Looking to take the next step in your search marketing career?

Below, you will find the latest SEO, PPC, and digital marketing jobs at brands and agencies. We also include positions from previous weeks that are still open.

Newest SEO Jobs

(Provided to Search Engine Land by SEOjobs.com)

• Digital PR Manager
  September 12, 2026
  Company: Siege MediaSalary: $80,000Location: Chicago, Illinois, United StatesDate posted: September 12, 2026 Siege Media is a full-service GEO agency specializing in SEO, content marketing, digital PR, analytics and affiliate marketing. We help some of the world’s most recognized brands grow visibility across traditional search and AI-driven discovery. We’re looking for a talented Digital PR Manager to help us deliver great […]
• Advertising/SEO Sales Representative
  September 12, 2026
  Company: DealerOnSalary: $68,500Location: Remote, United StatesDate posted: September 12, 2026 Job Description: The Managed Product Sales Director (MPSD) provides prospects and Sales team members with sales-based and technical demo and presentation support, conducts SEO/Advertising audits as requested, and customer solution engineering for large sales opportunities.  The MPSD also supports the development and acceleration of the pace of sales by providing […]
• SEO Specialist
  September 9, 2026
  Company: Honest DigitalSalary: $60,000 – 70,000 (USD)Location: Remote USDate posted: September 9, 2026Remote opportunity. U.S. based applicants only. If you’re looking for a place where you can sharpen your SEO skills, push your expertise to the next level, and work alongside a team that genuinely loves testing, learning, and winning, we’d love to meet you. Honest Digital is one of […]
• Senior SEO Lead
  September 9, 2026
  Company: Nationwide Transport ServicesSalary: $95,000 – $125,000 USDLocation: Remote USDate posted: September 9, 2026We are looking for a Senior SEO Lead to help lead organic search performance across a portfolio of established transportation and logistics websites. This is not a basic SEO role. We are looking for someone who can guide strategy, manage execution, identify growth opportunities, diagnose ranking losses, improve […]
• Senior SEO Specialist – B2B Saas
  September 7, 2026
  Company: AUQSalary: $1,300 – $1,500 per client per monthLocation: Remote USDate posted: September 7, 2026Job Summary: Contract / Part-Time SEO/GEO Specialist AUQ is an SEO/GEO agency that specializes in working with B2b SaaS companies, specifically highly technical companies like dev tools, ai tools, cloud services, fraud prevention software etc… we’re seeking an SEO/GEO specialist to join our team on a […]
• Organic Growth Strategist
  August 31, 2026
  Company: PrivateSalary: $90000–$95000Location: Remote USDate posted: August 31, 2026We are an organic growth agency that builds revenue-focused organic growth systems for B2B software companies — optimized for both search engines and generative AI. We pride ourselves on being lean, agile, and experimental. Our team thrives on R&D and innovation, always exploring the smartest ways to deliver exceptional results. We believe […]
• SEO Content Consultant | Online Redakteur (w/m/d)
  August 30, 2026
  Company: get on topLocation: Linz, Oberösterreich, AustriaDate posted: August 30, 2026 Jobbeschreibung Arbeitsort: Linz, Salzburg, Amstetten oder Wien – auch gerne ein hybrides Modell mit Home OfficeArbeitszeit: Flexibles Arbeiten in Voll- oder Teilzeit, kein All-in-VertragArbeitgeber: Hier erfährst du alles über get on top  “Content” ist dein halbes Leben und “Duden” ist dein zweiter Vorname? Du warst in deiner Schulzeit eine*r der wenigen, der*die sich auf die […]
• Senior Content Marketer, SEO
  August 30, 2026
  Company: AnimalzSalary: $70,000-$85,000 per year USDLocation: New York, New York, United StatesDate posted: August 30, 2026About Animalz Animalz is a content marketing agency that partners with B2B SaaS companies, venture capital firms, and other tech organizations to drive long-term, sustainable growth through high-quality content. Our fully remote team of experienced content marketers delivers strategies and content tailored to each customer’s […]
• Senior SEO Strategist
  August 28, 2026
  Company: Proven Marketing NowLocation: Remote WorldwideDate posted: August 28, 2026About PMNow PMNow (Proven Marketing Now) is a 20-person digital marketing agency. Since 2020, we’ve done one thing: get the phone ringing for home services businesses (plumbers, HVAC contractors, and electricians) across the United States. Our main services include Local SEO, website development, Google Ads, and social media management. We’re not […]
• Link Outreach and Directory Submissions
  August 26, 2026
  Company: FoundCiteSalary: USD 15-20 per hour, 5 to 10 hours per weekLocation: Remote WorldwideDate posted: August 26, 2026FoundCite measures how often AI assistants name a brand when buyers ask for a recommendation, then publishes the content that closes the gap. It is a new product with a real problem: zero referring domains and content that deserves to be found. I […]

Newest PPC and paid media jobs

(Provided to Search Engine Land by PPCjobs.com)

