SEO

Three must-have GA4 SEO reports you can build in under 30 minutes

Published

2 years ago

January 12, 2023

Three must-have GA4 SEO reports you can build in under 30 minutes

30-second summary:

If conveying the value to C-suite wasn’t challenging enough, SEOs are now having to deal with the GA4 shift
Does your SEO reporting take hours or days? Is it too detailed, or not detailed enough?
Buy back some time for a cuppa and a catch-up, use this super-detailed guide that will save you hours and get you the most effective GA4 reports

Have you experienced this… desperately trying to find where your favorite GA3 reports are hiding inside the new Google Analytics 4 (GA4)?

The process can feel daunting for all teams–including SEO teams looking to trace the impact of their search engine optimization efforts on the website’s overall performance. That is because many GA3 (also known as Universal Analytics) reports are either difficult to locate or need to be custom-built from scratch inside the new GA4.

That’s where these three reports come in!

Here are the three GA4 SEO “P” reports we will be creating together in GA4

1. SEO Pages report

Which of our web pages are successfully ranking in the search engines and generating the most traffic, conversions, and sales for the business? With this report, you can instantly pinpoint the pages that need more “SEO” optimization so you can increase your website’s traffic, conversions, and sales.

2. SEO Profiles report

What locations, interests, age groups, and other characteristics define our SEO audience? With this report, you can confidently define or redefine your ideal customer–so you can attract more of them.

3. SEO Paths report

How do our organic search traffic visitors navigate our website? What is their most common path to conversion? With this report, you can quickly discover and remove any roadblocks that are preventing your visitors from converting into leads and customers.

So we’re all on the same page: Throughout this article, I will use the phrases SEO traffic, organic search traffic, and organic traffic synonymously. They all mean people who typed a query into Google, looked through the unpaid (non-ad) search results, and then clicked through to your website.

Step 1: Create your SEO Pages report

One of the time-saving beauties of Google Analytics 4 is the Explore feature which allows us to create fully custom reports from scratch. We will use this feature to create our SEO Pages report. Quick note: Google has announced a new landing page report in GA4 that you can use to build this report as well. For now, let’s keep going with the quick and easy steps outlined in this article.

Click Explore. Click Explore in the left menu
Click Blank. On the next screen, click Blank

IMPORTANT: Don’t see it? If you do not see the option to click Blank, your access to GA4 is set too low. You need to ask your GA4 administrator to upgrade your access so you can create reports. Once you’ve done that, come back and continue the steps.

Name exploration. Under “Variables” change the Untitled exploration to SEO Pages. You have now named your report.
Create Organic Search segment. Click the + sign next to “SEGMENTS” > User segment > At the top, change the segment name from “Untitled segment” to “Organic Search Traffic” > Add new condition > search for and click on First user medium > click Add Filter > select contains > type and select organic > Apply. You have just created a segment (or filter) that automatically only displays information about your organic search traffic in the report you’re about to create.
We’re going to bulk-add: Now that you have created your organic search traffic segment, it’s time to build a custom report, then apply your segment to it. In the coming steps, we will bulk-add all the metrics and all the dimensions we will need for all three SEO “P” reports.
Add Landing Page dimension. Click the + sign next to DIMENSIONS > in the search box, type landing page and when it appears, check the Landing Page + query string box.
Add additional dimensions. Repeat the previous steps by searching for and checking the checkboxes of the following dimensions:
1. Device category
2. Browser
3. Country
4. City
5. Type “demographic” and check all the demographic dimensions you want to report on, such as Age, Gender, and Interests. Note: For these selections to report any data, you will need to enable the Google Signals functionality in GA4 which you can do by opening another tab and going to Admin > Data Settings > Data Collection > Get Started > Continue > Activate. Be sure to read Google’s policy to ensure that it complies with your organization’s privacy requirements If not, skip this bullet.
Import all dimensions at once. After the final dimension’s checkbox has been checked, click the Import button to bulk-import all of the dimensions into your exploration report.
Add Entrances metric. Click the + sign next to METRICS > in the search box, type entrances and when it appears, check the Entrances box.
Add additional metrics. Repeat the previous steps by searching for and checking the checkboxes of the following metrics:
1. Entrances
2. Views
3. Views per user
4. Engagement rate
5. Bounce rate
6. Conversions
7. Session conversion rate
8. User conversion rate
9. New users
10. Returning users
11. Total users
12. eCommerce revenue (if you have an eCommerce website)
13. Optional step: Add other metrics–If you prefer to use different metrics than the ones listed above, GA4 makes it very easy to do so. Just leave the search box blank and use the “All” column to expand and add additional metrics you’re interested in. Hovering over a metric shows a definition of the metric, which is very helpful. You are free to do this now, or later. For now, let’s keep going.
Import all metrics at once. After the final metric’s checkbox has been checked, click the Import button to bulk-import all of the metrics into your exploration report.
Name the report. Rename the Free form report to Landing pages by clicking and typing over it.
Add dimension to the report row. Double-click the “Landing page + query string” item under DIMENSIONS > this will add it to the “ROWS” section under the “Tab Setting” section.
Add metrics to the report column. One by one, Double-click the following items under METRICS and they will be added to the columns of the report we are building: Entrances, Views, Views per user, Conversions, Session conversion rate, User conversion rate.
Change cell type. Under the “Tab Setting” section, scroll down and change the Cell type to Heat map.

Congratulations! You have successfully created your SEO Pages report.

How to read your SEO Pages report

What the SEO Pages report tells you

Because the SEO Pages report uses the Organic Search Traffic segment that we created, here’s what the report tells you: The pages of your website that are responsible for generating the most organic search traffic, conversions, and sales to your business. (You can change the time frame on the left to adjust to different periods.)

Now what?

