover rate: A high turnover rate can indicate internal issues or dissatisfaction with the work environment.

Interviewing Beyond the Surface:

Small Level SEO:

Analysis: Focus on foundational SEO knowledge, content creation skills, and adaptability.
What to Read:

Go beyond the resume: Look for evidence of self-learning and initiative. Did they create a personal website or blog and implement SEO strategies? This shows enthusiasm and practical experience.
Test their critical thinking: Present a real-world SEO scenario and ask how they would approach it. This reveals their thought process and ability to apply knowledge in practical situations.
Gauge their passion: True passion goes beyond just completing tasks. Do their eyes light up when discussing SEO trends or specific tactics? Are they curious and eager to learn more?

Medium Level SEO:

Analysis: Evaluate broader SEO strategy, link-building skills, and data analysis capabilities.
What to Read:

Evaluate their strategic mindset: Ask them to analyze a competitor's website and identify SEO strengths and weaknesses. This reveals their ability to think critically and develop competitive strategies.
Assess their data-driven approach: How do they track and analyze SEO results? Can they translate data insights into actionable recommendations? Look for comfort with SEO tools and data visualization skills.
Challenge their problem-solving:Present a hypothetical technical SEO issue and ask them to walk you through their troubleshooting process. This reveals their analytical skills and ability to think on their feet.

High Level SEO:

Analysis: Deep dive into advanced SEO tactics, team leadership, and industry knowledge.
What to Read:

Focus on business impact: How do they measure the success of SEO efforts beyond rankings? Can they articulate SEO's impact on revenue, conversions, and overall business goals?
Evaluate their communication skills: Can they explain complex SEO concepts to non-technical stakeholders? Look for clear, concise communication and the ability to tailor their message to different audiences.
Assess their leadership potential: How would they motivate and mentor a team of SEOs? Can they delegate effectively and foster a collaborative environment? Look for experience managing teams and inspiring others.

Top Level SEO:

Analysis: Focus on strategic vision, business acumen, and ability to drive organizational growth.
What to Read:

Dive into their strategic vision: How would they develop an SEO strategy aligned with your company's long-term growth plans? Look for innovative thinking, a global perspective, and an understanding of industry trends.
Evaluate their adaptability: How do they approach change and uncertainty? Can they pivot strategies to adapt to algorithm updates and shifting industry landscapes? Look for a forward-thinking mindset and a willingness to experiment.
Assess their cultural fit: Do they align with your company's values and work style? Can they collaborate effectively with diverse teams and build strong relationships? Look for someone who complements your existing team dynamic.

Remember: The interview is a two-way street. Use the opportunity to assess not just their skills, but also if they are a good fit for your company culture and long-term goals. By going deeper than just technical knowledge, you'll identify the perfect SEO talent to elevate your digital presence.

My strategy that changed my recruitment game & helped me find top-notch SEO talent.

The Critical Issue: Clearly outline a specific issue they'll encounter. Explain its significance and methods for identification. Support with relevant industry studies.
Crafting the Solution: Based on thorough technical and search audits, what improvements do they propose?
Effort & Impact: Estimate the time and resource investment required from your engineers for implementation. Quantify the expected positive impact – improved rankings, increased traffic, conversions, or even future adaptability.
Adaptability & Refinement: Explain how they'll monitor progress and adjust strategies if outcomes deviate. Discuss their openness to experimentation and rapid learning.
Competitive Edge: Leverage their expertise to uncover data-driven insights into competitor successes. Explore how these learnings can fuel your own growth.
Prioritization & ROI: Engage them in prioritizing tasks based on short-term wins and long-term gains. Identify impactful, yet readily achievable actions, alongside strategic investments for sustained benefits.

Bonus Tip: Still Unsure About Conducting SEO Interviews? Many leaders lack the in-depth knowledge required. Allow me, as a seasoned SEO professional, to assist you in identifying the ideal candidate to elevate your digital presence. I hope you found these suggestions valuable. Remember, building your SEO knowledge is key to making informed decisions. If you're hungry for more,

join our vibrant Slack community! Connect with like-minded professionals, ask questions, and dive deeper into the world of SEO.

Unlocking Mr. Beast's Viral Formula to reach 140M YouTube subscribers!!

2023-04-05T02:39:00.001+05:30

MrBeast is an American YouTuber, philanthropist, and entrepreneur known for creating outrageous content. As of 1st April 2023, Mr. Beast had more than 140 million YouTube subscribers, making him one of the most popular creators.

He has achieved incredible success in a relatively short time by leveraging social media and online platforms, which makes his success important to study.

But how this all happen very quickly? (early mover advantage):

Mr. Beast became a worldwide sensation with his video based on Squid Game, The video went viral, garnering millions of views and generating a huge buzz on social media, which helped him to expand his reach and become an early mover in the entertainment industry.

Mr. Beast's success can also be attributed to his willingness to take risks and experiment with new ideas. This allowed him to stay ahead of the curve and become an early mover in the entertainment industry, which has helped him to achieve incredible success in a relatively short period of time.

Furthermore, Mr. Beast's success has enabled him to diversify his business interests beyond YouTube and into other areas of the entertainment industry. He has launched his own mobile game development company, invested in a burger chain, and even created his own social media platform. This demonstrates his ability to recognize opportunities and capitalize on them, further cementing his position as an early mover in the entertainment industry.

What is the formula of Mr.Beast success?

Six year ago he published one video called "I Counted To 100,000!" and this video took 6 months to goes viral.

It’s generated 24 million views. But why?

In the video, all he does is actually count to 100,000.

It’s something we can all do and yes, that’s all there is in the 24-hour long video.

Mr Beast counting out loud.

You’d be excused for thinking that humanity has lost the plot.

The thing is, Mr Beast has tapped into the power of effective messaging.

For communication to cut through the noise and be effective, generally it must possess one or several of these elements:

Expense
Absurdity
Illogicality
Extravagance
Scarcity
Humour

And that’s the fuel behind almost all of his videos.

So, What is the secrets???

The Video's Title are Secret success formula of Mr Beast.

Here are the titles of Mr Beast's most popular videos:

$456,000 Squid Game In Real Life!
Last To Leave Circle Wins $500,000
I Spent 50 Hours In Solitary Confinement
Press This Button To Win $100,000!
Anything You Can Fit In The Circle I’ll Pay For
Would You Sit In Snakes For $10,000?
I Ate A $70,000 Golden Pizza
Last To Leave $800,000 Island Keeps It
$1 vs $1,000,000 Hotel Room!

But what's the secret in it? I can ask ChatGPT to create it???

The thing that grabs the attention of the viewer is that every title and video subject makes, these titles are wrapped around a series of core frameworks he seems to use all of the time.

1. High Stakes Content

"Last to leave $800,000 Island keeps it"
"Last to fall wins $100,000 dollars"

2. Giving Content

"I broke into a house and left $50,000"
"Giving 10,000 Presents to Kids for Christmas"

3. Survival Content

"Surviving 24 Hours Straight In A Desert"
"Surviving 24 Hours Straight In A Rainforest"

4. "I Did" Content

"I Spent $30,000 On Lottery Tickets And Won"
"I Ate $100,000 Golden Ice Cream"

But there’s more to this than just titling these videos create a cycle of continued viewership, and it’s all around the type of content he creates.

How you can do that?,

Similarly how I did on this Article.

Step 1: Spend your time on platform's(where you want to share your content) trending section

Step 2: Have a Title That Makes People Say "What the ####, Tell Me More"

Step 3: Have Custom Images

Step 4: Make the Content Entertaining from the First Scan

Hope this helps to beat the Mr.Beast 😄

India's Top 10 Trending Topics During 2022

2023-01-01T13:05:00.001+05:30

Discover the most searched and trending keywords on Google Trends for news, sports, technology, business, entertainment, and world current affairs.

A report by Google called "Year In Search 2022" highlights what made people buzz this year and got the most searches. Search trends in India have changed a lot, according to the list, which is released every year. The trending search list in 2021 was more about entertainment, games and other topics than Coronavirus-related queries.

Top 10 People Searched on Google

The most searched personalities in India in 2022 included suspended BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma, who bagged the first spot. She was followed by President of India Droupadi Murmu, new United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and Lalit Modi.