• Remote SaaS Growth Marketing Strategist (Paid, SEO, CRO)
  September 12, 2026
  Company: DirectiveSalary: $80,000- $85,000Location: United States (residency required)Date posted: September 12, 2026 Directive is seeking a T-Shaped Marketer to handle performance marketing for SMB clients. You will be responsible for managing accounts, maintaining client relationships, and delivering successful results across multiple channels such as Paid Media, SEO, and CRO. The role offers a competitive salary range of $80,000- $85,000 USD, […]
• Growth Marketing Lead, Programmatic & Video
  September 11, 2026
  Company: Jackalope Digital LLCSalary: $167,240 – $209,050Location: Brooklyn, NY, United StatesDate posted: September 11, 2026 Why join us Brex is the intelligent finance platform that enables companies to spend smarter and move faster in more than 200 markets. By combining global corporate cards and banking with intuitive spend management, bill pay, and travel software, Brex enables founders and finance teams […]
• Senior Paid Media Strategist
  September 11, 2026
  Company: RYNO Strategic SolutionsSalary: $75,000 – $85,000Location: United States (residency required)Date posted: September 11, 2026Description Who We Are RYNO Strategic Solutions is an innovative, full-service digital marketing company with 350+ RYNOs offering exceptional internet marketing services since 2008. We stay ahead of our competition with top-notch proprietary strategies, tracking, and reporting. Due to our total transparency, our customers always know […]
• Director, Paid Media Planning
  September 11, 2026
  Company: Bully Pulpit InternationalSalary: $120,000 – $135,000Location: United States (residency required)Date posted: September 11, 2026Description Bully Pulpit International is an outcomes agency made up of strategists, data scientists, and artists. We come from politics, brands, and government and we communicate without barriers and measure what matters. We have more than 400 team members in six countries and thirteen offices — […]
• Senior Paid Search Specialist
  September 11, 2026
  Company: CardiffSalary: $95,000 – $130,000Location: United States (residency required)Date posted: September 11, 2026 Location: Remote (U.S.) Employment Type: Full-time Department: Marketing Reports to: Chief Marketing Officer The role Search is Cardiff’s highest-intent channel and our most contested one. When an operator with a payroll problem types “business loan same day” into his phone, we are bidding against OnDeck, Fundbox, Bluevine […]

Other roles you may be interested in

Sr. Manager, Search Engine Marketing, Macy’s (New York, NY)

• Salary: $108,100 – $180,400
• Develop and implement PPC strategies for retail products that drive sales and revenue growth.
• Manage and optimize search and shopping campaigns and product feeds across platforms such as Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising (Bing), applying deep knowledge of each platform’s features and nuances.

Paid Media Manager (Search + Social), Creative Circle (Coppell, TX)

• Salary: $80,000 – $100,000
• Own and execute the paid digital strategy across Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Google Paid Search, retail media, and more – building the plan, launching it, and managing it day to day.
• Monitor and optimize campaigns daily and weekly against core KPIs (ROAS, conversions, traffic, engagement, sales); analyzing performance and translating data into actionable recommendations.

SEO Manager, M+C Saatchi Group (Hybrid, Washington, DC)

• Salary: $67,500 – $72,500
• Develop and execute enterprise SEO strategies that improve organic visibility, search rankings, and qualified traffic across websites and digital properties.
• Conduct comprehensive keyword research, search intent analysis, and competitive assessments to identify opportunities for content growth and improved search performance.

SEO and GEO Manager Halstead Media (Remote)

• Salary: $62,000 – $68,000
• Own SEO and GEO strategy and performance across an assigned portfolio of clients
• Build annual, quarterly, and monthly SEO priorities based on client goals, opportunities, and performance

Paid Media Manager (SEM/PPC), YPM (Irvine, CA)

• Salary: $95,000 – $100,000
• Build, launch, manage and optimize across multiple paid digital channels / search engine platforms media plans (Google, Bing, etc.) in varying verticals.
• Develop and maintain strong, key relationships with clients/brands; communicate with clients and respective Google reps on strategic direction of PPC campaign initiatives, identifying key findings and recommendations.

Demand Generation Manager, Seer Interactive (Remote)

• Salary: $90,000 – $105,000
• Campaigns: Build and run demand campaigns end to end, sequencing what the team produces across email, social, events, comms, paid, and outbound rather than letting it ship one-off
• Programs: Own our newsletters end to end: strategy, curation, production, reporting. Own the Signal webinar series and our event and conference presence, from promotion through logistics through follow-up

Senior SEO Strategist, elk Marketing (Remote)

• Salary: $95,000 – $115,000
• Lead keyword research, site audits, content strategy, and campaign planning across your assigned clients
• Develop multi-month strategic plans that demonstrate exceptional foresight & prioritization, ensuring elk & client teams are aligned and executing strategic implementation effectively & efficiently

Sr. Manager Paid Search, Ninja Trader (Hybrid, Chicago, IL)

• Salary: $115,000 – $165,000
• Own paid search strategy across Google Ads, Bing, and other engines, managing seven figures in monthly media spend
• Build and scale a non-brand experimentation program, designing structured tests to unlock incremental, profitable growth

Digital Marketing Manager, Paid Social & PPC, 80Twenty (Hybrid, Newark, DE)

• Salary: $90,000 – $110,000
• Own paid media strategy and execution across Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, TikTok Ads, Google Ads, Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs) and other media platforms
• Drive the growth of product lead volume while operating within defined budgets, cost-per-acquisition (CPA) and return on ad spend (ROAS) targets

Paid Media Manager, Clients Blackbox, Inc. (Remote)

• Salary: $90,000 – $125,000
• Build, launch, and optimize Meta advertising campaigns focused on lead generation and appointment booking
• Manage campaign budgets, audience targeting, bid strategies, and creative testing

Note: We update this post weekly. So make sure to bookmark this page and check back.

]]> https://searchengineland.com/google-analytics-launches-customizable-dashboards-488343 Fri, 11 Sep 2026 18:32:42 +0000 https://searchengineland.com/?p=488343 Google Analytics has launched customizable Dashboards that bring key metrics and visualizations into one report.]]>

Google Analytics has launched Dashboards, giving businesses a new way to bring their most important KPIs and visualizations together on a single customizable report.

Building reports is now drag-and-drop. Dashboards use a grid-based canvas where users can manually position, resize and align visualizations.

Users can drag dimensions and metrics directly onto the canvas to create and customize charts, rather than building each report separately.

Dashboards can also be published directly to the Reports left navigation without going through the Google Analytics library.

