Google Search Console may have a weird glitch in the performance report average position data. For some reason, many are seeing huge declines in average position in the chart but when they look at their rankings in Google Search, everything seems normal.

This has been going on since shortly after the release of the Google June 2025 core update but I suspect it is unrelated. I do wonder if this may be related to Google doing away with its ccTLDs but I am not sure.

First to notify me of this was Jose Rivolta on July 4th on X – he wrote, “any issue or change in how GSC tracks ranking positions? No change in rankings (checking manually), nor CTR, Impressions and organic traffic. Yet a massive drop in Avg ranking position.”

He shared these two charts:

Juan C Vargas also posted on X on July 9th, “Is there a bug in GSC when filtering by country -since June 30th? Seeing unexpected ranking drops and impression increases. Wonder if this is related to AIO/feature snippets reporting? Avg ranking could help to identify algo update impact.”

Koen Leemans also posted on X on July 8th and wrote, “Observing this trend across several properties using the country filter tied to the specific ccTLD. GSC glitch, or core update fallout?”

Alexander Außermayr also posted about this on LinkedIn yesterday as well.

I have not yet seen a comment from Google on this possible issue.

Forum discussion at X and threads above.

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SEO isn’t slow, but it’s often misunderstood.

In this eye-opening session, Malte Landwehr, VP of SEO at Idealo, challenges outdated thinking around SEO metrics. While many CMOs and growth leaders chase traffic and rankings, Malte explains why these lagging indicators tell you little about the real-time impact of your strategy.

Instead, he advocates for a shift toward leading indicators. These metrics predict future SEO success. This session is a must-watch for performance-focused marketers and enterprise teams navigating the long SEO game with pressure to show short-term ROI.

Watch the interview

Whether you’re managing a global SEO team or advocating for budget at the C-level, Malte’s playbook will help you turn intuition into insight, and then action.

Let’s break down why your measurement model might be holding you back and how to fix it.

Why can’t SEO be measured like paid media?

Unlike ads, SEO doesn’t return immediate feedback. There are three key differences that drive the need to measure separately:

1. SEO operates on delay: Results from today’s efforts may take 6–18 months to materialize.
2. External forces play a role: Algorithm updates, competitor actions, and crawl/indexing cycles add variability.
3. It’s nonlinear: Simply publishing five articles doesn’t guarantee five new traffic sources. The results depend on topic depth, authority, and structure.

That’s why measurements like rankings or traffic tell you more about what you did, and not what you should do next.

The power of leading vs. lagging indicators

So what are the differences between leading and lagging indicators and when should you focus on each of them?

Lagging Indicators reflect outcomes after the work is done:

• SEO traffic
• Keyword rankings
• Share of voice
• Domain authority

These are essential for reporting and evaluating historical success, but always keep in mind that they’re reactive.

Whereas leading indicators reflect efforts you control right now. These are measurables like:

• The number of content pieces published weekly
• The number of backlinks earned
• Percentage of tech pages with full listings
• Bounce rate of SEO traffic

All of these are directly influenceable by your team. When tracked weekly, leading indicators create clarity, accountability, and forecasting power.

How can teams build in leading SEO metrics?

Malte recommends a simple but effective framework:

1. Define leading indicators that align with your business model

If you’re an ecommerce site, that might be “product pages with 10+ listings.” Whereas if you’re a SaaS brand, it might be “new guides published for bottom-funnel intent topics.”

2. Benchmark and track them weekly

Don’t wait for quarterly reports. Use your weekly check-ins to build a repeatable cadence. Performance = agility + insight.

3. Tie budgets to performance forecasting

Don’t ask for your SEO budget in generic terms. Say: “We need $50K to produce 100 articles. Based on past data, each brings in 30K visits in 24 months = $60K in revenue.”

This reframes SEO as an investment with predictable returns and not a gamble.

Remember to align strategy with enterprise goals

Lastly, SEO performance must align with enterprise KPIs to earn long-term buy-in. 

Don’t isolate SEO from revenue modeling, instead set up your reporting to demonstrate the direct impact of your efforts. Ensure SEO metrics are a featured part of broader forecasting, attribution, and customer journey analysis.

Key takeaways

1. Lagging metrics don’t accurately steer strategy, leading metrics are also vital.
2. Track content velocity, backlink growth, and user behavior indicators weekly.
3. Use performance modeling to justify SEO budget and resource allocation.
4. Forecast SEO like a CFO by basing on predictable business impact.

Semrush Enterprise empowers SEO leaders to move from reactive, one-size-fits-all approaches, to dynamic forecasts and custom reports that resonate with every stakeholder.

Connect the dots between leading and lagging indicators and present SEO as a clear growth driver.

• Simplified reporting with clear ROI: Generate quantifiable SEO reports that demonstrate traffic growth, keyword rankings, share of voice, and more, presented in clean, stakeholder-friendly formats. This boosts visibility into strategy performance and empowers SEO managers to justify budget and resources confidently.
• Data-driven decisions: Analyze SEO performance by period, segment, or topic and compile insights into custom dashboards tailored for different stakeholders, from CMOs to product leaders.
• AI-powered forecasting: Link leading indicators like content velocity and backlink growth to predictive business impact. Semrush Enterprise’s forecasting tools connect SEO activities directly to revenue outcomes, transforming SEO into a boardroom-ready growth lever.

With Semrush Enterprise, SEO isn’t a cost center. It’s a data-driven growth engine that powers the bottom line.

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The WordPress Performance Team has released an experimental plugin that increases the perceived loading speed of web pages without the performance issues and accessibility tradeoffs associated with Single Page Applications (SPAs). The announcement was made by Felix Arntz, a member of the WordPress Performance Team and a Google software engineer.

Plugins released by the WordPress Performance Team are released so that users can play around and test with a new performance enhancement before the new feature is considered for inclusion into the WordPress core. Using these plugins provides a way to receive advanced performance improvements before a decision is made as to whether to integrate the improvements into WordPress itself.

The View Transitions plugin brings smooth, native browser-powered animations to WordPress page loads, mimicking the feel of Single Page Applications (SPAs) without requiring a full rebuild or custom JavaScript. Once the WordPress plugin is activated, it replaces the default hard reload between pages with a fluid animated transition effect, like a fade or slide, depending on how you configure it. This improves the visual flow of navigation across the site and increases the perceived loading speed for site visitors.

The plugin works out of the box with most themes, and users can customize the behavior through the admin user interface under Settings > Reading. Animations can be set using selectors and presets, with support for things like headers, post titles, and featured images to persist or animate across views.

According to the announcement:

“You can customize the default animation, and the selectors for the default view transition names for both global and post-specific elements. While this means the customization options are limited via the UI, it still allows you to play around with different configurations via UI, and likely for the majority of sites these are the most relevant parameters to customize anyways.

Keep in mind that this UI is only supplemental, and it only exists for easy exploration in the plugin. The recommended way to customize is via add_theme_support in your site’s WordPress theme.

…For the default-animation, a few animations are available by default. Additionally, the plugin provides an API to register additional animations, each of which encompasses a unique identifier, some configuration values, a CSS stylesheet, and optional aliases.”

The new WordPress plugin is optimized for block themes but designed to work broadly across all WordPress sites.

The page transitions are supported by all modern browsers, however it will degrade gracefully in older unsupported browsers by falling back to standard navigation without breaking anything.

The main point is that the plugin makes WordPress sites feel more modern and app-like—without the complexity or downsides of SPAs.

Read the announcement on Felix Arntz’s blog:

Introducing the View Transitions Plugin for WordPress

Download the experimental WordPress Performance Team plugin here:

View Transitions WordPress Plugin

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Krakenimages.com

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Some advertisers are seeing the newly announced and much anticipated channel reporting for Performance Max campaigns within the Google Ads advertiser console in the wild. This was announced about a month ago, after hearing leaks of it weeks prior and now some are able to see it in their accounts.

