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Learn about Google Search SERP changes and how to successfully overcome organic landscape shifts for continued SEO success.

Over the years, Google’s Search results page changed in countless ways.

We’ve seen it all:

• The familiar ten blue links.
• An expansion to include images and video results.
• The addition of extra paid ad slots at the top and bottom of the page.

With every iteration, conjecture that “SEO is dead” spreads like a wildfire in related forums and publications. This causes ripples in organic campaign performance and marketers’ approach to SEO strategies.

For brands to find SEO success, they must understand and embrace these changes.

Let’s first look at the collective changes that have recently shaped the new reality of modern search engine results pages (SERPs). We’ll also review how they’ll affect search strategies going forward, from paid ads to organic search optimizations.

It’s all about user intent.

Since the dawn of search engines, the main goal has been to provide answers to user search queries.

Like a huge library index, search engines run web pages through their algorithms to align user intent with results. That’s why it’s so important to focus on users when optimizing anything for search engines.

This led to different SERP layouts.

By developing different features and visual elements, Google could now tailor experiences to its users. This would ideally lead to search results being more closely aligned with user intent.

Informational queries—“benefits of SEO” or “gen3 marketing” for example—might display featured snippets or other SERP features. These might include knowledge panels, “people also ask” boxes, or discussions and forums. Now, they even show AI overviews.

Going further, transactional or commercial queries for specific products might show more shopping ads and organic product listings. Google even allows users to start shopping straight from the SERP.

Queries that ask for specific services would trigger “local” results. The result can output associated features on the page, like local packs and business listings.

These are the key facets that make up modern Google SERPs. To excel in organic search marketing, you must consider these changes as part of your strategy.

Google Search accounts for seasonality and other trends.

In recent years, Google recognized that user intent is dynamic. It can change temporarily or even permanently. Thus, seasonality, trends, and current events began to influence what appears in SERPs.

Say a user makes a query about something pertaining to a very popular topic. Google may answer the question in a greater social context, presuming this was their intent. This holds true even if the user doesn’t explicitly mention the topic in their search query.

We’ve seen these features during the COVID-19 pandemic and US presidential elections. Today, you might see them with tariffs, stock market shifts, or other major developments.

Search results are frequently personalized based on browsing behavior and other factors.

Google Search results can be highly personalized.

Personalization has widely impacted search results, as well. No two queries are the same in the eyes of Google, even if the wording is identical. What you see on your screen when you search “SEO services” can be different from what your colleague might see in their SERP.

Personalization in search results all depends on your previous queries and interests as expressed through your past online behavior. Google collects information about users to ensure their search engine meets the most likely intent. In other words, they’re not treating it like some generic query.

For instance, if I were seeking SEO services, Google may show SEO services near me in a local map pack. This would include the top three local business listings, plus SEO agencies and other relevant sites in organic listings.

On the other hand, if I wanted to learn more about the SEO industry, Google’s output may be more tailored to that intent. I would find articles and blogs about different aspects of SEO. There might also be an AI overview summarizing the topic.

In short, user intent affects SERP outcomes in more ways than one. It can even affect visibility on an individual level.

Understanding the intent behind every query is now key when decoding the relevance of your site’s pages. If Google decides a user’s intent does not match your content, what once ranked well may not be shown at all.

SERP features are more prominent than ever.

As Google gets smarter, and as the Internet expands, more factors will determine which answers appear first in search results.

To decide whether the experience is good or poor, Google may gauge it using clickthrough rates (CTR) and “click backs.” Basically, Google tracks whether you click a back button after a search. This information, along with other data, helps evaluate the relevance and quality of results. Google uses this data to further improve its search algorithm.

Over time, Google introduced more features beyond the standard blue text links. This wasn’t only to improve their performance. It also helps websites draw higher-quality traffic when users do end up clicking through to the site.

These SERP features are core to Google’s contemporary layout and success in today’s SEO landscape.

AI Overviews

In 2024, Google introduced the latest innovation to the search result: AI-generated summaries, called AI overviews.

Aiming to give users quick, yet comprehensive answers to their queries, Google placed them above all other results in SERP. This slashed the clickthrough rates for many organic (and even some paid) results.