Six visualization types are available at launch. Google supports scorecards for high-level KPIs, tables for detailed reporting, line charts for trends over time, bar charts for comparisons, donut charts for breakdowns and funnel charts for monitoring conversion steps and drop-offs.

Scorecards can also display percentage changes when date comparisons are applied, while line charts support daily, weekly and monthly views.

Published dashboards can be viewed across the property. Users need an Editor or Administrator role to create and publish a dashboard.

Once published, however, anyone with access to the Google Analytics property can view it through the Reports navigation.

There are limits on how much you can build. Standard Google Analytics properties can include up to 15 cards per dashboard, while premium properties support up to 30.

Published dashboards are shared across the property rather than privately with individual users.

API support, segments and card-level comparisons are also not currently supported.

Why we care. Marketers can consolidate reporting inside GA. Instead of jumping between multiple reports to monitor performance, businesses can build a single-page view of the metrics that matter most to them.

That could make routine performance monitoring faster, particularly for teams tracking KPIs across different parts of the business.

Google is making Analytics reporting more customizable. The launch brings more of the dashboard-building workflow directly into Google Analytics, allowing teams to turn their existing Analytics data into purpose-built views without constantly navigating between separate reports.

Bottom line. Google Analytics Dashboards give businesses a centralized, drag-and-drop workspace for turning their most important metrics into customized performance reports directly inside GA.

Some Google Ads promotional credits are reportedly being invalidated after advertisers have already spent the amount required to qualify, potentially leaving businesses with higher advertising costs than they expected.

Report of lost credits after spending. PPC consultant David Melamed said he has encountered the issue twice in a short period.

In one case, an advertiser expected to receive a $3,200 promotional credit after spending $3,200 on Google Ads, according to Melamed. The credit was later marked “Invalidated,” he said, more than a month after the advertiser had spent the money.

Melamed said the advertiser likely wouldn’t have spent the first $3,200 without the promotional offer.

No obvious appeal path. Melamed said he wasn’t aware of a way for advertisers to appeal an invalidated credit.

That becomes particularly problematic when the advertiser has already met the spending requirement, because the underlying ad spend can’t be clawed back.

In another case, Melamed said a new advertiser’s credit was invalidated because his billing profile from his manager account had initially been used to set up the account.

He said he wasn’t sure what triggered the invalidation in the other case.

More than loss of credit. Melamed said promotional credits can encourage advertisers to bid and spend more aggressively because they effectively view part of their initial advertising spend as discounted.

His argument is that those additional dollars also enter Google Ads auctions, potentially increasing competition for other advertisers bidding for the same impressions.

That’s Melamed’s assessment, however, and no evidence was provided establishing that revoked promotional credits are materially increasing auction prices.

Why we care. Revoked credits can blow up advertiser budgets. Promotional offers can influence how much businesses are willing to spend when launching or expanding Google Ads campaigns. If a credit is invalidated after that money has already been spent, advertisers can’t simply reverse the campaign spend that helped them qualify.

Google has acknowledged the complaint. Google Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin responded to Melamed’s LinkedIn post.

“Thank you for bringing this to our attention, David. I’ve passed this along to the team,” Marvin said.

Google did not provide an explanation in the exchange for why the credits were invalidated or indicate whether it plans to change how promotional credit disputes are handled.

What advertisers should watch. The incidents highlight the importance of checking the eligibility conditions attached to Google Ads promotional offers rather than treating a credit as guaranteed campaign budget.

The bigger question is whether Google provides advertisers with greater clarity about why credits are invalidated and a way to challenge those decisions when substantial campaign spend has already occurred.

Bottom line. Google Ads promotional credits can encourage advertisers to spend thousands of dollars to qualify. Reports of those credits being invalidated after the required spend has already happened raise questions about how predictable those offers are and what recourse advertisers have when something goes wrong.

First spotted. Full report from Melamed on LinkedIn ]]> https://searchengineland.com/tiktok-rejects-meta-ads-pushing-rivals-to-join-child-safety-settlement-488324 Fri, 11 Sep 2026 17:23:18 +0000 https://searchengineland.com/?p=488324 TikTok rejected Meta ads urging it and YouTube to join Meta’s multibillion-dollar child safety settlement with U.S. states.]]>

TikTok rejected ads from Meta urging it and YouTube to join Meta’s multibillion-dollar child safety settlement with U.S. states, escalating a public fight between some of the world’s largest social platforms.

Why it matters. Meta needs its rivals to come to the table. Part of Meta’s settlement is contingent on other major platforms agreeing to similar terms.

Meta argues the reforms will be less effective — and put it at a competitive disadvantage — if Facebook and Instagram face restrictions that competing platforms don’t.

TikTok blocked Meta’s campaign as political advertising. Meta attempted to place ads on TikTok earlier this month calling on TikTok and YouTube to join the settlement.

TikTok rejected the ads Wednesday because they contained “political content,” according to sources cited by Axios.

TikTok prohibits political advertising on its platform.

The rejected video reportedly included text, imagery and a voiceover urging TikTok and YouTube to accept similar settlement terms.

Meta is publicly pressuring TikTok and YouTube. The TikTok ads were part of a broader campaign from Meta calling on its rivals to follow its lead. Meta has issued public statements and advertisements arguing that industry-wide participation is necessary because teens restricted on one platform can simply move to another.

“To truly empower parents and keep teens safe across the apps they use the most, TikTok and YouTube need to step up and meet the standard we’ve set with state attorneys general,” Meta said.

Meta added that it was disappointed the companies had not engaged but remained hopeful they would join.

TikTok and YouTube have not commented on the Meta’s pressure.

Billions of Meta’s settlement depend on what rivals do next. Meta agreed to pay up to $16.7 billion to settle allegations from U.S. states that Facebook and Instagram were designed in ways that harmed children.

About $5 billion of that settlement is conditional on TikTok and YouTube reaching agreements that include similar restrictions and roughly $5 billion in payments from each company.