1 Nupur Sharma
2 Droupadi Murmu
3 Rishi Sunak
4 Lalit Modi
5 Sushmita Sen
6 Anjali Arora
7 Abdu Rozik
8 Eknath Shinde
9 Pravin Tambe
10 Amber Heard

Top 10 "What is" Searches

In 2022, Indians appeared more curious about the newly introduced Agneepath scheme for defence aspirants, NATO (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization), and NFT (non-fungible token) while ‘What is black fungus' was the most searched query last year.

1 What is Agneepath Scheme

2 What is NATO
3 What is NFT
4 What is PFI
5 What is the square root of 4
6 What is surrogacy
7 What is solar eclipse
8 What is Article 370
9 What is metaverse
10 What is myositis

Top 10 News on Google

1 Lata Mangeshkar passing

2 Sidhu Moose Wala passing
3 Russia Ukraine war
4 UP Election results
5 Covid-19 cases in India
6 Shane Warne passing
7 Queen Elizabeth passing
8 KK passing
9 Har Ghar Tiranga
10 Bappi Lahiri passing

Top 10 "How to" Queries asked by Indians

1 How to download vaccination certificate

2 How to download PTRC challan
3 How to drink Pornstar martini
4 ई श्रमिक कार्ड कैसे बनाएं (How to make an e-SHRAM card)
5 How to stop motions during pregnancy
6 How to link voter ID with Aadhaar
7 How to make banana bread
8 How to file ITR online
9 How to write Hindi text on image
10 How to play Wordle

Top 10 Recipes Searched on Google

In fact, paneer dishes topped not only Google's 2022 year-end list, but also the list for most searched food recipes in India.

Paneer Pasanda is an oh-so-yummy recipe of shallow-fried stuffed paneer in a rich tomato and onion gravy. Indians also searched for Pornstar Martinis (cocktails), Modaks, Chicken Soup, and Pizza Margherita.

1 पनीर पसंदा (Paneer Pasanda)
2 Modak
3 Sex on the beach
4 Chicken soup
5 मलाई कोफ्ते (Malai Kofta)
6 Pornstar martini
7 Pizza Margherita
8 Pancake
9 पनीर भुर्जी (Paneer Burji)
10 Anarse

I hope this helps you understand how users behave and what they search for.

Things to know in SEO during 2022

2022-12-16T18:08:00.008+05:30

This is my last post of the year 2022. I'm glad to have started my newsletter in this year and am able to connect with 6000+ LinkedIn users. It's been 7 months since I started it. I hope you all get something from it, since I discovered a lot of things during the making of this newsletter, which I discussed in a previous post.

You can also subscribe my SEO newsletter.

When I started my journey, there was no one who helped me learn more about SEO - I had to do it myself. I do lots of research and discussion in the SEO community and then share things that might help you in your work.

In order to summarize the whole year, I plan to provide some information or topic names in a few sections.

My top 10 LinkedIn post from 2022

SEO community discussed these topics a lot in 2022

IndexNow (or Something Similar)
Take Note of MUM to Improve Your Rankings
Passage Indexing
Core Web Vitals
User + Search Intent = Helpful Content
Localization of SEO
Video SEO Gets Two Dedicated Structured Data
Customer Analytics, Retention & Lifetime Value
Brand SERP Optimization, Knowledge Graphs & Entities
All SEO Is Mobile SEO
Assess, Adapt & Execute
More Automation
SERP Layout & Functionality Changes
Long-Form Content
SEO Scalability

SEOs or marketers should know these things in 2023

In 2022, SEO will be worth more than $50 billion.
All websites receive 53% of their traffic from organic sources.
Brands with dedicated blogs receive 55% more traffic than those without.
The first page of Google's search results is the only page most people see.
The closing rate of leads generated by SEO is 15%.
On average, Google's #1 search result gets 32% of clicks.
Average word count for the #1 page is 1500 words.
SEO is the best ROI generator for nearly half of businesses.
Paid advertisements are ignored by 86% of people.
Smartphones account for more than half (55%) of global internet traffic.
There are fewer than 10 searches per month for 92% of keywords.
There are 25% of small business websites without an H1 tag.
Semrush and Ahrefs are the two most popular SEO tools globally.
53% of consumers in the U.S.A. claim that they research products using a search engine before making a purchase decision.
Approximately 60% of Google's first page results have been around for more than three years
Rank Brain, Backlinks, and Content are the three most important factors that determine a page's ranking on Google, according to Andrey Lipattsev (Ex Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google).
About 18% of searchers type a new query before clicking any of the results in their original search.
25% of businesses spend on mobile optimization as a top technical SEO strategy.
Almost 75% of Google advertising was 3 to 5 words in 2022, while more than 50% of searches were 1 to 2 words. This is sure to make its way into 2023 as well.
Google’s core update in may 2022 led to growth in traffic on websites with AI-generated content.
If a product appears many times in SERPs, half of the users are more likely to click on it.
In general, blog posts with seven or fewer words in their H1 tag receive 36% more organic traffic than those with fourteen or more.
1.1 billion mobile phone users worldwide will use voice search technology weekly by 2020.
Google picture results have an average click-through rate of 0.21 percent. In addition, this rate varies greatly by industry.
Click-Through Rates increase by 2 to 3 times when brands are connected.
Similar to Voice Search, Artificial intelligence will play a huge role in SEO.
Content in Long-form and Videos in Short form are the way for the future.
According to a recent study by the digital information world, nearly 49% of searches now use Google's "People also ask" feature.
Keeping users on your website is equally important. Make sure it's engaging and intuitive. Be sure to make your website mobile-friendly.
Most of the time YMYL sites got hit by google updates
LinkedIn has become a popular social network for SEO professionals
A lot of experienced SEOs love to share their stories through newsletters
SEO becomes 21 year old now

Sources: Oberlo, Backlinko, Google, Internet Live Stats, StatCounter, Semrush, WordStrea, Search Engine Journal, Stan Ventures, Hubspot, Ahrefs, Demandsage, Think With Google, Zero Web Limit, SEO Tribunal, 99signals, & exploding topics.

Top 12 Most Influential People In SEO - SEO Beginners

You just seen broad overview of SEO in 2022 and how it will be in 2023.

Thanks for reading this, I am also planning to create what things we can expect in SEO in 2023. What do you think about it?

Have something you’d like us to discuss? Send me a note on Twitter, LinkedIn or to my email: me@mithileshjoshi.com.

The whole fuss about G's Helpful Content Update

2022-08-25T09:44:00.016+05:30

Yes, after trying to gather information from various platforms which can actually be useful for the update of helpful content for a week, finally it's done. 😷

So, first of all

What is Google's Helpful Content about?

The new helpful content update sounds like a big deal.

Google has given us a list of questions to consider to determine whether our sites are designed to help people, or rather, created to do well on search engines.

On Google's Official Blog you can read a lot about it.

When will Google’s helpful content update launch?

The update will start rolling out next week. The helpful content update will take up to two weeks to fully roll out, Google said.

We will post a new story when it begins rolling out and when it is completed here on SEO Charger. Google will also post on its updates page when it launches and when it is done rolling out.

Will the helpful content update be as big as Panda, Penguin or Florida?

We don’t know yet how big Google’s helpful content update will be. But we know it will have a “meaningful” impact when it hits.

But according to Barry Schwartz has compared it to Panda from 2011.

But just as a quick reminder or in case you weren’t working in SEO a decade or longer ago those updates did a lot of damage.

For those on the losing end, traffic vanished overnight. People lost their jobs. Businesses shut down. It was serious. It was estimated that Panda had a $1 billion impact.

On the other side, it’s quite possible the helpful content update will be more like past pre-announced updates (think: Mobilegeddon, which was anything but apocalyptic for most websites, or the Page Experience Update, which got tons of hype but was basically an insignificant update).

Is it a penalty?

Google is careful in its wording regarding whether this is a penalty.

It’s not a manual action. You won’t see it listed in Google Search Console. It’s not a spam action.

We are to call it a “signal”. This is one of the many ranking signals Google describes in their documentation on How Search Works.

