When someone in Wembley searches “dentist near me”, “jewellers on Ealing Road” or “plumber Wembley”, Google shows three businesses on the map first. Those three get most of the calls. This checklist covers what decides who they are. The 12-point checklist # Check Why it matters 1 Business name matches [...]
Keyword competition describes how competitive a search term is based on the number and strength of websites or advertisers targeting it. In SEO, understanding competition helps marketers decide whether a keyword is a realistic opportunity for their website or whether a more specific alternative may be strategically better. Keyword competition [...]
For years, a website had one main job: rank on Google and get the click. That job is changing. Google now shows AI Overviews on many searches, and more people ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity for recommendations before they visit any site. Recent tracking from Ahrefs found AI Overviews on [...]
Search for a big brand’s name on Google today and there’s a good chance an AI-generated summary appears before the brand’s own website. Tracking published in late September and early October 2026 shows Google’s AI Overviews spreading fast across brand-name searches. According to Ahrefs, 63 of 100 global brand names [...]
Search volume is an SEO metric that estimates how frequently a specific keyword or search query is searched within a defined period, commonly reported as an average monthly figure. It is one of the most commonly used metrics in keyword research because it provides an indication of search demand. However, [...]
Keyword Difficulty (KD) is an SEO metric used by third-party keyword research tools to estimate how challenging it may be to rank prominently in organic search results for a particular keyword. Most SEO platforms express KD on a 0–100 scale, but the calculation and interpretation vary between tools. A higher [...]
Keyword research is the process of discovering, analyzing, and selecting the search terms people use to find information, products, services, and solutions through search engines. It helps SEO professionals understand search demand and align website content with the topics and needs of their target audience. Rather than guessing what people [...]
Anthropic has updated the usage policy for Claude with a rule aimed squarely at one of the newest manipulation tactics in search: building fake websites to influence what AI assistants say. The updated policy was released on 8 October 2026 and takes effect on 12 November 2026, as reported by [...]
Transactional keywords are search queries that indicate a user’s intention to take a specific action, such as buying, booking, subscribing, downloading, ordering, or requesting a service. These searches often occur when the user has moved beyond general research and is looking for a practical way to complete an action. Examples [...]
Video is now the default ad format for small businesses: according to Wyzowl’s State of Video Marketing report, 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, and most video marketers say it has directly helped them increase sales. At the same time, AI video tools have changed the economics. [...]