Meta’s own agreement includes limits on how young people use Facebook and Instagram, including daily usage restrictions, overnight access restrictions and limits on notifications during school hours.

It also includes options for chronological feeds and restrictions around displaying likes and other reactions to young users.

Meta says going alone would put it at a disadvantage. Meta’s campaign isn’t only about getting competitors to contribute financially.

The company argues that if Facebook and Instagram are the only major platforms subject to new restrictions, teenagers could simply spend more time on competing apps.

That could leave Meta operating under stricter rules while TikTok and YouTube continue without equivalent limitations.

TikTok and YouTube have stayed publicly disengaged. Neither company has publicly committed to joining Meta’s settlement push. Both also appeared to withdraw from a Health and Human Services panel on children’s screen time after previously appearing on a draft agenda, according to Axios.

TikTok separately pulled out of a congressional meeting with the House China Select Committee following Meta’s settlement.

Why we care. The dispute shows that platform policies can limit even major brands from using paid media to influence competitors or public policy debates. Meta’s settlement could also introduce significant restrictions on how social platforms engage younger users, potentially changing audience reach, engagement and advertising opportunities if TikTok, YouTube and others eventually adopt similar rules.

What happens next could reshape social media for teens. Meta’s settlement establishes significant new restrictions for young Facebook and Instagram users, but the broader impact depends heavily on whether other platforms agree to similar rules.

Meta is betting that public pressure can help turn its settlement into an industry standard. TikTok’s rejection of its ads shows that getting its biggest rivals on board may be considerably harder.

Dig Deeper.

Scoop: TikTok rejects Meta ads amid settlement pressure campaign
Meta agrees to $17 billion deal, pushing new industry standards on child safety
Why is Meta calling out TikTok and YouTube with a flurry of new ads? It’s a game of ‘reputational jujitsu.’ ]]> https://searchengineland.com/before-hire-seo-auditor-488053 Fri, 11 Sep 2026 15:00:00 +0000 https://searchengineland.com/?p=488053 A 50-page report can still be fluff. Separate automated findings from the expertise and recommendations that make an SEO audit valuable.]]>

SEO audits can tell you a lot about your website’s health and visibility in Google Search and AI Overviews. The problem is that many audits amount to little more than a crawler export or a generic list of recommendations.

A real SEO audit should explain what the tools can’t: which issues matter, why they exist, what’s intentional, and what could actually improve your results. It should account for technical debt, your audience, and your business goals before handing you a list of fixes.

Before you pay thousands of dollars for an SEO audit, make sure you know what you’re paying for and how to tell whether you’re getting it.

Why SEO audits still matter for AI search

SEO audits matter substantially for GEO, as LLMs ground (fact-check) their outputs using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and “trusted” search results.

Once they identify “trusted” websites, they scan those pages to determine whether you offer a relevant product or service and whether they should recommend it. This can include site: searches and web crawlers.

Most major LLMs don’t have their own indexes, so they rely on search engines that do. This is why an SEO audit should make sure your website can be crawled and indexed, your content is high-quality, you have the visibility your audience needs, and your website is built for conversions.

Know what you’re actually paying for

The biggest issue I’ve seen when hiring someone, a consultant, or a company to do an SEO audit is that many will only crawl the site and call it an audit. You likely don’t know better, so, in my opinion, you’re getting ripped off, as you could easily have crawled your own website yourself and saved thousands of dollars.

The next biggest issue is when the deliverable is a to-do list of things that don’t actually matter or could cause your website to lose SEO traffic and visibility. This could become more common as more people enter the space, thinking LLMs can audit a website.

Without experience doing the work, they may not know which parts of a crawl are helpful, which are necessary, what will move the needle, or how to match the findings to the client’s goals. Many won’t ask about or consider technical debt or realize certain things were done on purpose.

Spiders and LLMs won’t know this either, and that’s where a quality SEO audit comes in. My goal is to give you the tools you need to help make sure you get what you’re paying for.

This is the same info we’ve begun sending to leads that come in when we’re too busy to take on the project, or when peers ask for advice as they’re hiring someone else to do an audit.

Dig deeper: 10 technical SEO audit mistakes that lead to bad recommendations

Update your contract with a clause

Review your audit agreement and make sure there’s a clause requiring the company or consultant to do the actual work. For years, companies have gotten the audit, and it’s been nothing more than an export from a spider or crawler with minimal review. You could do this yourself, and without the actual work, you likely won’t benefit from it.

Add the following clauses to the audit contract:

• A full refund is provided if the information is from a crawler only and there’s zero discovery from manual review and auditing.
• A full refund if the deliverable is the same as an LLM output. This includes nothing found outside of the LLM report. The auditor needs the knowledge, skills, and experience to identify things LLMs can’t see. This is literally what you’re paying for.
• If nothing is discovered or found in the audit outside of a spider crawl, you’ll be alerted as soon as possible and given the option to change the scope of work or request a partial refund of whatever amount you feel is fair, since the auditor did spend some time and do some work.

The goal here is to make sure you’re getting your money’s worth. Many high-quality SEOs will have backgrounds in content, tech, web development, conversion optimization, email strategy, analytics, PR, etc. If the audit isn’t necessary, use their other skills to justify the cost and keep the relationship strong. You still benefit, and they still get paid.

Buy crawler tools or demo them

Having a clause built into your agreement is only good if you know what to look for. SEO audits can cost between $2,500 and $20,000+, depending on how good the salesperson is at convincing you to sign with them and how large the site is. Even at the tens of thousands of dollars level, I’ve seen exports of spiders and basically nothing of value.

Crawlers like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb cost a fraction of the audit cost, and many offer free trials. Try them out, or get a month of the software and then cancel, so you can scan your own site and become familiar with the output. This way, when you get the deliverable from the SEO audit, you’ll know if it’s a crawler export or if the consultant or company you hired did the actual work.