If that signal is applied to your site, it likely will feel like a penalty.

It sounds like the helpful content classifier will have a similar effect in that sites affected will suffer some degree of sitewide ranking suppression and eventually can have that suppression lifted. But there are some significant differences:

The helpful content classifier runs in real-time, continually. This means that new sites created just for SEO should have the signal applied right from the start. Also, existing sites can be affected when the amount of content created for SEO purposes exceeds a threshold.

Sites will be impacted over the course of a few months and to different degrees depending on the amount of unhelpful content found. Google won’t run specific updates during which sites recover. Rather, if the classifier determines that content has changed to now be deemed helpful to searchers and has remained that way for a few months, the weight of the deranking signal will be reduced or even lifted.

What is people-first content?

By answering the questions proposed by Google honestly, you can determine if you have people-first content.

What to do in simple language?

What follows is all the guidance and questions Google has provided to assess whether your content is helpful, around the helpful content (HCU), product review (PRU), core (CU) and Panda updates (PU).

What can you do to avoid getting penalized by these updates?

Just understand the basics very clearly. and what is it?

Understand the intent.

There are the classic search intents you likely know (informational, navigational, transactional).

4 new moments every marketer should know

But also several micro-intents you should think about when creating content.

I want to know. People searching for information or inspiration.
I want to go. People searching for a product or service in their area.
I want to do. People searching for how-tos.
I want to buy. People who are ready to make a purchase

The QRG breaks down user intent into these categories:

Know query: To find information on a topic. Some of which are Know Simple queries (i.e., queries that have a specific answer, like a fact, diagram, etc.)
Do query: When the user is trying to accomplish a goal or engage in an activity.
Website query: When the user is looking for a specific website or webpage
Visit-in-person query: Some of which are looking for a specific business or organization, some of which are looking for a category of businesses.
Additionally, search behavior is driven by six needs, according to a 2019 Think With Google article:
Surprise Me: Search is fun and entertaining. It is extensive with many unique iterations.
Thrill Me: Search is a quick adventure to find new things. It is brief, with just a few words and minimal back-button use.
Impress Me: Search is about influencing and winning. It is laser-focused, using specific phrases.
Educate Me: Search is about competence and control. It is thorough: reviews, ratings, comparisons, etc.
Reassure Me: Search is about simplicity, comfort, and trust. It is uncomplicated and more likely to include questions.
Help Me: Search is about connecting and practicality. It is to-the-point, and more likely to mention family or location.

Why do I care?

Google’s helpful content update will likely be a significant update that SEOs will look back at as the catalyst of change in terms of the advice SEOs gives clients when building content.

Granted, it is too soon to tell how large of an impact this update will have on Google’s search results, your site, or your clients’ sites.

As the update rolls out, make sure to watch your analytics and, if necessary, reevaluate your content strategy around the advice Google has provided above.

There's always a new thing that comes your way. We need time to understand new changes that are it.

I suggest doing the below things for this update.

Watch and wait.

Don't get panic over other SEO's discussions

Don't get FOMOs

Don't take any quick dicisons

Don't think like this is the END.

Observe everything on your site.

Update - The rollout was complete as of September 9, 2022.

I’ll continue to report on all the latest developments around the helpful content update.

Get the monthly newsletter search marketers to rely on.

"EXPLORE" is now seen on Google's search result pages in the US

2022-07-21T01:30:00.006+05:30

Google is always updating its search engine results pages. There is now a new SERP feature called "Explore" that is being discovered by many members of the community.

As this article is published, it is mostly seen in the USA.

What is Explore on SERP?

It is shown at the bottom of the SERP for the query and has a lot of content, almost like Google Search and Discover combined.

It also feels like a new age pintrest with web stories.

How can I see those results?

If you are in the USA you can use queries like "Artificial intelligent", "Oprah Winfrey", "best SEO blogger", and "MLB all star game".

As of now, I haven't found anything new in India. What have you found in your country?

Below is all videos that shows how new explore version is looking like.

OMG, I'm finally back in the test. I see EXPLORE again. It shows up at the end of the SERP for the query and it's visual, contains a boatload of content, and almost looks like the combination of Search and Discover (as noted by @lilyraynyc). I'm keeping the test window open. :) pic.twitter.com/TLgweDheCM
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) July 20, 2022

I'll leave you with this final video of Explore based on a search for "best seo bloggers". I think Google's Explore algo ran out of ideas. Watch the progress (and categories) as I enter Explore and scroll down. Wow. :) pic.twitter.com/BomYOKNRM7
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) July 20, 2022

I wasn't surfacing Explore when searching for people, but then one did surface for Oprah. So it appears Explore is showing up for at least celebrities, I'll keep trying others. Also, Explore has only shown up when there are Short Videos present. Just an observation. :) pic.twitter.com/yofJsTLLBX
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) July 20, 2022

And here's one for @MordyOberstein based on a search for the MLB all star game (which was last night). Explore is wild... I wonder if this will ever fully roll out. Time will tell. Again, I'm keeping that test window open. pic.twitter.com/BevJUzCQUz
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) July 20, 2022

Is it official by google?

There is no official statement shared by google yet.

Can I optimize my content for the new Explore section?

We don't know what optimization is being used and how to get our site over there, so we do not know how those results are appearing.

Here are tweeter threads by @glennglabe who found this a few hours back.

We will update if we find anything new regarding Google's new Explore section.

Crucial 15 Soft Skills You'll Need for Your SEO Career

2022-06-06T07:57:00.000+05:30

Greetings SEOs.

Today I will talk about some of the most crucial soft skills when working with other teams within an organization.

I have worked for both agencies and in-house teams.

It is quite difficult to be an SEO in a new company if you don't have some of the basic soft skills that make your work easier.

Having worked in small and large companies, and agencies and talked with seniors in the industry, I have developed these kinds of skills.

Here is the list to check out.

1. Relationships
2. Know Your Developers and Engineers
3. You have to Sell Your Projects

4. Make Quick Wins First

5. Initiate Big Steps After Quick Wins

6. Show Value

7. Play With Analytical Skills

8. Establish an SEO Process/ Guides

9. Show Team Visibility

10. Develop Roadmaps

11. Pick Your Battles Wisely

12. Stop What Doesn’t Add Value

13. SEOs Are Strategic Partners Not A Simple Optimizer

14. Make Other People The Heros

15. Never forget to Appreciate or Respect Others’ Craft

Let's check in detail what I want to share with you.

1. Relationships

The very first skill that I feel is extremely important, especially when you join any company, is you need to build relationships.

Jira tickets are amazing, and emails work really well, but the personal relationship is really what gets your stuff done.

Try just not to limit your communications to emails. It's not enough.

You need to put the face to the email...talk to them in person, and have coffee.

There should have been an agenda when you meet with people, but get to know them, identify the major stakeholders in your company and meet with them.

Relationships get your stuff prioritized and get your stuff worked on by other teams.

If you know the stakeholders on product or development or business side of finance and so on, these kinds of relationships, you can take your projects, the big initiatives directly to the stakeholders and sell your projects there.

And if you're able to sell it to the stakeholder, it gets way easier to get your stuff up in the queue and get it done.

I usually start with individual meetings with the leads of the different teams and then through them I would ask is it okay to present to your team a quick 30 minutes about...SEO and why is it important to the company?

That was my approach.

2. Know Your Developers and Engineers

Skill number two. The developers, the engineering teams, after you know the stakeholders, this is the second most important group usually in the company to know.

They can make or break your projects.

They are your best allies or your worst enemies.

Getting to know the development team, understanding their priorities, and understanding who works in what help you a lot.

The other thing also that's extremely important.

You need to have some technical background because you need to illustrate your projects, and give some technical information, especially with technical SEO and you also should be able to push back when it's appropriate.

Now, you shouldn't be coming up with a solution. They should figure out the solution, but you should know technical SEO or technical enough to push back and discuss the details of the project.

I would say 50% of the work, if not more, especially in big companies and legacy companies and legacy websites are technical work.

And three things I would say never tell your developers: never tell them it's easy. You have no clue if it's easy or not.