Are these the pages you expected? Any pages glaringly missing from the report? This report helps you quickly pinpoint the pages that need more “SEO” optimization.

How? Because if you notice that key pages of your website–perhaps your core product pages, your main service pages, the big blog post your team spent weeks on, etc.–are missing from or are near the bottom of the SEO Pages report, this means those key pages are likely not ranking well in the search engines when your prospects are “googling.”

This tells you that it’s time to optimize these pages so they can start generating more traffic, conversions, and sales for the business. If you’re not sure how to optimize your web pages, see SEO Sprints on SprintMarketer.com.

Bonus Tip: Sorting

If you want to sort the report by another metric other than Entrances–for example, conversions–simply drag that metric to the top of the “VALUES” list under “Tab Settings.” In doing so, you will be able to quickly report on which pages of your site are responsible for generating the most conversions from SEO traffic.

1673544607 194 Three must have GA4 SEO reports you can build in under

Step 2: Create your SEO Profiles report

Because we’ve already created the SEO Pages report, we will use a shortcut to create the SEO Profiles report. Let’s dive in.

Click Explore. Click Explore in the left menu.
Duplicate the SEO Pages report. On the next screen, find your SEO Pages report > click the 3 dots to the right of your SEO Pages report > select Duplicate.

IMPORTANT: Don’t see it? If you do not see the option to click Duplicate, your access to GA4 is set too low. You need to ask your GA4 administrator to upgrade your access so you can create reports. Once you’ve done that, come back and continue the steps.

Rename the duplicated report. A new report will appear and it will be named “Copy of SEO Pages” > click the 3 dots to the right of that report > select Rename > change the name to “SEO Profiles” > Submit.
Create your Device category report to profile the devices your SEO traffic uses to access your website.
1. Open the report. Click on the name of your SEO Profiles report to open it > now it’s time to modify our dimensions so you only see the dimensions that give you insight into the “profiles” of your SEO visitors.
2. Remove old dimension. Under the “Tab Settings” column, hover over the Landing page + query string dimension located under “ROWS” > then click on the X to remove it from the list of dimensions. This will make your report “disappear” because there is no dimension selected, but not to worry–we will bring it back right away.
3. Add new dimension. Double-click the Device category dimension. This will move the Device category dimension under “ROWS” in the “Tab Settings” column. Voila, your report has now reappeared.
4. Rename your table. Now that your Device category report has been created, you need to change the name of the table from Landing pages > Click on the words Landing pages > type “Device” > click Enter on your keyboard.
5. Sorting. I prefer to sort this report by Total users so I can know the device preference of my individual users–this way, I’m not sorting by Views, Entrances, Sessions, or other metrics that may be inflated by a small number of users who visit frequently. To sort the report by Total users, simply drag the Total users metric to the top of the “VALUES” list under “Tab Settings.”
6. You’ve created valuable data. Your new Device category report gives you insight into the profile of your SEO traffic by telling you their preferred devices (mobile, desktop, tablet, etc.). This is helpful in case your website experience is faulty or glitchy on certain devices, in which case if that device shows up near the top of your report, it should be a priority to fix those issues.
Create your Browser report to profile the browsers your SEO traffic uses to access your website.
1. Duplicate. Creating this report will be a breeze because you only need to duplicate the previous report and make some quick changes. Click on the arrow next to “Device” > select Duplicate
2. Rename table. A new table will appear. Let’s rename it > Click on the words Device in the new table > type “Browser” > click Enter on your keyboard.
3. Remove old dimension. Under the “Tab Settings” column, hover over the Device category dimension located under “ROWS” > then click on the X to remove it from the list of dimensions. This will make your report “disappear” because there is no dimension selected, but not to worry–we will bring it back right away.
4. Add new dimension. Double-click the Browser dimension. This will move the Browser dimension under “ROWS” in the “Tab Settings” column. Voila, your report has now reappeared.
5. Sorting. Make sure your table is sorted by Total users. If not, here’s how: To sort the report by Total users, simply drag the Total users metric to the top of the “VALUES” list under “Tab Settings.”
6. You’ve created valuable data. Your new Browser report gives you insight into the profile of your SEO traffic by telling you their preferred browsers. This is helpful in case your website experience is faulty or glitchy on certain browsers, in which case if that browser shows up near the top of your report, it should be a priority to fix those issues.
Create your additional profile reports. Follow the steps in bullet 5 to create tables for all the additional dimensions such as City, Country, Age, Gender, Interest, and any other dimensions you may have added in Step 3 when you created your SEO Pages report.

Congratulations! You have successfully created your SEO Profiles report.

How to read your SEO Profiles report

What the SEO Profiles report tells you

Each tab of your new SEO Profiles report provides an insight into your SEO audience. For example, you know their device preferences, their browser preferences, their ages, their interests, their top locations, and more. (You can change the time frame on the left to adjust to different periods.)

Now what?

With this information, you can confidently define or redefine who your ideal customer is and use this invaluable information to:

Rework the wording your use on your website so it’s more effective for this group
Redefine the audiences you’re using for your ads (if you’re running ads)
Update the wording you use in your offline messages to align with your audience and more.

Understanding who your audience is and speaking their language is a marketing superpower that can create emotional connections between you and your potential customers, and drive up conversions and sales.

Step 3: Create your SEO Paths report

IMPORTANT: Do you have events set up? This SEO Paths report requires that you have added events and conversions to your GA4 property. For example, have you configured your “purchase” or “lead” events so GA4 knows how to spot your conversions? If not, search for articles on this site, or see Analytics (GA4) Sprints on SprintMarketer.com.

In this step, we will build two powerful reports. The first one is your Traffic Flow report which tells you how all SEO visitors navigate your website, and the second is your Conversion Flow report which tells you how your *SEO visitors who converted into leads or sales* navigated your website.