As a bonus, you’ll see the explanations and reasoning behind the tools’ recommendations. While I do use similar explanations, I’ve seen some audits where the explanation is almost word-for-word. A quality audit will share the explanation and list of URLs when needed.

If it’s within the auditor’s skill set, they’ll also share examples of how to address it. They’ll tailor those recommendations to your website and company’s needs and provide more detail than the generic guidance in the tools’ documentation.

For me, I can’t rewrite an .htaccess file (mostly because I don’t trust myself with it), so the example of how to rewrite it wouldn’t be in my audit. The information on what needs to be done and why it matters will be included if it’s an issue. I may also recommend developers who can do it if the client doesn’t have this in-house. This way, I still did the work, and they have a full solution.

Dig deeper: SEO/GEO audits with AI fail without these 3 essentials

Use LLMs as a second opinion

LLMs only know what they’re trained on and what they trust. Chances are they’ll find some things that will work and make sense, and plenty of things that won’t move the needle, are irrelevant, or could cause damage. This is because an LLM can be trained on irrelevant data that is published on authoritative or trusted platforms.

Even with the right prompts, like “this is an SEO audit for an ecommerce website based on (insert platform) and not a lead gen website based on (insert platform),” the information provided won’t include the reasoning behind why certain things are the way they are on the website. 

You may have specific folders and pages blocked in robots.txt or rendering done in a certain way. The LLM may flag this, and if you change it, you could be worse off. The same goes for intentionally thin or orphaned pages that are never meant to get SEO traffic.

These things that are done on purpose may not actually be impacting SEO. By listening to the LLM that doesn’t process these, you could wind up causing damage to multiple channels, including PPC, remarketing, email, and affiliate.

A quality SEO auditor will learn and ask about these before or during the audit, and sometimes in the call to go over the findings. During the follow-up call, the auditor can likely say, “No problem, makes sense, and keep going,” or they can give you an alternative if it’s something that matters.

Here’s a basic prompt to start with: “Please audit my website (insert URL) and tell me what I can do to improve my SEO results. I would like to know about site structure, crawling issues, schema, what content might be thin, where I have competing content, and please also crawl my analytics and Google Search Console to verify data.”

Other things you can add include:

• My site is in five languages: Spanish, English, French, Italian, and German.
• The site is an ecommerce site that uses the blog for lead generation. The blog can be found in this folder (insert folder here).
• Create lists and follow-ups of to-do items with why they’re important, and share where I can read more.
• Prioritize the action items with reasons why and impact so I have a plan for where to begin.
• Perform a content gap analysis as part of this process.

You’re paying for experience and expertise. LLMs can draw on data that’s flawed or irrelevant, which is why the audit needs to be customized specifically to your website and audience. An experienced SEO focuses on meeting your audience’s needs by creating the right experience for both search engines and AI systems.

Get the deliverable expectations in writing

Finally, get the auditing company to give you a list of what can and should be expected in the deliverable. This is where it needs to be specified that if the document is 30 pages long, but 25 pages are just images and charts, that is something you’re comfortable with.

This is where you have the opportunity to ask for clarity by asking, “This sounds like something from a spider and crawl, not an actual full SEO audit. Will you be willing to mark what is from a spider and what is the actual audit?”

One big thing to note is that even if their audits are typically 50 pages, some sites are in really good shape and only need 10 pages. The rest would be fluff and use resources that could be spent elsewhere. I had this exact conversation with a current client when they asked. I told them I can increase my prices and add service, but it won’t move the needle, and we’re still seeing steady growth.

By setting clear expectations from the start and making it clear to the auditor that you know what you’re looking for, there’s a lower chance of things going wrong or of you getting a subpar deliverable.

Before you hire someone to do an SEO audit, make sure you:

• Have access to major crawler tools.
• Use an LLM or two to run your own SEO audit.
• Add clauses to your contract that set expectations before you sign.

This puts you in a better position to hire someone who can deliver results that align with your goals. You may even scare off the scammers once they realize you know your stuff.

If you check your page indexing reports within Google Search Console this morning, you will notice there are a number of days missing data from June 2026. This seems to be impacting everyone and all profiles within Google Search Console, so I would not panic.

What Google said. John Mueller from Google responded to the complaints saying:

” This is likely from the time in June where the data was delayed – there just isn’t any data for that period, the page indexing report wasn’t updated. We don’t back-fill indexing data. I’ll check w/the team when they’re back from holidays to be sure.”

What it looks like. Here is a screenshot, notice the left side of the graph, there are several days of missing data:

Why we care. I would not panic about this, again, this is impacting everyone and is a reporting issue and not an issue with Google Search.

It seems that data is completely lost and we won’t be getting it back.

Hat tip to Dan Lauer for spotting this early.

A year ago, I looked at search term data to see whether the growth of LLMs was changing how people searched. At the time, there was a noticeable shift from short, keyword-based searches to longer, more conversational queries.

My initial analysis suggested that the mass adoption of LLMs like ChatGPT was beginning to influence user behavior on “traditional” search platforms like Google.

Now, with Google Gemini and specifically AI Mode, I thought it would be interesting to pull an updated data set extending through August 2026.

After reviewing the data, I can confirm that this wasn’t a temporary finding. The trend hasn’t just continued, it’s accelerated, making it one of the most significant and urgent developments for Google Ads advertisers today.

What began as an observational shift has matured into a fundamental restructuring of user intent and interaction. The focus on “the keyword” that you bid on, which defined a generation of search marketing, is rapidly being replaced by natural language.

The updated data gives us a clearer view of this progression and how it’s affecting search volume and performance metrics like CTR and CPC.