Yes, you can change it easily in WordPress, but guess what? Your company doesn't have WordPress and even if they have WordPress, it's highly customized. Respect their time, respect their craft.

Never ask a developer is it doable. Everything is doable. It's a matter of resources and how many hours and how many developers will be dedicated to that task. And never tell them how to solve the problem.

You'll come with the problem, the challenge that you have, and you come with the outcome. This is what we need.

Let them figure out the solution themselves because this is their job, how to solve these kinds of problems.

3. You have to Sell Your Projects

Now you need to start selling your projects. You join a company and you have a ton of projects, you have a 50 pages huge project, where do you go?

I would say instead of pushing your own project first...start aligning your goals with the company's goals.

If the company's focused on, let's say for the next quarter on commerce and/or certain seasonal content or whatever, start creating projects for the company, major initiatives.

This will get your project easier into the queue because your project is servicing the company's goals.

Also, another way to do this is you find a sponsor, which now you're connected to all the stakeholders.

You know people on PR, you know people on development, on the product, you know people in different businesses within your company.

There are two easy ways to get your projects done figuring out what are the company goals and figuring out what type of projects I can help different stakeholders within the company.

4. Make Quick Wins First

When you first start in a company, the first three to six months are very important to establish a newer authority and to establish your reputation within the company.

I would recommend not to start with major big projects like the 50 pages project I mentioned.

Focus on low-hanging fruits, quick wins.

If you establish a series of quick wins, people will know that you are a guy or girl that can give these kinds of projects and they have a high impact with a little bit of effort and we see results.

5. Initiate Big Steps After Quick Wins

Then after you establish your reputation in the first three, six months and no massive projects there, unless it's like a real indexation issue or a big issue or a revenue issue, you start focusing on big projects.

These are like your own SEO projects that are important for the company.

I will break big projects into small projects.

Maybe a big 50 pages project can be broken into four or five projects or four or five phases that are consumable.

And again, focus on the quick wins out of these phased projects.

6. Show Value

Everything you do, you need to show value especially when it comes to the quick wins early on in the company.

You need either to provide dollar signs or whatever the currency is, provide dollar signs next to the impact that you project for your project or provide KPIs or both.

Let's say your company is advanced, they have a unified KPI within the organization, time spent or sessions per user, or whatever the KPI is.

Then your projects need to show impact in these kinds of terms.

7. Play With Analytical Skills

Develop analytical skills. You should be able to figure out the impact of your projects, and document a log of all the things that you guys worked on.

You can add these notes directly to Google Analytics.

I think SEMrush allows you to add notes as well.

Add them to Google sheets.

Now it's way easier than it used to be before.

There are so many connectors to Google sheets.

Google Sheets become my favorite SEO tool of all tools, to be honest with you.

There are API connections from all the different tools including SEMrush and any other tool.

If you're using their crawler or whatever, you can connect all your information.

Even Google search console, there is a between Google search console and Google sheets.

You can pull all the information into Google sheets and do deep dives and figure out the impact of the projects you're working on.

It's good if you know how to use business intelligence dashboards.

If you have some MySQL skills, that's awesome.

If you can use API calls and so on.

Analytical skills are very important because sometimes you have to show the value and there is no one else to help you to show the value of the work you do or they're so busy doing other stuff.

8. Establish an SEO Process/ Guides

You need to establish an SEO process.

If you work with a medium to a big size company, you need to figure out all the touchpoints of SEO with the different teams, how you can work with editorial teams, how you work with design teams, how you work with engineering or development teams, how you work with the product team and I would say in big companies, product teams are extremely important.

Work with each team to figure out all different touchpoints, and suggest a process.

9. Show Team Visibility

This is a big one.

You met the stakeholders, you know the people in the company and your work with different groups. You've got your low-hanging quick wins early on.

You send communication out.

Now you need to establish visibility and visibility here is not like going around and saying me, me, me or us, us, us, it's really like, how you can educate the company and communicate to the company the great work that you and your team are doing

When you first join a company, you should create a training series for different departments and different levels.

You should have some kind of C-level training if that may be tailored to that audience. Different training for products, different training for development teams, different training for design, and so on.

They will not take everything that you said in the training and remember it forever, but it's the seed that you plant there.

And then you can schedule annual training, right, but you establish the connection.

You should do a FAQ within the company, if you get the same question twice from two different people that should go into your team for sure.

Best practices, one-sheeters that you can distribute around and send it, some kind of a weekly newsletter or biweekly newsletter.

All of these are just ideas on how to establish your visibility within the company.

10. Develop Roadmaps

It's very important to understand what kind of projects you want to accomplish this year.

Don't just be like, "Hey, whatever comes our way. We will work on it."

I don't know if you're familiar with this, but if you have a bucket, put there your big rocks in the bucket and then fill all the small rocks.

This is how you get things done.

So “these are the top four projects that we want to work on this year”. And then everything else is more like small rocks.

Work with the content teams on content calendars, okay, these are the events that are coming during this year and are important for us, plan training, refreshers, plan technical audits for your company.

And then at the end of the year, evaluate your roadmap, which stuff was accomplished, which was not?

This can help you with the next year to be more realistic in your roadmaps.

11. Pick Your Battles Wisely

Don't have a fight over an H1.

Like, "Oh, wake him up, this is critical." Understand what's important and what's not important because you cannot be the blocker all the time.

Not everything is important.

If everything on SEO is a priority, nothing is a priority.

12. SEOs Are Strategic Partners Not A Simple Optimizer

We are strategic partners.

I cannot express this enough.

I hope no one gets offended.

But your job as an SEO is a strategic partner, not a keyword provider.

It's a part that you provide keywords and topics and so on, but it's bigger than that.

Understand the goals of the projects, understand the goals of your internal clients, and what they're trying to achieve.

And then give a completely holistic approach to SEO.

Keywords are just a part of it. It's not the main task that you work on. Avoid sending keywords, as I mentioned as just the main task for SEO.

13. Stop What Doesn’t Add Value

Big reports that no one reads, long emails that no one looks at.

Even try to understand your audience and how they read your emails or reports.

Someone completely into the content creation and wants to get more are they going to read every word that you write?

Someone on the executive level, they don't have time to read a five minutes email.

Even when you send a visibility email or a project results email, have an executive summary, three points on the top and then for more details, you can read the rest of the emails so they can read the part of the email and figure out what's the message.

14. Make Other People The Heros

Certainly, you are not the only person who does everything and gets results.

Even if you want to change the content or code, dozens of people need to be involved.

Make sure that you make other teams the hero.

When you communicate the results back, there is no SEO task I'm aware of, very few only require SEO resources.

You're always working with other teams, you're always working with content teams, and you're always working with developers or product teams.

Highlight their efforts and make sure that you give them big thanks because if it wasn't for their work, that SEO job will never see the sun.

This is going to get you far within the company, and people will want to work with you more if they see that credit is given back to them because they see that you appreciate their craft.

15. Never forget to Appreciate or Respect Others’ Craft

And last I would say, which is very important.

Respect others' craft. And I mentioned a couple of times we need respect for what we do. And we cannot gain respect unless we give respect to other teams.

People really work so hard to become a UX designers or a creator of amazing content.

You are not the guy who tells him how to write headlines, but how to make their headlines SEO-friendly.

There is a big difference between the two. You're not there to tell developers how to do their job, but how their code can be SEO friendly.

We are consultants, we give recommendations, and we respect other people's craft.

This is what is going to get us, get you further.

And last as a bonus.

I think being a good person within a company or an organization or in society or wherever, be genuine, approachable, and humble.

People will want to work with you.

Help others, extend a hand, share your knowledge, and always be open to learning something new.

We have so much on Technical SEO, Content SEO, and everything SEO but so little on the soft skills that make in-house SEO teams successful in their companies regardless of small or big.

That's it. I hope you guys enjoyed it.

Final Thoughts on Google Marketing Live - May 2022

2022-05-25T04:30:00.091+05:30

Google Marketing Live kicked off yesterday with a keynote speech, during which several changes and additions to Google Ads were unveiled.

The majority of the talk focused on video ad upgrades, automation, and a glimpse of future technologies.

The issue is that Google's list of changes appears to be becoming longer by the year, making it more difficult to determine what is truly important.