Ready? Let’s go.

Click Explore. Click Explore in the left menu.
Duplicate the SEO Pages report. On the next screen, find your SEO Pages report > click the 3 dots to the right of your SEO Pages report > select Duplicate.

Rename the duplicated report. A new report will appear and it will be named “Copy of SEO Pages” > click the 3 dots to the right of that report > select Rename > change the name to “SEO Paths ” > Submit.
Open the report. Click on the name of your SEO Paths report to open it > now it’s time to modify your report. Let’s dive in.
Start new report. Click the + sign next to the Landing Pages report > Select Path exploration.
Click Start over. Click Start over to clear everything in the existing report.
Delete old report. Click on the old Landing Pages report > click on the arrow next to its name < select Delete.
Rename report. Let’s give your report a more intuitive name. Click on the words Path exploration in the report > type Traffic Flow > click Enter on your keyboard.
Add new dimension. Double-click the Device category dimension. This will move the Device category dimension under “ROWS” in the “Tab Settings” column.
Apply segment. Double-click the Organic Search Traffic segment to apply it to the new report (since we started over).
Remove old metrics. Under the “Tab Settings” column, hover over Event count located under “METRICS” > then click on the X to remove it from the report.
Add new metric. Double-click the Total users metric. This will move the Total users metric under “METRICS” in the “Tab Settings” column and apply it to your report.
Build your Traffic Flow report. This report shows how your SEO visitors navigated your site once they landed on it. This is a fantastic report for confirming whether the path you think people should take is indeed the path they are taking.
1. Set Starting Point. Let’s begin by telling this report what we consider a starting point for traffic to our website. Click Drop or select node inside the Starting Point text on the report > select Event name > select session_start
2. Rename steps. Click on the dropdown menu under STEP +1 > select Page title and screen name. This will expose the names of the pages that your visitors visit during their session. The bigger groupings represent the most visited pages.
3. Reading this report. For example, in the screenshot below, I can see that, for the date range selected, after leaving the Google Online Store, the majority of the SEO visitors navigated to the Home page followed by the Men’s / Unisex Apparel page, followed by several other pages. I now know that people go back to the home page when I don’t expect them to–which could indicate that the calls-to-action on the Google Online Store page may not be clear.
4. Add more paths. (1) Double-click any blue bar to expose additional visitor paths and see how your visitors navigated from one page to another. (2) Hover your mouse over any blue bar to see that page’s visitor breakdown by Device category. See the screenshot below.

Congratulations! You have successfully created your SEO Traffic Flow report.

Build your Conversion Flow report. This report is a superb companion to the Traffic Flow report because it shows how users who converted navigated your site before they converted. This is a fantastic report for verifying if the funnel you think people should take is indeed the funnel they are taking.
1. Duplicate. Click the arrow next to the Traffic Flow report > Duplicate > Rename the new report Conversion Flow > click Start over to clear the existing report. It’s now time to quickly create your Conversion Flow report.
2. Set Ending Point. Let’s begin by telling this report what we consider to be an ending point (conversion event). Click Drop or select node inside the Ending Point text on the report > select Event name > search for and choose the event that represents the conversion you’ve set up for your website, for example, purchase, generate_lead, or etc.
3. Rename steps. Click on the dropdown menu under STEP +1 > select Page title and screen name. This will expose the names of the pages that your visitors visit during their session. The bigger groupings represent the most visited pages.
4. Reading this report. For example, in the screenshot below, I can see that, for the date range selected, the weakest link in the checkout process is from the Shopping Cart to the Checkout. Now I know that we need to get better at encouraging people to check out once they’ve added items to their cart.
5. Add more paths as needed. (1) Double-click any blue bar to expose additional visitor paths and see how your visitors navigated from one page to another.(2) Hover your mouse over any blue bar to see that page’s visitor breakdown by Device category. See the screenshot below.

Congratulations! You have successfully created your SEO Conversion Flow report.

How to read your SEO Paths report

What the SEO Paths report tells you

With your Traffic Flow report, you can now observe exactly how your SEO visitors experience your website and make fixes where unexpected behavior might be occurring.

With your Conversion Flow report, you can now observe the most common steps your SEO visitors take while converting into leads or customers–and you can use this knowledge to make fixes where unexpected behavior might be occurring.

Now what?

How do our organic search traffic visitors navigate our website? What is their most common path to conversion?

Maybe you need to add a call-to-action on one of your drop-off pages, so visitors know exactly what their next step should be.

Maybe you need to add an upsell to your checkout process so you can increase your transaction value.

Maybe you need to remove or completely rework a certain page because it’s proving to have the highest drop-off rate in the funnel.

Understanding and removing roadblocks from your users’ experience is a powerful marketing technique that can help you generate more conversions and sales from your existing traffic without having to generate new traffic.

Let’s summarize

Google Analytics 4 can feel daunting for all marketers, and SEOs are no exception. But with these quick and mighty GA4 SEO “P” reports, those of us who manage search engine optimization campaigns can easily monitor and communicate the impact of organic search traffic on the business.

Bonus: Sharing your GA4 SEO reports

When you first create an exploration, only you can see it. Would it be valuable for you to share your 3 reports with other members of your team? If so, this bonus is for you.

Sharing your Explore reports

Click on the report you want to share
In the upper right, click Share exploration
That’s it. Anyone who has a Viewer role (or higher) in your GA4 property will be able to see your report when they log in and go to Explore.
If you’re not sure how to create Viewers or any other roles inside GA4, it’s very easy. Just go to Admin > click Access Management in the Account or Property column > Assign roles to new or existing members. If you get stuck here, check out this access management article from Google.