The impression migration: A confirmed and deepening trend

The initial analysis identified a decline in impression share for the shortest queries. That decline has since accelerated, reinforcing the shift toward greater specificity at the top of the search funnel.

The “Impression Query Length by Quarter” chart clearly tracks this progression. Whereas 1-2-word queries once represented the undisputed bulk of user searches, their dominance has visibly eroded quarter after quarter.

The updated data table, comparing January 2025 with August 2026, provides the most striking evidence of this acceleration. In our initial analysis, we saw the beginnings of this change.

Now, we see the dramatic result: Impression share for 1-2-word queries has plummeted by an 18% absolute margin, falling from 42% to just 24%.

Confirming our earlier findings, this attention has moved directly to longer queries. The 3-4-word query bucket, which was already showing strength, has now definitively taken over as the new center of gravity for search impressions, surging from a 33% share to 48% — a 15% absolute increase.

The shift suggests that users are increasingly using natural language in Google Search, submitting longer queries that provide greater context and detail. We’re teaching consumers a new way to use the web to seek and gather information.

Dig deeper: AI Mode is Google’s next ads engine — and it already knows how to monetize it

The conversion story: High intent moves further down the tail

The most compelling part of this updated analysis lies in the conversion data. While our first look showed that longer queries were beginning to punch above their weight in conversion rates, the latest data reveal an explosive shift in commercial intent toward the long tail.

Revisiting the “Conversions by Keyword Query Length” chart, the trend is undeniable. The once-mighty 1-2-word query bucket, which drove 62% of conversions at the start of our analysis, now accounts for just 52% — a 10-point drop in a single year. The narrative from our first article holds true, but with far greater intensity.

The summary data table drives this point home with staggering clarity. The conversion share for 1-2-word queries has collapsed, suffering a -35% absolute change over the analysis period. This is a monumental shift in advertiser performance. The primary beneficiary has been the 3-4-word segment, which has absorbed the majority of that share, rocketing from 20% to 46% — a 26% absolute gain.

Furthermore, the even longer, hyper-specific queries are rapidly becoming conversion powerhouses. The conversion share for 5-6-word queries has tripled, from 3% to 9%, and the share for 7+-word queries has quadrupled, from 1% to 4%.

The shift is reflected in both conversion volume and conversion rate, driving greater efficiency. Below is a view of the indexed data for conversion rate by bucket. The conversion rate in the 3-4-word bucket has increased steadily each quarter. This trend is true for the other buckets as well, while the 1-2-word bucket conversion rate is decreasing.

This demonstrates that the highest-intent users — those ready to make a purchase — are providing more detail than ever before. They’ve moved beyond the initial discovery phase and are using search to finalize their decisions with highly specific, purchase-oriented queries.

Dig deeper: Google tests new conversational ad formats in AI Mode and Search

From prediction to imperative: Why advertisers must act now

When we first published our findings, our advice to embrace the long tail was a forward-looking recommendation. Today, it’s an immediate and critical strategic imperative. 

Advertisers who heeded the initial warning and began adapting their strategies are now reaping the rewards. Those who waited are falling behind at an accelerating rate.

The strategic takeaways from the initial article are still valid and progressing along the same track, creating opportunities for brands that adopt these changes first. Here are three recommendations:

Double down on the long tail

The growth is no longer theoretical. It’s a sustained, quantifiable trend. It’s time to move beyond experimentation and make long-tail and conversational query targeting a core pillar of your search strategy. This means investing serious resources into understanding the full spectrum of questions your customers are asking.

Master hyper-specific ad scent

The increasing specificity of search queries is a gift to savvy advertisers. When a user tells you exactly what they want, reflecting that language back to them in your ad copy and landing page is the key to unlocking the high conversion rates this traffic offers. The bar for “relevance” has been raised, and generic messaging will fail.

Aggressively realign bidding and budgets

The performance landscape has been redrawn. Continuing to pour budget into broad, high-cost head terms that are showing diminishing conversion share is a recipe for inefficiency. 

The most successful advertisers will be those who audit their performance through the lens of query length and reallocate their budgets toward the more cost-effective, higher-converting long-tail segments.

Dig deeper: Google Ads search terms report: 5 tips for better results

The cost of waiting is rising

To say things are changing is an understatement. At this speed, the advantage goes to advertisers who stay ahead of the curve and adjust along the way, rather than those who wait until it’s too late to optimize.

The way users search has changed for the better, and advertisers who adapt will own the future of search marketing.

Experienced Google advertisers know where to find the data that’s essential to optimization and insight. But many novices aren’t even aware of the layers they’re missing.

And misleading information often replaces hidden information — at least in the current context. As a result, many advertisers find themselves unwittingly accepting platform-friendly narratives.

If you don’t fall into the novice category or neglect your account(s), why should this matter to you? Second-order effects.

If you’re Advertiser A, doing a pretty darn competent job, the shortcomings and neglect in accounts managed by Advertisers B, C, D, E, and F can cause all kinds of auction anomalies that can rattle your cage, too.

Hopefully, more advertisers will discover that the temptations inside Google Ads are bad for their financial health. I’ll walk you through my biggest concerns, why advertisers are so susceptible, and what to do about them.

How Google Ads leverages the availability heuristic

The availability heuristic describes what happens when well-meaning people are swayed by readily available information.

Take transportation safety, for example. Hearing vivid anecdotes about plane crashes could lead to overlooking the fact that, statistically, the aviation industry is safe overall. That’s how journalism, and perhaps our penchant for narrative, tend to work.

But with Google Ads, Google itself pushes narratives directly into the platform. This makes platform-friendly ideas more visible to you as you spend your ad budget.

Platform-focused storytelling even determines the naming of features and campaign types. For instance, names like Performance Max, AI Max, Smart Bidding, and Demand Gen might be there to sway you. There’s an awful lot in a name if it can influence your budget allocation decisions.