That's why I built the helpful summary to assist you to figure out what changes or preparations you need to make.

Here’s everything marketers and advertisers need to know from Google Marketing Live May 2022.

As I just mentioned, there were lots of small features, developments, betas, and tools tossed about in this year’s event, but they can be grouped into four core categories:

Google Shopping updates - May 2022

This year, there was a lot of talk about "inspiration," "ideas," "immersive," and "intuitive" when it came to the Google Shopping experience.

I'll leave it at that, but here are the key shopping improvements that matter to e-commerce firms.

Checkout on Merchant: Shoppers will soon be able to checkout directly from a listing, which will bring them to the checkout page on the advertiser’s site. This is starting with Shopify and Walmart and will expand to other partners and retailers in the future.

Immersive Shopping Experience: For apparel, there will be a “powerful, swipeable, visual feed” rolling out just in time for the holiday season. Organic results and Shopping ads using rich images and descriptions will be blended in the SERP and users can also swipe up on an ad to see more product detail.

3D AR Shopping Experience: We will also soon be able to view 3D models of products right in Search results.

Product Improvement Recommendations: This tab within Google Ads will allow retailers to not just optimize their campaigns, but their individual products. It will detect and diagnose issues with your products like missing information, insufficient bidding, and more.

Video Ads Updates - May 2022

More Ads In YouTube Shorts: Video action campaigns and App campaigns are now rolling out on YouTube Shorts worldwide. Later this year, product feeds will start showing up on YouTube Shorts, making video ads more shoppable.

Video Ads In Google Discover: Google is exploring ways to bring short video ads to Discover, which would fit in seamlessly with organic content.

Display & Video 360 Connected TV Campaigns: Soon you’ll be able to utilize Display & Video 360 to create connected TV campaigns to reach affinity, in-market, and demographic audiences across YouTube and other ad-supported connected TV apps.

Reporting updates - May 2022

Conversion modeling updates: Improvements in conversion modeling include supporting more browsers, enhanced conversions integrations with HubSpot, Tealium, and other platforms, on-device conversion measurement, and a lead funnel report to see how your qualified and converted leads are performing.

Simplified tagging: One Google tag will replace the Global Site Tag for all Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts. Manage tags centrally without additional code.

GA4 new Home experience: Google Analytics 4, which is set to replace Universal Analytics next year, will soon have a new Home dashboard that automatically uncovers insights and predictions based on where your audience members are in their journey.

Advancements In Automation Updates - May 2022

Performance Max Campaigns: A series of updates to Performance Max campaigns are rolling out throughout the remainder of the year. They include:

YouTube video creation in 60 seconds
A/B testing
Expanded campaign management support in Search Ads 360 and the Google Ads mobile app
Ability to optimize for in-store sales
New performance data such as attribution, audience and auction insights
Optimization score and recommendations

Updates To Insights Page: Google is rolling out three new reports to the Insights Page over the coming months. They include:

Attribution Insights: See how your ads work together across Google surfaces.
Budget Insights: Find new opportunities for budget optimization.
Audience Insights: See show how your customer segments are driving campaign performance.

Improvements To Responsive Search Ads:

Google is rolling out automatically created assets to responsive search ads later this year, which is designed to improve ad relevance.
This feature generates assets automatically based on content from landing pages and existing ad units.
Should you choose to opt-in, Google Ads will display the best performing combination of provided assets and automatically created assets.

Mobile-First Layouts For Responsive Display Ads: All-new, mobile-first layouts will allow you to showcase your brand on full-screen vertical ad inventory. In addition, Google is introducing scrollable ads and videos based on your product feed.

All New Asset Library: A new account-level Asset Library can be used to store all your digital creative assets. Soon you’ll have the option to create video ads using YouTube-optimized templates.

Expansion Of Optimization Score: Google Ads’ Optimization Score is expanding to cover every campaign type for advertisers around the world.

So what are my thoughts on Google Marketing Live event?

So this major changes and updates are related to the e-commerce sector majorly.

The weird part is now google product feeds will appear on YouTube shorts. So, it's obvious that YouTube will push hard on Shorts.

Another thing that is a bit weird to me is "Google Checkout" now you can add to cart directly from the SERP

I can list several eComm/eTail partners have their flavor of integration for this today, the reach of Google will speed up consumers familiarity and adoption.

The key thing to remember about the Shopify app for Google Shopping is that it DOES make syncing to GMC easy… as your product data currently resides. It does NOT make any sort of feed optimizations simplistic. Really important distinction.

The important thing is "Performance Max campaigns", released last year, are Google’s latest pride and joy.

I’ll let you decide if Performance Max is right for you or not, but as a reminder, this campaign type allows you to advertise across all of Google’s properties with a single campaign.

And G is making Performance Max stronger with automation and giving chance to play around with it.

Basically now we are going to see more struggle on organic side due to all facilities people can easily pay money to get money from google.

All SEOs have to buckle up their strategy to beat paid marketing :)

Hope this helps you to summarise what happened in GML 2022.

Resources

https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/display-video-360/

https://support.google.com/displayvideo/answer/6213232

https://support.google.com/displayvideo/answer/6071542

https://blog.google/products/marketingplatform/360/dv360-google-audience-ctv

https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/performance-max/

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/12158560

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/10256472

Best Settings for Screaming Frog works for almost all kind of Site Audits

2022-05-05T01:03:00.006+05:30

In my opinion, Screaming Frog is the most used SEO tool in the industry.

On the official site, there is a lot of documentation about all the different settings, as there are a lot! There are a lot of guides on the different ways it can be used.

However, I have yet to come across a resource that outlines the ideal settings for performing entire site audits.

I've been training folks on how to use Screaming Frog since 2018, and I've seen that new users struggle to comprehend what the ideal settings are for performing audits.

Issues are frequently missed as a result of the default settings.

The default parameters provided upon installation are insufficient for doing a comprehensive audit and must be modified to achieve the best results.

I'm quite confident I've nailed the ideal settings for most site audits after using Screaming Frog since its inception in 2018.

This isn't a tutorial to every single setting in the tool; rather, it's just the ones I modify from the default.

So, for any options that aren't listed, I recommend sticking with the defaults.

Here are the some of the best bits from my experience:

1. Storage Mode.

If you have an SSD, use Database mode because:

It's continually saving to the database. If the Frog or your machine crashes the crawl is autosaved.
You can crawl much bigger sites than in RAM mode.

2. Memory Allocation.

Allocate as much RAM as you can, but always leave 2GB from your total RAM.

I have 16GB RAM, I’ll allocate 12GB.

3. Spider Settings Tabs - Crawl.

By default, there are 4 boxes unticked here that I tick

A. Tick "Pagination(Rel/Prev)"
There could be URLs only linked from deep paginated pages. Such as PDPs on ecommerce categories, or articles on a publishers site. We don't want to miss any pages, so tick this.

B. Tick "Href lang".
The alternate version of URLs may not be linked in the HTML body of the page, only in the href lang tags. We want to discover all URLs and be able to audit multilingual/local setups, so tick this.

C. Tick "AMP."

A site could also be using AMP, but you might not realise it.
The Frog checks for lots of AMP issues!

4. Spider Settings Tabs - Crawl Behaviour:

By default, there are 4 boxes unticked here that I tick (Green ticks):

A. Tick "Crawl All Subdomains"
Leaving this unticked won’t crawl any subdomains the Frog my encounter linked. I always have this ticked, because if I’m doing a complete audit of a site, I also want to know about any subdomains there are.

B. Tick Follow Internal “nofollow”.

I want to discover as many URLs as possible
I want to know if a site is using ”nofollow” so I can investigate & understand why they are using it on internal links.

C. Tick "Follow External “nofollow”.

I want the Frog to crawl all possible URLs.
Otherwise I might miss external URLs which are 404s, miss discovering pages that are participating in link spam or have been hacked.