Exporting your Explore reports

In the upper right, click Export data.
Select the export format:

Google Sheets
TSV (tab-separated values)
CSV (comma-separated values)
PDF
PDF (all tabs)

When you export to Sheets, TSV, or CSV formats, all the data available in the selected visualization is exported. This may be more data than is currently displayed. When you export to PDF, only the data currently displayed in the visualization is saved.

Happy SEO GA4 reporting!

Mary Owusu is CEO at Sprint Marketer, Professor of Digital Marketing & Analytics, President-Elect at the Digital Analytics Association Board. Mary is also an ATHENA Award Winner and FOUR Under 40 Emerging Leaders (AMA).

Subscribe to the Search Engine Watch newsletter for insights on SEO, the search landscape, search marketing, digital marketing, leadership, podcasts, and more.

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SEO

SEO Experts Gather for a Candid Chat About Search [Podcast]

Published

19 hours ago

September 13, 2024

Max

SEO Experts Gather for a Candid Chat About Search [Podcast]

Wix just celebrated their 100th podcast episode! Congrats, Wix. To quote Mordy Oberstein, Head of SEO Brand at Wix; “we talk a lot.”

You sure do! It’s a good thing you have a lot of interesting stuff to say.

The 100th episode of “SERPs Up” was full of awesome guests. Here’s a summary of the action.

Apart from the usual faces, Oberstein and Crystal Carter, Head Of SEO Communications, it was a powerhouse guestlist:

Chima Mmeje.
Darren Shaw.
Joy Hawkins.
Eli Schwartz.
Kevin Indig.
Barry Schwartz.

Just How Broken Are The SERPs?

The first guest was Chima Mmeje from Moz. She dove into the frustrations that many SEOs have been feeling and spoke plainly about the flaws in Google’s updates.

Mordy Oberstein: “Is the SERP broken?”

Chima Mmeje: “The helpful content update, and I’m saying this here, live, is a farce. There was nothing helpful about that update. … Yes, the SERP is 1,000% broken. … How does anybody even use Google in the U.S.? … I don’t think they are going to release any update that will fix these issues.”

Mordy Oberstein: “There’s no update. … Plopping Reddit all over the SERP was because they saw the content trends … and they said ‘we don’t have any so we’re just going to throw Reddit there’.”

Chima Mmeje: “It was lazy to have Reddit there … Nobody uses their real names. Anybody can go on Reddit and answer questions and then you see these answers populating in People Also Ask, populating in featured snippets, populating all over the SERPs as correct information. It is dangerous, at worst.”

Crystal Carter: “Do you think that one of the reasons why we’ve seen so much upheaval and so much so volatility in the SERPs, which I certainly agree with in the last year … is lots and lots of variables, like lots of new features coming in, so the alignment with Reddit, the AI overviews, the SGE … Do you think it is just too many things being thrown in at the same time and it messing up lots of SERPs as a result? Or do you think it’s something else?”

Chima Mmeje: ” … releasing too many features that they did not test properly. Features that were rushed SGE [testing] did not even last a year and now they brought in Google AI Overviews. I still don’t understand why we have AI Overviews and featured snippets on the same SERP. I feel like it’s like pick one, make a choice.”

Mordy Oberstein’s next question was about what we can do. “As an SEO, how are you supposed to do this? I’ve heard things from people … Yeah, I don’t know what to do. I can’t produce the kind of results that I’ve always wanted to. Can you still be effective as an SEO in an environment like this?”

Chima Mmeje: “I’m going to be honest, we are suffering … It feels like we are trying our best with what we are seeing … because there is no clear guidance. And to be honest, a lot of us are playing a guessing game right now and that is the best that we can do. It’s all a guessing game based on what we’ve seen one or two variables work. And this is not a long-term strategy. If we’re going to be realistic, it’s not going to work in the long-term. I honestly, I don’t know what the answer is … you’re fighting against Reddit. How do you compete against Reddit? Nobody has figured that out yet.”

Crystal Carter: “Thanks for saying it out loud, Chima.” Crystal was reflecting the sentiment of the commenters, who appreciated her candor and willingness to say: we don’t know, but we’re trying our best.

Mordy Oberstein: “The most honest take I’ve heard on that in quite a long time.”

Mmeje also recounted examples of small website owners and small businesses that have had to shut down. She also talked about the pervasive feeling in the SEO community that there is no rhyme or reason to how the algorithms handle websites and content.

What’s Going On In Local SEO?

The next guests were Darren Shaw from Whitespark and Joy Hawkins, owner of Sterling Sky for a segment called “It’s New.” They talked about new developments in local SEO.

Hawkins talked about a new feature in Google Business Profile.

Joy Hawkins: “… There’s a little services section inside the Google business profile dashboard that’s easy to miss, but you can add anything you want in there. … We’ve done a lot of testing on it and they do impact ranking, but I should clarify, it’s like a small impact. So usually we see it for longer-tailed queries that maybe don’t match a category or things that are not super competitive. … So it is a small ranking factor, but still one that is worth filling out.”

Darren Shaw: “ .. this is the question that a lot of people ask. We know that if you go into the services section of your Google business profile, Google will suggest predefined services … And so Joy’s original research was focused on those predefined ones and it definitely identified that when you do put those on your profile, you now rank better for those terms depending on how competitive they’re, as Joy had mentioned. … There is a place where you can add your own custom services. Have you done any testing around that? Will you rank better with the custom services?”

Joy Hawkins: “Yes. They both work. In custom services … I’m trying to remember the keyword that Colin tested it on. It was something super niche like vampire facials. I was Googling, what the hell is that? … Really, really niche … But he just wanted to know if there was any impact whatsoever and there was. [Custom services fields are a] good way to go after longer tail keywords that don’t have crazy high search volume or aren’t super competitive.”