Aleksejus Podpruginas posted a low resolution screenshot of him seeing this in his Google Ads account on LinkedIn and wrote, “Spotted for the first time today — the long-awaited Performance Max channels reporting beta is here!” “This update gives us visibility into how Pmax campaigns perform across specific networks like YouTube, Display, Search, and more,” he added.

Here is his screenshots but I have higher resolution ones on my original post:

I found this via PPC News blog where Hana Kobzová wrote, “Still in beta, this long-awaited update gives advertisers insight into how PMax performs across different networks.”

Aleksejus Podpruginas broke it down on what this can do for you:

• Spot and exclude underperforming placements — If YouTube, or Display are burning budget without results, we can act. We can exclude placements.
• Tailor campaigns per network — Strengthen or scale specific networks when they show promise in a separate campaign.
• Improve asset coverage — More data means smarter creative decisions.
• Regain control over Pmax — At last, more transparency and smarter optimization.
• Analyze search terms & exclude irrelevant traffic — especially when search spend is high but conversions are low.
• Any other optimization that you want!

This is how Google explained these reports:

Channel‬‭ performance‬‭ reporting‬‭ helps‬‭ you‬‭ understand‬‭ how‬‭ your‬‭ Performance‬‭ Max‬‭ campaign‬‭ is‬ delivering‬‭ results‬‭ across‬‭ Google’s‬‭ full‬‭ range‬‭of‬‭ channels‬‭ and‬‭ inventory.‬‭ On‬‭ the‬‭ new‬‭ “Channel‬‭ performance” page,‬‭ you’ll‬‭ find‬‭ a‬‭ campaign-level‬‭ performance‬‭ summary‬‭ along‬‭ with‬‭ a‬‭ new‬‭ data‬ visualization‬‭ that‬‭ makes‬‭ it‬‭ easier‬‭ to‬‭ dive‬‭ into‬‭ which‬‭ channels‬‭ you’re‬‭ engaging‬‭ customers‬‭ on‬‭ and‬ how‬‭ they’re‬‭ contributing‬‭ to‬‭ your‬‭ conversion‬‭ goals.‬
Drill‬‭ into‬‭ specific‬‭ channels‬‭ to‬‭ understand‬‭ how‬‭ they‬‭ play‬‭ a‬‭ part‬‭ in‬‭ driving‬‭ performance‬‭ and‬‭ to‬‭ find‬‭ potential‬‭ areas‬‭of‬‭ improvement.‬‭ For‬‭ example,‬‭ a‬‭ home‬‭ and‬‭ garden‬‭ retailer‬‭ might‬‭ see‬‭ that‬‭ they’re‬‭ performing‬‭ well‬‭ on‬‭ YouTube‬‭ and‬‭ decide‬‭ to‬‭ invest‬‭ in‬‭ additional‬‭ video‬‭ assets‬‭ to‬‭ drive‬‭ even‬ more‬‭ conversions.‬‭ We’ll‬‭ also‬‭ surface‬‭other‬‭ helpful‬‭ reports‬‭ on‬‭ the‬‭ Channel‬‭ performance‬‭ page.‬ For‬‭ instance,‬‭ to‬‭ further‬‭ explore‬‭ Display‬‭ and‬‭ YouTube‬‭ results,‬‭ you’ll‬‭ find‬‭ a‬‭ link‬‭ to‬‭ placement‬‭ reports.‬

Do you see it yet?

Forum discussion at LinkedIn.

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What Are Website Metrics?

Website metrics are data points that let you evaluate your website’s performance. And are often about how people find, use, and interact with your site. 

Think of them as signals that answer questions like:

• Are people finding my website?
• Are they sticking around?
• Are they doing what I hoped they would do?

Let’s dive into the metrics themselves.

1. Total Visits

The total number of visits is how many times people have landed on your site during a specific time frame—such as a week, month, or year. 

Tracking this metric over time helps you understand whether your website audience is growing and how your traffic trends evolve. 

How to Track It

This metric can be found in website analytics tools like Google Analytics (GA4). 

To find it (“sessions,” specifically), go to “Acquisition” > “Traffic acquisition” and look for the “Sessions” column to see the total number of sessions from each traffic source over your selected date range.

For a quick look at your traffic that doesn’t require setup, use Semrush’s Free Website Traffic Checker. Or even use it to check competitors’ website traffic.

How to Improve It

You can grow your website traffic in multiple ways, such as improving search engine optimization (SEO), creating an effective social media strategy, or investing in paid advertising. 

But keep in mind that not all traffic is equally valuable. 

As Eric Doty, Content Lead at Dock, puts it:

Not all traffic is created equal. At Dock, we focus on a hand-curated list of key product and blog pages—those that actually matter to our business. Total site traffic can be noisy and misleading.

A smaller, more interested group is often worth more than a larger crowd that leaves your site right away.

2. Unique Visitors

Unique visitors are the total number of individual people who visit your site during a specific time period. And helps you understand your true audience size. 

Because even if someone visits five times, they still count as just one unique visitor. More unique visitors usually means your marketing efforts are reaching new people.

How to Track It

In GA4, find this metric (called “total users”) by going to “Reports” > “Acquisition” > “User acquisition.” 

You can also view your and your competitors’ estimated unique visitors using Semrush’s Traffic Analytics tool (the “Unique Visitors” metric).

How to Improve It

To get more unique visitors, focus on reaching new people. Which you can do by:

• Covering new topics: Create content around topics you haven’t covered yet to reach different types of searchers
• Promoting your content in the right places: Share content where your audience already hangs out, like social media or online communities (as long as you’re a genuine participant)
• Collaborating with others: Work with influencers or partners who can introduce your brand to their audiences

3. Returning Users

Returning users are people who’ve visited your site before and come back during a specific time period.

This metric shows how well your site holds people’s interest. If they return, it likely means they found something useful or valuable.

As Kevin Indig, Growth Advisor and former Director of SEO at Shopify, puts it:

Total visits show that your content is discoverable. But returning visitors are what tell you you’re building real trust. If people keep coming back, you’re not just getting attention—you’re building an audience.

How to Track It

In GA4, go to “Reports” > “Acquisition”> “User acquisition” to view the “returning users” metric.

How to Improve It

To increase your returning visitors, focus on regularly publishing high-quality content that’s useful, well-researched, and tailored to your audience.

4. Traffic Sources

Traffic sources reveal where your visitors are coming from. When you know which channels bring in the most visitors, you can focus on what’s working and rethink what isn’t.

For example, if most of your traffic is organic traffic (meaning traffic that comes from unpaid search results), it’s worth investing more in SEO.

As Ray Berry, Founder of dslx, puts it:

Understanding where our traffic comes from is critical. We’re no longer just seeing entries from Google. ChatGPT and other AI tools are becoming major sources. If our reporting tools can’t give us that insight, we make a point to ask new customers directly about how they found us.

Common traffic sources include:

• Organic search: Visitors who found your site through unpaid search engine results
• Direct: People who typed your URL directly into their browser bar or used a bookmark
• Referral: Visitors who clicked a link on another website or platform (e.g., a news article)
• Social: Traffic from platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), or Facebook
• Email: Visitors who clicked a link in a newsletter or marketing email
• Paid search: Users who came through paid ads in search engines

How to Track It

In GA4, go to “Reports” > “Acquisition” > “Traffic acquisition” to see your traffic sources.

It shows which traffic sources are bringing users to your site and other GA4 metrics.

Spot newer traffic sources, like ChatGPT or other AI tools, using Traffic Analytics.

Just enter your domain, go to the “Traffic Journey” tab, select “Referral” at the top, and scroll down to the “Traffic Sources Details” table at the bottom to see if tools like ChatGPT are sending visitors.