5. Spider Settings Tabs - XML Sitemaps.

By default all 3 options in this section are unticked, I tick them all:

A. Tick "Crawl Linked XML Sitemaps."

Check if all important pages are included in sitemaps
Check only valid pages are included. No 404s, redirects, noindexed, canonicalised URLs.
Discover any URLs that are linked in XML Sitemaps but aren't linked on the site (orphan pages)

B. Tick "Auto Discover XML Sitemaps via robots.txt"

As many sites include a link to their XML sitemaps in robots, it’s a no brainer to click this, so you don’t have to manually add the Sitemap URL.

C. Tick "Crawl These Sitemaps."

Submit any you know about that aren't listed in the robots.txt

6. Extraction Tab Settings Tab - Page Details

By default, all these elements are ticked and that’s how I recommend you keep them for most audits.

7. Extraction Tab Settings Tab - URL Details

I tick one option here over the default settings:
Tick "HTTP Headers."
Lots of interesting things can be in the headers.
e.g If a site uses dynamic content serving for desktop vs mobile, it should use the Vary HTTP Header.

8. Extraction Tab Settings Tab - Structured Data

All the elements in this section are unticked by default, I tick them all:

JSON-LD
Microdata
RDFa

I tick all of the above options, so I can fully audit the schema of the site, no matter how it’s implemented.

Tick "Schema org Validation".

A great feature to check all schema validates against the official suggested implementation.

Tick "Google Rich Results Feature Validation."

Validates the mark-up against Google’s own documentation.

Select both options here, as Google has some specific requirements that aren’t included in the schema org guidelines.

9. Extraction Tab Settings Tab - Structured Data

Both the options in this section are unticked by default, I always tick them:

Tick "Store HTML.
The Frog will save the HTML for every page.
This is extremely useful for double-checking any elements Frog reports on.
Tick "Store Rendered HTML."
This is useful when auditing JavaScript sites to see the difference between the HTML code sent from the server and what is actually rendered client-side in the browser.

10. Limits Settings Tab.

Change "Max Redirects to Follow".

This is the only option I change for most crawls in this tab. It’s set to 5 by default, I set it to the max, 20. Setting the maximum helps me find the final destination in most redirect chains

11. Advanced Settings Tab.

In this settings tab, I tick and untick a few boxes from the default settings:

Untick "Ignore Non-indexable URLs for On-Page Filters".
Even if a URL is already non-indexable, I still want to see if there are issues with the page. There are often times where pages have been set to noindex or canonicalised, but this has been done in error.
Tick "Always Follow Redirects" & "Always Follow Canonicals"
I tick both of these, as I want to ensure the Frog discovers all URLs on the site. There could be URLs that aren’t linked in the HTML of the code but are only linked via a redirect, or a canonical tag.
Tick "Extract images from img srcset Attribute."
Google can crawl images implemented in the srcset attribute, so I tick this to ensure the Frog is extracting the same images Google would be. I can then check how they are optimised. (image file names, alt tags, size)
The following options are unticked by default and I also keep them that way.

These settings are quite important, so I’ll explain the reasoning behind keeping them unticked:

Respect Noindex
Respect Canonicals
Respect next/prev

As I want to get a full picture of all the URLs on the site, whether they are indexable or not, I don’t want to tick the options above.

If I did tick them, it means any URLs set to noindex, or canonicalised to a different URL, would not be reported in the Frog.

12. Content > Duplicates Settings:

Untick "Only Check Indexable Pages for Duplicates."

Even if pages are currently set to noindex, I still want to know if they are duplicating content, in case they should be set to index.

13. Robots.txt Settings:

Default setting here is: "Respect robots.txt"

I have this set to: "Ignore robots.txt but report status."

I can then audit the pages which are blocked, make sure they aren’t blocked in error & report if the URLs need to be removed from robots.txt

14. CDNs Settings:

This is very useful if a site uses a CDN for hosting images that is not part of the domain you are crawling.

e.g. cdn.not-your-domain.com/photos-of-cats…

You can add the domain above so Frog counts images on the other CDN domain as internal, then you can audit them.

User-Agent Settings:

Set this to Googlebot (Smart Phone) so we see the same code Googles does.

Sites may change things depending on the user agent.

It could be done for valid reasons, it could be done for black hat reasons, or because the site has been hacked.

15. API Access Settings:

Using API access, we can enrich the crawl data with traffic or backlink data. For two main reasons:

a. using GSC/GA data is another way to find orphan URLs.
b. Traffic data can help you prioritise the issues in your report

16. Saving Your Configuration!

Once you have everything set it up, it's time to save it. Otherwise, you will lose them on restart!
Go to file > Configuration > Save current configuration as default.

So, there you have it.

If you're a new user, I hope this information is helpful.

If you've been a long-time user, I hope you found my observations useful.

Please leave a remark whether you agree or disagree with my choices, or if you have any queries.

Mithilesh Joshi's Favorite Ways to Improve SEO Ranking

2022-04-21T02:27:00.000+05:30

Where is your website traffic coming from?

If you’re relying on people to find you through a Google search, search engine optimization (SEO) needs to be at the top of your priority list.

You won’t be able to generate leads for your business if nobody can find you.

Did you know 93% of experiences on the Internet start with a search engine? What happens after someone makes a search?

The top result on Google has a 33% chance of getting clicked.

That means if you’re not number one on the page, you just missed out on a third of potential traffic.

What’s even more astonishing is that 75% of people won’t even click on the second page of the search results.

The reason why other websites are ranking higher than you on Google is that they are making a conscious effort to improve their SEO.

Fortunately, it’s not too late for you to get started.

There are certain things you can do to increase your chances of getting ranked higher on Google searches.

I’ve identified the top ways to improve SEO ranking. Here they are.

👉 Improve your page loading speed

👉 Produce high-quality content

👉 Optimize your links

👉 Optimize your site for mobile devices

👉 Properly format your page

👉 Encourage sharing on social media

👉 Use keywords appropriately

👉 Create clean, focused, and optimized URLs

👉 Get your name out there

👉 Get set up on Google Business

👉 Use tools to outperform content marketing

Don’t get overwhelmed.

Start with a few, and move on to the others.

Monitor your results.

Checking your traffic and search ranking will help validate your SEO strategy.

Soon enough, you’ll be making your way toward the top search results on Google.

Who knows, you might even be able to claim that number one spot.

Connect with my Linkedin & Twitter channels to know more about SEO.

How to build SEO Friendly Landing page?

2022-03-23T19:25:00.002+05:30

Everyone in digital marketing has heard about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for websites.

But, did you know that just optimizing the website is not going to help you, instead you should focus on optimizing landing pages that can change the game.

In this article, I am going to share what is found is important to the user as an SEO Expert.

Remember one thing "Your landing pages have answers to the question, Not the whole website has to answer one question."

If you can do that users will reward you by becoming a subscriber or customer.

Let's start...

The most important thing to understand is to try to use search intent to inspire SEO-friendly landing pages.

What is search intent?

Search intent also known as keyword intent is the ultimate goal of the user who enters a query in a search engine to fulfill their requirements.

Types of search intent:

While every query has its unique intent, there are four basic ways to group search intent:

Informational: This serves information starts with "how-to" or "What is".
Commercial: This serves as something to do or buy with any kind of product.
Navigational: This serves steps or tutorials related to a specific brand.
Transactional: This serves purchase, lead generation, or downloading any files.

How To Determine Search Intent

The search intent of a particular query can be obvious when it includes words like “buy” and “now”

Other, less obvious queries can be uncovered by visiting the SERP page.

For example, if you have a website selling towels, your keyword research output should be grouped along these lines:

Towels, informational intent
Towels, commercial investigation
Towels, transactional intent

So if you’ve got three towels products that you sell, you’ll end up with nine groups of keywords (3 models x 3 search intents).

How to use search intent with landing page creation?

I have identified that there are two key landing pages for most of the use cases:

A page for Discovery: The Discovery page contains information that is already there on the internet.
A page for Creation: The creation page contains information provided by you for your products.

How to fulfill the demand for discovery & creation pages?

So, Here I found a few basic things that we should focus on to serve both kinds of users:

Step 1: Understanding the intent of the person using Google
Step 2: Develop a parent and child relationship for other landing pages
Step 3: Create a scalable landing page structure
Step 4: An investment in backlink outreach
Step 5: Creating a strong content culture
Step 6: Find the right questions and intents to answer through SERPs.
Step 7: Find existing opportunities through Google Search Console.
Step 8: Add true value for your users.

