You open Google Search Console, and it is full of green arrows. Position 4 turned into position 2. Position 2 turned into position 1. You did the work, the work paid off, and then your traffic graph started pointing at the FLOOR.

I have watched this happen to sites with clean rankings, fresh content, and zero penalties. It is one of the most confusing things in SEO right now, and most of the noise about it just repeats the same reasons.

See, ranking and traffic stopped being the same thing a while ago. In 2026, the gap between them is the widest it has ever been. But before we get into the reasons, one truth lies beneath them all.

Your clicks are leaking out of Google through several holes at once. AI Overviews is only the loudest one.

Seer Interactive tracked organic Click-Through Rates (CTR) and found a 61% drop on queries that show an AI Overview. Fair enough; that is the reason everyone talks about. But on queries with no AI Overview at all, clicks still fell 41%.

So, if AI Overviews were the whole story, that second number would be pretty flat. It isn't. That clearly means something bigger is shrinking the entire click economy – and we’re going to talk about just that.

1. The demand simply isn't there anymore

Start with the boring reason, because it is the one everyone skips.

Sometimes your traffic drops because fewer people are searching. Not because you slipped. The market shrank, and your rankings are just sitting on top of a smaller pile.

This used to be a seasonal thing. A tax tool loses traffic in June. A swimwear brand loses traffic in December. Normal stuff. But there is a newer version of this in 2026, and it is structural, not seasonal. People are running fewer searches overall because they get their answers somewhere else first (more on this below).

What to do: Open Search Console and pull the full 16-month view, then lay it next to the same months last year. Drop your main keywords into Ahrefs or Semrush and look at search volume over time. If demand fell and your rankings held, you did nothing wrong. You are winning a race with fewer runners.

2. AI overviews are answering the question for you

Ahrefs re-ran its study on SERP clicks in December 2025 across 300,000 keywords. Surprisingly, they found that when an AI Overview shows up, the top-ranking page loses 58% of its clicks. That is nearly double the 34.5% they measured back in April 2025. It is getting worse, not better.

Pew Research found the same thing from the other direction, by tracking real people instead of tools. The study proved that users clicked a result only 8% of the time when an AI summary appeared, versus 15% when it didn't. And only 1% clicked a link inside the overview itself.

So you can rank number one and still lose, because there is now a box sitting above your number one that answers the question before anyone scrolls.

What to do: Split your Search Console keywords into two buckets, the ones that trigger an AI Overview and the ones that don't. Both Ahrefs and Semrush have a filter for this. Then change the goal. Stop trying to rank below the overview. Start trying to get cited inside it. Pages cited in the overview actually keep their clicks.

3. People get their answer from AI before they open Google

A chunk of your missing traffic is made up of searches that never happened. Someone asked ChatGPT or Perplexity instead. They got their answer, made their decision, and never typed anything into Google at all.

Now, do not panic and blame AI for everything. The referral numbers tell a calm story. Cloudflare measured every AI search engine combined (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity) at under 0.28% of search referrals in April 2026, while Google still sent 87.52% of them. So AI is not stealing your clicks by quietly sending traffic somewhere else.

The damage is sneakier. It happens upstream, where the search just disappears. And inside Google's own AI Mode, Semrush found that 92% to 94% of searches end with no click to any website. More than nine in ten, just gone.

What to do: Start tracking your branded search volume in Search Console, because that is the footprint AI leaves behind. When someone hears about you inside an AI answer, they often Google your name later. The new win is being the brand the AI names, not just the link it skips.

4. The search page got crowded

Think about what a Google results page looked like five years ago. Sponsored ads followed by ten blue links. That was it.

But now, a Google results page generally shows:

• An AI Overview
• A People Also Ask box
• A local pack with a map
• Shopping results
• A video carousel

Now, your blue link is still there. It is just buried under a pile of other things that all want the same click.

FirstPageSage found that the top three organic results take 68.7% of all clicks on a clean page. But fewer and fewer pages are clean. Every feature Google adds pushes your link further down and hands the searcher one more place to go instead of you.

What to do: Actually look at the search results for your top ten keywords. Count what sits above your link. If a snippet is eating your click, write a tighter answer and go take the snippet for yourself (snippets pull a 42.9% click-through rate, higher than a normal number one). If a video carousel is winning, maybe you need a video.

5. Reddit quietly took over your category

If you run a review site, a comparison site, or anything with the word "best" in your titles, this one is probably half your problem.

So, Google fell in love with Reddit. Between July 2023 and April 2024, Reddit's visibility in Google search jumped 1,328%, and it climbed from the 68th most visible site in the US to the 5th. On the product review and "best of" searches that used to land on editorial sites, Reddit is now everywhere.

So when someone searches "best running shoes" or "is X worth it," they are not landing on your carefully written guide.

They are landing on a Reddit thread because Google decided real people arguing in a forum beat a polished, well-researched article.

What to do: Find the Reddit threads ranking for your keywords. Then show up in them, genuinely and helpfully, not with spam. You are not going to outrank Reddit on those terms, so the smart move is to be present inside the thread that already won.

6. You won some keywords and quietly lost others

This is the blind spot that fools smart people.

You are tracking 100 keywords. Twenty of them climbed, and you are celebrating. But your traffic comes from thousands of keywords, and you are not watching the other 900. Some of them slipped, and that quiet slip is bigger than your loud win.

Your rank tracker only shows you what you told it to show you. It says nothing about the long tail that was actually paying your bills.

What to do: Ignore your tracked list for an afternoon. Go into Search Console, export every query, and compare clicks against the same period last year. Sort by clicks lost. The pages bleeding the most traffic are almost never the ones you were watching.

7. You rank higher but fewer people click

Sometimes the ranking is genuinely up, and the click-through rate just collapsed. Well, in such situations, the most common reason is embarrassingly simple. Your title still says 2025 and the year is 2026. People scan the results, see a stale date, and skip you for the fresher-looking result below. You ranked number one and lost the click on a detail you could fix relatively quickly.

There are other causes too. A weak title. A meta description that misses the point. Or your page matches a search whose intent it does not actually serve.

What to do: Pull your top pages by impressions, then look at the ones with a poor click-through rate. Update the year. Rewrite the title so it matches what the searcher actually wants. Small change, fast result, and you do not need to rank any higher to get it.

8. Your impressions are lying to you

This one is technical, so here is a simple way to see it.

Imagine your page used to show up for 50 searches a day, all of them a perfect fit, and people clicked. Now Google shows your page for 500 searches a day, but 450 of them are only loosely related to what you offer. Those extra people see you and scroll past, because you are not really what they wanted.

Your impressions shot up. Your average position might even look better. But your click-through rate fell off a cliff, because Google is matching you to searches that were never yours.

And "average position" hides all of it. It is an average. One number is smoothing over a hundred different stories, most of which you cannot see.

What to do: In Search Console, find the queries where impressions jumped but clicks stayed flat. That gap is the loose-match junk. It is not really a problem to fix; it is a number to stop trusting. Judge yourself on clicks from queries that fit, not on raw impressions.

9. Mobile is dragging you down (and no, it is not AMP)

Your desktop rankings can look great while mobile quietly tanks – and most of your traffic is mobile.

Two things make this worse. Mobile users click far less than desktop users. And on a small screen, an AI Overview plus a couple of SERP features eat the entire first screen. Your link is somewhere down there, after a lot of thumb-scrolling.

Now, an important correction, because half the internet still gets this wrong. The fix is not AMP. Google dropped the AMP requirement for the Top Stories carousel back in June 2021, killed the lightning-bolt badge, and the big publishers have all walked away from it. AMP gives you no ranking advantage today.

What to do: Open the device tab in Search Console and compare desktop against mobile honestly. Then fix the thing that actually matters: Your Core Web Vitals (how fast the page loads, how fast it reacts, how much it jumps around while loading). A fast, normal, responsive page beats an AMP page in 2026.

Conclusion

Here is the mindset shift that makes the whole thing click.

Stop treating rankings as the finish line. Ranking number one is now just the price of admission. It does not promise you clicks.

Run the diagnosis in order. Check if demand fell. Check if AI Overviews or AI Mode are intercepting the answer. Check the rest of the search page. Check the keywords you stopped watching. Check your titles, your impressions, your mobile experience, and your analytics. Nine times out of ten, the answer is not one of these reasons. It is three of them stacked on top of each other.

And then the bigger shift, the one that matters more every month. Start measuring visibility, not just clicks. Being the answer inside an AI Overview. Being the brand platforms like ChatGPT, names. Being the thread that ranks. The click was the old goal. Showing up is the new one.

Your rankings being up is not a lie. It just stopped being the whole truth.

• Adobe sees major growth in AI referrals to travel sites
• Rich, structured content is the best way to ensure AI engine visibility
• Hotels lead the way, airlines fall short in being fully accessible to LLMs

Combined traffic analysis and market research has led Adobe to observe a 194% year-over-year rise in traffic to US travel websites, and an even more astounding 2,215% rise since it first started tracking AI referrals in October 2024.

The data implies that AI is being used for much more than research, as its use cases span planning, recommendations, packing and even budgeting.

With 86% of travellers believing that AI has improved their travel planning experience, it's clear that consumers are finding better recommendations, producing more personalized itineraries and getting access to cheaper prices, making it a go-to for financially savvy consumers.

AI traffic to travel sites reveals an important trend

While AI traffic still converts around 28% worse than traditional traffic, Adobe says this is changing and the gap has narrowed by almost 70% since October 2024. Now, AI-referred users spend 70% longer on websites, are 21% more engaged and have 41% lower bounce rates, which could translate to more purchasing intent.

With this in mind, travel websites must capitalize on this new type of traffic by optimizing pages for LLMs. Adobe says "rich, structured content" is to thank for the success levels hotel websites have already seen, but airline websites are falling behind.

Adobe used its own AI Content Visibility Checker metrics to reveal that hotels and car rental companies perform best across both the home page and product pages, but even then, around a third of the content is still unreadable by AI.

"As consumer adoption of AI tools accelerates, brands must ensure their digital presence is not only engaging for humans, but fully accessible to machines as well," the company summarized.

The internet is undergoing a major shift, with publishers, ecommerce platforms and everyone in between struggling to grow visibility and remain relevant in an AI-dominated era.

Today, AI overviews and summaries dominate traditional search, while agentic assistants autonomously browse the web for consumers who have already shifted their browsing habits to their favorite chatbot.

But for decades, the web has been designed for human visitors, with search engines acting as intermediaries that help direct human traffic toward specific web pages. With more and more online content now being consumed by machines and AI taking over the decision of which information and products reach consumers first, traditional SEO alone is over.

GEO, or generative engine optimization, is already a term that publishers are throwing around, but few are certain of what it means and how they should balance it with their SEO strategies.

Publishers need to target two audiences… but humans are no less valuable

According to new data from WordPress VIP, nearly three in four enterprise decision-makers now consider AI discoverability and attribution a significant priority, with three in five seeing increased traffic from AI search engines and third parties – so the shift is well underway, and companies are already starting, or trying, to adapt.

Per the report, nearly twice as many enterprise decision-makers now plan to prioritize investments across social platforms (32%) and AI engines (30%) compared with conventional owned websites (17%).

But amid this machine revolution, consumers are still pressing for human connections, with nearly half (42%) saying they trust unattributed AI-generated answers less than the likes of confusing privacy policies.

Today, publishers face a battle between AI optimization and visibility, and personalization and human-ness.

But WordPress VIP isn’t too concerned about the challenges, seeing them as temporary and familiar. CTO Brian Alvey even believes they mirror previous shifts brought on by social media.

So to understand what this AI revolution means for publishers, brands and the future of the web in general, I sought advice directly from Alvey.

• Brian, the report you published mentioned that online properties like TechRadar need to serve two masters: AI scrapers and human audience. How is that being done in real life by brands that are looking to juggle both?

For decades, we’ve all built websites for Google. Sure we write for other people, but we format content for search engines and social networks. But Google and social were just top of funnel sources for getting visitors to your site. But now there's an actual second audience.

Our more innovative customers are already building sites for both humans and agents. And they’re doing it in the block editor. The same way you can tell a three-column block to reformat and stack the content for display on mobile, these customers are making content blocks that reformat as markdown for agents. Now all of their data-filled interactive charts are no longer just for a human audience. Their content is agent-native. And the wild thing that’s happening as they make their content easier for AI agents to understand is that they’re seeing a lift in SEO.

And this totally new version of their website isn’t doubling their work. It’s just built into their workflows.

The website is no longer just a destination for people. It has already become a source of information for machines acting on behalf of people. And the sites that aren’t simple for agents to consume will effectively be invisible to this new half of the internet. Companies that can serve both human and agent audiences will be the ones that survive.

• One fact that caught my eye was that the majority of consumers trust unattributed AI answers with a huge portion (86%) bothered by searching for the original source after scanning an AI summary. What do you make out of it? How does the future look through that lens?

This might sound crazy with all the fear and hate AI is getting these days, but AI might actually be the best thing that ever happened to trusted brands. When an answer engine chooses you as a source, that's a powerful endorsement. Sure, the clicks might not be there right now, but the credibility boost sure is. We've been worrying that AI would cut brands out of the conversation. What our data shows is that the brands people already trust are the ones AI keeps going back to.

Your goal has never changed: be the most trusted business in your space. In an AI world, that trust will get you cited. And the brands that get cited will be the only ones that still exist for customers when the AI answer engines fully take over the internet.

• Another finding from your report that shocked me was that only 17% of enterprises in the report will prioritize investments in their own websites in 2027. It's shocking as it means that instead, they will rely on social media and search engines to bring in audience. What are your thoughts about this?

That 17% number shocked me too. Did all these companies learn nothing from search and social? It’s not surprising that marketing teams are chasing where the audiences are going. But that means they’re giving up on having strong direct relationships with their customers. Being satisfied with getting roughly 60% of your audience reach from third-party platforms isn’t healthy. That's a lot of dependency on platforms you don't control.

Even if you use email as your primary channel of communication, which is a fantastic direct connection to your audience and customers, you still can’t process a sale or sign up a new subscriber in an email message. Your website still matters. The companies that win will be the ones that treat AI, social and search as distribution channels while continuing to invest in customer experiences they own and can constantly improve.

• 35 years ago, the open web was merely a pipe dream. CompuServe, AOL and a bunch of other gated communities dominated the landscape. Fast forward to 2026 and it seems that we're gradually slipping into an era where the open web - as we know it - is set to disappear. Tech giants are "encouraging" audiences to produce and consume content on their proprietary platforms. Is it too late to do anything?

No, I don't think it's too late. If you look at the history of the internet, we've gone through versions of this before. Thirty years ago you only had closed systems, which were a great first step for getting the world online. The web opened things up, but then search and social became the new gatekeepers. AI is creating another layer of gatekeepers but what's different this time is that we’re ready.

The consumers we talked to crave attribution. They care strongly about open access to information. They need to know where the answers they’re getting come from. The web won’t disappear, but it does need to evolve. These are the conversations we have every day with the people who run the world’s biggest and most important websites. We all agree that the only thing that matters is whether publishers, creators, and brands can maintain a direct relationship with their audiences and customers as these new pathways emerge.

• The general consensus is that the web (and our email infrastructure) we know wasn't built for AI. I remember the days of Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. Are we already in the Web 4.0 era? How do you evolve this hybrid ecosystem bearing in mind what we discussed in Q1 and the previous one?

Because we’ve been through this before with the rise of search and the rise of social and the big “pivot to video,” we’ve never been more prepared to adapt. The difference this time is the speed and the scale. While search and social disrupted the top of the marketing and sales funnels, AI agents are disrupting nearly the entire funnel. And the disruption won’t be slow this time. Agents are crawling sites at rates that are orders of magnitude bigger than search and social combined. And agents are disrupting every facet of websites, from creation all the way through to consumption. It’s total disruption. The good news is that your business hasn’t changed. What you make and who you make it for hasn’t changed. But how you make it and how they buy it has changed for good. If AI is 80% threat and 20% opportunity, then your job is to dive into that 20% and make AI work for you.

• Your study indicates that the average internet user hits "bot fatigue" in just 40 minutes, and almost three-quarters of the respondents say the internet is significantly less human than it was a decade ago. Can anything be done to change that course or it is just too late, meaning we have to just go with the flow.

In some ways, we’re never going back. AI is already part of every product and every workflow. The good news is that the fatigue you mentioned and all this distrust are reversible, but only for the brands willing to actually be human about it.

A certain volume of AI content is expected now. There is no excuse to publish slowly anymore. But what’s missing from that AI-boosted content production? Specificity is what’s missing. A real take, a weird opinion, someone who you can tell actually knows what they're talking about. The brands cutting through the fatigue are the ones with actual voices, not mindless content machines. I'd rather read one paragraph from someone who's lived it than ten paragraphs of well-organized AI vanilla bullet points. That's what people are hungry for. The antidote to bot fatigue is just humans being human.

When Twitter introduced the blue check, it altered the power dynamics of social media. Visibility was no longer simply about who spoke the loudest; it became about who was authenticated.

A similar shift is now emerging in search.

For two decades, brands competed primarily on SEO. If you understood Google’s ranking signals, you could capture attention. But AI-generated answers are changing how people interact with information.

Increasingly, users are not just scrolling through links, they are receiving synthesized responses presented as authoritative.

That evolution is reshaping the rules of visibility.

In an AI-mediated environment, the first answer often becomes the only answer. There may be no second click, no chance to correct. If the information is outdated, incomplete or drawn from a third-party aggregator rather than an official source, the perception of the brand may already be shaped before the user ever reaches its website.

For businesses, this introduces a new reality: optimization alone is no longer sufficient. Verification is becoming just as critical.

When algorithms become editors

Generative AI systems do not simply rank pages. They draw from multiple sources, and prioritize signals of consistency and authority. If product specifications differ across platforms, with inconsistent or conflicting information across databases, the system does not pause to reconcile them. It generates an answer based on what it sees.

And increasingly, that answer defines the brand -- whether it’s fact or not.

This is where certified brand data takes on new importance. It is not an industry standard today, but that is almost beside the point. What matters is the direction of travel: toward a search ecosystem built on verifiable, machine-readable truth.

The comparison with Twitter’s blue check is more than a metaphor. The blue check functioned as a trust shortcut, telling users: this identity is authentic. In the AI era, certification is beginning to play a similar role, not for profiles, but for information itself.

As AI systems increasingly rely on structured, machine-readable signals to assess credibility, verified data becomes a powerful indicator of trust. Certification acts as the modern equivalent of that blue badge: a signal that the information originates from the brand itself, guiding platforms in deciding which facts to surface and cite.

Machines already care about provenance

Early evidence already points in that direction.

In controlled testing environments, data shows that certified brand data generates significant increases in visibility and engagement across multiple search environments. The most pronounced effects were observed on Bing and Yahoo, where certified data led to click increases of 35.4% and 37.2% respectively.

Even within emerging AI interfaces, the signal is measurable. In tests analysing AI citations, Google Gemini displayed a 9.2% increase in results citing pages that contained certified brand data, while overall visibility within Gemini responses rose by up to 9%.

These results point to a broader trend: AI systems are already integrating signals of provenance into how they source and cite information.

The underlying logic is straightforward. Just as humans tend to trust information that can be traced to a credible source, AI systems increasingly evaluate not only what data says, but where it originates.

Provenance is becoming a critical trust signal for automated systems.

SEO rules are evolving

This does not mean traditional search disappears. Websites, SEO and content strategies remain fundamental pillars of brand visibility. But the mechanics of visibility are expanding. Alongside ranking signals, consistency, provenance and verifiability are becoming decisive factors in how AI systems interpret a brand.

Under the classic SEO model, authority could often be engineered through backlinks or keyword strategies. In AI-driven answers, inconsistency is penalized far more severely than invisibility. If a system cannot confidently validate a dataset, it may default to a competitor or a secondary source that appears more coherent.

The implication is significant. Brands that invest heavily in marketing may find themselves outmaneuvered by organizations that simply govern their data more rigorously.

The next competitive advantage: trustworthy data

For boards and executive teams, this represents a strategic reframing. AI visibility is no longer purely a marketing issue, it is also a matter of data governance and corporate reputation. Reliable, structured information becomes a form of infrastructure, as critical to a company’s digital resilience as cybersecurity or financial controls.

The organizations that recognize this shift earliest will treat their data not merely as content to optimize, but as assets to certify.

Twitter’s blue check once helped determine who was perceived as legitimate in the social media economy. In the emerging AI search economy, certified data is beginning to shape which voices are treated as credible.

The question leaders should now be asking is no longer simply, “How do we rank?”

It is far more fundamental: when AI speaks on your behalf, can you prove your facts, or will someone else’s version of your business become the truth?

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• Brands with no Trustpilot account only appeared in 1% of AI-generated answers
• Review and trust platforms are the second-most cited source type
• Relevance, recency and ranking are vital in a good GEO strategy

Trustpilot claims businesses could effectively be “invisible” in AI-generated answers if they fail to build visible trust signals through customer reviews and engagement, indicating a new post-SEO era.

While optimizing for search engines remains key, generative engine optimization (GEO) has introduced yet more challenges for companies looking to survive in 2026 and beyond.

According to Trustpilot’s research, only those with active review profiles are most likely to appear in AI results per the analysis of 800K answers across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Mode.

Reviews could revolutionize your business

The alarming data reveals brands with no Trustpilot presence were cited in just 1% of AI-generated answers. Conversely, those with 80+ reviews were cited in over three-quarters of answers.

Thankfully, even laying out the foundations can create a meaningful uplift. By creating a Trustpilot account, or presumably a similar online reviews account, the company saw businesses being cited in more than half (53.5%) of AI-generated answers. More reviews, responses and engagement lead to even higher visibility.

This is all important information for companies looking to increase visibility, with more than half (58%) of consumers now using AI to find products and services – a number that’s expected to climb.

The report claims that brands increasingly need AI visibility as well as search visibility – not in place of it – as AI-generated answers quickly emerge as the new front page for businesses.

More broadly, review and trust platforms are playing bigger roles in AI discovery. Per the data, they’re now the second-most cited source type in AI-generated answers, accounting for 14% of all citations.

The availability of fresh content, detailed information and signals of public trust and legitimacy all influence the prevalence of review platforms in AI-generated answers, the firm said, summarizing the ‘3Rs’ – relevance, recency and ranking.

Trustpilot criticized company web pages for being static, corporate places of information, whereas public forums like review sites offer real-time, conversational and experience-based details to tick the relevance box.

Recency is where Trustpilot sings its own praises, amassing around 200K reviews daily in 2025, while a 94/100 domain authority score affords this website high ranking for information retrieval by AI engines.

As for the industry in general, the report details how AI systems are increasingly combining traditional search indexing (hence the continued importance of SEO), retrieval systems, LLMs and real-time web grounding.

Why responding to reviews matters

Although opening a profile can boost AI visibility somewhat, Trustpilot found that responding to comments and engaging with customers gives businesses the best chances of being seen in AI-generated search results.

It’s not clear why, but the company surmises that the two-way interaction could reduce spam signals and demonstrate accountability.

Live feeds also show that a company is still operational, that customer support exists and that complaints are addressed.

“In an era of AI-powered buying journeys, trust is a quantifiable, high-value asset for businesses,” Chief Customer Officer Alicia Skubick commented.

While Trustpilot’s findings center around its own business model, the data does point to a broader shift in how businesses need to reach customers in an AI-first era.

Future discovery strategies must expand beyond SEO to include trust signals, customer engagement and real-time information to tackle the emerging challenge that is GEO.

Building a website has never been easier. Launching one, however, and keeping it running as traffic scales has never been more complicated.

Most modern websites depend on a long list of tools working behind the scenes: hosting IT infrastructure, analytics platforms, marketing integrations, security layers, performance optimization tools, and accessibility checks.

Each one exists for a good reason. Together, they help businesses deliver the fast, reliable experiences customers now expect online.

When everything works as it should, the results can be monumental. A well-built website can load instantly, rank well in search, capture leads automatically, and support marketing campaigns around the clock.

For many businesses, the website has quietly become one of the most important growth engines they have. But getting to that point is rarely straightforward.

Before a site even launches, teams often spend hours installing plugins, configuring integrations, and checking all the tools work together. Performance tools must not conflict with security layers.

Marketing integrations must connect cleanly to analytics systems. Updates must not break the site entirely. What looks simple in theory can become frustratingly complicated in practice.

For many developers, agencies, and businesses, preparing the environment behind a website now takes as much time as building the site itself.

Why modern website stacks became so complex

Part of the reason modern website stacks become so complex is because of 2026’s website expectations. A modern site might need to support ecommerce transactions, run marketing campaigns, track analytics, protect customer data, and meet accessibility standards. Delivering all of this requires specialized tools.

Hosting infrastructure provides the foundation. Content management systems power the site itself. Plugins and integrations extend functionality into areas like SEO, email marketing, analytics tracking, and performance monitoring.

This modular model is one of the web’s greatest strengths. Instead of relying on one system to do everything, businesses can choose the tools that best suit their needs – giving them the technological flexibility needed to compete with enterprise players.

Interestingly, looking at real usage data across more than 100,000 WordPress applications running on Cloudways, most website stacks end up looking quite similar. A small number of tool categories appear repeatedly: SEO plugins, marketing integrations, page builders, accessibility tools, and optimization layers across a huge number of projects.

These tools are popular because they work. But teams often end up rebuilding the same stack repeatedly. Each new project starts with researching plugins, testing integrations, and fixing compatibility issues before the environment becomes stable. The flexibility to mix and match tools makes this possible – but it also adds complexity.

The hidden operational cost of tool sprawl

That complexity usually shows up in day-to-day operations. Teams spend more time maintaining the website environment than improving the site itself. Plugins need updating. Integrations need monitoring. Performance issues need investigating.

For agencies managing dozens of client websites, or ecommerce teams responsible for high-traffic stores, this maintenance work adds up quickly.

Troubleshooting can also become difficult. When a site slows down or experiences downtime, the cause is rarely obvious. The issue might come from server configuration, plugin conflicts, database queries, or external services. With multiple systems involved, identifying the root cause can take time that most businesses don’t have.

Security creates another layer of work. Every integration introduces another component that needs monitoring and updating. Keeping everything secure and compatible requires consistent attention, especially for teams without dedicated infrastructure specialists.

None of these tasks are unusual. The challenge is how many of them accumulate over time.

How businesses can simplify their website infrastructure

The answer is not removing tools entirely. The flexibility of the web ecosystem is essential to a successful website. Instead, businesses need to manage their stacks in ways that reduce unnecessary complexity.

A strong hosting foundation is a good place to start. Managed hosting platforms that handle server management, monitoring, and performance optimization can remove a large amount of operational work.

When web hosting environments include automated diagnostics and monitoring, teams can identify issues earlier and resolve them faster. Many hosts also surface trusted integrations and partner tools, helping teams extend their stack without starting the research process from scratch.

It also helps to rely on proven tools. Despite the vast number of plugins available, most successful websites rely on a relatively small group of well-established solutions. Using widely adopted tools reduces compatibility risks and makes maintenance easier.

Regularly reviewing the stack is equally important. Websites often accumulate duplicate plugins performing similar tasks. Removing redundant tools can simplify the environment and improve performance at the same time.

Finally, compatibility matters. Tools designed to work well together dramatically reduce troubleshooting. Platforms that test and validate integrations before deployment can save teams considerable time during setup.

Simplicity is becoming a competitive advantage

Websites will only become more capable as new technologies emerge. But as the ecosystem grows, the ability to manage complexity becomes more important.

Businesses that simplify their website infrastructure can launch projects faster, maintain performance more easily, and respond to problems before they affect customers. Instead of spending time maintaining tools and fixing integrations, teams can focus on improving the website experience itself.

In an online environment where performance directly affects trust, engagement, and revenue, that shift matters. The future of web infrastructure may not depend on how many tools businesses can add to their stack, but on how well the right tools work together from the start.

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For the last 18 months, AI has fundamentally disrupted the way people search and find information.

The SEO industry’s response was disjointed, and—let’s be honest—entirely reactive.

We simply did not have the data to understand what was changing, how fast it was changing, and where we would ultimately end up.

Back then, rather than solving for the actual problem, such as lost traffic, broken attribution, and the looming threat to revenue, practitioners reached for a lexicon.

We saw a sudden explosion of new acronyms: GEO, AEO, LLMO. Each new acronym narrowed the conversation to a single tactic.

Each one splintered budgets and reinforced a categorically incorrect idea: in order for brands to be visible in the AI era, radically different approaches needed to be built from scratch.

It’s been a distraction. While the industry is busy debating acronyms, the actual behavior of the consumer—and the search surfaces—are evolving right in front of us.

The end of the acronym soup

The dust has finally settled. And I want to remind everyone of something that should make marketers breathe a sigh of relief: the core human behavior behind search, including curiosity, problem-solving, decision-making, hasn’t changed.

Just as importantly, brand visibility in the AI era is still built on the same foundations that have always driven great SEO: crawlable infrastructure, authoritative content, and consistent brand signals.

But SEO alone is no longer enough. Today AI search systems are constructing answers rather than simply ranking links. They retrieve, evaluate, and synthesize information across multiple inputs, then surface recommendations, often without sending users to a website at all. The intermediary has changed. And with it, the entire surface area that determines whether your brand gets selected.

This shift is already visible in the data. AI Overviews appear on roughly 16% of Google search results, and generative platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude are increasingly becoming part of everyday research behavior. The latest research shows also that AI-driven search traffic grew from under 2% to more than 9% of desktop search traffic between 2024 and 2025, while traditional Google searches per user in the U.S. declined by nearly 20% during the same period.

The implication is clear: visibility today is about being selected based on the strength, consistency, and authority of your entire digital presence. This is why the conversation needs to move beyond acronym dissonance and name the shift for what it actually is now and will likely be into the future: a new operating layer for discovery.

This shift is called Agentic Search Optimization (ASO).

Why ASO?

Every AI-generated answer already involves a machine retrieving sources, judging credibility, and composing a response. That's agentic behavior, and it's happening today in ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity. What's emerging now are agents that browse, compare, and transact with no human in the loop.

ASO is the discipline that ensures your brand is found, understood, and trusted across that entire spectrum.

Every time an AI system processes your brand, compares it to others, and determines whether to include it in a response, that is an agentic decision. And those decisions are not based solely on your website; AI agents interpret the entire digital footprint, including media coverage, Reddit discussions, YouTube videos, reviews, partner mentions.

And here’s the shift most brands are still underestimating: AI doesn’t just want to hear from you. It wants to hear what others are saying about you. That’s why, in my view, Agentic Search Optimization, combined with core SEO principles, represents both the present and the future of brand visibility.

Why search is now a board-level concern

For too long, SEO was treated as a marketing motion and, in many cases, an individual contributor's task. Those days are over.

In an AI-driven environment, visibility is not created through isolated efforts. It’s the result of how consistently your brand shows up across every surface that influences discovery. That makes search a reflection of the entire business. Which is why it now sits at the board level.

Growing visibility today requires synchronized alignment across content, brand, product, and communications to create consistent, AI-trusted signals at every touchpoint. Because when visibility depends on consistency, misalignment becomes a growth risk. If your content says one thing, your product signals another, and your external presence tells a different story, AI systems don’t reconcile that in your favor. Instead, they dilute it, and that dilution has a cost.

This is what I call “The Beige Tax”, the cost of safe, generic, average content. In an AI-driven environment, mediocre doesn’t just underperform–it disappears. The only way to compete is through signal alignment: ensuring that every part of your organization reinforces the same narrative, with enough authority and consistency for AI systems to trust and surface it.

Winning in the next era

The biggest misconception about this shift is that it requires starting over. It doesn’t. Winning in this era is accretive meaning it builds on what already works. Once again, the same fundamentals apply. But they need to scale across more surfaces, more signals, and more systems. From our data, three factors consistently drive AI visibility:

Entity authority: If people aren’t searching for your brand, AI won’t either. Brand demand is now a leading indicator of inclusion.

Information density and originality: AI prioritizes content that adds something new—proprietary data, unique insights, strong perspective. Original research can increase visibility by 30–40%.

Signal alignment: Consistency across channels matters more than ever, because AI looks for consensus across your ecosystem rather than simply trusting isolated claims.

This is how brands move from being indexed… to being selected.

The future is clearer, but it doesn't mean it’s easier

The future of brand visibility demands the combination of SEO + ASO. We aren’t asking teams to start from scratch; we are making the case that investment in teams, tools, and strategy must expand to match the new surfaces that influence search.

There are plenty of "AI-native" point solutions popping up right now. They can track a mention or see a single moment in a ChatGPT window. But they lack the historical depth and competitive benchmarking required to contextualize why performance is shifting. They see a moment. At Semrush, we see the trajectory.

The goal for any brand today is simple but difficult: build durable visibility wherever people search. AI just made "being everywhere" the most valuable place to be. The brands that win in the next era will be the ones that show up consistently across exactly there—everywhere.

The shift is here, and the data is clear.

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We’ve quietly crossed a threshold. For the first time in the internet’s history, bots outnumber humans online. This milestone signals a deeper shift in how the web functions and for whom (or what) it’s designed for. What started as an ecosystem built by and for humans is increasingly becoming one optimized for agents.

There are 8 billion humans today, and there will likely be about 8 billion in a decade. Human growth is linear. Agent growth won’t be. Within the next few years, I believe an 80/20 internet will emerge: 80% agentic traffic, 20% human.

AI agents are already crawling, scraping, synthesizing, and increasingly generating content at a scale no human workforce could match—reshaping the web in real time. Within ten years, we may see hundreds of billions—perhaps even close to a trillion—agents operating online.

The result: a bifurcated web, one layer built for bots, the other for people.

The agentic layer: structured, searchable, and synthetic

The agentic layer of the web is already taking shape. It’s built on structured data, robust metadata, and machine-readable formats that make it easy for AI systems to extract meaning.

Search engines and large language models rely on this layer to train, infer, and generate. The next iteration of autonomous agents will be wholly dependent on it to negotiate, transact, and make decisions.

From a technical standpoint, this layer is incredibly efficient. It favors semantic markup, schema.org compliance, and content that’s optimized for comprehension by agents. But it also comes with tradeoffs. The more we build for agents, the more uniform the digital landscape becomes. Creativity gives way to clarity.

Emotion gives way to precision. The internet that was once chaotic, occasionally quirky, and deeply human starts to flatten under the weight of optimization.

This shift also hints at a deeper architectural evolution. Instead of traditional web pages, agents will increasingly consume APIs, knowledge graphs, data streams, and agent-friendly formats that allow for direct retrieval rather than navigation.

Instead of surfing web pages like humans, AI agents will move through inter-connected knowledge graphs, where each fact links to the next. In this world, the graph becomes the interface AI relies on, and the traditional web page takes a supporting role, serving humans while agents interact directly with structured data.

The human layer: emotional, experiential, and scarce

In contrast, the human web will evolve into a different kind of space that values experience, emotion, and authenticity.

As bots consume the structured web, people will seek refuge in experiences that feel alive, unpredictable, and real. We’ll see a rise in closed communities, live interactions, and content that resists automation because it’s inherently personal or experiential.

Think of this as the artisanal internet - a counterweight to the algorithmic one. It’s where creators, brands, and organizations will focus less on reach and more on resonance; where human creativity will thrive.

The goal won’t be to feed the agentic layer, but to connect meaningfully within the human one. In many ways, this will look like a return to the internet’s roots: smaller networks, more intentional conversations, and content that doesn’t need to rank to matter.

A new type of digital economy

This bifurcation won’t just be philosophical, but will reshape value exchange online. The agentic internet will become the backbone of automation, powering decisions, transactions, and supply chains. Its value will lie in speed, scale, and interoperability.

The human internet, on the other hand, will trade in trust, context, creativity, and emotional intelligence, qualities agents can’t fully replicate.

This is where the economics get interesting. Value flows will diverge. Subscription models, creator economies, and premium content will likely skew toward human audiences, while data licensing and training-data markets grow around the agentic mode.

Brands will face a fundamental question: if their structured data is scraped to train future models, is that value exchange or uncompensated contribution? We may see new licensing frameworks or data-monetization mechanisms emerge as companies push for compensation within AI training pipelines.

Marketing and SEO will need to evolve, too. Advertising may shift toward agentic engagement, where the “customer” is an agent evaluating structured product detail pages, APIs, or machine-readable offers.

Very few marketers have seriously considered what it means to market to entities with infinite memory, near-zero attention constraints, and superhuman data processing capabilities.

Agents won’t respond to emotional hooks, scarcity tactics, or brand storytelling in the same way humans do. They will evaluate completeness, consistency, price efficiency, interoperability, and verified performance.

Advertising targeting humans will become more experiential, story-driven, and community-centric. As search becomes retrieval- and conversation-driven, traditional rankings will matter less. Companies will optimize for agent interfaces, not just human interfaces.

Duplicate content rules—a pillar of SEO—will need to adapt so brands aren’t penalized for producing standardized, machine-readable data across multiple surfaces. ROI models will split: human engagement measured by depth and trust; agentic engagement measured by precision, accessibility, and machine interpretability.

The trust problem

As AI-generated content continues to flood the web, authenticity will become both more valuable and harder to verify. When bots write for bots, the risk of misinformation compounds exponentially.

Distinguishing between human-originated and machine-generated content will require new forms of digital watermarking, tracking, and verification protocols.

This is where governance and technical stewardship come into play. Just as the early internet needed protocols for security and privacy, the next era will need standards for agentic transparency.

Businesses that lead here won’t just mitigate risk, they’ll invest in ethical AI practices, explainability, and traceability to bolster the next generation of digital trust.

Building responsibly across both internets

The question for leaders isn’t whether or not this split will happen. It’s how we build responsibly on both sides of it. For startups, that means designing products that are interoperable across human and agentic experiences.

For enterprises, it means rethinking data strategy; not just what information is available, but who or what it’s for. And for policymakers and technologists, it means creating frameworks that ensure the agentic internet enhances rather than erodes the human one.

We’ve reached a familiar moment in the evolution of technology: when innovation density and velocity precipitates a step change. As someone who’s spent decades building at the intersection of human and machine, the pattern is plainly observable, and I’m confident that this change has already started.

The bifurcation of the internet is a reaction to the sheer volume of agentic intelligence now coursing through it.

The opportunity, as always, lies in adaptation. The leaders who thrive in this next era won’t be those who fight automation, but those who design for coexistence.

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We have all been there. You find a piece of business software that looks like it will solve everything. The demo is polished. The landing page promises the world.

You sign up, pay, get inside - and discover that the feature you actually wanted is locked behind a "Premium" tier. Or an "Enterprise" plan. Or, my personal favorite, a "Contact Sales for Pricing" button that leads to a 45-minute discovery call where someone tries to upsell you on a package you never needed.

It is the universal SaaS trap. And in 2026, the market is finally calling it out.

Wall Street has wiped over $1 trillion in market capitalization from the software-as-a-service sector this year alone. Salesforce, once the undisputed king of enterprise software, has seen its stock plunge 26% after earnings.

Atlassian has cut 10% of its workforce - 1,600 people - while its stock has dropped 84% from its 2021 peak. Forrester calls it the "SaaS-pocalypse." TechCrunch is writing its obituary.

The reason is simple. If an AI agent can do the work of ten people, why would you pay for ten software seats?

A $350,000 Salesforce contract was reportedly terminated for a custom-built alternative. Retool's 2026 Build vs. Buy Report found that 35% of enterprise teams have already replaced at least one SaaS tool with custom software, and 78% plan to build more this year.

I run a media company, not a software company. But when I looked at what we were paying for - and what we were actually getting - I decided to stop buying and start building.

The problem we were solving

Man of Many is Australia's largest independently owned men's lifestyle publisher. But we are a small team operating in an industry under existential pressure.

Meanwhile, every SaaS vendor was knocking on the door with point solutions. One tool for SEO. Another for social media scheduling. Another for analytics. Another for CRM. The average large enterprise now runs over 2,000 applications, with more than 60% not formally approved by IT. That is not a tech stack. That is tool sprawl.

So instead of subscribing to more software, I built an AI operating system.

What we built

Otto OS is an AI Chief Operating Officer that runs our back-office operations through a network of specialized AI agents. It handles editorial workflows, sales intelligence, competitive analysis, financial reporting, content strategy, and business monitoring.

The architecture follows what is called the WAT Framework - Workflows, Agents, and Tools (hat tip to Nate Herk) - which separates AI reasoning from deterministic execution. This separation matters because when AI tries to handle every step directly, accuracy compounds downward. Five steps at 90% accuracy each give you 59% overall success.

I built it using Claude Code as both the builder and the brain. No traditional developers were involved. The initial build took roughly a week of active development.

What it actually does

Every morning, Otto generates a briefing that pulls live revenue data from Google Ad Manager, checks traffic trends from GA4, scans for SEO anomalies, reviews outstanding invoices in Xero, and flags anything that needs human attention. That used to require someone logging into five different platforms and manually compiling the information.

The security architecture uses a traffic-light system. Green zone: read-only access. Amber zone: draft-only access requiring human review. Red zone: any action involving money, public posting, or data deletion requires explicit human approval every time.

What I learned (and what is transferable)

1. Map your tool sprawl. List every SaaS product you pay for. Next to each one, write down which 20% of its features you actually use.

2. Start with the boring stuff. Reporting. Data consolidation. Status updates. Invoice chasing. These are the tasks where automation delivers immediate, measurable ROI.

3. Separate thinking from doing. Let AI handle reasoning and orchestration. Let deterministic scripts handle execution.

4. Use plain text as your database. Simple markdown files are the most effective memory system for AI.

5. Security is non-negotiable from day one. Build the guardrails before you build the features.

6. Document everything as you go. The system should write its own SOPs.

The bigger picture

We are not the only publisher thinking this way. Dow Jones, Business Insider, and Forbes are all investing heavily in internal AI systems. Reuters Institute's 2026 predictions report found that 97% of publishers now consider back-end AI automation "important."

Bain and Company frames this as a fundamental restructuring of the software industry. Dean Shahar, who manages a three billion euro fund at DTCP, put it bluntly: "The SaaS world is dying. Not software itself, but SaaS as a business category."

For us at Man of Many, Otto OS is how a small independent team competes against publishers with hundreds of staff. It cost a fraction of what we were spending on SaaS subscriptions that underdelivered.

The tools to do this are available to anyone, right now. The question is not whether your industry will be disrupted by AI. It is whether you will be the one building the system, or the one still waiting on a vendor to ship the feature you needed six months ago.

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Your website sits buried on page two of Google results while competitors capture the traffic you deserve. You're losing potential customers every day. The problem isn't always your content or your business, it's that you're not using the right tools to optimize for search engines.

Most business owners think SEO requires expensive third-party subscriptions or technical expertise. But the best website builder platforms pack powerful optimization tools right into the platform. These integrated solutions can transform your search visibility without breaking the bank.

We'll explore seven game-changing SEO tools that come built into popular website builders like Wix, Hostinger, or Squarespace. You'll discover how to leverage these features to climb the search rankings and attract more organic traffic to your site.

7 powerful SEO tools found in popular website builders

Website builders have evolved far beyond simple drag-and-drop editors. They integrate sophisticated SEO tools that often rival standalone optimization software. They also eliminate the need for multiple subscriptions while simplifying your optimization workflow.

Some website builders now offer everything from AI-powered metadata and XML sitemap generation to granular site auditing capabilities. Platforms like Wix, WordPress, and Webflow lead the pack with robust SEO toolkits that help users achieve professional-level optimization without technical expertise.

1. XML sitemap generator

XML sitemaps serve as your website's roadmap for search engines. These files list all important pages on your site and provide crucial metadata like last modification dates and page priorities. Search engines use this information to crawl your site more efficiently and understand your content structure.

Modern website builders automatically generate and update XML sitemaps whenever you add or modify pages. This automation ensures search engines always have current information about your site's structure. Platforms like WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace create these sitemaps without any manual intervention, then submit them to Google Search Console for immediate indexing.

The SEO benefits are substantial. Sites with properly configured XML sitemaps experience faster indexing of new content and improved crawling of deep pages that might otherwise be overlooked. This translates to better search visibility and quicker recognition of your fresh content by search engines.

2. Keyword researcher

Built-in keyword research tools help you discover what your audience actually searches for. These tools analyze search volume, competition levels, and related terms to guide your content strategy. Some website builders now integrate with professional keyword databases to provide enterprise-level insights.

Wix's partnership with Semrush delivers comprehensive keyword data directly within the editor interface. You can research keywords, analyze search trends, and optimize content without leaving the website builder. This integration shows search volumes, difficulty scores, and related keyword suggestions right where you're creating content.

The real power lies in real-time optimization guidance. As you write, these tools suggest relevant keywords and help you maintain optimal keyword density. This prevents keyword stuffing while ensuring you cover important search terms naturally throughout your content.

3. Website auditor

Comprehensive site auditing tools scan your entire website for SEO issues that could hurt your rankings. They check for broken links, duplicate content, missing meta tags, and technical problems that search engines penalize. Modern website builders include automated auditing that runs smoothly in the background.

Advanced auditing features analyze page loading speeds, mobile responsiveness, and Core Web Vitals metrics. Webflow Optimize examines your site's technical SEO health to provide specific recommendations for improvements. Its new AI can identify issues like oversized images, bad code hygiene, absent alt tags, and server response problems.

The auditing process generates detailed reports in moments, with prioritized action items. Each issue includes explanations of why it matters and step-by-step instructions for fixing it. This enables non-technical users to address complex optimization problems without hiring developers.

4. AI heatmapping

AI-powered heatmapping tools reveal exactly how visitors interact with your website pages. These tools track click patterns, scroll behavior, and attention areas to show which elements engage users most effectively. Their behavioral data directly impacts your SEO through improved user experience metrics.

Modern heatmapping tools, like the one from Hostinger Website Builder, leverage artificial intelligence to predict user behavior and identify optimization opportunities automatically. It can forecast where visitors will focus their attention before you publish pages. This helps you design more effective layouts from the start, but the best part is you don't need to run any third-party trackers on your site to do it.

Search engines consider user engagement signals when ranking pages. Sites with better click-through rates, longer session durations, and lower bounce rates tend to rank higher. AI heatmapping helps you optimize these metrics by showing exactly where your pages succeed or fail at capturing visitor attention.

5. Metadata generator

AI-powered metadata generators create compelling titles and descriptions that boost your search click-through rates. These tools analyze your content and generate SEO-friendly meta tags that accurately represent your pages while incorporating target keywords. It saves hours of manual optimization work.

Advanced metadata generators consider character limits and keyword placement to craft descriptions that perform well in search results. For example, Wix has an AI text generator built into its SEO settings pages that letsf you generate headlines and descriptions with just a single click.

Well-optimized meta descriptions can improve click-through rates, plus they also signal search engines on the nature and topic of your content. They impact search rankings, clickthrough percentage, on-site engagement, and bounce rates.

6. SEO optimizer

Built-in SEO optimizers provide real-time guidance as you create content. These tools analyze your posts and pages for keyword usage, readability, authority markers, and search intent. They offer suggestions for search performance in real time as you write.

Advanced optimizers use TF-IDF analysis to recommend topically relevant keywords and phrases that top-ranking pages use. Website builders like WordPress and Wix integrate with SEO platforms like Yoast or Semrush that offer this for free. You receive immediate feedback on title tags, headings, internal linking, and content structure.

Optimization reports also include technical SEO elements like schema markup implementation and canonical tag management. They automatically apply structured data to help search engines understand your content better. This improves your chances of appearing in rich snippets and other enhanced search features.

7. Page speed analyzer

Page speed analyzers integrated into website builders continuously monitor your site's loading performance across different devices and connection speeds. These tools identify specific elements that slow down your pages and provide actionable recommendations for improvement. Speed optimization directly impacts both user experience and search rankings.

Modern analyzers evaluate Core Web Vitals metrics that Google uses for ranking decisions. Tools measure Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift to ensure your pages meet Google's performance standards. They even include automatic optimizations like image compression and code minification to improve these scores.

For example, Wix offers a dedicated Site Speed Dashboard that tracks your loading speed over time based on real user experience. Meanwhile, WordPress and Webflow both offer built-in features and third-party integrations that can minify your site's JavaScript, CSS, and file size to reduce load times.

Should I be paying extra for SEO tools?

Most website builders offer SEO tools that handle the fundamentals well. But dedicated platforms like Semrush and Ahrefs offer way more sophisticated capabilities for competitive analysis and advanced optimization. They have massive keyword databases, better backlink analysis algorithms, and detailed competitor intelligence that website builders can't match.

Semrush tracks over 25 billion keywords across 142 geographic databases. Ahrefs still maintains one of the largest backlink indexes on the web. Website builders typically offer good keyword suggestions and competitive insights. But professional SEO platforms also include advanced features like rank tracking, content gap analysis, or historical keyword popularity data.

Consider upgrading to dedicated SEO tools when you're competing for highly competitive keywords or running multiple websites. They're particularly valuable for agencies, established businesses, or anyone managing SEO across multiple domains.

But the investment only makes sense when organic traffic generates significant revenue for your business. Professional SEO tools typically cost $99-$300 monthly, but they can identify opportunities worth thousands in additional traffic. If you're just starting out or managing a single website with a local focus, website builders provide sufficient functionality without the added expense.

Most growing businesses benefit from starting with built-in tools, then upgrading when they hit limitations. Website builders are great at automating technical SEO with guided optimization prompts. But they falter when researching niche keyword data or diagnosing complex technical issues.

Which website builder is best for SEO?

Wix is the top SEO-friendly website builder for most users in 2025, combining comprehensive optimization tools with beginner-friendly UI. It integrates Semrush keyword research directly into its editor, along with AI-powered metadata generation and a dedicated SEO Learning Hub for expert-led webinars.

WordPress still remains a powerhouse choice for advanced users and content-heavy sites. Its strong plugin ecosystem, including Yoast SEO and RankMath, provides unmatched customization and control over SEO. But, WordPress also requires significant technical knowledge and ongoing maintenance, plus added subscription costs for each plugin you use.

Webflow and Squarespace occupy the middle ground, offering more design flexibility than Wix while maintaining user-friendly interfaces. Webflow is one of the best website builders for agencies and provides developer-level control over technical SEO elements, but not as much guidance. Squarespace is good for mobile optimization and automatic schema markup, but doesn't suggest meta descriptions or article headlines.

Wix wins for most users because it eliminates the complexity barrier that prevents effective SEO implementation. It automates technical requirements like XML sitemaps and SSL certificates while providing actionable guidance through its SEO wizard. With the integration of professional tools like Semrush and Google Business Profile, it is one of the best small business website builders, offering enterprise-level insights without the complexity.

Struggling with slow website growth and limited return visitors? Building an online presence from scratch can be scary, because it's easy to get lost in the weeds unless you know exactly what you're doing.

Ultimately, you want to attract traffic – and turn those visits into sales – without burning yourself out or emptying the bank in the process.

You’ve likely searched for real answers, but received only generic advice so far. Luckily, there are plenty of marketing tools available within the best website builder platforms that you can get running with little to no extra cost. What you need is built-in solutions that do the heavy lifting for you, saving you from managing endless plug-ins with complex setup instructions. Here's how.

Attract, engage, and convert: Understanding how websites grow and retain audiences

Growing your website means guiding visitors through a clear journey. This is what we call the inbound marketing funnel, a proven path that turns strangers into loyal customers. Think of it like hosting a dinner party: you attract guests with great invitations, engage them with interesting conversation, then convert them into friends who'll come back again.

The funnel works because it matches how people actually make decisions. Nobody buys from a website they've never heard of on their first visit. Instead, they need to discover you, learn to trust you, then feel confident enough to take action. Each stage builds on the last, creating a natural flow that feels helpful rather than pushy.

Here's how each stage works:

• Attract: Draw in potential customers through valuable content, SEO, social media, and targeted ads that solve real problems they're searching for
• Engage: Convert casual visitors into leads by offering helpful resources like guides, newsletters, or free tools in exchange for their contact information
• Convert: Guide interested leads toward making a purchase through personalized emails, demos, testimonials, and special offers that address their specific needs
• Delight: Keep customers happy and turn them into repeat buyers and brand advocates through excellent support, loyalty programs, and ongoing value

How website builders can help you grow online traffic

Modern website builders like Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, and Hostinger have developed into complete marketing powerhouses. They're not just for creating pages anymore, these platforms flex serious traffic-growing tools right on their dashboards. You get everything from SEO wizards to social media schedulers, all designed to work together without separate subscriptions or complicated setup.

Wix leads the pack with its built-in SEO features, including keyword support from Semrush and an AI meta tag creator that writes optimized titles and descriptions for you. Meanwhile, Squarespace excels on the content marketing side with stronger blogging tools and built-in analytics that show exactly which posts drive the most traffic. Shopify dominates ecommerce marketing with tools for abandoned cart recovery, discount codes, social selling integrations, and detailed customer segmentation.

What makes these platforms powerful is how everything connects automatically. When you publish a blog post in Squarespace, it can auto-share to your social accounts and update your sitemap for SEO. Shopify's email campaigns pull customer data to send personalized product recommendations. Even Hostinger includes AI-powered SEO guidance as a standard feature.

Automate social media campaigns with Wix Ascend

Instead of juggling multiple platforms and scheduling tools, Wix Ascend gets you a single system that creates and posts content automatically. This saves hours each week and ensures your brand stays active across Facebook, Instagram, and other major networks without constant manual work.

The platform offers over 100 professionally designed templates that match your brand style, making it easy to create eye-catching posts even without design skills.

You simply connect your social accounts, choose from templates or create custom graphics, then schedule everything in advance. The basic plan allows only five posts per month, but unlimited plans remove all content restrictions.

Read our full Wix review to learn more about what the platform has to offer.

Launch automated newsletters with Hostinger Reach

Hostinger Reach makes email marketing surprisingly simple with its AI-powered template creator that writes entire newsletters for you. Just tell it what you want to promote, be it a sale, a new blog post, or a company update. It instantly creates a mobile-friendly email complete with subject lines and call-to-action buttons. No more staring at blank templates or worrying about design skills.

Reach handles the technical stuff automatically, including SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records that help your emails land in inboxes instead of spam folders. Contact management is equally effortless, since you can manually add subscribers, import spreadsheets and databases, or sync directly with forms using Hostinger Website Builder. The free plan includes unlimited contacts and 200 monthly emails to 100 subscribers, making it perfect for testing the waters.

Our full Hostinger website builder review tells you everything you need to know about the platform.

Optimize your pages with Squarespace Search Tools

Squarespace's AI SEO tool takes the guesswork out of search optimization by automatically generating page titles, meta descriptions, and image alt text for your content. The system examines each page on your site, references your brand identity, then creates SEO metadata that helps search engines understand what you're about.

Squarespace even provides a personalized SEO report showing exactly which pages need attention, then lets you improve them with AI. You can review, edit, or regenerate any suggestion until it feels right for your brand voice.