5. Views per Active User

Views per active user is a metric that shows the average number of pages viewed by an active user on your site within a specific time range.

This metric gives you a sense of how engaging your site is. 

A higher number suggests people are exploring multiple pages. Which is often a sign that your content is useful, relevant, and/or easy to navigate.

How to Track It

In GA4, find this metric by going to “Reports” > “Engagement” > “Pages and screens.”

How to Improve It

To encourage users to view more pages during their visits you can:

• Add links from different pages on your site to others (called internal links)
• Use simple and intuitive navigation menus, so visitors can easily find what they’re looking for
• Structure your blog articles clearly with headlines, short paragraphs, and logical flow, so they’re easy to scan and encourage visitors to keep reading

6. Average Engagement Time

Average engagement time shows the average amount of time users spend actively on your website (meaning your website was the focus).

This metric helps you understand how interested your visitors are in what they’re seeing. If people are spending more time on your site, it likely means they’re reading, scrolling, or taking other actions.

It’s calculated like this:

Average engagement time = total time your site was in focus / total number of active users

For example, if users spent a total of 4,000 minutes actively engaging with your site over a week, and you had 2,000 active users, your average engagement time for the week would be two minutes (4,000 / 2,000).

How to Track It

To find this metric in GA4, go to “Reports” > “Engagement” > “Pages and screens.” You’ll see the “average engagement time per active user” for your whole site as well as individual pages.

How to Improve It

What counts as good engagement time depends on the page type and your audience. 

That said, here are a few ways to improve it:

• Improve content quality: Make sure your content is useful, clear, and targeted to your audience
• Improve page structure: Use clear headings, short paragraphs, and bullet points to make your content easier to scan and read
• Include visuals: Images, videos, and charts can hold attention and break up long blocks of text
• Match content to intent: If someone lands on your page from a paid ad or search result, make sure it delivers what the headline promised (known as matching search intent)

7. Engagement Rate 

Engagement rate shows the percentage of engaged sessions in GA4.

A session is considered engaged if it meets any of these criteria:

• Lasts 10 or more seconds
• Includes two or more pageviews or screen views
• Triggers a conversion event (like clicking a button or watching a video)

Here’s the formula:

Engagement rate = (engaged sessions / total sessions) × 100

How to Track It

In GA4, go to the “Traffic acquisition” report under the “Life cycle” > “Acquisition” section.

Look for the “engagement rate” column to see how your traffic sources are performing in terms of user engagement.

Check out this guide to GA4 engagement rate for instructions on customizing your reports and interpreting your data.

How to Improve It

What counts as a good engagement rate depends on your industry, audience, and content type.

But one thing holds true across the board: 

People engage with content that’s genuinely helpful.

As Sean Collins, SEO Content Manager at Scoro, puts it:

If you want people to stick around, you need to create content that actually helps them. Engagement isn’t about tricking users into staying longer—it’s about giving them what they came for.

With that in mind, here are a few ways to increase your engagement rate:

• Match your content to user intent: Matching your content to a visitor’s search intent gives you a better chance of keeping their attention
• Check your mobile experience: Mobile users are more likely to leave if your layout is clunky, buttons are too small, or pages take a long time to load. Follow mobile best practices and test across devices.
• Use heatmaps and session recordings: Tools like Hotjar and Microsoft Clarity can show you where people are clicking, scrolling, and dropping off. To help you make data-backed user experience (UX) improvements that keep users engaged.

8. Conversion Rate

Conversion rate measures the percentage of visitors who completed a desired action on your site. Such as signing up for a newsletter, submitting a form, downloading a guide, or making a purchase.

What counts as a conversion depends on your goals.

For example, if your goal is lead generation, a form submission might be your primary conversion event. If you run an ecommerce site, it’s likely a completed purchase.

Whatever you’re measuring, the conversion rate formula is:

Conversion rate = (number of conversions / number of visitors) × 100

How to Track It

The easiest way to track your website’s conversion rate is by setting up conversion events in GA4.

To do this, you’ll need to:

• Identify what actions count as conversions
• Set those actions as conversion events (these are called “key events” in GA4)
• Customize your reports to include either the session key event rate or the user key event rate

Once set up, view your conversion rate in the “Traffic acquisition” report, where it appears as “Session key event rate.”

How to Improve It

Here are a few ways to optimize your conversion rates:

• Streamline the user journey: Remove extra steps or form fields to reduce friction. Especially in ecommerce checkout and sign-up flows.
• Improve your website design: Use A/B tests to experiment with layouts, headlines, calls to action (CTAs), and more
• Build trust: Add testimonials, reviews, trust badges, or guarantees to reassure users

9. Cost Per Conversion

Cost per conversion (CPC) is most commonly used in paid advertising to measure the average cost of getting one person to complete a specific action. Such as filling out a form, signing up, or making a purchase.

It’s a key metric for understanding whether your marketing efforts are cost-effective.

Here’s the formula:

Cost per conversion = total campaign cost / number of conversions

So, if you spend $10,000 on a campaign (including social media ads and creative), and 50,000 users complete your desired action (like submitting a form), your cost per conversion would be 20 cents (10,000 / 50,000).

How to Track It

Most ad platforms automatically calculate cost per conversion once conversion tracking is set up. 

Here’s how it works across popular platforms:

• Google Ads: You can track cost per conversion (called cost per action in Google Ads) in your reports. Just make sure your conversion actions are set up correctly and that you’ve added the “Cost / conv.” column.
• Meta Ads (Facebook/Instagram): Meta Ads reports “cost per result” based on your selected campaign objective
• LinkedIn Ads: In LinkedIn Campaign Manager, you can view cost per conversion by enabling conversion tracking and adding the correct column to your campaign performance reports

How to Improve It

If your cost per conversion is higher than you’d like, here are a couple of ways to lower it:

• Refine your targeting: Use performance data to identify which audience segments are converting best. And adjust your targeting settings to focus on those demographics, interests, or behaviors.
• Make sure your ad and page match: If your ad promises one thing but the landing page delivers something else, people often drop off. Keep the message, offer, and design consistent from ad to page.

10. Keyword Rankings

Keyword rankings show the specific positions where your webpages appear in search engine results pages (SERP) for specific keywords your audience is searching.

For example, if someone searches “best yoga mats” and your website appears in the third position on Google, your keyword ranking for that term is position 3.

Ideally, aim to rank in positions 1-3 for as many relevant keywords as possible. These spots get the most attention. 

How to Track It

You can track your keyword rankings using Semrush’s Position Tracking tool. And even get an AI-powered estimate of your ranking potential

How to Improve It

Start with these proven tips to rank higher:

• Target the right keywords: Use a keyword tool to find search terms that people are actually using, aren’t too competitive, and make sense for your business
• Make sure content matches search intent: Google prioritizes pages that give searchers what they want. Before you write, look at what type of content shows up—and create something in a similar format.
• Use your keywords naturally: Include your primary and secondary keywords naturally throughout your page in key places like the title tag, first paragraph, headings, and meta description. But don’t overdo it. 

11. Backlinks

Backlinks are links from other websites that point to your site. They act like votes of confidence and are a strong signal to search engines that your site offers quality content people can trust.

The more high-quality and relevant backlinks you have, the more credible your site looks in the eyes of search engines. Which can help improve your keyword rankings and drive more organic traffic.

How to Track Them

Use Semrush’s Backlink Analytics tool to see who’s linking to your site. And how strong those links are.

Just enter your domain to get a snapshot of your total number of backlinks. And how many referring domains (sites that link to your site) you have.