Darren Shaw: “You want to make sure that you’re telling Google what you do … that’s basically what the services section provides. And it’s not a huge ranking factor, but it’s just another step in the local optimization process. … a tip for custom services because custom services often get pulled into the local results as justifications. It’ll say this business provides vampire facials, right? Well, did you know there’s a vampire emoji? So if you put the vampire emoji in the title … Then in the local results you’ll see a whole panel of businesses that all provide that service, but yours has that little vampire emoji which will draw people in.”

There was tons more in this section, including questions from the audiences and some great jokes.

The Obligatory AI Section.

Eli Schwartz And Kevin indig were next up to talk about AI. Oberstein, professional rabble rouser, tried to get them to argue, but despite their very different posting habits, they found a lot to agree on about AI.

Mordy Oberstein: “It wouldn’t be an SEO podcast if we didn’t talk about AI. Where do we currently stand with AI? What can it do? What can’t it do?”

Kevin Indig: “… We’re at a stage where AI basically has the capability to create content, analyze some basic data. It still hallucinates here and there and it still makes mistakes. … If you compare that to when this AI hype started in November, 2022, so it’s almost two years now and we’ve come a really long way, these models are getting exponentially better. … It means different things based on whether you look at it as a tool for yourself to make your work more efficient. And of course, what does it mean from an SEO perspective? How does it change search, not just Google, but also how people search. And I think these are all different questions that are exciting to dive into. … So there is a lot of objective data that indicates efficiencies and benefits from AI. There’s also a lot of hype that promises a little too much about what AI can do. And so I’m generally AI bullish, but I’m not in the camp of AI is going to replace us all the next two years.”

Mordy Oberstein: “I’m setting the stage here a little bit because while your LinkedIn pros are generally like pro ai, a lot of Eli’s posts are a little more skeptical about AI. So Eli, what do you think about what Kevin just said? By the way, I’m like, for those who are listening or watching this, I’m pitting them against each other. They’re friends and they do a podcast together. So it’s cool.”

Eli Schwartz: I think AI is great. I think that there’s a lot of great things you can get out of AI. You can, again, like Kevin said, it can be your thought partner. … I’m anti AI in the way people are using it. And I don’t think people have necessarily changed their behaviors because before … they outsource [content] on Fiverr and Upwork and they bought very cheap content and now they’re getting very free content. So then that’s coming from AI. That behavior hasn’t really changed. The challenge is that now there are more people that think they can copy them.

So I talk to CMOs all the time who are like, well, I just go of my SEO team. A big company reached out to me recently. They wanted to gut check themselves after they already fired their SEO team. So I can’t really help there, but they’re like, AI can do everything. … Well, I’ll see them in a year from now when they have whatever sort of penalty. AI is a very powerful tool. Any tool we have a drill is a very powerful tool. But if you just hold it in the air and just let it go, it’s going to make holes. But if you use it appropriately, it does the thing it’s supposed to do. … We’re humans and we buy stuff and it has to come to a point where humans are talking to humans.

Crystal Carter: “… Most of the gains are coming from productivity. The stuff like Kevin was talking about with being able to write product descriptions more quickly, being able to write lots of posts more quickly and being able to finish your things more quickly, brainstorm, et cetera, in terms of the quality, the quality is still not there. It’s getting there rapidly, but it’s still not there.”

There was lots more AI talk, so you should listen to the whole episode if you want to hear the full range of opinions.

Snappy News About The Google August Update

“The Snappy News” segment featured Barry Schwartz, Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land. It also featured the dreaded SEO phrase “it depends.”

Mordy Oberstein: So the article of the day is from Search Engine Land, basically written by Barry that the core update, the August 2024 core update is done. It is complete. … The issue with Google folks who are trying to figure out, will they see a reversal of their fortunes from the 2023 helpful content update, the September, 2023 helpful content update. It’s a mouthful, to be honest with you. And my question for you, since you’re here, did that happen? Was the August updated reversal?

Barry Schwartz: “It depends on the site. I think the number, I don’t have the exact data, obviously I don’t think anybody does, but I’ve seen examples of some very few sites see complete reversals. … There are a number of sites that saw maybe a 20% bump, a 30% bump, maybe a 5% bump. But very few sites saw a complete reversal, if you want to even call it that. … I’ve been through a lot of Google updates over the years, and it’s sometimes sad to see the stories, but at the same time, if you keep at it and you are true to the content, your audience, generally, you’ll do well in the long run. Not every site, there’s plenty of sites that have been hit, went out of business, and they couldn’t come back. That’s business in general. And things change, like seasonalities and times change. You’re writing about the railroad business a hundred years ago and you keep writing about it today. There’s not many people investing a lot of money in railroads these days. So I dunno, it’s, it’s hard to read those stories, but not everybody deserves to go back to where they were. And then at the same time, Google’s not perfect either, which is why they keep on releasing new updates.”

That’s a wrap!

If you haven’t experienced a SERPs Up episode before, you should absolutely take a listen to experience the full effect of Mordy and Crystal’s banter.

The SERP’s Up podcast is brought to you by Wix Studio.

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SEO

OpenAI Claims New “o1” Model Can Reason Like A Human

Published

2 days ago

September 13, 2024

Max

OpenAI Claims New "o1" Model Can Reason Like A Human

OpenAI has unveiled its latest language model, “o1,” touting advancements in complex reasoning capabilities.

In an announcement, the company claimed its new o1 model can match human performance on math, programming, and scientific knowledge tests.

However, the true impact remains speculative.

Extraordinary Claims

According to OpenAI, o1 can score in the 89th percentile on competitive programming challenges hosted by Codeforces.

The company insists its model can perform at a level that would place it among the top 500 students nationally on the elite American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME).

Further, OpenAI states that o1 exceeds the average performance of human subject matter experts holding PhD credentials on a combined physics, chemistry, and biology benchmark exam.

These are extraordinary claims, and it’s important to remain skeptical until we see open scrutiny and real-world testing.