Beyond metadata, Squarespace also includes automatic SEO fundamentals like clean URLs, mobile optimization, and auto-generated sitemaps that work behind the scenes. Its system continuously learns from your content style and business type, making its suggestions more accurate over time.

Read our full Squarespace review to learn more about what Squarespace offers.

Increase store conversions with Shopify Flow

Shopify Flow shakes up ecommerce management by automating repetitive tasks that usually take up your entire day. Its drag-and-drop workflow builder operates on simple trigger-condition-action logic. When something happens in your store (like a new order), it checks your conditions (order value over $100), then takes action automatically (send a thank-you gift card). No coding required, just smart business rules that work 24/7.

Flow is perfect for inventory management, customer segmentation, and order fulfillment automation. You can set up workflows that automatically tag high-value customers, restock popular items, or flag potential fraud attempts. It also integrates with dozens of popular apps like Klaviyo for email marketing, Rise.ai for gift cards, and various fulfillment services. All of this makes your online store more responsive and customer-friendly, increasing the chances of returning customers.

Check out our full Shopify review to learn more about how the platform can help you grow your store.

Build targeted campaigns with GoDaddy's Marketing Planner

GoDaddy's Digital Marketing suite includes an AI-powered Marketing Planner that creates custom action plans based on your business goals and current online presence. Instead of wondering what to work on next, you get specific tasks that move the needle in the right order of priority.

Unlike generic SEO checklists, the tool analyzes your industry and competition to suggest realistic, achievable marketing steps. It combines multiple marketing channels in one dashboard, including branded email campaigns, social media management, and built-in SEO tools that help you get found on Google.

You can create professional content using GoDaddy Studio templates, then distribute it across email, social media, and your website automatically. Analytics and reporting features track performance across all channels, showing which efforts generate the most leads and sales. Social media integrations feed directly into your dashboard, while search optimization features make every page crawlable.

Read our GoDaddy website builder review to discover more about the platform.

Create personalized experiences with HubSpot's Smart Content

HubSpot's Content Hub includes powerful Smart Content features that tailor your website experience based on visitor data stored in your CRM. Instead of showing the same cookie-cutter content to every visitor, you can display different messages and offers based on things like location, previous activity, or lead status.

It all works seamlessly with HubSpot's built-in analytics and marketing tools, automatically tracking which personalized content performs best with different audience segments.

You can create entire dynamic content sections that change based on visitor behavior. Like showing special offers to returning visitors or different service pages for various industries. When someone interacts with personalized content on your site, that data flows into automated email sequences and sales workflows.

Read our HubSpot website builder review to learn more about the platform.

Remove technical bottlenecks with Bluehost's SEO Checker

Bluehost's Digital Marketing Solution includes an SEO Checker that instantly audits your website for common optimization issues like missing meta tags, broken links, and slow speeds. Without any technical help, the tool provides clear fixes that directly increase search rankings.

Bluehost also automatically sets up Google Analytics and Search Console integration with one-click installation, giving you immediate access to traffic data, keyword rankings, content performance metrics, and more from a single dashboard. Performance monitoring tools track critical SEO ranking factors and provide ongoing suggestions for improvement.

Moreover, AI-assisted content planning features help identify related keywords and generate SEO-focused content briefs that match both search intent and user needs. Plus, 24/7 support from digital marketing specialists means you can get guidance on everything from setup to advanced optimization techniques.

Improve on-site engagement with Elementor PRO Widgets

Elementor Pro comes with powerful built-in widgets that let you take full control over your site’s marketing and content features. These tools make it simple for anyone to design landing pages, capture leads, or showcase products without writing a single line of code.

You get everything from forms and price tables to sliders and popups, so building high-converting campaigns is faster than ever. The Form Widget lets you create custom lead capture forms, contact pages, surveys, and other interactive elements. Meanwhile, Popups divert attention towards discounts and newsletters without disrupting the browsing experience.

Other versatile widgets include the Posts Widget for custom blog layouts, Testimonials to build trust, and Call-to-Action buttons that drive visitors to the next step. Each widget gives you granular control over styling, animation, and behavior, so your site can stand out in all the ways that matter.

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a huge part of modern business. SEO refers to the ways in which organizations curate their content to engage audiences through search engines (like Google).

Whether organizations like it or not, the practice dictates a lot of the ways in which content is written and formatted, and firms are often at the mercy of search engine preferences. Many companies have entire teams dedicated to their SEO, but they might have to make room for some new roles.

TechRadar Pro attended Hubspot’s Inbound conference, and we spoke to Hubspot’s Amanda Kopen, manager of AI search and interactive experiences to find out just how different digital marketing might look in the near future.

Always evolving

“Well, in traditional SEO, there were a handful of tactics,” explains Kopen, “but what you're seeing now -like on Google if you search something, you'll see an AI overview. There's citations, you can expand it, there's AI mode, there'll be ads, featured snippets, and then the organic results. So, we want to help people transition into going from SEO only to AEO.”

Search is changing, and the way people access their information is evolving, and so must the strategies organizations use to market their products and services. Instead of solely focusing on SEO, organizations should also utilize AEO (AI engine optimization or answer engine optimization, depending on who you ask).

“AEO borrows a lot of the basic SEO tactics, but it also helps educate people on how AI engines are accessing that content. You want to be visible in those; ChatGPT, Gemini, et cetera.”

Consumers no longer rely solely on Google, who have had an effective monopoly on search in recent years. This disrupts the landscape in a serious way, and threatens to rewrite everything SEO teams have relied upon for years.

“With SEO, you really cared about ranking, you wanted to build authority through backlinks, you wanted to have high quality content that was crawlable, indexable, etc. All of that is still really important,” she explains.

“But you need to utilize the AEO best practices as well. You need to get hyper-specific, really personalized, because search now happens not just with the query, but the query fanned out into a ton of different questions.”

New content

To create successful content that suits both SEO and AEO, teams need to be mindful of their voice. Most organizations will be using AI to generate SEO and AEO weighted content, but businesses should be sure to train their models using their own content so that their style and tone is established.

“What you want to do with AEO is really reinforce the narrative that you care about for your business,” Kopen tells us.

“That is important because that information will come [from] somewhere. It can either get hallucinated based on Reddit, Quora, review sites, [or] it can come from you. So having repetition and talking about your business in the way you want to be known for is truly, truly important.”

To help their customers address this, Hubspot has developed an AEO grader. This is a free tool which assesses your organization’s company as a whole;

“Instead of looking at your business or your website specifically, you put in your information, your location, your industry, your business name, and it will show you sentiment across multiple different AI engines, visibility, and what competitors you have,” Kopen explains.

The task can be daunting, Kopen admits, but building in your existing SEO knowledge is a great place to start. “I would say it's good to always be looking at resources, thought leaders, the SEO space,” she says "and also building upon the foundations of SEO for what they're using now.”

AI isn’t going anywhere soon, so the organizations that embrace AEO tactics are going to have a serious head start when it comes to digital visibility - especially if they utilize multiple platforms to push their message.

“It's really important to have high AI literacy because this is the way of the future,” she concludes. “You and your human experiences are your superpower, but you can speed up your efficiency through AI.”

• Unlocking business transformation: the power of marketing data and technology

AI agents are fundamentally reshaping businesses and how work gets done by augmenting them with autonomous, context-aware execution. If you’re not leveraging AI agents, here’s why you should.

Recognizing that managing AI agents is becoming an essential skill in the workforce, I predict that before 2026, every person at my 1,000+-person company will be using an agent on a daily basis. AI agents are evolving businesses rapidly, and while tech adoption rates can be slower for some organizations, the momentum and interest in agentic AI is building rapidly and proving its business value.

As organizations continue to grapple with complexity, speed, and the pressure to do more with less resources and staff, AI agents offer a path to operational agility: automating routine decisions, surfacing real-time insights, and accelerating strategic outcomes. This shift marks more than a ‘tech upgrade’—it’s a redefinition of the business operating model, where the ability to harness intelligent, data-driven agents will distinguish tomorrow’s leaders from those stuck in yesterday’s workflows.

Real agents

First, what is a real agent and why is it different?

In sales and marketing, there is a lot of chatter about building agents that save time and allow companies to send personalized content at scale. That’s absolutely an efficiency that should be taking place, but we’re probably talking about a database trigger in Salesforce that kicks off IF-THEN logic that, in turn, uses an API call to ChatGPT for purposes of drafting the content.

That is not an agent.

By definition, an agent is more resourceful, proactive, and helpful, able to pursue goals, and achieve more results on behalf of employees than either a chatbot or conventional automation. Although the concept of autonomous agents has been around for years, we’re just getting to the point where the technology is becoming widespread, with tools for the creation of agents improving rapidly.

Rather than trying to give a formal definition of what constitutes an agent, let me describe what makes the best formula for purpose-driven AI agents. They possess:

1. Tools to search the web and social media, gather information, and provide data analysis. It’s not a simple report on findings that is helpful in this context, it is an analysis of the findings and a strategy to move forward. Investing in tools is important: think of it like sharpening your knife, if it’s dull, it’s not going to cut as intended. You need to structure the tools to be efficient and flexible so your agent can use them properly.

2. Knowledge, particularly knowledge of you and your goals, the expectation of your outcome for the role you sit in, your writing style, and how to be successful. Context is key, make sure the agent has the relevant knowledge to do its intended job. This could include embedding knowledge from sales decks, website and app data and customer call transcripts.

3. LLM vs LLM evaluation, to ensure reliability, the most effective AI agents will use one model to generate an output and a different model to critique it. For example, if you're relying on an AI agent to draft a report, this approach helps prevent mistakes or awkward phrasing that another reviewer—human or AI—might otherwise catch.

4. A Playbook so the agent learns standard protocols about your company's data and requirements. The playbook should be prescriptive and specific but also leave room for the agent to adapt and change as it gets more information and is able to perform better.

How AI agents are leading business transformation

Across industries, AI agents are beginning to take on specialized roles within business workflows, offering practical support in areas like SEO, sales, and market analysis. For example, some agents now generate pre-meeting briefs by pulling together public digital signals, company data, and CRM information—work that previously required extensive manual effort.

For example, I worked on an AI Meeting Prep Agent for salespeople that one customer told us gave him a complete briefing within seconds that would have taken him at least a half hour to do himself, if he could even find the time — and this is someone who meets with multiple customers and potential customers every day.

Other agents analyze competitive keyword trends to recommend SEO content strategies, or track sudden changes in search behavior to surface emerging market shifts, providing more depth and speed of analysis than would be possible otherwise.

In sales, agents can be used to craft personalized outreach based on real-time data, helping teams engage prospects with greater relevance. Rather than replacing teams, these agents handle the groundwork—searching, summarizing, and connecting data—so people can spend more time making strategic decisions and less time on prep work.

Results

The result isn’t just increased efficiency, it’s business transformation. These agents free up talent from information-gathering and task repetition, enabling teams to focus on high-impact work: crafting strategy, building relationships, and driving innovation.

As these agentic workflows become embedded across functions, companies gain a more adaptive, data-responsive operating model—one that scales insight, improves agility, and accelerates decision-making across the board.

In short, AI agents don’t replace teams—they amplify them, creating a multiplier effect that turns data into direction and strategy into execution.

Technology is moving faster than ever, and now is the time to be an innovator, set your brand apart from the rest and stay ahead of the curve.

We list the best client management software.

This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro

• Fake AI tools climb search rankings to spread ransomware and malware
• Cybercriminals are targeting tech marketing and B2B users with cloned installers
• Talos has uncovered threats that are using branding tricks and search manipulation tactics

Cybercriminals are already using AI to make phishing emails more convincing, and now they’re manipulating search engine results to spread malware disguised as AI tools.

New research from Cisco Talos claims these fake downloads appear to be legitimate software, often promoted through search engines and social platforms, and are predominantly targeting users in the tech, marketing, and B2B sales industries.

Talos recently uncovered several threats distributed this way, including ransomware families CyberLock and Lucky_Gh0$t, as well as a destructive new malware called Numero.

SEO manipulation

Talos says these threats use familiar branding, fake websites, and misleading metadata to trick users into downloading and running infected software.

In one case, attackers created a clone of a known AI service, “NovaLeads,” and used SEO manipulation to rank the fake site near the top of search results.

When victims downloaded what appeared to be the legitimate installer, it executed CyberLock ransomware, written in PowerShell, which encrypted targeted files and demanded a $50,000 ransom in Monero. The ransom note falsely claimed the payment would fund humanitarian aid.

Lucky_Gh0$t ransomware, another discovery, was bundled with real Microsoft AI tools inside a self-extracting archive named “ChatGPT 4.0 full version - Premium.exe.” Once executed, it encrypted files smaller than 1.2GB and deleted or corrupted larger ones.

The newly identified malware, Numero, is especially destructive. Disguised as an installer for a video AI tool, it repeatedly runs a loop that corrupts the Windows interface by overwriting GUI elements with numeric strings, rendering systems unusable.

These campaigns exploit rising demand for AI software and target sectors most likely to adopt these tools quickly. With data centers, businesses, and individuals increasingly reliant on AI platforms, the potential harm from such threats is growing.

Talos warns users to be cautious when searching for AI tools online and to only download software from trusted vendors.

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Competitive intelligence matters. No matter how confident a business may be in its product, operations, or marketing, it’s still a good idea to examine what its rivals are doing. Perhaps they are leveraging a new piece of project management software that is supercharging their productivity. Or maybe they have a first-mover advantage regarding a recent market trend and are using the latest AI tools to take full advantage.

Competitive intelligence tools can analyze the activities of a company’s business rivals, collecting data from various channels, such as social media, news outlets, customer reviews, and more. This data can then be turned into useful insights that businesses can use to identify new opportunities, adjust their strategies, and, hopefully, gain a competitive advantage.

Some examples of the best competitive intelligence tools include Insightsfirst, Google Analytics, SEMrush, HubSpot, and many others. You’ll notice that these tools all have slightly differing focuses. Some are CRM platforms, some are SEO tools, and others are business intelligence tools. This is because competitor analysis can take many forms, depending on the particular industry that a business is in and the insights they are looking to discover.

In addition, there are different functionalities to be found among competitive intelligence tools, from customizable alerts to real-time automated data tracking. Below, we’ve highlighted five of the most important features for you to assess when comparing solutions.

1. Data visualization

Data is fundamental to the efficacy of any competitive intelligence tool. First of all, this means that your intelligence tool must have access to comprehensive data coverage from a wide range of trusted sources. It’s only then that businesses can be confident in the insights and assumptions generated from the data.

As well as having access to large stores of data, good competitive intelligence tools also depend on effective data visualization. The right visuals can help individuals gain a clearer appreciation of what the data is saying - regardless of how much of it there is. A dashboard with an intuitive interface can do wonders for data clarity and, subsequently, help turn that data into the kind of insights that inform your competitive analysis.

A competitive intelligence tool with a good standard of data visualization may utilize spreadsheets, Kanban boards, Gantt charts, and project management features. The exact method of visualizing data may differ, but all good competitive intelligence tools should certainly prioritize clarity in whichever one they feature.

2. Automation features

IT automation software has been around for a while now and has been used to streamline efficiency for a number of solutions, including CRM platforms, RPA software, and more. The best competitive intelligence tools also employ automation features to ensure businesses can gain valuable insights into their market rivals, without ramping up the manual burden on their employees.

Automation can take many forms with competitive intelligence tools, including automatic data scraping from competitor websites, social networks, market research reports, real-time alerts, and natural language processing. These kinds of functionalities mean that any insights derived from the competitive intelligence tool are timely and actionable, which is key when markets move so quickly.

Often, the automation features included within a competitive intelligence solution leverage AI tools in some way. This technology allows competitive intelligence software to identify patterns and trends that might be contained within competitor data and can even involve a predictive element so you can foresee coming market shifts and act accordingly.

3. Real-time alert notifications

The last thing businesses need is for their competitive intelligence tool to identify a crucial insight that could supercharge revenue, but for it to remain unnoticed. If this occurs, even if only for a short while, it means markets may shift again, product launch windows may be missed, and a rival may steal a march. In short, opportunities could pass them by.

That’s why real-term alerts are found within the best competitive intelligence tools. Real-term alert notifications will ensure that businesses never miss insights that could have a transformative effect on their operations. What’s more, real-time alerts mean that employees don't need to spend their time scouring the market for the latest developments. They can get on with adding value and the alert will inform them as they go about their business.

Often these notifications are customizable, so you need not worry about them having the opposite effect to the one intended and serving as a distraction. What’s more, each employee may have a different focus area so they can personalize their notification to only relate to, say, marketing, finance, innovation, operations, or whatever field is most relevant.

4. Targeted searches

Who represents your audience? What would you consider to be your target market? Just because another company is broadly in the same field as your organization, does that necessarily make them a competitor? If you come up with answers to these questions, hopefully, you can streamline your use of your competitive intelligence tool.

Look for a solution that provides targeted searches so you can narrow down the collection of competitor insights by industry, geography, product type, or wherever you want to focus. In today’s data-fuelled world, there is a danger of businesses having access to too much information. To avoid that, make sure your competitive intelligence tool allows you to target your energies appropriately.

5. Customizable reports

A competitive intelligence tool that spits out a string of numbers isn’t much use. There might be data scientists or analysts at your organization who are capable of interpreting such information, but most of your workforce is likely to prefer a report detailing the relevant information. Of course, what’s relevant differs from company to company. That’s why it’s essential that competitive intelligence tools come with customizable reports so they are sure to fit the needs of a particular organization. Which metrics do you want the report to display? Revenue? Sales? Email engagements? What about the demographics of those sales? You should be able to choose exactly what your competitive intelligence tool displays and how it is displayed.

Getting maximum value from your competitive intelligence tool

The best competitive intelligence tool will differ by organization, product, industry, and many other factors. However, in our view, there are certain features that you should always be on the lookout for. From clear data visualization to automation, these are the functionalities that help certain competitive intelligence tools stand out from the crowd.

Predictive analytics is the study of historical data to make future predictions. It is a data analysis method that uses past information to identify patterns and make educated guesses about future events.

Ilya Smirnov, Head of the AI/ML Department at Usetech explains predictive analytics as a method of analyzing data to make successful decisions in the future based on the results of past events. “By interpreting data, businesses can make decisions that will improve their performance,” says Smirnov.

Predictive analytics has been used since around the 1950s in the public sector and in industries like the medical field, but had a huge explosion in usability for other fields around 1990, says Josh Meier, Senior Generative AI Author at Pluralsight.

He reasons this is because the internet and computer development made it much easier to get and hold large amounts of data. “So, predictive analytics is nothing new,” says Meier. “Even with the release of GPT and other large language models, predictive analytics has remained relatively unchanged since its inception.”

Crunching big data

Predictive analytics represents a fundamental evolution beyond traditional business intelligence (BI) and reporting, explains Yigal Edery, SVP of Product & Strategy at Sisense. While traditional BI tells you what happened in the past, predictive analytics uses historical data patterns, statistical algorithms, and machine learning techniques to identify the likelihood of future outcomes.

The key strength of predictive analytics lies in its ability to turn massive amounts of data into actionable insights. This helps businesses anticipate opportunities and risks before they arise.

According to Rogers Jeffrey Leo John, co-founder and CTO of DataChat, analysts use special algorithms, called models, to uncover these patterns. The process of teaching a model to recognize these patterns from historical data is called training.

Once trained, the model can be used to make predictions. “Often, analysts create and test multiple models to determine which one performs the best in capturing insights from the data,” says John.

How can PA help businesses

John says predictive analytics allows companies to anticipate trends, minimize risks, and optimize operations. Here are some of the key ways it benefits businesses, according to John:

1. Improved Decision-Making: Using predictive analytics, businesses can lean on data-driven insights to guide strategic choices.
2. Risk Management: It helps businesses identify potential risks and mitigate them in advance.
3. Cost Optimisation: It can help predict demand to avoid overstocking or understocking.
4. Personalization: It helps tailor products, services, and marketing to individual customers.
5. Operational Efficiency: Businesses can also use it to forecast equipment failures and streamline maintenance.

John also shares some of the real world examples where predictive analytics is already being used today:

• Detecting fraudulent transactions and predicting loan defaults.
• Forecasting sales trends and managing inventory levels.
• Predicting customer churn and personalizing campaigns to increase retention.
• Identifying patients at risk of chronic conditions or readmission.
• Anticipating equipment breakdowns for predictive maintenance.
• Optimizing delivery routes and forecasting demand fluctuations.
• Personalizing product experiences, such as song recommendations on Spotify or movie recommendations on Netflix.

“By proactively addressing challenges and seizing opportunities, predictive analytics enables businesses to stay competitive and agile in a rapidly changing environment,” says John.

PA use cases

Arunkumar Thirunagalingam, Manager of Enterprise Data Management at Santander Consumer USA, agrees. He asserts predictive analytics streamlines operations, reduces costs, improves customer experiences, and enhances decision-making across various industries.

For instance, he says in risk management, particularly in insurance and banking, predictive analytics helps detect fraud and assess risks more accurately, enabling better pricing and decision-making.

It also helps stores like Walmart optimize supply chains by forecasting demand and managing inventory. This helps ensure the stores have the right products available at the right time.

Even in healthcare, predictive models are used to identify at-risk patients, optimize resources, and reduce hospital readmission rates, improving both patient care and cost-efficiency, says Thirunagalingam.

Kaveh Vahdat, Founder and President at RiseOpp shares a couple of interesting use cases for predictive analytics.

He says in the digital marketing space, predictive analytics can significantly enhance SEO and content marketing by forecasting trends in search behavior, consumer preferences, and the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

“For businesses, this means understanding not just what customers are doing now, but what they are likely to do next,” says Vahdat. “This allows companies to preemptively adjust their strategies, optimizing content and ad placements for maximum engagement and conversion.”

Vahdat says predictive analytics is equally crucial in the gaming industry. His company, RiseAngle leverages generative AI to create personalized gaming experiences. Predictive models help forecast player behavior, helping game developers understand player preferences, anticipate drop-off points, and optimize in-game monetization strategies.

For instance, he says, predictive analytics can identify which game features are most engaging or which users are likely to make in-game purchases, allowing developers to tailor experiences that keep players engaged for longer periods.

“In generative AI gaming, this technology helps balance the development of new content, ensuring it aligns with what players are most likely to enjoy, while simultaneously optimizing business outcomes like user retention and lifetime value,” says Vahdat.

Predictive analytics and AI

Predictive analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and even machine learning (ML) are interconnected fields but distinct.

John explains that AI is a broad field focused on creating systems that mimic human intelligence, including decision-making and learning. Predictive analytics, he says, is a practical application of AI, which uses techniques like ML to analyze historical data and forecast future outcomes.

Furthermore, while ML, itself a subset of AI, builds models that learn patterns from data, predictive analytics uses these models to enhance predictions.

“Predictive analytics often uses ML algorithms to enhance its forecasting capabilities,” adds Vahdat. “Machine learning allows predictive analytics models to continuously improve as they process more data, making predictions more accurate over time.”

Essentially, predictive analytics is a subset of AI that leverages ML to refine its predictions.

• We've rounded up the best AI website builders.

NitroPack is a comprehensive site optimization plugin that has made a name for itself in web performance since 2012. It’s well-known for significantly improving website loading times, which enhances user experience and boosts search engine rankings. While it's especially popular among WordPress users, NitroPack also works with platforms like WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce, and OpenCart.

The tool offers a range of features, such as advanced caching, CSS and JavaScript optimization, and automatic image compression. These features work together to improve site performance and enhance Core Web Vitals scores with little manual effort. For digital marketers and e-commerce businesses, NitroPack is an attractive choice for staying competitive in website speed.

However, there are some drawbacks. Users have reported issues with customer support, and the pricing may be high for smaller businesses. Despite these challenges, NitroPack remains a strong option for those willing to invest in better web performance. In this review, we’ll look at NitroPack’s features, setup process, customer support, and pricing to provide a clear overview of what it offers.

NitroPack: Pricing

NitroPack has a pricing structure that caters to a variety of users, with different tiers to suit different needs. It starts with a free trial for users to explore basic features and goes up to paid plans designed for businesses.

The Free Plan provides limited optimizations, making it ideal for small personal websites or those curious about the service. It includes basic caching and optimization but doesn't offer advanced features like CDN integration or priority support.

The Essential Plan, at $19/month, targets small businesses. It offers more advanced features such as image optimization and basic CDN, giving a noticeable performance boost for moderately trafficked sites.

For larger organizations, the Growth Plan is available at $69/month. It includes an expanded CDN, extra optimization tools, and premium support options, making it suitable for websites with significant traffic that need strong performance enhancements.

At the top of the line is the Enterprise Plan, which is customizable with pricing based on specific requirements. This plan includes all features, dedicated support, and enhanced security measures, making it perfect for high-traffic sites that demand maximum reliability and performance.

While NitroPack's pricing is on the higher side, the performance improvements it offers are substantial. For businesses focused on site speed and SEO, the investment can lead to better engagement and conversion rates, making it worthwhile.

NitroPack: Features

NitroPack delivers a powerful set of features designed to boost site performance. With tools for caching and image optimization, everything works together to create a smooth user experience.

Caching

At the core of NitroPack's capabilities is its advanced caching system. By saving static versions of your web pages, it lessens server load and speeds up delivery to users. Features like cache warmup preload pages based on expected traffic, ensuring visitors always enjoy a fast-loading site. This technology is essential for keeping up performance, especially during busy times or promotions.

CSS Optimization

NitroPack is great at managing CSS, particularly with its critical CSS feature. This tool identifies the necessary CSS to quickly display the visible part of the webpage while deferring non-essential CSS for later. This improves loading times and user experience. The automated process removes the need for manual CSS adjustments, making life easier for website admins.

JavaScript Optimization

NitroPack also excels in JavaScript optimization. By deferring scripts and managing their execution, it prevents slowdowns that can affect loading times. NitroPack's unique resource loader ensures that JavaScript files load in the best order, improving both perceived and actual site speed.

Image Optimization

Images can significantly impact a webpage's loading time, which is why NitroPack's image optimization toolkit is so valuable. The platform automatically compresses and resizes images, converting them to modern formats like WebP for faster loading. Its adaptive sizing feature optimizes images based on the user's device, ensuring visuals remain sharp without slowing down the site.

CDN Integration

NitroPack comes with a strong Content Delivery Network (CDN) that has over 70 global endpoints, ensuring your content loads quickly no matter where your audience is. When combined with Gzip/Brotli compression, this integration greatly enhances site load times, making it a vital part of NitroPack's offering.

NitroPack: Setup

Setting up NitroPack is refreshingly straightforward, living up to its promise of being user-friendly. Even for first-time users, the process is seamless, with a guided setup that gets your site optimized in minutes.

Upon installation, NitroPack connects to your site through a simple plugin activation. The interface is clean and intuitive, with a dashboard that provides easy access to all features. Users are greeted with preset optimization modes, allowing both novices and experts to adjust settings according to their needs. The tool's default configuration is robust enough for immediate performance improvements, while more technically inclined users can fine-tune settings to align with specific goals.

For those new to site optimization, NitroPack offers a wealth of resources, including comprehensive guides and tutorials. These resources are invaluable, providing step-by-step instructions and tips on maximizing the platform's potential. Furthermore, the community forums are active, offering additional support and allowing users to share insights and solutions.

While the initial setup is quick, users should allow some time for the optimization processes to run through the site, especially on larger sites. This thorough approach ensures that every page is optimized for peak performance. Overall, NitroPack's setup process is designed to eliminate complexity, empowering users to achieve rapid improvements without a steep learning curve.

NitroPack: Customer support

NitroPack's customer support receives mixed reviews. The quality of help varies and seems to depend on the pricing tier chosen. Higher-tier plans usually provide more responsive and personalized support, which is crucial for businesses that rely on web performance.

Support options include email, live chat, and a detailed knowledge base. Email support is generally quick, but there are times when responses are delayed, which can be frustrating for users with urgent issues. Live chat offers faster resolutions when available, but it's mainly accessible to those on higher pricing plans.

The knowledge base is extensive, featuring articles, tutorials, and FAQs on a wide range of topics. It serves as a useful self-service resource for users to troubleshoot common problems and learn about NitroPack's features. However, for more complex issues, users may still need direct support.

Some users have pointed out limitations, especially with technical questions or during busy times. Overall, the support system at NitroPack could use improvement, particularly given the importance of dependable help for web performance tools.

NitroPack: Final verdict

NitroPack is a powerful tool for anyone looking to boost their website's speed and performance. Its wide range of features and user-friendly design make it appealing for digital marketers, e-commerce businesses, and WordPress site owners.

The platform effectively improves site speed, which benefits both SEO and user experience. However, potential users should keep in mind the costs involved and determine if it fits within their budget and performance goals.

For those who prefer a hands-off approach to website optimization, NitroPack provides an effective solution. While it might not be ideal for smaller sites with limited budgets, businesses that depend on strong web performance and have the means to invest will likely find NitroPack to be a valuable asset.

• We've rounded up the best Wordpress plugins of 2026.

Whether you’re launching your very first website or giving your online presence a serious overhaul, the process should be as seamless as possible. And you’re in luck, as One.com is about to start Black Week and Cyber Week offers a jaw-dropping 90% off on all of its web hosting plans.

With this unique opportunity from One.com, you’ll get access to enterprise-level hosting minus the premium costs. And the best part? All of the plans’ features arrive with an easy-to-use interface and setup process, ideal for beginners and pros alike.

Why One.com?

There are many reasons why this deal is a no-brainer. The main one, however, is the fact that One.com is a comprehensive package for an effortless web presence that has everything you need in a website builder.

This includes an intuitive and easy-to-navigate dashboard that makes the setup process a breeze, a wide range of features like custom email addresses to establish credibility with your clients, a user-friendly website builder with a drag-and-drop interface, and an SSL certificate for superior security.

On top of that, the platform offers daily backups to make sure your data is protected and easily restorable, and it provides blazing speeds alongside reliable uptime. A knowledgeable customer support team that is just a click away at all times is the only icing on the cake.

So, no matter if you’re a blogger, a creative professional, or a small business owner, you’ll want to secure your spot with One.com before this amazing deal is gone.

Need a bit of an SEO magic boost to climb those increasingly competitive search rankings? Then you’ll want to meet Rank Math, your ultimate SEO tool for optimizing content based on the industry’s best practices.

This Black Friday, Rank Math is offering its set of powerful and easy-to-use SEO tools at an irresistible discount of up to 32%. Better yet, as a TechRadar reader, you don’t even need to enter a promo code.

What type of plans does Rank Math offer?

Among the plans to choose from is the Pro package at $4.92/month, ideal for individuals, bloggers, and solopreneurs. It includes support for unlimited personal websites, tracks up to 1,000 keywords, offers a free content AI trial worth 7,500 credits, and 24/7 support.

Freelancers, businesses, and agencies can opt for the Business option at $20.99/month. This will give them access to support for up to 200 client websites, 20,000 keywords, a content AI trial worth 18,000 credits, as well as dedicated premium support.

Meanwhile, high-volume agencies will appreciate the Agency offering at $49.99/month. It covers 750 client websites, tracks up to 75,000 keywords, and provides a free content AI trial worth 45,000 credits, alongside priority customer assistance.

Why choose Rank Math?

Far from being just another SEO plugin, Rank Math offers full-fledged SEO expertise for your website. Thanks to intuitive tools and top-tier features, it helps you rank higher on search engines, bring more traffic, and understand your audience better, you name it.

Some of the things for which this platform stands out include AI-powered suggestions for optimized content, advanced analytics into your SEO performance, Google integration to track keywords, traffic, and rankings more easily, a schema generator for enhancing your site’s appearance, and specialized eCommerce features.

• To find out more deals, head to our Best Black Friday deals page.

Topping the search engine result takes a lot of hard work, so you need all the help you can get. Semrush gives you the right SEO tools to get your SEO growth going with a FREE $300 SEO consultation when you subscribe to Semrush PRO for one month.

This offer is already ongoing and will end on December 3, 2024, let this Black Friday offer be your SEO shortcut to making waves online. Tailored to your specific needs, whether you’re just starting in the SEO strategizing game or getting yourself familiar with Semrush, it is valid for new and free users only.

How does the consultation works?

Fill out the questionnaire so the agency can carry out all the necessary prep work to tailor the consultation call to your operations. Next, you’ll receive an invitation for a one-hour one-on-one call (according to your time zone) with an SEO expert who will inform you about any gaps in your SEO strategy and reveal hidden opportunities.

By the end of the conversation, you’ll have an insightful and actionable game plan custom-made for you and your business - complete with detailed steps and best practices to grow your presence in the digital sphere.

Finally, the expert will answer any questions you might have and show you how to use Semrush to achieve your goals. This way, you’ll be set up for success in enhancing your online visibility right from day one.

Why Semrush?

A Swiss Army knife for all things digital marketing, Semrush PRO has everything you need to boost your game, including in the areas of SEO, PPC, social media, and content marketing. With this comprehensive toolkit and expert consultation, you’ll be equipped to not just appear in search results but to stand out.

From November 11 to December 3, this Black Friday deal is available to new and free Semrush users. All you need to do is head over here, and you’ll be well on your way to tackling all the SEO requirements you have in no time with a powerful game plan and expert guidance.

The best SEO keyword research tools do more than make it easy to find keyword data - they reveal search intent that makes your customer tick.

I've been using the best SEO tools for almost a decade. Now, I have created this list of my top keyword research tools.

Ahrefs tops the list in 2026. This is thanks to its unmatched database and keyword suggestions. Starting at $29/mo, it is affordable, although you will need to upgrade to unlock its most powerful features.

The best SEO keyword research tools of 2026 in full:

Best SEO keyword research tool overall

If you're looking for a tool with a large data library, Ahrefs should be at the top of your list. Its database is spread across 10 different search engines and lets you get detailed insights into keyword difficulty, search volumes, and competitive analysis for crafting effective SEO strategies.

For expanding your content reach and visibility, it even has a keyword suggestions tool that helps find related terms and questions through its deep understanding of search intent and relevancy.

Moreover, the Keyword Explorer offers tons of metrics and useful data to help your keyword study. For instance, it offers a "Return Rate" metric, which tracks how often people are searching for a specific keyword again. You can also analyze the total number of clicks for a specific keyword on the search engine through Ahrefs “Click” data.

Even its interface is pretty easy to navigate and you can get used to its toolset quite easily. However, the plenty of features and data might be slightly confusing. Despite this, you can easily overcome any problem with the help of its extensive documentation and Ahrefs' responsive customer service.

All in all, Ahref's data accuracy, user-friendly interface, and support structure make it a standout choice for keyword research, especially when it comes to keyword insights and strategic SEO planning.

Ahrefs pricing and plans

Learn more about Ahrefs

Read our full Ahrefs review.

Best SEO keyword research tool for analysis

Semrush comes with gigantic data of over 25 billion potential keywords under it. It does deep keyword research for you and offers crucial figures related to search volumes, user intent classifications (informational, commercial, navigational, transactional), and competitive density scores on a scale from 0 to 1.0. Its large database offers critical information on important metrics like search trends, keyword volumes, keyword difficulty, and cost-per-click (CPC) rates. All this helps you find the right keywords and understand competitors' activities.

During our tests, we found its competitive analysis feature quite impressive as it didn’t just mention our competitor's ranking keywords but even went a step ahead and noted down the visibility score of keywords. This score shows the keyword’s prominence on the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

Plus, you can further compare your keyword profile with up to five different competitors through Semrush’s Gap Analysis feature. Along with this, if you want to know the “not provided” keywords, Semrush seamlessly integrates with different Google tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console (GSC) to show these keywords comprehensively.

To easily let you find your way around the vast amount of tools and data, Semrush has designed its interface to be powerful and user-friendly. For the times you get stuck, its support system provides live chat, email support, and a wide range of tutorials and resources to help you.

Semrush pricing and plans

Learn more about Semrush

Read our full Semrush review.

Best SEO keyword research tool for WordPress

RankMath is a powerful WordPress SEO plugin with excellent rank tracking capabilities. It integrates with Google Search Console so you can view your keyword rankings directly from your WordPress dashboard, eliminating the need for other tools. The rank tracker feature of the plugin allows you to view where your selected keywords rank in search, which gives you excellent insights into how effective your search efforts are.

What keeps RankMath at the top is its module-based architecture. The architecture allows you to activate only the features you require, making it quicker and more efficient. Plus the rank tracking functionality lets you monitor a large number of keywords depending on your plan. For example, RankMath's PRO plan monitors 1,000 keywords, the Business plan monitors 20,000 keywords, and the Agency plan monitors up to 75,000 keywords.

RankMath's user interface is simple and welcoming, easy for newcomers, while still having many advanced features for experienced SEOs. The plugin provides straightforward analytics on your ranking performance, your top and worst posts and keywords, and your position over time.

Rank Math pricing and plans

Learn more about RankMath

Read our full Rank Math review.

Best SEO keyword research tool for beginners

Keyword Tool.io’s straightforward approach to keyword research makes it the perfect starting point for beginners. Its clean and user-friendly interface lets you quickly generate long-tail keyword suggestions across various platforms, including Google, YouTube, Bing, Amazon, and more. It does this by using Google Autocomplete, which finds popular and relevant keywords and delivers crucial data beyond the one available on Google Keyword Planner.

It further provides essential keyword data like search volume, trends, CPC, and competition levels with its Pro version and that too without making the process difficult. What makes it a great keyword research tool is its support for over 192 different types of Google domains and 83 different languages which helps in targeting both global and local SEO strategies. Under this, you can find the localized search volume data and trends, which prove whether your SEO strategy is effectively curated to different markets and search behavior or not. Through this, you can boost your traffic and engagement across diverse and specific audiences.

However, if you’re looking for in-depth competition analysis, you may find the features lacking compared to more advanced tools. Plus, the absence of direct phone support or chat could be a downside when you need immediate assistance. However, the platform's straightforward design and online resources ensure this doesn’t happen. Another great thing about this tool is its starting price of just $89/month for the Pro plan. This makes it an accessible option for those just starting in SEO.

Keyword Tool pricing and plans

Learn more about keyword tool

Read our full Keyword Tool review

Best free SEO keyword research tool

If you’re looking for a free tool to help you in keyword research, you can always bet on Google Keyword Planner. The best thing about this tool is that it seamlessly integrates with Google Ads and gives you a straightforward interface that simplifies keyword research.

Besides this, you can uncover information regarding search volume, competition level, and cost-per-click (CPC) estimates for your keywords of interest, which tap into the source of over 3.5 billion daily searches.

The Keyword Planner also helps you filter and refine your keyword list based on various criteria, such as search volume, competition, keyword type (broad match, phrase match, or exact match), and more. This helps you focus on the most relevant and valuable keywords for your campaign. If you want to plan your budget for Google Ads, The tool allows you to estimate the potential cost and performance of your ad campaigns based on your selected keywords, bid amounts, and budget.

Furthermore, support for Google Keyword Planner users is mainly available through comprehensive online help documents and active community forums. While these resources are informative, lacking direct support channels might leave you seeking more personalized assistance.

However, while it delivers essential data, the tool does not provide trend analysis, making it difficult to identify emerging keywords or seasonal changes. Additionally, if you’re not investing in Google Ads, you’ll receive ranges instead of specific numbers for keyword volume data which might not be very useful for you when it comes to detailed analysis.

Google Keyword Planner pricing and plans

Google Keyword Planner is totally free to use.

How we tested the best SEO keyword research tools

To test for the best SEO keyword research tools we first set up an account with the relevant software platform, then we tested the service to see how the software could be used for different purposes and in different situations. The aim was to push each keyword research tool to see how useful its basic features were and also how easy it was to get to grips with any more advanced SEO options.

Read more on how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar.

SEO keyword research tool FAQs

Search engines all hide their indexing, ranking, and sorting algorithms under lock and key. During the early stages of the most popular search engine – Google – ranking signals were relatively simple. These were the days where almost all that was needed were keywords and backlinks.

If you were to ask how many ranking factors Google today has, the honest answer is that no one knows exactly. But most SEO professionals will tell you there’s well over 200 of them.

Clearly, search engines have become significantly more complex. Part of the reason is that the web has become more complicated and much more vast. Search engines are also more complex today because people are always trying to reverse engineer the hidden ranking factors for their own benefit.

Do search engines themselves need proxies?

If you were to build a search engine from scratch today, you would need proxy servers to make it function properly. The underlying technology of a search engine is relatively simple. It runs an automated script that crawls through a website, downloads the HTML, and analyzes the content.

Assuming the content is deemed relevant, it’s added to an index. Users can then use the search bar to run through the index to find the content they need. Of course, the internet is now so vast and advanced that such a simplistic search engine would be considered a failure.

Since a crawler needs to send thousands or even millions of requests to a website to index every piece of content, it’s likely your regular IP address would get banned. Additionally, some content may only be accessible if you’re from a particular country or region, making proxies a necessity.

Established search engines like Google are not banned by websites as nearly everyone wants their content indexed. They still need to acquire location-based content, but they likely use their own servers instead of third-party proxy providers - although we can’t be certain.

How proxies impacted search engines

Then there’s the other end of the spectrum. SEO professionals and enthusiasts have always wanted to figure out how search engines rank websites and what influences the top positions.

If you were a regular user, that would be impossible to figure out. Although Google provides guidelines, most of them are vague (such as “produce good content”). SEO professionals, however, have figured that they can scrape search engines at scale, and add internal data from websites to start gaining insights into ranking factors.

Proxies have to be used, however, as most search engines quickly ban users that are sending too many requests. Additionally, localized content won’t be served effectively without hundreds of IP addresses.

As a result, SEO professionals created dedicated tools (that are also sold to other professionals) to understand how and why search engines rank some content over others. Some of these insights can be quite apt and direct.

A great example of understanding and abusing ranking systems was the SEO contest held way back in 2018. Someone managed to rank a rhinoplasty website for English search results, but the entire website was written in Latin.

Search engines, of course, know that there are tools that purportedly showcase ranking factors. So, if the content is too accurate, search engines have to tweak their algorithms to avoid people from abusing rankings.

Even if it’s used by legitimate SEO use cases, people knowing too much about how search engines rank content can cause issues. The result is search engines have to play a constant cat-and-mouse game.

And that cat-and-mouse game is only really possible because of large-scale data collection from search engines, only made possible by proxies. So, in the end, proxies have a great deal of influence over the way search engines function.

It’s all too easy to think that proxies are negative – in that they reveal some sort of secret ranking system and allow people to abuse it. But many of the changes and tweaks that have been made to the algorithms over the years have been with the idea of improving search results.

In some sense, SEO tools, and web data collection with proxies, provide indirect competition to search engines. They don’t take away the revenue of these companies. But they do nudge them to constantly improve and tweak ranking algorithms – benefiting everyone in the long run.

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I've been using, testing, and experimenting with the best SEO tools for over a decade.

Like all search engine optimizers, I have spent much of that time using features and insights to work out why I can't get my content to rank on search engines or appear in AI results, as well as plenty of time defending my #1 position for some highly competitive search terms.

Now, I have created a list of the 14 very best SEO tools.

SEMRush tops the list in 2026 thanks to its well-rounded offering of advanced tools, including keyword research, competitor analysis, and content optimization insights. With all-in plans starting at $165/month (billed annually), it is far from the cheapest option, but it is a smart choice for businesses looking to take SEO seriously.

The best SEO tools of 2025 in full:

Best SEO tool overall

Semrush is one of the most popular SEO tools globally, offering a wide range of SEO and content marketing features. You can conduct keyword research, monitor backlinks, analyze competitors, optimize content, and much more, all through this platform.

However, what sets Semrush apart is its Competitor Analysis tool. You can monitor your competitors' SEO strategies, including their keyword rankings, advertising strategies, and backlink profiles. Additionally, its ability to track trends and changes in the SEO landscape provides a dynamic view of the competitive landscape.

Moving forward, Semrush features a powerful Keyword Research tool that offers insights such as search volume, difficulty levels, and trends, all of which are crucial for an effective SEO strategy. It also includes a Site Audit functionality that thoroughly analyzes your website’s health and identifies issues that must be addressed.

Semrush also offers Traffic Analytics, which helps identify your competitors' main sources of web traffic, such as the top referring sites. This allows you to delve into the details of how your and your competitors' sites compare in terms of average session duration and bounce rates. Additionally, the "Traffic Sources Comparison" feature provides an overview of digital marketing channels for multiple competitors simultaneously. For those new to SEO, 'bounce rates' refer to the percentage of visitors who visit a website and then leave without accessing any other pages on the same site.

The platform also includes a Domain Overview feature, which does much more than summarize your competitors' SEO strategies. You can detect specific keywords they've targeted and access the relative performance of your domains on both desktop and mobile devices.

Over time, Semrush has added a few more tools to its offerings, including a writer marketplace, a toolset for agencies, and even a white-glove service for PR agencies.

It has also recently added AI search and GEO tools such as a tracker for Google's AI Overview (AIO) mentions and the ability to list your business details on multiple local directories.

Semrush pricing and plans

The prices above apply to Semrush's 'One' plan, which includes a huge number of SEO, AI search, and GEO tools. If you are looking for a small set of features or specific tools only, Semrush offers a host of plans to pick from.

A 14-day free trial is available for Techradar readers to try out the service

Learn more about Semrush

Read our full Semrush review.

Best all-in-one SEO tool platform

If you’ve ever set foot in SEO, there is a very high probability that you have come across Ahrefs. It is a comprehensive SEO tool that comes with various features, including Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, Site Audit, Content Explorer, etc.

Ahrefs boasts the largest backlink index of top SEO tools, with over 295 billion indexed pages and more than 16 trillion backlinks. Throw in an upgraded keywords explorer, tools for monitoring the competition, plus a serious amount of user documentation, and Ahrefs may be the tool you need to rank better and increase traffic.

At its core, Ahrefs comes out as a strong contender regarding backlink analysis, keyword research, and competitive analysis. Plus, you can see the search volume, keyword difficulty, and SERP analysis to build your content strategy through its Keyword Explorer.

Ahrefs has also recognized the changing landscape of search, adding tools for AI and GEO, such as AI brand mentions, citation gap analysis (where your competitors are being mentioned, but you are not), and Share of Voice (SoV).

Ahrefs boasts several powerful features that help set it apart, including a proprietary web crawler, which is one of the best in the market. However, Ahrefs even comes with some drawbacks. For instance, the tool’s depth can be a bit hard to learn for beginners, and its paid plans can be a major reason for concern for small businesses. Conversely, large enterprises might find the investment justifiable for the breadth of insights offered.

While price points are broadly aligned with those of similar products, best-in-class link analysis, powerful research tools, and knowledgeable user support help make Ahrefs one of the best options for understanding and improving your domain’s online presence.

Ahrefs pricing and plans

Learn more about Ahrefs

Read our full Ahrefs review.

Best SEO tool for content writers

When it comes to optimizing your website for search engines, using the right SEO tools is crucial. There are many options available in the market, but not all of them are created equal. While most SEO optimization tools come equipped with basic features such as keyword research and content editors, some like SurferSEO offer much more.

SurferSEO is a comprehensive SEO optimization tool that goes above and beyond to provide users with an all-in-one solution. It's equipped with a range of features that include keyword research, content analysis, SERP analyzer, audio tools, and more, all powered by AI technology.

This makes it a top choice for marketers who want to stay ahead of the game and optimize their content to its fullest potential.

One of the best things about SurferSEO is its seamless setup process. Regardless of your skill level, you can easily set up your account and start using the tool right away. It's also available at various price points, making it accessible to businesses of all sizes. Plus, it's enriched with a growing list of AI-based features, which are increasingly vital in the industry.

SurferSEO also provides an extensive array of training tools, including a blog, knowledge base, private SurferSEO community, and live training from the Surfer Academy. This allows users to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices in SEO optimization.

By providing detailed insights and clear guidance, SurferSEO empowers marketers to optimize their content effectively and compete successfully in search engine rankings.

Whether you're a seasoned SEO professional or just starting, integrating SurferSEO into your SEO strategy could significantly enhance your online presence and drive more organic traffic to your site. With its advanced features, user-friendly interface, and comprehensive training resources, SurferSEO is undoubtedly one of the best SEO optimization tools available in the market today.

SurferSEO plans and pricing

Learn more about SurferSEO

Read our full SurferSEO review.

Best SEO tool for in-house teams

Moz Pro is a great SEO tool that helps you increase traffic, rankings, and visibility across search engine results.

Moz Pro comes with a Link Explorer that examines and analyzes your website’s backlink profile along with your competitors, giving detailed insights into the quantity and quality of the backlinks. You can even manage listings, monitor reviews, and publish accurate location data across the web through Moz Local. Additionally, SERP analysis uses the Search Engine Results Pages to deliver insights into the factors influencing the ranking of pages, helping to understand and identify opportunities that have room left for improvement.

Plus, you get a competitor analysis tool that compares your sites with your competitors, focusing on various aspects, including keyword rankings and online visibility, to gauge where you stand. There is also a Rank Checker tool that can check your website’s ranking for specific keywords to further escalate your SEO practices.

Similarly, users can also study Keywords and Keyword combinations that might be ideal for targeting through Moz Pro’s Keyword Research Tool. And, there's also a backlink analysis tool that mixes a combination of metrics, including anchor text in links as well as estimated domain authority.

Pricing for Moz Pro begins at $99 per month for the Standard plan, which covers the basic tools. The Medium plan offers a wider range of features for $179 per month, and a free trial is available. Note that plans come with a 20% discount if paid for annually. Additional plans are available for agency and enterprise needs, and there are additional paid-for tools for local listings and STAT data analysis.

Even if you don't sign up for Moz Pro, a number of free tools are available. There's also a huge supporting community ready to offer help, advice, and guidance across the breadth of search marketing issues.

Moz Pro pricing and plans

Learn more about Moz Pro

Read our full Moz Pro review.

Best SEO tool for tracking links

Majestic SEO tools have consistently received praise from SEO veterans since its inception in 2011. This also makes it one of the oldest SEO tools available today.

Majestic offers Trust Flow & Citation Flow Metrics that help to know the quality of the backlinks pointing to a website. You even have a Backlink History Checker that lets you see the number of backlinks detected by the platform over time. But, what makes Majestic stand out is its Search Explorer, which offers a search engine-like experience to rank pages based on their backlinks instead of the traditional search algorithms, giving a unique perspective on search relevance.

If you find yourself integrating your tools with custom applications and reports, then Majestic is just what you need, as you get the API access for the platform to play around with it. Plus, users can even create custom reports and set up alerts for changes in the backlink profile or new backlinks, all informing the user about the backlink’s health.

The tool's main focus is on backlinks, which represent links between one website and another. This has a significant influence on SEO performance, and as such, Majestic has a huge amount of backlink data.

Users can search both a 'Fresh Index,' which is crawled and updated throughout the day, in addition to a 'Historic Index' which has been praised online for its lightning retrieval speed. One of the most popular features is the 'Majestic Million', which displays a ranking of the top 1 million websites.

The 'Lite' version of Majestic incorporates useful features such as a bulk backlink checker, a record of referring domains, IPs, and subnets, as well as Majestic's integrated 'Site Explorer'. This feature, which is designed to give you an overview of your online store, has received some negative comments due to looking a little dated. Majestic also has no Google Analytics integration.

Majestic SEO pricing and plans

Learn more about Majestic SEO

Read our full Majestic SEO Tools review.

Best SEO tool for competitor analysis

SpyFu is a search analytics company that scrapes the internet for data. It is used to identify the keywords that companies are bidding on using Google AdWords. SpyFu also matches search results with search terms, providing companies with deeper insight into the types of searches and keywords for which they appear on Google’s Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

SpyFu's unique selling point is its ability to ‘spy’ on your competitors by helping you pinpoint the keywords your competitors target for online advertising and generating a report of the words and phrases that generate the most traffic. In this way, you can keep a step ahead of other companies or services working in your industry and attract more traffic to your own sites.

The tool's user interface stands out for its balance of in-depth analytics and accessibility, making it suitable for both seasoned professionals and newcomers to SEO. It provides historical data tracking, a unique feature that allows an in-depth view of how keywords have performed over time, offering a strategic edge in planning. Additionally, its backlink analysis goes beyond basic insights, providing a nuanced understanding of backlink profiles essential for off-page SEO strategies. However, compared to tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs, it may lag slightly in the breadth of its backlink database.

Few products come close to providing the depth and functionality you get with SpyFu. It is priced below its main competitors, is easy to use, and can be customized to your needs. It provides all of the PPC, SEO, and keyword research tools anyone from a big company to a small startup would need and is a highly effective and well-designed application.

SpyFu pricing and plans

Learn more about SpyFu

Read our full SpyFu review.

Best SEO tool for technical SEOs

SEO Spider was originally created in 2010 by the euphemistically named "Screaming Frog". This rowdy reptile's clients include major players like Disney, Shazam, and Dell.

At its core, SEO Spider excels in technical SEO, particularly through its advanced site crawling and auditing capabilities. This feature is extensively used for conducting thorough website audits and identifying a range of SEO issues like broken links, redirect chains, and server errors.

A standout feature is its duplicate content detection, widely used to resolve detrimental content duplication issues. Additionally, it offers detailed insights on pages with missing title tags, duplicate meta tags, and tags of the wrong length, as well as check the number of links placed on each page.

SEO Spider’s Broken Links Checker is another invaluable offering that identifies and reports each and every broken link throughout the website. However, one of the most attractive features of SEO Spider is its ability to integrate with Google Analytics and Search Console. It connects with the website you are trying to audit, uses GA and GSC API to fetch data from both ends and creates comprehensive reports for individual URLs on the website.

SEO Spider even excels when it comes to security features as it checks for secure pages and protocols, all of which are critical in identifying mixed content issues that could affect the site’s security. Despite its rich functionality, SEO Spider can have a steep learning curve for beginners, but luckily there are plenty of guides on the web to help you out.

There is both a free and paid version of SEO Spider. The free version contains most basic features such as crawling redirects but this is limited to 500 URLs. This makes the 'Lite' version of SEO Spider suitable only for smaller domains. The paid version is $180 per year and includes more advanced features as well as free tech support.

ScreamingFrog SEO Spider pricing and plans

Learn more about Spider SEO

Read our full SEO Spider review.

Best SEO tool for newbies

RankIQ is a great tool for optimizing SEO, but it has its pros and cons. Let's start with the good news.

RankIQ is one of the best SEO solutions for content analysis. Its AI-powered content optimizer gives clear and specific guidance to writers on how to optimize their content for SEO. This can be particularly useful for those who are new to SEO or want to streamline their content creation process.

Moreover, RankIQ offers an excellent keyword product that provides users with a list of high-traffic, low-competition keywords specifically tailored to their niche. This targeted approach can significantly improve the chances of ranking high on search engine results pages (SERPs).