How to Get More Backlinks

Getting more high-quality backlinks takes time. But these techniques help:

• Find and fix broken backlinks: Broken link building involves finding dead links on other websites and offering a working link to your own relevant content as a replacement
• Look for unlinked mentions: Use a brand monitoring tool to find places where your business is mentioned without a link. Then, politely ask the author to add one.
• Leverage digital PR: Use digital PR to pitch original data, expert insights, or unique stories to journalists and online publications. If they feature you, they may include a link.

Further reading: 10 Link Building Strategies That Work

12. Click-Through Rate

Click-through rate (CTR) shows the percentage of people who clicked your link after seeing it. It’s a simple way to measure how well your title or listing grabs attention in search results or ads.

Here’s the formula:

Click-through rate = (number of clicks / number of impressions) x 100

Let’s say 10,000 people searched for “strawberry cheesecake recipe,” and your result appeared in Google like this: 

If your result was viewed 10,000 times and clicked 1,000 times, your CTR would be 10%.

How to Track It

Track CTR in tools like Google Search Console for organic search and Google Ads for paid campaigns. Most reports include a column labeled “CTR.”

For example, you might see a table similar to this in Google Ads:

How to Improve It

A higher CTR often comes down to making your listing more relevant and appealing. 

To do this, you can:

• Write clear, helpful page titles and ad copy that matches what people are searching for
• Use engaging meta descriptions that highlight value or benefits (for SEO content)
• Try different formats in your copy (like numbers, questions, or emotional words) to see what gets more clicks

13. Page Load Speed

Page load speed is how long it takes for your webpage to fully appear in someone’s browser.

A fast-loading site is crucial for good UX and SEO performance. 

Google has even stated that slow-loading pages can negatively impact your search rankings because they often lead to higher bounce rates and lower engagement.

How to Check It

Check the loading speed of all individual pages using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.

Or you can use Semrush’s Site Audit tool to get a more comprehensive view of your site’s speed and overall performance.

In the “Site Performance” report, you’ll see a breakdown of page speed across your site, average load time, and suggestions for how to improve any slow-loading pages.

How to Improve It

Improving page speed often comes down to reducing how much your site needs to load. 

Here are a few common fixes:

• Compress images: Optimize images with tools like TinyPNG or opt for a more modern WebP format to reduce file sizes
• Use a content delivery network (CDN): A CDN stores copies of your site on servers around the world, so users load it from the server closest to them. This speeds things up, especially for international visitors.
• Minimize code: Remove unused or unnecessary code in your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files to reduce load times

14. Crawlability

Crawlability is about how easily search engines like Google can find and access the pages on your website.

Search engines use automated bots to scan your site. This process is called crawling.

If a page can’t be crawled, it won’t appear in search results at all. Because crawling is a prerequisite to both indexing (getting your content stored in a database of eligible results) and ranking.

How to Track It

The “Crawlability” report in the Site Audit tool shows which parts of your site are easy (or difficult) for search engines to crawl.

The report gives you a clear view of how easily search engines can crawl and index your site. It highlights pages with issues and helps you quickly spot what needs fixing to improve visibility in search.

How to Improve It

Improve crawlability by avoiding common internal linking mistakes (like making sure you don’t have important pages buried several clicks deep), organizing your site with a clear structure, and submitting an XML sitemap.

Further reading: 15 Crawlability Problems & How to Fix Them

Track Website Metrics That Matter

Keeping an eye on your website is essential if you want to understand and improve your site’s performance.

Semrush makes it easy. With a single account, you get access to numerous tools. 

And you can easily create a Project Dashboard to monitor everything in one place. 

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Google added a new type of data point to the Google Business Profiles performance reports named Chat Clicks. Chat clicks show you how many people are clicking over from your chat conversations in the local and maps results within Google Search and Maps.

It is unclear if this is relabeling the message clicks report or if this is something new.

This was spotted by OMG National on X and shared a screenshot of this new report:

If you don’t see it, that means you probably did not enable chat within Google Business Profiles.

I just looked at the example I sent last month. It is definitely relabeling the Messaging Clicks info pic.twitter.com/i2CMgGuGvl

— Brandon Schmidt (@brandonschmidt) May 28, 2025

Forum discussion at X.

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Google Search Console’s Discover performance report has a weird bug. It started early yesterday morning where a blue notice prompt would show up and have a mysterious hashtag, with the text “Learn more” and “Got it.” This is obviously a bug.

Here is what it looks like:

I spotted this first early on Thursday morning from Mayank Parmar of Windows Latest, who shared this on X with me:

@rustybrick is the console mocking me with a blank notification because I don’t have any traffic left at this point? lol pic.twitter.com/BPeQ6lio4u

— Mayank Parmar (@mayank_jee) May 22, 2025

This is obviously a bug but my question is, what led up to this bug? Maybe Google was prepping the desktop Discover reporting?

Anyway, this is now fixed.

Forum discussion at Windows Latest, who shared this on X.

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Sometimes, SEO success isn’t about technical factors, content, or backlinks – or even about adapting to the changes prompted by AI.

Many times, companies unknowingly have their SEO investments or efforts sabotaged by internal silos.

At best, silos can cause slow implementation and, at worst, missed opportunities and budget that is wasted on the effort overall.

I admit: There were times, two decades ago, when I was doing SEO for over a dozen clients, that I enjoyed the level of control that I had over content, technical factors, website updates, and more. Clients were fine handing off these tasks, which gave me more direct influence on rankings, traffic, and conversions.

Today, though, I’m good with the fact that SEO requires multiple disciplines and a much bigger focus on the end user rather than the search engine itself.

One of the biggest barriers to SEO success today is internal silos which can impact strategy, integration, speed, and focus that can negatively impact the return on investment (ROI).

I’m going to unpack five specific silos that I see often within organizations of varying sizes and focus on helping you improve SEO collaboration to see your efforts and investments through to success.

1. Compartmentalization Of Strategy

For a number of reasons, SEO can be put into a silo or looked at as a tactic and not a channel within the broader mix of digital marketing, or marketing overall for a company or organization.

It can be an extra “hat” that someone wears. Or, you can have a habit of looking at it as if you’re going to apply SEO to something.

When SEO is something you ‘apply’ to something, a tactic, or a split focus, it isn’t going to work well or often.

To be effective, it requires a strategic and goal-driven approach. There is too much complexity to it for it to be applied to something at the end or sprinkled into things.

SEO strategy development is critical and should be directly linked to broader digital marketing and overall marketing strategy so it is efficient, results-focused, and given a proper level of investment with an expectation of return on that investment.

2. Lack Of Channel Integration

In larger teams with larger agency partners, and even with a single person wearing multiple hats, digital marketing channels can find their ways into silos.

Whether it is a lack of integration of paid search with SEO or broader issues of not connecting other digital channels with similar goals, customer journeys, or funnels, we can find more hidden silos.

Paid search is a good example here, as both SEO and PPC focus on attracting the same audience – searchers who land on a search engine results page.

The real estate is a little different on that page, and the targeting might be as well. Still, if we’re not sharing research, analytics, content, and insights, then we’re likely duplicating efforts somewhere and creating strategies and tactics in parallel that could be done more effectively in an integrated way.

More broadly, other digital marketing channels like email marketing and social media which are pointing prospects and customers to the website have overlapping needs and efficiency opportunities as well when we blow up the silos and walls between them.

3. Content Strategy Disconnect

I tell someone weekly that content is fuel for the digital marketing channels and platforms we engage with.

A content strategy that is siloed is one of the biggest challenges in an organization.

Back in the day, I would make content decisions and work with SEO copywriters to create content just for SEO needs and purposes.

Social media emerged and did the same. Email marketing was already doing it, too.

I learned quickly how we could all work together from a higher level strategy not to just find new levels of efficiency and cost effectiveness, but also to make sure we were consistent and on-brand in messaging so we weren’t wasting our efforts with inconsistent voice, tone, offers, and value propositions in front of our target audiences.

A unified content strategy is crucial for creating content once, on brand, and aligned with the overall marketing goals.