The latest research indicates that 30% of all searches display AI overviews. However, problem-solving and question-based searches have a much higher volume. Up to 74% of these queries trigger the AI-generated feature.

AI overviews typically focus more on general information. As a result, it mostly affects top- and mid-funnel queries for ecommerce and B2B sites. This is when users are mostly gathering information or in a state of consideration.

The AI overview feature affects about a third of all non-branded and roughly twenty percent of branded searches. This potentially can slow the customers’ buying process. However, it can also help influence brand perception in the earlier shopping stages.

AI overviews are here to stay, expanding into organic search and impacting consumer perception. Brands must find ways to stay visible in generative search results, and modern SEO strategies must take this into account.

The best SEOs will focus on appearing for relevant queries and having content linked in AI overviews.

Shopping & Merchant Listings

Users have multiple ways to shop on Google. Here are the two most common:

• They can select the Shopping tab from Google’s home page to go directly to Google Shopping.
• They can search for the items they’d like to buy from the main Google Search page. These are often accompanied by paid and organic Merchant Listings.

The biggest difference between the two is the experience that Google provides. The Shopping tab enhances the products shopping experience by featuring free and paid listings. It also offers a robust user interface.

Free Merchant Listings appear directly within the general Google Search results, displayed in multiple formats with varying features.

The most popular shopping features include:

• Product Carousels: Prominently featured in SERP product cards with quick product information and links to multiple vendors.
• Product Snippets: A text result that includes additional product information such as rating, price, and availability. Product snippets to the site where you can purchase the item.
• Product Knowledge Panels: Detailed product information pulled from the knowledge graph, with links to relevant vendors.
• In Stores Nearby: Product carousel featuring items available at local stores.
• Product Image Rich Results: Product tags with enhanced information within Google images.

Today, the SERP features Merchant Listings so prominently that SEOs must now monitor them. This is critical when optimizing ecommerce sites looking to stay relevant and competitive for transactional or commercial queries.

Currently, SEO strategies require a more engaged approach than basic title tag and meta description updates. Merchant Center configuration audits are now essential. SEOs must ensure datafeeds are accurate, product information is current, and structured data is complete to ensure client success.

This example of a Google Search results page from 2025 includes numerous SERP features, indcluding people also ask, a knowlege panel, and various other elements to help users get the information they’re seeking.

Existing SERP features have evolved, too.

Google Search results developed multiple different features to help visualize results and present information to users directly. This dramatically affected CTR in the past but also improved the quality of traffic coming to sites.

Featured Snippets

Content excerpts that Google extracts from web pages to provide an instant answer within search results. Featured snippets display in a box and link to the source.

They used to be prominent at the top of search results, but AI overviews have replaced them. This positioned them lower on the page, slashing their performance metrics and CTRs.

Knowledge Panels

These information boxes appear on the right side of Google desktop results (or the top on mobile devices). Knowledge panels show a summary of information related to the specific query.

Knowledge panels are another Google Search feature that aims to provide a comprehensive answer within search results. These results provide high-level information that may reduce clicks to relevant sites for related queries.

People Also Ask (PAA)

A set of related questions to the original search query. With this feature, Google aims to help users explore the topic in more depth without leaving the search results. This can also help SEO professionals inform content strategies that address user needs and questions.

Rich Snippets

Rich snippets are also known as rich results. They are the way Google enhances standard text search results with additional information and visual data (e.g., review stars or shipping details). This feature aims to boost your listing’s visibility and CTR. It also improves user experience while driving higher quality traffic to your site.

Image & Video Carousels

Visual features in Google SERP that allow users to browse through multiple images and videos directly within search results. Searching for specific products, places, or visual concepts often triggers images. Meanwhile, video-related topics like tutorials, reviews, and entertainment trigger videos.

What about paid ads?

Paid ads entered the search landscape a long time ago and quickly became the core component of many search queries. They have since been a prominently displayed feature in Google SERPs.

Due to the high-profile, top-of-page placement, paid ads can quickly increase brand visibility and drive high traffic to the websites.

As a result, whenever paid ads appear, organic listings risk losing traffic, even if impressions remain high.

The main reason for this is that paid ads occupy the best, most clicked locations. Some ads even include extensions that take more vertical space. These ad extensions push organic results further below the fold.