RankIQ is also user-friendly and affordable, making it accessible to bloggers, freelancers, and small businesses.

However, there are some downsides to using RankIQ. The service is best suited for bloggers and smaller websites, not larger enterprises. This lack of scalability could be an issue for rapidly growing businesses.

Additionally, RankIQ's SEO tools are more basic and may not be suitable for larger enterprises that require advanced features. The service also doesn't integrate with other digital marketing tools, which could be problematic for users who need such integrations.

Finally, RankIQ does provide a free trial, but some users may prefer to test the tool before committing to a subscription.

After testing RankIQ, we concluded that it's an effective tool for bloggers and smaller companies looking to improve their search engine ranking. It offers a user-friendly interface and AI-driven insights that can be useful for those new to SEO or who have limited time. However, larger enterprises or experienced SEO professionals may require a more comprehensive and integrated approach that RankIQ may not be able to provide.

As with any tool, it's essential to consider your specific needs, level of expertise, and resources before deciding if RankIQ is the right fit for your SEO strategy.

RankIQ pricing and plans

Best SEO tool for content strategists

MarketMuse is a versatile tool that caters to individuals, small and large teams alike. It is designed in such a way that it can help individuals and large organizations efficiently. It comes with an AI-powered guidance that assists in creating detailed and informative content related to your chosen topic. MarketMuse's AI-based guidance ensures that the content you create is comprehensive, authoritative, and relevant. By enhancing the relevance and depth of the content, MarketMuse can significantly improve the SEO success rate. With MarketMuse's ability to recognize related content, users can create a robust, interlinked content strategy that can enhance the website's domain authority.

However, there are a few things to criticize about MarketMuse. Firstly, there is a steep learning curve to master the platform's full range of features. Although users of all backgrounds can get started with MarketMuse with relative ease, it is recommended to opt for paid training through MarketMuse to gain expertise and maximize the benefits. MarketMuse offers training and support to help users overcome the learning curve and achieve their goals.

It is also essential to note that SEO optimization tools like MarketMuse have a significant drawback. They have no control over the dynamic nature of search engine algorithms. Whenever search engines change how they handle searches, even the best tools will be affected. Therefore, companies like MarketMuse must adjust the data behind their offerings, and end-users will also need to make necessary adjustments. This can be a challenging process for everyone involved. However, MarketMuse is known for regular updates and adapting to the changes in the search engine algorithms.

Overall, MarketMuse is one of the best SEO optimization tools available in the market. It is worth considering, and users can take advantage of the free trial to assess whether it’s worth the price of admission for their website. MarketMuse's comprehensive support and regular updates make it a reliable and efficient tool for content optimization.

MarketMuse pricing and plans

Best SEO tool for large content teams

Clearscope is a content optimization tool that has been gaining popularity among SEO professionals. It uses AI technology to analyze content and provide suggestions for using keywords that can enhance the chances of a piece of content ranking well on search engines.

One of the features that makes Clearscope stand out is its user interface, which is designed to suit experienced SEO professionals perfectly. Additionally, Clearscope integrates seamlessly with two widely used software products: Google Docs and WordPress. This makes it easy for content creators to optimize their content without having to switch between different applications.

Another notable feature of Clearscope is its reports, which provide real-time feedback that can assist in crafting search engine-friendly and relevant content. This feature is especially useful for content creators and marketers who need to optimize their content quickly and accurately.

However, as with any tool, Clearscope has its drawbacks. One major deterrent for some individuals might be the cost of using Clearscope. While the platform provides a lot of value, it may be too expensive for some users. Providing a trial could attract a more extensive user base regardless of Clearscope's pricing structure.

Moreover, beginners in SEO optimization might find it challenging to navigate Clearscope despite its user design. There is still a learning curve involved in using Clearscope. However, the platform offers plenty of resources to help users get started, including tutorials and webinars.

Another downside is that AI content outline generation is exclusively available to customers on the business plan with Clearscope. This limitation may seem unreasonable, especially considering the pricing tiers, particularly for the essentials package. Clearscope, it would benefit all your customers to access your AI tools.

Overall, Clearscope is a valuable tool for individuals and organizations looking to enhance their content SEO potential with data-driven insights and optimization suggestions. While the pricing and learning curve may deter some users, the platform's accurate recommendations, user-friendly interface, and immediate feedback make it a valuable resource for content creators and marketers striving to create content that performs well in search engine results.

Clearscope pricing and plans

Additional pages and drafts can be added to your chosen plan for an additional fee.

Learn more about Clearscope

Read our full Clearscope review.

Best free SEO tool platform

Google Search Console (GSC) is an excellent way for newbie webmasters to get started with SEO. This free service offered by Google is a powerhouse of data and insights, crucial for understanding and optimizing your website's performance in Google search results.

Using GSC, you can analyze clicks, impressions, click-through rates (CTR), and the average position of your site's URLs for specific queries and how it performs in Google Search. This data is pivotal for understanding what's working in your SEO strategy and what needs improvement. The best part? All this data is presented by Google itself and not a third-party app, so there’s no room for inaccuracies.

Another key feature is the ability to submit and test sitemaps. Ensuring that Google can find and crawl all important pages of your site is essential, and GSC aids in this by not only allowing sitemap submissions but also providing feedback on any sitemap-related issues, such as URLs that Google couldn't index.

While Google Search Console also has a Links report that showcases both internal and external links to your website, it’s limited to only 1000 links, which is not enough if you have a growing website.

The tool also plays a crucial role in site security and health, alerting you if any manual actions from Google are taken against your website. With page experience becoming a significant ranking factor, you’ll find GSC’s performance reports on page speed and Core Web Vitals to be very insightful too. They help identify pages needing improvements in loading speed, interactivity, and stability.

Overall, GSC is an invaluable tool for SEO, offering extensive data and insights across various aspects of website performance and health in Google Search. Even if you're not headstrong in SEO, whatever the size of your site or blog, Google's laudable Search Console (formerly Webmaster Central) and the myriad user-friendly tools under its bonnet should be your first port of call.

Google Search Console pricing and plans

Google Search Console is totally free to use.

Learn more about Google Search Console

Read our full Google Search Console review.

Best for quick SEO insights

The Detailed SEO Browser Extension is a specialized tool for on-page SEO analysis, catering to those who need quick, in-depth insights into the SEO setup of any webpage. This free tool, available as a browser add-on, is notable for its user-friendly interface and the efficiency it brings to SEO tasks.

One of the standout features of the extension is its ability to provide an instant overview of critical on-page SEO elements. This includes page titles, meta descriptions, canonical URLs, robot tags, and X-Robots tags. Such a snapshot is invaluable for SEO professionals and content creators looking to assess and optimize web pages for search engine visibility quickly.

Then there's this neat feature where you can export all the links from a page. It’s perfect when you're trying to figure out the internal link game of a site or checking out backlinks. Plus, it also lets you download all the image URLs, which is a lifesaver for making sure all the images are SEO-friendly.

Now, what we love about Detailed SEO the most is that it can preview the Open Graph data or Schema markup of any page in a single click. It also gives you direct shortcuts to a website's robots.txt and XML sitemap. These features alone eliminate the need for three separate Chrome extensions and consolidate everything in a single, comprehensive extension.

Moreover, the extension is designed to be lightweight and user-friendly, offering quick SEO insights without the complexity or depth of more advanced, paid SEO tools. While it doesn't provide the extensive analytics and deep-dive capabilities of these more comprehensive tools, it's an excellent choice for basic, on-the-go SEO analysis.

Detailed SEO pricing and plans

DetailedSEO is totally free.

Best value

SE ranking has been one of the fans' favorites for years now, thanks to its vast SEO features that help in improving website performance. First, it compares your web pages to 94 different parameters and even lists down the issues into various categories like errors, warnings, or notices. Plus, you also get tons of practical suggestions to fix them up.

If you like customizing your site audits and studying it based on your specific metrics, SE Ranking does that for you with different personalized settings. You have over 120 metrics in the tool that can help you audit your site efficiently and avoid even the slight details that could hamper your SEO results.

It further elevates your SEO games by presenting the backlink profile of your site. You can easily access the complete list of backlinks, referring domains, and critical metrics by entering the platform's domain name. Under this, your analysis goes beyond the basic evaluation as it presents the trustworthiness of each link based on domain, page, type, and follow status.

And, if you wish to target a local market, SE Ranking has various Local Marketing Tools that can improve your business’s online presence in a specific region. For this, you can find out how your target audience discovers and behaves within your locations in search results, letting you identify the most effective keywords. It also provides insights into customer interactions and the best times for user engagement.

That said, SE Ranking might not be the go-to tool for PPC campaigns, as it focuses primarily on SEO functionalities. Additionally, while the pricing structure is flexible, small businesses might find it excessive.

Pricing options start from the Essential plan, which covers 10 websites and includes core features like website audit, competitor analysis, and keyword suggestions. This plan is solid for small to medium-sized projects and offers a good balance between functionality and cost.

SE Ranking plans and pricing

Learn more about SE Ranking

Read our full SE ranking review.

Best for user experience

Microsoft Clarity stands out as a powerful analytics tool designed to provide website owners and developers with deep insights into user behavior through its heat maps and other features. One of the best features of Microsoft Clarity is its ability to generate detailed heat maps, which visually represent where users are clicking, scrolling, and interacting the most on a webpage. This visualization helps in identifying hotspots of activity and areas that may require improvement.

Another remarkable feature is the session recordings which lets you watch actual user sessions to understand how users navigate through your site, which can be invaluable for spotting usability issues. Furthermore, Clarity is designed to be privacy-friendly, ensuring that personal data is not recorded, making it a responsible choice for web analytics.

However, you might encounter a steep learning curve, especially if you’re new to web analytics. Luckily, Clarity offers a responsive support team that helps you navigate its complex interface and make the most of its analytics capabilities.

Microsoft Clarity pricing and plans

Microsoft clarity is totally free to use.

How we tested the best SEO tools

To test the best SEO tools, we considered many points, from their user interface and dashboard to the data presentation and pricing.

We evaluated what types of users the different tools would be best suited for (new website owners, small and midsized businesses, and large businesses). We checked if they had mobile apps, extensive documentation for learning, and the ability to process large amounts of data. We also looked at their pricing plans and the variety of tools they offered.

Read how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar.

Best SEO tool FAQs

If you want a platform that can do your SEO, content optimization, and website monitoring, all from a single tool, Conductor is a solid choice for you. It goes beyond just boosting traffic and offers various features to dominate your website in its niche. For the SEO part, you get a detailed competitor analysis feature where you can use various filters to compare another site head-to-head. Regarding content, Conductor delivers AI-driven recommendations for keyword insights, content attributes, and even your page health. But that’s not all. We’ll cover various powerful features of Conductor in this review and help you find the right way to utilize it.

• You can sign up for Conductor here.

Conductor: Plans and pricing

Unlike other SEO platforms, Conductor does not have any fixed paid plans for their services. It claims to deliver the perfect plan for its customers by customizing it according to their needs. However, you can expect a bunch of features under their premium plans.

The Intelligence plan comes with best-in-class keyword and audience research, in-depth competitive and content intelligence, and global rank tracking and market share analysis. You can even benefit from automatic performance and ROI reporting, actionable AI-driven suggestions, and seamless direct integrations with platforms like Drupal, Asana, and more.

On the other hand, the Conductor Website Monitoring plan, powered by ContentKing, helps you with continuous website monitoring. Along with that, you get intelligent prioritization of pages and issues, 24/7 dynamic monitoring, and real-time alerting customized with specific rules. It also provides critical technical SEO insights, detailed governance and compliance tracking, and live change tracking with audit trails. So, with these trial plans, you do get an idea of what’s in store for you.

• We've featured the best rank checking tools.

Conductor: Features

Explorer

Conductor's Explorer helps you thoroughly research keywords and your target audience. You can study search volume and take advantage of organic search, social media, and demographic data(with age, occupation, and location insights). With a few blinks, you can transform keyword and topic research into content outlines that can easily be shared with task management tools such as Asana, Trello, and Jira.

Furthermore, Explorer keeps an eye on and analyses your competitor's strategies. This involves monitoring the keyword's performance, content’s impact, and the backlinks profiles. Plus, you get assistance in selecting high-volume and low-competition keywords for your paid search campaign as well.

 Pages Report

The Keyword Details report from Conductor gives a thorough look at how well your web analytics data is performing in organic marketing. It shows year-over-year data, compares metrics, and gives insights on paid versus organic traffic for your domains and segments. These reports also show the ROI of your marketing strategy by combining multi-channel analytics, search data, and activity tracking into one view.

Plus, you get automatic tracking and reports on how campaigns impact ranking and revenue. Detailed insights on changes to your site, like title tags, meta descriptions, and heading tags, further enhance the useability of these reports.

 Keyword Research

Conductor's Keyword Research boasts over 20 billion keywords. This comes with data on search volume, competition, and trends. You can also choose from thousands of location and device combinations to see data in the most relevant search context for a specific keyword.

What really impresses us is that you can determine the level of competition for your keywords by analyzing the different types of results. This includes featured snippets, videos, or People Also Ask results. While this sounds good, do check all your ranking pages for the same keyword to make sure you’re not cannibalizing your own performance or chances of outperforming your competitors.

Content Guidance

You can create compelling, relevant, and optimized content by analyzing the top-performing content and identifying gaps. Conductor's Content Guidance comes with real-time AI-generated recommendations for keywords, readability, and structure. This makes sure that you follow industry standards and user preferences. For example, you can take a URL and use the tool to understand the shortcomings as well as advantages of your optimization.

Digital Presence

If you want to define and track the visibility of all your digital content across the Google SERP, social media, owned content, press coverage, and earned media, then the Digital Presence Tracking feature will take care of it. By tracking and analyzing your brand's performance, it offers a holistic view of your digital footprint. In addition, you get brand mention tracking and digital presence analysis to enhance brand reputation. Not to forget, Conductor's Website Monitoring is powered by ContentKing, which provides 24/7 real-time monitoring and alerting for optimal performance.

• We've featured the best SEO keyword research tools.

Conductor: Interface and in-use

The Conductor's interface is neat, intuitive, and easy to navigate. Its well-organized dashboard allows you to access important tools and insights. However, if you are new to the software, these features can be daunting.

Despite that, Conductor integrates seamlessly with a wide range of other platforms. For example, you can create, deliver, and optimize content with advanced design and UX capabilities by connecting your account with Adobe. Likewise, SEMrush improves online visibility management across various channels from a single platform, and Yext boosts business visibility with modern, AI-powered search capabilities.

Similarly, Google Analytics helps track organic content performance and provides detailed reports on website traffic. This is an added advantage, especially when using Google Workspace. It offers real-time monitoring and constructive insights into Google search results through Google Search Console.

Conductor even integrates with project management and collaboration tools like Trello, Jira, and Asana, streamlining workflow and productivity. Dragon Metrics improves ranking and automates reporting, while Talkwalker specializes in consumer intelligence for impactful brand analysis. All and all, there are plenty of tools to help you out with your SEO journey with Conductor.

• We've featured the best onpage SEO tools.

Conductor: Support

Conductor’s strength lies in their exceptional training and assistance. If you are new to the software, there’s a thorough onboarding program called Seamless Startup. It assures expert guidance on account setup and integration to meet your marketing targets. There is a Role-Based Mastery section that offers expert-led training sessions, focusing on equipping you with the essential skills related to the software.

To keep your team up to date, Conductor includes self-paced learning, live training sessions, and a knowledge base. You can also rely on FAQs, how-tos, and 24/7 Assistance from a global team ready to save your day with their in-product chat and email support.

Conductor: The competition

At times, you might need a tool with specific features to meet your marketing needs. So, Ahrefs, Moz Pro, and Semrush are all great options to consider instead of Conductor. They have their own set of special features and functions that cater to different aspects of SEO and digital marketing.

Conductor: Final verdict

Conductor won the Gold Medal in the 2023 Search Engine Optimization Data Quadrant by SoftwareReviews. They have been improving their service since 2008, particularly their integration with popular tools like Adobe and Asana. Apart from detailed keyword research and real-time content guidance, their website monitoring feature truly meets the expectations. While Conductor is a top choice, there are other exceptional alternatives like Ahrefs, Moz Pro, and Semrush with better global database and user interface customization. But don’t forget that with free trial options, you can test Conductor anytime and see if it boosts your business.

• Check out the best online marketing services.

Since Google announced its beta testing of SGE (now AI Overviews) during Google I/O 2023, the internet has been abuzz with talk of a new GenAI era of search. But this “new” era began in November 2022, when users started asking questions to ChatGPT. The release of OpenAI’s chatbot marked the transition from search engines to answer engines, something we are experiencing today. Yet, this transition could have been much smoother.

Google AI Overviews: official launch or huge public beta?

At Google’s recent I/O, the Google team made a grand announcement about the public launch of AI Overviews, mentioning the AI word 124 times. Despite the search giant’s flashy presentation, the rollout of AI Overviews has been rather conservative, available only to logged-in users in the US. In SE Ranking’s latest research on AI Overviews, we observed a significant drop in the presence of AI Overviews in search results after Google held I/O. Now, only 8.71% of keywords feature AI Overviews, a substantial decrease from our pre-rollout findings, where 64% of keywords had AI Overviews.

Google's cautious approach might be due to the criticism AI Overviews have faced from the media and users. It could also be because AI Overviews require more computational resources than traditional search results, and the monetization of AI answers is still in development. This is why the official launch of AI Overviews seems more like a large public beta test for Google to gather more data and train its LLM.

It also seems like Google has internal mechanisms and criteria for evaluating the quality of AI Overviews-generated answers. Post-launch, these criteria appear to have become stricter. Google allows Gemini to generate answers in niches where it is more confident in the responses. According to SE Ranking’s latest research about AI Overviews, the Relationships niche leads, triggering AI Overviews 26.62% of the time, followed by Food and Beverage (24.78%) and Technology (18.11%). In contrast, niches more closely related to user well-being, such as Healthcare (0.44%), Legal (0.34%), and News and Politics (0.24%), trigger AI Overviews less than 1% of the time. This is presumably because AI’s hallucinations and biases have greater potential to cause harm in these niches.

Google vs. OpenAI

Harmful answers can still appear in niches where Google frequently triggers AI Overviews. For instance, there was a recent incident where an AI Overviews suggested adding glue to pizza sauce, citing a joke post on Reddit. While integrations with platforms like Reddit, Quora, Stack Overflow, and Wikipedia offer vast amounts of human-generated data, the moderation of such content was not designed to train LLM models. Reddit, in particular, is full of jokes and inappropriate memes.

Interestingly, OpenAI has also struck a deal with Reddit, but ChatGPT does not produce potentially harmful answers as often as AI Overviews do. This discrepancy suggests that Gemini may rely more on citing Reddit directly rather than analyzing the content. On the other hand, OpenAI’s focus on creating an LLM with better “critical thinking” capabilities has allowed it to surpass Google in the AI race. Google had DeepMind at one point, but few people care or even remember.

Considering OpenAI’s partnerships with Reddit, Apple, and Microsoft, the impression that they may have the ambition and resources to surpass Google was always there. The launch of SearchGPT confirmed this impression. From this point forward, it appears OpenAI will compete directly with Google. On top of that, OpenAI is targeting Google and other LLMs' biggest weakness.

Google’s shift to AI Overviews and an AI Organized Search Results Page could hurt publishers, blogs made by independent creators, the SEO industry, and small and medium-sized businesses. Once AI Overviews satisfy users’ queries, the need to scroll to organic results and dig deeper will disappear. This change in user behavior will make it difficult to drive traffic, and reaching the target audience outside of advertising will become nearly impossible. Consequently, more publishers, creators and businesses will likely migrate to social media, email newsletters, or niche platforms, while some may go bankrupt and struggle to recover. And we could be heading towards an even more fragmented and dull Internet.

Meanwhile, Perplexity is facing legal scrutiny and accusations of plagiarism, scraping content from websites without permission, and failing to properly attribute sources.

And while it is still unclear whether Google will seek a balance between transitioning to an answer engine and supporting publishers and independent creators and whether the Perplexity way of sharing ad revenue with publishing partners will help with all accusations, OpenAI declares that its team will concentrate on these groups, besides providing ChatGPT users with up-to-date information from the web with clear links to relevant sources.

However, Google’s major advantage is the enormous volume of data the giant can use to train its models. Beyond the billions of daily Google searches, the company can access data from 3 billion Android users. OpenAI has also integrated its LLM into Apple’s OSes, but the deal is not exclusive, as Apple follows a no-vendor-lock policy. Apple has also created its own LLM and plans to integrate other models, like Claude.

Google’s exclusive integration into a vast system like Android is something no other LLM model can achieve. If nearly half the planet uses Gemini, it will become the most trained AI model in the world. However, to do this at this scale, Google must find a way to obtain these resources without consuming electricity at the rate of a large European country.

AI Overviews main challenges

Google’s advantage regarding the volume of data available for training LLMs is that it can only be surpassed by Google itself. According to SE Ranking’s latest research on AI Overviews, scrolling to organic results is becoming increasingly difficult. Featured snippets appear next to AI Overviews 45.39% of the time. When featured snippets and AI Overviews appear together, their sources match 61.79% of the time, meaning users see the same information multiple times. Additionally, ads now accompany AI Overviews 87% of the time, up from 73% before the rollout during Google I/O 2024.

The co-occurrence of AI Overviews, featured snippets, and ad blocks may be a step towards training the model to compile an AI Organized Search Results Page. Currently, users might have to skip the first page and go to the second to find organic results that better answer their questions.

Hallucinations in AI Overviews’ answers, duplication of information across different snippets, and the distant placement of genuinely helpful answers could alienate users. This might reduce their loyalty and trust in Google and push them to adopt new search methods, including SearchGPT. Moreover, OpenAI already provides users with more than just search answers. Gemini has only now begun to integrate into G-Suite, and the success of this integration remains uncertain. In the alternative and worst-case scenario, some users might blindly trust AI Overviews’ answers without fact-checking. Google and other LLM models must take this responsibility seriously.

So, who will lead the GenAI era of search?

Both Google and OpenAI have significant advantages. Google’s user base and exclusive integrations are unmatched, while OpenAI’s years of focused development and influential partnerships position it as a strong competitor. The winner of this race will likely be determined by who can best balance technological innovation with user needs and ethical considerations.

Overcoming hallucinations, addressing user adoption and trust challenges, and supporting businesses and media will be crucial to leading the search revolution. Fact-checking remains the primary challenge for all AI models. ChatGPT often declines to answer certain questions, stating it’s “just an AI model,” while Google reduces the number of AI Overviews triggered answers.

Despite its flops this year, Google could still win the GenAI search race. Integrating Gemini into Android will help 3 billion people use AI in their daily lives. For example, Android users will be able to use AI to identify whether a tomato is still good to eat simply by opening the camera and speaking. If nearly half the planet uses Gemini, it will become the most trained AI model in the world.

Nevertheless, OpenAI can be unpredictable, and this is a rapidly changing field. Current and new advancements that we may not yet be aware of could shift the landscape entirely once again.

We've featured the best AI writer tools around

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“The internet is your canvas” says the Framer website, but how easy does it make it to paint on it? A web-based UX design tool that has been used by the Thrive, Apefest, and Plain websites (they’re all featured in a showcase section on the Framer website), it offers a collection of price tiers and aims for a complete design experience.

With Framer, you should be able to build interactive prototypes and website designs. This Netherlands-based company aims to provide the best tools for these purposes, but does it? 

To establish whether Framer is right for your project, we’ve evaluated it based on price, features, ease of use, and its wealth of support resources and customer contact options.

Framer: Plans and pricing

Framer offers two different types of payment plan: site pricing, and workspace pricing. Site plans are intended for smaller teams, and support custom domains on the paid option. Workspace plans, however, are designed for larger teams requiring collaboration and communication across their projects.

Framer site pricing

A Free option is available, intended for hobbyists. This offers a Framer domain and includes a Framer banner. You can step up to the $10 (£8) option for simple sites with a custom domain. This also supports up to 1,000 visitors per month and offers a customizable 404 page. 

The Basic package is $20 (£15) and is supports up to 150 pages, 10,000 monthly visitors, and limited search feature. 

Pro users have the $40 (£25) package option for larger sites up to 300 pages, requiring up to 200,000 visitors. This also has analytics support, a staging environment, and up to 10 CMS collections. 

A discount to the three paid plans can be enjoyed if you pay annually.

For larger Enterprise-level teams, a Custom option is available, with annual billing only (prices on request). This option adds enterprise security, custom hosting, an uptime guarantee, and dedicated infrastructure. You can also expect launch support, SSO for sites, and more.

Framer workspace pricing

If you’re just looking for an online development workspace, three main options are available. Free is for “tiny teams” and lets you collaborate with a 3 day version history and 500MB of storage.

Basic is $25 (£18) per editor per month, for up to 5 editors with collaboration, chat, 7 day version history, and 1GB file storage. 

At $50 (£35) per editor per month, the Pro option is for larger teams of up to 10 editors, with collaboration, comments, advanced permissions, and a 30 day version history. Projects can rely on 10GB of file storage. Both plans offer a discount if you pay annually.

A custom Enterprise package is available for workspaces, which adds unlimited editors and workspaces, dedicated support, SSO, 90 day version history, and 100GB of storage.

Whatever subscription you select, Framer can be paid by credit card or PayPal.

Framer: Features

Framer is primarily a web-based tool. However, downloadable apps for Windows and macOS (Intel or M1) are available. We tried both the browser version and the Windows app (using Windows 10), and found no discernible difference.

This app boasts a collection of design, preview, and publishing tools, based on the concept of “design, publish, scale.” These tools are accessed in a responsive editor with a range of effects (media embeds, interactive tools, etc.) and CMS integrations.

In addition to layout and design tools, Framer features localization, publishing and staging, and SEO. Generative AI is included to help enhance your web project.

Framer: Ease of use

Framer has a slightly trickier learning curve than some similar UX tools. Getting started is straightforward and you’ll be able to compose a wireframe in a few minutes. However, the specifics of layout require some cross-reference with the Framer support resources.

Pages are easily created, layouts applied, and layers placed. Each page can be built with styles, custom components, and custom code. These configurable items can be found listed under the Assets tab.

Various media and other elements can be added using the Insert button. This includes everything from videos and images to animations and audio. Forms, icons, interactive elements (search boxes) and more can be inserted into a design. Menus can be linked to other pages, elements repeated as necessary, and individual properties configured.

Meanwhile, the generative AI tool is an excellent feature if you need a basic idea automatically creating. The results are good enough to use, but you’ll probably want to spend time on further development.

Framer projects can be further enhanced with the addition of a blog. A CMS (content management system) collection can be added and configured, with the results included in your website. The CMS can be used to easily create new blog posts or items in whatever other collection you have created.

When you’re ready to see the project as it would appear live, you can launch a demo – complete projects can be published on Framer.

Framer: Customer support

Your main point of reference when using Framer is the Help Center.

Here, advice and answers from the Framer team can be accessed, with articles covering everything from accessibility to affiliate links.

Direct support for Framer users can be gained using a pop-up chat window. For serious issues concerning site publishing issues or a failing live site, an Emergency Support page and chat window is provided.

No specific response time is cited on the website. However, the chat bot (which describes itself as an “AI Concierge”) states that the “support team aims to handle requests promptly.”

The Framer community can also be accessed via the website. This provides information about the software, announcements about new features, and also includes a support forum. Here, questions can be posed, and answers provided by other users and members of the Framer team.

Notably, a Framer status page is also available. This highlights any difficulties the web application might be experiencing. 

Framer: The competition

A number of other web-based UX design tools are available. Does Framer stand out against them?

Mockitt and Proto.io are each strong alternatives, but do things a little differently. For example, Mockitt supports mind maps and flowcharts as well as UX; Proto.io is more suited to mobile apps. Both lack complete staging and publishing options. 

The ability to preview, stage, and publish a web project with Framer is a key advantage over these competitors. On the other hand, Framer for web UX design, rather than the creation of anything requiring a UX.

Framer: Final verdict

We found Framer to be a superb tool for creating websites. If your aim is to look beyond the traditional CMS-and-theme approach, Framer has everything you need. A web design can be realized relatively quickly, and Framer’s support materials will guide you through.

Price-wise, Framer seems like a bargain. It is more suited to web UX than app UX, but with the tools on offer, you won’t look back.

Note that while the desktop and browser interface appear to be identical, Framer doesn’t work well on mobile browsers.

Read our Framer AI website builder review.

Sistrix SEO was launched in 2008 and was among the first few tools to introduce the Visibility Index, which has now become a crucial metric for SEO professionals worldwide. However, it currently offers much more than that. From in-depth keyword analysis to competitor benchmarking and technical site audits to content optimization, Sistrix SEO covers many different aspects of SEO with precision and expert insight. We tested Sistrix’s different features, use case, and customer support and assessed its application in real-world SEO campaigns before writing this detailed review. So, get started with our guide and break down the best and worst of Sistrix. 

Sistrix: Plans and pricing

SISTRIX SEO offers a range of pricing plans tailored to different needs, from SEO beginners and freelancers to large companies and expert users. 

Start Plan

For just €99/month plus VAT, this package is designed for freelancers, SEO beginners, and startups. It offers an array of features, including Keyword Research, Domain Analysis, Backlink-Index, and Visibility Index, all tailored to boost your website's performance. You can also fix on-page errors and look into your site’s analytics with 10,000 results per analysis, crawl up to 300,00 URLs, and stay updated with 2,500 SERP Updates. Additionally, it includes 1,000 Export & API credits every week for advanced data handling and a three-month data history for tracking your progress over time. 

Plus Plan

The PLUS package, at €199/month plus VAT, is ideal for small companies targeting growth. It extends the START package with access for three users, content marketing and text optimization tools, and face-to-face training seminars. Highlights include 50,000 results per analysis, a 5-year data history, 500,000 URL crawls, 15,000 SERP updates, and 10,000 weekly Export & API credits. Designed for enhanced collaboration and advanced SEO strategies, it's a comprehensive solution for boosting online visibility and growth.

Professional Plan

The Premium Plan, priced at €349/month plus VAT, caters to agencies and thriving medium-sized companies. It encompasses all features of the PLUS package, with enhancements such as over 13 years of complete data history and access to an API interface for seamless system integration. This plan also offers telephone and premium support in German. Key features include 100,000 results per analysis, a comprehensive 13-year data history, the ability to crawl up to 2,000,000 URLs, 40,000 SERP updates, and 30,000 weekly Export & API credits. Designed for high-level SEO management and integration capabilities, this plan is the ultimate tool for businesses seeking extensive support and advanced features.

Premium Plan

At €599/month plus VAT, the plan is designed for large companies, power users, and experts, enhancing the PROFESSIONAL package with more extensive export credits, projects, and keywords. It introduces role and rights management with an audit log for superior control, alongside VIP support and a continuing education program for ongoing expertise development. Standout features include unlimited results per analysis, a complete 13-year data history, the capacity to crawl up to 4,000,000 URLs, 100,000 SERP updates, and a substantial increase to 100,000 weekly Export & API credits. This offering is the pinnacle for entities demanding the utmost in SEO analysis, data management, and educational support.

Sistrix: Features

Search Engine Visibility 

The Visibility Index is a core metric for understanding and improving your website's SEO. This tool quantifies your site's presence in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) by analyzing keyword positions and search volumes. Not only that, but it also offers a numeric representation of your website's performance and helps you track fluctuations and trends over time. 

We also loved how it distinguishes between desktop and mobile searches. Plus, the Visibility Index updates regularly which helps you stay informed of your SEO health and guiding strategies for sustained improvement.

Competitor Analysis 

Now you know how important it is to identify and understand your online competitors to create effective SEO strategies. Sistrix SEO assists in uncovering not only those competitors you know but also those you haven't considered. You can further compare your visibility directly with your rivals to understand where you stand in the SERPs. 

If you want to know more about your competitors' strategies, these tools can even provide you with insight into competitors' backlink profiles and their top-performing content. This analysis helps you modify your content and backlink strategies to outperform your competition.

Technical SEO Optimization 

Sistrix SEO uses on-site crawlers to scan your site to identify technical issues and boost its technical aspects. These issues include everything from broken links and incorrect redirects to missing meta tags. 

While doing this, the crawlers highlight problems and prioritize them by impact. This helps you make improvements with a detailed "health score" for your site.

Content Optimization

Sistrix identifies your site's strengths and areas for improvement by evaluating the existing content. This helps you align your content strategy with current search engine algorithms. 

Additionally, it offers actionable recommendations to improve content structure, include relevant keywords, and match user search intent. This targeted advice boosts your content's relevance and authority, thereby improving your rankings in the SERPs.

Backlink Management

Sistrix SEO offers an in-depth analysis of your backlink profile, highlighting new and lost links and identifying quality link-building opportunities. If you find managing and rejecting harmful backlinks difficult, the disavow functionality can help safeguard your site against potential penalties. Moreover, with detailed insights into your backlink profile's composition and changes over time, Sistrix SEO lets you enhance your site's credibility and search engine ranking strategically. 

Universal Search Integration

Sistrix SEO tracks and optimizes the performance of images, videos, and e-commerce products within specialized search results like Google Images and Google Shopping. This integration helps your content maximize its visibility across different search mediums. On top of that, it lets you optimize your SEO strategy to take advantage of opportunities across universal search results. 

Social Signals 

Our favorite feature is Sistrix SEO’s in-depth monitoring of social signals related to your content. It tracks engagement metrics like likes, shares, and comments and even offers insights into how social interactions influence your site's SEO performance. This allows you to modify the effectiveness of your social media strategies and their correlation with search engine visibility, enhancing both engagement and SEO outcomes. 

Sistrix: Interface and in-use

We are big fans of Sistrix SEO’s comprehensive functionality and user-friendly interface. It’s designed to accommodate a wide audience, from beginners to advanced SEO professionals. Its design focuses on ease of use and offers deep insights so you can navigate its vast features without feeling lost.

Plus, Sistrix offers a snapshot of crucial metrics such as the Visibility Index for monitored websites, changes in ranking positions, and alerts for potential technical issues. You can even customize the dashboard to highlight the most relevant information to you, streamlining your monitoring and decision-making process.

Moreover, the clear and organized menu is another thing that makes navigation through Sistrix so easy. It divides the tool's capabilities into separate modules like SEO, Links, Ads, Social, and Content. This modular structure helps you quickly access the necessary tools without wasting time on unrelated data. Despite all that, we noticed that the tool does have a learning curve for which you should be prepared.

Sistrix: Support

Sistrix SEO provides support through multiple approaches to ensure users at all expertise levels can effectively use its comprehensive functionalities. You can contact the support team via email and phone channels for direct support. It also has a vast online base filled with articles, guides, and tutorials for self-help. 

To further deepen your understanding, Sistrix offers a range of webinars and seminars covering basic and advanced topics, facilitated by SEO experts. While Sistrix doesn't host its own user forum, we found a community of users and SEO professionals on social media groups and forums that provide a peer-to-peer support system. 

However, the most unique thing about Sistrix’s support system is its multi-lingual support. This means you can get assistance in your preferred language. 

Overall, Sistrix’s comprehensive support system, combining direct help, educational resources, community interaction, and accessibility in multiple languages, offers you all the necessary tools and knowledge at your fingertips to optimize your SEO strategies effectively.

Sistrix: The competition

Sistrix is considered a bit expensive compared to some other tools in the market as it’s priced at a starting point of €99 per month for its basic plan. On the other hand, SerpStat's basic plan starts at $69 per month, making it a more affordable entry point for individuals and small businesses. However, it wouldn’t be fair if we don’t consider the depth of features they provide. Sistrix's Visibility Index feature alone is something that we don’t see in many other tools, including SerpStat.

Furthermore, tools like SEO Spider, which is priced notably lower at £149 for a lifetime license, target a different segment of the SEO market. They focus more on the technical aspects of SEO, such as site crawling and issue detection.

While SEO Spider is a powerful tool for those specific needs, its interface and configuration make it difficult for beginners. Moreover, you cannot avail of ongoing updates or support without purchasing a yearly license renewal. In contrast, Sistrix's subscription model ensures you can always access the latest features and support.

Sistrix: Final verdict

Sistrix is a solid choice if you're deep into SEO and looking for serious results. At €99 a month, it's not the cheapest option, but you're getting a lot for your money. 

It's packed with features like the Visibility Index and detailed analysis tools for analyzing your competition and determining your SEO strategy. Plus, it offers a lot of support and resources to help you get the most out of it, even if there's a bit of a learning curve at the start.

We noticed in particular that Sistrix is especially great if you're focusing on the European market, thanks to its targeted data and insights. So, if you’re looking for a tool that covers just about everything you need to boost your website's SEO, Sistrix is worth considering.

SEO PowerSuite was launched in 2004 by Link-Assistant, a company specializing in SEO and internet marketing tools. Unlike many competitors that operate solely on cloud-based platforms, Powersuite delivers its comprehensive tools directly to the user's computer. This approach helps you with data privacy and firm control over SEO data. Many professionals who are cautious about storing sensitive information on external servers prefer PowerSuite for this reason. 

At its core, SEO PowerSuite is designed to cover all areas of SEO, including keyword research, site auditing, backlink analysis, and link building. Our team conducted detailed testing of its functionalities, performance, and utility to provide you with an in-depth overview. We aimed to illustrate why SEO PowerSuite is a preferred choice for SEO professionals seeking a reliable and powerful toolset for their optimization needs. So, let’s get started.

SEO PowerSuite: Plans and pricing

SEO PowerSuite comes with different pricing plans that can cater to a wide variety of users. The free plan is best for individual site owners and beginners. This plan offers features including a rank tracker, website auditor, SEO spyglass, and link assistant.  

The professional plan is $299 annually, allowing users to save projects and schedule SEO tasks. There is a dedicated query processing system for captcha-free checks. This plan is best for in-house SEO professionals and small to medium-sized businesses.

The enterprise plan is the most expensive plan SEO PowerSuite has to offer. This plan is best for SEO agencies and freelancers managing clients but be prepared to splurge on it as it costs $499 per year. The plan includes all the professional plan features. Additionally, it allows users to save reports in PDF, schedule reports, and data export in .csv,.sql, and .html.

SEO PowerSuite: Features

Rank Tracker

PowerSuite’s Rank Tracker tool tracks and analyzes website rankings across multiple search engines. With access to over 20 keyword suggestion tools, including prominent ones like Google Ads Keyword Planner, Google Search Console, and SEMrush, you can easily find profitable keywords within your niche. 

We also love Powersuite’s SERP analysis feature. It tracks an unlimited number of keywords while monitoring ranking changes on a daily, weekly, or custom frequency basis. Additionally, it also offers competitor tracking, where you can monitor up to 40 competitors' rankings alongside your own. 

If you want to target the local market for your business, it supports localized rankings with tracking capabilities in over 300 search engines and precise location targeting down to the city level. It further provides over 15 customizable report templates and lets you conduct detailed analysis and reporting.

Website Auditor

During our tests, we found Powersuite’s Website Auditor pretty impressive. It performs deep analysis of websites and finds technical and on-page SEO opportunities for optimization. While doing this, it crawls websites and detects over 40 different types of issues that could harm your website’s ranking. 

Moreover, the tool offers suggestions on optimizing your website with more than 50 different on-page SEO factors, including page titles, meta descriptions, and content quality. Plus, considering the importance of social media sharing buttons, it further evaluates their integration and effectiveness. 

Powersuite also utilizes over 10 distinct visualizations and identifies and suggests improvements for internal linking and URL structure. It even shines in its reporting capabilities, generating detailed, white-labeled, and customizable audit reports, which are ideal for client presentations and internal use.

SEO SpyGlass

SEO SpyGlass is responsible for handling the critical area of backlink analysis. It has access to a database of over 1.6 trillion backlinks. With this, it performs backlink audits and competitive analysis. You can even compare your backlink profiles directly with up to five competitors at a time to gain valuable insights into link-building strategies. Moreover, it has 50 quality factors to help identify potentially harmful links that could pose a risk to your site. 

Besides this, SEO SpyGlass tracks the historical data and trends into how the backlinks were gained. This lets you assess the effectiveness of your link-building efforts over time. And no, it doesn’t stop here. It also generates detailed, customizable, and brandable backlink reports for deep analysis.

LinkAssistant

LinkAssistant focuses on streamlining the link-building process. For this, it employs over 10 different methods for identifying potential link partners. These include exploring directories, analyzing blogs, and studying competitors' backlinks. Another highlight of this feature is the fully integrated email client and customizable email templates, which help you run an efficient outreach campaign. Another area where LinkAssistant excels is managing and tracking a vast number of backlinks and link-building prospects by organizing them efficiently within a single project. 

SEO PowerSuite: User interface

PowerSuite's user-friendly interface is perfect for both SEO beginners and seasoned experts. It’s easy to navigate and offers all essential information upfront. With just a few clicks, you can easily access everything from tracking keyword rankings and conducting site audits to analyzing backlinks and finding link-building opportunities.

We love how the interface uses colors and symbols to guide users. For example, the Website Auditor uses red, yellow, and green to highlight SEO problems based on their severity. This helps to prioritize the issues of the site accordingly. Moreover, Rank Tracker utilizes graphs, using upward or downward arrows to indicate changes in keyword rankings.

Despite all the detailed features, SEO PowerSuite keeps the interface tidy and well-organized. All tools are logically grouped, and switching between different tasks or projects is smooth. 

Last but not least, the software also lets you create detailed and visually appealing reports directly from the interface. These reports are ideal for presentations to clients or team discussions.

SEO PowerSuite: Support

PowerSuite's customer support provides extensive assistance, helping you to utilize all aspects and features of the software effectively. Its extensive online documentation offers in-depth articles and step-by-step guides covering every tool and feature. So whether you're a beginner needing guidance on basic operations or an advanced user looking for tips on optimizing your SEO strategy, you’ll find all the necessary information here.

If you’re looking for direct assistance, SEO PowerSuite offers support through multiple channels. First, you can reach out to the support team through their Live Chat which is pretty fast. Next, you have the ticket feature where you can raise your query, and the team will get back to you via email. You can reach out with specific questions or issues. During our evaluation, Powersuite’s support was quite impressive with the help as they didn’t just respond quickly but gave a detailed solution to our query in the first try.

Additionally, SEO PowerSuite has a community forum where you can share experiences, ask questions, and offer solutions to one another. This enhances the overall support framework and offers a place for real-world advice and tips from other SEO professionals.

SEO PowerSuite: Competition

PowerSuite offers a variety of SEO tools at a competitive pricing structure that even includes a free version for basic use. The paid versions start at $299/year for the Professional plan and $499/year for the Enterprise plan, making it a cost-effective alternative to many competitors. For instance, tools like Moz Pro start at $99/month for their Standard plan, which adds up to nearly $1200 annually. This makes powersuite a much cheaper alternative for specific SEO practices. 

While evaluating its features and user experiences, we noticed that SEO PowerSuite is designed for users who demand comprehensive, in-depth SEO analysis and management capabilities. In contrast, Yoast SEO's more user-friendly approach to on-page SEO tasks makes it appealing to website owners and bloggers who need straightforward tools within their CMS (Content Management System).

Another thing worth comparing is that SEO PowerSuite's desktop-based application presents a learning curve compared to cloud-based solutions. Tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs, with starting prices of $119.95/month and $99/month, offer a range of SEO, content marketing, and competitor analysis tools in a more straightforward, web-based interface. 

Overall, SEO PowerSuite's one-time annual fee and comprehensive feature set make it a better option than cloud-based softwares like Moz Pro and Ahrefs if you’re specifically concerned about rank tracking and link assistance. 

SEO PowerSuite: Final verdict

SEO PowerSuite is a comprehensive and versatile SEO tool for a wide range of users. Its four essential tools, Rank Tracker, Website Auditor, SEO SpyGlass, and LinkAssistant, address all major aspects of SEO. This includes keyword tracking, site auditing, backlink analysis, and link building. We are a big fan of PowerSuite’s user-friendly interface, with design elements like color coding and symbols which simplify navigation and make complex data easily understandable.

We also found the support of the tool quite spectacular. It offers detailed documentation, responsive email support, and an active community forum, so you have the necessary resources at your fingertips. Not to mention,  its amazing pricing structure that makes it accessible to users with different needs and budgets. 

Despite being a desktop-based platform, which could be seen as a limitation, it offers advantages in data security and speed. All in all, SEO PowerSuite is a valuable tool for achieving SEO success, balancing comprehensive features with user accessibility and strong customer support.

18 years ago, Google shut down Google Answers, a service that allowed anyone to ask a question to freelancers, known as Google Answers Researchers (GAR), for a fee. Launched in April 2002, it competed against the free-to-use Yahoo! Answers. The answers fed directly into Google’s own index (they’d appear in Google Search results page) and offered an interesting alternative to the existing knowledge base back then.

Fast forward to 2024 and Reddit, a website that offers something similar to Google Answers (albeit in an expanded form), just announced its IPO as well as a deal to pocket $60 million in annual fees from Google to allow the latter from training its AI on existing Reddit content, content that is curated and maintained by an army of more than 60,000 volunteers, the Redditors.

They are the key to Reddit’s sustained success, dealing with spam accounts (and spam content) and maintaining a modicum of consistency. Redditors are in effect manually doing what an algorithm may have done, reminding me of mTurk, the little known crowdsourcing marketplace owned by Amazon, that “allowed businesses and individuals to outsource their processes and jobs”.

Redditors keep the data cleaner for free and make it better by using their own experience (and time), something akin to the open source community that maintain source code in applications that powers most of the internet as we know it.

Reddit, or the front page of the internet as it is also known, thrives on its user generated content, produced by a staggering 73 million daily active users. The company said in its IPO filling that it had more than one billion cumulative posts, spread over more than 100,000 active communities.

More importantly for us at Future (and many other publishers), a recent Google algorithm change saw Reddit’s Visibility Index surge, making it one of the most visible domains in Google Search (US), according to SEO tool Sistrix.

SERP-mageddon

“In terms of Google Search potential in the US, reddit.com is almost as big as facebook.com” wrote Sistrix's Steve Paine, last week. And that’s because Reddit has an estimated 11 million daily Google search clicks, all of which represent search intent and may turn Reddit into a formidable rival to more established players.

By ranking higher in SERP (search engine results page), Reddit is likely to grow in size, attracting more new members. Increasing in size would mean new topics and - hopefully - better answers, all with Google’s apparent blessing. But to paraphrase Stan Lee, “with great power comes great responsibility” and this is where cracks have started to appear.

Not everyone is liking Reddit’s “businessification”. “Reddit warned us that its users were a risk factor, and boy do they sound excited about shorting its stock” quipped Elizabeth Lopatto from The Verge in what could be interpreted as a warning shot to Reddit’s owners.

Then there’s Google. Reddit has pushed a lot of sites off lucrative SERP positions and has caused growing frustration amongst SEO professionals like Glen Allsopp or Lily Ray because of an expanding spam issue. In a research piece published last week, Allsopp pointed out that “the ‘Discussions and Forums’ SERP feature was present in 77% of searches, and Reddit was present in 97.5% of those. What I haven’t yet told you is that 51% of Reddit’s top-ranking threads currently have spam as a top comment.”

To make things even more complicated, Reddit also appears on its own in SERPs, usually with a cluster of links (rather than just one link like most competitors). These links are chosen by Google based on unknown factors, other than recency, which means that some results are from 2022, even for highly competitive terms.

Where will it end? The commenting system on Google Answers was used (and abused) by the SEO community and may have contributed to the demise of the service (back then, Google only said that they considered many factors in reaching this decision). AI and the intervention of state actors could make it even more difficult for Redditors to moderate and ironically, Google’s Reddit move could end up hurting the online ecosystem more than AI-produced content.

More from TechRadar Pro

• Want to supercharge your SEO? Check out our list of the best SEO tools.
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• AI isn’t just great for SEO, we’ve compiled a list of the best AI tools

Looking for an edge in optimizing your online presence? This Black Friday, gear up for unprecedented opportunities with Semrush, the ultimate SEO powerhouse offering exclusive deals you can't afford to miss.

For digital marketers and website SEO enthusiasts, Semrush is the go-to platform. As November draws to a close and the highly anticipated Black Friday approaches, Semrush has announced some limited-time offers which will be a huge asset to your business.

Why choose Semrush?

We've tried Semrush ourselves and we recommend the platform as it offers everything you would expect in a SEO tool. Seamlessly optimize your keyword strategies with insights into cost per click, search volume, and trend analysis for every search term. The platform also provides you with in-depth link analyses. Additionally, you can scrutinize backlinks, anchor texts, and measure linking domain authority to fortify your SEO approach.

The tool also features a robust suite for competitive analysis. Unveil competitors' keywords, ad budgets, copy strategies, and more with the Organic Competitors Report, listing top Google domains – your secret weapon for strategic planning.

But Semrush isn't just confined to SEO. With its scheduling tools, you can also create content for social media. The content platform also helps you with topic identification, management of documents and deadlines.

This exclusive Black Friday offer kicks off today, granting you access to a myriad of Semrush's premium features until 1 December. We have also listed Semrush as number one in our Best SEO tools guide. 

Content from generative artificial intelligence (AI) is flooding the internet, but the jury is still out on how AI will impact SEO. There is a lot we don’t know, but it is clear that when marketing agencies embrace these tools, they improve efficiency, automate manual tasks, and increase output. As a marketing agency, you may not be ready to jump on AI’s bandwagon, but if you avoid it entirely, you may be left behind.

AI tools for SEO marketing are constantly improving

The question on everyone’s mind is how Google will react to the new AI-generated content. To say that AI is rapidly evolving is an understatement. The capabilities of AI systems are improving exponentially by the day. In a month, let alone a year, these algorithms will be vastly more sophisticated.

The transformation of AI is moving so rapidly that even Google is having a difficult time keeping up. Since ChatGPT came out, Google’s story has flip-flopped as to whether or not it would penalize AI-generated content. As of now, marketing agencies should stay on top of search engine policies to avoid potential penalties. For example, keep abreast of algorithmic watermarking of ChatGPT content and steer clear of content guideline violations. Search algorithms are likely to change as competition increases between the AI-powered search engines of both Google and Microsoft.

How marketing agencies can avoid SEO penalties and still harness the power of AI

Marketing agencies need to identify ways AI technology can be harnessed as a tool within their current processes. This requires us all to think outside the box.

As a marketing team, you are unlikely to use AI-generated content for your final drafts. However, many teams use AI content to automate existing tasks, cut production time, and expedite the pre-writing process. Common ways I see marketing agencies implementing the technology in this area include content briefs, outlines, meta descriptions, keyword lists, on-site content, and first drafts.

AI systems are not magic. To obtain the best output from these platforms, marketing agencies need training on how to efficiently provide input. The quality of AI-generated output depends highly on the quality of the human input that comes before it.

To get the most out of AI-generated content, marketing agencies need to understand its limitations. For example, ChatGPT currently cannot generate content about current events or trending topics because its knowledge base only extends to the year 2021.

How to take advantage of AI systems and continue to obtain high SEO

As marketing agencies, we can only achieve the benefits of AI-generated content when we combine technological innovations with our own human expertise. There is fear that AI will replace white-collar work and human roles within marketing and technology teams.

In my opinion, marketing agencies should stop viewing AI systems as threats. The tools are just that: tools. They do not do the work themselves. We need to be savvy in using these tools, while not fully relying on them to do the work.

AI content is impressive, but we must take it with a grain of salt and add a human touch. An experienced marketing team offers nuances and creativity that AI cannot replicate. Human writers and editors comb through AI drafts to identify biases, check facts, and touch up brand voice.

Fact-checking is critical when using AI-generated content. Many things that an AI says with authority are blatantly untrue. This is especially troubling if the content concerns critical topics, such as medical advice. Today, people turn to the internet to research everything from legal strategy to diets to medical procedures, and brands are on the hook for content that causes harm, whether or not it is AI-generated. Branding is another area where AI-generated content needs human finesse. If your client’s brand has a well-defined voice, switching to entirely AI-generated content will dilute that branding you have worked so hard to establish.

To use AI or not to use AI?

As marketing agencies, we all need to stay current on the evolving impact of AI on our industry. How much we use the new technology depends on several factors. For example, if you are a respected firm, score excellent domain authority, churn out engaging content, and move at a pace that keeps you ahead of the competition, you can afford to sit back and watch how Google regards the AI-generated content your competitors publish. On the flip side, if you happen to be a startup that needs a leg up on your competition, using AI to get content up quickly offers massive benefits. You can boost your productivity and efficiency with almost no risk.

Whether you choose to dip your toe into the rushing water of AI or dive in headfirst, continue to implement all the traditional SEO best practices that have worked for you in the past. No matter its origin, your content will always rank higher in searches if it incorporates high-traffic, industry-specific keywords, is well-written and authentic, appears on a user-friendly website, and implements local SEO as much as possible. The end goal is quality, accurate, helpful, unique, customer-focused content, regardless of the tool we use to generate it.

Durable is an AI-powered website builder that aims to simplify the process of creating professional websites for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Founded in 2022, the company's mission is to make owning a business easier than having a job by providing a suite of AI tools for website creation, marketing, invoicing, and customer relationship management (CRM). 

One of the best AI website builders on the market, Durable lets you generate a complete website with images, content, and a contact form in just 30 seconds, by answering a few simple questions about your business type, name, and location. The AI handles the rest, selecting an appropriate template, customizing the design, and filling it with relevant content. If you're not satisfied with any section, you can easily regenerate it or make edits using the drag-and-drop editor. 

What we liked about Durable is how it streamlines the website creation process, making it accessible to users without any coding or design skills. The websites generated by its AI look professional and are optimized for mobile devices. Durable also offers other useful features, such as built-in SEO tools, analytics, a CRM system, and an AI assistant that can help with tasks like writing blog posts or ad copy. 

On the downside, Durable may not be suitable for building more advanced or custom websites, as the customization options are somewhat limited compared to some of the best website builders. The AI-generated content, while generally good, may not always be accurate. There’s also some concern about how well Durable plays with third-party integrations. Its pricing plans, which start at $15/month, could be a bit steep for some small businesses on a tight budget. 

However, Durable is generally a solid choice for small business owners, freelancers, and entrepreneurs who want to quickly establish an online presence without getting bogged down in the technicalities of web design. While it may not be the best fit for businesses that require heavy customization, Durable is definitely worth considering if you prioritize speed and simplicity in your website creation process.

Durable plans and pricing

Durable offers a range of pricing options designed to suit the needs and budgets of various businesses. The AI website builder provides a free website builder plan that allows users to generate a website with a subdomain at no cost. However, to unlock more advanced features and publish your website with a custom domain, you'll need to subscribe to one of the paid plans. 

The Starter plan, which costs $15 per month or $12 per month if billed annually, is the most affordable paid option. It includes a custom domain name, unlimited pages, priority email support, access to 10 million stock images, unlimited monthly blog articles, and premium widgets. This plan also comes with a simple AI CRM for managing unlimited contacts and the AI assistant for automating tasks. 