It then provides the specific formats and needs for various channels, such as SEO, to ensure proper prioritization and maximize effectiveness.

4. Data Isolation

When living daily life “in the weeds,” or deep in the details of subject matter, it is easy to look at the specific metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) that matter at that level.

Organic traffic performance might be what you’re evaluating or are graded on if you’re an SEO. On the other side, if you’re a CMO, you might be handed a report or linked to a dashboard showing very detailed SEO results.

Does your organization have integrated data? Can you see top-level digital marketing metrics and drill all the way down to SEO results? Can you ladder up from SEO to the ultimate impact it is having on digital marketing ROI?

One of the biggest frustrations I hear from executives and business owners is that they struggle to connect the dots between the SEO reporting they’re seeing and the company’s bottom line. That’s a problem.

If a CFO or someone unfamiliar with SEO is trying to make the connection, then you have a data isolation problem and need to better integrate your data across channels, teams, and functions to map digital marketing performance to business outcomes.

5. Web Development Bottleneck

If those responsible for SEO aren’t also responsible for website development and updates, then this can be a very real silo for you and maybe not one that is all that hidden.

Early in my career, working with a national restaurant chain, I had a set of recommendations and needs to move the brand forward in each local market.

I had the unique content for each location ready, along with a dynamic system for implementing it from a database (before open-source CMS platforms were a thing).

It was estimated to take three days for the development team to complete the update. After a few months of pulling it all together, we encountered a roadblock.

The client’s IT team wasn’t able to get to it for six months! They were in the middle of a core system update for their restaurants and couldn’t spare a minute to address it, as they didn’t have the budget or infrastructure to allow an outside entity into their environment.

I can tell you countless stories of in-house resources and third-party resources that are similarly booked up, aren’t read into the impact, or aren’t prioritized around the needs of SEO strategies and goals. This is an important silo to break down.

Wrapping Up

Maybe you feel like your SEO efforts are hitting on all cylinders. I hope that’s the case.

The insights I unpacked in this article are simply a set of important reminders or things to be mindful of and make sure don’t become silos and roadblocks in your organization.

Maybe something here struck a nerve or hit directly on what you’re experiencing. If that’s you, then please don’t give up.

I have talked with many CMOs, marketing directors, business owners, and others over the years who were convinced that SEO doesn’t work and that it isn’t for them.

While in some edge cases that’s true, I often dig a level or two deeper to find hidden silos or barriers that were challenges from the start that weren’t addressed and were the root cause holding them back.

More Resources:

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Search engine optimization (SEO) is a vast topic. For a beginner, it’s difficult to even know how to start optimizing your website for search engines.

Having a list of SEO tasks can help.

SEO tasks activities that will help you set your site up to:

• Function properly
• Perform well in search
• Be appealing and usable to your visitors
• Convert those visitors into customers

We’ve compiled a list of essential SEO tasks to help you get started. They’re broken down by frequency to help you easily work them into your schedule.

One-Time SEO Tasks

Some of these SEO tasks only need to be completed once. However, you’ll need to periodically revisit some of them to keep up with search changes. And to make sure they’re still aligned with your business goals.

Set Up Analytics Tools

Website analytics tools allow you to measure different aspects of site performance, such as user engagement, keyword rankings, and visits. 

The first analytics tools you should set up are Google Analytics (GA) and Google Search Console (GSC).

GA collects data for real-time traffic to your website from different sources, including organic search. You can also measure conversions and better understand how visitors interact with your website.

On the GA homepage, for example, you’ll find a brief overview of your performance compared to a previous time period:

GSC provides insights into traffic data from Google Search.

Under “Security & Manual Actions” in GSC, you can discover whether your website has any issues. 

Manual actions are penalties Google issues when it determines that a website has been trying to manipulate its performance in search rankings, such as by purchasing backlinks.

The security issues report will alert you to malware and other threats that are present on your website.

You can also use Semrush’s SEO Toolkit to measure your website’s visibility with insights into keyword rankings, organic search, and other SEO metrics. 

Connect it to GA and GSC to have all your site’s most important data in one place.

To start, type in your domain name into the search bar and click “Create project.”

The dashboard offers an overview of website health, backlinks, domain analytics, and other helpful data. From this page, you can also set up other SEO tools such as Position Tracking, Site Audit, and more.

Check and Improve Your Page Speed

Page speed is a metric that measures how long it takes for a website to load. 

Fast page speed is crucial for good search performance because it’s a Core Web Vital and a ranking factor. It improves visitors’ experiences by ensuring they aren’t frustrated with a slow website.

Google’s PageSpeed Insights is a simple way to check your website’s speed. 

Just paste your URL into the search bar and click “Analyze.”

The finished report is split into “Desktop” and “Mobile” since page speed isn’t the same on all devices. 

Desktop devices usually have a more reliable internet connection. They also have more powerful processors. So a website may load more quickly on desktop than on mobile.

You should look at both reports since certain issues might affect one device more than the other. And they could hurt the user experience—and your ranking ability—by slowing down your website.

The report also provides helpful tips to improve your page speed.

For example, it may suggest you reduce unused JavaScript. This is a programming language that’s used to create websites.

If some of the JavaScript is unused, it takes up unnecessary resources when a user is accessing the webpage. Which is why it’s important to remove unused code.

Reducing unused JavaScript (and implementing other tips to improve page speed) is best done with the help of a web developer.

It might be tempting to try to DIY this process, but if you’re not a developer, you could accidentally break your website.

Once the web developer improves your page speed, periodically check it to make sure it’s still optimal. And always check it if you add or change content on your pages.

Optimize Your Website Structure

A well-organized website structure, also called website architecture, improves SEO. 

Search engine crawlers will be able to index all of your content quickly because the purpose of each page and the connections between pages are clear.

 It also improves your visitors’ experiences. They won’t have to look long and hard to find what they need.

A good website structure uses a flat architecture. In this hierarchical setup, it takes visitors fewer than four clicks to find the information they’re looking for.

Here’s an example of a flat website architecture:

To create a flat structure, group content related to a specific topic under a single category. 

For example, an owner of a beauty salon could offer various services such as haircuts, manicures, and pedicures.

Instead of creating a unique category for each, the owner can add a “Services” category to their homepage that will take visitors to each subcategory: haircuts, manicures, and pedicures.

Optimize Your Landing Pages

Keyword optimization is the process of improving the chances that a webpage will appear in the search results of a specific keyword (search query). 

One of the ways you can do this is to use the target keyword in the title tag, meta description, headings, and body text.

Note: This is a very simple explanation of a complex SEO task. For a deeper dive, read our article about keyword optimization tips.

Identifying the target keyword for your products and optimizing your landing pages will increase your chances of reaching buyers through search engines.

For example, a Canva landing page ranks for the keyword “online video editor.” 

The phrase is mentioned in the title and the meta description. The meta description is the brief description that appears below the title in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

The landing page also incorporates variations of the target keyword, such as “free video editor.”

Before you start optimizing your landing page(s), you need to identify which keywords to target. You can easily do this using Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool.

To start, type in any keyword and click “Search.”

This will take you to a dashboard containing, in this case, nearly 555,000 potential keywords.

Since no one has time to sift through hundreds of thousands of keywords, you can apply filters to narrow your search. 

For example, “Volume” allows you to filter keywords based on how many searches they get per month. “KD” stands for keyword difficulty and indicates how difficult it’ll be to rank in Google’s top 10 results. The higher the percentage, the more difficult it is.

Try filtering by a Volume of 1,001-10,000 and a “Difficult” KD. This narrows your list down from nearly 555,000 to just 24 keywords.

As you work your way through the list, select your top options and add them to a keyword list so they’re all in one place.

Optimize for Voice Search

Voice search optimization is the process of adjusting your website content so that it appears in voice search results. 