Google Search has two main types of paid ads:

• Text Ads: The most common type of search ads, look similar to organic listings but also display “Sponsored” tag.
• Shopping Ads: These are paid product carousels that appear at the top of the page under the heading “Sponsored.”

While SEO campaigns may take some time to get it right and start driving traffic to your site, PPC or paid ads can help you drive traffic in the short term.

As evident with many new and existing search features, most of them intend to keep users within the Google platform. Google wants to give all the information users need right in search results. They seem to believe this better meets user needs.

The result, as many websites and digital marketers indicate, has been a decline in organic search traffic. Furthermore, Gartner predicts a 50% drop by 2028 due to AI search, Google updates, and changing user behavior.

To mitigate the impact of declining traffic, it’s crucial to adapt to the new search landscape reality. Brand visibility must be a focus. Creating and optimizing high-quality content is as important as providing great products or services to your customers.

What’s Google’s big focus these days?

Lately, we’re seeing greater emphasis around Google Shopping. This positions all the filters and facets of a typical ecommerce website right there in organic search results.

Of course, last year, we saw the biggest change yet to happen to Google Search, which was the launch of AI overviews. New generative AI features in search replaced the coveted, prominent spot at the top of search rankings. (Sponsored links, a featured snippet, or the number one organic result previously held this real estate.)

All these features tend to keep users on Google unless there’s a strong reason to leave Google. As a result, outside-the-box content strategies and on-site technical optimizations are more important than ever. Keep this in mind if you’re keen on keeping up with today’s organic search trends.

As Google Search changes, so should your SEO strategy.

Google Search is endlessly evolving. The best way to keep up and stay ahead of these changes is to partner with the right SEO agency. Our experts have helped brands of all sizes navigate the waters of organic search marketing. Have us help you, too.

Get your free SEO site review. Contact us to learn how we can help you improve your visibility and relevance in Google Search.

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Struggling with SEO for your small business? Here’s how to prioritize for better rankings, more traffic, and long-term growth.

When it comes to SEO, trying to do everything at once can leave you overwhelmed by the work and underwhelmed by the results.

Instead of doing it all at once, it’s better to start with the opportunities that can net the best outcomes.

But how do you know what to prioritize?

In this guide, we cover the SEO strategies small businesses should tackle first, highlighting key tactics for lasting visibility.

What is SEO for small businesses?

SEO is short for “Search Engine Optimization.” Small business SEO can bolster your website’s visibility in Google, Bing, and other search engines. This visibility translates directly into more traffic, increased brand awareness, and higher revenue.

Why is SEO important for small businesses?

For small businesses, SEO is crucial. SEO marketing strategies can help you compete with larger companies or local competitors on a limited budget.

This is because, unlike performance marketing channels, there’s no additional ad spend. Long-term results are achievable without the need to pay for placements.

When done right, SEO helps potential customers find you when they need your products or services. You can focus on local visibility, if that’s what you want, but you can also grow national or global presence by taking the right steps.

What’s the difference between SEO and SEM?

SEM is short for “Search Engine Marketing.” It typically refers to paid ad campaigns through search engine results.

These pay-per-click (PPC) ads provide instant visibility. However, performance vanishes the moment you stop spending. Think of PPC as renting real estate in a prime location. If you stop paying, you lose the space quickly.

On the other hand, SEO works through properties you already own. Once you have these properties, you can use them to grow your presence, providing ongoing returns without bidding or ad fees.

Both SEO and SEM have value. When synergized, they enable brands to command more presence in search results, meaning even greater visibility and traffic.

Learn more about paid media services.

How does SEO give smaller businesses a competitive advantage?

Large brands often dominate broad, general search terms. However, small businesses have a unique advantage: Niche targeting.

This means you have an edge when targeting specific keywords closely aligned with your unique products or services. These focused, long-tail keywords attract customers who already know what they’re looking for.

Blend a targeted keyword strategy with local SEO to significantly boost your visibility:

• Optimize your Google Business Profile.
• Build local citations and mentions of your business across local directories.
• Encourage and engage authentic customer reviews.

Together, these actions can position your small business prominently in local search results. This helps you attract nearby customers who are ready to buy.