Reinforcement Learning

The purported breakthrough is o1’s reinforcement learning process, designed to teach the model to break down complex problems using an approach called the “chain of thought.”

By simulating human-like step-by-step logic, correcting mistakes, and adjusting strategies before outputting a final answer, OpenAI contends that o1 has developed superior reasoning skills compared to standard language models.

Implications

It’s unclear how o1’s claimed reasoning could enhance understanding of queries—or generation of responses—across math, coding, science, and other technical topics.

From an SEO perspective, anything that improves content interpretation and the ability to answer queries directly could be impactful. However, it’s wise to be cautious until we see objective third-party testing.

OpenAI must move beyond benchmark browbeating and provide objective, reproducible evidence to support its claims. Adding o1’s capabilities to ChatGPT in planned real-world pilots should help showcase realistic use cases.

Featured Image: JarTee/Shutterstock

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SEO

How to Build a Fandom by Talent-Scouting Great Content

Published

2 days ago

September 12, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

How to Build a Fandom by Talent-Scouting Great Content

At a time when anyone can create content, the real challenge—and opportunity—is in saying something new.

I think content curation can help with that.

Curation is all about finding undiscovered stories and repackaging ideas in ways your audience really respond to.

In this article, you’ll learn why content curation is great for growth, and how to talent scout quality underground or left-field content.

Gathering and sharing content is a popular social media tactic, but content curation extends to mediums and channels far beyond social.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Example	Type	What is it?
The Pudding	Article	A data journalism publication that curates a range of rich media (e.g. social comments, headline snippets, literature reviews) to tell compelling visual stories – like this one.
Ahrefs’ digest	Newsletter	Our Senior Content Marketing Manager, Si Quan Ong (SQ), curates key SEO/marketing news, accompanied by snappy annotations.
Near Media Memo	Podcast	Conversations at the intersection of search, social, and commerce. Hosts curate and discuss the latest industry content.
KFC’s “Bucket Bangers” Spotify Playlist	Playlist	A playlist curated by KFC as part of a PR campaign, containing 46 tracks that name drop the brand.
Campaign Inspiration	Image carousel	This LinkedIn page curates visual examples of existing PR campaigns to inspire marketers.

Newsletters, in particular, have become the go-to platform for curation, since they’re fairly cheap to run and easy to set up.

The numbers back this up. A quick look at Site Explorer shows newsletter platform Substack experiencing a 373% leap in organic traffic from September 5th, 2023 to September 5th, 2024.

You can see some great examples of curated SEO newsletters here: I Subscribed to 72 SEO Newsletters. Here Are My 11 Favorites.

Now you know about content curation in all its forms and guises, let me tell you what’s so great about it…

From saving money, to building traffic, and cementing your authority, content curation comes with plenty of benefits.

1. Content curation saves time and money

At Ahrefs, we follow The Pareto Principle: the idea that 80% of the reward comes from 20% of the effort.

If you want to improve your effort:reward ratio, curation is a great option.

I asked SQ about the benefits of content curation, and he had this to say:

“One benefit is that I don’t have to write an essay from scratch each week (which is what most newsletters are).”

While content curation has the potential to save you time, resources, and money, I do want to add two important caveats:

Curating niche, underground content examples can still take time – especially when you’re first finding your sources.
If you’re doing deep-dive investigations into those examples, you may spend just as long curating as you would creating.

2. Curation helps you build links, traffic, and engagement

Marketing Examples is a goldmine of curated marketing snippets.

A screenshot view of Harry's Marketing Examples

Founder, Harry Dry, doesn’t just gather content — he dissects real-world marketing copy, name drops the creator, and breaks down their winning formulas, making it easy for readers to replicate that success.

As a result, his site has earned fairly consistent links and traffic over time, growing organically by 88% in the last two years.

Ahrefs Site Explorer showing 88% growth for Harry's Marketing Examples over the last two years

Curating content is an example of what I call “awareness you prepared earlier”. Your chances of driving traction are vastly improved when you crowdsource ideas.

Not only do your audience consume your curated content, they publicize it to their own network via social posts or reciprocal links when they get featured.

Some refer to this as “ego bait”. Obviously there’s an element of flattery involved, but in my experience, the top curators prioritize content that genuinely helped or inspired them, rather than chasing big names with the widest reach.

3. Curating content is great for EEAT

Few people have direct experience with every topic they’ve ever written about.

But, since 2022, first-hand experience has become a prerequisite for ranking in Google.

Google's announcement of EEAT in Google Guidelines

Curating others’ lived experiences and knowledge in your content is a powerful way to build your EEAT and improve your rankings.

4. You become credible by association

We tend to categorize people according to their social group memberships – this is known as social categorization.

If you’re regularly associating yourself with respected thought leaders, your audience is more likely to group you with them, and hold you in higher regard as a result.

Mixing in your own content and opinion is important for building credibility, but be careful not to overdo the self-promotion.

Back to SQ:

“I don’t tend to include all of the blog posts we publish on our blog.“

5. You get closer to your customers and community

When you curate, you consume content holistically –like your customers– and stop being so introspective.

If you’re only consuming content from your brand or brand “friends”, there’s a limit to the value you can bring to your audience.

Content curators turn to their community to source content, so curating bridges the gap in two ways: by helping them consume like their customers, and by giving them a reason to connect.

6. When you curate, your content gets better

To create is to curate. All ideas are shaped and borrowed from somewhere – that’s how knowledge is acquired.

If I don’t curate, I tend to find my own content stagnates.

Curation introduces me to new ideas, reminds me of the things I have forgotten, allows me to build deeper, more informed arguments, and ultimately helps me produce better content – with a lot more in the way of information gain.

For instance, this blog started out as a simple list of content curation benefits, thunk up by yours truly.