After all this list down all answers and create a landing page for your product.

Use your discover pages to interlink with the category and sub-category pages(Which are your Creation pages yours).
Replicate and re-create scalable landing pages that rank & convert the most.
Invest In personalized backlink outreach.
Always track and create landing pages in response to new demand.
Leveraging blog content to drive more results.
Don't forget to maximize the comparison Pages (informational intent).

I got this topic-related queries a lot in my DM I hope this will help you to build valuable SEO Friendly Landing Pages.

You can add your ideas in a comment to help others.

Contribution - MailModo - State of Email -2022

2022-01-24T10:31:00.005+05:30

Email marketing is arguably the best digital marketing strategy around.

It offers an easy and affordable way for marketers and businesses to get their products and services straight to their target audiences.
Small and large, all organizations from every industry benefit from email marketing campaigns because they know of its incredibly high ROI.

As an email marketer, you need a scientific look into the current email marketing trends and a data-driven evaluation of the future of email marketing to be on top of your game.

For this, people like me and the other 250+ email marketing industry experts, digital marketers, and subject matter experts get our insights on what the state of the email looks like in 2022.

With this report, you will be able to -

Learn from the collective experience of industry experts
Leverage what’s hot and trending in the email for better email campaigns
Deep dive and learn to resolve the most common yet significant mistakes committed by email marketers

If you are interested to read about this information pls show some love to our work by -> Click Me!!

Top 5 websites Making tools in 2022

2022-01-04T19:17:00.002+05:30

Nowadays, website building has turned into one of the major business processes in the digital marketing industry. Moreover, it has turned into a trendy career among youngsters. Nevertheless, it is impossible to learn using every photo editing tool.

So, here is the list of the five best website-building tools that can rule in 2022. This article can help you to understand the basics of the tools. Therefore, you can easily pick the appropriate tool to learn. Furthermore, if you run a website building firm, go through this article to choose a tool to incorporate into your business procedure.

Five best tools to make websites

When we say website building tool, we mean designing all kinds of websites. Well, most tools can provide you the convenience of making different types of websites, but there is always some variation. Here, you can go through how a tool can either be good or bad. Moreover, the critical features for each are also mentioned here. Take a look:

1. Square Online

Square Online is a widely acclaimed website-building tool previously known as Weebly. It has got its fame due to outstanding usability and a set of unique integrals. Consider Square Online as an appropriate tool if you are up for making simple business-related websites.

Another reason why Square Online has got a good customer base is due to its pricing. Even the free setup of this tool enables you to design a website with all accessories. Here are some benefits and drawbacks of Square Online:

Benefits

● Square Online can be best used for building an e-commerce website

● Excellently credible as a free website building tool

● Compatible with several integrations

● Square Online is best known as a user-friendly tool

Drawbacks

● Minimum Customization in terms of advanced features

● Square Online is not much beneficial for non-business users

2. Shopify Plus

Shopify plus is the leading website-making tool to design e-commerce websites. So, if you have a plan to sell commodities online, consider this tool as your best choice. It can also help you make a display advertisement for your site. Unfortunately, Shopify plus does not come with a free plan. However, the price plans of this tool are pretty affordable. You need to spend only $9 monthly to use Shopify. Charges for the other plans range upto $299. Moreover, there are additional charges for every add-on feature in Shopify plus. Check out the benefits and drawbacks of Shopify plus below:

Benefits

● Shopify plus comes with all e-commerce tools necessary for website building and handling

● The App Store of Shopify plus contains over 6,600 plugins

● Shopify plus is a dynamic tool that boosts up the website building process

● The tool is pretty user-friendly

Drawbacks

● Shopify plus has a prominent learning curve

● The drag-and-drop system is missing in the case of Shopify

3. Webflow

Many professional organizations use the Webflow tool for building different kinds of websites. However, if you are looking for a tool that allows extensive Customization, choose Webflow. Due to the ease of Customization, you can make both business and non-business websites on Webflow.

However, the only fact you must keep in mind is the learning curve of this tool. You might take much time to learn the handling process of Webflow. But, again, it can be easier if you have proper knowledge of CSS and HTML. It is a proper website-making tool.

As per the pricing of Webflow is concerned, you can either take the Site Plans or the Account Plans. In the case of simpler websites, the Site Plans package would be enough. It starts only at $12 monthly. On the other hand, the Account Plans start at $16. The E-commerce Plans of Webflow come in $79 monthly. So, you see, it is quite expensive. Now, take a look at the benefits and drawbacks of this tool:

Benefits

● Webflow provides total independence to the website builder in terms of Customization

● The CMS present in Webflow helps you make a specific approach to website building

● Several Youtube tutorials flatten the learning curve of Webflow

Drawbacks

● Building an e-commerce website with Webflow can be expensive

● People without the knowledge of HTML and CSS might not use it properly

4. Wix

The Wix website builder comes from the house of Market Share. Its UI might seem similar to a photo editing tool, but it is not. You can get a lot of freedom working on the Wix tool. It allows you to build all types of websites in a minimum time.

The Wix pricing structure is a bit complicated, and you need to visit its pricing page to understand it. For now, you can check the drawbacks and benefits of Wix.

Benefits

● Wix comes with the drag-and-drop system

● You can get a lot of themes in this tool

● A lot of apps and plugins are present in Wix

Drawbacks

● Wix comes with the issues of Bandwidth limits

● The learning curve can be a reason for tradeoffs

5. Squarespace

In 2022, you can learn using the Squarespace website. It can help you build both business and non-business websites. So, you can start your website designing firm.

Depending on the features, you can purchase Squarespace for only $12 to $40. A yearly plan is also available. Here are the benefits and drawbacks of Squarespace:

Benefits

● Squarespace comes with several templates and functionality

● It has proper business-marketing tools

● The drag-and-drop feature is present in the tool

Drawbacks

● The high learning curve of Squarespace

● All designers need technical knowledge

Final Words

As website designing has turned into a prominent career now, it is crucial to handle the best tool. Remember that knowing only a relevant tool fit for a professional field can lead you to success. So, be very picky regarding the tool you learn. However, you can choose one from this list as all tools mentioned here are modern and relevant in the professional field.

Disclaimer: Mithilesh Joshi and his team were not involved in creating this content. The group also takes no responsibility for this content.

5 Amazing Tactics To Get More Followers In Instagram

2022-01-03T20:59:00.010+05:30

Instagram has become an important foundation of several brands' social presence, which drive profitable traffic to the pages, as well as grow conversions and engage audiences.

If your instagram is not that popular as you think it is, then you might want to learn how to get more followers, by sharpening your strategy, check out social shaft. Remember the more audiences you gain the more opportunities will knock on your door. In this way you can easily engage with the users and will be able to build new experiences for them.

There are times when brands choose the easy way out in order to have more instagram followers. They choose to pay for likes,followers with the help of softwares like social shaft. But his shortcut does not help in the long run, as instagram changes its algorithm to remove low quality accounts.

The number of followers at the end of the day means nothing if it does not represent an engaged fan following, as it helps in purchasing and advocating your brands with your followers.

In this article I will be giving 5 effective tactics that will bring traffic to your instagram page. Read the article till the end to know!

1. Optimize The instagram Account

The first step, while you figure out how to gain more traffic to your instagram account, is to get your account fully optimized. You have to give a proper bio, image captions,username and a profile image. Go to imaginn. These are the common things one does when opening an account but on instagram it will give you a brand identity. The link in your bio is the main spot from where the traffic comes.

If you can’t figure out where to link then start marketing or product pages that help relating to certain keywords. Keep your username in a way that it becomes search friendly. It basically means sticking to your original brand name. If you think that your business name is longer, shorten it so that your audience can recognise it. Avoid adding characters and numerics to your username.

2. Schedule Instagram Posts

Since instagram algorithm change, for offering more content, posting the right thing at the right time can still bring traffic to your page. Your brand has a lot to do in increasing visibility. With a marketing tool such as smihub can help your brand schedule the contents in an effective way.