What else should small business owners know about SEO?

Ranking at the top of search results is about more than traffic. It’s also about trust.

Consistent visibility builds credibility, positioning your brand as an authoritative, trustworthy option in the minds of customers.

Good SEO practices build brand authority and credibility, too. Over time, this trust converts visitors into loyal customers, fueling sustainable business growth.

Optimize key SEO elements like titles, meta descriptions, headings, and alt text to improve website visibility and organic rankings.

What SEO strategies should small businesses prioritize?

As a small business owner, you can’t do everything at once. That’s why it’s important to start with SEO basics. These actions can drive quick, meaningful results.

Whether you want to do it yourself or hire an agency, these key strategies often give the best results for your time and effort.

Targeted Keyword Research

Keyword research is your starting point. Understanding what your customers search for (and why) can help you drastically improve your visibility.

Identify the main areas of your business. Think about the products or services you offer, and the common questions customers ask you.

We do this because we’re looking to analyze search intent. You must think about what your customers are trying to accomplish when they search for terms related to your brand.

• Informational: They want to learn or find answers (e.g., “how to bake bread”).
• Navigational: They’re looking for a specific site or web page (e.g., “Facebook login”).
• Transactional: They’re ready to buy or take action (e.g., “buy running shoes”).

To attract the right visitors, it’s key that you match your content to your audience’s intent. Many business owners find this challenging. Many people often focus on terms with higher search volume, sacrificing relevancy. This is where an agency can help you focus your efforts.

Plenty of tools are available to support your keyword research. You can turn to Google Keyword Planner or a third-party paid tool to get information on search volume. However, keyword research is a bit of an art. An SEO expert can help you avoid common pitfalls and identify the most appropriate terms for your business to pursue.

Metadata Optimization

Good SEO practices send clear signals to search engines and users about the intent of your pages.

Start with your title tags (i.e., <title>). These are the titles that appear in Google Search listings.

Title tags should be concise, keyword-focused, and accurately reflect the content on the page. A strong title helps search engines rank your page appropriately and encourages users to click. You can typically find a field to edit your title tag when editing the page on your site.

Follow that with compelling meta descriptions. This is a 150–160-character tag that provides more context about your content and can entice users to come to your site. While these aren’t a ranking signal, they can affect the likelihood that someon will click your listing over another organic search result.

Similar to page titles, there should be a field to enter a meta description when editing each individual page on your website.

Use clear HTML headings (H1, H2, H3) to organize your content in a logical flow. This structure helps readers navigate your page easily and allows search engines to understand the hierarchy of your information. HTML headings appear directly within the body content of your website.

Remember: Use HTML section headings to structure content. Don’t use another heading just because it looks pretty. That’s what CSS is for!

Done well, optimized title tags, descriptions, and headings can significantly improve your visibility and drive more engagement from search.

Improving Site Performance

Even if you create high-quality content, your site won’t rank as well if it loads slowly. A site that’s not mobile-friendly or has broken links and errors is a sure way to lose trust among visitors.

Poor website performance hurts your ranking potential. Frustrated visitors won’t stick around. This can raise your bounce rate, signaling to Google that your site is not user-friendly.

Imagine searching for a nearby bakery and clicking a promising link. How long would you wait if that site didn’t load? Chances are, you’ll hit the back button within seconds and seek out a different bakery.

Search engines recognize this frustration and prioritize websites that offer fast, mobile-friendly experiences.

To avoid losing potential customers, regularly audit your website using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights (PSI) or Google Search Console (GSC).

PSI and GSC can help you optimize slow-loading pages, broken links (404 errors), poor mobile experience, and more. Addressing these opportunities can help you keep your visitors—and search engines—happy.

Collaborating with an agency on SEO strategies can drive growth, visibility, and long-term success.

Content Publishing & Optimization

Consistent, high-quality content is one of the most effective ways to drive organic traffic. It positions your business as a trusted resource and helps search engines understand the value you offer.

Focus on creating engaging, informative, and original content that directly answers your customers’ questions and meets their needs. Use clear formatting like headings, short paragraphs, bullet points, images, and internal links to improve both readability and SEO.

When it comes to content, quality and helpfulness are key. Publishing fewer well-optimized, useful posts is typically more effective than pushing out junk to keep a schedule.