But as I came across cool examples of novel content curation, it evolved into a more comprehensive (and hopefully, more interesting) guide.

“Another benefit of content curation is that I get to keep abreast of anything new in SEO and marketing, which informs my own work”

7. You build your personal “brand”

Curation gives you the chance to platform your own expertise and assert yourself as a thought leader.

Take a look at the search volume for one of the most prolific curators in SEO: Aleyda Solis.

Aleyda curates SEO news and insights across her newsletter, SEOFOMO, her podcast, Crawling Mondays, her owned social media channels, and industry talks.

As a result, her name now drives ~600 monthly organic searches, according to Site Explorer.

Search volume for the keyword 'Aleyda Solis' in Ahrefs Keyword Explorer

And over 19K “in content” mentions, according to Content Explorer.

In content mentions for the keyword 'Aleyda Solis' in Ahrefs Content Explorer

Curation is about piecing together unrelated content to reveal new ideas and information.

You’re giving someone else’s content another shot at engagement – sometimes after a “failure” to launch.

“The same core information can be made more or less valuable by changing its format. Great ideas are sometimes locked away in places that render them inaccessible to people that would benefit from them.”

Here are 9 ways you can “talent scout” novel content, and carve out your own curation USP.

1. Pay attention to lesser-known voices

In every industry there are sources that audiences defer to for information and ideas.

Look beyond them.

Scout for “rising stars” and underground sources to give your curation exclusivity.

Mark Williams-Cook, Director at Candour and Founder of AlsoAsked, does just this when curating his newsletter: Core Updates.

“I’ve made a conscious effort not just to follow the ‘big names’, as there are some truly excellent SEOs that are very quiet on social media. I’d always recommend following someone if you see them putting out solid advice, even if you’ve never heard of them. I’ve made some good friends and excellent connections that way!”

This is probably something you’ll have to do manually at first.

I try to pay close attention to people leaving savvy comments on social media posts and industry communities.

2. Build an X list of “ones to watch”

Once you’ve found the right “ones to watch”, you can start building a list to refer back to whenever it’s time to curate.

SQ uses X lists and subscribes to others’ Substacks:

“I have my own Twitter list of marketers (getting poorer these days sadly) and follow other people’s substacks/newsletters and see if there are any links they recommend.”

3. Mine niche and atypical sources of information

Nicole DeLeon, Ed Zitron, Marie Haynes and other tech curators recently mined Google’s DoJ trial documentation to investigate “buried” information on how the search engine ranks content.

Search Engine Roundtable founder, Barry Schwartz, is always extracting content from Google rep social comments, Google developer docs, and Google’s Office Hours video series to curate hot-off-the-press news.

Techemails mines leaked tech company emails from court filings and curates them across social media and their website (p.s. they are preeetty eye-opening).

Finding and teasing out obscure information is a great skill to have when it comes to content curation.

Here are some more ways you can do that:

Side-by-side page text changes in Ahrefs Site Audit

Track updates in company documentation (e.g. brand Ts & Cs, Google Developer Docs, Anthropic Release Notes)
Mine Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request databases
Monitor government data via fact finding bodies (e.g. Indeed curates content from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to inform content in their Hiring Lab)
Study public datasets released by research institutions (e.g. Harvard Dataverse)
Mine “hidden” or ephemeral content (e.g. podcasts, webinars, industry talks, seminars etc.) to curate quotes and promote relatively unheard information
Monitor public announcements and press releases from organizations

4. Track down new and trending content

Be the first to break and curate news in your industry. Start by searching for industry-specific keywords in Content Explorer.

Step 1 of an advanced search in Content Explorer to find content to curate

Then add filters to make sure you’re seeing the freshest and highest quality content.

Step 2 and 3 of an advanced search in Content Explorer to find content to curate

In my experience, I find that:

Adding a minimum Referring Domain of “30”
Adding a minimum word count of “300”
Sorting by “Date: newest first”

…shows me the newest and best SEO related content, but you should play around until you find what works in your industry.

Ahrefs Content Explorer search for new SEO content to curate

Tip

When it comes to filtering, don’t get too prescriptive about it – remember, you want to find novel content that usually flies under the radar, so avoid being overly strict with minimum thresholds.

This next part is really important. Once you’re happy with your configuration, hit “Save filters” so that you can repeat this analysis for the next instalment of your newsletter, podcast, social post, article, or whatever else you might be curating.

'Save filter' button in Ahrefs Content Explorer

With the Content Explorer, you’re searching for instances of a keyword in the title, content, URL or all of the above.

Ahrefs Content Explorer dropdown showing where keyword will be searched (everywhere, in title, in content, in URL)

But relevant content won’t always contain the exact keywords or topics you’re searching for.

In which case, try searching for keywords in the anchor text linking to that content.

There’s a preconfigured search for this in Ahrefs’ Web Explorer. Just hit the “examples” tab, and select “Most quoted newly published pages about ChatGPT”:

Ahrefs Web Explorer homepage highlighting preconfigured, clickable search for 'Most quoted newly published pages about ChatGPT'

This will load a full report of the most linked to pages about the topic “ChatGPT” over the last week. Then all you need to do is update the report with your chosen topic, and adjust any filters.

Ahrefs Web Explorer highlighting referring domains column for 'Most quoted newly published pages about ChatGPT'

And hit “Save report”.

Ahrefs Web Explorer 'Save report' button

Another tip for breaking news was recently disclosed by SEO expert and founder of SEO blog Detailed, Glen Allsopp, on the Ahrefs Podcast (it’s a great episode – I highly recommend a full listen!)

He spoke about a technique that he refers to as the “iPhone Link Building” method.