For businesses with more extensive needs, the Business plan is available at $25 per month or $20 per month when billed annually. In addition to all the features of the Starter plan, it offers support for up to 5 team members, live chat support, email sync and auto-reply, review automation, a social post generator, Google ad generator, and unlimited invoicing. 

Durable also offers the Mogul plan for owners and operators who want to manage multiple businesses within a single account. Priced at $95 per month or $80 per month when billed annually, this plan supports up to 5 businesses with 5 custom domains, unlimited pages, users, and invoices. It also includes 1:1 onboarding and all the features of the Business plan for each business. 

All paid plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, and users can cancel their subscriptions at any time. It's important to note that the subscription cost is tied to each website, so you'll be charged per website you publish, except for the Mogul plan.

Durable website builder features

With its intuitive interface and advanced AI capabilities, Durable empowers users to build professional websites quickly and easily, without the need for coding or design expertise. Let's take a closer look at some of the standout features that set Durable apart from other website builders.

AI-Driven Website Generation

Durable's standout feature is its ability to generate a complete website with images, content, and a contact form in just 30 seconds. By answering a few simple questions about your business type, name, and location, Durable's AI algorithms create a tailored website that matches your industry and brand. 

No-Code Customization

While Durable generates a professional-looking website from the start, it also offers a user-friendly drag-and-drop editor that allows you to easily customize your site. You can change colors, fonts, images, and layouts to match your preferences, and even regenerate specific sections if you're not satisfied with the AI-generated designs. 

Integrated Marketing Tools

Durable goes beyond website creation by providing a range of integrated marketing tools to help you grow your business. These include built-in SEO features, analytics to track visitor behavior, a Google Ad writer, and email marketing solutions. With these tools, you can effectively drive traffic to your site and engage with your audience. 

AI-Powered CRM and Invoicing

Durable offers an AI-powered CRM system that helps you manage customer interactions and streamline your sales process. It also includes an invoicing feature that simplifies billing and payment tracking. These tools work seamlessly with your website, providing a comprehensive solution for managing your business online. 

AI Assistant and Blog Builder

Durable's new AI Assistant is a powerful tool that can help you automate various tasks, such as writing blog posts, ad copy, or social media content. The AI Blog Builder allows you to generate SEO-optimized blog posts in seconds, saving you time and effort while keeping your website fresh and engaging.

Durable AI website builder: Setup

Getting started with Durable is easy enough. To begin, simply visit the Durable website and click on the "Generate your Website" button. You'll be prompted to enter your business type, location, and name. Once you've provided this information, Durable's AI algorithms will generate a fully functional website tailored to your specific business needs in just 30 seconds. 

After your website is generated, you'll need to sign up for an account to customize and optimize it further. The registration process is quick and easy, requiring only your email address and a password. Upon signing up, you'll be guided through a user-friendly onboarding process that introduces you to Durable's key features and tools. This includes the AI-powered website editor, which allows you to easily customize your site's layout, color scheme, and content without any coding knowledge.

As a first-time user, you'll find the interface intuitive and easy to navigate. The platform offers a range of configuration options to fine-tune your website to your liking. You can add or remove sections, change images, and edit text directly within the editor. If you're not satisfied with a particular section, simply click the "Regenerate" button and Durable's AI will create new content and images for you.

The platform provides a suite of AI-powered tools to help you manage and grow your online presence. This includes an integrated CRM system for managing customer interactions, an invoicing tool for streamlining billing, and an AI assistant for automating tasks like writing blog posts or ad copy. These features are designed to save you time and effort while ensuring your website remains up-to-date.

To keep your Durable website running smoothly, the platform handles most maintenance tasks automatically. This includes regular software updates, security patches, and backups. However, it's still important to periodically review your website's content and performance to ensure it aligns with your business goals. Durable's analytics tools provide valuable insights into visitor behavior and engagement, allowing you to make data-driven decisions for optimizing your site.

Durable support

Durable offers customer support through multiple channels, ensuring that users can get help whenever they need it. The primary support channels include email, live chat, and an extensive knowledge base. Email support is available for all users, while live chat support is reserved for those on the Business and Mogul plans, providing them with priority assistance. 

The company's response times are impressive, with most users reporting quick and efficient support. Durable's support agents are known for their friendliness, expertise, and willingness to go the extra mile to help customers resolve their issues. Many online reviews praise the quality of support provided by Durable, with customers appreciating the personalized attention they receive. 

In addition to direct support, Durable also maintains a comprehensive knowledge base that covers a wide range of topics, from getting started with the platform to advanced features like setting up e-commerce and managing multiple sites. The knowledge base is well-organized and easy to navigate, making it a valuable resource for users looking to troubleshoot issues or learn more about the platform. 

Durable AI website builder: Final verdict

With its AI-powered website generator and marketing tools, Durable simplifies the website creation process and provides ongoing support for business growth. We think it’s a solid choice for small businesses and entrepreneurs seeking a quick, easy, and affordable way to establish an online presence. 

However, those looking for a fully-featured web design platform should consider other options for now. Durable is heavily dependent on its AI algorithms, which stifles customization somewhat and makes it challenging to work with third-party integrations. While we like how it all comes together in the end, we don’t think this is the best platform for advanced designers with prior web development experience.

If you've ever wanted to create a stunning online presence without the complexities of coding or technical skill, then Friday could be the go-to solution for you. 

With its easy-to-navigate interface and intuitive design, Friday empowers individuals and businesses of all levels to craft professional and captivating websites effortlessly. Even if you are an aspiring blogger, a small business owner, or an artist showcasing your work, Friday offers a seamless website-building experience. 

To make things even easier, below is the step-by-step process of using Friday to bring your ideas to life, helping you unlock the potential of the digital world and reach a global audience with your unique website.

This guide will tell you how to get started with the Friday website builder. If you want to learn more about the platform such as how easy it is to use and what features and tools it provides, you can read our full Friday website builder review. 

What is Friday? 

Apart from a day of the week, Friday is a website builder tool that allows individuals and businesses to create professional websites without the need for coding or technical expertise. 

It offers a range of templates, tools, and features to help you design and customize your websites according to your unique needs and preferences. Friday simplifies the website creation process, enabling you to bring your ideas such as a blog site, business site, portfolio, or an online store to life with ease. 

Friday provides a streamlined and accessible solution to build a captivating online presence. With its drag-and-drop page editor, responsive design options, and a variety of templates, Friday empowers you to craft visually appealing websites that effectively engage your audience. 

Steps to building a site using Friday 

Step 1: Signing up for an account

To get started with building your website using Friday website builder, the first thing you need to do is visit the Friday website. On the homepage, you'll find a "Get Started" button. Click on it to begin the process.

Step 2: Enter your details

Once you click on "Get Started," you'll be directed to a registration page where you'll need to input your personal details like your name, email address, and password. Ensure you provide accurate information, as this will be crucial for managing your account and accessing your website later.

Step 3: Confirm your email

After filling in your details and clicking on the "Sign Up" button, you'll receive a confirmation email in your mailbox. Check your inbox for this email from Friday, and click on the verification link provided. This step is essential to validate your account creation and activate your Friday account. Clicking the link will redirect you to Friday's official website.

Step 4: Add a website

Once your email is confirmed, you'll be taken to a new page on the Friday platform. This page will give you the option to add a new website. Select this option to proceed further with creating your website.

Step 5: Selecting a template

Now that you've added a website, Friday will prompt you to choose a template for your website. This is an exciting step, as you'll have a wide array of pre-designed templates to choose from. 

Take your time browsing through the templates and select the one that best matches your vision for your website. If you can't find the perfect template from the list, Friday also provides a "search template" option that allows you to find templates based on specific keywords or themes. Also, you can preview each template to see how it looks before making your final decision.

Step 6: Personalizing templates

Once you've settled on a template, the next step is to personalize it according to your preferences and branding. Friday allows you to add the name you want for your website, giving it a unique identity. After entering the desired name, you'll proceed to complete the payment process.

Step 7: Editing your website

After the payment is successfully processed, you'll be granted access to your Friday website builder dashboard. Here, you'll find various menus and options that will allow you to edit and customize your website to your heart's content. Let's explore some of these menus:

- To add a new theme

If you ever want to change the overall theme of your website, click on the "Site theme" option located in the top left corner of your screen. By selecting a new theme, you can completely transform the look and feel of your website. Also, you can adjust colors, fonts, and even incorporate media elements such as videos and images to enhance the visual appeal.

- To add a new page

As your website grows, you might want to add more pages to cater to different sections or aspects of your content. Click on the "Pages" option in your dashboard to manage and create new pages. The page menu provides you with the ability to add standard pages, popups, and other essential elements that contribute to a dynamic website.

- To add widgets

Friday's widget is a powerful tool that enables you to enhance the functionality and interactivity of your website. Widgets come in various forms, including Text, Icons, Media Slider, Photo Gallery, Contact Form, Buttons, Maps, and more. Simply click on the "Widgets" option to explore and add the desired widgets to your pages.

- To personalize

Personalization is key to creating a unique and engaging website. With the "Personalize" option, you can unleash your creative skills by crafting popups, welcome messages, promotions/banners, and captivating call-to-action elements from scratch. This empowers you to tailor your website's content and user experience to align perfectly with your vision.

- To manage an ecommerce store

For those looking to establish an online store and drive sales, Friday offers a range of tools to integrate third-party ecommerce platforms seamlessly. This includes the ability to create, customize, and manage your online store, giving you full control over the shopping experience for your customers.

- To add a new blog

Blogging is a powerful way to connect with your audience and provide valuable content. With Friday, you can effortlessly add new blog posts, manage existing ones, edit blog layouts, and even import blog posts from other platforms. Also, you have the flexibility to enrich your blog posts with various media elements such as videos, images, and music, making your content more engaging.

Step 8: Optimizing your website for search engines

As your website takes shape, you'll want to ensure that it gains visibility on search engines. Friday understands the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) and provides valuable tools to boost your online presence.

The SEO option enables you to add site meta titles, meta descriptions, and relevant keywords, which play a significant role in determining how search engines rank your website.

In addition, Friday offers a comprehensive SEO settings menu that allows you to manage essential aspects such as Site SSL, URL redirects, site language, privacy settings, 404-page management, site domain settings, Google tools integration, Head HTML customization, and site backups to safeguard your content.

Final thoughts

Building a website using Friday is an effortless and rewarding experience. From signing up for an account to optimizing your website for search engines, Friday's intuitive platform and extensive features empower you to create stunning and fully functional websites tailored to your unique needs. 

Whether you are a seasoned web developer or just starting out, Friday provides the tools and flexibility to bring your online vision to life. 

• Friday features in our list of the best website builder services on the market

SE Ranking has come a long way since Valery Kurilov founded it in 2013. What started as a focused SEO rank tracker has grown into a full-stack platform for agencies, online businesses, and independent SEO professionals. There are tools covering everything from keyword research and backlink analysis to AI-powered search visibility tracking.

First you get access to a massive dataset, including over 5 billion keywords, 2.9 trillion backlinks, and support across 188 countries. That's a lot of data to work with, whether you're analyzing a single site or managing dozens of client projects. For new users, the platform offers a free trial that requires no credit card, giving you a real hands-on feel before you commit.

Want to know more? This review breaks down everything SE Ranking offers in 2026. What works well, where it falls short, and whether it's worth your money compared to the competition.

• Try SE Ranking here

SE Ranking: Plans and pricing

SE Ranking has restructured its pricing in 2026, moving from the old Essential/Pro/Business tiers to three new plans: Core, Growth, and Enterprise. You save 20% across the board by paying annually, and free assisted migration is included with any annual subscription.

The Core plan starts at $103.20/month (paid annually). It's built for marketing teams that need a solid SEO and GEO foundation without managing a large client roster. You get 10 projects, one manager seat, 2,000 keywords tracked daily, 100 daily AI prompts for GEO research, and up to 250,000 pages audited per month. Integrations with Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Looker Studio, and Matomo are all included from the start.

The Growth plan at $223.20/month (paid annually) is where most agencies will land. It scales up to 30 projects, three manager seats, 5,000 keywords tracked daily, and 250 daily GEO prompts. You also get full historical data going back across your account's lifetime, page changes monitoring, guest links for client collaboration, and API access with 100,000 credits included. Dedicated customer support is available at this tier too.

For larger teams with custom requirements, the Enterprise plan offers flexible limits and pricing but you'll need to talk to SE Ranking's sales to scope out the right setup. They also offer three optional add-ons that work across plans: the Agency Pack (from +$69/mo, annual only) adds white-label reporting and client-facing tools; the AI Search add-on (from +$71.20/mo) layers in AI visibility tracking across Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, and Perplexity; and the API add-on (from +$149/mo, annual only) gives you bulk data access starting at 12 million credits per month.

SE Ranking: Features

SE Ranking gives you a wide toolkit built around the core pillars of SEO — rank tracking, site auditing, competitor research, backlink analysis, content optimization, and now AI search visibility. It's geared primarily toward agencies and freelance SEO professionals, but solo site owners and in-house marketers will find plenty here too. Most tools are well-executed, with clean data presentation and minimal clutter, though the interface does have a learning curve once you move beyond the basics.

SE Ranking really pulls ahead on value in how much it packs into lower-tier plans. You get 120+ metrics in the website audit tool, daily keyword updates, and a 2.9 trillion link backlink index. It still lags slightly behind tools like Ahrefs or Majestic on backlink filtering granularity, though, which matters if deep link analysis is central to your workflow.

At the prices SE Ranking charges in 2026, we think the feature set more than justifies the cost. The addition of AI search tracking, expanded API capabilities, and the new SE Visible product signals that the platform is keeping pace with how search itself is changing. For a Core plan at $103.20/month, you'd be hard-pressed to find a comparable all-in-one tool.

Keyword Rank Tracker

SE Ranking keeps your keyword rankings updated daily across desktop and mobile, so you always have a current picture of where your pages stand in the SERPs. The ability to check cached SERP results gives you a useful historical perspective, letting you spot ranking trends over time rather than reacting to single-day shifts.

Managing large keyword lists becomes a lot more manageable with SE Ranking's grouping and tagging system. You can organise keywords by topic, campaign, or client, and the interface makes it easy to move between projects without losing your place. Pro and Business users also benefit from unlimited client projects, which is a meaningful advantage for agencies handling multiple accounts at once.

On-Page SEO checker

SE Ranking's on-page checker evaluates your pages against 94 different SEO parameters, comparing your content against competitor data to identify exactly where you're falling short. Issues are categorised as errors, warnings, or notices, with practical suggestions attached to each one so you know what to fix and why.

Website Audit

The Website Audit tool gives you a clear picture of your site's technical health through an easy-to-navigate dashboard. It can analyse up to 1,000 pages quickly and surfaces critical errors with in-depth explanations, so you're not left guessing about what needs attention.

A 2025 update improved how the Health Score is calculated, making it easier to understand how individual issues actually affect your overall score. Over 120 metrics are tracked in total, and you can customize audits to focus on the areas most relevant to your project.

Competitive Research Tool

SE Ranking's competitive research tool gives you a thorough view of what your competitors are doing across both organic and paid search. You can assess their traffic sources, targeted keywords, backlink profiles, and active Google Ads campaigns.

This is one of the stronger features in the platform, especially for agencies that need to present competitive data to clients. Monthly ad history tracking and keyword-level PPC data make it useful beyond just organic SEO, giving you a fuller picture of how a competitor is investing across search channels.

Backlink Checker

SE Ranking's Backlink Checker draws on a 2.9 trillion-link index, with 58% of backlinks refreshed every 90 days. You enter a domain and get a full breakdown of backlinks, referring domains, and key metrics including follow/nofollow status and a Toxicity Score to flag potentially harmful links.

You can also use the tool to identify which of your content pieces attract the strongest links, and analyse competitor backlink strategies to find new link-building opportunities. If your main use case is deep-dive link analysis, Ahrefs and Majestic still offer more granular filtering options. But for most users, SE Ranking covers the essentials well.

Local Marketing Tool

SE Ranking's Local Marketing Tool is designed for businesses that need to win visibility in location-based searches. It shows you how customers find and interact with your listings in search results, surfaces the most effective local keywords, and tracks engagement patterns to help you understand when users are most active.

The Reputation Management feature pulls review data directly into SE Ranking, letting you respond to customer feedback without switching between platforms. You can also mine review language for new keyword opportunities, which is a practical way to connect customer voice with your strategy.

SE Ranking: Support

SE Ranking offers a wide range of educational and supportive resources. Their blog is a valuable source of SEO knowledge, offering detailed guides and real-life client case studies. Plus, to enhance interactive learning, SE Ranking offers webinars where you can even get in touch with industry experts. These webinars can be accessed on-demand or scheduled live. The SE Ranking Academy also offers practical online courses specifically designed for SEO professionals and agency owners to improve their skills.

On the support side, you can use the Agency Catalog, which features a curated list of top SEO agencies from around the world. This helps users find the right expertise for their projects. For those who are unsure about choosing an agency, SE Ranking provides straightforward advice on selecting a partner that best suits their specific needs. Additionally, SE Ranking's 'What's new?' section updates you about the latest features and updates.

SE Ranking: The competition

Semrush is a comprehensive SEO and digital marketing tool that provides a wide array of features, including keyword research, competitive analysis, backlink analysis, site auditing, and more. It offers a user-friendly interface and robust reporting capabilities. Ahrefs is another powerful SEO tool that focuses on backlink analysis and competitive research. It provides extensive data on backlinks, organic search traffic, keyword rankings, and content analysis. Ahrefs also offers features for keyword research, site auditing, and rank tracking.

Moz Pro is a popular SEO suite that offers a range of features for keyword research, rank tracking, site auditing, and link analysis. It provides valuable insights and recommendations to help improve your website's visibility and performance in search engine results.

Serpstat is an all-in-one SEO platform that offers features such as keyword research, rank tracking, site audit, backlink analysis, and competitor research. It provides a user-friendly interface and comprehensive data to optimize your website's SEO. Majestic is primarily known for its backlink analysis capabilities. It offers an extensive database of backlinks, allowing you to analyze your website's link profile and track competitors' backlinks. Majestic also provides features for keyword research, site audits, and rank tracking.

SpyFu is a competitive intelligence tool that focuses on competitor analysis and keyword research. It provides insights into your competitors' SEO strategies, including their top-performing keywords, ad campaigns, and organic search rankings.

SE Ranking: Final verdict

Overall, we found SE Ranking to be a great helping hand at running various SEO tests and analyses. It excels in tracking specific keywords, conducting thorough on-page SEO audits, and even delving into detailed backlinks and keyword analysis.

Plus, it provides regular updates and practical insights which helps you stay updated throughout the time. However, it's also important to keep in mind that you might have to pay extra for certain additional services. And if you’re someone, it all boils down to your strategic needs and finding a tool that might be the best fit for it.  

• Here's a list of the best free SEO keyword research tools on the market

Our latest Friday Website Builder review reveals a platform that balances simplicity with powerful functionality, making it accessible to both beginners and experienced developers. While it competes in a crowded market alongside many options in our best website builders roundup, it distinguishes itself through its all-in-one approach and solid feature set.

TechRadar reviewers have spent thousands of hours testing 140+ website builders to bring you expert insights. Friday's single pricing model sets it apart from competitors, though this approach has both benefits and drawbacks. For users seeking our top recommendation, Wix remains our pick for the best website builder in 2025, offering more flexible pricing options.

Friday launched recently as a new player in the website building space, focusing on eliminating the complexity often associated with development workflows. Its approach centers on providing everything users need in a single package, with some impressive tools that cater specifically to developers and pros.

Friday Website Builder: 2-minute review

Friday Website Builder positions itself as an all-in-one solution for users who want professional websites without the brainwork. It offers a rich user experience with its drag-and-drop editor, template library, and developer mode for advanced customization. Other standout features include ecommerce capabilities, AI content assistance, and SEO tools that help websites rank better in search results.

However, Friday's single $50/month pricing plan creates a significant barrier for users, especially when competitors like Wix offer plans starting at $17/month. While this pricing includes all features without restrictions, it may offer poor value to users who only need basic functionality. Also, limited scalability options and a restricted plugin ecosystem pose challenges for rapidly growing businesses.

What is Friday?

Friday Website Builder is a user-friendly platform that allows individuals and businesses to create professional websites without the need for coding knowledge or technical skill.

It provides a range of intuitive tools and templates to streamline the website creation process, enabling you to design and customize your sites according to your unique preferences and requirements.

With Friday, you can add and edit content, incorporate multimedia elements, optimize for mobile devices, and publish your websites with just a few clicks.

Features

Friday comes with all the features you would expect from one of the best website builders on the market. This ranges from a full website builder to help you get your site from idea to live, along with dedicated features to help you grow your business including an AI content assistant, photo editor, easy pop ups, the ability to create coupons, and multi-language websites.

During my testing of Friday's website builder, I discovered a wide range of powerful features that enhanced my website building journey. Firstly, the platform provided robust ecommerce capabilities, allowing me to effortlessly set up an online store, manage products, and inventory.

The developer mode feature allows the flexibility to edit and add code and make customizations according to my specific requirements. The built-in blog builder offered a seamless way to create engaging blog posts and share my thoughts and ideas with my audience.

I was also impressed with the comprehensive web analytics feature that provided valuable insights into visitor behavior and helped me optimize my website for better performance.

With the option to use a custom domain, you can choose any name for your website to add a professional and personalized touch. Friday's SEO tools proved to be invaluable in optimizing a website for search engines and increasing its visibility online.

The inclusion of SSL security feature helps to keep visitors' data protected. Friday uses AWS hosting which ensures reliable performance and scalability for your websites.

Moreover, the platform's mobile optimization feature automatically adapted my test website to different devices, ensuring a seamless user experience for mobile users. The unlimited bandwidth feature allows the handling of high traffic volumes without any concerns.

Tools

Friday Website Builder provides a comprehensive suite of tools designed to streamline the website creation process. These tools range from basic design elements to advanced ecommerce and marketing features, all integrated into a single platform.

Drag-and-drop editor

The core of Friday's offering is its intuitive drag-and-drop editor that requires no coding knowledge. You can easily add, move, and customize elements by simply dragging them into position. The editor provides real-time visual feedback, allowing you to see changes instantly as you build your site.

Developer mode

For users with coding experience, Friday offers a developer mode that provides access to HTML and CSS editing. This feature bridges the gap between simplicity and advanced customization, letting you fine-tune your website's appearance and functionality beyond the standard editor limitations.

Template library

Friday provides an extensive collection of professionally designed templates covering various industries and website types. Each template is fully customizable and mobile-responsive, giving you a solid foundation to build upon while maintaining design consistency.

Ecommerce tools

The platform includes solid ecommerce functionality with inventory management, automated shipping calculations, and secure payment processing. You can set up product catalogs, manage orders, and create discount codes without needing additional plugins or integrations.

SEO suite

Friday's SEO tools include meta tag management, Google PageSpeed optimization, schema markup support, and AI-generated alt text for images. The platform also features IndexNow integration and automatic sitemap generation to help improve search engine visibility.

AI content assistant

The built-in AI assistant helps generate content suggestions and provides recommendations for website improvements. This tool can assist with writing copy, optimizing content for SEO, and suggesting design enhancements based on best practices.

Ease of use

Friday is designed to be user-friendly and easy to use, even for individuals with limited technical expertise. The platform prioritizes simplicity and intuitive navigation, making it accessible to beginners and experienced users alike.

One key aspect contributing to Friday's ease of use is its drag-and-drop functionality. You can effortlessly add and rearrange elements on your websites by simply dragging and dropping widgets, images, text, and other components onto the desired location. This eliminates the need for complex coding or technical knowledge, streamlining the website creation process.

Additionally, Friday offers a visually-oriented interface that allows you to see real-time changes as you make adjustments to your websites. This instant visual feedback provides a clear understanding of how the site will look and function, empowering you to make informed design decisions.

The platform also provides a user-friendly dashboard that serves as a central hub for managing various aspects of the website. From this dashboard, you can access different tools and features, navigate through pages, customize themes, and track website analytics. The organized layout and intuitive controls contribute to a seamless user experience.

Pricing

There is a lot to love about Friday's pricing structure. Unlike the majority of website builders that offer host different plans and packages, which often confuse you more than they help you - Friday offers one plan for everything. Plus, you can cancel at any time, so you aren't tied into any expensive contracts.

When you sign up for Friday you get a 7-day free trial. This offers you an opportunity to make sure the website builder does everything you want. Once your free trial is over, you will then be charged $50 a month.

This may seem a little steep, especially when you look at competitors such as Wix offering plans for as little as $17/mo and Squarespace offering plans from $16/mo. Needless to say, if you are looking for a very basic website builder to build a basic website, Friday won't offer you doo value for money.

However, when you consider the fact that Friday offers you an all-in package for $50/mo, whereas Wix's all-in package is $159/mo and Squarespace's is a similar $49/mo, suddenly Friday seems like a fair to good deal.

Ultimately, it will come down to which tools and features you need. If you just want a simple package, Wix or Squarespace is probably better. But if you want an advanced website builder with plenty of powerful features, Friday is certainly worth considering.

Security

Friday prioritizes the security of its users' websites by offering two essential security features: SSL certificates and backups.

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates are crucial for establishing a secure connection between a website and its visitors. SSL certificates ensure that sensitive information remains confidential and protected from potential hackers or malicious actors by encrypting the data transmitted between the user's browser and the website's server. Friday allows you to install SSL certificates, thus enabling secure communication and instilling trust in visitors who access your websites.

In addition to SSL certificates, Friday provides a backup feature to safeguard your website data. Regular backups are vital in the event of unforeseen circumstances such as data loss, server issues, or accidental changes that may compromise the website's functionality or content. By enabling backups, you can restore your websites to a previous state and recover lost data, minimizing potential disruptions and preserving the integrity of your online presence.

By offering SSL certificates and backup functionality, Friday aims to provide a secure environment for your websites. This contributes to maintaining the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your data and helps protect against potential security vulnerabilities or data loss incidents.

Support

Friday offers customer support through various channels, including a comprehensive knowledge base and email support. These options ensure that you have access to the assistance you need when encountering any issues or requiring guidance while using the platform.

The knowledge base serves as a valuable resource, providing you with a collection of articles, tutorials, and frequently asked questions that cover a wide range of topics. It offers step-by-step instructions, troubleshooting guides, and detailed explanations of features, empowering you to find solutions to your queries independently. The knowledge base serves as a self-help tool, allowing you to access information and guidance at your convenience.

For more personalized support, Friday provides email support through two dedicated email addresses: support@findfriday.com and hello@findfriday.com. You can reach out to the support team with your inquiries, concerns, or technical issues. The support team is committed to providing prompt and helpful responses, addressing your queries, and providing guidance to ensure a smooth experience while using the platform.

By offering both a comprehensive knowledge base and email support, Friday ensures that you have access to the resources you need to overcome challenges and make the most of the platform's features.

Alternatives

With just one (fairly expensive) plan, Friday website builder certainly isn’t for everyone.

As our top rated website builder, Wix is a worthy alternative. With plans starting at just $16/mo, Wix is almost certainly better for those who don’t need the full power of Friday. However, even on the entry level plan, with Wix you get access to a whole host of powerful website building tools, many with AI integration.

Read our full Wix review to find out more.

Squarespace is another good option to consider. Similar to Wix, plans start much cheaper at $17/mo and come with a huge range of website building tools. Squarespace is also known for its stunning website designs, making it ideal for those who want to make a big visual impact with their website.

Our Squarespace review goes into more detail on what the platform has to offer.

Friday Website Builder: Summary

Determining whether Friday website builder is the right choice for you depends on various factors such as your website creation needs, technical expertise, budget, and desired level of customization.

However, if you are looking for a user-friendly platform with drag-and-drop functionality, a range of customizable themes, and tools for adding pages, widgets, and blog posts, along with ecommerce capabilities, then Friday website builder could be a suitable choice that caters to your requirements and empowers you to create and manage a professional-looking website with relative ease.

Friday's comprehensive SEO and settings options and 24/7 customer support through a knowledge base and email assistance could also be the deciding qualities for your choice of website builder.

FAQs

Semrush, together with Ahrefs and Moz, is one of the most recognized names in the world of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) with its eponymous SEO tool. I interviewed its president, Eugene Levin, to find out what his thoughts are about the impact of AI on the world of search, how disruptive generative artificial intelligence (GAI) could be for an industry faced with its biggest challenge since Google launched almost 25 years ago. He talks about how he thinks Search will evolve into a multi-dimensional experience and why GAI-based search engines may be the next big thing.

1. Let's start with an easy one. What is your personal view about Generative AI as a concept?

I think this is a new technology that many people have been waiting for. For me, in terms of long term impact, this is going to be on par with personal computers, internet and smartphones. I see a lot of similarities between Generative AI and great disruptive technologies of the past.

It enables people to do things they couldn’t do before. Personal computers have democratized many areas of the economy. For example, more people could pursue software engineering that previously was an option only for those who had access to very expensive mainframes. Generative AI enables people to do creative tasks even if they lack certain technical skills. You don’t have to be a professional painter to create great concept art using Midjourney, and you don’t need to be a professional copywriter to write great blog posts using our tools.

It boosts productivity. Smartphones enabled people to be connected and improved efficiency of business communication. Generative AI can act as a co-pilot to deal with mundane tasks. For human resources professionals, it can write job descriptions and interview questions. For software developers, it can write unit tests and comments. That will free up a lot of time that can be used on more productive tasks.

It can disrupt some industries. Computers and the internet eventually displaced bank tellers. But while doing that, those technologies created more jobs. With Generative AI I can see a lot of disruption across the customer support sector. But there will be a lot of new jobs for people to train and fine tune AI.

2. What will Semrush (and its competitors) do to track what's going on in an environment where traditional SERP will disappear?

The “traditional SERP” has been gone for a while now. What we see today is many different search elements combined in a different way based on a search query and intent. Those elements have very little to do with the classic “10 blue links” interface from the dawn of the internet. Now we have pictures, product listings, structured text, videos and many other elements that are designed to provide instant answers such as featured snippets. 

I see the use of Generative AI in search as a continuation of that trend. What we’ve seen so far in Google’s closed beta is really a bigger featured snippet that is based on multiple sources instead of one. There are going to be use cases where these new Generative AI elements provide the best user experience and then use cases where new elements are not better than what Google uses today. Try searching “how old is Tom Cruise.” I doubt the search result and overall UX can get much better than what you see today.

But from a technical point of view, this is really just one more element to track. Like many of our competitors, we have been adding new elements all the time. So for us, this is just another day in the office.

3. Someone told me that a Wikipedia page may be a good place to start to look at the future of SERP. Do you agree?

Many people predicted that once search engines start using Generative AI, informational websites such as Wikipedia would suffer the most. The idea is that if people can get an answer straight from search they don’t have to go to Wikipedia and read the article. While this idea sounds logical, it’s not what we are seeing today. For example, Bing implemented Generative AI in search several months ago. But in absolute numbers, Bing is now sending more traffic to Wikipedia than a year ago.

This is happening because asking the question and learning are two different experiences. You can’t get a full picture just by asking questions you simply don’t know what to ask. So what we are seeing now is that people spend more time asking Bing different questions and figuring out what they want to learn about. Then, once they have decided, they go to the source material to gain more extensive knowledge.

4. Generative AI is now part and parcel of the offerings of many website builders (e.g. Wix, Hostinger, Godaddy etc). What impact will that have on SEO in general?

Generative AI now being available on website builders and other platforms is great, because it levels the playing field for small and medium-sized business owners, allowing them to better compete with bigger companies that have more resources.

On the other hand those Generative AI models need guidance. They don’t know what people are searching for, what are the easy topics to rank for a particular website, and how Google sees the world. That’s why major web presence players such as Wix and Yoast partner with us o provide Keyword research capabilities to their customers. When it comes to SEO, Generative AI without data is like a brain without eyes.

Another issue is a proliferation of substantially similar content. If Jon and Jill use the same Generative AI model to cover the same topic and publish the same content, how can Google decide which article is better? In this case, Google has to rely on the authority of a page or domain, which makes backlinks increasingly more important.

5. In the notes for this interview, you mentioned new tools and new search engines that will rise as part of the GAI revolution. Can you elaborate on this?

Though there’s never been much competition for Google in the search industry, and Bing is not capturing market share substantively since they’ve operated on Open AI’s GPT-4, I believe that search could become more competitive over the next five years.

The rise of new search engines powered by Generative AI could start launching in the near-term, which is a great thing for the industry, since competition always creates elevated customer experiences. 

The advent of new search engines means marketers and business owners can show up on (and compete for) more places online, and rank highly by using best digital marketing and SEO practices, as long as they leverage the best tools on the market. We believe Google will remain the leading search engine for many years to come, but competitors may begin to take some market share.

6. How can GAI make publishers and media companies more valuable? Keen to hear your thoughts on that.

One of the key concerns of Generative AI-produced content is that the sourcing and linking to factual information within is weak, making it prone to plagiarism and misinformation. 

I believe that Generative AI is great for creating content, but it should always be human reviewed, edited, and fact checked, before it is published. Without this, we simply cannot trust the output of what is generated with AI. This will mean that today’s media publications stand to soar in value as one of the few trusted sources and destinations for factual information, so long as they don’t over-index on Generative AI. 

Over the next few years, we may see all first drafts being generated by AI, and then human reviewed. We may also start seeing media publications and websites watermark (or more clearly identify) specific sections of content that was AI produced, so that the reader can delineate between what was human and AI generated. Regardless, the top media brands should be seen as a badge of quality, trust and credibility in a now much noisier content environment.

7. Is interest in end-user GAI (e.g. front-facing Bard or ChatGPT) doomed to cool down as back-end GAI picks up (GAI-as-a-service?) What do you think?

I think that in the near term the biggest commercial successes are going to be around co-pilot capabilities of Generative AI applied across multiple industries. I expect a big splash in software development, HR, customer support and design software. 

One of the companies to monitor is, of course, Microsoft. They have unique access to OpenAI and that is their main focus now. If you watch their moves closely, you’ll come to a conclusion that their consumer product Generative AI implementations, such as Bing, are not as important for them as adding co-pilot features to virtually all of their big B2B products. Even ChatGPT, which was launched as a viral consumer product, is now heading into the direction of a business productivity personal assistant product.

8. Do you think that with its global footprint (two billion mobile devices with at least as many monthly/daily active users), its access to trillions of pictures (via Google Photos), videos (Youtube) and text (via Google Books and Google Search), Google has already won the Generative AI battle for search. If not, how do you think the threat to its hegemony will crystallize.

Google definitely has an advantage in both its ability to process large volumes of data fast and efficiently and relationships with video content creators. I think competition is feasible only in certain niches. For example, Amazon today is a search engine for products. And they use their logistics services, checkout and relationships with sellers to compete with Google in that area.

There are other markets like real estate, healthcare or online travel where some companies have unique relationships with market participants that Google doesn't have. But historically, such companies didn't have a technology that can use natural language interfaces to leverage their unique data and relationships. As you pointed out, it's not going to be a walk in the park in any case.

Top website builder Wix has announced a powerful new SEO tool that will help you reach more people with easy, actionable insights, and it’s available to try now on select page types.

With the Wix SEO Assistant, on-page SEO issues are flagged, which Wix says will go on to generate a list of “precise tasks” to improve rankings based on the user’s chosen keyword.

Search engine optimization goes a long way to making sure that your content reaches relevant audiences, but can be a painfully hard process for many to get to grips with. The web hosting platform hopes that those with little knowledge, time, or budget will now be able to up their game with the new tool.

Wix SEO Assistant

Instead of having to understand what needs tweaking, the Wix tool allows users to handle many of the changes from within the panel. Further integration with Semrush gives web admins the power to explore different keywords by volume, difficulty, and more.

A Wix document details: “Some tasks have actionable fixes that can be done within the panel, while other tasks include content fixes that a user can do through the composer in the blog.”

Besides modifications to the content, suggestions can include adding keywords to relevant places like headings, title tags, and meta descriptions. Encouraging users to add alt text and to enable structured data all serves a very important purpose: to help Google understand the content of the page in order to rank it more highly among search results.

Wix Head of SEO, Nati Elimelech, said: “The new offering will bring users one step closer to optimizing their pages in a more efficient, straightforward and time saving process.”

Wix SEO Assistant is now available to all users, however from launch it only supports content on blog pages, and that’s with the exception of the Index status which is currently only available to English language users. A wider rollout is set to follow.

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Amazon is the world's favorite online retailer, a place where hundreds of millions of customers spent $500 million+ a year on everything from electronics and entertainment to sports goods, clothing, beauty, home products, kitchen and almost anything else you can imagine.

The figures are staggering, but Amazon' isn't doing this all on its own. There are around 10 million sellers using the platform to market their own products worldwide, and if you have something to sell, you could get a share of profits.

This guide will walk you through the process of starting a business on Amazon, and offer tips on how to make it a big success.

Chapter 1 

Amazon marketplace overview

Amazon Marketplace is an e-commerce platform where third-party sellers can market their own products on the Amazon site. These are some of its benefits.

1. Large customer base: Amazon has an army of customers from around the world, and they regularly visit the site to search for products. Access to that kind of audience is perfect for generating sales and growing your business.

2. Reliability: Amazon has spent years in investing in its infrastructure, and the end result is a fast and reliable site which works exactly as its visitors expect, just about all the time.

The end result is a site which has earned the trust of hundreds of millions of buyers worldwide. Sell on Amazon and you immediately get a share of that confidence.

3. Global reach: If you're currently selling products in your own country only, Amazon's global reach could be a huge opportunity. You can easily list your business in dedicated marketplaces for specific countries, such as Amazon.com (United States), Amazon.co.uk (United Kingdom), etc. Even better, Amazon Marketplace gives you access to multiple languages support, you need not worry about how to create product descriptions, listings, and support in the language of the target audience.

3. Makes ordering easy and convenient: starting an Amazon business makes ordering easy and convenient, especially for your customers. Amazon has a user-friendly interface that makes it easier for shoppers to browse through the catalog of products and place orders with ease. The user-friendly interface makes it convenient for customers to find whatever products they are looking for in just a few clicks. With Amazon you can provide your customers with the necessary information they need on the products they want to purchase, this includes the product description, specifications, benefits, value, reviews, and virtual representation of the products.

This information helps the customer to know the kind of product they want to buy and also creates a picture of what the products look like and how it will benefit them in their mind.

 4. Payment options: you can choose which payment option is best for you. Shared or individual payments are available for you or another administrator of your Amazon Business account. Debit cards, credit cards, and the Amazon corporate credit line are the three types of shared payment options. The payment method may be utilized by any authorized user of your business account to make purchases on your behalf. While the card you add can be used by any authorized account users, just the last four numbers are visible to them to increase security.

Your user and management options are enhanced as a result of the Amazon corporate credit line. You can approve several buyers on a single account, get reports on your transaction history, and use a purchase order as payment. It has simple-to-comprehend statements and doesn't charge annual fees. Account administrators can control payment methods, including both private and shared ones, as well as delivery addresses, making ordering straightforward for all customers in your business.

5. Advertising support: There are various advertising opportunities in the Amazon marketplace. Amazon's advertising options include Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands, which promote specific products in search results, increasing their discoverability and generating more sales. 

Amazon advertising allows sellers to increase their visibility, especially in a very competitive market, with sponsored products and brands, sellers can put their products on the front to appear in search results thereby increasing the chance of their products being seen by potential customers.

Smarter advertising helps sellers to target your ads based on factors like interest, demographics, location, age, keyword and more, ensuring your messages reach the most relevant people.

Access to Amazon tools and programs: Starting an Amazon business gives you access to many exclusive tools and programs. For example, the inventory management tool helps sellers effectively manage their stock, making sure that products are always available and avoiding stock-outs.

A+ content (also known as enhanced content) uses high-quality images, engaging videos and detailed descriptions to effectively communicate your product features, benefits, value, specifications, etc.

Other extras include a host of promotional opportunities such as Lightning Deals, Coupons, and Deal of the Day, ideal to increase customer engagement and boost sales.

Benefits of starting an Amazon business

Chapter 2

What you need to know before starting an Amazon business

Before starting an Amazon business there are things you need to know that will help you in your journey.

Here are factors you need to consider before starting an Amazon business.

Amazon seller account types: Before starting an Amazon business you should understand the types of Amazon sellers account, and think about which one is best for you. These are your two options.

Individual sellers account: this account is suitable for beginners and sellers that have low sales volume with less than 40 sales units per month. Here are some features:

1. Sellers pay per item fee for each product sold, therefore there isn't a monthly subscription fee for sellers in this account.

2. Access to tools and features is limited, unlike sellers in professional accounts.

3. Sellers that choose an individual selling account may not be eligible for certain programs and also may be restricted from using advanced selling tools.

Amazon individual sellers are charged $0.99 for each item sold. One disadvantage of an individual seller's account is that you cannot offer free shipping to customers to lure them to your store and you can't sell on Amazon restricted categories like personal care, grocery, clothing, health, footwear, watches, beauty items, etc. and also Amazon decides the shipping rate for you.

Professional sellers account: This is an ideal account for individuals who want to make huge sales on Amazon, and individuals who plan on making more than 40 sales each month. Here are some of the features of professional sellers' accounts:

1. It includes a monthly subscription plan of $39.99,

2. With this account, you have access to advanced tools to help in the management of your store,

3. There is an inventory listing tool that lets you create a listing page for your products.

4. It also gives you access to promotional opportunities and inventory management (but these may require paying extra fees.)

5. People using professional seller's accounts have access to restricted categories and Amazon APIs for integration.

Competitive analysis:  As a seller, you need to know who your competitors are on Amazon, how they list and market their products, how they market their products, their pricing strategies, and the feedback they get in customer reviews. Identify your competitor's weaknesses and strength, for clues on how to differentiate your business from theirs. 

Performing a competitive analysis serves as a guide to your path of business success, allowing you to identify market opportunities and gaps. It helps you to know the areas with less competition, and how you can position your business for greater success. 

It's just as important to learn who your customers are, and what they are looking for (you can't sell to people you know nothing about.)

Analyzing your direct competitors' reviews, pricing strategies and product offerings gives you insights on what your customers are after. Knowledge of this helps you understand how to channel your marketing strategy, pricing, and customer experience to serve your customers better and meet their expectations.

It's important to learn from your competitor's strengths and weaknesses. Analyzing their customers' feedback and reviews gives you insights between your customers' pain points, needs, issues, and products. By carefully studying these areas you can identify ways you can provide better customer service to your audience, and also avoid mistakes competitors may have made.

Conduct product research and selection: before starting an Amazon business you need to conduct thorough research on products to identify those with low competition, and high market demand. Conduct an analysis to know the trends, search volumes, and customers' preferences for a product before deciding your next move. 

To know how profitable a specific target market can be, thorough research is needed. You need to know the production costs of a product, pricing, Amazon fees, and profit margins to enable you to estimate the profitability of selling a particular product. Consider issues like seasonality, too: collecting this kind of detail is a vital part of identifying profitable and in-demand products, and ensuring the long-term success or your business.

Fulfilment method: you need to decide if it's best to use Amazon FBA (fulfilment by Amazon) or to use your fulfilment (FBM, or fulfilment by merchant). Although FBA comes with additional fees, it can have a lot of advantages for your business. 

Difference between FBA and FBM:

a) With FBA your logistics are insured. FBA takes care of your logistics including storage, packaging, and shipping while with FBM the seller is responsible for the logistics.

b) FBA provides customer service and support on behalf of the seller; with FBM, the seller handles the customer service and customer support.

c) FBA allows sellers to offer prime-eligible products to customers, because of its fast shipping and prime membership perks it attracts more customers. While with FBM, sellers can also offer prime eligible products to customers, but they have to be specific and offer products within timeframes.

d) With FBA sellers pay for storage, packing, and shipping service provided by Amazon. FBM sellers are more in control of their costs, since they handle fulfilment themselves, but they must still pay for their own warehousing, packaging material, and shipping costs.

Advantages of using FBA for sellers

Some of the benefits or advantages of using FBA for sellers include:

1. Prime eligibility: prime-eligible products bring customers fast to your doorstep. FBA allows sellers to offer prime eligible products to customers, which is of huge benefit to customers. Prime members prefer prime-eligible products because of their fast shipping benefits and free shipping. This is a huge benefit to sellers because it increases visibility, conversion rate and improves customer satisfaction.

2. Expanded customer reach: FBA has a huge advantage over sellers. By utilizing FBA sellers can reach thousands of customers worldwide. With FBA you can access Amazon shipping and delivery.

3. Trust and customer confidence: with FBA you can earn the trust and confidence of your customers. Amazon has made a name for itself worldwide and with its reputation your store can easily earn the trust and confidence of customers, especially with its fast and free shipping benefits.

4. Multi-channel fulfilment: FBA offers multi-channel fulfilment capabilities. Assuming you have an online marketplace or another channel apart from Amazon, with FBA you can fulfil orders from other channels, providing you with the ability to scale your business on different platforms. 

Business setup and legal considerations

There are legal requirements that should be met if you don't want to lose your business when run into some legal or financial situations. Before setting up your business you need to decide on the business structure.

Determine the business structure

Your business structure is an important legal consideration which greatly influence how you manage your finances, pay tax and more. 

These are the two most widely recognized business types.

Sole proprietorship: This type of business managed by one person alone. This is the most common type of business structure and very simple to set up, all you need is to start selling something, and boom! You are already operating as a sole proprietorship. 

One huge advantage of a sole proprietorship is total control, you have authority over every affair of the business, and you don't need to consult anyone like shareholders, partners, etc. A sole proprietorship business is very easy. 

The problem is that you, as the sole proprietor, are personally liable for any debts, lawsuits or other legal issues your business may encounter. There's no legal protection.

Limited Liability Company (LLC): An LLC (Limited Liability Company) is a US legal structure that shields owners from financial obligations and other responsibilities. An LLC legally separates the owner(s) from the business, in contrast to a sole proprietorship. This means that any debts or legal actions that your company may face will be handled by the LLC, not you personally.

Unlike sole proprietorships, LLCs are allowed to have more than one member. 

You must submit documentation to the secretary of state of the state where you intend to conduct business to establish an LLC. If your firm is medium- or high-risk, you want to preserve your assets, or you want to pay less tax than you would with a corporation, this structure may be a good choice for you.

The main difference between the two is how much more security you have with an LLC. An LLC is a legal entity that can be used to run a business, open a bank account, borrow money, sue, and be sued. Real estate can also be bought and sold through it. 

If your LLC business is sued or incurs debts, then unlike a sole proprietorship, you are not personally responsible. Creditors of your firm cannot seize any funds or property that are not owned by the LLC, such as your house or personal savings.

Register your business and obtain the necessary permits and licenses

You don't need to register your business to start selling on Amazon marketplace, neither do you need a seller's permit, but your state government might want you to register your business. It's very important to comply with the legal requirements of your state or country which might include registration of your business and obtaining necessary permits and licenses. 

To register your business it's best you contact the legal and local business authorities to ensure you comply with the laws and regulations.  

Typically, you'll visit the appropriate government agency or website that is in charge of registering businesses in your country or region. This usually involves paying a fee and filling out some necessary documents. Moreover, you also need to provide some necessary information about your business like your business name, details, address, contact details, etc.

Getting a tax identification number usually depends on your location. For instance, in the US, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) would require you to request an Employer Identification Number (EIN).

After obtaining a tax identification number depending on your location, you need to check i.e. conduct some necessary research to know the permits and licenses required to sell specific products in your region or country for example these licenses or permits can include basic business licenses, licenses for collecting sales taxes, permits for health and safety, or customized permissions for particular items. Consult the appropriate government authorities on this. Also if your region or country requires you to collect sales tax, then you need to set up a sales tax system to collect tax.

Set up a separate bank account and payment system

Setting up a separate bank account and payment system for your business is very important as there are a lot of advantages that come with it.

These advantages include:

1. Financial organization: if you separate your business bank account from your personal account it helps you to be more organized. It helps you track your profits, revenue, and all business expenses correctly, and makes your financial analysis much easier.

2. Legal and liability protection: it's very important you maintain a clear distinction between your business and personal bank accounts. This will help you separate and protect your personal account in case of any legal issues or disputes. 

3. Simplified bookkeeping: separation of your account simplifies your bookkeeping process. It helps you understand how your money is coming in, where it's coming from, and where it's going. The clarity separation of your account provides makes it possible to avoid unnecessary financial and bookkeeping errors.

4. Improved financial insights: This enables you to gain clarity and better visibility and understanding of your business. Separation of your account helps you effectively monitor cash flows, revenues, and expenses, and better understand the profitability of your business.

How much money do you need to start selling on Amazon?

How much do you think you need to start selling on Amazon? Amazon ecommerce experts Jungle Scout reports that most sellers (69%) had an initial investment of around $5,000, but 32% started with less than $1,000, and 16% got started with $500  (or even less.)

Whatever your budget, it's important to consider the other outlays you might encounter when you're selling on Amazon.

1. Required costs: the necessary money you need to pay to start selling on Amazon.

2. Inventory cost: customers will expect you to deliver goods quickly, so you'll have to keep a stock of products to ensure they're immediately available. 

If you're just starting out selling on Amazon, you might be hesitant to invest a lot of money in inventory as you don't know for sure which products will be popular. Keep your spending low at first, until you know which products sell best and what your stock levels need to be.

3. Extra costs: You can see these as costs that you need to boost your business early. This includes Advertising costs (advertising on Amazon is less expensive. The current average cost per click on Amazon is $0.35).

Other factors which can affect your Amazon selling costs include:

1. Monthly subscription fees: For individuals that choose a professional seller account, you need to pay a monthly subscription fee of $39.99. then individuals who sell less than 40 units of products each month have to pay $0.99 for each product sold.

2. FBA fees: The prices you pay may vary per order if you're selling through Amazon FBA. For instance, you will be required to pay Amazon extra to complete a larger order.

There is a monthly storage fee associated with FBA, as you're using space in Amazon's warehouses. From January to September, you'll pay $0.69 per cubic foot, and from October to December, $2.40 per cubic foot.

3. FBM fees: Sellers using Amazon's Fulfilled by Merchant (FBM) program are in charge of fulfilling their own products, in contrast to FBA. Reduced fees are one of its key benefits as compared to FBA.

Amazon Professional selling plan members that use FBM can choose their shipping costs.

4. Referral fees: You must pay a referral fee of 6% to 20% for each item you sell on Amazon. The kind of products you sell in your Amazon store determines the referral fee.

For instance, you might anticipate paying an 8% fee if you sell any electronics in your store. On the other hand, if you're selling clothing, you'll be spending about 17%.

5. Customer returns fees: As a seller, there will be times when a customer will return a product either because it's defective or they are not satisfied with the product. You will be in charge of covering those costs. 

Which type of business is best on Amazon?

The best type of business to do on Amazon depends on your interest, market demand, and resources. Here are the types of businesses you can start on Amazon.

Private label

A private label is a type of business that involves getting a product from a third-party manufacturer, rebranding is as your own, and selling it at a higher price. This can be lucrative if you choose your products wisely and negotiate a good price, but you need to have experience in branding and marketing to make it a success.

Drop shipping

This is a very popular type of business and is commonly used by individuals who want a simpler way to start in ecommerce. Dropshipping is very easy to start and manage since you don't need to worry about inventory management, shipping, and packaging the products. All of these are handled by your supplier. 

Essentially, being a drop shipper on Amazon means you're selling a product on behalf of the supplier. Once a customer purchases from your store, you notify the supplier, who handles everything necessary to get the products delivered. 

It's essential to get a supplier you trust before going for drop shipping. If your supplier delivers poor quality products, or maybe runs out of stock and doesn't deliver at all, these can cost you the loyalty and trust of your customers.

Retail arbitrage

This involves finding products from physical stores and then selling them on Amazon for a higher price. This is a very popular model for entry-level business models. By purchasing items in quantity at a discount and raising the cost to sell on Amazon, the business model enables sellers to profit from in-demand products. It is a straightforward idea that, as you accumulate an inventory and learn which product lines offer the most sales prospects, can help you produce a sizable stream of income over time.

You must take into account the initial price of your product and the amount you are selling it for, less the typical Amazon fees, to determine the profits made via retail arbitrage. Make sure you conduct a lot of competitor research to discover what other merchants' price points are so you don't go too high or cheap.

Online Arbitrage

This is similar to retail arbitrage but here instead of products being sourced from physical stores, products are sourced from online retailers. Comparing prices online can be easier than doing it in physical stores. To find possibilities and determine whether each potential purchase is profitable, you can immediately compare prices with Amazon.

It's a surprisingly simple process, and there are more opportunities appearing all the time. Every day, more ecommerce websites are created, allowing you to find tiny or emerging businesses that might provide their goods for less money.

Handmade Products

This business is perfect for you if you are skilled in crafts. You can decide to open a store that sells unique handmade products.

Not every vendor has the ability to begin producing their goods from scratch. Even if you've the skills, you may not have a proper workshop, or the time to manufacture the goods. But this approach can be very successful if you're able to produce an in-demand product which can't be found anywhere else.

Chapter 3

How to set up your Amazon Seller account

For the moment you have been waiting for? In this section, we'll give you a step-by-step guide on how to set up your Amazon seller account.

Choose the appropriate seller plan (individual or professional)

Before setting up your business you need to choose the appropriate seller plan that is right for your business.

Also, remember the plan you choose depends on what you want to use your account and do, but for serious sellers, we recommend choosing a professional seller's plan.

Individual sellers plan

This plan requires you to pay a fee of $0.99 for each product sold. This plan is for individuals that sell less than 40 units of products per month. It's ideal for individuals who aren't quite sure what they want to sell yet, but want to try out Amazon business to see if it works for them.

Professional sellers plan

This is a perfect plan for serious sellers who aim to sell more than 40 products each month. This plan costs $39.99 a month, which gets you benefits like shipping, brand registry, Amazon advertising options, free shipping, promotions etc.

Sign up for an Amazon Seller Central account

To get started with Amazon business, visit sellercentral.amazon.com and click on the SignUp button.

Choose a password, then provide and confirm your email address.

Read Amazon's signup instructions carefully, to make sure you know exactly what Amazon expects from you, and what you can expect from Amazon.

Finally, provide information about your business, such as its location and business type. Whatever choice you make affects the status of your account, so choose carefully.

How to list and optimize your product

To get your product found you need to optimize your product listings online. Amazon's algorithm to prioritize their product suggestions is based on seller conversion metrics, like price, performance, customer satisfaction & sales history. To optimize your product follow the steps below 

Create compelling product listings with high-quality images and descriptions

Create a rich product listing with detailed information about the products you are listing. Talk about the product's features, benefits and value, and include all the most relevant specifications in the product description. Always use clear and descriptive language.