And remember, you’re writing for people first, not search engines. High-quality content that genuinely helps your audience keeps them on your site longer, builds trust, and ultimately leads to more conversions.

Google Business Profile & Local Listings Optimization

Optimizing Google Business Profile(s) is one of the most effective ways for small businesses to boost local visibility.

A complete, accurate, and regularly updated profile helps your business appear prominently in Google Maps and the local “3-pack.” This positions you directly in front of nearby customers.

For instance, imagine someone searches “plumber near me.” Google immediately displays a “map pack,” highlighting several relevant businesses close to the searcher’s location.

Keeping your profile detailed and updated greatly increases your visibility in local searches. This helps attract customers who are ready to visit or buy.

Since a more complete Google Business Profile is more likely to be seen, be sure to include these essential details:

• Business name, address, and phone number (NAP).
• Detailed operating hours (including holidays).
• Link to your website and online appointment scheduling.
• High-quality photos of your storefront, products, or services.
• Business categories and descriptions that clearly outline what you offer.

It’s also important to actively manage your business details across local directories like Yelp or Yellow Pages. Naturally, you’ll also want to ensure your info appears correctly on industry-specific platforms.

Consistent, accurate information across these sites signals reliability, building trust with both Google and potential customers.

Lastly, always respond promptly to customer reviews, both positive and negative. Reviews directly impact local search rankings and influence customer decision-making.

By thoughtfully engaging with reviewers, you demonstrate genuine care for customer satisfaction, enhancing your local reputation and credibility.

SEO is a powerful marketing practice for any small business.

While we’ve only scratched the surface, we hope this article helps you get started. There are plenty more advanced tactics small businesses can apply to their SEO strategy, such as link building, structured data, and more.

SEO is one of the wisest investments your small business can make. Approached correctly, it can drive sustainable growth, boost your visibility online, and set you up for lasting success.

Don’t have the time to tackle SEO yourself? Have Afflusion Marketing handle the heavy lifting. Contact us for a free SEO audit and accelerate your business growth today.

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Learn how to balance quotas with quality to maximize organic search rankings and engagement.

With SEO, it’s easy to get caught up in whether to focus on a high-volume or high-quality approach.

Some argue that more pages and backlinks (regardless of quality) lead to more keyword rankings and traffic. Others insist that search engines only look to reward the most authoritative and well-researched websites and content.

The reality? A successful SEO strategy isn’t about choosing one over the other. It’s about striking a balance.

Let’s take a look at why you need to consider both quality and quantity for your SEO strategy.

How do quality and quantity apply to SEO?

Search engines like Google spotlight high-quality content that offers users value. Websites that focus solely on SEO quotas could see short-term gains but struggle to maintain rankings.

Conversely, perfection is the enemy of progress. Spending too much time on the wrong things can bottleneck your strategy, leading to missed opportunities and weaker outcomes.

For example:

• A website that publishes content frequently but lacks quality will have difficulty engaging users.
• Conversely, a site that prefers perfection over output may fail to capture search opportunities.

As Google’s algorithms evolve, content relevance and user engagement become critical factors. Quality matters, but action speaks volumes.

Quality, quantity, and the current SERP landscape.

With the rise of AI-driven search experiences, search engine results pages (SERPs) are more competitive than ever. Google’s SGE and AI overviews have altered how users engage content. For sites looking to be shown in these featured results, quality is more meaningful than ever before.

To achieve this, sites need to adapt by crafting authoritative, well-structured content and experiences.

What counts as quality SEO content?

Google evaluates content using E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness).

According to E-E-A-T, high-quality content should:

• Be well-researched and factually accurate.
• Demonstrate expertise and real-world experience.
• Be easy to read, engaging, and well-structured.
• Provide original insights rather than regurgitating existing content.
• Encourage interaction and user engagement.

Following E-E-A-T as a core philosophy of SEO content development can yield incredible outcomes. We’ve seen it ourselves, implementing high quality content using the E-E-A-T principals for astonishing results.

Should you prioritize high-authority or low-competition keywords?

A balanced keyword strategy targets both high-authority and low-competition keywords. This is done by leveraging a mix of long- and short-tail keywords from both categories.