Conducting a web search is the second most frequently performed task of smartphone voice assistants, making voice search optimization a crucial SEO task.

When people use voice search, they’re often more specific than when they type search queries. Speaking is faster and easier than typing, so searches can sound more natural.

For this reason, targeting long-tail keywords is an important part of voice search optimization. 

These keywords are very specific (“should you machine wash a viscose shirt”) and usually have low search volumes.

Voice search is also important for local SEO. For example, many people use voice assistants when they’re driving to find businesses or attractions, such as “sushi restaurant near me.” 

Further reading: Local SEO: What Is It & How to Do It

Create Your Own Keyword

When you create an original system, product, or brand, you may also create a unique keyword. 

And if it becomes popular, you can earn a top spot in search results, as well as backlinks from other websites that reference the concept.

You can probably think of some unique concepts, systems, or products linked to a particular individual.

Pastry chef Dominique Ansel’s cronut (a croissant and donut in one) is an excellent example. When you look up this word, the top result mentions the chef by name. And the second result is the chef’s personal website.

Here’s how to create your own keyword:

• Name a system you use to do something really well: It can be anything from arranging home furniture or going through your email inbox
• Create a name for something you’ve observed: A well-known but unnamed occurrence in your niche or industry

Once you’ve given your system or observation a name, optimize your web presence for it. Use it regularly in your posts, on social media, and share it with influencers so it can catch on.

Set Up Position Tracking

Position tracking is the process of monitoring your website’s rankings for a specific set of keywords. 

This is important for SEO because it allows you to:

• Monitor how updates to the search algorithm have affected your website’s search visibility
• Track and report on the success of your SEO efforts, so you can make adjustments as needed

Using Semrush’s Position Tracking tool, you can monitor the search rankings of your website or a competitor’s.

Let’s say you work at Canva. And you want to implement position tracking for a number of keywords.

The first step is to paste your domain into the search bar and click “Set up tracking.”

Then, you’ll select which search engine and devices the tool should target. And you’ll enter your target location. 

When you’re done, click “Continue To Keywords.”

Here, you’ll type or paste the keywords you want to track, or upload a file containing them. Then, click “Add keywords to campaign.”

You should see your keywords in the “Added to campaign” section. Click “Start Tracking” to complete the setup.

When the analysis is complete, the project dashboard will display the average visibility of your domain for the target keywords in search. 

Scroll down to “Top Keywords” to see which ones have the most visibility.

Clicking on a keyword will take you to a dashboard where you can see how its visibility has changed over time.

Come back to this dashboard anytime you need to check your search rankings and visibility. Or, subscribe to email alerts when you set up the tracking.

Identify a Topic Cluster

Also known as content clusters, topic clusters are a group of web pages connected to a specific topic. 

Topic clusters consist of a pillar page and cluster pages. 

The pillar page contains all of the information about a specific, usually broad topic, like photography. Cluster pages cover related topics, or subtopics, in more detail, like landscape photography.

They’re important for SEO because they help you build internal links, which strengthen your site’s architecture. The pages in the topic cluster all link to each other to make their connection clear to search engines.

They also help you build authority in your niche. Authority matters because Google values websites with E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

When you cover a topic in-depth, it helps your website stand out as an authoritative source to visitors and search engines. 

Here’s an example of a potential topic cluster for “podcasting for beginners”:

A tool like Semrush’s Topic Research will help you quickly find ideas for a content cluster.

First, enter the topic of your pillar page into the search bar, and click “Get content ideas.”

The tool will return various content ideas you can use for inspiration, such as where to find free podcast music. 

Click “Show more” to get additional insights about the idea.

You can add your top picks to a list by clicking on “Add to your favorites.”

When you select your top choices, you can move forward with creating content to support your pillar page. Then make sure they all link to each other, and this will help start building your authority for that topic.

You can also use Semrush’s Keyword Manager to get keyword clusters related to a seed keyword. 

Monthly SEO Tasks

Consistency is key to SEO.

While your daily SEO tasks will vary depending on your needs and the size of your team, having a list of monthly to-dos will keep you on track. 

Conduct Keyword Research

Keywords are phrases you type into the search bar when you want to look something up on a search engine.

And keyword research is the process of finding keywords you want to rank for.

Further reading: How to Do Keyword Research for SEO (A Detailed 3-Step Guide)

The purpose is to find the most relevant keywords that you can create optimized content for to drive traffic to your website.

It’s a good idea to strategically approach this process with a keyword research tool. Especially if you’re starting the process from scratch.

Why?

Because it’ll save you time. These tools have large keyword databases where you can find thousands of keywords in just a few seconds.

Semrush’s Keyword Overview is a helpful tool to speed up the research. It also provides metrics to help you analyze and filter keywords:

• Search volume: The average number of monthly searches
• Keyword Difficulty: A percentage that indicates how hard it is to rank for a specific keyword
• Search intent: An indicator of why the searchers are making specific queries
  • Informational: The user wants to find an answer to a specific question (e.g., best cat toys for kittens)
  • Navigational: The user wants to find a specific page or site (e.g., “Chewy login”)
  • Commercial: The user wants to investigate brands or services (“Chewy cat toys”)
  • Transactional: The user wants to complete an action (conversion) (e.g., “buy cat toys for kittens)
• Trend: A graph that shows how monthly search trends have changed over the past 12 months
• Cost per click (CPC): How much advertisers pay per click on average on an ad that appears in the search results for this keyword

A simple way to get started with the research process is to use a seed keyword to find additional ideas.

Let’s say your site sells cat toys, and you want to know what kinds of toys cat owners want to buy. In Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool, type in your seed keyword and click “Search.”

The results include tens of thousands of options related to your seed keyword. 

You’re able to narrow down these results using filters such as search intent.

As you go through these keywords, add your top choices to a keyword list.

When you’re done with your research, you can come back to this list and analyze these keywords further to see how you can best target them. 

For example, keywords with informational search intent can be targeted with in-depth blog posts. 

Try to set aside time every month for research, so you can spot rising trends before your competitors do.

Create Quality Content

Quality content is:

• Relevant: The content meets the searcher’s intent by providing them exactly the kind of information they’re looking for
• Helpful: The content addresses the reader’s pain points with comprehensive, accurate information and provides a good reading experience
• Original: The content isn’t plagiarized and doesn’t rehash other content without providing unique insights
• Uses credible research and showcases expertise: The content references trustworthy sources, and wherever possible, includes insights from subject matter experts

Further reading: What Is Quality Content & How to Create It

Creating high-quality content is key to reaching and engaging your audience. 

And it’s an important ranking factor. 

In Google’s guidelines for creating helpful content, much attention is devoted to markers of quality such as original information, comprehensiveness, and expertise.

Google recommends against creating “search engine-first content.” But this doesn’t mean you need to ignore all SEO principles.

In fact, following SEO best practices will allow search engine crawlers to easily understand what your content is about. 

For example, separating your content with headings will create a hierarchy between the different sections. And it’ll clarify how each section relates to the whole.

Semrush’s SEO Content Template is a helpful tool for creating high-quality content that doesn’t neglect SEO.

Enter your keyword in the search bar and click “Create content template.”

The generated content template will provide recommendations for semantically related words, backlinks, readability, and text length.

If you scroll down to “Basic recommendations,” you’ll see tips for what to include in the page title, meta description, H1, and text.

Following these tips will help your content rank for your target keywords, and ensure you thoroughly cover the topic.

Identify Content to Refresh

Refreshing content means updating a page with new information and removing anything that’s no longer accurate or helpful. This process is just as important for SEO as creating new content. 

An easy way to find content to refresh is to check which pages have been steadily losing organic traffic and keyword rankings. (This is also known as content decay.)