What are some of the most common examples of manipulative, overly available, or hard-to-find information in Google Ads? Let’s look at seven in detail.

1. Dashboard views

At the account or campaign level, many advertisers might accept the default key performance indicators (KPIs) on the dashboard, including comparative data for the previous period. This can be suboptimal for a couple of reasons.

First, why compare to the previous period when, for most companies, year-over-year (YoY) is the more salient comparison? YoY comparisons help avoid faulty comparisons due to seasonal fluctuations. Second, aggregate impressions and clicks probably mean far less than metrics like revenue and return on ad spend (ROAS).

Dig deeper: Are you being manipulated by Google Ads?

2. Columns

Similarly, the default dashboard columns favor noise over signal. At times, it seems like Google has packed the display with columns you don’t need.

For my purposes, I want to look at key metrics such as clicks, click-through rate (CTR), conversion value, conversion value divided by cost, and cost per click (CPC).

At the earliest opportunity, learn which metrics are essential to your account and which you don’t need. Then, tailor the column selection through Columns > Modify.

But know that naming tricks lurk in the available columns, too. Absolute top and top impression share (IS) might be handy competitive metrics, while search lost top IS (rank) probably isn’t. Anything that makes me feel restless and worried instead of calmly analytical is likely something I’d be better off not looking at.

3. Rows

As you check your dashboard, you might notice that your preferred number of rows displayed (typically 50 or 100) sometimes reverts to the minimum of 10.

Since pagination compromises optimization, some advertisers may work on only a couple of campaigns or view only a couple of pages’ worth of data before they decide to move on to something else.

The more friction there is, the more unoptimized account sections will fester. For example, if you inherited an unwieldy account with too many campaigns, you’ll need to ditch the status quo and figure out how to consolidate. Financial performance almost always improves.

4. Optimization Score and recommendations

Google constantly nudges advertisers to pore through and accept categorized account recommendations. Take this reminder, for example:

It includes two suggestions to remove redundant keywords and enable Display Expansion. Neither is going to help much. And the latter is almost certainly going to hurt your performance — unless you’re under threat of losing your job if you fail to spend a bloated budget by a certain deadline, regardless of performance.

Dig deeper: 4 Google Ads settings and recommendations worth a closer look

5. Ad group level targets

From a performance perspective, surface-level account management consistently fails. Say you have a campaign-level ROAS target your predecessor set at 350%. You keep pushing it higher to achieve what you hope will be a tighter campaign with lower spend and higher ROI.

But performance doesn’t budge. So, you panic and eventually limit the daily budget, pause the campaign, or blame made-up economic headwinds.

Meanwhile, the ad group-level targets were set to a variety of levels between 210% and 260%. They overrode the campaign-level setting you kept adjusting. You’ll never find out if you don’t crack open that campaign and drill down.

6. Search query reporting

Novice advertisers don’t know much, if anything, about keyword match types. Many novices don’t distinguish between keywords in their account and the user queries that mapped to those keywords. And they don’t know where to find search term reporting, either.

Here are a few categories of ill-mapped queries that advertisers should add as negative search terms in a particular ad group, campaign, or account:

• Purely navigational brand searches that drive up apparent ROI for niche acquisition keywords.
• Single-word queries (like “office”) in a category where you sell specific products.
• Brands and products you don’t sell.
• Competitor names if they shouldn’t be there.
• Brands and products that should map to other parts of the account.

7. Conversion counts

Figure out your KPIs, pick the primary one, and keep a few secondary ones on your dashboard for monitoring and background information. If you want deeper dives or multiple primary KPIs for additional precision, you could either use Google Analytics or import a couple of those goals into Google Ads and designate them as primary and secondary.

Notice how it’s already getting messy?

If you inherit a mature account, the reality might be much more byzantine. A multitude of account managers and stakeholders have made choices, and now the logic is all over the map.

The first thing you’ll want to do is be sure no one has set virtually identical KPIs as primary. Sadly, this is a fairly common practice.

Then clean up the remaining conversions. Take mildly valuable (but only directionally helpful) conversion events like store visits or even sought directions to the store. If they happen infrequently and provide valuable insights, directional KPIs help with optimization. If they’re too frequent and skew real revenue feedback, there’s nothing wrong with removing them entirely.

Dig deeper: Outsmarting Google Ads: Insider strategies to navigate changes like a pro

Know the tactics to avoid the platform’s influence

I’ve covered seven examples, but there are many others. As an advertiser, you’re playing a shell game where most advertisers are regularly influenced purely by what they think they see.

Your superpower? The operator of the shell game still lets you lift the shells, some of the time.

I recently lost a client to an AI SaaS platform.

While it stung, the point wasn’t about losing business to AI. It was about how quickly businesses will trade away human nuance, risk management, and strategic context for the illusion of an easy-button solution.

When you commoditize expertise as automated deliverables, you inevitably commoditize the human behind it.

Today, I want to extend that idea a little further into something everyone in our industry is dealing with right now: the ghosting epidemic.

We’re not just talking about applicants being ignored after interviews (this is just rude). It extends even further: think prospects, partners, former coworkers, vendors, and the people who initiated the conversation in the first place…then disappeared.

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A warm intro should not end in silence

A former coworker recently introduced me to their company’s CMO. We got on a call, talked through the opportunity, and to be honest, it was clear we were not completely aligned.

And that is fine.

Not every chat needs to turn into a long-lasting, perfect-match business relationship. Sometimes the fit isn’t there. Sometimes the timing is wrong. Sometimes, both groups walk away realizing it would be more work than it is worth.

But because the introduction came from someone I previously worked with, I continued the conversation in good faith and out of respect for that connection.

Even though the call wasn’t perfect, the CMO (and my previous coworker) told me they would provide an update by “next Tuesday.”