“The reason I call it this, because it doesn’t matter who you are, it doesn’t matter how old your website is, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been around. If you have a photo of the iPhone 16 before anyone else and you put that on [your site], the whole tech world is going to talk about it, right? You’re going to get links from every tech website on the planet. Doesn’t matter that [your site] has nothing to do with tech and gadgets. You’ve got the first iPhone link. People are going to talk about it. So I refer to it as the iPhone link building.“

To carry out “iPhone link building”, Glen sets up an alert using Visual Ping. This sends him a notification as soon as there’s an update on one of the webpages he’s tracking. If something new or interesting has changed, he’ll work this into his next piece of content.

5. Ask your network

Turning to your social network for examples of existing content is a great way to curate.

Here’s Chris Haines, Ahrefs’ Senior SEO Specialist, doing just this on LinkedIn…

A shout out for SEO proposals by Ahrefs' Chris Haines on LinkedIn

And here I am posting in Women In Tech SEO (my #1 community) for contributions to my article: So You’ve Been Asked To Humanize AI Content

A shout out for AI content examples by Ahrefs' Louise Linehan on Women in Tech SEO

Often, Slack communities will dedicate a channel to self-promotion. This is another handy way to find new content to curate.

Women in Tech SEO 'Amplify Me' Slack channel

“In the Women in Tech SEO Slack group, we have a hashtag channel (#wts-amplify-me) that serves as a space for members to promote their work, and it’s wholesome to see lots of our members use it to highlight the work of others! This channel helps me curate content for our weekly WTSNewsletter. As newsletter creators, we are responsible for amplifying diverse voices, which was the driving force behind starting WTSNewsletter. The lack of diversity in industry newsletters motivated me to create our very own weekly newsletter that showcases the brilliant work of underrepresented individuals.”

Community content sourcing doesn’t begin and end with LinkedIn or Slack. Check out other pockets of the internet, including niche forums, Subreddits, Facebook groups, and Mastodon instances.

6. Bookmark everything

Some of my best articles have been inspired by the posts I’ve bookmarked.

Here are my top tips for bookmarking curated content:

Use web highlighters

Use a web highlighter plugin to bookmark interesting content for future curation.

Web highlighter being used on a page to save a quote for future content curation

Organize examples in a note taking app

Use a note taking app like Notion or Obsidian to organize your content examples.

Bookmark your saved social media content

You’ll undoubtedly have banked some great content on social media over the years, but navigating back to those archives can be a bit of a faff.

I bookmark mine to my browser so I can easily jump back in (e.g. LinkedIn “Saved”, X bookmarks, X advanced searches, TikTok saved, Instagram saved etc.)

Bookmarking saved social media posts to browser

7. Set up author notifications

Follow creators and journalists that inspire you. Subscribe to their channel, turn on notification bells on LinkedIn and X, and set up RSS feeds to get alerted whenever they push out new content.

Tip

When you’re searching for new content in the Content Explorer, check out the Authors tab for ideas on which thought leaders to follow in your industry.

8. Set up keyword alerts

Get notified as soon as on-topic content is published, with Ahrefs “Mention” alerts.

An example of the configuration of Ahrefs “Mention” alerts for the keyword 'PR campaign'

9. Use AI to extract and annotate content

AI broadly summarizes outdated content, and has a habit of forgoing (or entirely fabricating) references. In other words, it’s pretty terrible for curating unique content.

Instead, use it to extract, summarize, and investigate the content you’ve selectively curated.

Extract nuggets from “hidden” content

I used AI to extract quotes and insights from webinars, interviews, and YouTube videos. The post I wrote for SpinSucks was inspired by content mined from interview transcripts and bookmarked social media content, using Claude AI.

Reverse-engineer successful content formulas

I fed ChatGPT examples of top-performing blogs to understand patterns of success, and inform my opinion of what “good” content looks like, while updating the post: 6 Simple Blog Post Templates (Download & Edit Along.

We’ve covered a lot of ground, but there are a few extra details worth mentioning before you jump into curation.

Make sure you have a clear theme

Curation isn’t just about sourcing and presenting the most unique content you can find.

Value also comes from carefully selecting content that fits a central concept or theme.

“[Content curation] helps build my taste, which in my opinion, is the hardest part of curation, because most people don’t seem to understand the concept of “curation”, i.e. selecting the best, or what fits a theme. They just seem to shoehorn every article on the internet.”

Build your exclude list

Be discerning about the content you create. Set out rules as to the content or people you will/won’t include, using your brand guidelines for inspiration.

Repurpose your knowledge

Content curation is usually cheaper and easier to produce, but don’t treat it as a “one and done” activity. Repurpose the things you learn both internally and externally.

“We actually use the news – that Jack (Chambers-Ward) and I curate for the Core Updates newsletter – internally at Candour during one of our weekly meetings when we are discussing changes in the industry. So it’s been a helpful task to make sure the agency is always up to date!”

Final thoughts

Content curation isn’t a “set it and forget it” tactic. It’s an ongoing process that demands a reasonable amount of effort, but the payoff is worth it. That’s because:

It’s a traffic magnet: Curated content can outperform original content in terms of organic traffic, because you’re cherry-picking the best ideas.
It builds your E-E-A-T: By sharing valuable experiences, you’re signaling to users and search engines that you know your stuff. This can boost your rankings across the board.
It’s a networking opportunity: When you share others’ content, they notice. We’ve built relationships with industry giants simply by featuring their work on our blog or weekly digest.

Great curation is about adding value. You can just reshare content verbatim, but you’re missing out on a valuable opportunity to add your own insight, and explain why the content you’ve painstakingly curated matters to your audience.

In a world where 70 million blog posts are published every month, skilled curators stand out. They don’t just share content – they build communities, spark discussions, and become go-to resources in their niches.

If you’re giving content curation a try, experiment with different formats and track what resonates (our Content Explorer can help with that too), then watch your influence grow.

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