Even if you write evergreen content, it’ll still experience decay at some point. It’s a normal stage of the content life cycle:

Updating existing content is an essential SEO task because the search intent of the keywords your pages rank for could change. 

For example, one of your articles could have a more commercial angle. But the SERP now favors informational pieces, so you have to adjust your article to align with the new intent.

Over time, the information you provided in an article or landing page could also become outdated. Refreshing it will help the content continue to be helpful to your visitors. 

When refreshing content, make sure to:

• Update or remove any old statistics, research, or sections that are no longer relevant
• Incorporate additional sections that add new value to the content
• Update any broken links

Monitor Organic Search Traffic

SEO task management isn’t complete without monitoring organic traffic. This is the process of tracking how many people visit your website from search engine results.

If you don’t track this data, you won’t be able to measure the success of your SEO efforts. 

It’s also not going to be possible to identify your top-performing pages in search results. Or how visitors engage with them.

The first steps to monitoring organic search traffic are setting up GA and GSC. 

Then, you can use a tool like Semrush’s Organic Traffic Insights to unify this data and discover the keywords that are attracting visitors to your site.

To start, enter your domain into the search bar and click “Get Insights.”

Then, connect your GSC and GA profiles. Note that you’ll need certain permissions in both tools (at least Viewer access in GA and Owner or Full user status in GSC) to complete this step.

When you’ve connected your profiles, the dashboard will show an overview of top organic traffic statistics over a set period. It’ll also display your top landing pages and their keyword data from both Semrush and GSC. 

From here, you can explore the keyword data for each landing page, track position data, and understand your traffic share compared to other results.

Check for Indexing Issues

When you publish a new page on your site, search engines need to find it and understand its content for it to appear in search results. 

This process is called indexing. 

If your page can’t be indexed for some reason, it won’t be visible in the SERPs. So you won’t receive traffic from organic search.

To find page indexing issues, go to GSC. Scroll down to the “Indexing” section. This gives you a high-level overview of how many pages on your site have been indexed. Click on “Full report.” 

On the next page, scroll down to the “Why pages aren’t indexed” section to see all the factors preventing pages on your site from being indexed.

For example, the issue “Discovered – currently not indexed” means that Google found the URL, but hasn’t crawled the page yet. It doesn’t necessarily mean there’s anything wrong with the page or your site. Or that Google won’t crawl it later.

When you click on the error, you’ll be taken to a report that shows how many pages are affected.

Scroll down to “Examples” to see which URLs have been discovered, but not indexed yet.

You can simply wait for Google to crawl the affected pages. 

Or you can manually request that the pages be indexed. Just hover your mouse over one of the URLs and click on the magnifying glass.

On the next page, click “REQUEST INDEXING.”

Wait a few moments while Google tests whether it can index the URL. If it can, you’ll receive a message that the URL was added to a priority crawl queue. 

To learn more about other issues you could be seeing, refer to Google’s guide on Page Indexing reports.

Monitor Backlinks

Backlinks are links on another website that point to your website. Those that come from authoritative websites are important for SEO because they pass some of their authority on to your domain. 

And having authority in your niche can improve your search rankings. 

Monitoring backlinks is key because you’ll be able to spot any that you’ve lost, so you can try to recover them.

The “Links” tab in GSC hosts all of your current backlink data. You can export it to a spreadsheet and compare the data on a month-to-month basis.

But if you’d like to automate this process, Semrush’s Backlink Audit tracks this data for you and will notify you of any changes. 

In the example below, the webmaster is notified they have lost links from three non-toxic domains.

While you’ll want to recover links from high-quality domains, this isn’t the case with toxic backlinks. 

Such links are unnatural, and their only purpose is to manipulate search rankings. And they could damage your search rankings or possibly even earn you a manual action from Google.

Further reading: Backlink Analysis: How to Spot Quality and Toxic Backlinks

So what do you do in case of toxic backlinks?

The first step Google recommends is to contact the website owner and ask them to remove the links. 

If that doesn’t work, you have the option to disavow them. In this process, you upload to GSC a text file containing the toxic backlinks.

Use Semrush’s Backlink Audit to simplify the backlink review process, contact domain owners, and get rid of bad backlinks faster.

But you should only take this step if you have a large number of toxic backlinks. Or if you’ve received (or expect to receive) a manual action.

Periodic Tasks

Periodic SEO tasks are tasks you should complete on an as-needed basis: when you publish a new page, refresh content, or want to add additional fuel to your SEO engine.

Add Internal Links from Pages with High Authority

The pages on your website with the most backlinks are usually the most authoritative. This is only the case if most or all of the backlinks are from authoritative pages.

Assuming that’s the case, leverage them by creating links from them to pages that need a rankings boost.

Although an internal link isn’t as powerful as a backlink from an authoritative website, this can still help improve a page’s rankings.

You can identify your most authoritative pages with Semrush’s Backlink Analytics tool.

Paste your domain name into the search bar and click “Analyze.”

Then, click on “Indexed Pages.”

Click “Domains” to sort the indexed pages by the number of third-party websites that have linked to each page. These are your most authoritative pages.

Now, you can update these pages with links to other, less authoritative pages on your site. 

Note: Be careful not to stuff these pages with links. Follow Google’s best practices for linking, keeping them relevant and helpful.

Use the Skyscraper Technique

The skyscraper technique involves finding high-performing content in your niche, then creating something better and promoting it to earn backlinks.

If you haven’t heard of skyscraper content, you’re missing out on a powerful tactic. The term was coined by Brian Dean, who used it to boost his traffic by 110% in 14 days.

The first step to creating skyscraper content is identifying your competition. Most brands use listicles and guides for this technique. 

With a tool like Backlink Analytics, you can check whether your competitors have published skyscraper content.

First, paste the website URL and click “Analyze”.

Then, go to the “Indexed Pages” tab.

Sort the pages by “Domains”. This is the number of websites that link to a specific page.

Below, you can already see a few skyscraper content ideas. They include “What Is B2B Marketing?” and “What Is Intent Data?”

When you identify content ideas you want to improve upon, you can start the content creation or refreshing process.

Here are a few ideas for creating better content:

• Add more detail: Incorporate any information or unique POVs your competitors have missed
• Get expert insights: Their take on a topic will add value 
• Use original research: Run a survey or perform an experiment to support your content 
• Make it easily digestible: Create video content or other content that’s easy to understand and still provides a comprehensive take on the topic

Once you’ve created great content, you need to promote it. Go back to the top-performing content in your niche and click on the “Backlinks” tab to get a list of the pages that are linking to your competitors.

Use the “Export” button to download the complete list. Then, go through it to identify opportunities to get a backlink to your skyscraper asset.

For example, if you find an article that links to your competitor, you can email the writer and ask them if they’d be interested in updating the article with a link to your content. 

Use Semrush’s Link Building Tool to research backlink opportunities, send outreach emails, and track backlinks.

Use a friendly tone and make sure the pitch is tailored to your recipient because it will improve your chances of success.

Create and Optimize Videos

By creating videos and optimizing them for keywords that favor video content, you can reach more people.

Google incorporates videos in search results if video content is most helpful to answer a searcher’s query. 

Featured videos, for example, appear when you Google keywords that include “how to” or “review.”

An easy way to start creating videos is to find popular content on your website and repurpose it into a video. Or, find trending topics in your industry and cover them in an engaging way.

When you publish videos, make sure to:

• Incorporate your target keyword into the video title and description
• Transcribe your video to improve accessibility
• Write a video description that accurately portrays what the video is about

Further reading: Video SEO: How to Get Your Videos to Rank

Although videos aren’t a confirmed ranking factor, many marketers have found that visual breaks have helped them boost their search performance. 