Conducting keyword research with reliable, quality tools and platforms can help you identify the best opportunities.

When you partner with an experienced SEO agency, they will create a cohesive content strategy. At the center of this strategy will be an expert analysis of your site and your top competitors. Blending SEO tools with experience, an SEO pro can take the guesswork out of keyword targeting.

Strong SEO relies on E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

Does Google prioritize backlink quality over backlink volume?

Google values link quality over sheer quantity. A few high-authority backlinks can significantly boost rankings. Meanwhile, a flood of low-quality links may have little to no impact. In fact, junk backlinks may even harm rankings.

While we’re on the subject: If you’ve ever wondered how your affiliate program links influence organic performance, check out our guide to affiliate links and SEO.

Why does link quality matter more than volume?

Google’s algorithm assesses backlinks based on their relevance, authority, and trustworthiness. A link from a well-established, industry-relevant website carries far more weight than a large swarth of links from low-authority or irrelevant sites.

High-quality backlinks act as endorsements. Links from reliable, relevant sites are a strong signal to Google that your content is valuable and trustworthy.

What are the risks of low-quality backlinks?

While acquiring a large number of backlinks may seem like a shortcut to higher rankings, links from spammy or irrelevant sources can trigger Google penalties.

Websites engaging in black-hat strategies, such as buying backlinks or participating in link farms, may experience ranking drops or even manual penalties once Google’s AI-based spam-prevention system, SpamBrain, detects them.

Can a quality-first approach hurt performance?

Quality is essential, but obsessing over it may slow down content production. Delayed publishing means missed keyword opportunities, particularly for timely topics.

Search engines reward fresh, relevant content. If your focus is solely on crafting the “perfect” piece, competitors who publish more frequently may capture valuable search traffic before you.

Perfectionism can also lead to inefficiencies. If extensive research and multiple revisions delay publishing, your brand may struggle to maintain a consistent online presence. Search engines favor websites that update regularly. An inconsistent posting schedule can delay ranking improvements.

While every piece of content should meet high standards, it’s essential to maintain a balance between quality and efficiency. One approach is to develop a content strategy that includes both in-depth, evergreen articles and shorter, timely pieces. This will keep your site active in search results.

How can quotas benefit SEO strategy?

Regular content publishing can help maintain visibility in search rankings. However, a focus on blind quotas without a supporting strategy can lead to poor engagement and diluted authority. After all, more frequent publishing doesn’t guarantee success unless the content provides authentic value.

 SEO quotas work best when mindfully balanced against higher standards for site, content, and backlink quality.

Does Google favor frequent publishing over depth?

Google values freshness but does not rank publishing frequency over content depth.

A well-researched article published monthly can outperform a dozen thin posts. The key is to strike a harmony between content pacing and research.

Consider these use cases when deciding how to align your time against content efforts:

• Frequent short content: Ideal for news updates, trend reports, and quick industry insights.
• Long-form content: Best for evergreen content, white papers, case studies, and in-depth guides.

Does higher content volume increase engagement?

While frequent updates can keep users returning, engagement depends more on content quality. A poorly written post published daily won’t perform better than a high-quality post published once a week. High-value content encourages more shares, comments, and interactions with your site.

Consistently publishing new content gives users more opportunities to engage with your website. However, if the content lacks depth or originality, it can lead to lower engagement time, higher bounce rates, and overall reduced trust in your brand.

Google tracks these engagement metrics. If users frequently leave your site without interacting, it may signal that your content isn’t meeting expectations.

Naturally, when considering ways to boost organic engagement, you’ll want to keep current SEO trends top of mind. Understanding the modern organic search landscape is critical when capturing new site visitors.

SEO success is about aligning strategy with execution. Expertise, backlinks, and keyword planning can make all the difference.

How do you balance SEO quality with quantity?

A comprehensive SEO strategy includes consistent content updates through blogs and articles. It also involves improving and creating high-quality evergreen content. These actions will help maximize visibility, engagement, and authority.

Many businesses get caught up in vanity metrics. Focusing on producing large amounts of content without considering whether it serves their audience.

Some common mistakes to avoid include:

• Overproducing thin content.
• Ignoring content updates.
• Chasing every trending keyword.
• Overlooking technical SEO.