Scheduling contents in advance will let your team see campaigns, with which they can schedule more properly. It is always a smart choice to make contents with instagram scheduling tools. This helps you reach your audience and maintain your content simultaneously.

3. Dodge The Fake Accounts

There is a huge difference between an original instagram account and a fake account. Buying instagram followers is tempting but the backlash affects the perks of the organic followers. Fake instagram accounts have some traits that can easily let you recognise it. Read about social shaft.

● It deceives new followers. If users come to an account that has many followers but is inactive, it will lower the credibility. But trust and long relationships make better engagement.
● It has no ROI.People think that buying followers is easy, actually they seem that way but the unmanned new followers won't be buying anything. People have reasons to follow a brand on instagram, they keep track of your posts and your company which eventually brings monetary value to the business.
● Suppose you have 10,000 fake followers, how many of them comment, share and like your post do you think? More likely, the fake accounts will get deleted by instagram when they change their algorithm. It makes the posts engaging.

4. What Followers Want

It is easier said than done, what your followers want. As you go through your posts on instagram accounts you will see that some of your posts are performing better than the others. And this is the clue, for you to understand what your followers like.

Whatever you post, make sure you are aware of the new instagram trends, because even the smallest detail can make a difference. Keep your ears open and eyes wide.

To move a step further, invest in instagram analytics tools, as it helps to analyze, track and benchmark contents.

5. Find Hashtags

The tried and true way to get followers on instagram is through hashtags. Hashtags have always been an essential tool for discovery and it has led to extending social reach.It helps to reach your target audiences.

For starters, get hashtags that are not populated. Try to highlight your instagram contents in a crowd of millions of posts, in the form of pictures and videos. Let me warn you, it ain’t an easy job. You have to find the hashtags for people who you want to check your posts. If you are successful in making relevant posts then, people will follow your account. Branded hashtags is a way of grouping posts that circles around active posts of your brand and campaigns.

Wrapping It All Up

Here you go with all the 5 tactics that you need to apply in your instagram account for bringing traffic.

Social media platforms are very helpful when it comes to boosting your brand and company. Even the giant platform: Facebook, has limitations in allowing content, but instagram on the other hand is the best platform when it comes to promoting your business.

Leave a comment below in the comment section and share your experience with us, or you can add a tactic that you have discovered that helps in bringing traffic to your instagram account.

Author:- Rogen Rosenberger

Disclaimer: Mithilesh Joshi and his team were not involved in creating this content. The group also takes no responsibility for this content.

Google Rolling Out The Expandable Snippet Carousel - Unconfirmed

2021-12-03T23:30:00.005+05:30

Have you seen the below kind of results on search?

So Google is now showing a new type of results on SERP. This is not so new it's widely seen after 30 November 2021. But this experiment is seen on 24 August 2021 by Jon and several others on google.

Where Alexander noticed out that this feature comes from BING. (Tweet link if you want to recheck ;)

So this result is called "The Expandable Snippet Carousel" or "Bing snippet Carousel"

Right now this result is seen in Google's desktop search results only not on the mobile side.

Here is what it looks like with tabs in the snippet that you can click on to see a different description for the snippet:

Here are people who have seen these changes.

Don't know what this is result type, @rustybrick @JohnMu can you guys help me here? pic.twitter.com/frAl7rrVRo
— Mithilesh Joshi (@mithileshjoshii) December 3, 2021

Is it something new in SERP... I saw for the first time
it's coming in many results! Testing is ongoing!

cs: @rustybrick pic.twitter.com/ou46BfJIdJ
— Jason adams (@Jasonad61363146) November 30, 2021

Google's tabbed jump-to links test combined with rich results (based on Schema) can take up a lot of space. Here's what this can look like when both FAQ and How-to rich results are triggered. This test is out in force today, also spotted by @AkarshK10 & @foodieby_nature pic.twitter.com/sT3CpoD9MJ
— Brodie Clark (@brodieseo) November 30, 2021

There are lots of tweets that reported this to our one and only Barry Schwartz 😬 on Twitter, you can see here

If you want to know how to get your results like this let us know we will share with you the best possible way.

I hope this will help you to find your relevant query, if not you can always drop comments for more details or queries.

Till the next time, Keep Searching✌

Mithilesh Joshi - SEO & Growth Consultant

Google I/O + GML 2026: How SEO, Ads, and Marketing Teams Work Together in This New World (Part 3 of 3)

Google I/O + GML 2026: The Why Behind Every Shift — And What It Means Deeper Down (Part 2 of 3)

Why Part 2 Exists

Why Impressions Will Drop - Before Clicks Do

Why Thin Content Is Now Invisible - Not Just Low-Ranking

Why Information Agents Are a Bigger Deal Than Anyone Is Saying

Why UCP and AP2 Are Urgent for E-Commerce Right Now

Why Brand Authority Just Became a Hard Performance Signal

Why Google Is Building a Closed Loop - And Why That's the Real Story of I/O 2026

What's Coming in Part 3

Google I/O + GML 2026: What Every SEO, Advertiser & Marketer Needs to Do Right Now (Part 1 of 3)

Why I'm Writing This in Three Parts

Before Anything Else, The One Thing Everyone's Getting Wrong

🎯 For SEOs: What To Stop and Start

Stop Doing This

Start Doing This

Stop Doing This

Start Doing This

🛒 For E-commerce Teams: What To Stop and Start

Stop Doing This

Start Doing This

📊 For CMOs and Marketing Leaders: The One Framing You Need

What's Coming in Part 2

The Next 400 Million Aren’t a Market. They’re a Mindset Shift.

The new Indian consumer isn’t new. We just weren’t looking.

Middle Class 2.0 is aspirational, not rational.

So what does this mean for SEO, content, and digital strategy?

1. Search is no longer about “needs.” It’s about identity.

2. Personas are dead. Behavior is the new gold.

3. Aspirational content will win the next decade.

And this isn’t just an India story. It’s global.

Same shift. Different packaging.

So what should we do differently?

The Great SEO Loophole: How to Rank for Anything on Google

Step-by-step guide to ranking for anything on Google (seriously)

This isn’t smart SEO. It’s just Google being blind.

In a world of noise, trust is the only filter that matters. – Me (because sometimes we need to quote ourselves)

The Helpful Content Promise vs The Reality

But some folks still defend this.

❌ “If it satisfies the user, what’s the problem?”

❌ “They’re just educating users.”

❌ “How do you know they didn’t hire experts?”

❌ “It’s just marketing. Understand the user journey.”

Why this is bigger than just one brand

Why I’m sharing this now

If you’re facing this kind of competitor…

I’m not against growth. I’m against shortcuts.

At the END

Real SEO Warriors: Strugglers vs. The Corporate Climbers

The Successful SEOs: Talking Big, Ranking Big

The Strugglers: The Real Warriors of SEO

Final Thoughts

The 8-Year(2015-2024) Saga of Mobile Indexing: Google Flips the Phone

A Timeline for the Ages

More Than Just a Mobile Moment: Related Algorithm Updates

A Glimpse into the Crystal Ball: What's Next?

One thing's for sure:

The Future is Mobile (and Beyond)

Does Google Penalize AI Content?

Google Blacklist: Understanding What Google Instant Doesn't Like

What’s Off the Table?

Download whole list of Keywords are which are block from Google

What Escapes the Banhammer?

Download whole list of Keywords are not banned/ block by google

The Bottom Line

Beyond "The Man Who Killed Google Search": A Critical Look

Shifting Blame: From Individuals to Systems

Evolution vs. Stagnation: When Visions Diverge

Profitability and Progress: Can They Coexist?

Innovation Through Trial and Error: The Cost of Progress

Beyond Criticism: The Power of Proactive Solutions

Deconstructing Zitron's Claims: A Deeper Look

Innovation Beyond Imitation: A Broader View

Diversity in Leadership: Beyond Identity Politics

Focus on Solutions: Learning from Lily Ray

Moving Beyond Scapegoating: A Collaborative Approach

Key Questions for a Constructive Conversation

How can you hire SEO experts and agencies? By SEO Specialist

Step 1: Finding the Right SEO Fit: Small Team or Big Agency?

In a world of noise, trust is the only filter that matters.
– Me (because sometimes we need to quote ourselves)