When choosing images for your products, avoid low-quality blurry shots. We'd recommend high quality 500x500 or 1000x1000 images, where the product occupies 85% of the frame, and there's little or no unnecessary background to get in the way. Show the item from multiple angles if that would help others understand its attributes and benefits. If necessary, hire a professional photographer: it's an extra cost, but could pay dividends later.

Utilize relevant keywords for better search visibility

Effectively utilizing relevant keywords paves the way for your business success. To search for the right keywords to use for your product you don't need to go for another tool, Amazon has a mega power keyword tool that you can use to search for products, get insights on the best keywords to use for your product, and understand the search queries your customers are using to search for products.

To begin your keyword analysis, follow these steps.

• Fill out the Amazon search bar with a range of words and phrases. Check out the drop-down choices after that, and begin constructing a list of pertinent keywords for comparable postings
• As a beginning point for your listings, use competitor results. Try comparable searches on Amazon.com to see what is currently available. compare product search keywords next
• For further inspiration, look through the Amazon-related and suggested item categories
• Consider both long-tail (very specific, but low traffic) and short-tail keywords (very general and high-traffic) while making your list

Optimize pricing strategies to maximize profits

The price you set for your products is a huge influence on your sales growth and conversion rate. To optimize your pricing strategies, research what your competitors are doing, and look at how you can develop a compelling price for your niche.

This is a constantly moving target as sellers change their individual strategies, but Amazon has a pricing tool can help you automatically adjust your price.

Don't forget to include your shipping costs. For example, if a product costs $5- $8 and you charge $6 for shipping, customers may run off to what looks like a better deal.

Implement product reviews and feedback management strategies

Use Amazon's Review Automation tool to automatically request a review from buyers between 4 and 30 days after a product is delivered.

Positive reviews are ideal, and can go a long way to persuade potential customers that you're running a quality business.

Negative feedback and reviews aren't as much fun, but it's vital that you pay them very close attention. Some negative reviews will be unfair, but others could be giving you very important information that you really need to understand and address.

Chapter 4

How to market and promote your product

We will be looking at ways you can market and promote your product on Amazon.

Develop a marketing plan to increase product visibility

To effectively market your products you need to develop a marketing plan and its implementation tactics. What do you want to achieve with your marketing strategy and efforts? Write down what marketing plans you have and the tactics you intend to use to promote your product. Your marketing plan could include a mixture of traditional marketing, influencer marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, digital marketing, etc.

Utilize Amazon advertising tools (sponsored products, brand Registry, etc.)

Amazon has a list of advertising tools such as sponsored products, brand registries, etc. Amazon advertising works as a pay-per-click advertising model. Sellers only pay for the ad when a customer clicks on the ad, it doesn't matter if the product sells or not. Amazon advertising tools help to improve your brand awareness, it also teaches you the best way to reach your targeted audience, and how you can acquire customers at a given time.

Amazon-sponsored products use a type of Amazon advertising tool that appears on the product details page Oland on search results. It is a pay-per-click marketing model. To measure your sponsored products ads we recommend you use a reporting tool that displays your ads' clicks, and advertising cost of sales.

Another type of Amazon ads is Sponsored brand campaigns, this enables you to promote keywords targeted for multiple products. With this, you can direct customers to your store on Amazon. It's also a pay-per-click advertising model. We also have Product display Ads, this type of ads focuses more on upselling or cross-sell to your customers. This type of ad is available to all advertisers, not only to sellers on the platform. Unlike the first two types of ads mentioned, they are only available to advertisers on the platform. To measure the performance of your product's display Ads you can use reporting tools that show you details on your marketing campaigns' clicks, sales,  advertising cost of sales, detailed page views, average cost-per-click, etc.

There are other types of Amazon advertising tools like video ads, Amazon native ads, and Amazon stores.

Implement off-platform marketing strategies (social media, influencer collaborations)

Apart from Amazon advertising, you should implement off-platform marketing strategies like social media marketing, and influencer collaborations. Promote your business and product listings on social media platforms, websites, or blogs. Create compelling content on your social media platforms.

Influencer marketing is a very effective method to market your products. Collaborate with influencers in a similar niche like you who have enough followers and engagement on social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc. This will help increase brand awareness, and generate more sales.

Monitor and analyze marketing performance to optimize campaigns

It's important to regularly monitor and analyze your marketing performance to optimize campaigns using Amazon's Seller Central or third-party analytics tools. Monitor your sales performance, clicks, and metrics. This will enable you to know how your marketing strategy is performing, it also gives you insights on the areas to make adjustments, based on feedback and data you received, you will improve your products performance.

Keep records of the key performance of your marketing activities such as traffic, conversion rates, sales figures, and customer feedback.

How to provide excellent customer service

Providing excellent customer service can help you excel in a specific niche and also earn you the trust and loyalty of your customers. Every customer wants to be heard, they want to feel special and need to be treated that way. However, providing excellent customer service depends on your relationship with your customers. You need to build strong relationships with your audience if you want to earn their loyalty. In this section, we will be talking about how and why you should provide excellent customer service to your audience.

Be friendly: Sounds simple? This is the number one most important rule of providing excellent customer service to your audience. You have to be friendly to your customers when providing services to them. Sound friendly, use friendly emojis when talking to your customers online, and make them feel they are speaking with a human and not a bot. You need to be kind and show them you understand whatever might be going on in their mind, whatever issue they have on a particular product, don't scare them away, but rather embrace the issue and provide a solution.

Friendly customer service has a huge impact on your customers both on existing customers and potential customers. One of the worst things you can do to a customer is to ignore them when they need you and also sound rude to them.

Provide excellent customer service to enhance customer experience: According to statistics, 68% of customers will likely tell their families of any bad experience they had with a brand and also post it on social media. The way you carry your customers will determine if they will remain loyal or even be loyal. One thing about your customers you should know is that the way you treat your customers will affect your business either positively or negatively. When a customer receives poor customer service from you, they will likely tell the public, and post it on social media platforms, therefore, ruining your brand's reputation. To enhance your customer service and customer experience, you need to listen to them. Evaluate the kind of issues they have, and what they share with you and find out ways how to provide better service and solve their issues.

Monitor and respond to customer inquiries and feedback promptly

When attending to customer's queries be prompt. they won't want to wait forever to be attended to. In today's market, the quality of customer service you render is very important in determining the loyalty of your customers. The customer's unique experience cannot always be fully recorded and analyzed, but when combined with customer satisfaction surveys, this data, such as call recordings in contact centers, emails from customers, and interactions on social media, can help an organization better understand the customer experience. With the use of these data, businesses will be able to enhance customer happiness and boost brand loyalty by better serving clients and precisely tailoring items to their needs.

To improve your customers' experience keep an eye on interactions, you may hear from your customers. This is where analytics for the contact center is useful. Text analytics locates emails and chat conversations that need to be monitored, while speech analytics locates calls that are important for review.

Record every avenue of client feedback. Apply the same quality standard to text-based interactions like email and chat that are used for calls.

What does your customer think? Asking your customers what they thought of their experience will yield better results than utilizing your company's own metrics to assess the quality of a conversation.

Encourage customers to leave reviews and provide feedback

You can do this simply by asking, although, it can be tricky to get customers to leave feedback on a particular product purchased. Most customers don't like the idea of telling you if they are satisfied with your service or not, but does that mean you shouldn't try? Of course not, customer reviews are important for your store's search engine optimization. You either encourage customers to leave reviews and provide feedback by either asking directly or indirectly but using both methods can be the best. The best time to ask your customers is to ask shortly after a purchase, allow them to use the products first before asking. You can also ask after a repeated purchase. You can also ask for feedback and reviews by including review links in receipt and shipping emails. You could also ask for reviews in the delivery email (as it's ideal to do so after the product has been received).

Another way you can ask your customers for reviews and feedback is by reminding your customers how reviews and feedback help your business to grow. Customers who are happy with your products and services will likely be happy to leave a review and also be happy to promote your product to their friends and families. You can also encourage customers to provide feedback and reviews by giving them multiple ways they can leave a review either on Amazon, social media platforms, or email.

Chapter 5

How to be successful with Amazon Business

It's one thing to start up a business on Amazon, it's another thing to be successful in your niche. In this section, we will be providing you with 6 tips on how to be successful in the Amazon business.

6 tips on how to be successful in Amazon business.

1. Know what you need to sell: you need to determine what you want to sell. The niche you are interested in. This is the first step to success in Amazon. If you find the best niche you want to focus on then you can have a more specific audience. Choose a product that has high demand but low competition, and don't enter an already saturated market. Carefully research the niche or products you want to focus on, evaluate the pricing strategies of your competitors in that niche, read reviews of what customers think of the products they bought, and also it's important to check the seasonality of the products. Know which time of the month, holidays, or season the products experience more sales.

Once you know the products you want to sell, you need to know who the products appeal to. Who are your target audience, carefully define your audience, know who they are, their pain points, demographics, locations, etc.

2. High-quality products: to be successful in the Amazon business, you must sell high-quality products. Sell products that are of good quality. This will enable you to earn the trust of your customers. Make sure the product descriptions, specifications, and benefits you provide on the platform are what your customers will see when they make purchases. Keep them satisfied and come back for more.

3. Choose your sales channel: choose the place or channel you will market your products. There are many marketing channels, you can market your products on social media platforms, or through influencer marketing, traditional marketing, affiliate marketing, website, etc.

Social media can be a great marketing site for your products. If your audience is on Facebook or Instagram for example then you should leverage the power of these platforms to increase your brand awareness, and increase sales. You can also decide to run ads on these platforms, for example running ads on Facebook is very cheap, and you can run ads on the products you want to sell. In case you want to drive customers to your store, then you can run some ads, to increase your store traffic.  

Another channel you can utilize to market your product is influencer marketing. Influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing in which a brand collaborates with a social media influencer to sell or market its products to its followers. These influencers are not literally celebrities, they can be anyone with a large audience or followers on social media. Choose a marketing channel wisely.

4. Optimize your product listings: As I said earlier, optimize your product listings by creating informative, and compelling product descriptions, also high-quality photos. Optimize keywords effectively, and use relevant keywords on your site. 

Use the Amazon search toolbar to effectively search for popular keywords for a particular product. When creating an image for your product, go for high-quality photos. Avoid posting blurry images of your products, it's a big turnoff for your customers. Use 500 x 500 or 1000 x 1,000 pixels to increase listing quality. The ideal number of photos is thought to be 5 to 6.

5. Work on your Amazon SEO. You need to know the Amazon search algorithm to be able to be successful in your business. Amazon might have a similar SEO with Google but the difference is that Amazon is a buying platform and not a search engine. 

To work on your Amazon SEO you need to conduct keyword research to identify high and most-used search terms for your product. Make sure your keywords are incorporated into your product title. Another way you can work on your Amazon SEO is by writing compelling and informative product descriptions. Make sure you highlight the features, specifications, and benefits of the products. Use bullet points to highlight the features of your products and also include relevant information. Remember it's important to stay updated with the latest change in Amazon's algorithm.

6. Stay organized in bookkeeping and accounting:

Being organized especially in your bookkeeping is a very important step if you want to successfully run a business on Amazon. Accurate financial records allow you to keep track of your finances, expenses, assets, liabilities, and revenues. Keep your finances healthy by keeping accurate financial records. Staying organized in your bookkeeping gives you insights into your company's financial performance, it enables you to effectively evaluate your business performance. You will be able to know if you are headed down the drain or on the right track. With accurate and organized bookkeeping, you will be able to generate the profit and loss statement of your company, the balance sheets, and cash flow insights.

How to make my Amazon business profitable

Products selection and sourcing:  To make your Amazon business profitable you need to select products that are in high demand and have good profit margins. To select products that have high demand, you need to conduct thorough research to identify the profitable niche you can venture into.

Streamline operational costs: You need to identify the areas where you can reduce some operational costs. Improve packaging and shipping procedures, negotiate with suppliers for lower prices, and look at less expensive fulfillment options like Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon). Pay attention to expenditures for shipping, storage, advertising, and other overhead charges.

Build your own brand: Although creating your own brand requires work and money, it can result in devoted customers. Amazon also provides brand owners with a wide range of resources and advantages. Enroll in Brand Registry if you're ready to take the plunge or if you already have a brand in place to have access to automated label protections and more brand management resources.

Enhance product listings: Your product listings should be optimized to increase conversion rates. Make use of crisp product photos, persuading copy, bullet points, and precise product information. Use relevant keywords to increase your search presence. An optimized listing can increase revenue by luring more customers.

Be competitive and know your competition: Monitoring what your competitors are doing is very important to the success of your business. Examine their product pricing, marketing strategy, method of presentation, method of product description, and frequency of new product offerings. Maintaining a competitive edge and remaining profitable requires keeping up with the market. 

Conclusion  

Summary

Starting a business on Amazon is quite easy, you just have to follow the steps and instructions in this article. Before you can succeed in business you need to outline your business plan, understand the market competition, know your competitors, and map out some business success tactics. 

However, starting a business on Amazon is very beneficial as Amazon is a platform that is widely recognized around the world. People from different countries come to buy from this platform because of its reputation, your business or brand can gain from this already-built reputation. With Amazon, your business can gain access to many potential customers, as most people prefer to shop on Amazon. Small businesses have the opportunity to boost their sales with Amazon because of millions of buyers that purchase the platform.

With Amazon Prime membership you can have access to free shipping on eligible items, deals, and other features. Follow these guides, conduct your research on the niche you want to enter, and make sure you don't enter an over-saturated market. 

^ Back to top

Shopify has been one of the most popular sites to build an online store. Since its development in 2006, it has emerged to be one of the best ecommerce sites to start an online store. Dropshipping is a very lucrative business and a great business-model for entrepreneurs. Dropshipping with the best ecommerce platform like Shopify is very convenient and a great option for new entrepreneurs. This business model makes it possible for entrepreneurs to outsource, handle, and ship products to third-parties. 

Eager to kickstart? In this article, we will be talking about how to Dropship with Shopify. Dropshipping isn't planning to be less lucrative than it is now, in fact, it has proven to be one of the best ways to make money online. We will be uncovering a lot in this article so tighten your seatbelt and let's roll!

Read our full Shopify review to learn more about what the platform has to offer. 

Chapter 1 

What is dropshipping?

Dropshipping is a business model that enables individuals to sell products without a physical storefront and inventory. Dropshipping has made it easier for entrepreneurs to ship products to their customers without having to worry about logistics. The link in Dropshipping is the connection between the entrepreneurs and the supplier down to the customer. 

In this fast-growing world individuals, especially entrepreneurs, are seeking ways to make money online, and Dropshipping is filling that yearning or gap. In the past few years, it has become the most popular and lucrative way to make money online and the best part of it is that the individual doesn't need to worry about inventory, or logistics, all of which will be handled by the supplier which is a third-party that can be anything from a wholesaler, or manufacturer, or maybe a retailer.

This business model has transformed a lot of things, especially the landscape of ecommerce, it has proven to allow individuals to start an online business with little investment, and risk level. You can see dropshipping from another angle. It has eliminated the need for traditional inventory as the individual hardly keeps any products in stock. 

The relationship between the entrepreneurs with the manufacturer or supplier is what makes dropshipping possible. The supplier keeps products in stock and is responsible for shipping products down to your customers. One can say that dropshipping is highly flexible and scalable. It reduces operational responsibility, the task of shipping, packaging, and product management. You can gain access to a wide variety of products from different suppliers which increases sales and profits.

What is Shopify?

Simply put, Shopify is an ecommerce platform that enables entrepreneurs to build an online store and make sales through their dashboards. Shopify is a site that lets you build, grow and manage your business. Founded in 2006 by Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, and Scott Lake, Shopify is a platform that lets entrepreneurs or merchants customize their stores and sell in multiple places such as web, mobile, brick-and-mortar, etc. It is made up of a wide range of tools, and also a user-friendly interface which makes it easy to navigate. Its features are vast and help to set up, manage and promote your products. 

Shopify helps its users manage products, shipping, process payments, track Sales, and analytics. This platform supports multi-channel selling, you can not only sell your products in the store but also on social media platforms, in person, etc. Its comprehensive solution makes it the most popular place for online stores. So many successful online stores are hosted by Shopify and it also offers secured and reliable hosting infrastructures to these stores. Its built-in SEO features enable its users to optimize their site to rank high in search engines, this gives you an edge over other competitors leading to increased Sales and traffic.

What are the benefits of Dropshipping with Shopify?

There are many benefits attached to Dropshipping with Shopify which we will unveil in this section of the article. 

1. Low startup cost: This sounds interesting right? Dropshipping with Shopify involves little investment and low barrier entry. Comparing it to traditional marketing which requires capital to start, a physical storefront, shipping, products management, and storage, dropshipping requires only an online store and a relationship with a third party. There's no need for warehousing, shipping, product management, and storage.

2. Access to wide varieties of products: Dropshipping with Shopify gives you access to wide Varieties of Products from different suppliers which results in increased Sales and profitability. There is access to thousands of products which makes it easier for you to change your product line.

3. Easy to start: Dropshipping with Shopify can be incredibly easy to start. All you need to do is to choose a product, find where to market them, and get a customer to place an order. Shopify has made it easy for entrepreneurs to open a dropshipping business and run it smoothly without stress and hassle. This benefit is one of the main reasons why Dropshipping is highly competitive, but dropshipping is very lucrative and there's always a chance to grow.

4. No need for logistics: This is one good reason I love dropshipping, you don't need to worry about how goods can be shipped to your audience. Shipping can be a very stressful and complicated part of ecommerce, but dropshipping saves you the stress, time, and also money to ship customers' orders. The supplier is in charge of the logistics, when a customer makes an order, you pay the shipping fee to the supplier and they will ship the product down to your customers. You can also benefit from some Shipping discounts. 

5. Customer support: This is a very important part of your dropshipping business. Your customers are very important, they are the main focus of your business, thereby their satisfaction is very crucial. Dropshipping with Shopify offers 24/7 support to your customers, they are there to assist you with any technical or business questions you might have. They also have a large community where other dropshipping entrepreneurs share their thoughts, insights, and experience on networking, etc.

6. Access to a wide range of marketing tools: Shopify offers access to a wide range of marketing tools. They have built-in integrations and marketing features. These tools are there to help you Market your business and products to the public. With these features, marketing platforms, and integrations you can attract potential customers to your store, and increase website traffic, sales, and leads.

7. Low-risk: Dropshipping with Shopify reduces any risk especially one associated with traditional mode of selling. There's no need to invest upfront in inventory. No need for any physical storage to start worrying about how to maintain products stored in the warehouse. It has a total Low-Risk factor.

8. Global reach: With Shopify, you can reach thousands of people around the globe. It has features like internet shipping options and multiple currencies which enables you to sell to different people from different countries. Dropshipping with Shopify makes it easier to reach out to them and market your products and services to them and have the products shipped down to them regardless of their location.

9. Focus on your customers and marketing: Give 100% focus to your customer's needs and marketing your products. Shopify helps you to focus on your audience and marketing them while they handle the other aspects which might distract you such as logistics, inventory management, and fulfillment tasks. It enables you to focus more on building your own brand.

10. Integration with third-parties: Shopify features a sizable app ecosystem that enables you to interface with a variety of third-party programs. These apps can improve the functionality of your store, ease processes, and maximize marketing initiatives.

Why should you Dropship with Shopify?

Shopify being the top ecommerce website has made it easier for entrepreneurs to market their products online at a low price, they can easily launch their ecommerce store on Shopify. The big question here is "Why Should You Dropship with Shopify?" Dropshipping with Shopify opens access to several features and advantages and below are the reasons why you should Dropship with Shopify.

1. Easy to set-up 

This user-friendly platform makes it easy to set up your store on its platform. You don't need any technical abilities or skills to set up your store, it makes it easier to set up your store with any technical know-how. With the list of customizable templates provided by Shopify, adding your products is easier, you only need to select a template and easily add your products to your store.

2. Product management

Another reason why you should dropship with Shopify is its product management. It manages your products effectively making it easier for you to add products, remove out of stock products, adjust prices, etc. You can easily update information on your products, manage inventory, and import products from suppliers.

3. Order fulfillment

You can automate the order process. This means that when an order is made the supplier gets automatically notified of the order and also be able to handle the shipping process, enabling effective shopping of the products to customers making sure it reaches them. This removes the need for inventory management and logistics.

4. Payment gateways

There are multiple payment gateways for flexible and easy payment of products. This is very important for every ecommerce store and integrating your store with multiple payment gateways makes payment very smooth and flexible. You won't lose customers to your competitors just because you don't have a particular payment gateway. This makes your clients find your store comfortable, and easy to navigate and also will likely come back for more purchases.

Many payment gateways like PayPal are restricted in some countries and making it your only payment gateway is like building limitations around your store. Having multiple payment gateways makes it easier for people from different countries to be able to pay for products bought. That's why Shopify had a different payment gateway to make it easier for customers to make purchases.

5. Marketing and SEO

You can effectively optimize your store to rank higher on Google search results due to Shopify's inbuilt SEO tools. When your store is fully optimized you have a better advantage than your competitors, increased Sales and traffic are some of its benefits. Also, Shopify has some marketing features like discount codes, gift cards, and social media integration to help promote your product and store to your audience 

6. Security and hosting 

Of course, this is very crucial for every store. Shopify ensures the security of your store, it also hosts your store making it accessible to customers and always secured. One beautiful thing about Shopify is that it automatically updates the security of your store and also maintains it, so you don't need to worry about Updates and maintenance.

Chapter 2

How to choose a dropshipping business idea

Here we will be looking at the process of choosing a dropshipping business idea. This requires careful observation and consideration and these steps are going to help you choose the right dropshipping business idea.

Your interest and passion: This is the first step when it comes to choosing the right path for your business. Looking at your interest and passion can help align you with the right business structure and structure. Start thinking about brainstorming those interests and passions that are of interest to you, think about what Industry you are more knowledgeable about, what you consider doing most, and what products you think will resonate well with your audience. This will help you to choose the right business idea for your dropshipping business. Choosing what you enjoy doing will make your dropshipping business fun, enjoyable, and full of adventure for you.

Market Demand: You can't start anything without research. This helps you know the kind of services you intend to provide, research builds your knowledge base on the topic, so conducting a market demand helps you know who your audience is, what kind of product resonates well with them, and how you can serve them better both now and in the future. 

Proper market research helps you to know what you are up against in the niche you are planning to venture into, it shows you who your competitors are and also helps you to formulate plans, and strategies on how to succeed. It shows you the kind of problems you might encounter in the future and how to deal with them. Proper research on market demands gives you a solid foundation on which you can build your ideas and succeed. Here are tools we recommend that will give you valuable insights into market demands, trends, and customer preferences Google Trends, Amazon Best Sellers, and social media platforms.

Evaluate competition: How competitive is the market you want to venture into? This is what you need to access before going into dropshipping. Knowing your competitors and understanding the competition helps you to know what you are up against, and helps you to know how to stand out from the competition. 

There are three different kinds of competitors you need to identify when choosing a business idea this includes Direct Competitors: These people target the same audience you target, in the same geographical area, and also sell the same product you do; Indirect Competitors: They are the opposite of direct competitors. They target different audiences and sell different products but the difference is that they are in the same category as you. 

For example, you might be selling a different brand of alcohol and they might be selling alcohol from a different brand. The similarities are that you both sell alcohol and have different target audiences. The last competitor is Substitute Competitors: These competitors offer different products from you, but they target the same audience from the same geographical area.

Pick highly profitable products: pick products that are highly profitable and in high demand. You won't like to pick a product that isn't only difficult to sell but also low-profit value. Pick products that are highly demanded both in the local and foreign markets. The product you choose should be something that people know and are probably in trend, your product should also be of high quality if you don't want them returned back to you and customers seeking for a refund, sell not only products that are in demand and highly profitable but also products that are valuable and of high-quality. Tools like Google Trends can help you to evaluate the business idea you have to establish a successful business.

Consider product availability and sourcing: Don't go for scarce products, know the availability of the products before choosing the product. You wouldn't want to keep your customers stranded when they demand for a particular product simply because it's not in stock or may be scarce. Consider the availability of dropshipping products in your niche before choosing it, also check the shipping times, customer support, response time, reliability, and customer reviews.

Shipping considerations: Before choosing a dropshipping product check for the shipping time for that particular product. The shipping cost and time are very important to consider. If the shipping cost is very high you might consider going for another product and the shipping time is very long i.e. if the shipping date and time take a period of 2 months or more then you might have to reconsider. 

These factors are very essential to succeed in your dropshipping business, you won't want to keep your customers waiting to receive a product for a long time, and of course, you might probably lose them to your competitors. There was a time I ordered a product, and it took 3 months to get to me, which was very frustrating - by the time the product arrived I'd already lost interest in it, and, guess what, I'm not going to that store again. To avoid this look for reliable suppliers, don't take long to deliver products, and offer affordable shipping costs.

Here Are lists of Dropshipping business ideas you can try:

1. Eco-friendly products

These are Products made using natural materials, they are preferable to products made with plastics, chemicals, or dangerous substances. For example, toys made entirely of wood, clothes made of linen, hemp, wool, etc. Eco-Friendly Products are a big help to the environment and many customers are looking for ways to help the environment, so by selling this product, you are helping our environment. 

Tote Bags made of recycled cotton and polyester, T-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, tank tops, baby bodysuits, t-shirt dresses, and hoodies made of recycled polyester or organic ring-spun cotton are good examples of Eco-Friendly Products.

2. Clothing

Fashion is something that might never die, new trends are always coming out. This niche is very good for someone who wants to start a dropshipping business. You can make lots of profit by selling items of clothing like hoodies, women's wear, men's wear, underwear, etc.

3. Pet supplies

Are you a pet lover? Do you have an audience who are pet lovers? Make your audience happy by selling pet products that they will need for their pets. Google Trends can help you research for pet products that are currently in demand and know the one that sells well.

4. Mugs

This is one of the best and most lucrative dropshipping businesses to start. Mugs are found in every home and custom mugs make wonderful gifts for special occasions, fantastic workplace supplies, effective trade show giveaways, and practical everyday items.

5. Gaming accessories

This is a profitable niche to start a dropshipping business. Some people would spend a considerable amount of money on gaming, being not a gamer shouldn't stop you from entering this niche. 

There are many other profitable niches to start your dropshipping business which includes tote bags, baby products, yoga apparel and accessories, home decor, custom stickers, camping gear, etc.

Things to do know before starting a dropshipping business

Before starting a Dropshipping business there are things you need to consider and here in this section, we will talk about them.

Know your target audience

Most people make a mistake by thinking that knowing what to sell is the first and most important step to starting a dropshipping business. If you assume that knowing what to sell is the first thing to consider then what happens when you know what to sell but don't know who to sell to? That makes no sense and it can seem very difficult.  Knowing who your target audience is is very important, know who is willing to buy your products, and who is interested in them before selling. When you have a target audience it can narrow your focus, instead of trying to sell to everyone, you have a specific set of people who you want to sell to, thereby reducing the competition. 

It also helps you to effectively market your products to a specific audience. To know your target audience the first steps are:

• Define your product: To define your audience you need to be able to define your product and learn its features and benefits.
• Conduct market research: Conduct market research to know who your audience is and about the market, industry trends, and also your competitors.
• Conduct surveys and interviews: reach out to your audience by asking them questions, taking surveys, ask questions about their needs, challenges, preferences, and buying behavior

These help you to know and understand who your audience is, how to serve them, and how to offer solutions to their queries. These actions give you an edge over your competitors. It's important to note that knowing your target audience is an ongoing process and should never be dumped, adjusted, and reevaluated who Your target audience is to ensure your marketing strategies are always effective.

Analyze your competitors

This step helps you to gain insights into your competitors' analysis, market strategies, strengths, and weaknesses. Knowing your competitor's marketing strategy is a huge benefit, it gives you insight on how to channel your own marketing strategy and aim for greater success. Knowing your competitors' strengths and weaknesses makes you an edge over them, when you have the knowledge of your competitors' strengths you can be able to identify the difference between your position in the market and theirs and know how to adjust your positioning. Also knowing your audience's weaknesses helps you also to identify areas you need to invest your time and resources on.

Analyzing your competitors helps you to understand your market and spot industry trends.

How to analyze your competitors:

Who are your Competitors? 

This is the first question you need to answer to analyze your Competitors. Know who you are dealing with or plan to deal with. As I said earlier in this article we have three types of competitors and you should be able to identify all of them. Direct Competitors are those who sell what you sell and have the same target audience as you even market to the same geographical area. Indirect Competitors are competitors who have a different target audience from you and also sell different products but are in the same category as you. Substitute competitors sell completely different products from you but have the same target audience.

Research their products and services

What do they sell? Go to your competitors' products catalog and study their products very well, identifying their pricing strategies, features, packaging, and selling proposition. Make the comparison to your own and note the difference, know where you should adjust.

Analyze their online presence

Check out their website, social media platforms, and blog posts. Pay attention to the type of content they post, and their engagement. Check their target audience, branding, and content strategy, this can help you in creating an effective marketing strategy. Knowing how they brand their products can give you insights on how to do better, going through their content, and studying it effectively helps you to know the type of content they produce.

Study their marketing and advertising strategies and social media presence

Keep an eye on the marketing and advertising campaigns of your Competitors. Examine their marketing, channels, social media presence, and messaging. Look at the communication styles, platforms they employ, and value propositions they emphasize. List any collaborations or partnerships they have.

Start with a few products

Don't try to add a lot of products when you start Dropshipping. Start with products that you think will be more beneficial to your audience. There are several advantages to starting with a few products.

Focus: Starting with a few products helps you to focus more on those products. It helps you to learn more about the features of those products, their benefits, and how to market them. It helps you have a good and effective marketing Strategy for these specific items.

Reduced complexity: It narrows your inventory management, you will have a few products to track and fulfill. It allows you to provide excellent service to your customers.

Cost-effectiveness: starting with a few products helps you to allocate your resources efficiently. You don't have to stock up on too many products. This can enable you to test the demand market for that particular product. It helps you to avoid investing in products that won't sell well.

Brand identity and positioning: It enables you to establish authority in a particular niche. This specialty can help set your dropshipping company apart from rivals and draw in a committed clientele who link your brand with product knowledge.

Choose Reliable Supplier 

Your supplier can either destroy your business or build it up. Your supplier is in charge of shipping products to your customers, dealing with customer queries, and communicating with customers. If you choose an unreliable supplier this will mar your business. Irrespective of dozens of suppliers you should look for a reliable supplier who you can trust. It's best if you choose a supplier who has a narrow focus on a particular niche. Consider yourself as the soul of your dropshipping business, while your supplier is the backbone, beware if the backbone isn't strong or reliable It can be dangerous.

Before going for any supplier check for the best supplier, check their reputation and reviews from customers, this can help you know if the supplier is recommendable or suitable for your business, if not try another supplier. Before choosing a supplier here are some factors to consider.

Your requirements: To choose your supplier you need to define your requirements, your product requirements, quality standards, delivery time, and any other need or requirements you might want from your supplier. With this, you can effectively communicate with your supplier about what you need for your business.

Evaluate supplier credibility: you can't choose a supplier without conducting a background check on the supplier. Check his reputation and reviews, know how he has served others in the past and how satisfied were his customers, note the complaints and feedback from his customers, and also check for certifications or accreditations they hold.

Assess financial stability: A financially stable supplier can meet your demand. You can request financial statements, credit reports or even conduct financial analysis on the supplier to evaluate his financial stability and ensure he has sufficient resources to meet your demands.

Communication and responsiveness: This is very important, a supplier who doesn't maintain sufficient and effective communication with you can't be trustworthy. Note the communication and responsive level of the supplier before making any further steps. Communication is the key to the success of any business. For your dropshipping business to be successful you need to ensure that there's effective communication between you and your supplier. Evaluate how responsive they are and how well they understand your needs.

Pick your ecommerce platform or marketplace wisely 

It's crucial to pick your ecommerce platform marketplace wisely that's why we recommend you choose Shopify as your dropshipping ecommerce platform.

There are a lot of reasons why you should consider Shopify as your ecommerce platform and one of them is their user-friendly interface. Shopify has a User-friendly interface which makes it easier for users to navigate, set up and effectively manage their online store. Easy to Set up; Shopify is very easy to set up, you don't need any technical abilities or skills to set up an online store on Shopify. Shopify also hosts and secures your store. So many successful online stores are hosted on this platform, it handles server maintenance and security updates. One other reason you should choose Shopify as your ecommerce platform is that it's mobile responsive. Nowadays having a mobile friendly website is very important. Shopify mobile responsive themes adjust your screen, ensuring your online store looks well and functions well on mobile phones.

Create high-quality content

Great content sells, it's very important that you create and maintain high-quality content on your site. "Content is King" as the popular saying goes. Contents such as your: 

About Us page

This should be presentable and unique. It's meant to show your audience what your company is like who your teams are, the services you offer, the story behind your brand, and what goes on behind the scenes. Your about us page is the most visited area of your site.

Photos 

These are also an important aspect of your site. Your product picture should be of high quality. Shoppers consider the virtual appearance of a product before making a purchase. If your product picture isn't visible to your audience or if it's blurry they will likely abandon the products.

Here are Some tips to take a great picture:

• Take your photos in a space with adequate light
• Choose a smartphone with a high-quality camera
• A mini tripod
• Set up a backdrop
• Explore different points of view
• Edit your photos before publishing

Videos

Your video should showcase your product and services. Your audience can learn about a particular product simply by watching a video, you can also guide your audience on how to find products on your store and how to locate the FAQS page.

Product descriptions

Product descriptions tell your audience about the products they want to buy, they communicate their features and benefits to your audience. A good product description should include the benefits, quality, and features of the products and should make the customer imagine having and using the product as described in the text.

Get your finances in order

Combining personal and corporate money when starting a firm is a common error made by entrepreneurs. This leads to confusion, complicates accounting, can also result in the personal assumption of business responsibilities, and raises serious concerns with the IRS in the event of an audit.

Your personal and corporate funds should be kept as distinct as possible. The most effective approach to achieve it is to open new accounts in your company's name (Business account). We recommend you have a

Business bank account

Create a brand-new company bank account in your dropshipping name. Keep in mind that you should only do business using this account, such as paying suppliers and receiving money from clients.

Business credit cards

You ought to have a business credit card that is exclusively utilized for investing in drop shipping supplies. With the correct rewards travel cards, you can earn some serious rewards because you'll be purchasing a lot of goods from suppliers.

Local business licenses

Most cities and towns demand that companies obtain a business license, which must be periodically renewed. For dropshipping ecommerce enterprises, which frequently operate from home offices, these criteria can be different. You should research local rules and ordinances to determine what, if anything, is necessary.

Establishing a Corporation outside of the US

International merchants can incorporate their company in the US, which gives them access to drop shippers and clients in the US but can be complicated. The merchant will have to travel to the US to complete the required documentation, have a reliable business partner in the US who can act on his behalf, or engage an agency to handle everything.

You can start by learning about this process by consulting the resources listed below:

Non-resident Delaware LLC and Corporation for Foreigners, by Delaware Corporate Headquarters

Setting up a Shopify store

Here's how you can set up your Shopify store for dropshipping.

Create a Shopify account

Creating a Shopify account is very easy and straightforward simply follow the steps listed below to create your account.

Step 1. Visit the Shopify website: To create a Shopify account you need to visit the Shopify website at www.shopify.com to get started.

Step 2. Get started: Click on the "Get Started" button or "Start Free Trial" button on the site to begin the account creation process.

Step 3. Email address: In the provided box as shown in the image above provide your email address, make sure it's a working email address and you have access to it. If you don't have an email address, go over to Gmail and create your email address.

Step 4. Create password: Your password keeps your account secured and gives you access to the store and no one else except if you tell someone your store password then they can access your store. A strong password should be a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters

Step 5. Store name: choose a unique and appropriate name for your store. Make sure the name you choose is one that you use throughout your social media platforms. Use a name that your customers know and can recognize. Make it short and catchy. Your store name will appear like this on Shopify (mystorename.myshopify.com).

Step 6. Additional information: Shopify may request some additional information about you or your store to make sure to provide accurate information. This might include your full name, address, and phone number.

Step 7. Add products: Once you have provided Shopify with the necessary details you can start adding your products to your store.

Step 8. Customize your store: Here you customize your stir by selecting a theme and adding your product.

Select a theme for your store

To select a theme for your Shopify store follow these methods.

1. Firstly you have to go to login to your Shopify account and access the admin. This will lead you to the Shopify dashboard where you can select the themes you want for your store.

2. Select Theme: In the admin section at the left-handed menu of your Shopify admin, select "Online Store" and select "Theme".

3. Explore the themes: You will see a list of themes available in Shopify. There are varieties of them. Browse through the themes till you find one suitable for your store.

4. Filter and sort the themes: Use the filtering and sorting options provided to narrow down your search. You can filter themes based on industry, layout style, features, price, and more. Sorting options include popularity, price, and date added. Then click on the theme to select it.

5. Check theme features and compatibility: This matters a lot, you need to pay attention to the features and functionalities offered by each theme. Some themes may have built-in features for specific industries or types of products. Ensure that the theme you choose is compatible with any specific requirements you may have for your store.

6. Select and install a theme: Once you've found a theme you like, click on the "Add" button to install it. Shopify will confirm your selection and install the theme on your store.

7. Customize your theme: After the theme is installed, you'll be taken to the Theme Editor, where you can customize various aspects of your theme such as colors, fonts, layout, and more. Explore the different customization options and make adjustments according to your preferences.

Customize your store's design and branding

This means adding some specific design to your store, color, topography, and logo.

To customize your store design and branding you need to:

1. Access the theme editor and customize your theme. Make the necessary design changes you desire.
2. Customize your header and footer, you can do this by adding your logo, adjusting the navigation menu, and including any additional links or information you want to display.
3. Modify your colors and fonts to suit the style of your store. In the themes editor, you can change the colors and font style that aligns with your brand.
4. Customize your products page such as your products images, descriptions, videos, etc. To be visually appealing.
5. Ads or remove some sections you don't want from your store and you can do this in the theme editor section.

You can always adjust your settings whenever you want.

Set up payment gateways and shipping options

Shopify provides your store with lots of payment gateway and shopping options you can ever imagine. You can activate their payment gateway from the payment page in the Shopify setting but before that make sure you check your eligibility and bank account requirements.

To Set up payment gateways and shipping options Shopify will need the following information.

• Your Bank account information and
• Your business registration number, or identifier, depending on your country and business type

To use Shopify payment, you need to check your country to know if Shopify is available there and operates there. You should also secure your account by setting up two-step authentication.

To set up your payment on Shopify, you need to keep in mind that Shopify payment costs are based on your plan, and by upgrading your subscription you have a chance of lowering the cost rate. Decide on your store currency before setting up your payment. This currency is the currency that your store will be shown in your product price, do this before making your first sale. Here are steps to step up your payment option:

• Go to Store > Settings in the Shopify app.
• Tap Payments from the Store settings menu.
• Choose from the following options to activate Shopify Payments:
• Click Complete account setup in the Shopify Payments section if you haven't added a credit card payment provider to your account.
• Click Activate Shopify Payments in the Shopify Payments box and then Activate Shopify Payments in the dialog if you have a different credit card payment provider enabled. Any additional credit card payment processor is then removed from your account.
• Click Save after providing your financial information and the necessary shop information.

Finding products to sell

Identify a profitable niche

You can't offer products from different niches, you need to choose at least one profitable niche to focus on. "Jack of all trades is master of none" This is when you think that you can venture into a lot of niches and succeed, but it's the reverse, to be successful in dropshipping you need to master the niche you are operating. You need to position yourself as an authority on a particular niche, customers should see you as a go-to source when trying to make a purchase. You need to identify a niche you can market effectively. 

To find your niche you need to:

• Identify your interest
• Identify problems you can solve
• Focus on the target audience
• Note your competitors
• Gather feedbacks

Profitable Niche for your dropshipping business 

• Health and personal care
• Clothing and accessories
• Kitchen and grocery
• Home and bedroom
• Office products
• Tools and home improvement
• Camera and cellphone accessories
• Gaming
• Car Accessories

Research and Sourcing products

To find products to sell you need to research and source products. You need to study the product market, by identifying your interest you know the kind of product you would love to sell. Make sure the products you choose are in demand. Focus on identifying your customers' needs, and knowing how you can meet those needs with the right products.

You can get products to sell from 

Amazon

Esty

Ebay

Choose products with high demand and profit margins

Choose products that are in high demand and profit margins. Products that are in High demand are products that people are likely to go for or products that are in trend.

A high-profit product is a product that makes a profit on each unit sold. It makes a significant profit on each unit of product sold. For example, if you sell a dress for $12, but everything you used to make the dress costs $10 when you sell the product and the profit made is $2, there is profit but not much, now when you sell the same dress for $25 your profit margins raise to $13 that is a notable profit.

To calculate the profit margins of a product Profit margin = Retail price - cost of producing that item

We recommend you focus on products that are in demand and high profit margins because it helps to raise your return on investment (ROI).

Products With High Margin

• Specialty products: These products include phone accessories, kitchen gadgets, watches, and collectibles like trading cards.
• Candles
• Children’s products such as children's clothes, toys, etc.
• Private label products: this is when a manufacturer makes a custom product for an entrepreneur based on his specifications. These include custom clothing, jewelry, fashion accessories, and health and wellness products.
• Dropshipping

Products in High Demand 

• Clothing
• Skincare and beauty
• Shoes
• Cleaning products
• Pet Items
• Toys
• Mugs

 Chapter 3 

Choose a dropshipping supplier

In this section, we will be talking about how we can choose a dropshipping supplier. Finding the best dropshipping supplier for your business is very important. A supplier can boost your business and can also destroy it, that's why you need to be more careful and conduct thorough research on each supplier before working with them.

Here are the top best dropshipping suppliers:

• AliExpress
• Alibaba
• SaleHoo
• Worldwide Brands
• Doba
• Sunrise Wholesale
• Wholesale2b
• Megagoods
• Modalyst
• Wholesale Central
• Spocket
• CJDropshipping
• CROV

Decide on a business structure

This can seem complex at first but not to worry. There are 4 main business structures that you can decide to build your store on:

• Sole proprietorship 
• Partnership 
• Limited Company 
• Corporation  

The optimum business structure for you will rely on several variables, including the business's nature, size, profitability, and management structure. If you're hesitant, we advise speaking with a legal professional who can help you with both the choice and registration processes.  

• Sole proprietorship: this is a business structure owned by one person, he or she reports to his or her tax return on each business profit.
• Partnership: This type of company is owned by multiple people, either individuals or other companies. Its owners split the profits and disclose them on their tax returns.
• Limited Company: This is a hybrid form of business for example like a corporation it limits the personal liability of its owners, referred to as members, while allowing the profits to be taxed either at the individual member level or the corporate level.
• Corporation: According to the law, a corporation has legal rights that are distinct from those of its owners. It has the legal right to possess and sell property, bring legal action, be sued, and sell stock-based ownership interests. There are different types of corporations include: S corporations C corporations, B corporations closed corporations, and nonprofit corporations.

Before deciding on which business structure is good for your company, here are things to consider.

Flexibility: You need to note the flexibility of a business structure you want to Start. With your business plan, you can know what business structure suits your business more.

Liability: The business structure with the least amount of personal liability is the corporation, this is because according to the law, the corporation has legal rights that are distinct from those of its owners. Individuals can sue a corporation but cannot have access to the assets of the shareholders. Also in a partnership liability is shared among partners.

Taxes: A sole proprietor pays tax, and the same goes for a limited liability company. 

“As a small business owner, you want to avoid double taxation in the early stages,” said Jennifer Friedman, principal at River. “The LLC structure prevents that and makes sure you’re not taxed as a company, but as an individual.”

Corporations are more difficult to set up: The formation of corporations is more challenging. The fact that establishing a corporation requires the most work because it is the most complex business form is its biggest potential drawback. A sole proprietorship effectively allows you to launch a business by generating work or closing a sale. You must submit proper papers when you form a corporation. 

Adding products to your store

To add a new product to your store follow these steps

Android (from the App):

• Go to the Shopify app from your mobile phone
• Sign in to your app then from the Shopify app, go to the products, and click "All products"
• From the Products, tap the + button:
• Enter the title for your product, along with additional details, such as description, price, features, and benefits
• Tap the save button to save your product

For iPhone Users 

• Go to the Shopify app from your iPhone
• Sign in to your app then from the Shopify app, go to the products, and click "All products"
• From the Products, tap the + button:
• Enter the title for your product, along with additional details, such as description, price, features, and benefits
• Tap the check mark to save your product

From your desktop 

• Visit the Shopify website and log in to your store
• From the admin, go to the products page, and click the "Add Products button"
• Enter the title for your product, along with additional details, such as description, price, features, and benefits
• Tap the check mark to save your product

Chapter 4

Managing orders and inventory

Managing orders and inventory is very important for the success of your business and online store. You need to set up order fulfillment notifications for your store. Here is how to manage orders and inventory.

Managing product inventory and stock levels 

To manage your products inventory and stock levels here are some steps to take:

1. Determine optimal stock levels: Check and analyze your historical sales data and trends to determine the stock levels of each product. Consider the following factors such as seasonality, demand fluctuations, lead times, and supplier availability. 

2. Set up inventory tracking: setting up inventory tracking enables you to monitor stock levels and automatically update them as products are sold and restocked.

3. Set up stock alerts and reorder points: Set reorder points and stock alert levels for each product. You will receive a notification to refill or place an order when stock levels reach the predetermined threshold. This enables you to maintain the initiative and prevent inventory shortages.

4. Optimize your supply chain: To simplify the supply chain process, strong cooperation with your suppliers is required. To guarantee punctual and dependable deliveries, keep lines of communication open, set expectations regarding lead times, and bargain for attractive pricing.

Handling returns and customer inquiries

The way you handle your customers' inquiries and returns will determine if they will be loyal to you or not. It will determine if you will see them back in your store or not. Thanks to the internet and social media, consumers are more vocal than ever about their interactions with companies, whether they are positive or negative.

Unfortunately, customer-centric firms must accept the fact that complaints will inevitably come in no matter how wonderfully you treat your clients or how successfully you manage your company. 

Nobody likes dealing with client complaints, but these occasionally unpleasant events can present an opportunity for you and your company to excel. This is your chance to win over a devoted and pleased customer for life.

Although providing excellent customer service should always be a top concern, here are ten suggestions for handling complaints from customers.

1. Listen: If any customer comes to you with a complaint whatsoever you should give them a listening ear. You should always employ active listening tactics when speaking with your customers. Don't assume you already know what your customers want or need, and don't ignore them either if you think they are unimportant. 

Listen to them and focus on what they have to say. People may find it difficult to articulate their issues or what you should do to satisfy them when they are angry. Your customer will have time to cool down if you let them chat. Often, all it takes to address a problem is to listen to your clients and let them vent.

2. Acknowledge the Issue: Don't run away from your customers' issues, embrace it and solve their problems. Acknowledge the issue but that doesn't imply agreement with the customer's viewpoint; rather, it merely conveys that you are cognizant of it and appreciate its validity. You can begin by saying something like, "I realize this must be very frustrating for you," and then continue with the complaint in a paraphrased form.

3. Respond quickly to customer refund requests: It's crucial to keep track of how quickly you respond to customer refund requests, from the moment they contact you until they receive their money. New emails should be responded to instantly by an email autoresponder service, and communication identification and prioritization procedures should be in place.

Consider including live chat on your website if you can. This is one of the easiest ways to settle disputes over refunds or returns, and a lot of consumers prefer to call customer service. Additionally, don't forget to check in with your customers to see how their refund experience went.

4. Handling customer complaints: Many customer service representatives are nearly compelled to deal with rude consumers and handle complaints. 

To be able to handle customers' complaints effectively you need to learn a variety of soft skills such as attentiveness, clarity in communicating, empathy, the capacity for using uplifting words, etc. Consequently, being able to calm angry customers and guarantee an efficient and effective complaint response. 

Marketing and promoting your store

In this section, we will be learning about how we can market and promote your store. Marketing and promoting your business is a very important step you must take. To stay ahead of Competition, to get seen by potential customers, to sell your products, to increase leads, traffic, and sales you need to promote your store. There are many ways you can promote your store and it includes. 

Developing a marketing strategy

Before you start your marketing and Promotion journey you need to develop a marketing strategy. To develop a marketing strategy here are steps to follow to ensure that your strategy works effectively well.

1. Set clear marketing goals and objectives: This is very important, before you embark on your promotion journey you need to sit down, count the cost, and know who your target audience is and how you can market to them. Setting marketing goals and objectives helps you to focus on the necessary areas of your business. Your marketing objectives should answer the big question "What do you want to achieve?" If you don't know the answer to this question then you aren't ready to start marketing your store. Your goals can be to increase brand awareness, generate leads, drive sales, or expand into new markets. A SMART goal is always specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).

2. Identify target market: Who Are you marketing to? Who is likely to buy your product? You should find this out, this will help you narrow your focus. To find out who your target audience is you need to conduct market research to know their demographics, interests, needs, and preferences. This will help you channel your marketing campaigns to resonate well with your audience.

3. Analyze the competition: As we said earlier, analyzing your competitors will give you insights into their strengths, weakness, and marketing strategies. While analyzing the competition, be sure to understand their marketing strategy especially if it's a direct competitor, and study their positioning very well to know how you can channel your positioning. Analyze their strengths and weaknesses to know what you need to improve on and invest in.

4. Marketing channels: Once you are done analyzing the competition, the next step is to choose a marketing channel. Select a marketing channel where you will likely find your target audience. You can consider both online and offline marketing channels, such as social media, search engine marketing, content marketing, email marketing, print advertising, events, and partnerships.

Implementing search engine optimization (SEO) techniques

Implementing search engine optimization techniques enables Google to promote your business. If your store is not fully optimized your site won't rank higher on Google search results, and you will likely lose potential customers, because when your audience searches for a particular product, your competitor's store is what will be shown on Google's first search results page. Search engine optimization is a technique practiced to enable your business to rank high on Google search results by aligning with the Google algorithm.

Some SEO techniques to implement include:

1. Keyword optimization: this is researching, selecting, and adding relevant keywords to your site. What keywords do you want your store or a particular product to rank for? Search for keywords your audience is likely to use when searching for similar products in your niche tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Moz Keyword will help you to search for relevant keywords with low competition and high search volume. Effective keyword optimization increases your online visibility.

2. Meta tags and title tags: These are very important aspects of your search engine optimization. When writing your title tags, you need to be careful because these are the language search engines understand. Title tags tell the search engine what the products, page, or store is all about.

3. Products Description: your product description should contain the specific keyword you want the product to rank for.

Utilizing social media marketing and advertising

Social Media can help you Market and promote your store and products. Here are some ways to can utilize social media to market your store 

TikTok: This is a very popular social media platform, and according to statistics there are over one billion monthly users on TikTok. This platform is highly known for building brand awareness through video creation. You can utilize the power of this platform to promote your store and products. You can also include a link to your landing page in your bio to increase traffic and drive sales.

YouTube: This app has been so popular for its videos. Ever since 2019, statistics have found that YouTube users watch over one billion hours of videos every day on the website. That's incredible! You can leverage the picture of this channel to promote your store and products to the public. Create a YouTube channel that has the name of your brand or store that helps build credibility with your audience, create engagement and loyalty, Increase your social media presence, and drive traffic to your website.

You should also consider other sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Facebook has been a very popular app for B2C business and it is a very great place to start your marketing and promoting journey. 

Running email marketing campaigns and newsletters

Running email marketing campaigns helps to convert your lead into buyers. According to statistics 75% of customers prefer business to message them through email. Get email marketing tools to enable you to get started in communication with your customers. Some of these tools are free while some are also paid. Running email marketing campaigns helps to boost your brand awareness and also drive sales. 

To expand your business reach, leverage the power of email marketing. Running ads can convert leads but that doesn't mean these leads are buyers, but with email marketing, you can convert those leads to your buyers through effective communication. One benefit I love about email marketing is the high ROI. Sounds interesting right? Email marketing costs little to start but can generate lots of money for you in return. Emails marketing is the best way for small businesses to grow their biz because they already know their audience and understand their needs and pain points.

Sending out newsletters to customers every week helps to keep them Informed on the latest updates on your site and also Increases your website traffic.

Chapter 5 

Dropshipping tips to increase leads

Here are some dropshipping tips to increase leads.

1. Focus on a particular niche: To increase the number of leads you have you need to select a particular niche and focus on it. Position yourself as an authority in a particular niche, this will attract more customers to your store, as they will see you as a go-to source when they need to get a particular product.

2. High-quality products: If you sell products of poor quality, you are going to lose some potential customers. High-quality products can boost your lead level. Offer products that are in demand, follow market trends and always provide value to your customers.

3. Compelling product descriptions: Your product description should be clear, understandable, and compelling. Write your description in a way that your audience can virtualize the product. Your product description should contain the features, benefits, advantages, and disadvantages of the products. Give your audience the details they need concerning the product they want to purchase.

4. Image and videos: Your images and videos should be of High quality. You can't imagine customers abandoning a product just because the image is blurry. To avoid this, make sure to take and upload high-quality images of your products. Take images from multiple angles to give customers a clear view of what they are buying. Your videos should also be of High resolution, you can make videos to introduce your customers to a product, help them navigate your store, etc. This is a great way to increase leads on your Shopify store.

5. Content marketing: Content marketing helps you share valuable information on content related to your niche. Write blog posts, post images, and create informative videos that provide useful information about a particular product, that answer your customers' questions and pain points of your customers.

6. Social media marketing: This is an effective way to increase leads in your store. Leverage the power of social media platforms to promote your store thereby increasing your lead. With social media marketing, you can increase sales, traffic, and leads simply by creating informative, and compelling content, running ads and promotions, and participating in communities and forums.

7. Influencers partnership: You might have probably come across a video online where someone is marketing a product on his or her social media profile. Influencer marketing is highly lucrative and beneficial for small businesses. Collaborate with influencers in the same niche as you to market your product to their audience.

Dropshipping do's and don'ts

Here are some dropshipping do's and don't that will help you succeed in Dropshipping:

Do:

1. Do provide excellent customer service: offer satisfying customer service to your audience. Be there to answer their questions, listen to their complaints and also address any issues. This will help build strong relationships with your customers.

2. Do optimize your site: Optimizing your store helps you to rank higher on Google search results. Create a User-friendly and virtually appealing interface, and make sure your store is mobile responsive, loads quality, and easy to navigate. 

3. Do choose reliable suppliers: As mentioned earlier in this article, your supplier will either make or destroy your store, so make sure to conduct enough research on a supplier before trusting him or her with your store.

4. Do market your business: There are many ways you can market your business to your audience and they include social media marketing, search engine optimization, email marketing campaigns, etc. This helps to boost your sales and increase leads.