Prioritization is key, and an SEO agency can help identify the best opportunities. With so many factors to consider, working with an experienced SEO can streamline your efforts with:

• Targeted keyword research to guide content strategy.
• Full site and content audits to identify high-value opportunities.
• Ongoing reporting and evaluation to ensure sustainable organic growth.

While modern SEO strategies require both brands and marketers to think outside the box, SEO best practices should always remain at the heart of your approach.

Should I focus on a few key pages or improve the whole site?

Focusing on both key pages and site-wide optimizations is crucial in a successful SEO strategy. For example:

• Optimizing key pages (landing pages, evergreen content) can drive faster results.
• Site-wide optimizations (structured data, internal linking) support long-term growth.

But how do you choose which to focus on? Finding the balance between the two is where it may get difficult. This requires a deeper analysis to determine how you should order your tasks based on current performance and goals.

Does adding more pages improve rankings?

More pages can help target additional keywords, but only if they offer unique, valuable content. Instead of creating unnecessary pages, focus on optimizing existing ones.

Generative search presence is another important consideration for SEO. If you’re struggling to navigate the new AI-focused SERP landscape, our guide on Generative Engine Optimization can help. Going forward, anyone seeking SEO success should understand AI’s role in their content strategy.

Should I prioritize faster page speed or more rich media content?

Both are essential for SEO success. Furthermore, when they’re properly balanced within your SEO strategy, you’ll see better SERP rankings and user behavior.

• Faster page speed improves user experience and reduces bounce rates.
• Rich media content (videos, images) increases user engagement and average time on site.

Is there an SEO “quality score” I can work to improve?

There isn’t a publicly available SEO “quality score” from Google. However, there is a Quality Score for Google Ads whose principles may overlap with organic SEO. Google evaluates organic content based on relevance, engagement, and user experience. This is much like how paid ads are ranked.

Of course, Google Quality Score itself is not an organic ranking signal. It’s specific to Google Ads. While this can benefit organic users by providing improved user experience, it won’t impact organic rankings in any direct way.

Third party SEO tools may also have similar ratings for content and site health. These are great for identifying opportunities and fine-tuning improvements. Yet again, these have no direct influence on Google’s rankings.

Beware of SEO “shortcuts.”

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Avoid tactics that may lead to penalties.

Shortcuts like keyword stuffing, low-quality link-building, and AI-generated spam content often backfire. Implementing ethical, long-term SEO strategies is the best path to sustainable success.

Get an expertly balanced SEO strategy for your brand.

A balanced approach to SEO is often the best approach. Emphasizing high-quality content and authoritative links while maintaining a steady publishing schedule can deliver incredible long-term gains.

Likewise, a focus on valuable, user-centered content and search engine best practices will always outperform a one-dimensional methodology.

The best SEO solutions are tailored to your needs. Contact us today for a free SEO audit and get on the path to organic search success.

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Shifts in user search behavior and advancements in AI tech are at the epicenter of recent organic search shakeups. Here are the latest SEO trends for 2025.

The organic search landscape is changing rapidly, driven by advancements in AI technology, shifts in user behavior, and core updates to Google algorithms.

When traditional SEO tactics seem less effective, adapting your strategy to account for these advanced trends could make for a more successful outcome.

• User Search Behavior Shifts
• AI Technology Advancements
• Critical Organic Search Priorities
• Structured Data & Enhanced Features
• Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
• E-E-A-T Content Framework

Shifts in user search behavior.

Through engagement data and predictive technology, search engines have improved their understanding of the context and purpose behind user queries. This led to vast changes in the layout of search engine results pages (SERPs).

At the same time, users adapted to the new nature of search, which is now more results driven. In turn, consumers are more reliant on fast, credible answers and built-in SERP features.

This has led to shorter engagement rates, fewer clicks, and higher expectations around quality in search results.

Modern SEO strategies must account for these shifts in user behavior:

• Users don’t want more clicks. They want answers.
• Consumers want to quickly find the best products at the best prices from reputable, trustworthy sellers.
• Buyers want to see options and endorsements when searching (e.g., side-by-side comparisons, trusted review sites) without clicking through seemingly endless results.
• People incorporate brand trust into their decision making now more than ever. However, one shouldn’t mistake brand trust for brand loyalty.