Fireflies notes that generate a transcript + recap of the call after we all hang up.

Next Tuesday came and went. No email from the CMO. No update from my former coworker. Nothing.

I did not expect a signed agreement. Hell, I didn’t even follow up. I didn’t expect us to work together. But they set an expectation, and then both completely disappeared.

A warm introduction, in my experience, leads to my longest-tenured clients. Other times it’s just not the right fit. What it is not is a free pass to waste someone’s time. If anything, it should create more accountability (because someone put their own reputation behind the connection).

Then came the NDA that disappeared into thin air

Ready for the second round of “Tales from Nick’s consulting life”?

More recently, a decent-sized brand reached out to discuss my fractional SEO services.

We got on a call and talked through the business, their challenges, and what they were looking to solve. As usual, I had more questions than answers at that stage. That is kind of the point. A competent consultant should not hear a few surface-level problems and immediately pretend to know exactly what needs to happen and hand over a statement of work… but I digress; that’s likely a future topic to break down.

They said they could share more context if I was willing to sign an NDA. Fair enough.

To avoid jumping through corporate hoops and speed things up, they asked me to provide my own NDA. So I pulled up my standard agreement, reviewed it, updated it for this situation, and sent it over.

I even asked for confirmation that it would work to further expedite the timeline.

Then nothing.

I followed up a few days later. Nothing.

I sent another follow-up the following week. Nothing.

That was about a month ago now.

The weird part is that I was not chasing them. They reached out to me. They asked for the call. They asked for my NDA agreement. They asked me to take ownership of the next step.

At any point, they could have said, “We are pausing this.” “We went another direction.” “Legal is holding this up.” Or even, “We are not ready.”

All acceptable. All better than silence. But let’s be real, the ghosting is just plain rude.

‘No’ is not the problem. Avoiding the conversation is.

Nobody is entitled to a client, a partnership, a job offer, or even a response justifying the answer they gave you.

Sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes a company goes another direction (like hiring AI over you). Sometimes the budget disappears, priorities change, or the fit just is not there.

That is business.

But once you invite someone into a process, especially one you started, you owe them the basic courtesy of closing the loop.

I get it, “No” can be frustrating and disappointing. Silence turns someone else’s calendar into the cost of your indecision (or straight ignorance).

The consultant who held time for a proposal. The applicant who completed another interview. The former coworker who made the introduction. The potential partner who followed the steps you asked them to take.

Ghosting is not “meh, we weren’t going to move forward anyway.” It completely shifts ownership, follow-ups, and wasted time onto the person who did not create the situation.

You do not have to say yes. You just have to be willing to say something. It’s common decency.

You can’t even imagine how often I hear reports like the above about ghosting post-interview.

Efficiency should create more room for professionalism

This really isn’t complicated.

Don’t promise an update by Tuesday if you have no intention of providing one. Don’t ask someone for a proposal, paperwork, an introduction, or an interview process unless you’re prepared to respond when they follow through.

If priorities change, say so. If the answer is no, say no. If you dropped the ball, own it instead of hoping enough time will make the conversation disappear.

You don’t need a new workflow, an AI agent, or an all-hands company meeting to send a three-sentence email.

To be 100% blunt: if you ghost people, don’t be surprised if those people start telling others that you’re an asshole.

Efficiency is supposed to remove busywork, so we have more time for judgment, relationships, and the human parts of business. It shouldn’t become an excuse to start more conversations than we are willing to finish.

If you can’t close the loop, stop opening the conversation.

This post first appeared on the author’s website and is republished here with permission.

Content marketing performance fell to its lowest level in 12 years, even as AI adoption topped 92%, according to Orbit Media’s latest annual blogging survey.

Just 14% of marketers said their blogs delivered “strong results.” That’s six percentage points below the previous 12-year low and nearly half the 26% reported in 2022.

The decline reflects marketers abandoning tactics historically linked to stronger results, not AI adoption itself, the report concluded

Why the decline? The proven content marketing practices most closely linked to strong results became less common over the past year, the survey found. These included influencer collaboration, original research, keyword research, paid content promotion, formal human editing, and consistent use of analytics.

• Ann Handley, chief content officer at MarketingProfs, called the findings “a wake-up call.” Marketers need to be “much (MUCH!) more discerning about which effort we remove, and which we keep,” she said.

AI use doesn’t predict success. AI adoption reached 92.4% this year. But using AI showed no relationship with stronger results. And AI did reduce production time:

• The average blog post now takes 3 hours and 20 minutes to write, down from more than 4 hours in 2022.
• This saves the typical marketer about 50 hours of writing a year, even as reported content performance continues to decline, Orbit estimated.

Keyword research and collaboration. The findings challenge the idea that SEO has become less relevant in the AI era. Marketers who conducted keyword research were more likely to report strong results, even though fewer respondents said they research keywords before publishing.

• Influencer collaboration showed the strongest relationship with success. Marketers who regularly worked with experts were 2.6 times more likely than the benchmark to report strong results. Yet adoption fell from 25% of marketers in 2017 to just 7% this year.
• Traffic has become a less meaningful performance metric as AI changes how people discover information online. Instead, marketers who measured qualified leads, deals, and revenue were more likely to report strong results, the survey also said.

Why we care. Faster content production with AI didn’t lead to better results in this survey. The marketers reporting the strongest outcomes were more likely to invest in keyword research, original research, expert collaboration, and human editing.

About the data. Orbit Media surveyed 1,042 content marketers for its 2026 Blogging Statistics report. The survey examined blogging practices, AI adoption, and self-reported content performance. None of the respondents reported using all eight strategies Orbit associated with its strongest-performing content programs.

The report. Blogging Statistics 2026: What 1,042 Content Marketers Told Us About What Works [New Research] ]]>