5. Do track and analyze data: monitor key performance, and observe performance metrics like conversion rates, number of clicks, website traffic, etc. This gives you insights into the areas you need to invest more in and the areas you need to adjust 

Don't:

1. Don't choose an oversaturated market: The oversaturated market is a highly competitive market with a high number of well-established players.

2. Don't rely on a single supplier: this is very important, depending solely on one supplier can be dangerous, especially in the case of stockouts, having a backup supplier In case of any inevitable moment.

3. Don't choose poor quality products: product quality is very important to your audience, and neglecting the quality of the product to ship down to them can be detrimental to you. Ensure the product you send to your customers is of High-quality standards.

4. Don't ignore shipping time and cost: Before choosing any supplier ensure you check the supplier's shipping time and cost. You won't want to let your audience stranded or Keep them waiting to receive your products. It's a total turnoff and the buyer might likely not come back.

5. Don't ignore customers' feedback: no matter what you do, always attend and listen to your customers. Answer their questions and give them the necessary feedback they need. If you see any negative feedback comment, don't delete it or ignore it, instead address it, and make your customers understand that all you want is their satisfaction. Don't delay them, give them prompt feedback, this helps to build credibility and trust from your customers.

6. Don't neglect branding and customer experience: Your branding is very important to your reputation. So is your customer's experience. When your customers have a wonderful and satisfied experience with your store they will likely go and share with their friends and families and also compel them to come and try your store. Build a strong brand identity.

Conclusion  

Summary

We have finally come to the end of this article, I hope you learned a lot and are ready to implement them. Dropshipping with Shopify is a convenient way to start Dropshipping. I recommend you use this platform for your dropshipping business.

One key point I will love you to have in mind is always remember that good communication with your supplier is all that you need to provide excellent customer service. Before choosing a supplier make sure you conduct thorough research on the supplier and check past experiences and records he has with customers. 

Staying updated with marketing trends gives you an edge over your competitors, and also providing quality products to your customers makes you credible. In your marketing efforts make sure you analyze and optimize your marketing efforts to know which one best works for your business.  Focus on giving your customers the best shopping experience they can ever get.

^ Back to top

The affiliate marketing industry is a fast-growing industry. With a value of about $12 billion, it has proven to be the top way to make huge money online. It's a type of marketing where businesses reward their clients or customers for each product they sell or for new customers they bring to the company. Businesses spending on affiliate marketing hit a total of $8.2 billion in 2022 according to Statista. 

You might have come across affiliate marketing and you might probably haven't realized it. If you have bought a product recommended by a friend, then you have come across affiliate marketing, and if you have recommended a product to a friend then you are an affiliate marketer. Sounds great Right? The affiliate marketing industry is a growing industry, however for many beginners, it can be a tedious workload, but not to worry I will guide you on how to start affiliate marketing, you will understand how to make money online through affiliate marketing.

Chapter 1

Definition of affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is an act of promoting other brands' products and services. It's a type of performance-based marketing where customers are rewarded for the promotion of a product, for referral, or for selling a product. The affiliate earns a commission from the products sold or for the referral. Affiliate marketing is solely focused on generating leads and sales for businesses while providing their affiliate commission or another form of payment, to pay them for lead generation or sales made. 

Although affiliate marketing has been around for several years or decades, it became an industry during the invention of the Internet. When traced back to the 1980s William J. Tobin was the first to create the first affiliate program for his company PC Flowers and Gifts. This company paid businesses who linked to their products. Since then affiliate marketing continued to evolve, and now it's a very profitable industry.

How does affiliate marketing work

Let's look at this scenario; you signed up to work for a company as an affiliate marketer, the merchant supplies you with products, which can be physical products or digital products and you are expected to make sales and also bring people to the company (referral). For each product you sell you are expected to make a commission of 30% and for each person you refer to you are entitled to a 40% commission. Your job is to make sales and earn commissions.

Depending on the kind of product you are selling, you will need to choose a specific audience to focus on; Assuming you are advertising makeup products, your target audience should be mainly women aged 17 and above. 

Nowadays most men also apply makeup but your focus on them can be minimal and you can put maximum focus on the women. You can decide to market or advertise the product on social media platforms (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc.), on a blog, website, or podcast. You are to persuade and convince them of the benefits of the products or services and how they can benefit them. 

Convince them to make a purchase, each time anyone purchases through your unique affiliate link, you receive a portion of the revenue made which is also called a commission.

Affiliate marketing is a billion-dollar industry, where an affiliate who could be an owner of multiple websites or email lists is hired to promote a product or service on social media platforms by running ads, posting links, or on a website by running banner ads, writing a review on the products or by sending emails to clients. Visitors who click on those links, and banner ads will be redirected to the products page to make a purchase, and if they made a purchase, you will get your commission which can be 10%-50% but the list commission you can get as an affiliate marketer is 5%. 

Affiliate marketing is like a microphone on the rooftop that merchants use to announce or make their products known to the public. Affiliate marketing follows a path and it has several components which we will be looking at.

Merchant: this is the person that manufactures, or creates the products. A merchant can be an individual or an organization.

Affiliate Network: This can be seen as an organization containing a database of products and services for the affiliate marketer to promote products. For example, Amazon which is a leading affiliate Network connects merchants with affiliates. They have a program called Amazon Associates Program, this program allows people to promote or sell a product using generated affiliate links and in return, they earn a commission. 

In the affiliate Associates Program, the merchant provides the affiliate marketer with a promo code or an affiliate link. The affiliate promotes the merchant's products either on social media platforms or on their websites. With the affiliate link provided the merchant can track each sale made from that affiliate link.

Affiliate Marketer: This is a person that promotes the product. They can also be called publishers. These people join an affiliate network and sign up to be an affiliate. The affiliate program provides them with a unique code that they will use to promote products and services to their target audience. When a customer clicks on their link or banner ads and makes a purchase, they get rewarded for each sale they made.

Consumers: They can also be called buyers. They are the ones that purchase the products and services promoted by affiliate marketers. Without them, affiliate marketing cannot be successful. Affiliate marketing becomes successful when a product can be sold. 

For a consumer to buy your products and services, you must convince them that the product will benefit them, and also show them how it can benefit them. However when marketing to any consumers try to find out their needs and how to meet those needs, also make sure you have a target audience, that will make the job smoother and less stressful because you already have a defined audience.

Benefits of affiliate marketing

Here are some of the benefits of affiliate marketing to an industry and an individual. First I will be discussing the benefits of being an affiliate marketer and then the benefits of affiliate marketing to an organization.

Benefits of being an affiliate marketer:

Easy Entry

Affiliate Marketing programs are easy to join, and most of them are also free to sign up for. You just need to go over to the affiliate program and fill out the form with the necessary details needed and boom! you have successfully signed up for an affiliate marketer. However, make sure you read the terms and conditions of the affiliate marketing program before accepting it; you won't like to be suspended for violating a rule or regulations. The terms and service section should thoroughly be studied as they contain rules and regulations of the affiliate marketing program for example, Amazon Associates affiliate marketing program terms and conditions state that, 

"To participate in the associate's program and receive commission you must comply with the affiliate agreement to participate, you must provide us with any information needed to verify your compliance with this agreement, and if you violate this agreement or terms and conditions of any other Amazon marketing program we reserve the right permanently cease payment of any or all commission payable to you." 

If you ignore these conditions, you are at risk of not being paid your commission income, so be careful.

No or Little Experience Needed

You don't need to have any experience in affiliate marketing to get started. It's easy to start and adapt to the system. Most affiliate marketing comes with a guide to how you can work as an affiliate marketer in their organization and earn money. They will provide you with the step-by-step process you need to understand the products and what has been requested or required of you as an affiliate.

You can earn commissions through the products and services sold. You learn by doing and also become an expert by learning from your mistakes. Affiliate marketing doesn't need any requirements to get started, it doesn't need any degree whatsoever to get started, just a click on the signup button and enter the necessary details is all you need to start making your money. Sounds good right?

Independence 

For someone that doesn't like the everyday hassle and stress of waking up early in the morning to go to work, running around in the office to get jobs done, being yelled at by your boss, etc. affiliate marketing is just the perfect job for you. 

One thing I love about affiliate marketing is the freedom you have as an employee, is like running your own business, no need to get up early in the morning so as to avoid traffic, you do everything in your house, and you owe and run this business, you can decide which company you chose to work for i.e promote their products and services and who not do work for. You can decide to switch between brands if you think that it's hard promoting an affiliate offer from a brand.

Flexibility

You have the right to choose when to work, how to work, and for whom to work. You can decide to be either a part-time affiliate marketer, a full-time affiliate marketer, or a freelancer the ball is in your court. Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways of earning money in the comfort of your home. All you need to kickstart is a laptop, PC, Smartphone, and an internet connection. Also, the amount of time you spend promoting a product depends totally on the type of product you are promoting and also how many companies you are working for.

Huge Income Stream

Working as an affiliate marketer is a lucrative business. With affiliate marketing being a multi-billion dollar industry it's highly beneficial to join this Industry, according to Glassdoor you can make up to $66,029 per year as an affiliate marketer. Whether you take this as a side hustle or as your full-time job, you can still make a huge stream of income, and also the amount of money you make depends on the niche you are promoting (beauty products, home appliances, etc.), and the commission allocated to each product.

Benefits Of Affiliate Marketing to an Organization:

High ROI

As a business owner, using affiliate marketing is very beneficial for the promotion of your brand and products. It's easy to start at low-cost and it also has a great impact on your ROI (Return On Investment). Affiliate marketing for an organization leads to higher ROI and you have nothing to complain about. With affiliate marketing, you are sure to earn more and make more sales and also leads. 

Many brands are using affiliate marketing as a means of online advertisement. For example, Amazon, a very popular e-commerce site, has bought into affiliate marketing to make sales. They employ affiliate marketers to promote their products and services depending on the niche the affiliate chooses, they pay the affiliate commission income for each sale they make.

Increase in Traffic 

Need higher traffic to your e-commerce site, then dive into affiliate marketing. They are the true leader when it comes to traffic generation. As affiliates are bringing in consumers using the promo code or affiliate link you gave them to make purchases, you can also experience a great increase in the number of website visits, and your website will greatly benefit from this. Of course, more website visits mean higher sales and increased ROI. Sounds awesome right? All you need to kickstart is a group of affiliate marketers to make the magic happen.

Brand Recognition

This would have been on the top list, but it found its way to the third list. Brand recognition is one huge benefit of affiliate marketing to an organization. You can't have high traffic without brand recognition. Employing this marketing strategy is an effective way to build, and improve your brand recognition.

Affiliates are the ones spreading the good news about your brand, both physically and digitally. They are there to preach the good news of your brand to people, to their target audience, and convince them to make a purchase. If they successfully make a purchase and experience the goodness and find your products to be valuable, they will likely come back again for more purchases, and this time around, they might come with their friends. 

You see the circle, your brand is getting recognized and acknowledged. You can also build your brand recognition through word-of-mouth advertising and also encourage customers' feedback and reviews.

Common misconceptions about affiliate marketing

There have been so many misconceptions about affiliate marketing and we will be looking into them in this section and also I will be dispelling some of these misconceptions about affiliate marketing.

1. Expensive to start

This is one of the top misconceptions on my list because it's one of the biggest misconceptions on the internet. Most people believe that affiliate marketing is expensive to start, and may not be affordable to some people. In reality, this misconception is quite the opposite. If you have been reading through this article, you would have noticed where I indicated that affiliate marketing is easy to start at a lower cost. Although without any financial investment, it will be difficult because you will need to create a website, but trust me affiliate marketing is less costly to a startup than other forms of marketing.

2. It's too late to now

You might probably be wondering, "Affiliate marketing is becoming too popular nowadays on the internet. Maybe there isn't a chance for me to join, it's too late." Well, you are mistaken, there's more than enough chance for you in affiliate marketing. This misconception has made some businesses drop the idea of affiliate marketing but in reality, it's quite the opposite. 

The best time to start affiliate marketing is Now! Yes, there is a lot of work to do, but the effort is worth it. Don't look at the competition going on, and the number of affiliate marketing programs on the internet today, you should know that as the day goes by, there are more emerging companies on the internet and they will also be promoting their products, so the best time to start is now.

You will need to create a website, create a social media profile or page for your brand and then start posting links, promo codes, and banner ads.

3. Talk about the advertiser

There has also been a misconception that affiliate marketing is all about the advertiser, but that's only half the truth. Imagine if you have a great advertiser but a poor quality product, the reputation of your brand is at a big risk. Affiliate marketing isn't all about how great your advertiser is, or his/her fan base, it's also about the quality of your products and services.

It's great to have a good advertiser, and also high-quality products.

4. Technical skills needed

I can't remove this misconception from my list. This is a very common misconception going on. You might have probably heard someone say "Affiliate marketing requires technical know-how." With the basic skill you have, you can start affiliate marketing simply by promoting links on your social media platforms, and gradually you learn how to create a blog. 

You take the baby steps, you don't need to have strong technical skills to start affiliate marketing.

5. Fast stream of income

Don't be deceived to think that affiliate marketing is one of those make-money-quick schemes, No! It's not. However a little percentage of this misconception is true but that's if you already have a well-established audience, a website with high traffic, and a large email list. But for starters, I don't think you can earn money quickly from this marketing strategy. 

Yes! Affiliate marketing will make you a lot of money, but it takes time and effort. Also as an affiliate marketer, it might take a month or less to start earning from affiliate marketing, but all the same affiliate marketing is worth the effort.

6. Goes hand in hand with advertising 

Affiliate marketing isn't the same as advertising, it is more than just advertising.

Affiliate marketing requires communication and trust before it can be successful. In affiliate marketing, you recommend to your buyers the products that have been tested and tried either by you or someone else and proven to be true but in advertising, it's the opposite, you don't need to test the products.

There are many more misconceptions on the internet but don't let them get in your way.

Chapter 2

Why should you start affiliate marketing?

Don't know where to start? Then don't worry, in this section, we will be looking at reasons why you should start affiliate marketing. 

1. It's cheap

You aren't surprised, are you? The reason why I picked this to be on my top list is that, like I said earlier affiliate marketing is cheap and not as expensive as other marketing strategies. There are no start-up fees, you don't need to have a warehouse, or store to get started. All you need is to sign up for an affiliate program, your laptop or smartphone, and an internet connection.

Although some sites require you to pay before joining their affiliate marketing program, some sites offer free affiliate marketing programs.

Affiliate marketing programs are free only if you might spend some money to create a site and produce high-quality content on the site, which is optional, you can decide to focus on promotion on your social media platforms.

2. Independence

There's nothing that feels better than having your independence while working. Being your boss, and deciding your work hours. Affiliate marketing can give you the Independence you desire, you can work anyway, and anytime. You can also choose your own work hours, and work wherever you like at your own time, pace, and comfort as long as there's an internet connection you're good to go.

Nothing feels as good as knowing that whether you work every day or not, there are always streams of income trickling down.

3. Low entry barrier

You don't have to worry about your educational background, work experience, and skill acquisition. You can be an affiliate marketer just by signing up and filling out the forms provided. The low entry barrier makes it easier and hassle-free to be an affiliate marketer. You don't have to worry about having any degree or work experience.

You don't need to submit any CV/Resume, you don't need to attend any interview, all you need is just your smartphone, laptop, and an internet connection.

4. Can be a side hustle

You can be working as a full-time affiliate marketer or as a part-time affiliate marketer. If you already have a well-paying job, affiliate marketing can be a side hustle for you. You can still be making a handful of money as a part-time affiliate marketer regardless of your work hours.

It might not be that easy at the beginning as a part-time affiliate marketer, but with time, and consistency you will start earning enough, afterwards you can decide to either quit your current job and focus more on affiliate marketing or to still retain both. 

5. Passive income 

Once you have started, and established your affiliate marketing business, you can start making some money online.

With little effort, you can make passive income even on a product recommended months ago. You don't have to start going about posting on your social media platforms, or website every day, once you have already set up your profile and website, you are sure to make sales and earn money even while at sleep. 

6. Great for competitors

There are people who love competition, if you are one of them then affiliate marketing is definitely for you. As more and more people tend to dive into this marketing strategy, you can also follow suit. You can compete with others in the same niche as you, to see who gets the best performance, to know whose site gets more traffic and whose products attract more buyers.

Just like you can get addicted to playing your favorite but competitive game, trust me affiliate marketing can be addictive too.

Players involved in affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing involves three players, each collaborating to promote a product and services.

They include:

- The merchant or the brand

- The Affiliate or publisher

- Affiliate Network 

- The Consumer 

The merchant or the brand is the first person in affiliate marketing, they offer the products and services to affiliate marketers. They are the ones who create and own the products or services, they provide the affiliate with the goods they need according to their niche. They also offer the affiliate the necessary support and resources they need to effectively promote the products.

The Affiliate: Also known as the publisher, they are one of the key players involved in affiliate marketing. You can see affiliates as those who work with an affiliate network program to promote goods and services and earn commission-based income.

As an affiliate, your job is to convince customers to buy the products and tell them about their value and their benefits.

Affiliate Network: This connects the merchant with the affiliate. Without an affiliate network like Amazon Associates affiliate program, there won't be a connection between merchant and affiliate, and when there's no connection, there won't be anything like affiliate marketing.

The Consumer: Without the Consumer affiliate marketing will not be a successful one. They are the one that buys the product.

Types of affiliate marketing

There are three main types of affiliate marketing. They include Unattached, related, and involved. We will be looking at each of them.

Unattached Affiliate Marketing 

This is the most uninvolved form of marketing. Here the affiliate does not know the products or services, they don't possess any skills needed to promote the products. 

This type of affiliate marketing is like pay-per-click, the affiliate has no presence or authority on the niche they are promoting, and all they do is put affiliate links through Google AdWords, Facebook ads, Instagram ads, etc. This type of affiliate marketing needs time to build a reputation and trust from customers. It might seem attractive because there's no authority needed, but it might be hard to gain the trust of customers. It focuses mainly on income rather than the customers you're serving.

Related Affiliate Marketing 

Here the affiliate has the audience needed to drive traffic and generate sales. In this type of affiliate marketing, the affiliate has a connection with the niche and knows the niche products. They don't need to use the product or make claims of using the product but they have knowledge of the product's niche.

For instance, a YouTube influencer or lifestyle blogger may promote skincare products that they haven't used or even enlargement products they haven't used, simply because they have an audience interested in skincare and enlargement products.

Involved Affiliate Marketing 

In Involved affiliate marketing, it involves the affiliate having a connection with the products. You can see them as the opposite of related affiliate marketing, unlike related affiliate marketing which doesn't use the product before marketing an Involved affiliate marketing program involves the affiliate having a first-hand experience of the product before recommending it to their audience.

They talk about their experience with the product and also discuss the advantages, and disadvantages of the products to the audience. It takes more time to build trust and credibility from your audience but your ROI tends to be high.

Finding the right affiliate program

There are many ways to find affiliate programs. You can find them by searching for affiliate programs on Google

Although some companies use different terms for affiliate marketing, Amazon uses the term Affiliate associates program. And many others.

To be able to find the right affiliate marketing program first is to search for them. Like I said earlier, you can search for an affiliate marketing program on Google, or your friends can recommend some affiliate programs to you.

Once you have found an affiliate marketing program, you'll need to check the company's website, and also ensure that the Company has a good reputation, because this will also boost your reputation and marketing efforts.

If the company has a poor reputation, and a poor quality product, it will negatively affect its reputation, and trying to market the product will only make it fail faster. To know what customers think of a product or brand before marketing to them, you can check out the review site on Google, their Business page, forums, and Google reviews. You can also check your social media platforms, if you notice high levels of engagement from their customers, positive reviews and feedback, low product return rate, and positive rating then you can trust the brand.

When you are done checking out the company's profile and reputation, then you can consider picking a product. I advise you to pick a product you know or have used before or maybe one that you can easily market. Know what your audience wants and what sits well with them then go for that kind of product. Choose a high-quality product, you can use it before marketing it to your audience, you can also read customer reviews and testimonials. This will enable you to be able to answer questions effectively on it, and also clearly explain the advantages and disadvantages of the product. The more you know about the products and services, the easier it will be for you to sell them effectively thereby leading to high ROI.

As I said earlier, promote products your audience is familiar with and fits your niche. Also, you can earn higher commissions as an affiliate marketer if you choose programs that offer competitive commission rates.

Here are some affiliate programs you can consider;

Amazon Associates affiliate program

Click Bank

eBay partner network

GiddyUp

Impact

Commission Junction (CJ)

Rakuten Affiliate

Chapter 3

How much money can you make as an affiliate marketer?

As an affiliate marketer Affiliate Marketing is meant to provide you with the financial freedom you need. It's a profitable industry to invest in. You must have been hearing about people making a 6 digits figure monthly from affiliate marketing. Is it really true? We would find out in this section.

As an affiliate marketer, you are sure to access some level of financial success, but it isn't a get-rich-quick scheme, don't think that if you join affiliate marketing you will start making millions and millions in just one month. To be successful in affiliate marketing you need to put in effort before you can start seeing results.

According to Hacker’s Niall Roche affiliate marketing is divided into three categories which include

Beginner: $0-$1000 per month.

Intermediate: $1000-$10,000 per month

Advanced: $10,000-$100,000 per month.

Super Affiliate: over $100,000 monthly 

According to a survey conducted by a Marketing benchmark, it was disclosed that about 3.78% of survey respondents made more than $150,000 per annum, 7.95% made about $100,000-$150,000 every annum, about 5.15% made about $50,000-$100,000 per annum, 16.21% made around $10,000-$50,000 per annum, and finally 57.55% of respondents made below $10,000 every year.

However, it's worth noting that these figures represent people who stuck at affiliate marketing - many have tried and failed to make a useful income from it.

According to Hacker’s Niall Roche, before you can start making enough money from affiliate marketing to consider replacing your current job, it can take up to two years. This can discourage some, that's why according to the diagram, most beginners hardly make it to the advanced category they give up on the way. You should know that to be a successful affiliate marketer it does take time, and a lot of effort, you will need a lot of patience, persistence, and commitment to make it work.  

Getting started with affiliate marketing

To get started with affiliate marketing here are things you need.

Choosing your niche

Choose the niche that you are knowledgeable and passionate about. This helps you to be able to easily build trust among your customers. 

For example, let's say you're passionate about your skincare and how to maintain healthy skin, you can open a blog, or a YouTube channel to help people care for their skin healthily and also maintain healthy skin. You can also recommend some products to them that can help them maintain healthy skin. Also, you encourage them to like, share, and follow your content

To grow your audience you will have to invest in content marketing.

The niche you select says a lot about you and if you are passionate about the niche, you will like to invest more time and effort in building it.

As a beginner in affiliate marketing, when choosing a niche to focus on, choose less competitive niche tools like Google Keyword Planner, SpyFu, and SEMRush will help you know, and give you insights on the level of competition in each niche.

According to Rae Dolan, a well-known affiliate marketer, here are steps to take in choosing a niche:

- PPC bids are used as an indicator of competition in the topic. You will find out if no one is advertising in that space or maybe the volumes are low, this will indicate limited appeal.

- Conduct research on the keywords in the niche and see if the results are major brand home pages. If they are, it will likely suggest a high level of competition in such areas. But if they include only small blogs, you may have an opportunity.

- Create a list of ranking sites and go through their inbound link to see how difficult it might be to meet those numbers. We recommend choosing a niche with low competition and high search volume.

Once you have decided on the niche you want to venture into, and checked the volume and possibility to scale in such an area. We will now look at the profitability scale.

As an affiliate marketer, when choosing a niche you should also consider its revenue generation rate. Find products, or brands around your area of interest with high commission so as to make profits. Take the niche and test its worth, as an affiliate marketer it's of no use getting into a less profitable niche, and you can do this on ClickBank. Start by clicking on the affiliate marketplace at the bottom of the top menu. Begin by searching for your category in the provided search bar on top.

Once you have found your niche, click on it, and you will see a search result giving you a list of profitable products you can sell for your niche. To better understand this search result as it can get confusing most times, we recommend sorting your results by 'Gravity' and from high to low.

Here you will be able to see clearly how well affiliate products sell well for a particular niche.

Another step to take is to double-check your niche on Google AdWords to check its Cost per click (CPC). Since your focus will be on how to increase sales, revenue, and drive traffic, finding out how much clicks cost and knowing how to compete is important.

Who is your target audience? This is the next question that should come to your mind. To find out who they are, look at their demographics to know about their names, countries, addresses, gender, income level, education level, and hobbies.

Once you have identified who they are you can now know the kind of product that you will offer them, know their needs, and be able to choose products that will meet those needs.

Also, remember that to effectively market a product to your customers, you must know its benefits, features, advantages, and disadvantages. This will make them see you as an authority in that niche.

Building a website or blog

To be a successful affiliate marketer, you need to build a blog or website. There are many website builders on the internet they include:

- WordPress

- Wix

- Square space etc

We recommend WordPress for various reasons, and especially because even if you don't have the technical know-how on coding, you can build a professional and responsive site in minutes.

WordPress has more tools built into it to help their site perform well at a higher level. You also need to customize your site with themes and plugins. WordPress has varieties of free themes for you to choose from. Moreover, you can install the best WordPress plugins on your site to improve its security and help manage your site better.

However you also need a domain name, this is your site address. Pick a simple, short, and unique domain name.

Creating quality content

Poor quality content doesn't convert. As an affiliate marketer you need to earn the trust of your customers, and creating high-quality content that resonates with them Is one of the best ways to do so.

High-quality content not only earns you trust and credibility, but also improves a site's organic traffic, and boosts its performance on search results. Regardless of what type of content you are creating, whether it be a YouTube video, blog post, email copy, or newsletter, you should aim to create engaging, educative, informative, and original content.

Use specific target keywords to help you in determining their pain, needs, and problems. You can consider using long-tail keywords as they are easier to rank. For your keyword research, Google Keyword Planner and SEMRush will help you. 

Growing your audience and traffic

Good content drives traffic. Driving traffic to your site is necessary for boosting its leads, conversation, and sales, and attracting potential customers.

To boost your site traffic you need to invest in your SEO strategy. This includes your keyword optimization, ensuring the responsiveness of your site, how easy it is to navigate, ensuring it's mobile-friendly, and also link building.

There are also ways to generate traffic to your site they include;

Social Media Posts: If you have a large audience on your social media platforms, it's a huge advantage to you, as you can increase your brand awareness easily without stress. If you don't have a large audience on your social media platforms, then you will need to build up followers, to increase engagement, and brand awareness. You can also optimize each of your content with hashtags to boost discoverability, especially on social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. 

Email Campaign: Another form of generating traffic is through email marketing. Email marketing is an act of sending business, and commercial messages to your audience through email. Through email marketing, you can send advertisements, make sales, or donations.

As an affiliate marketer through email marketing, you can build your brand awareness, trust, and credibility. When sending emails to your audience, make use of a custom email address that contains your company's website.

Guest Posting: Guest Posting has proven to increase site traffic. You can reach out to sites that have a similar niche as you, and offer to write quality content for them. This will increase your site traffic and audience.

Promoting affiliate products

To promote affiliate products, you will need to choose an affiliate program. You can select from the list of affiliate programs above or you can search for affiliate programs online. Once you have chosen your affiliate program you select affiliate products to sell.

Before you promote an affiliate product, you should check its commission rate. 

Tracking and optimizing your results

Tracking your affiliate results is very essential to know whether you should adjust your marketing strategy. You can track things like pages, links and know which one gets the most traffic. Tools like Post Affiliate Pro, LinkTrack, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Voluum can help you to track and optimize your results.

One of the most popular, and free tracking tools is Google Analytics which you can use to track the conversion rate of your affiliate links and website traffic. Post Affiliate Pro can be used to track sales, commissions, and clicks.

To optimize your affiliate results you can use data gathered to increase your Conversion rates by creating high-quality content and tweaking your website.

By tracking and optimizing your results, you can build a successful affiliate business.

Chapter 4

You have spent time building an affiliate business, in this section we will be looking at the advanced affiliate marketing strategies to scale your revenue. 

Diversifying your income sources

Affiliate Marketing is a popular and profitable industry. It has become a popular way for people to make money online either as a part-time affiliate marketer or as a full-time affiliate marketer.

Many affiliate marketers are signing up for multiple affiliate marketing programs to diversify their source of income and increase their access to a wide range of products in their respective niches.

As an affiliate marketer diversifying your income source is very important. As a beginner in affiliate marketing, we advise you to rely on two affiliate programs for a start. Diversifying your income helps to gain more revenue thereby reducing the risk of focusing on one source of income.

One of the main reasons we recommend diversifying your income sources is to reduce the risk of relying on one source of income.

For example, assuming you are promoting a product from ClickBank or a brand like Nestle, a change in the market i.e. signing up for a different affiliate marketing program or focusing on two niches can earn you a significant amount of money and increase website traffic.

Ways to diversify your income source include:

Use several affiliate networks

As I said earlier I advise you to sign up for multiple affiliate networks. Imagine having to make a huge amount of money from Amazon Associates affiliates and also from ClickBank. Signing up for both of them and successfully building an affiliate business on them will not only serve as a means to diversify your income but will also increase your revenue and commission rates. You will also have access to a wider range of high-quality products in your niche.

Create your own product

Consider creating your products. It can be anything from ebooks, skincare products, beauty products, courses, or even software. This will increase your revenue, and also build a stronger audience. If you look there must be something you're good at, tap into that potential, and you will make a huge amount of income. Now you can earn money from products from other brands and your brand. Sounds great right?

Promote on different platforms

There are many social media platforms you can promote your product on including TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and a lot more. Instead of relying on one platform to promote your product like a website and blog, you can leverage the power of promoting products through emails, social media platforms, and other platforms. It will not only diversify your means of income but will also increase your reach and improve brand engagement.

Sponsored content

We can omit this strategy. Creating sponsored content for brands in your niche is an additional way to diversify your income. Also don't forget to let your audience know of any sponsored content on your platform and also don't promote products you don't believe in or haven't even tested.

Coaching or consulting services

If you have enough knowledge in your niche or maybe you are certified in your area of interest, you can consider offering consulting services to your audience. This is a highly lucrative way of diversifying your income source as an affiliate marketer. 

By following the above-listed ways you can make a significant amount of money by diversifying your income.

Leveraging email marketing

Email marketing is a powerful tool used to market products, notify customers of any promotions, make sales, donations, and many more.

Here are the ways to leverage your email marketing as an affiliate marketer:

Building an email list

You can leverage the power of email marketing when you don't have an email list. You build an email list by collecting email addresses from your audience to build a list of subscribers. You can collect email addresses from your audience by creating a newsletter, a lead magnet, or running a contest or giveaways.

Segment email List

When you hear the word "Segment" it means 'to divide.' To segment your email list means dividing your email list into groups according to their internet, behaviors, demographics, occupation, etc. Doing this gives you insights into what type of email Campaign will resonate well with a particular audience.

Provide value 

If you aren't providing value, then you aren't going to build an authority in that niche. Customers go for what has value. Make sure that the content is YouTube videos, blog posts, newsletters, etc. Offers value to them. When we say value, we are talking about creating content that is engaging, educative, informative, and relevant to their area of interest.

Promote products via email

You can also promote your affiliate products through email, after you have successfully built an email list, and established an audience. Choose products that will be relevant to your audience based on their interest, purchase history, demographics, and occupation.

Sense of urgency

To increase the conversion of your email campaign create a sense of urgency while creating your email. Encourage them to take a specific action by putting in a deadline for them to take action. If you are running a promotion on skincare products, you can create a sense of urgency by creating a deadline for your deal. For example

"Oriflame Skincare Products is running a promotion, to get all Skincare products at a cheaper rate with about a 30% discount on each of your purchases, this promotion begins on the 23rd of May 2023 and is going to end on the 5th of June 2023. Shop Now!"

Make sure you include a link to your website in your email In Case you want them to perform a specific action.

Automation 

Automation has made email marketing stress-free, and easier. The power of automation can save you time, effort and also improve the effectiveness of your campaign.

For example for your new subscribers you can send an automated welcome message to them, introducing them to your brand, and products.

Leveraging the power of email campaigns helps to generate sales, increase traffic and also build relationships with your audience.

Utilizing social media and paid advertising

To be a successful affiliate marketer you have to leverage the power of social media platforms. Billions of people use social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Twitter, etc. daily. Most businesses are making waves by using these social media platforms to boost their brand awareness and sales. Having a well-laid-out social media marketing strategy can help you increase your conversions, generate sales, and reach a wider range of audience.

Here's how you can utilize social media and paid advertising as an affiliate marketer:

Choose the Right Platform

This is the first thing to take into consideration. Know which platform you can likely find your audience, or platforms your audience uses on a daily basis, and sign up for that platform. 

Also considering your niche, some platforms can be more effective than others. For example, if you are advertising in a niche like Fashion, health and fitness, politics, housewares, arts and crafts then you can leverage the power of Facebook. Facebook has nearly 3 billion users each month, making it one of the world's most-used social media platforms.

If you are in the programming, digital marketing, personal development, travel, and web development niche then you can leverage the power of Twitter. This platform is most popular with people between the ages of 25 -34 years old. With over 206 million daily users. You can post on these platforms on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 9 a.m. to increase engagement.

If you are interested in beauty, travel, fashion, health, and fitness, you will find your target audience on Instagram. Instagram is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms with half a billion people using it daily.

Build Strong Social Media Presence

It's one thing to be found on social media but it's another thing to build a strong reputable presence on social media. To build a strong social media presence, you should create a professional business profile, which includes your business details such as the company's logo, engaging description, company address, website URL, etc. 

Posting regularly increases engagement. Provide your audience with valuable content, and make sure it's informative, engaging, and relevant to their needs.

Share Content

Once you have taken the above step, it's to share your content with your audience. To establish trust and credibility you need to create and share valuable content with your audience. Make sure it's informative, engaging, and relevant to their needs. By doing this you aren't only earning their loyalty, and trust but it will also attract more followers.

Below are some best times to post on some social media platforms.

Best time of the day to share content on Facebook between 

• Monday: 9:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 3:00 PM
• Tuesday: 9:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 3:00 PM
• Wednesday: 9:00 AM, 10:00 AM, 1:00 PM, 4:00 PM
• Thursday: 9:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 4:00 PM
• Friday: 11:00 AM, 4:00 PM, 6:00 PM

The best time to share content on Instagram is between

Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., 

The best time to share content on Twitter is between 8-10 am and 6-9 pm. For better engagement, then you should consider posting early in the morning (7-9 am) or late in the night (8-11 pm).

Promote Your Products 

You shouldn't ignore your social media platforms; they are an effective way of generating sales and traffic. To promote your affiliate products on social media platforms, make sure you choose products that are relevant to your audience and resonate with them.

If your audience is interested in beauty products, post on beauty products and don't diversify, if they love and are interested in home decor products then give them what they need, by doing things you will improve your engagement and increase sales.

Paid Advertising

Running ads can be a powerful way to boost Sales and traffic. There are several advertising options on social media which can include display ads, sponsored posts, etc. 

One benefit of paid advertising is that you can target a specific audience, interests, and demographics to reach your target audience.

Partnering with other affiliates

There are many benefits of Partnering with other affiliates.

Wider audience

Partnering with other affiliates gives you access to a wider audience, it also boosts your reputation and credibility in your niche. With other affiliate marketers, you can reach a wider audience than you can imagine. Their different audience base together with your own, can help you reach new potential customers.

Income diversification

Think of diversifying your income then consider partnering with other affiliates. You can promote a wide range of products to both your audience and your partner's audience. By doing this you increase your earnings.

Cross promotion

This method can open doors of cross Promotion between affiliates. You can decide to cross-promote your products and services across each other's audience. By doing this you are increasing your sales, revenue, and traffic.

Improved SEO

By providing backlinks, and social signals, partnering with other affiliates can improve your SEO. Collaboration with other affiliates with stronger audiences, authority, and audience can boost your site ranking on search results.

Chapter 5

Best practices for affiliate marketing

In this section are tips to succeed as an affiliate marketer.

Lay out your affiliate marketing goals

Set out measurable goals for your affiliate business. This is the most important step to take before starting an affiliate business.

It's important to be single eyed and focus on your goals. Before you start your affiliate program, you should be able to know what you want to achieve with your affiliate program, and how you want to achieve them.

Make your goals S.M.A.R.T. 

S- Specific

M- measurable 

A- Attainable

R- Relevant 

T- Timely

These acronyms are very essential if you want to have a successful business. The more your goals are in line with these acronyms, the easier it will be to excel and achieve those goals. 

Your goals should be specific, write them down, be straight to the point, and be detailed. For example, I want to increase my website traffic

This is a typical example of a specific goal, and it's not ambiguous.

Measurable: A measurable goal for instance takes into account what is required to achieve that goal. For example "I would love to increase my website traffic from 2000 hits every month to 10,000 hits per month, and I can measure my progress through my Google Analytics which shows how many clicks, views, and number of visitors I have."

Attainable: This takes into account how long it might be for the goal to be achieved. For example 

"I would love to increase my website traffic from 2000 hits every month to 10,000 hits per month, and I can achieve this goal by investing more in organic traffic, running advertisements,  and posting regularly on my social media platforms at least three times every day.."

If your goals aren't specific, or measurable, then they can't be achievable.

Relevant: For your goals to be relevant as an affiliate marketer, they must align with your company's mission. For example "I would love to increase my website traffic from 2000 hits every month to 10,000 hits per month, to make this happen I will employ more writers to create more engaging and informative content, and also set aside 30 minutes each day to evaluate the site's performance."

Timebound: this contains how long it will take to accomplish your goals. Know whether it's short-term goals, mid-term goals, or long-term goals. Then you can set up a specific deadline for each of your goals, make sure your Deadlines are specific and relevant. 

For example "I would love to increase my website traffic from 2000 hits every month to 10,000 hits per month, to make this happen I will employ more writers to create more engaging and informative content, and also set aside 30 minutes each day every week to evaluate and measure the site's performance." 

Disclosing your affiliate relationship

This is very important, especially on your website, blogs, and social media platforms. Always disclose your affiliate relationship with your audience. Let them know that there is an affiliate link on your site and when they click on the link and make any purchase, you will receive some sort of commission.

There are ways to disclose your affiliate relationship with your audience

Providing value to your audience

Your marketing goals should be to provide value to your audience, knowing their needs, pain points, and expectations will give you insights on how to market to them.

If you don't know your customers, they will all be strangers to you, and you will look like an intruder to them. Knowing your customer is very vital for the success of your business. Your customers are as unique as your products. 

Ways in which you can know who your customers are Includes:

1. Conduct a research

The first step to understanding your customers is to conduct research otherwise how else would you be able to do so? You can sniff out who they are. Conducting research may involve your audience demographics, analyzing their demographics such as age, gender, occupation, location, and income level. You can also go ahead and analyze their psychographic data. This includes data like their values, behaviors, and interests.

2. Leveraging the power of social media forums

You can gain customers' insights through social media or online forums. You can do this by carefully monitoring their conversation on Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, etc. There you can learn more about their experience with other products, needs, pain points, and expectations.

3. Analyze website and emails

By doing this you can gain insights into who your audience is, and also understand them better. This can help you know how your pages are performing, which page has the highest engagement, and why.

Staying up-to-date with industry changes

Staying up-to-date with the latest affiliate marketing industry trends helps you to maximize your earnings, and stay competitive, and successful.

Here are some tips to help you:

1. Subscribe to get information from industry publications

Subscribe to get information from industry publications and blogs to stay current with the trends and news in the industry. It will increase your chance of more conversion, it will let you know of the latest development in the industry, and help you remain competitive.

2. Join forums

To find your fellow affiliate marketers or business owners, then join Forums and groups, where they talk about trends, the latest development, strategies, tips, tricks, and best practices.

It's essential you stay connected with other affiliate marketers, and one of the best ways to do that is to join groups and forums to learn from their mistakes, past experiences, and also success stories.

3. Influencers

Most businesses are leveraging the power of famous influencers. One of the best practices to succeed as an affiliate marketer is to stay connected with industry influencers on their social media platforms, blogs, and newsletter. This will enable you to know about any current trends in your niche.

4. Attend conferences

This is one of the most important ways of staying up-to-date with industry trends. Attend Conferences, and events in your industry to catch up with the latest development, strategies, and practices. You can as well meet potential customers and partners for this gathering. 

Don't be selfish as an affiliate marketer, or business owner. Don't focus only on the profit or commission you would make, and ignore your customer's needs, feedback, interests, and benefits. Don't mislead your audience with fake, poor-quality products, or dishonest advertising, or hide the truth from them. Remember if you do these they are to your company's detriment.

Let them know the products will benefit them, if there's an affiliate link on your website, and provide services relevant to your audience. 

One main reason to maintain transparency and honesty as an affiliate is that your customers are the ones to recommend your products to others and build a relationship with genuine products. If they notice that you're all in for the profit, they will back off and this will lead to a bad reputation.

Be honest with your reviews, don't try to hide the negative reviews or feedback from your customers, and be sure to mention any negative reviews, feedback, drawbacks, etc to them. This will make your brand more trustworthy and appear credible. Also, promote only products you believe in, and probably have used, this will earn you the trust of your audience.

Avoiding common mistakes

Having looked at various ways you can succeed as an affiliate marketer. In this section, we will be taking a look at some common mistakes you can avoid as an affiliate marketer if you want to succeed in affiliate marketing. Here are some mistakes you should avoid.

1. Low-quality content 

We emphasized earlier in this content that your content is your best product. The way you produce your content determines how many numbers of clicks you will have. 

High-quality content leads to higher conversion. To create high-quality content you will have to keep your audience in mind while creating content. Your users determine the quality of your content and they value high quality content when they see it. They won't stay on a site with poor quality. This is bad for your SEO too as low-quality content leads to a high bounce rate.

When writing for your audience, keep in mind their area of interest, needs, and the solutions they seek. Make sure your content contains information that will be valuable to your audience. Also when writing content make them engaging, informative, and enjoyable to read. Create quality content that's different from your competitors, do not copy and paste, be original, and authentic, have fun while writing, and be personal in your information.

2. Site speed

Have you come across a site that takes almost forever to load? If yes then probably you didn't stay long on that site. Study shows that if your site speed is slow or takes longer than 2 seconds to load, it will lead to a higher bound rate.

Large contents like images or videos can slow down the site's speed, so we advise compressing them before uploading them on your site.

Caching is another way to improve your site speed, it's a simple term for temporarily storing files or data. It improves site performance.

3. Having a shallow understanding of what you are selling 

Invest to learn what you are selling. One of the biggest mistakes you can make I'm affiliate marketing is having a Shallow Understanding of the products you are selling. Make sure that you study the products well, make use of it if you have to, and gather facts, and customer reviews from the company's website.

Equip yourself with the necessary information about the company, so you can be able to answer your customers' queries, and also be able to communicate the advantages, and disadvantages of the products. 

4. Organic traffic only

Relying only on organic traffic can be the biggest mistake you can make. If you want to be successful as an affiliate marketer you shouldn't rely on search engine organic traffic alone, also invest in other platforms. 

Social media can be a great way of generating enough traffic for your site. You can invest in paid advertising, and run ads on your social media platforms to create brand awareness and generate leads and sales.

5. Get rich scheme

Most people think that affiliate marketing is a get-rich-quick scheme. If you are still having those kinds of thoughts then you should wave it off. This is one of the mistakes some affiliate marketers make.

The truth is affiliate marketing is not a "Get Rich Quick Scheme" Period! If someone tells you that affiliate marketing can make you a huge amount of money in a couple of days, please run to the hills! In case you are thinking that affiliate marketing is a get-rich-quick schemes snap out of it!

Just like any other business affiliate marketing takes time, and effort before you can start making a significant amount of money from it. Affiliate Marketing will surely make you a lot of money, but you will need a long term business plan for your marketing and operations.

6. Profits instead of value 

Finally here on our list is one mistake you can actually be making as an affiliate marketer and don't know you are making this mistake. Focusing on your profit instead of the value you offer can be a wrong choice.

If you really want to be successful as an affiliate marketer and build an authority then you will have to focus on providing value to your audience. Let your content help your audience by doing this, you are not only building credibility but also you are changing their mindset from believing you are selling to them to believing you're helping them.

Conclusion

Conclusion

In conclusion, affiliate marketing is a very lucrative business, a multi-billion dollar industry that you can invest in. 

Investing in your brand is one way to earn recognition. Brand recognition is one huge benefit of affiliate marketing to an organization. You can't have high traffic without brand recognition. This marketing strategy is an effective way to build and improve your brand recognition.

Affiliate Marketing can also help you experience a great increase in the number of website visits, and your website will greatly benefit from this.

As a business owner, using affiliate marketing is very beneficial for the promotion of your brand and products. Also, remember that building a strong relationship with your audience is very essential if you want to earn their loyalty and trust. 

^ Back to top

Around the 30th minute of this week's Google I/O 23 keynote, Aparna Pappu, VP and GM for Google Workspace, casually launched a Google Docs document as part of her presentation on how AI as a collaborator, is coming to Docs, Slides and Sheets (love the fact that it called Duet, a bit more poetic than Microsoft’s Copilot). 

The first is, ironically, one for the job description (one of the most popular use cases, she quipped). For a split second when the help me write box appears, it displays a text that reads “a blog post about fashion in a quirky tone”. Blink and you might miss it.

As a content producer, that was the highlight of Google I/O 23 for me, the realization that Google is now comfortable enough with AI-generated content that it is actively encouraging the production of text within its own online services with a potential audience of more than two billion users. (Where will it stop? Will it come to YouTube one day as a “help me produce” prompt? Who knows).

While not (yet) one of the best website builders, Google Sites may sooner rather than later inherit the "help me write" feature. Others like Wix and Hostinger Website Builder have already included it in their features but Google’s unique position as content producer and SERP gatekeeper makes it all the more worrying for publishers worldwide.

Search engine optimization: The end?

Google’s search generative experience, where answers are produced by Google’s AI and inserted at the very top of the Search Engine Results Page, is certainly what will get the SEO community’s attention because it, yet again, pushes organic results down the page and this will have a long, lasting impact on publishers of all sizes. 

I’d call it the “footnotization” of SERPs, as it relegates content producers to what could essentially turn into footnotes at the bottom of the page (similar to what we see in Wikipedia pages). Maybe it was all planned and ChatGPT was the perfect excuse for Google to roll it out once and for all; we shall never know.

Back to content produced by AI, what now looks like a stamp of approval from Google, means that in a few months, there could be a surge in machine-produced content, legitimate or not, content that is not only cheaper to produce but also not easily distinguishable from content produced by humans. 

Lowering the cost of production to essentially a fraction of a dollar and eliminating the complexity of producing content (regardless of the topic or length) will profoundly alter the dynamics in online publishing. 

Unless of course, Google excludes content produced by its own AI engine but I wouldn’t count on that. This may encourage publishers of any size to adopt content produced by AI at scale which in turn will push SEO of any ilk to put scalability and automation at the core of their workflows, with the best SEO tools available.

But the more Google pushes the traditional organic content further down the page, the less valuable these positions become, which in turn could impact revenue and make SEO obsolete (why have SEO if all you’d be vying for are footnote positions). We cannot, of course, exclude Google’s ability to curate, condense, concatenate and rehash existing content to produce Wikipedia-like meta-content.

And that’s one last step before what I consider to be Google’s ultimate goal for continued, long term growth, the ability to insert affiliate links in AI generated content at the top of the SERP page. Performance marketing is worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually and AI might just be what Google needs to grab a bigger slice of that lucrative market.

Google has been the most popular search engine in the world with about 8.5 billion searches per day and 88.6 billion searches per month. It has been used and is still used by many people to search for locations, get tips on products, get recommendations and reviews on products, etc. One of its tools, which is Google My Business, is a free, powerful, and important tool used by many business owners to improve their visibility in Google search results and increase the number of visits to their sites.

Google My Business makes it easier for businesses to promote their store and products, and manage their store effectively. It's like a virtual phone book, it increases your chance of reaching potential customers thereby making your business easier to be found on Google search results.

Setting up a Google My Business Profile is one step to success for a business owner, it increases your chance of appearing in local search results thereby boosting your online visibility, and credibility. It's a tool that allows you to effectively manage and communicate with your customers, which helps to build trust and loyalty between you and your customers.

In this article, I will be showing you how to use Google my business for your business advancement. This article contains a step-by-step guide to setting up your Google My Business Profile, including how to optimize it for your business. Let's dive in!

Chapter 1  

What is Google Business Profile?

Like I said earlier, Google My Business Profile is a very powerful, easy-to-use tool, used by businesses to manage their business effectively, increasing visibility and appearance on local search results. It's like an ecosystem, it comprises your opening hours, closing hours, contact details, location, etc.

It helps customers find your business online, by creating a unique profile with the interface, it allows businesses to create an extension of their website to increase visibility. This tool is worth adding to your digital marketing channels for your business. According to a survey by Bright Local, it discovered that the average business which uses Google My Business for their business expansion or visibility has a total of 1,009 searches each month, with 16% of these searches coming from direct searches, and 85% of these searches coming from Discovery searches. 

Why you need a Google My Business account

There are several reasons or benefits of using this powerful tool, no matter the industry you operate in. This tool is very important if you want to boost your brand or business visibility, discoverability, credibility, etc. If you are still considering or thinking about creating a profile, let me walk you through the things or benefits your businesses can gain from creating a Google My Business Page. 

1. Increase Online Presence/ Getting Found on Google search results

Creating a Google My Business Profile is the most effective strategy to increase your online presence. One reason you need a Google My Business Profile is that the world is becoming a digitally focused world and setting up your online presence is essential to staying ahead or in front of other local customers.

Your brand visibility not only provides your brand awareness but also drives more potential customers to you. Setting up your profile accurately with the correct address, business category, hours of operation (opening and closing hours), phone number, and website will make it easier for potential customers to find you online. By simply listing your business on Google My Business, you are setting your brand up to get found on Google search results thereby increasing your chance of getting found online.

2. Customer Insights

Knowing your customers gives you insights on how to appeal to them or serve them better. Google My Business, gives you insights into who your target customers are, their location, and how they are engaging with your business. 

By navigating through the insights section of your Google My Business Profile you will find what your customers are doing, if they are requesting your store location if they are clicking on your website if they are checking any products out, or if they are calling your business, etc. With this information, you can know how to modify your changes, understand your customers better and improve your business.

3. Promote Your Products

Creating awareness of your products is very essential. Running ads to promote a product can be very costly but with Google My Business Profile you can run that for free.

Google My Business listing is a great way to promote your product, accurately listing your product and regularly updating your listing is very important for a successful SEO.

Ways To Promote Your Product on Google My Business Profile:

Offer Page: These are billboards in your Google My Business Profile for your product. They help bring your offers and products to the forefront of your profile. The deals or offers will appear above your reviews with the image of the products attached to them giving shoppers the urge to make an impulse purchase.

Events: Do you have any events coming up? Are deals or promotions coming up? Then with your Google My Business Profile you can schedule and set the event, providing information on the location and time of the events to enable interested persons to attend.

4. Show Up in Google Map Search

About 90% of people use Google Maps to locate a business nearby. With Google My Business Profile it makes it easier and more convenient for customers to visit your store and they will be more likely to make a purchase.

5. Boost Sales With Reviews

The majority of people love to go through the review of a product or service before making a purchase. Google My Business enables customers to be able to leave feedback on your business for other customers to see, and by doing so increases trust, credibility, and sales.

Chapter 2 

Setting up your Google My Business account

Now, it's time to take the big step. Setting up a Google My Business account is a very important step to take for the success of your business. 

Here are some of the things you need to set up a Google My Business Profile.

1. Google Account

To set up a Google My Business Profile you'll need a Google account. If you have a Gmail account then you probably have a Google account but if you don't have a Google account, below is a walkthrough on how to open a Google account.

How to Open a Google Account

Creating a Google Account takes only a few minutes. To set up a Google account on a browser, you should follow the steps below.

- Go to accounts.google.com

- Click On the signup button to create a Google Account.

- Next enter your Name, Password, and Username name of your choice.

- Click on the Next button to enter your Date of Birth, Phone number, recovery email, and gender.

- Follow the next step to verify your phone number.

- Follow the remaining instructions to create your account.

To Create an account using your phone;

- Go to your phone 'Settings'

- Select 'Account' for Android phones, for IOS go to the 'Mail' option to find this setting.

- Click Add Account and Select Google to create a Google Account.

- Then Follow the instructions on the screen, provide the personal information as required, and click on 'I Agree' to create an account.

2. Business Name and Business Information 

You will be requested to provide a business name, and also your business information such as Business Location, Operation Hours, Categories, Service Area, etc.

All this information will be used by Google to set up your Google My Business Profile. Make sure to provide this information because if the necessary information required isn't provided you stand a chance of losing some potential customers to your competitors.

3. Verification

Once you have imputed the necessary details, the last thing you will need to do is to verify your account before it can be published.

Your verification code will be sent to your provided email address or phone number you provided. Once you have completed this process, your business can now be published and seen on Google search results.

How to create a Google My Business account

Follow the steps below to create a Google My Business Profile.

Step 1: Create a Google Account

If you already have a Google Account, you can make use of it in setting up your account, but if you don't have a Google Account then you should follow the steps I provided above to create an account.

Step 2: Go to business.google.com

More information about Google My Business can be found here

Once you've created an account, you'll be able to manage your business listing, post updates online, reply to reviews, and upload photos.

With this account, you'll have access to your dashboard via the mobile app at any time, from anywhere. This means that when a review or question is made, you and your staff will be able to respond quickly, gaining a new customer right away.

Once you're on the Google My Business page, select "Manage Now" by clicking the large, green button.

Step 3. Business Name

What is the name of your business? 

Provide the information as requested. This is an easy part to complete. Provide a name that will be recognized by your customers if you have multiple names.

Step 4. Business Location

Enter where your business is located. If you don't have a physical location then select 'I deliver goods and services then click on hide my address to hide your address to make sure it isn't shown to your customers.

Step 5. Area of Service

In this section, you will provide your area of Service. If you run a service-based company without any location, then choose "Specific areas" and list the areas you serve.

If you do have a physical location and only offer your services to those who live nearby, choose "Distance around your business location" and enter the desired number of miles or kilometers.

Please only use your primary location for now if your company has multiple locations, you can add that later.

Step 6. Business Category

Choose a business category that suits your business best. Tell Google what you do, start by typing in the letter, and a drop-down of suggestions of various categories you can choose from will appear. Choose one that fits your business best.

Step 7. Contact Details

Your customers can only contact you through the contact details you provided. This section is optional but if you choose to fill it out, make sure you input the correct details.

The next step is to verify your business. I will be showing you how to verify your business in the next topic.

