Craig Kiessling

Heads-up. Bing Webmaster Tools officially announced its new AI Performance reporting today. You can go check your reporting now! You can view total citations and cited pages. And then you can view "Grounding queries" and the number of citations per query. And there's a pages report broken down by citations as well. No clicks data. No CTR. It's a start but we really should see more IMO. https://lnkd.in/ezb_QWhS 

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SEO Tip: Convert Your GSC Keyword Data Into the Topics Google's Algorithm Has Identified You as a Trusted Source. As we transition from keyword-focused to topic-focused SEO, we need to better understand the topics our site is viewed as an authority on. Sometimes it's not the topics most important to your business. Here's how I transformed 25k individual keywords into strategic topic clusters that revealed where Google actually trusts my content: The Process: 1 - Exported 25k keywords from Google Search Console (6-month period) 2 - Used Google's Vertex AI text-embedding model to convert keywords into high-dimensional vectors 3 - Applied HDBSCAN clustering with PCA dimensionality reduction to group semantically similar keywords 4 - Used GPT-4.1-nano to automatically label each cluster with descriptive topic names The Results: Instead of 25,000 individual keywords, I now have 318 strategic topic clusters. Interestingly enough, over 200 of those topics drive 0 clicks. Why this matters for SEOs: 1 - Authority Mapping - Discover which topics Google's algorithm actually views you as trusted for 2 - Business Alignment - Identify gaps between your core business topics and where you have search authority 3 - Content Strategy - Double down on topics where you already have algorithmic trust The game-changer: Connecting impressions and clicks data to each topic cluster reveals which topics drive actual traffic vs. just visibility. Want to replicate this analysis? - Export your GSC keywords with impressions/clicks data - Use vector embeddings to cluster semantically similar terms - Apply AI Powered labeling to turn keyword groups into Topics - Visualize your data to better understand what topics drive your search efforts. - Compare the results to business goals. Is the search traffic aligned with your ICP and product or service offering? Visualize topic performance with treemaps and scatter plots Stop managing keywords. Start managing topics.

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Google can now supply page text directly to Gemini via url_context tool. Catch 22, it comes from internal storage and not the live site. I've extracted internal tool instructions and included them in the article. https://lnkd.in/gbUJasmJ

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Unsolicited #SEO tip: This is significant. Cloudflare's *default* settings for new setups will be to block all AI crawlers 🤖 🛑 Blocking AI crawlers will of course mean limiting your website's visibility on interfaces such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and the like. 📉 The change is part of the "Content Independence Day" move by Cloudflare, which is trying to make AI crawlers pay for creator's content. While I agree that should happen, I'm not sure that many organisations will want to risk traffic for the "greater good". It's a discussion you need to be having with your clients. You can control this setting in (Log in → Security → Bots → "Block AI Bots")

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Fresh on the blog: How to Do an Enterprise SEO Audit the Right Way 🌍 Enterprise SEO can be a daunting process, and a standard SEO checklist often won't cut it. In this guest post, Mark Howser breaks down his enterprise audit process, from deep technical diagnostics and content performance analysis, to link equity audits and 12-month planning. A must-read for anyone managing SEO at scale: https://lnkd.in/eXrtjH_p #seo #enterpriseseo #technicalseo

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I read two articles yesterday about SEO in the age of AI that stopped me in my tracks. Because both 100% confirmed what I'm seeing - the way to get content ranked in this age of AI-based search is to flip "SEO writing" on its head. What do I mean? Many site owners start with keyword research, competitive article research, write & optimize, publish, promote. Instead, work it backwards: come up with niche topics your customers really want to learn about that can't be easily answered in a snippet. Then research keywords, clustering them by questions and related topics. It works. I've done this for years and content I've created with this method has bumped up considerably in the SERPS. (Yes, there's a lot more to it - you're getting the quick tips version - but really interesting new dynamic at play here.)

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There’s a lot of talk about #AI prompts for #SEO. But prompts alone aren’t enough. If an #AIagent doesn’t have access to up-to-date SERP data (rankings, keyword metrics, competitor performance, etc.), its answers are based on assumptions, not your actual search reality. This article outlines 15 practical prompts and explains why connecting your AI agent to live SEO data is what makes them useful. https://hubs.li/Q044f8B-0

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If you think GEO makes SEO obsolete, think again. As our SVP of marketing operations, John Fairley, told PYMNTS: “GEO doesn’t replace SEO — rather, it builds on it.” Search rankings don’t directly dictate AI citations, but SEO best practices heavily influence whether your content is pulled, read and referenced by GenAI tools. The playbook may have evolved, but the fundamentals still matter. Get the full insights at the link in our comments.

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Keyword Quality Alert for Higher Ed Marketers A recent audit uncovered serious misalignment of spend 110 keywords spending $200+ each = $47.9K Results: ZERO Conversions 84% were broad match keywords Worse? Top spending keywords (Quality Score of 4 or below): Quality Score (QS) directly impacts your CPC. Three Factors for QS: 1. Expected Click Through Rate (CTR) 2. Ad Relevance: 3. Landing Page Experience: A QS of 4 = +67.3% higher costs compared to QS 7. Time to audit your keyword strategy?

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All of the AI tools scraping Google are going to result in the shutdown of most SEO tools. People are scraping so much, so aggressively for AI that Google is fighting back, and breaking all the SEO rank checkers and SERP scrapers in the process.

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SEO Is Over: How To Get AI To Recommend Your Small Business (An AEO Guide) Customers are no longer merely entering keywords into a search bar, they're asking ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews for recommendations. Unlike traditional SEO, which has historically focused on achieving a top spot on a list of ten blue links, AEO focuses on the answers returned by a user's search query utilizing an AI powered search tool. You don't need to have big marketing budgets to be visible in AI answers. Forbes contributor TerDawn DeBoe outlines six ways to optimize your business for AI searches.

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You’re going global with your business, and that’s exciting – but you can’t be translating existing keywords and expecting magic to happen. International keyword research is a whole different ballgame, and if you aren’t playing by the right rules, you’re missing out on a ton of growth and revenue. 👉 Read our blog to learn how to do it right: https://lnkd.in/gwRzrVCV #Translation #Localization #L10N #SEO #Marketing #GlobalGrowth

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Want to rank higher locally? Optimizing your Google Business Profile is key, but small mistakes like picking the wrong category can tank your visibility. Learn how to choose the right categories, list services, and tweak your profile for max local SEO impact in last week's blog. Read more 👇

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