In fact, according to more than 1,700 marketers and business owners in 34 countries, more visuals (images and videos) are the third top tactic that help blog posts rank more highly:

Source: Semrush State of Content Marketing Report 2023

Optimize Slugs

A slug is the last part of the URL that describes what the page is about: 

https://www.canva.com/for-teams/content-creation-tools/

Every time you publish a new page, optimize the slug using your content management system (CMS). Because it can have some impact on SEO.

That’s why it’s a common practice to include the target keyword in the slug.

Keep in mind that Google Search advocate John Mueller has said that the words in a URL are a “lightweight” ranking factor.

Although the slug has a limited effect on rankings, optimizing it does improve the user experience.

For example, “https://www.canva.com/for-teams/12345/” doesn’t tell you anything about the content on the page.

But a descriptive slug is more helpful to searchers. Also, use hyphens to separate words and keep the slug short to improve readability. Fewer than five words is a best practice to follow.

Further reading: What Is a Slug? URL Slugs and Why They Matter for SEO

Add ALT Text to Images

The alt text describes an image to search engine crawlers. Incorporating keywords into the alt text helps with SEO because it increases your chances of ranking in Google Images results.

Note that alt text doesn’t appear on the page unless the image cannot load.

Alt text is also an important accessibility feature. People with visual impairments who use screen readers rely on alt text to understand images.

You can add the alt text by editing the HTML code:

<img src=”image-of-cat.jpg” alt=”Write alt text here”>

But your CMS likely has a feature where you can easily add alt text when uploading an image without dabbling in HTML.

Here’s what it looks like in WordPress:

While there is no strict character limit, try to be concise while providing thorough information about the image.

For instance, we could use “woman stands in a field with her arms outstretched” to describe the image in the example above. To make it even more descriptive, you could add details about colors, the kind of field she’s standing in, and the clothes she’s wearing.

Optimize Content for Search Intent

Search intent refers to the reason a person is looking something up on a search engine. For example, their intent could be to learn something about a new topic or buy a product.

When you’re optimizing pages for keywords, check that they meet their search intent. 

While it’s important to incorporate your target keyword throughout the text, this won’t matter if the search intent is off the mark.

If you want to rank for the informational keyword “how to clean macbook screen,” your content should focus on providing steps for this process.

We can confirm the informational search intent by analyzing the top-ranking content.

The featured snippet for this keyword is a simple how-to guide by Apple. Other search results take a similar approach.

But if you were to target this keyword with an article about the best screen cleaners for Macbooks, you would miss the informational search intent. And you likely wouldn’t rank well for this keyword.

Level Up your SEO efforts with Semrush

Once you’ve made these SEO tasks a part of your regular schedule, you’ll need to make sure they’re working. And that your site is performing as expected.

The Semrush platform has all the tools you need to successfully maneuver SEO, whether it’s tracking organic traffic or keyword rankings. 

Start your free trial to discover all the ways it can support your workflows.

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Google just launched substantial upgrades to its Performance Max campaigns today.

In their announcement, they introduced long-anticipated reporting features that will provide advertisers with much-needed visibility into how their campaigns perform across different Google surfaces.

These updates include new channel-level reporting, full search terms data, and expanded asset performance metrics.

The goal?

It’s aimed at helping marketers better understand, evaluate, and optimize their Performance Max campaigns.

The rollout is expected to begin with an open beta for channel performance reporting in the coming weeks.

For advertisers managing budget and strategy across a mix of formats and inventory, these reporting enhancements mark a meaningful step forward in understanding where results are coming from and how to take informed action.

Advertiser Feedback is Directly Shaping PMax’s Direction

According to Google, Performance Max is now used by over one million advertisers.

In 2024 alone, Google implemented more than 90 improvements to Performance Max, leading to measurable gains in both conversions and conversion value.

But alongside performance, advertisers have consistently asked for better transparency and reporting.

Google’s latest announcements make clear that advertiser feedback has played a central role in shaping these enhancements.

The goal is to deliver clearer insights, support decision-making, and increase control—without sacrificing the benefits of automation.

Channel Performance Reporting Is Coming To Performance Max

Channel-level reporting is the most significant update in this release.

For the first time, advertisers will be able to view results by channel: Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail, Maps, and Search partners.

The new “Channel performance” page will show:

• Visual breakdowns of performance by surface
• Campaign-level metrics for each channel, including clicks, conversions, and spend
• A downloadable table with key performance data
• Diagnostics to surface missed opportunities or setup issues.

You’ll be able to find the Channel Performance reporting in the “Insights & reports” tab on the left-hand side of Google. See the example below on how the report will function.

For example, if Maps isn’t generating traffic, diagnostics might suggest adding a location asset. Or if YouTube is outperforming, advertisers can shift their focus to high-impact video creatives.

The ability to view spend and conversion value by channel adds clarity that Performance Max has previously lacked.

Search Terms Reporting Reaches (Almost) Full Visibility

Another major enhancement is the addition of full search terms reporting.

Advertisers will now be able to see the actual queries driving performance – similar to what’s available in standard Search and Shopping campaigns.

With this rollout, marketers can:

• Identify top-performing search terms
• Create tailored assets round those queries
• Apply negative keywords or brand exclusions when needed

For agencies managing multiple clients or accounts at scale, this change improves daily workflow efficiency.

Rather than relying solely on limited theme-level insights or making assumptions about what’s driving performance, teams can now analyze exact queries.

This supports better keyword refinement, more accurate exclusions, and tighter alignment between campaign objectives and user behavior, all within the familiar framework of Search best practices.

Privacy thresholds will still apply, but the reporting experience will be much more detailed than before.

At launch, this feature will be available in the Google Ads UI only, with API support expected later.

For marketers focused on search intent, this change makes Performance Max a more actionable channel.

More Granular Asset Metrics Across Campaign Types

Asset reporting is also expanding. In addition to conversion data, advertisers will now see:

• Impressions
• Clicks
• Cost
• Conversion Value

Image Credit: Google, April 2025

These new metrics will apply across Performance Max, Search, and Display. This allows advertisers to evaluate creative performance at a deeper level.

Want to know if your video is driving more conversions than your static image? Now you can. Want to see if your headline gets more clicks than your call-to-action? The data is there.

These insights support better creative testing and stronger Ad Strength scores, all based on performance—not assumptions.

Built-In Diagnostics Help Spot Gaps and Missed Opportunities

Google is also adding diagnostics that flag potential performance issues. These insights will live within the Channel performance page and highlight areas for improvement.

For example:

• If you’re not showing on Maps, diagnostics might suggest adding a location feed or location asset
• If Search delivery is limited, landing page relevance could be the cause

Image credit: Google, April 2025

This feature won’t give full control over where ads appear, but it does provide better visibility into what’s working and what’s not.

Channel exclusions are still not available in Performance Max, but Google confirmed it’s exploring future control options. For now, diagnostics serve as a step toward more informed decision-making.

Why These Updates Matter For Advertisers

This round of updates helps address a long-standing challenge with Performance Max: the lack of visibility.

Advertisers have embraced the campaign type for its scale and automation, but often struggled to understand the “how” behind performance.

With these new features, advertisers will gain:

• Channel-level transparency
• Deeper search intent insights
• Clearer creative performance metrics
• Actionable recommendations to fix delivery issues

These aren’t just incremental changes. They reshape how marketers can evaluate and optimize PMax.

The updates make it easier to align creative strategy, understand channel contribution, and refine search targeting.

It’s also clear that Google is listening. The inclusion of diagnostics, downloadable tables, and more detailed reporting shows a strong response to real-world feedback.

These updates also signal a broader industry shift toward hybrid automation models: where AI handles scale, but humans still guide strategy with the help of robust data.

As marketers continue to seek clarity on campaign performance, updates like these help reinforce trust in automated systems by making them easier to measure and manage.

More details are expected at Google Marketing Live. But this release signals a new phase for Performance Max: one that balances automation with greater accountability and insight.

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