How to verify your business

Google My Business is a very powerful and essential tool to boost your visibility In Google search results. The first step to Optimizing your Google My Business Profile is to verify your business. I have shown you steps on how to set up an account, now we are going to look at How to verify your business. Verification of your business is very important because it ensures that your information is displayed accurately to enable you to see statistics and customer reviews, and also lets Google know that you alone have access to the profile.

Here are steps to verify your business

Step 1. Sign In to your account 

To get started on the verification of your account you need to start by signing into your Google My Business Account by going to https://www.google.com/business/

If you don't have a Google My Business Account, go to Google My Business website and click on the blue button that displays "Start Now", fill in the necessary details in the provided boxes. If you need a detailed guide, check out the 'How to create a Google My Business account' section above for a step-by-step guide. Once your account has been created, sign in to your account.

Step 2: Click On the Verify button

When you sign in to your account on your dashboard you will see a 'Verify' button next to your business name. Click to start the verification process.

Step 3: Choose the Verification Method

You can verify your business on Google My Business through several methods:

Email Verification: Google will send you a verification code in your email which you would confirm by entering the code on your Google My Business dashboard to complete your verification.

Postcard Verification: Here Google will mail your verification code to the business address you provided, once received, enter the code in your Google My Business dashboard to complete the process.

Phone number Verification: This is the final method of verification, here Google will call the business number you provided and then provide you with the verification code. Enter the code in your Google My Business dashboard in the space provided to verify your account.

Make sure you choose the method of verification that is convenient for you, also note that depending on your business category some verification methods might not be available or accessible.

Step 4: Wait to be Verified

Wait for your verification to be complete and approved. Once you have followed these methods of verification accurately, you will have to wait for Google to review your business and get you verified. This period might take a few days, just be patient.

Step 5: Confirmation

Once your business is Verified you will have to go through the information you provided to make sure it's accurate or correct. You won't like to provide misleading information to avoid losing some potential customers.

The verification process is very important to ensure the visibility of your business on Google search Maps and results.

Chapter 3

Adding your business information

In this section, I will be providing ways on how you can add your business information on Google My Business Profile.

Sign in to your account

To add your business information to your Google My Business Profile you will need to sign in to your account. 

Info tab

Click on the info tab on the left-hand menu once you have successfully signed in to your account. Here you can edit your business information

Add your business name

If you haven't already done this, you can edit it in this section. This should be a name that is highly recognized by your customers, use something they can easily recognize. Make sure your business name is accurately spelled, and it's the same IN all your Online Presence like Facebook, Instagram, Website URL, etc.

Simply click the pencil icon next to the "Business name" field and type your business name to add your business name.

Business category

Your business category helps to attract customers who search for businesses like yours and enable Google to understand your business. Here you should add a category that best describes what you do, while typing a drop-down menu containing category suggestions from Google will be provided, and you should choose the best fit.

Contact details

Basic information like your contact details, phone number, address, and website URL shouldn't be omitted. This is essential because it helps customers to find your business on Google Maps and search results and also know your location.

Make sure all this information is up-to-date. If you have a business address, you will need to enter your address including your zip code or postal code, street address, country, city or state, etc. But if you don't have an address, you can provide your services and hide your address. 

After you are done adding your business address, you need to add your phone number and website URL. To do this Simply click the pencil icon next to each field and enter the appropriate information to add your phone number and website URL.

Business hours

This is important information to update on your profile, it lets your customers know when to visit and when not to visit your store. To add your business section, Click On the icon on the Hours and provide your operation hours for each day of the week as well as your closing hours.

How to add photos and videos to your listing

There are several ways you can add photos and videos to your profile and I will be walking you through that in this section.

Photos and videos help you stand out from the crowd because it's a visual representation of your business. It helps customers understand what your business is all about with the photos and videos that will showcase when they search for your business online.

Photos and videos can be a great way to highlight how your products are made, what your company looks like, and what your team members look like, and also showcase the facilities in your business. It helps make a remarkably strong first impression on your target customers.

Here are some types of photos you can add to your business listing:

Cover photo: This can sometimes be the first thing a customer sees when they visit your profile. It's a photo that is set at the top of your profile that serves as a representative of your business.

Business photos: These could be anything relating to the service you offer or products. This is what aids customers in their purchase decision-making.

Logo: This helps to highlight your business on Google search results.

Exterior photo: These photos show the location of your business, making it easier for customers to find you.

Interior photos: This she's the design and interiors of your business, giving your customers the view and feels of your business atmosphere.

Product photos: Here you display the pictures of your products to give your customers an idea of what your products are like and be able to trust you.

Rooms: If your business is in the hotel industry, this photo is a selling point for your business. It showcases what your room looks like and its standard. This helps customers to plan their stay at your hotel during a vacation.

Photo of your team members: This helps customers to know that your company has a group of happy and satisfied people who work together to achieve a common goal.

Foods and drinks: For the restaurant industry, help customers choose the perfect place for dinner by showcasing your dish.

Common area: Help potential customers picture the luxuries and amenities they might be enjoying if you work in the hospitality industry.

How to Add Photos and Videos to Your Profile

1. First is to log in to your Google My Business Profile.

2. Click on the photos tab in the left-hand menu.

3. Choose the type of photos you want to add or video based on the categories I provided above.

4. It's time to click on the Add button once you have selected the photo or video you want to add.

5. After uploading you can choose to add captions or locations. This is optional, but if you choose to provide it, it's a great way to provide more information about the photos and also gives location, especially if you added an "Exterior Photo."

6. Once you are done, Click on the Publish button to publish your photo or video.

What kind of photos are best?

When uploading a photo on Google My Business Profile it's not advisable to lie about the reality of your business.

Present your photo in an authentic form do not colorize, edit, or try to enhance your photo, it does make any sense trying to do so. When uploading photos on Google My Business Profile you should upload high-quality, appealing photos that can make a strong impression on your customers.

Best photos to upload

Profile Photo: this is the most important aspect of your profile. It is the first image customers will see when they come to your listing, it appears next to your business name on Google search hence this photo should be appealing and of high quality.

Tips for Choosing a Photo

- High-quality photos: Your profile photo should be clear, sharp, with good composition, and of high quality. Don't add burly photos.

- Logo or professional photos: You can add your logo to your profile page or choose to add a high-quality professional photo. As a Freelancer a photo of yourself is approachable.

- Square format: According to Google, My Business photo requirements make sure your photo is square. All dimensions should be equal on all sides. If you don't have a square image you can crop the ones you already have.

- Avoid graphics: Your profile shouldn't include any graphics or text. It should be clear.

- Always keep it updated: If you make any changes like rebranding or changing your business image, do make sure it reflects on your profile picture. 

With the above listed, in summary, the best photo to use on Google My Business Profile is your profile picture, it conveys your business Personality. Make sure your profile picture is void of text and graphic-free. It should be clear and original, not edited or enhanced. It should be a typical representative of what business brand. No matter what you choose for your profile picture, whether it be a Logo or a professional image of your team or company, make sure it is according to Google My Business photo requirement (Square). Choose your profile photo wisely, because you can make a strong impression on potential customers and also help build trust.

Tips for adding photos to your Google My Business profile

Adding Photos to Your Google My Business Profile is an effective way to show your product to potential customers. In this section, I will be giving you Tips for Adding Photos to Your Google My Business Profile. But before that, I will love to share the benefits of adding Photos to Google My Business.

Trust

Photos create trust in the mind of your customers. When they are able to see your Exterior Photos (photos of the outside view of your company or business), Interior Photos (photos of the designs and feel of your business), products photos, and photos of your team members they will feel more confident in your brand and trust you.

Increase Engagement

Although your business description is very important to your business and also to the customers, photos enable them to virtualize what you wrote down in the description and determine whether they will go ahead with your brand or not. It helps to greatly increase engagement.

Google's Photo and Videos Requirements 

Use real, unfiltered photos

As I said earlier, you need to come clean to your customers and show them the reality of what you do. Make your photos a typical representative of your business in the real world, don't give misleading information through your photos.

Google's primary goal in creating the Google My Business platform is to assist in bringing the offline business world online. This necessitates only posting images and videos that accurately reflect your company's physical location, keeping in mind that more and more users are using Google My Business to research local businesses before making purchases on a daily basis.

Photo Requirements

1. JPG or PNG format

2. Size between 10KB and 5MB.

3. Minimum resolution of 720px x 720px

Videos Requirements

1. Maximum duration is 30 seconds

2. Maximum file size 100MB

3. Minimum resolution 720px

Tips for adding photos to your Google My Business profile

1. Use relevant photos

Use images that represent your business, products, and services accurately. For example, if you run a hotel industry, you should include photos of the rooms in the hotel, sit-outs, the reception, interior and exterior design of your hotel, the bathroom design, the workers or staff, etc. For the restaurant industry, you should include photos and videos of your food, dishes, menu items, the interior design of the restaurant, your staff, your cooks in the kitchen, etc. These photos give credibility and trust to your customers. Make sure it's up-to-date.

2. High-quality photos

High-quality images help your business stand out among other competitors. Make sure your image is blurry-free, well-lit, and clear. Use a camera or smartphone with high resolution. Avoid stock photos and poor image quality. They are a big turn-off for potential customers.

3. Use professional photos

Want to gain trust and credibility? Then add a professional photo to your Google My Business Profile. They make a great impression on customers and to attain this, you can use Google My Business photos or hire professional photographers to get high-quality professional photos. 

4. Use different types of photo 

It's important to use different photos such as Exterior Photos, Interior Photos, Products and Services photos, Common area Photos, etc. This helps customers have a better understanding of your business or what your business offer

5. Showcases your products/services

One great way to showcase what your offer is by providing or uploading videos on it. However, you need to make sure your photos or videos are of high quality. If you are a hairstylist, include photos of your salon, your teams, and most importantly your work. 

6. Captions and Keywords

This is an important aspect when it comes to adding Photos to Your Google My Business Profile. Captions give more details about your photos while keywords help improve your local SEO.

Make sure the keywords and captions added are all relevant and provide an accurate description of the photo added.

For example: If you run a restaurant, you can add photos and videos of dishes you ate at your restaurant and use the name of the dish as a caption.

7. Post Regularly

Adding Photos and videos of your business regularly increases engagement and credibility. Your customers will see your business as trustworthy and credible and will also recommend it to their friends. Don't forget to add new photos whenever you have one, for example, photos of events, promotions, or new launches.

Bonus Tips

1. Make sure to add any new products or services you have on Google My Business in order to create awareness and increase engagement.

2. Take some photos and videos of happy customers in and around your business because smiles can go a long way with users who are on the fence.

3. To keep your listing on top, make sure you remove or flag images that do not accurately represent your brand and that break Google's Photo guidelines.

4. Get your business Verified if it isn't.

Chapter 4

How to optimize your Google My Business profile

Any business that wants to stand out needs optimization. If you aren't sure if your business is optimized here is an image of an optimized Google My Business Profile and an unoptimized profile:

You have seen the difference right? An optimized Google My Business profile helps improve engagement, boost your local ranking and convert more potential customers.

To get started in optimizing your account

1. Create a Google My Business Account

This is the first step to optimization In case you have done that till now. But if you have created an account already then head over to the next step.

2. Claim your profile

This is when you verify your account, to do this I already provided a guide in the previous section. Follow it and get your account verified. You will need to verify your email or phone number depending on the one you provided and you can do this either through email Verification, postcard Verification, or phone number Verification. Whichever one you choose, make sure it's convenient for you.

3. Fill out the necessary details

This includes your business name, location, contact details, website URL, business description, and hours of operation. After filling out this information, make sure to double-check to avoid errors. Make sure your contact information matches well with the information provided on other social media platforms

4. Choose the right category

This is a must-do section if you want your account to be optimized. Study shows that 84% of views of business profiles on Google are the result of discovery searches i.e the user searched for a product, service, or category and the profile of that business appeared. Choose the right and primary category that best fits your industry.

5. Use keywords in description

Your business description tells potential customers what you do, offer, etc. It's an overview of your business. To get your profile optimized, include relevant keywords in your description.

6. High-quality photos

Want to increase views and engagement? Invest in high-quality photos and videos. It makes your business stand out amid other local stores, it gives your customers an insight into what to expect and it also increases credibility. 

Make sure your photos and videos follow Google requirements and don't upload enhanced or blurry images. Take photos of the products you sell with a high-resolution camera or smartphone.

7. Encourage reviews

They are an essential part of your reputation and also impact your ranking online. Encourage customers to leave a review by asking for feedback after providing services to them. These reviews are essential, for example: "When a customer comes across your profile online while searching for a hairstylist in their location, they tend to go over customers' reviews and feedback to clear their doubts and decide whether to go ahead with your products or not." 

If you don't encourage Reviews and feedback, you will tend to lose potential customers, as these help them to trust your brand and make purchases.

8. Keep your information updated always

To ensure the accuracy of the information you provided and also to rank higher on Google search results, you'll need to keep your information updated always. This includes your phone number, business address, website URL, etc. Also, update your photos and videos of your products and services especially when you have new products.

9. Monitor insights

You can use the information generated by Google about your customers to make decisions about your online marketing strategy and also improve customer experience.

Optimization of your Google My Business Profile is a very important step to increasing your visibility, credibility, and online reputation.

How to write a compelling business description

A business description is an overview of what your business does and how it functions. A compelling business description attracts potential customers.

Here's how to write a compelling business description:

Basics First

• What is your company name?
• What does your business do?
• What value does it offer?
• Where is your business located?

Know your audience

Knowing your audience has a long way to determining your tone of voice, style method, etc. It's very important you know and understands your audience's preference. You can do that by asking yourself questions like:

• Who is my target audience?
• What language does my audience use?
• What are their interests?
• What is their pain?

Once you have an idea of who your target audience is, their interest and needs you can channel your business description to those areas.

Unique value proposition

This sets you apart from other competitors in the industry. This is what gives customers reasons why they should choose your business over others. Your unique value proposition should answer these questions:

• What problems do you solve?
• How do you solve them?
• Why should they choose you over other competitors?

Make sure these areas are featured prominently in your description.

Use clear language

Your business description should be clear, concise, and easy to understand. Use common language that everyone is familiar with, and avoid jargon and technical language. The first impression you make matters a lot.

Here are some tips to help you:

• Use short sentences and paragraphs
• Avoid using adjectives and adverbs unnecessarily
• Make Use of active tone instead of passive tone
• Define any technical terms you need to use

Check out other business descriptions

After writing down your basics, knowing your audience, and putting the proper things in place. You can consider checking out the description of others in your industry to help you channel your business description rightly. For example, let's say you are creating a business description for the restaurant industry. It's time to look at what other companies are including in their descriptions and also include the right Keywords in your description.

Here are some examples

1. "The oldest garden center in America, continuing it's passed down pursuit to get more people outside and growing."

2. "Sit and Chill is a Chinese restaurant in St. Irving, Texas. For nine years, we have been a local favorite for the best Chinese noodles in town."

Tell a compelling story

Tell a story that engages your audience and creates an emotional connection. Use storytelling to draw a picture of your business in the mind of your readers. 

For example, If you are a sustainable cosmetics brand, you might consider sharing what Inspired you to do what you do. You can also share examples of how your products are made and what they are made from, and also how they can help people.

Highlight achievement

Highlighting your achievement helps build trust and credibility. In Your description, you can highlight your awards, achievements, testimonials your business has received, or accolades. This showcases the quality of your business to potential customers.

How to add products and services to your listing

Your products can stand out in search results by using the Products feature on your Google Business Profile.

As a business owner, you shouldn't miss taking advantage of a free Marketing tool like Google My Business which is at your disposal. With a Google My Business tool you can provide valuable information about your business to potential customers for free. 

Here's how to add your products and services to your listing;

- Sign In to your account 

To add products to your listing you will need to sign into your Google My Business. Then select the account you want to add the products to in case you have multiple business listings.

- Select the 'Product and Service' tab

Once you have signed in, you will be taken to your dashboard, there you will see a menu on the left-hand side. Depending on what you want to add, click on either the 'Products' or 'Services' tab.

- Add details

Once you have selected the action you want to take, you should add details of the products or services. Such as product name, price, description, images, etc. Your product description can be up to 1000 words. For images, I recommend you start by including a 1200 x 900 image of your first product. Instead of using stock photos, I advise using original images and graphics. You can also choose to overlay the product's name in text on the image to create a strong visual statement.

- Product Category

In the category section, the dropdown will be empty if this is the first product you've ever added to your listing. However, as you continue to add products and categories, your previously created categories will show up in a dropdown menu where you can choose to apply them to the subsequent product you add or continue by creating new ones.

- Publish

Now you are done adding your products and services, it's time to click the publish button to publish your products and make them live on Google My Business Profile. To add more products and services, repeat the steps I provided in this section.

Tips for optimization of your products and services

1. Be specific

Go straight to the point, and be specific with your descriptions when adding products and services. This helps your customers understand what the products are all about.

2. Invest in high-quality images

Avoid blurry product images, take photos of your products with a high-resolution camera or smartphone. High-quality images increase your engagement and give you an edge over your competitors.

3. Regularly update 

Keep your products updated at all times, this ensures that your customers don't miss out on the latest products or any information about your business. And also gives them access to accurate information.

4. Respond to reviews

Response to customers' reviews or feedback makes them know you care about them and their satisfaction with the products or services you offer. This will help build trust.

5. Monitor insights

You should check on your listing insights, to know how they are performing, and how many visitors, views, and clicks they are receiving. Use the information to improve your listing next time and your online marketing strategy.

How to manage and respond to customer reviews

Customers always expect to hear your feedback once they leave a review on any product, whether positive or negative review. You either appreciate them if they leave a positive review or make them feel heard if they leave a negative review.

As the most popular search engine, responding to reviews and feedback from your customers on Google My Business Profile is very essential. According to a study by BrightLocal, 79% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. 

Reviews in your Google My Business Profile have a big impact on your business image and it also helps to determine how well your business can outgrow or rank higher than other competitors in the same industry.

To respond to reviews on your account using a desktop

• Sign in to Google My Business 
• On the left sidebar, click "Reviews." 
• If you have any recent reviews a list of your recent reviews will come up, but if not it will appear blank. Check the review you want to reply.
• Click on the  "Reply" button.
• You will see a message box that will open for you to write your response.
• Click "Post reply."

To reply using your smartphone

• On your mobile phone, open the Google My Business app.
• Click the "Customers" tab on the bottom navigation bar
• A list of your recent reviews will come up if you have any unless it will be blank indicating no reviews yet. Tap the review you want to reply to.
• You will see a message box that will open for you to write your response.
• Click the "Send" icon in the upper right-hand corner.

To respond to a bad review

• Firstly, start by assessing and evaluating the feedback internally.
• Write a review response template.
• Publicly respond to the review.
• Work towards having a one-on-one conversation with the client.
• Be transparent about mistakes.
• Ask questions when details aren't clear.
• Empathize and offer solutions

How to use Google Posts to promote your business

You can effectively manage your business listing by posting social media style updates from your Google My Business dashboard to let customers and clients know about daily deals, current promotions, new items, company news, and upcoming events at your location. 

When a Google Post is created, it will appear right away in Google search and maps results on desktop and mobile. 

Posts may contain up to 300 words and one or more of the following: an image, a video, a GIF, or an event with a date and time. A call to action can also be included; the options are Learn More, Reserve, Sign up, Buy, or Get Offer.

Google Posts lets you know how many people have seen your post and have used your CTA button. Make sure to add a tracking URL to your CTA button so you can monitor click-throughs and conversions on your website for more in-depth analytics.  

After seven days, posts will no longer be viewable and will be deleted by Google. After the event has occurred, event posts become invalid.

To Post on your Google My Business Profile

• Log in to your Google account
• Go to your Google My Business listing
• On the left-side menu, click “Posts”
• Write a description of your event or promotion. Make sure it's detailed enough and also compelling.
• Choose a call to action button and enter the destination URL for the CTA.
• Click "Publish"

Chapter 5

How to access and interpret your Google My Business insights

One of the best key features of Google My Business is its insights. This provides detailed information on your customers, your listings, and your performance.

Here are steps to access and interpret your Google My Business insights.

1. Sign into your Google My Business Profile. Once you have done that you will see existing listings on your dashboard.

2. Select/click on the listing you want to access and view insights for. If you have only one listing you will be taken automatically to that listings dashboard.

3. Once you have done that, you will see a menu located on the left-hand side. There you will see the 'Insights' tab, click on it to access the listings data.

4. It's time to review your data. Once you have accessed your insights here are key things to look out for:

- Views: This shows you how many times your listing has been viewed or seen by customers

- Customer action: This shows you the action your audience is taking on your profile, especially after viewing or clicking on a listing.

- Search Query: With this, you can see how customers are searching for your business online.

How to use insights to improve your listing and attract more customers

Consumer insights help businesses understand how their target audience thinks, feels, and interacts with their brand by providing interpretations of consumer behaviors.

Understanding what your customers love leads to deeper engagement, stronger customer relationships, and high conversion. 

You might be thinking how you can make that happen. Well, that's a nice question which I'm going to answer in this article.

As I said before, understanding your customers is very crucial to increase leads, sales, and engagement.

Know how customers search

There are two ways a customer can search for your business, firstly through direct search and the other through discovery search.

Direct search is for users who search for your business name directly while discovery search is for users who search for things like "restaurants" near me, or "hotels" near me.

Understanding how your audience searches for you is very important, especially in determining how to effectively monitor your business listing.

Identify how they find you

Google My Business insights is a great and useful tool for any local store online seeking to gain more customers and effectively serve their customers better.

Knowing how your customers find you, and the queries they use, help you to confirm that you are using the right Keywords across your profile, post, business description, web pages, etc.

Chapter 6

How to use a Google Business Profile to improve your online presence

Setting a Google My Business Profile lets people know that you exist. This is an easy way for businesses to manage their online presence effectively.  

Want your business to appear on search results when a keyword related to it is searched? Then you should set up a Google My Business Profile. If you haven't done so till now, hover over the previous section of this article for a guide on how to do it. In this digital era having a strong online presence is crucial if you want to succeed as a business owner and with a free tool like Google My Business, the sky will be your limit.

I will be providing some benefits of how to use Google My Business Profile to improve your online presence.

Informs the public that you exist

With a Google My Business Profile, you can inform the public that a business exists around them. It informs the public of your opening and closing hours, tells them your location, and it provides them with the opportunity to contact you through the phone number, email, or website URL.

Interaction with customers

Google My Business Profile helps you interact with your customers through the use of direct messaging, reviews (customers can leave feedback on a particular product they purchased and can give a five stars rating depending on their experience), and place orders especially if you run either a restaurant or hotel industry.

Google also connects your website to your social media profiles. YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are some of these profiles.

Google kind of assists you in controlling your customer interactions online.

Consider a customer who wants to eat at your restaurant but has special dietary needs. Through Google My Business, that client can ask you questions, and you can respond.

If they receive a favorable response, they can order and review your service through their GMB account.

Google will take care of the rest; all that is required from you is your business website.

Promote your services 

A promotional sale is one way to inform your customers of your products and services and Google helps you to run these promotions for free. With a business profile on Google, it lets customers know when you are running any promotions or offers and also where it's taking place.

If you have any events coming up, they can be advertised offline and online. Let's say you are in charge of a show at a nearby gallery of art. To let people know when and where it's happening, you can schedule this with a specific event.

Through your event posting, you can even enable attendees to RSVP and purchase tickets.

Improve local SEO

With a Google My Business Profile you can improve your Local SEO. It does this by selecting three service providers from nearby Google My Business profiles when a customer types "[Service] near me" into the search bar.

You should optimize your GMB for local SEO because a profile on Google My Business is required to show up in these results.

To use Google My Business to improve your online presence follow these steps:

1. Claim your profile

To ensure you have control over your business, you need to claim and verify your business. And also make sure the information in it is accurate.

2. Optimize your profile

This is specifically important if you want your business to be seen on Google search results, maps, etc. Fill out the necessary details concerning your business this includes, including phone number, business email, business name, address, website URL, operation hours, etc.

3. High-quality photos

High-quality photos have proven to increase customers' engagement. High-quality photos make your business stand out. Make sure your photos are not blurry. If you are not sure what kind of image you should upload on Google My Business Profile then check the previous section of this article.

4. Encourage reviews

To boost your online presence, encourage customers to review your profile. Reviews give you an edge over other competitors.

5. Google posts

With Google Posts, you can share information like company news, promotion, offers, events, etc with your customers.

6. Monitor insights

Insights provided by Google on how your business is ranking, how customers are clicking on your listing etc help provide information on how to effectively market to your customers next time.

With these tips and steps, you can boost and effectively manage your online presence using Google My Business Profile.

How to use a Google Business Profile as a digital marketing tool

Google Business Profile formerly known as Google My Business is a free business promotional platform intended to help promote regional companies and organizations online.

Want to establish your brand's online presence? Then setting up a Google Business Profile is necessary and important.

1. Share important information 

If you have a Google My Business Profile, users will find your Google Business Profile either through direct search or Discovery search.

If someone needs to contact you, they will search for your business name on Google and look in the right-hand panel of the search results to find the details they require.

Make sure you fill in the necessary details concerning your business or they may look elsewhere if that information does not appear or is not readily available to them. 

2. Visibility and SEO

The geographic specificity of search queries is growing, and Google's algorithms take user intent into account. For instance, if you were to type "restaurants near me" into Google, a list of nearby restaurants based on your current location would show up at the top of the search results.

The companies that show up as a result of your search have Google Business Profiles and a distinct advantage over companies without one.

On the first page of local Google searches and Maps queries, Google Business Profiles are always given preference. As a result, setting up a Google Business Profile will make it easier for locals to find your business online.

3. Reviews

Having a Google Business Profile makes it simple for clients to leave favorable reviews of your company. 

Positive online reviews serve as a free form of advertising for your goods and services by enhancing your credibility and trustworthiness in the eyes of users. Customers are much more likely to purchase from companies that have a lot of favorable reviews and testimonials.

Even if unfavorable comments are made, Google lets you respond to them publicly. You can learn how different customers are reacting to your goods or services by getting negative feedback.

You can use this data to assess the effectiveness of your efforts and business.

4. Customer insights

Your Google Business Profile not only promotes your business and your services, but also gives you access to insightful market research and customer data.

The 'insights tool provides statistics and information that can assist you in figuring out where your customers are coming from, such as:

• How many times your profile was viewed
• How do potential clients find your profile?
• A user's actions on your profile
• Other user interactions with your profile
• The ages, genders, and locations where your users are located
• The number of clicks or views on your website link

In conclusion, setting up a Google Business Profile is an easy yet powerful way to market your goods or services and grow your company. Setting up and verifying your profile is simple and free, and it can be done quickly.

It's a crucial component of your digital marketing strategy because it enables you to strengthen your online presence, communicate with customers, assess performance, and ultimately boost sales.

They are given a concise rundown of important information, including:

• A short introduction about your business 
• Business address
• Business phone number
• Opening hours
• Website URL
• Google reviews
• Social media links
• Posts & photos

Your customers can learn more about you, your contact information, and what other people think of you when you create a listing on Google Business Profile. This in turn aids in the development of a reliable and approachable brand for you.

You can find out more about the people who search for your business using Google Business Profile, including who visited your website, who called you, and who looked up your address on Google Maps. 

How to use Google My Business and get more customers

The lifeblood of your business is new customers, and you need a consistent flow of new clients month after month after year after year if you want your company to expand.

Google My Business will undoubtedly help you get the most value for your small investment if you only have a very limited marketing budget.

Heads-up! There are no fees associated with listing your company or service on Google My Business.

The time needed to set up your Google My Business profile is the only investment needed here. 

There are a few things to keep in mind before we begin:

i )To attract customers, you simply need to optimize your Google My Business profile—you don't even need to "boost" it. 

ii) Google search results typically lead to very serious prospects for your business. 

To get more customers online here are things to consider.

Be visible online

Google favors companies that are trustworthy and that provides quality, topnotch products to their customers. By creating a Google My Business account, you are telling Google and search engines that your company is a real one and that the information provided about it is accurate. Your business information makes you stand out from the competition and may increase your ranking.

Trust and credibility

Your listing can become more appealing to viewers and credible to potential customers by utilizing a variety of Google My Business features. You can upload various picture types to showcase your physical location, your goods and services, and more. Even publishing an indoor Street View to serve as a virtual tour of your company is an option. 

Does improving your Google My Business listing merit the effort? Yes!  Virtual tours and photos increase interest in listings by two times. Customers are 70% more likely to visit businesses with a Google My Business listing and 29% more likely to make a purchase, increasing your online credibility.

Perform local SEO

Dynamic Google Business Profiles exist. Google will prioritize different parts of your profile based on the term that was searched as well as the kind of information that customers in your category value the most. They don't just change form depending on the platform. Even better, Google will underline keywords in your profile's content that it deems to be pertinent.

Google uses an algorithm to rank Business Profiles, just as it does for its ads and websites. You can add keywords to your business profile and carry out other optimizations through your Google My Business dashboard to help it rank in local results, which is what we'll cover next.

Make sure to include pertinent keywords in your business profile to let Google know what you're trying to rank for when using Google My Business for SEO.

Customer reviews

Online customer reviews these days have the power to make or break a company. 87% of prospective clients won't even consider doing business with establishments with poor client reviews. You can respond to customer feedback and reviews on Google My Business in addition to displaying customer ratings, which gives you the chance to solve issues and show excellent customer service.

Improve visibility

Almost everyone starts their search for your company or products online. Facilitate their ability to do that. When someone searches for your business or product online, a Google My Business account makes sure that your business appears on Google Search and Google Maps. Once it does, your listing will have all the details they need, including a website, a location, contact information, directions, etc.

Keep them Informed

Customers can quickly find crucial information by visiting your Google My Business listing, which should have all of your company's details displayed. Along with other useful information like your address, contact information, and hours of operation, Google My Business also gives you the chance to update customers on things like service expansions, temporary closures, and full reopenings. This is a useful feature because frequent updates can reduce customer confusion and foster loyalty.

Be discoverable

When someone types in search terms like "restaurants near me" or "restaurants in," they can find nearby or nearby restaurants. Local listings are shown by Google. Over organic search results, these local listings' visibility has increased. Therefore, the best way for people to find your business when they are looking for goods or services in your area is to have accurate information about it in Google My Business.

Customize your Listing

We've talked about using Google My Business to raise your search rankings, boost traffic, and increase sales, but you can customize your listing to do even more. Add your company's phone number so people can call you right away. Or think about including buttons that encourage people to take immediate action, like "Share," "Make a Reservation," and "Call Now." 

Use Google My Business as a powerful tool for your business. It's a no-brainer because it's free and only needs a few minutes to set up. Are you prepared to up your search game? It would be wise to start here.

How to get help from the Google My Business support team

It can be difficult to sign up for Google My Business and keep your listing up to date. Numerous common issues that business owners deal with include difficulties logging into their accounts, confirming their company, and handling duplicate listings. 

The various methods of contacting Google My Business are covered in this section of this article, along with information on how to speak with professionals and other Google My Business users directly.

Here are various ways to contact Google My Business support team.

1. Call them

Finding the Google My Business phone number is much more difficult than it needs to be. Therefore, we've provided the number below, along with some useful advice, to make your life easier.

Be ready to wait! It's unrealistic to believe you're the only one calling in as a global company with millions of Google business listings.

I will advise you to spend some time learning how to get listed in other directories, gathering the high-quality images you want to include in your listing, coming up with clever Google My Business posts, etc. While waiting for them additionally, you might want to read through and reply to your reviews because doing so shows Google that you are engaged with your listing and improves your chances of receiving even more reviews.

Here are the contact details: to contact Google My Business via phone and speak with a live person, call 1-844-491-9665

Hours of Operation: Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. EST.

2. Contact them on Twitter

If you find the wait times when trying to call them directly to be intolerably long you can contact them on Twitter.

You can expect to wait for like 30 minutes to get a response from Google team members.

Yes, there aren't any automated responses here! You can contact a Google employee directly through Twitter to get assistance with any problems you may be having.

You might want to peruse the GMB Twitter feed for news and updates while you wait for a response. Learn how to add a video to your business profile.

To contact GMB on Twitter, simply send them a Tweet at @GoogleMyBiz.

3. Contact Google My Business via Facebook message

Google has made it fairly simple to contact the Google My Business team via Facebook. Send them a direct message by clicking the link below, which will take you to the Google My Business Facebook page.

Click here to contact Google My Business on Facebook.

4. Google’s email support form

You always have the choice of submitting an email support form when encountering a problem that doesn't require immediate attention. Google will typically offer multiple solutions in a single email, saving you the time of having to keep communicating back and forth, even though it may take up to 24 hours for them to respond.

Click here if you'd like to email GMB. Choose the option that most accurately describes your issue, then adhere to the instructions on the support form.

5. Google My Business support center

The Google My Business Support Center has a wealth of FAQs and how-to guides in addition to a direct line to Google. This is a great resource for finding answers to some of the most frequent issues GMB members encounter if you don't feel like waiting for a team member to get back to you.

6. Google My Business community forum

Product specialists and Google My Business users just like you can interact directly in the Google My Business Community Forum. Thousands of posts, updates, and thorough guides are available here to help you solve a wide range of issues on your own. 

Conclusion  

Summary

We have come to the end of this guide. You can now see that using this free tool isn't just a good idea for local marketing, but a necessity after thoroughly understanding what Google My Business is, how it functions, and how to use it.

Follow the instructions above if you want to keep reaching your audience and bringing in customers with your free Business Profile because Google is changing how customers find and interact with local businesses. The procedure entails several steps, but thanks to guides like this and options like using a mobile device, it doesn't have to be quite as difficult. Start creating, claiming, and verifying your Google My Business listing right away to make the most of this fantastic tool that is at your disposal.

Set up your Google My Business account right away so that your Business Profile can stand out from the crowd and draw in more customers on the most widely used search engine in the world.

^ Back to top

As a business owner, creating a business Facebook page is one crucial thing to do if you want to do business online. Facebook is one of the most popular and highly used social media platforms for marketers no matter what your brand does and what your marketing goals are. The fact that over 200 million businesses use Facebook business pages to reach their customers, Market their products, and increase brand awareness should be enough reason to invest in this platform.

With various popular social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, etc. Setting up a Facebook Business Page might look as though you aren't following the trends, but it's worth it. With over 2.94 billion monthly users, Facebook is still the most used and popular social media platform.

No matter how old or new your brand is, setting up a Facebook Business Page for your brand is a smart move. I have put together a guide on how to create a Facebook Business Page and 

Chapter 1 

What is a Facebook Business Page?

A Facebook Business Page is a public business profile on Facebook made for brands/ businesses to connect with customers, build brand awareness and promote their products. Here customers can follow or like the page to see posts from their favorite brands.

A Facebook Business Page is also a free way for organizations, celebrities, and brands to reach their audience and keep in touch with them. However, to make it easier for people to find your page Google also index it to make it easier for people to find you easily.

Here companies build strong relationships with their customers by creating engaging content or conversations. One difference between a Facebook Business Page and a Facebook profile is that a Facebook Business Page offers your brand more opportunities than a business profile will.

Why do you need a Facebook Page?

Do you still think that a Facebook Business Page isn't for you? Sit tight, let's clear the dark clouds in your mind.

As a small business owner, there are over a million reasons why your business needs a Facebook Business Page. Come to think of it, there's no doubt that Facebook is the largest social media network. It is a powerful tool that not only connects you with customers but also offers them detailed information about your products, services, and business thereby driving leads. Its biggest advantage is providing opportunities for your brand's content to reach a wider audience, but if you are still making use of a Facebook profile, only your friends can see your posts thereby limiting your audience reach. 

Unlike a normal Facebook profile, a page offers you tools that let you manage and track your engagements, it's an excellent way to connect with both current and future customers, and promote products and events. I would love for you to please not make the mistake of using a Facebook profile to grow your brand. It's one of the biggest mistakes you can make as a business owner.

Growing followers is much more possible with a Facebook page than with a Facebook profile. This is because Facebook allows you to run paid ads to gain followers as much as you want but with just a Facebook profile, you will have to depend on the Facebook algorithm to be able to boost your following. Facebook ads are a great way to boost your visibility and reach, you can also decide who will see your ads based on age, gender, location, and interest, and a major benefit is that you can track the results.

Have you ever thought of a CTA button (Call To Action), I guess you have seen them on Facebook. CTA buttons are a path created to lead your followers to your desired destination whether it be a website, landing page, etc. With a Facebook Business Page, you can add a CTA button to your page but that isn't possible with a Facebook profile. This call to action can vary from;

• Learn More 
• Buy Now 
• Sign Up etc.

A Facebook business page is easier to handle than a Facebook profile, it gives you a detailed review of how your brand is doing. It lets you monitor your page performance, audience reach and insights, the performance of content, and demographic data. Your page helps you grow your brand and also advertise your products, it comes with lots of free tools that let you achieve your goals. 

Can I use a personal Facebook account for my business?

Yes, you can use your account for your business, but you should also note that Facebook prohibits the use of personal accounts for business or commercial gain. In case you want to use your personal Facebook account for business here's how you can do that:

Before Getting Started you have to make sure you read Facebook's Terms of Service to make sure you don't go against them, going against them will lead to having your account shut down.

Steps to create a Business Facebook Page

Step 1: Adjust your Settings

For professional exposure of your business on your personal account, you need to adjust your settings. To do this Go to your Facebook homepage, then click the drop-down arrow on the top left side of the navigation bar. 

As you scroll down you will see the setting area where you'll have to make changes like; how your name appears on your Facebook profile, add your email address, and phone number and even update your password if you want to.

Next, you might want to enable a two-factor authentication setting because this enables you to identify trusted contacts and it might help you get back your account if you are locked out.

To control who sees your post, head over to the privacy button on the drop-down menu, this helps you control who sees your post, who can send your friend request, etc. For example, if you might want lots of people to see your posts whenever you make them, then you should set that to public. Consider changing the setting to receive friend requests from everyone, you can expand your reach by doing so.

Also, the Timeline and Tagging settings area helps you protect yourself from sharing too much of your personal life in your Facebook profile and also who writes on your timeline, this is the fun of Facebook, after all. But your friends and family won't always be in a business-like state of mind like you would. To ensure you can control what appears on your timeline, enable features that will allow you to review any posts or tags in the timeline before they appear on your timeline.

Step 2: Profile picture and Cover photo

You should choose a photo you would be happy to share with customers. To change your profile picture and Cover photo, head over to the current photo you had on, and click on update photo, you can choose to take a photo or update from your computer or file. Your cover photo should be something that talks more about your business, when choosing a cover photo make sure it's something that conveys information about your business.

Step 3: Update your Profile

 It's a good idea to properly fill out all the boxes with information related to your business if you want to increase brand awareness. Choose carefully what you want to include in those boxes.

Click on the Edit Profile icon located in the bottom-right corner of your cover photo to make some necessary professional changes.

Your bio, which appears at the top of the Intro section of your profile, right beneath your profile photo, has a character limit of 101. Underneath the Edit Bio section, you will find the Edit featured photos, here you can add two more photos that convey your business information, it can be a photo with your co-workers or an event.

As you scroll down by selecting and unchecking the boxes next to each entry, you may modify what appears in your Intro as you scroll down the popup. You can decide whether to include information about your home address, employment background, and other factors.

Next thing is to Modify Your About Info by clicking on the about info button at the bottom of the pop-up window. Fill out the Employment and Education sections completely with the necessary details that support your business.

Keep in mind that when potential customers visit your profile, they may want to see the information you enter in the remaining fields like "Places You've Lived, Contact and Basic Data, Family and Relationships, Information About You, Life Events." So make sure you fill those areas correctly with the necessary information that supports your business.

After filling out this information, you might want to view how your profile looks like; you can access it by clicking on the three-dot button in the lower-right corner of your cover photo or clicking on View As in the Review What Other People See on Your Timeline row of Who Can See Things on My Timeline.

What is on a Facebook Business Page?

Here are some features that make up a Facebook Business Page.

Messaging: Your Facebook business page comes with an inbox to let you Communicate with your customers on Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, you can also create automated messages.

Business Information: Facebook business page holds and shows information about your business such as location, website, Opening and closing time, categories, phone number, etc.

Tools: There are many free tools to use to help you expand your business. They range from Events and Appointments which help you grow your customer base to Jobs that can help you find the right, qualified candidate.

Insights: This feature enables you to find customers who are interested in what you offer, and understand the actions they take on your page. You can also see what your competitors are doing on their page and also learn more about your industry.

Posting: Using the publishing tool you can create and manage your posting schedule.

Call-To-Action: This was created in December 2014. It enables you to drive business objectives by including a Call To Action on your page.

Schedule Posts: You can schedule your post in advance to save time and be more efficient. Some social media managers use Hootsuite to schedule and share their posts, forgetting they can schedule Posts on Facebook instead of clicking the "POST" button.

Page Moderation: This can be found under the "General Tab", it gives admins the option to block certain words from appearing on the page.

Events App: this is a useful app you can add to your page, it gives you the ability to drive traffic to your page or to an event you might be hosting in your company or community. To add this app; visit the " Apps" tab under the "Settings" menu, from there, you can select the "Add App" CTA next to the event app option. Next, you can now create an event by filling out the event form provided which includes details like event name, date, audience targeting options, ticket URL location, and category. 

Tip: You can add more features to your events by featuring the app on the menu bar directly below their Page's cover photo. To achieve this you should start by clicking the "More" option on the menu and choosing "Manage Tabs."

Pages to Watch: This is one of the most useful features on Facebook business pages. Imagine having to monitor the performance of competitors including Total page likes, overall engagement, new posts, etc. To access this feature you will have more than 100 likes on your business page. This can be found at the bottom of the "Insights Overview" section.

When Your Fans Are Online: Isn't this Great? Knowing when your fans online let you know when to post for better engagement, it also lets you know the overall activity of a Page's audience base. This can be found under the "Posts" tab in the Insights menu.

Post Types: This gives you insights into the success of different post types based on average reach and engagement. By reviewing this section, you can identify what content has the best performance or engagement and then optimize content to increase page engagement. This feature can be found under the "Posts" tab in the "Post Types" section.

Facebook Response Assistant: A recent study stated that 44% of consumers expect to get a response after messaging a Facebook Business Page. This tool helps you to do that, it responds to your customers when you don't have a 24-hour social marketing team to do that. For eg, this is how the tool replies to your customers; 

‘Hi Bob, thanks for your message. We are not here right now, but we will get back to you soon!’ 

‘Thanks for Contacting us. We try to be as responsive as possible. We’ll get back to you soon.

This tool helps you with things like:

• To stay responsive when you aren't available.
• Show a Welcome message to a messenger.
• Send instant replies to anyone who messages your page.

Chapter 2

How much does a Facebook business page cost?

Just like you set up your Facebook profile, setting up a Facebook business page is free. No matter how many followers or fan base you have, Facebook won't charge you for that. It won't charge you for the organic aspect of your page, it will only charge you money to run ads, which we will still talk about later in this article.

Why does Facebook not charge anything? 

This is because by using Facebook, you are helping it acquire more information, and attention about your audience, which it in turn sells this attention to advertisers in the form of Facebook Ads.

Step-by-step tutorial using business settings

Choose or create a personal Facebook account

To create a Facebook Business Page you need to start by creating a personal Facebook account, if you already have a Facebook personal account, then you don't need to worry about creating a Facebook account.

In case you don't have a Facebook account to create one follow these steps:

To create a Facebook account from your computer

First, visit www.facebook.com

Click on the ‘Create New Account

Next Fill in the necessary details such as Name, Email or Phone number, Password (I recommend you use a strong password to open a Facebook account and also one you can remember), Date of Birth, and Gender. 

Click on the sign-up button below to create a Facebook account (Remember you must be at least 14 years old to create a Facebook account).

The next thing to do is to confirm your email address or phone number. To do this, if you opened the account with your email address, Facebook will send a confirmation link to your email, head over to your email and click on the link to confirm your email address. If you opened the account with your phone number, you will see a confirmation code sent as an SMS, enter it in the confirm box.

After this, you need to personalize your profile, Set up privacy, etc.

To Set Up your Privacy

Go to the downward arrow located at the top right corner of the navigation bar, scroll down, and click on the ‘Setting and Privacy' button. Here you can select if you want only friends or the public to see your posts.

To personalize your profile

You need to add a profile photo, and cover photo and update your profile.

To do this, go to your profile and click on the profile picture, then you can choose to upload from your computer or take a photo. Next, you need to add a cover photo to do this, click on the camera button on your cover photo, which is on your profile.

Then choose your cover photo, you can choose a photo from your Facebook profile, create a collage, upload a photo or you can still choose from a selection of Facebook’s cover artwork. You can also reposition or delete your current cover photo.

To update your profile

Click on the ‘About' section on your profile. Here you can fill in information about yourself such as; work and education, the places you’ve lived, contact and basic info, family and relationships, details about you, and life events.

After these steps, you can now add friends. To do this you can either search for them in the search bar provided, find them in the Find Friends tab, or import a list of contacts from your email, iCloud, or phone.

To create Facebook account on your phone

Go to Google play store and search for ‘Facebook' using the search bar provided.

Download and install the app on your phone.

Once installed open the app on the home screen and click on ‘Create New Account

Click Next, and fill in your information by providing the necessary details after that you click on Register. And that's it! You have successfully created a Facebook account using your mobile phone.

After you are done creating your Facebook account it's time to create a Facebook Business Page for your brand.

Log in to your Facebook account, either with your computer or mobile phone. 

Click on the menu icon on the left, click ‘Page', and then the ‘Create' button.

Then click on the 'Getting Started' button as shown below. 

This will take you to another screen where you need to Add the name of your page. This should be your brand/business name. If another business or brand is already answering your name on Facebook then you should consider making yours more descriptive for example; Instead of using "Bakery shop" you should consider making use of ‘Debby's Bakery Shop '

Next is to add Categories. You can do this by typing words that best describe your business. You will see a drop-down of some suggestions, choose from there the categories or option that best describes your business. You can choose up to three categories.

Brands Description/Bio: Here you should write a summary of your business. This should be a few sentences like about 255 characters Max.

Complete Information: You have to enter more details about your business like Website, business hours, phone number, business email, etc. You can choose not to fill in these forms or to leave this section blank if you don't want your customers to know your email, phone number, etc as it's optional.

Add Photo: High-quality photos help to create a good visual impression on your audience. Upload your profile picture, it's the image that stays beside your business name when interacting with the audience, it also stays beside your business name in search results.

You can. Decide to add your business logo as a profile picture, or anything that your customers will use to recognize your page immediately. Your profile photo image size should be 180×180 pixels. Choose an image and add it as your profile picture. 

Next is to add a cover photo, this is the most noticeable image on your page, it conveys information about your business to your audience at first glance. Choose an age that shows your brand personality, products, or services, The cover image size should be 1640 ×856 pixels according to Facebook. Once you are done adding the photo, you can preview your page to see what it will look like to your audience, then click the 'Save' button to save the image if you are satisfied with what you see.

Connect your Business Page to WhatsApp: This is optional. It appears once you have added your business photo and cover photo. Add your phone number and click on the 'Send Code' button below. Once the code is sent, you can then add the code on the confirmation box provided to connect your Facebook business page to your WhatsApp. This action sends some potential customers from Facebook ads to your WhatsApp.

Edit Page Information: It's time to add your business details, this way potential customers can learn more about your page such as; your business address, website, opening hours, etc.

To Edit your page information, select the gray "Manage" button located toward the top of your Page. Then navigate to the "Set Your Page up for Success" menu. Expand the "Provide Info and Preferences" column to add more information.

Don't forget to add an action button, this enables customers to find it much simpler to contact you, place an order, schedule a service, know your address, or carry out any other task related to your company when you use action buttons. A Facebook Call-To-Action button encourages page visitors to learn more about your business.

Scroll to "Provide Info and Preferences"  then select "Add Button." and then decide which course of action is best for your business.

You can always return to these steps if you're not prepared to finish them. Go down to Edit Page Info in the Manage Page menu on the left.

When completing these details, you can decide to unpublish your page if you wish to take your Facebook Business Page offline. To do so, select General from the Settings menu under the Manage Page heading. To set the status to "Page unpublished," click Page Visibility.

Invite your Friends to Like and Follow your Page: Begin by inviting your already existing friends to like and follow your page. To do this view a list of your existing Facebook friends, and click the Invite Friends button. Then Click Send Invites after selecting the friends you want to invite.

You can advertise your new Facebook page using your website and/or Twitter account if you have either of those. On your email signature and marketing materials, include "follow us" logos. Also, you can request reviews from your clients on your company page.

Create a custom URL: A custom Facebook Page URL or username gives your Page a more trustworthy appearance to customers. To create a custom URL or username, Settings -> General Page Settings then tap Edit next to the Username field then make the necessary edits.

Make your first post: Now your Page is all set up it's time to create a post, this might be a welcome post or anything that talks about your business.

Chapter 3

How to add an admin to a Facebook page

Making someone an admin of your Facebook business page gives them the equal right as you over the page, it gives the highest permission available.

You can choose to add an admin to your page or a team of people who will effectively manage your page, who can edit and publish content, look at information about your followers, and much more.

Here are steps to Add an admin to your page.

Go to your Facebook page. On the left sidebar menu, scroll down and click the "Settings" button:

This action will take you to the general Page Settings menu. On the left sidebar menu, scroll down and click "Page roles":

There you will see the "Assign a New Page Role" section, start by typing the name of the person you want to make an admin to the page. A drop-down menu will appear to offer you suggestions and you can choose the person you want from there.

Click the box next to their name to see a dropdown menu of role options. Then select the "Admin" option.

You will see a reminder that will pop up that reads: "If you're adding a new admin to your Page, please keep in mind that they'll have the same permission as you do to make changes to this Page."

Once you have chosen the right name, click "Add." Facebook will then request you to re-enter your password to confirm it's you that is making the change.

Under "Existing Page Roles," the person's name will now show up with a red "pending" message next to it.

You have to wait for the person to get the request once the person receives the notification, they can accept it and their role will show up under the "Existing Page Roles" section. This shows you each person on your page and their permissions. 

How to delete a Facebook page

To delete a Facebook Business Page you must note that If you’re not 100% sure about deleting your page, then consider unpublishing it instead. You’ll be able to publish it again when you want to and no information will be lost.

If you have made up your mind To delete your page follow the steps below:

Via Desktop

• Log in to your Facebook page
• Open your Facebook feed and click on the 'Pages' button in the left menu
• Choose the page you want to delete
• On the bottom left of your dashboard, click Settings
• Navigate to the General tab and click Remove Page
• Click Delete [Your Page Name] and click OK

Note that once you have successfully removed your Facebook page, your Facebook page will not be deleted till after 14 days, it will remain visible in case you change your mind. After 14 days it will be permanently deleted. If you want to cancel deletion, you can do it within 14 days.

If you want to delete it permanently immediately, to remove it at this very minute from the public eye then you have to unpublish before deleting it.

Via Mobile phone

• To delete your page using a mobile phone
• Open your Facebook app
• In the top right corner, tap the menu on the left side of the navigation bar

• Click on the page you want to delete
• Click 'Settings', and hover over 'General"

• Select Permanently delete [Your Page Name]
• You can also un-publish your Facebook page below in the Page Visibility section

How to easily manage Facebook Business Pages using Meta Business Suite

The Facebook page includes many useful tools that let you manage your pages effectively.

Here I'll walk you through ways you can easily manage Facebook pages.

Facebook offers a page management tool known as Facebook Business Suite which allows you to run multiple business pages.

Facebook business suite is a very powerful tool to effectively and easily manage your business. It also helps you more with the advertising side of your pages. Here you can view all your ad accounts, ads, invoices, and ad metrics. 

The Creator Studio allows Page managers to create and schedule content and view analytics, either on the web or via a mobile app. It also includes the ability to go Live on your Page or post across multiple Facebook Pages simultaneously.

Before I walk you through How to easily manage Facebook Pages Using Meta Business Suite let's look at what is Meta Business Suite (Facebook Business Suite).

What is Meta Business Suite

Meta Business Suite (Facebook Business Suite) is a social media management tool launched in 2020 for Facebook and Instagram users to effectively manage their businesses. With this tool, you can schedule your post, create posts, run ads, plan organic campaigns, etc.

Here are steps to take to manage your pages easily.

First, you need to start by inviting people to the Business Suite, this can include colleagues or your team to work with you here.

To invite "Open Meta Business Suite use the drop-down menu in the upper-left corner to select the account you want to work with. Then click the icon in the lower-left corner to open the account settings. Click the People tab to add people to your team. Also, keep in mind that every business account should have at least two admins. 

Add Facebook Pages to the Business Suite

To start managing a Facebook business page in Meta Business Suite, Click the Business Assets tab. Then select Pages to review the pages your business account owns. To add another page to your account, click the Add Assets button in the upper-right corner. Then select Facebook Page. From here you can also create a new page for your business or move an existing page into your Meta business account.

Add Instagram accounts

If you have an Instagram account for your business, you should consider adding or linking your account to your business suite. To do this from the Business Assets tab, click the Add Assets button. Then select Instagram Account and agree to the terms: 

If you have an Instagram account you can click on the 'Claim Instagram account ' button. Here you will be prompted to log into the Instagram account you want to add. Then you'll be able to share access with team members.

Manage ad accounts

To Manage an Ad account, Click the Add Assets button and open the Advertising menu. Then select Ad Account and choose whether you want to claim, share, or create a new account as shown in the image below.

Assign roles and permissions 

To assign roles and permissions to your team members go to the Business Assets tab of the Business Suite, and select the page or account you want to manage. Then select the Page Access tab and click the Add People button:

List services 

Here you can list all of your services on your Facebook business page. You can drive consideration and attract more customers by listing your services.

To do this, open the All Tools menu and select Services. Then click the Add a Service button:

Then Add a name and a description, upload an image, and set the price and duration.

Configure business apps in Business Suite

There are many built-in tools for marketing your business. For example, you can use apps like Acuity for locking in time on your calendar or apps like Fresha to manage salon and spa appointments. You can also use apps like Reserveout and Resy for restaurant reservations.

Open the All Tools menu in Business Suite and select Business Apps. 

Plan, drafted, publish, and schedule social media content in Business Suite

To plan, draft, and schedule content with your team, open the Planner tab in the Business Suite. Click the Create button in the upper right or select any day on the calendar. Then you can create Facebook and Instagram posts.

Review analytics in Business Suite

Click the Insights tab in the Business Suite. Use the Overview tab to get a view of your performance and spot also trends related to reaching and growth.

With these steps, you can manage multiple Facebook pages.

Here are tips and tricks to effectively manage your page:

1. Always Update your 'About' section

This is an easy approach to generating traffic to your website.

Important information such as your contact, Location, Email, and website also details like Services, products, Special offers, price should be shared.

2. Videos increase engagement

A study by Socialbakers posting videos yields a 135% increase in organic reach over photo posts. Posting videos in general typically reaches a greater audience.

Chapter 4

Facebook Business Page tips

To help you stay ahead on the course I've put together some tips to help you manage your Facebook business page effectively.

Engage with your audience

You can engage with your audience through direct messages, comments, or even reactions. Engagement with your audience increases brand awareness. Is all about building a relationship, by allowing your audience or followers to get to know the real person behind your posts, you're helping them associate with the real person.

When people know you they can connect with you as a person, and they'll be more likely to engage with your content online, giving your engagement rates a boost. Try to make sure you're keeping up with the people in your business. It’s better to be known as a helpful business owner who answers questions quickly and engages their followers than someone who never says anything at all! 

Listen to your audience

You must communicate with your audience as well as hear their reactions. You should use social media listening tools and keep up with what people are saying if you want to effectively use Facebook for marketing. You may keep track of mentions of your business and follow hashtags to stay updated on what's popular and happening with your clients.

Promote your events

Facebook is a great place to promote your events because you can simply create an event from scratch and invite your followers. This is a great way to get the word out about your events.

Use Facebook Ads

Paid advertising is a way to reach more audiences and also create brand awareness. Facebook is known as the most popular platform for running ads. So, for you to promote your business page and reach, you need to learn how to use Facebook ads.

How to set up Facebook Ads

Before you set out to start creating Facebook Ads, it's important to consider your advertising goals.

For instance, 200 downloads in the first month can be your success rate if you're trying to increase mobile app downloads with Facebook ads. The point is that before you design a campaign, you should consider why you are advertising.

1. Create an ad account

When you signed up for Facebook, you were given a personal ad account ID by default. You view this ID by going to Ads Manager and looking in the upper left-hand corner.

To use Facebook Ads Manager, you need:

• A Facebook Page 
• A verified payment method and
• To be an admin, editor, or advertiser on someone else’s page

2. Head over to Facebook Ads Manager

By clicking and saving this direct link, you may find Facebook Ads Manager quickly and easily. Your personal ad account's Facebook Ads Manager will be opened automatically for you. Use the account drop-down menu to select the appropriate account.

From your business page, click the "Ad Center" drop-down arrow in the left sidebar, select "All Ads" from the drop-down menu, and you will be sent directly to Ads Manager. There is a link to "Ads Manager" at the bottom of that page.

Your Facebook Ad Accounts page will open and provide you with a brief overview of your ad accounts. Choose the account where you want to run advertising if you have access to more than one ad account.

There is a Facebook Ads Manager app available for Apple and Android if you'd prefer to use a mobile device.

3. Choose your objectives

Click the green ‘Create Ad’ button to get started with your first ad.

Then you will be taken to a page where you are going to choose your campaign objective.

Based on what you want to achieve there are several categories which include:

i) Awareness

This category is made up of objectives that will be beneficial to your product or service.

• Increase brand awareness by displaying your advertisements to those who are most likely to remember them.
• Improve your reach: show your adverts to as many people as possible.

Moz found that spending $1 per day can increase your audience by 4,000 individuals. While this did not exactly match our experience, it is worth trying.

ii) Consideration

You might choose this category if you want people to start thinking about your business. 

• Send people to a destination within or outside Facebook
• Get more Page likes, or post reactions, comments, or shares
• Promote app installation
• Get more views for your videos 
• Increase lead generation

iii) Conversion 

 This is designed to get people to purchase products and services :

• It Increases engagement on your website
• It Gets people to claim your offer
• It Increases product or catalog sales
• It Gets people to visit your shops etc.

Make sure your campaign name is something recognizable.

vi) Set your campaign budget

Here you are going to choose how much you want to spend on the ad. You can set your budget as a total amount for the campaign.

We have a daily budget and a lifetime budget.

Daily: A daily budget set a limitation on how much money you spend on advertising each day. Facebook will utilize the information you specify to determine the best location and time to display your ad to your target audience. After your budget is met, the adverts are turned off for the day. The cycle begins again the next day.

Lifetime: A lifetime budget is a maximum amount you will spend during the duration of your ad campaign. You provide a number and an end date, and Facebook will spend the money based on ad performance. The campaign will finish after your budget has been met.

v) Customize your target audience

As I mentioned earlier, the audience for your ad can be customized based on the following:

• Location
• Age
• Gender
• Languages
• Interests
• Behaviors

Also, you can choose advanced targeting, which will let you include or exclude people who are connected to certain pages, apps, or events. 

vi) Choose your ad placements

This defines where your ad appears for your audience.  You may choose to show your ad on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, or the Audience Network.

For the target you selected, Facebook suggests using automatic placements. This allows Facebook to optimize placements for you to achieve the greatest possible outcomes at the lowest total average cost.

Tips to maintain an engaging Facebook Business Page

Don't create a personal profile for your business

I once said earlier in this article, creating a personal profile for your business gives you a huge disadvantage, imagine missing out on all of the content creation tools, paid promotional opportunities, and analytics/insights that come with a Facebook Business Page.

Managing a business with a personal profile can be frustrating, I once had a business personal profile on Facebook. It requires having your customers send you a friend request to be able to connect with you and the last thing you would want to do is make it difficult for your customers.

Add a recognizable profile picture.

When creating a Facebook Business Page, don't make the mistake of adding an unrecognizable profile picture; you might lose most of your customers if you do so.

As a big brand, it's advisable to use your company logo as a profile picture, and as a Freelancer or consultant, a headshot of yourself is okay. Being recognized means being found by your customers or audience, especially in Facebook searches. Also keep in mind 'Page profile pictures display at 170x170 pixels on desktop, and 128x128 pixels on smartphones.'

Engaging Cover photo

Your cover photo is one thing that catches your visitors' attention as they visit your page, so you will have to make sure you put an attractive image there. Make sure it's of high quality, it can be anything like a company event or anything related to your business. Also note, Page cover photos display at 820 x 312 pixels on computers, and 640x360 pixels on smartphones.

Avoid publishing mishaps with Page roles

When I talk about publishing mishaps with Page roles I mean when a folk accidentally posts personal stuff on your social media page, this is a marketer's worst 'nightmare' or let me say 'horror story.'

Make sure you assign Page roles to employees who would effectively manage it and use it for work only. To assign Page roles check the previous heading above.

Remember, when sharing content on behalf of your brand, make sure you're posting it as your brand, and not as yourself. You can check that by clicking “Page Attribution” in your settings. 

Post photos and videos to your Timeline

Videos and photos have proven to be an effective way to increase and boost engagement on your page, especially videos. Determine the ideal timing and frequency for your posts.

It's important to consider what your content strategy would be, and also your posting frequency. If you don’t post frequently, you won’t look reliable or authentic but also don't post too often people might get sick of having their feeds flooded with your content.

When you post is also important in determining your post engagement, according to Hootsuite The best overall time to post on Facebook is between 8 am and noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays. 

The best days that make the most sense to post on your page according to research by Hootsuite social teams are Mondays through Wednesdays are the most effective days to post on Facebook

When it comes to the best time to post on Mondays, it's between 6 a.m. and 4 p.m. EST, and the worst time is between 9 p.m. and midnight.

The best time to post on Tuesday is between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. EST, and the worst time is between 9 p.m. and midnight.

The best time to post on Wednesday is between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. EST, and the worst time is between 8 p.m. and 1 a.m.

The best time to post on Thursday is between 6 a.m. and 4 p.m. EST, and the worst time is between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. 

The best time to post on Friday is between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. EST, and the worst time is between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m.

The best time to post on Saturday is at 8 a.m. or from 10 to 3 p.m. EST, and the worst time is between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m.

The best time to post on Sunday is between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. EST, and the worst time is between 8 p.m. and midnight.

Tips for finding your own best time to post on Facebook

You’ll get the best results if you focus your posting time on your specific audience.

Here are some tips to help you:

i. Use Meta Business Suite

Meta Business Suite shows you the best time and day to post on your page. This will help in Increasing your reach, building brand awareness, Increasing engagement, and driving traffic.

ii. Check your audience demographics

To find your audience demographics, open Meta Business Suite and click Insights, then Audience. This will give you an idea of the time zones that are important for you to consider when planning your posting times.

iii. Review past performance

This will help predict what will work best in the future. Take a time to look at the past posts and their performance to see which ones have the highest reach.

To evaluate your most recent post and see its reach, Open Meta Business Suite and select Facebook Insights from the left menu. Then select Content, choose a 90-day timeframe, and exclude Instagram posts from the study using the drop-down boxes in the top left. To view the posting with the highest reach, click on the Reach column heading after sorting posts by their highest reach.

iv. Be consistent

Once you get a good idea of what works best for your business, you should aim for consistency.

v. Pin important posts to the top of your page

You might want a particular post to stay on top of your page, you should consider pinning them. This is because the older a post gets, it gets pushed down your timeline.

You can use the pinned post as a way to promote some posts like; upcoming events, Offers, or important product announcements. Click on the drop-down arrow in the top-right corner of a post on your page, and click 'Pin to Top to pin a post.

vi. Monitor and respond to comments on your page

Social media is all about interacting with your audience. This should mean whenever your audience drops a comment you should respond to their comments. This helps you build connections with your audience and build your reputation. To monitor and respond to comments, hover over the 'Notifications' tab at the very top of your page.

vii. Promote your page to generate more followers

After adding content to your post, the first thing you should consider is running an ad to promote your page.

Here you can choose your target audience. To create an ad, click on the three dots at the top menu bar above your posts and select “Create Ad.” From there, Facebook will let you start creating an ad based on your goals.

Optimization tips for your new Facebook Business Page

• Your business profile picture should be at least 180 x 180 pixels and square. The profile picture should be readable when viewed at 36 x 36 pixels
• Your cover photo should display 820 x 312 pixels on a desktop and 640 x 360 pixels on mobile phones.
• Always try changing your cover photo seasonally or when your business has an important update.
• Your username should match the name of your Facebook business page as much as possible.
• Don't leave your “Description” field blank. Make sure you use all the allowed 255 characters for original content. 
• Linking to your page from your website will get that page rank higher for your business name, helping you in your reputation management efforts.
• Select the best template. Facebook offers pre-made page templates to help you optimize your page based on the type of business you are running.
• Add Page Tabs to Promote Your Products or Services

Basic tips to get more people to see your Facebook Page

This section includes fundamental and advanced tips to help you be visible to your audience and potential customers.

According to research by Locowise Facebook Analyser, the average organic reach of Facebook page posts is currently 10.59%. It can be very sad knowing that you have up to 15000 followers but only 1000 people tend to see your post. The big question here is how to get more people to see your Facebook page and also your post.

Tell your fans 

Many people find this uncomfortable but I'm going to show you a better way to encourage your fans to make sure they don't miss out on your Facebook page posts. You can do this in a variety of ways. One way is to create a post that tells your fans how to do it and pin that post to the top of your page.

Be online

Having a page posting every day isn't enough. You need to be active to respond to comments and reviews.

Reply to your tagged mentions

Watch the mentions on your page, then. Make sure to join in the conversation and bring up your page if it is discussed.

Start by switching over to your page, then click on the notification where your page was mentioned.

You can respond to any mentions of your page you get by clicking here and being directed to your notifications dashboard. even when personal accounts make public posts; such as your page.

Encourage people to mention you

Let your followers know they can mention you in their posts. Let them know that they should include @Your Business Name when they mention you to their Facebook friends in a public post.

This is known as word-of-mouth advertising, which will help you become more popular on Facebook as the brand that everyone must try!

And ideally, you ought to be keeping an eye on those mentions. Try dropping by, expressing your gratitude l any inquiries their friends may have about your company.

Post more interesting stuff

Posting interesting, and engaging content increases interaction and reach.

If you are curious about what to post here are some post ideas:

• Ask Questions. This is a great way to start a conversation with your audience
• Behind-the-Scene: this is another great content idea. To do this you can Show how products are made, introduce your employees, or include bloopers of other videos or campaign
• Trending topics: This is one great way to increase your reach and engagement and also people will be more likely to comment on and share your posts as well.
• Branded graphics: This is just perfect for any online presence. This involves creating graphics with your company logo.
• Here you can share quotes, memes, motivational sayings, relevant tips, and more.
• Tell stories: Here you can share your own story of how your company was founded, the challenging aspects of running a business, etc.
• Videos: Videos are great post ideas on Facebook, and creating and sharing them often.

Cross-Promote Across Social Media

You should cross-promote across other social media networks If you have got a large audience on them.

Facebook tricks for business

Identify Your Audience

You need to be certain of who your target audience is. To find your target audience, ask yourself these questions:

• What age range do your followers fall into?
• Which area do they reside in?
• What do they do for a living?
• What difficulties do they encounter?
• They use Facebook at what times, and how?

Also, you must be familiar with the typical demographics of Facebook users. See Facebook's audience insights for more information about your audience.

Define Goals

Know and define your business goals, because if you don't, it's just like a car going without any specific direction.

To create a successful Facebook marketing plan, you need a compelling purpose that is connected to your company's goals. You should focus on actions that will advance your primary objective.

Your goals can include, generating leads, increasing site conversions, etc. Once you have defined your goals you should come up with specific and quantifiable ways to attain them. Use a well-known framework for setting goals, such as SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely).

Make sure that every Facebook post and ad you publish ultimately aligns with your goals. 

Plan the content mix

Choose your content mix based on various principles, such as the 80-20 Rule or the one-third rule. According to the 80-20 rule, 80% of your material should be informative, and 20% should include some advertising for your service or product. The one-third rule states that one-third of your content should be informative, one-third should be interactive, and the remaining one-third should contain promotional material for your business or product.

Use different Facebook tools

Here are some tools that will help you increase engagement.

Facebook Group:Facebook groups can help increase engagement. Create a Facebook group under your company name to spread useful information and promote your brand, various events, products, and services. According to research, 1.4 billion people use Facebook groups each month. Undoubtedly a sizable readership, then.

• Facebook Business Manager: This tool helps you manage your post effectively and also makes your work with other team members smooth.
• Facebook Chatbot: This tool is designed to help you to communicate effectively with customers especially when you aren't online.
• Facebook Pixel and Facebook ads: Facebook ads is a sure way to increase your reach. Facebook Advertising allows you to pay to get content shared with a particular audience. Whether you want to increase brand exposure, traffic, or engagement, the goal is to reach the proper people with your message. Apply a Facebook pixel for free if you don't want to spend on Facebook Ads. It is merely a piece of code that you put on your website to track conversions from Facebook, market to recent site visitors, or create precisely targeted audiences for prospective advertisements.

Build a giveaway or contest strategy

Use giveaways or competitions to effectively use Facebook to further your marketing objectives. Remember to have a plan before launching these giveaways or competitions. Respond to inquiries like:

What items are you able to give away?

What role will the audience play?

Make sure your choice aligns with what your potential clients or audience expects from you by carefully considering these factors.

Facebook tricks for publishing

Schedule your posts

Preparing or writing numerous posts at once and scheduling them in advance is one of the best Facebook hacks.

You may schedule posts for Facebook and Instagram using the built-in tools provided by Facebook, such as Creator Studio or Meta Business Suite. Nevertheless, if you also publish on other social networks, you may require a third-party social media management service.

Use Facebook Page Insights to analyze the performance

Creating very good content is the first step to success. You must keep an eye on your stats to spot engagement trends.

Keep an eye on your Facebook Page Insights carefully to determine what engages your audience.

The Page Insights dashboard allows you to get a summary of your Page's performance over the previous seven days, which includes:

• Page Likes
• Engagement
• Facebook visit
• Post Reach

Use Audience Insights to learn about audience behavior

You need to learn more about the preferences and actions of your audience and to do that, check out Facebook's Audience Insights. This tool provides you with comprehensive data about your target audiences.

You receive demographic breakdowns on:

• Age
• Location
• Relationship status
• Gender
• Job descriptions
• Education levels

Facebook Messenger tricks

This is a tool for interacting with customers, brands, friends, and even families.

Here are Facebook messenger tricks you should try:

Use a chatbot 

Using the AI-powered chatbot will help reduce those Messenger response times. Chatbots can respond to basic FAQ-style questions for you in place of your customer care employees. Chatbots can then direct these more complicated or delicate questions to your team if clients require additional support.

Moreover, chatbots can cross-sell or upsell items to your clients to enhance their purchasing experience.

Make Voice and Video Calls

Facebook Messenger isn't meant for texting alone, you can use voice messages or video calls to connect with customers. When they aren't online you can easily leave a voice message.

Use Facebook Messenger as a Boarding Pass

Several airlines provide customers the choice to receive Facebook Messenger notifications for check-in and flight status. Also, you can use Facebook Messenger as your boarding pass after you get to the airport.

Even better, Messenger may be used to rebook your flight if necessary.

Send Money Through Facebook Messenger

Do you have a debt to an acquaintance? Then simply log into Messenger and give them a straight payment.

Choose Payments by clicking on the four dots. You must initially link a debit card to your account before proceeding.

Start a Group Chat

Start a group chat with all the necessary individuals so you may resolve issues all at once rather than having your chats repeated amongst pals. No one is left out of any updates, and everyone receives them.

If you have a lengthy group conversation going on with your family or your bowling buddies, you can keep it organized and simple to find by giving your group's names and pinning them to the top.

Earn the Very Responsive badge

A "very responsive badge" is a badge that appears on your profile, and it can be earned by responding fast to the majority of Facebook messengers.

To obtain the badge, you must have responded within 15 minutes with a 90% response rate over the previous seven days.

Facebook tricks for advertising

Knowing some Facebook ad tricks will help you reach your target audience.

Choose the right campaign objective

When you want to create a Facebook ad campaign, you would be asked to choose a campaign objective. Most people ignore this and move over to the next thing. However, the objective you choose is very important, but many sellers don't realize this.

Your chosen objective informs or tells Facebook the purpose of your campaign so that its algorithm can display your ad to a more relevant audience.

If you don't select the ideal target, this auto-optimization of your advertising won't be effective and will likely end up costing you significantly more in terms of cost per click (CPC).

Focus your ad around the right location for your business

When it comes to Facebook advertising, your geographic targeting is just as important as demographic targeting. You can direct your campaigns to the precise locations where your clients are found by choosing the right location.

Avoiding wasting too much of your advertising budget on consumers from regions where they are unlikely to ever make a purchase, can also help you save money. If you simply want to advertise, advertise locally, or within a specific city, state, or nation.

Right targeting

Targeting for Facebook ads may seem like a straightforward component of an advertising strategy, but some sellers still overlook it.

Although Facebook's algorithm will aid you in your endeavors, you should make every attempt to accurately describe to the platform the audience you are trying to attract with your campaign. 

Avoid ad duplication

Don't duplicate your ads as most sellers do, thinking is a better alternative to creating a new one. This is improper behavior, the goal here is to keep your audience engaged. How would you do that when you keep duplicating your ads?

To avoid this when generating your ad, choose "use existing post".

Install the Meta pixel

Meta Pixel helps you to remarket to website visitors and track conversions from your Facebook advertising.

It works by setting and activating cookies to track customers' interactions with your company.

For instance, I saw a sweater from The AliExpress on my Instagram feed that I wanted to purchase. I was about to put it in my cart when I clicked through to look at the details, but I got distracted. The next time I open Instagram, the ad for that sweater will pop up. This is what I call retargeting. This is a fantastic technique to re-engage clients who have previously shown interest in your items. Adding the Meta Pixel might assist you in retargeting potential customers.

Promote your best organic social content

It might be difficult to stand out on Facebook. Also, the current organic reach is only 5.2%. To get your organic content in front of everyone you want to reach, you can't only rely on the Facebook algorithm.

You can increase the number of people who see your Facebook content by using the Facebook Boost button. You may reach the people who are most likely to be interested in your content using the built-in targeting options.

Optimize your ad schedule

Using /7 campaigning may get expensive. Because of this, you should review your data and make an effort to center your advertising on the hours and days when they are most effective. Because Facebook Ad Management lets you get a breakdown of all of your advertising by day, doing this is fortunately simple. Even better, you can cross-compare your efforts to give yourself a bigger pool of data to work with.

Analyze your ad performance

Analyzing your paid ads requires careful analysis of your ad performance. Facebook Ads Manager not only enables you to design campaigns but also allows you to view the outcomes.

Using the toolset, you may apply breakdowns to see detailed analytics or receive a comprehensive overview of the performance of your ad account.

Customize columns to Access metrics like social impressions or website conversions.

Use suggested columns to view more about your ads based on your objective.

View breakdowns to see the age of your audience, their location, and what devices they’re using.

Use the insights side pane to see a visual representation of your ad performance.

Conclusion  

Facebook is one of the most popular social networks worldwide. Hence, creating a Facebook business page is worth the time if you want to grow your brand online.

And keep in mind that you must have content available for clients and prospects to enjoy before you begin promoting your Facebook business page to them.

FAQs

Does a Facebook business page have to be linked to a personal account?

Yes, Facebook requires every business page to be linked to a personal Facebook profile, but all the information, posts, comments, photos, and updates, on your page, are separate. The information on your profile will not appear on your business page unless you manually share them.

Can I separate my business page from my personal account on Facebook?

Yes, you should know that your personal Facebook account and Facebook Business Page aren't connected on Facebook, and won't be publicly listed on each other. 

How do I hide my name on my Facebook business page?

Go to your Page, then click Settings in the left menu. Click Page Transparency in the bottom left menu. Then Click next to Show Confirmed Page Owner to turn it off. Finally, Click next to Show Names of Confirmed Page Partners to turn it on or off.

What happens if I change my Facebook business page name?

Keep in mind that changing your Page's name won't affect its username. If you have Facebook access to a Page, you can switch to your Page and request a change to your Page's name on Facebook.

Should my Facebook username be the same as my business name?

Your username doesn't have to be the same as your Page name, but it's also recommended by Facebook. Because it'll be easier for people to find you. People can easily type in your username when they want to go directly to your Facebook Page.

^ Back to top

Having a website is essential for businesses. However, it's not enough to just have an online presence. It's necessary to also make sure that your website is easy to find and navigate for customers. 

This is where SEO (Search Engine Optimization) comes in. One critical factor that affect SEO is the design of your website. 

Choosing an SEO-friendly design template can make a huge impact on your website's visibility and ranking in search engines. Let's dig into the best ways to choose website design templates that are SEO friendly. 

Think about SEO before launching a website

There are several reasons why you should have SEO in mind before even picking the best website builder or web hosting service to begin creating your website.

Establishing a strong foundation - By prioritizing SEO before launching your website, you can establish a strong foundation for your online presence. This can include implementing the right keywords, optimizing your content, and building a user-friendly website structure. By doing this before your website is launched, you can increase your chances of ranking well on search engines like Google and Bing, making it easier for potential customers to find your business online.

Building brand awareness - When you launch a new website, it can take some time for people to discover it. By taking SEO into account beforehand, you can start building brand awareness early on. This can include creating a content strategy that highlights your unique value proposition and target audience, as well as building backlinks from other reputable websites to boost your credibility. By doing this, you can start building your online reputation and increase your chances of being seen by potential customers.

Saving time and money - SEO can take time to see results, so it's important to start early. When you prioritize SEO before launching your website, you can save time and money in the long run. By identifying the right keywords and optimizing your content beforehand, you can avoid having to make major changes down the line, which can be costly and time-consuming. Also, by building a strong online presence early on, you can avoid having to invest in paid advertising in the future.

Staying ahead of the competition - SEO is a competitive landscape, and staying ahead of the competition requires staying up to date with the latest trends and best practices. By prioritizing SEO before launching your website, you can stay ahead of the competition and ensure that your website is optimized for the latest search engine algorithms. This can include staying on top of changes to Google's algorithm and adapting your content strategy accordingly.

Creating a better user experience - SEO isn't just about ranking high on search engines, it's also about creating a better user experience for your visitors. By optimizing your website for SEO before launch, you can ensure that your website is easy to navigate and provides valuable content. This can drive increased engagement and conversions, ultimately leading to more business for your company.

Choose a template that will improve SEO

Google core web vitals and other tools that monitor your page experience

If you haven't heard about Google's Core Web Vitals, you should start paying attention as Google is using it as a ranking factor. Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that measure the user experience of your website. It brings together three key aspects of user experience; loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. You can use online tools to analyze your website's core web vitals, such as Google's PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, and Pingdom. 

Mobile-friendly designs

Mobile devices now make up the majority of web traffic, and Google has started favoring websites that provide a good mobile experience. As a result, it's no longer a choice to create a mobile-friendly website; it's a necessity. You should choose an SEO-friendly website template that provides a responsive layout that is optimized for mobile devices. The template should adjust to the size of the screen and provide the user with a seamless experience, regardless of the device they use.

Responsive

A responsive website is essential if you want to be successful online. A responsive design ensures your website is visually appealing, regardless of the size of the screen. You don't want anything to look distorted or out of place when viewed on different devices. An SEO-friendly website template should have a responsive design that automatically adjusts to different screen sizes.

Optimized headers and tags

Search engines crawl websites starting from the header tags, so it's essential to have properly optimized header tags such as H1, H2, H3, etc. A template should have pre-made header tags that you can use in optimizing your content. Optimizing your headers makes it easier for search engines to understand the hierarchy and structure of your website. 

Alt text, layout, images, etc.

Images play a key role in enhancing the user experience of your website. However, to ensure they don't negatively affect your SEO, you need to optimize them correctly. An SEO-friendly website template should have a layout that supports optimized images. Also, you should choose a template that enables you to add Alt text, which is an essential element for image optimization. Alt text allows search engines to understand the content of the image and helps with increasing website visibility.

Website structure

A well-structured website is another important element of an SEO-friendly website. A well-structured website helps users find the required information more easily and helps search engines index your website more effectively. Choose a template that has a clear and intuitive website structure that includes a sitemap, breadcrumbs, and clear navigation.

Templates that are the best for improving SEO 

Schema by MyThemeShop

Schema is one of the best WordPress themes that has been specifically designed to boost your website's SEO. It includes rich snippets, which allow search engines to better understand your website's content. Also, Schema has a clean and responsive design, making it user-friendly for both desktop and mobile users.

Astra Pro

Astra Pro is another versatile WordPress theme that has gained popularity for its flexibility and speed. It comes with a built-in schema markup feature for better SEO, as well as pre-designed templates for various types of websites. Astra Pro has a fast loading time, making it an ideal choice for businesses that want to improve their website's performance and UX.

Divi by Elegant Themes

Divi is a popular WordPress theme that offers a drag-and-drop visual builder, making it easy to customize your website without any coding knowledge. It comes with pre-designed templates for different types of websites, including ecommerce, portfolios, and blogs. Divi also offers responsive design and built-in SEO features for improved website ranking.

Avada by ThemeFusion

Avada is a multipurpose WordPress theme that has been built with SEO in mind. It offers customizable headers and footers, as well as pre-designed templates for different types of websites. Avada also comes with a wide range of customization options, allowing you to create a unique look for your website. Its fast loading time and responsive design also make it an excellent choice for improved website performance.

Salient by ThemeNectar

Salient is a sleek and modern WordPress theme that offers SEO-friendly features such as clean code, fast load times, and responsive design. It comes with pre-designed templates for different types of websites, including portfolios, e-commerce, and business websites. Salient also offers a variety of customization options, such as custom fonts, colors, and background images.

Final thought

Choosing a design template that’s SEO-friendly is no longer optional if you want your website to rank highly on search engines. 

By ensuring the template incorporates the factors we have mentioned above, you will increase your chances of ranking highly, which can result in significant website traffic and improved conversions. 

Remember that your website’s design is one of the key factors in SEO, so opt for a design that’s sleek, easy navigation, fast, and mobile-friendly.  

• Here's a list of the best website design services should you need a helping hand with your site

I. Introduction

You’ve probably heard about Etsy if you work as a designer, craftsman, artist, or collector. Etsy is the ideal destination for you if you've always wanted to turn your passion into a company. But how do you open your store and generate revenue?

You've heard the phrase "you should sell them on Etsy" a few times if you've ever created handmade or artisanal goods. Learning how to sell on Etsy is one way to earn money online and start a lucrative business. Please continue reading if you want to build an Etsy business and earn money by selling goods to this enormous pool of potential customers.

Chapter 1 

What is Etsy?

Etsy is a website where artists and craftspeople may offer their unique real or digital goods for sale. The vast marketplace is where most vendors post their products to reach a broad audience and avoid having to manage their online store. It is an American e-commerce company founded on June 18, 2005, by iospace, a small company composed of Robert Kalin, Chris Maguire, Haim Schoppik, and Jared Tarbell. It specializes in antique or handcrafted goods as well as craft materials. These products can be broken down into a wide range of categories, including jewelry, bags, clothing, home furnishings, toys, and craft supplies. The website continues the custom of open craft fairs by providing vendors with individual storefronts where they can list their products for a cost of US$0.20 per item.

Etsy is the global marketplace for unique and distinctive goods. It is the place where a vast array of unique, amazing objects, including old treasures and handcrafted originals, are found. Its goal is to retain human interaction at the core of commerce in an era of rising automation. For this reason, it created a space where creativity may flourish because it is fueled by people. It helps assist the sellers in the community in transforming their concepts into profitable ventures. 

According to VentureBeat, the website had roughly 500,000 members and $26 million in sales just two years after it first went live. According to Yahoo, the ecommerce company had 50 million products and two million merchants as of 2018.

Everything on the website is manufactured, gathered, curated, and sold by its vendors, unlike Amazon and Walmart. These small-business operators manage their orders and inventory in addition to manufacturing their products. Etsy serves as a middleman, providing smaller, independent entrepreneurs with a platform to connect with and draw clients.

How does Etsy work?

Etsy serves two distinct client segments, namely buyers and sellers, as it is a marketplace that draws vendors of specialized goods to connect with potential customers. Sellers include artisans, small businesses that produce handcrafted goods, and people who own antiques and vintage items. Buyers are the ones looking to purchase handmade, one-of-a-kind, and distinctive goods from both physical stores and websites. These are also the ones who are drawn to vintage and antique items. More sellers attract more customers, which increases Etsy's revenue. 

Etsy is a platform for consumer-to-consumer transactions that benefits both consumers and sellers. Etsy focuses primarily on selling handmade and vintage goods. Buyers get to purchase distinctive, customized goods that stand out, while artisans can profit by selling their creations.

To list their goods for sale, sellers register on the platform.

In-platform transactions are possible with Etsy, allowing buyers to browse products and order any that catch their eye. The choice to rate and comment on the goods purchased is available to buyers. As a result, the platform can profit from social validation.

There are a few measures you may take to properly launch on Etsy.

Gathering of information: Before opening the shop, gather as much information as you can. It will undoubtedly assist you in building a successful shop.

Store name: The hardest task is coming up with a name for your shop. Be specific about the name of the shop and avoid plagiarism. Your business name must be legitimate.

Keywords: To determine which of the words are descriptive keywords that the customer must search in the search bar items, you must think like a customer.

Images: You need to take eye-catching pictures of your merchandise.

Selling on Etsy is a really easy process. If you don't already have one, first open an Etsy account.

Is opening an Etsy shop a good idea for beginners?

Yes, opening an Esty shop is a good idea for beginners. 

Etsy is a developing online market where you can discover fresh chances every day. With eCommerce experiencing a boom during the Pandemic, Etsy has emerged as the top choice for merchants worldwide looking to make money online. If you genuinely want to open an Etsy store, there are several things to consider. Starting a new business involves several different things, such as selecting a market niche, selecting the right products to market, and much more.

Due to Etsy's competitive pricing, many businesses opt to use it. In actuality, starting a store for less than $50 is not difficult. Making a new Etsy store is quite simple

Chapter 2 

What can you sell on Etsy?

A wide range of products, including jewelry, furniture, tools, art, apparel, home decor, and much more, are frequently available on Etsy. If you're looking for gifts or unusual things that aren't offered by big-box stores, Etsy can be a good place to look.

Etsy currently has over 60 million products in thousands of categories and sub-categories. So, where do you begin? Don't worry: determining what sells best on Etsy is simple through this guide.

This platform is one of the top 10 marketplaces in the world with the quickest growth. Etsy ranks in the top five most popular marketplaces, according to sellers. Buyers use Etsy to find one-of-a-kind, handcrafted, or antique goods. For those who are willing to think beyond the box, this creates a market with many opportunities. But when you're considering starting on Etsy, it's not enough to be aware that the possibility is there; you also need to be aware of what you can sell there to develop a successful e-commerce business.

The finest items for Etsy sales strike a compromise between your needs as a seller and those of your customers. Those looking for distinctive products can find independent merchants from all over the world on the Etsy marketplace. On Etsy, anything you put for sale must be something you made yourself, vintage, or a craft supply. Also, all things sold on Etsy must abide by our policy on prohibited items.

You are in charge of ensuring that your store and its products adhere to Etsy's rules. Some of the products you can sell on Etsy Include;

1. Handmade items
2. Vintage items
3. Craft Supplies
4. Personalized clothing
5. Graphic designs and printables
6. Jewelry
7. Wedding Items
8. Stickers
9. Custom Toys
10. Candles

1. Handmade Items

Handmade goods have made it possible for creative people to sell their stunning works to anyone who wants to buy them.

Items that are considered handmade are those that you, the merchant, have created or designed. Handcrafted goods are more environmentally friendly because they are produced with fewer facilities and waste because they are made by people rather than machines. They are also produced using recyclable materials and environmentally friendly methods. This means that for individuals who want to shop more ethically and sustainably, handmade goods are a preferable option.

Every person is endowed with a certain talent, thus we must support and value those talents in those around us. Depending on the culture, beliefs, and materials accessible in each country or location, each one has its distinct method for producing art. Making a simple product is just one aspect of skills and craftsmanship; crafting a narrative for each thing manufactured is another.

2. Vintage items

Vintage translates as "of age." There are numerous interpretations because the meaning is so ambiguous.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, vintage refers to "something of high quality from the past," such as a piece of furniture, a work of art, or a piece of clothing, "especially something representing the best of its kind." Although the phrase is frequently used to refer to anything old, an item must be a specified age to be considered vintage.

Your home can become more charming and unique with vintage furnishings. An item must be older than 20 years but younger than 100 years to be considered vintage. Vintage can range in age from 20 to 99. Clothing is an example of a vintage item that can be new but have old design inspiration. Whether it's a piece of furniture, jewelry, or a car, vintage signifies collectible and iconic as well as higher worth. Vintage is regarded as the greatest of its era and is elegant and traditional.

3. Craft Supplies

On Etsy, craft supplies are equipment, ingredients, or materials that are primarily used to create something for a project or special event. Craft supplies might be manufactured by hand, bought, or even old. Craft supply stores may also sell party supplies.

Everything from egg stamps and nail decals to crochet patterns and wire strips for face masks may be found in the craft supply area. Nonetheless, craft supplies like beads, charms, ribbons, yarn, etc. are the most popular items in this category. When developing your internet business, take into account popular things like these if you are interested in making them.

Embroidery and other craft items are frequently sold by Etsy's best-selling merchants, indicating strong demand. Even better, you don't need to be artistic to succeed in this field. To draw in the correct customers, you do need to effectively brand your Etsy store. You may create a store that caters to a targeted audience and sells a successful product if you can figure out who your customers are and what their needs are.

4. Personalized Clothing

An important feature of Etsy products, particularly those in the clothes category, is personalization. The variety of personalized clothing available on Etsy, including birth announcement onesies, family reunion T-shirts, and socks with your face on them, is very impressive. 

A wide range of potential customers can be drawn to you as a new supplier if you can provide customization options. You'll have a better chance of converting individuals into clients if you can offer them a fun or practical idea together with a high-quality product to support it.

Research your products before you establish your store. Watch for a fresh take on a well-known genre. For instance, "bridesmaids gifts" is a common search term on Etsy for personalized goods. Think of a creative way to accomplish the task at hand rather than copying exactly what you find in the Etsy search engine results.

Also, with the correct print-on-demand partner, production can be streamlined. Sell your customized products, then have them printed and dropped-shipped by your supplier.

5. Graphic Designs And Printables

The digital goods business on Etsy is growing. Together with a wide variety of other printables and digital downloads, you may purchase everything from resume templates to downloadable art prints. 

The typical price of these digital goods is only a few dollars, while some sellers have success with more expensive downloads.

If you look at the sales figures for all-digital merchants like VectoriaDesigns or ArtCult, there is a lot of variation within this category as well as a lot of demand. Small firms looking for logos, labels, and other commercial assets are among the target markets, as are college students looking for a low-cost method to add wall art to their dorm rooms.

6. Jewelry

Jewelry is another area of Etsy that is very popular. The majority of jewelry selections on Etsy are both custom and self-designed. 

Many people seek and purchase jewelry-making kits and supplies on Etsy, which is a hive of creativity. They go as swiftly on Etsy as summertime lemonade.

Along with the designs, the conversational yet straightforward product descriptions also appeal to customers. Using several sorts of paragraphs in your product description is one efficient approach to accomplish this. 

For instance, you might include a paragraph outlining the components of the product, another outlining its size and dimensions, and a third outlining its features.

7. Wedding Items

Etsy is proud of its success in this area. The planning of a wedding is never finished without a trip to Etsy. You can buy wedding attire, decorations, and invitations on Etsy.

Among the best-selling items are bridesmaid gowns, bachelorette outfits, custom invites, jewelry, and many other things. On Etsy, wedding-related things are extremely popular. This is not surprising given that the US wedding market alone is thought to be worth $57.9 billion! Couples must take into account expenses such as wedding services as well as decor, party favors, and stationery.

Even though this category contains a lot of premium goods, there is still enough persistent demand for unique goods to make it a viable business opportunity for new vendors. Low-barrier options to enter the wedding market include inventive table place cards, inventive save-the-date cards, and distinctively designed wedding invitations. 

Depending on what you're attempting to offer, you'll need different tools and abilities to start selling these kinds of items on Etsy, but acquiring the design and manufacturing tools is not difficult.

Top sellers in the wedding category share not only intelligent, original designs, but also branding across their Etsy store, social media accounts, and websites. Your brand aesthetic should be represented in every aspect of your business, including your shop name, graphics, and language. Therefore, it's crucial to personalize both your product and your customer service. Given the sensitive nature of many purchasers, sellers who go above and above to add a personal touch will be more well-liked than those who make no effort at all.

8. Stickers

Etsy offers stickers for all possible uses, including water bottles, phone covers, scrapbooks, bumper stickers, greeting cards, and bumper stickers. Sellers have a wide choice of designs to choose from, from comical to expert custom labels.

Like with many things on Etsy, you can find a passionate audience if you can make it unique, entertaining, and tailored to the needs of the market. The difficulty with stickers is to identify their purpose before focusing even more on it in your design.

If you're selling stickers for water bottles or computers, for instance, make something that enables customers to show their individuality. If you're making wall decals for children's rooms, look for amusing patterns and sayings that go with the kids' personalities and hobbies.

9. Custom Toys

As more parents and grandparents hunt for unique presents, Etsy has emerged as a top destination for handmade toys. Retail plush toy sales in the United States alone reached over $1.25 billion in 2020.

Anyone may develop and start selling lovely bespoke toys with the aid of print-on-demand.

Choose your favorite animals, such as a bear, bunny, elephant, or sheep, and add a sentimental design to instantly win over clients.

10. Candles

A unique set of scented candles is a good way to create a nice, warm, and inviting atmosphere in a home. Sales of scented candles totaled $1.6 billion in just the United States in 2020. Overall, the candle's flame produces a tranquil and cozy space. Candles are the ideal present for loved ones, family, and friends.

Chapter 3 

How much does it cost to make an Etsy shop?

It's free to sign up and launch a shop on Etsy. The listing charge, transaction fee, and payment processing cost are the three fundamental selling fees. Sales from Offsite Advertising are also subject to an advertising cost. A listing can be published to the marketplace for $0.20.

An item may be listed for four months or until it sells. There is a 6.5% transaction charge added to the sale price whenever an item sells (including the shipping price you set). There is additionally a payment processing fee based on PayPal's cost structure if you accept payments through them.

Listing costs are billed at $0.20, therefore if your bank uses a different currency, the total may alter due to fluctuations in the exchange rate. All sales you generate through Off-Site Advertising are subject to an advertising fee. You can choose whether or not you want to use Etsy's advertising services when you launch your shop there.

How much does Etsy charge you to sell?

For each item you sell on Etsy, a listing fee and a transaction fee are assessed. You will pay $0.20 for each item you post on Etsy and a 6.5% transaction charge for each sale when you look at how much the online marketplace keeps from each sale. 

Are there any extra fees on Etsy?

Transaction fees, in contrast to listing fees, are only charged on listings that sell. 

Basics of transaction fees: 

6.5% of the total order amount in the chosen listing currency is what Etsy charges. Together with shipping and gift-wrapping costs, this fee is added to the final item price (if you charge your customers for those). Your Payment account will include a separate list of the expenses.

Costs for processing payments are made up of a predetermined rate and a portion of the item's final sale price. Each nation has a different rate and percentage. The fees are deducted from the final sale price of the item, which includes shipping costs and any relevant sales taxes. With each transaction that makes use of Etsy Payments, there are fees for payment processing. These processing costs are added to your payment account and taken out before deposits. These are extra to the transaction costs charged by Etsy.

India Payments fees are assessed to sellers in India for the handling of domestic sales.

Etsy charges you a processing fee for each transaction when one of your clients makes a purchase and you accept payments. These fees depend on where your bank account is located. Typically, it costs 25 cents plus 3% of the item's cost. When buyers choose to use Etsy's direct checkout feature and pay with a credit card, they have assessed this fee. If your customer chooses to pay with PayPal in this case, the fees are 30 cents + 2.9% of the item's cost.

This straightforward, open, and secure platform doesn't impose any additional monthly fees on you other than these kinds of fees. But, you can choose to pay an optional fee to let Etsy highlight your items with the most popular search terms to boost your visibility. Here, you must make sure that the total fee won't significantly reduce your profits. To maximize your income when selling goods on Etsy, mark the prices of your goods strategically.

How many items do I need to start an Etsy shop?

The majority of Etsy newbies begin with 10 to 20 products. By doing so, you may test things out and determine whether you're selling the proper stuff. Although this is a small amount, it is the safest method to start things off because it increases your chances of selling and prevents fee losses to the website.

Before publishing, make sure to preview every listing. When potential customers first examine your products, you don't want them to encounter a poor listing. Each entry can have up to 10 high-quality photographs or a single video added. Each must be distinctive enough to stand out from goods being offered by other marketplace sellers.

It's excellent that Etsy doesn't compete with sellers like you, unlike established eCommerce platforms like Amazon. Instead, it's a platform where you may market your goods to customers who are most likely to buy from you.

On Etsy.com, there are presently more than 2 million sellers, but you don't need to be concerned about competing with the major companies. On the site, there is plenty of opportunity for growth!

How to choose a product to sell?

These are steps to follow to choose the best product to sell.

- Research Trends

- Check Statistics

- Research Competitors

- Solve a customer pain point.

- Appeal to enthusiastic hobbyists.

- Go with your passion.

- Consider your professional experience.

- Read customer reviews on existing products.

- Find product opportunities in keywords.

- Test before you launch.

Chapter 4

Things to consider before getting started on Etsy

Here are some of the things you need to consider before getting started on Etsy.

1. Opening an Esty shop is Free

It costs nothing to sign up for Etsy and launch your business. Yet, there are expenses related to selling on Etsy. A $.20 listing fee, a 5% transaction fee, and a 3% + $.25 payment processing fee are all additional costs.

2. You Should be 18+ to sell on Etsy

But, with the direct supervision and approval of a legal Guardian, anyone 13 years of age or older can buy and sell on Etsy. This is due to Etsy's acceptance of four different categories of mature content: profanity, sexual activity or content (including products for sexual wellness), graphic violence, and explicit taxidermy.

3. Check the legal requirements for your location

Checking local legal requirements to confirm that operating a business from your home is legal is the first step when starting an online store. While a business license is not required to sell on Etsy, it may be required to operate a business in your state or county. You should check with your local business office to find out what your legal obligations are because laws differ between states and nations.

If you don't want to rent a commercial facility, you may also need to check with your local laws to see if it's okay for you to operate a business from home. Home-based enterprises are prohibited in some cities, and it varies.

4. Get registered and insured.

You must obtain a license from your state, but you may also need to register with the tax office in your nation. Even while you might not need to register your business with the federal government if you don't have employees, you will still need to file income taxes on the money you earn from your firm.

To learn what is registered, check with the IRS or the tax authorities in your nation. You can go to IRS.gov to register for a FEIN (Federal Employer Identification Number) if you decide to do so. launches a new tab. Even if you don't hire anyone, it's a good idea to have a FEIN because it can occasionally be used in place of your Social Security number.

To protect yourself in the event of a lawsuit, you'll also need to consider obtaining business and liability insurance. This is frequently covered by your renters' or homeowner's insurance.

5. As a seller, you are responsible for handling the shipping and packaging

Depending on where you live and where you are shipping to, this might be the case. Although you can offer free shipping on Etsy, you should try to consider shipping costs as they can be pretty expensive and ultimately depend on the location you're shipping to. Some buyers can be turned off by shipping charges, particularly if their nation requires them to pay customs fees on top of that. Try including the shipping cost in the product price so that a customer is attracted by the "free shipping" label but you are not left out of pocket. This is a good way to increase sales.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Etsy doesn't hold sellers accountable for packages that get lost in the mail. Nonetheless, making sure your customer receives their order is crucial, so try your best to assist them anyhow you can. 

You as the seller have the choice of sending a replacement item or issuing a refund for the unfulfilled order. Everything that fosters a relationship with your customers is beneficial since favorable feedback can contribute to the long-term success of your company.

6. Decide what you’re going to be selling

Even if you are certain of the product or product line you want to base your company on, it is still advisable to conduct some market research beforehand.

Start by looking at the number of rival listings on Etsy to gauge the market demand for your product.

To obtain a basic notion of how many people are selling what you want to sell, you may also look on Amazon, eBay, or any other marketplace.

7. Develop a brand

Selecting a name for your Etsy shop is one of the first steps you must take. The most memorable store names are often those that are brief, simple to read, and easy to pronounce. 

So have fun and check out the available Etsy and social network store names. It's a terrific method to market your business and attract new clients in addition to your Etsy store if you haven't already considered selling your Etsy goods on Instagram. Successful websites and online shops have a very distinct theme with recognizable brand colors, typefaces, and moods. 

You have the opportunity to decide what you want your brand to be and what you want your store to stand for since you will be creating, shipping, and packing your products. Consistency is the best way to build your consumers' trust and let them know you run a trustworthy business.

8. Register your URL

Once you have an available company name, you must register the domain name so that you will be the owner of the URL and can use it whenever you like. Also, you may direct the URL to your Etsy store so that it will appear when someone searches "your business name".com in a search engine.

In essence, registering a URL is a precaution to stop someone else from utilizing a website address that contains your company name. Use any web registrar, such as GoDaddyOpens in a new tab., to register a URL. I won't go into it here because there are instructions for purchasing the domain name on each registrar's website.

9. You will need to pay tax if you sell more than £1,000 in a year on Etsy

Learn about the tax structure in your nation because it varies from place to place and might change with age.

10. Open a separate bank account

When individuals approach me for advice on starting a business, the first thing I suggest is opening a separate bank account, particularly for your new venture. 

Having your finances combined with those of your business can soon become perplexing. If you have a location designated for business finances, you can quickly see how much money you are spending and making.

11. Research competition and pricing

Go around on Etsy for stores that sell things that are similar to yours. Go through a few to see if you spot any similarities or differences in the photography, listing descriptions, rules, or turnaround time. Try searching using terms that a consumer could use to find products similar to yours.

Find out what is being sold, how, and for how much. Although it's vital to get a sense of what else is available, you can't compare apples to oranges. Don't get too caught up in fitting in or setting your prices in a certain way since you and your product are unique.

12. Check what you can or cannot sell on Etsy

I have already listed above some guidelines to sell on Etsy.

Craft supplies, vintage goods, and handcrafted things can all be sold on the Etsy marketplace. You cannot sell any items if they do not comply with Etsy's requirements. Items that are bought from a wholesaler or manufacturer and then sold again are certain items that are expressly forbidden from being offered on Etsy.

These goods can be sold on other online stores, but if you list them in your Etsy shop, Etsy might remove them or shut down your business. Avoid competing in a saturated market

One of the easiest methods to avoid competition if you want to establish a business is to "niche down." You face stiff competition, for instance, if you focus on selling "handmade leather items.

You will rule that market if you open an Etsy store and establish yourself as the leading brand for a particular item. This will result in significantly higher purchases in addition to increased traffic. 

13. Note why you want to start an Etsy shop and align your goals 

You must be aware of your motivations for opening an Etsy store. This aids in the definition of your objectives, which are crucial for demonstrating the value of the time and resources you've put into your project.

Setting S.M.A.R.T. goals is an excellent way to determine what you're aiming at. The acronym SMART stands for:

- Specific

- Measurable

- Attainable

- Relevant

- Time-bound

Hence, be careful that your objectives aren't stated as "I want to earn a little additional money by selling on Etsy!" I want to sell X amount of Y items on Etsy by Z date to make a total profit of A dollars, not the other way around.

14. Consider keywords

When customers are searching for specific items on Etsy, they frequently start by entering terms and phrases into the search field. To decide which of these descriptive keywords your potential buyers will most likely use to find your things, sellers must think like customers.

Start by coming up with words or phrases that customers might use to search for your products to make the most of your keywords. Make a long list of potential outcomes and circle the most promising ones. Insert those terms into your item titles, product tags, and the opening of your item descriptions in the listings editor.

15. Take captivating product photos

The majority of Etsy vendors do not work as professional photographers. In that situation, you'll probably need to conduct some studying. Discover some fundamental concepts, then experiment with different settings, camera angles, and times of day until you find what works best for you.

To take product pictures, you don't always need to hire a professional photographer. Instead, choose a sunny window and use your phone's portrait mode to take pictures of your merchandise against a white background (poster board works great for this). You may also get a straightforward lightbox from Amazon.

16. Test out your shipping

You must ensure that your shipping options and packing are proper before sending goods to customers. Sending a few test shipments to acquaintances who reside far away will allow you to confirm that your packaging is adequate.

If your goods were harmed in transit, you should consider whether your shipping supplies were adequate to safeguard them.

There will inevitably be mishaps, but if the initial packaging you sent your goods in wasn't adequate to safeguard them, you'll need to make changes.

Is opening a shop on Etsy worth it?

Because it's one of the quickest, least expensive, and easiest ways to get your handmade goods online and connected to a shopping cart feature, selling on Etsy will still be worth it.

In comparison to creating a website, it's also a low-risk choice. You may list multiple things for just a few dollars, create a professional-looking online store in a couple of hours, and avoid paying domain and hosting expenses.

What you need to know about selling on Etsy

Etsy has recently undergone several adjustments, and it will continue to do so. As making money is Etsy's top concern, they will act in the best interests of their company rather than yours.

Several disgruntled Etsy sellers are debating whether it is worthwhile to keep selling on the site in light of the most recent adjustments, which appear to reflect that.

Here are some of the most typical Etsy benefits and drawbacks to help you decide whether it's worthwhile to use it for your handmade business:

Pros of selling on Etsy

+ Quick, easy & cost effective

+ Established audience

+ Good testing ground

Cons of selling on Etsy

- Quite competitive

- Lack of customer loyalty

- Lots of copycat products

- Harder to grow your email list

To find reviews on Etsy, you can visit sites like:

Sitejabber

Trustpilot

Consumer Affairs

Learn how to build an Etsy store that sells its goods before you start selling.

This must be emphasized. Your product is everything on Etsy. Selling a product that no one wants will not generate any revenue for a stylish store with excellent product photographs and descriptions.

How do you know the response is yes, though? Do you notice any listings on Etsy that resemble yours? What distinguishes your offering?

You must provide answers to these questions before you begin selling your goods on Etsy, and conducting in-depth market research in the product area you're interested in selling is the greatest approach to finding the answers to these questions.

If you wish to open an Etsy shop and sell something that is already widely available there, you can rapidly get dissatisfied. That's because Etsy is a tough market with ruthless competition. It might be challenging to stand out from the crowd and be seen without the appropriate Etsy SEO tools and careful optimization. It's not always simple to make the transaction, even when you are discovered on Etsy.

Chapter 5

How to start an Etsy shop: A step-by-step guide

Here is a step-by-step guide to starting an Etsy shop.

1. Create your shop

Create an Etsy account before starting your store. You'll use this account to manage your Etsy store and to make purchases from other creators. To introduce yourself to the Etsy community, add your profile photo and bio after creating your account.

Step 1: Visit Etsy.com/sell and click Get started to build an Etsy shop.

Step 2: Complete the introductory questions regarding your level of business experience as well as any selling-related subjects you'd like more information on. 

You can decide to skip this question by clicking on Skip Question.

Step 3: Choose the language, location, and currency for your store, then click Save and Continue.

Step 4: Choose the name of your store, then click Save and continue.

2. Set your shop preferences

Choose the language, nation, currency, and time commitment for your shop:

3. Shop language

The language you select for your shop will be the one used by default to describe your products. Make sure you feel at ease speaking with customers in the language you chose. You can enroll in more languages after opening your business, but you won't be able to modify it later if you want to offer translations in other languages.

Choose the appropriate shop country by checking the box. Select the currency you'll use to price your listings when you're shopping. If the currency of your bank and the currency of your store differ, currency conversion fees might be charged.

4. Choose your shop name

Choose a name that accurately describes your style. The following conditions must be fulfilled by shop names:

- 4 to 20 characters long

- No special characters or spaces

- No foul language

- Not being used by a member of Etsy already

- Does not violate someone else's trademark

You will get options for other shop names that are still available if the shop name you submitted is already in use. As you open your shop, your shop name will be retained for you.

You are permitted to modify the name of your store up to five times after it has opened. You will have to submit a name change request to an Etsy Help representative following the fifth try.

5. Stock Up your Store

You can begin selling goods as soon as your new Etsy business has a store. For each item you're selling on the marketplace, whether it's vintage products, handcrafted items, or arts and crafts supplies, make a new listing.

The images you use to sell the item are, in all likelihood, the most crucial component of each Etsy listing. The majority of online shoppers make visual decisions. They are unable to feel, smell, or physically view the item. Their choice to purchase your Etsy items depends on the quality of the product photography.

Your entry may include up to ten high-quality pictures or one video. Each must be distinctive enough to stand out from goods being offered by other marketplace sellers.

6. Set up your payment and billing details

You must link your bank account to your Etsy shop to receive payments if you want to sell items there. To use Etsy to pay your bills, you'll also need to link a debit or credit card to your account.

To link your bank account:

American vendors use a third-party solution offered by Plaid to input bank information. To help certain you receive your deposits, Plaid gives you the option to confirm your bank information with them.

Choose "Your Bank Information" Follow the instructions to add and confirm your bank information after connecting your bank to Plaid. You accept Plaid's conditions, including its privacy policy, when you use Plaid to verify the information on your bank account.