The best SEO strategies account for these trends and anticipate user needs. It’s essential that brands address these shifts in user behavior through web content, web design, and brand development efforts.

As usual, this is easier said than done, but it serves as a launching point for a modern SEO campaign that can yield lasting results.

SERP features like AI overviews are reshaping the way users find information.

Advancements in AI search technology.

For years, Google has been using AI in their search algorithms to better understand user intent and provide better, more relevant results.

In earlier days, search engines may not have been able to understand common patterns, like misspellings and typos. They might even have had trouble connecting the dots between different approaches that people use when searching for the same things with the same intent.

Today, Google goes beyond words, using AI technology to present the best results possible. This is accomplished through a better understanding of concepts, context, and intent for each query.

With generative AI shaping search results, it is important to see the full picture. You must consider how it affects rankings and your SEO efforts.

As of this writing, these are the AI systems used to generate Google Search results.

RankBrain: Smart Ranking Beyond Keywords

Machine learning and AI improvements to search algorithms mean that Google is getting better at understanding what users are seeking.

Users are also searching in unique ways. In fact, 15% of daily searches are completely new.

The biggest development in this area started with the deployment of RankBrain, the very first deep-learning AI system.

Still at the core of Google Search, RankBrain allows Google to relate words in search queries to real-world concepts. It then adapts rankings in SERPs to better relate to these concepts. In short, it’s no longer relying on keywords alone.

Neural Matching: Personalized Search Results

Neural networks are an advanced machine-learning technique, where AI is learning similarly to human brain patterns by routinely receiving feedback and adjusting parameters.

In 2018, Google implemented neural matching that allowed AI systems to become better at understanding the content and concepts presented on websites, as well as connecting them to the users’ search queries.

As a result, Google now provides personalization and can try to guess the right category to present in the SERP, even if certain keywords are missing from the query.

Voice search and AI are redefining how users interact with search engines—faster, smarter, and more intuitive than ever.

BERT: Understanding Meaning & Intent

Often, users form queries without all the necessary words, following natural language, where another person would understand the meaning behind the question. However, it could be much more complex for a machine to make that connection.

If you type in the search “my IP address,” people would understand you want info on “your individual” IP address—not just common knowledge about IP addresses. Prior to BERT, AI systems may have overlooked the importance of the word “my” in the query and focused on the results about the common knowledge about IP addresses.

Since introducing BERT in 2018, Google has been able to make that distinction and can understand the intent based on the combination of words together.

Today, BERT plays a crucial role in ranking and retrieving Google search results based on relevance.

MUM: Specialized Application

In May 2021, Google introduced the latest in AI technology—the Multitask Unified Model—or “MUM.” A thousand times more powerful than BERT, MUM can understand and generate language.

Unlike any other previous AI system, MUM’s understanding of information spans across multiple formats (i.e., multiple modals), which include text and images. It can also include more modalities, like video and audio, in the future.

While MUM is not used to help rank the search results, it is being used to power specific applications, such as when it was used to improve searches for COVID-19 vaccine information.

With the current focus on Generative AI, you can see the importance and relevance of the MUM in 2025.

AI Overviews: A Prominent SERP Feature

While not technically an AI system, AI overviews use generative AI to produce summaries of information from multiple web sources for a variety of common queries. This allows users to quickly research a topic without having to click on multiple websites.

This technology is rapidly improving. However, it may still provide inaccurate information.

Since AI overviews rely on patterns and structured data, it is becoming essential for SEOs to focus on providing accurate content on the sites they manage.

Beyond AI overviews, Google also relies on interactions like what people search for and what feedback they provide. It tracks the engagement and whether users are satisfied with the results.

Optimizing for organic search results isn’t just about keywords. There’s so much more to consider.

What are some critical organic search priorities for 2025?

Based on the changes in search results and the online landscape, here are the opportunities we tend to prioritize.

Structured Data & Enhanced Features

Research tells us Google will continue providing even more personalized results in 2025.

We can expect to see more AI overviews, featured snippets, knowledge panels, popular products, and other enhanced features. All these rich results will continue to rely heavily on websites to provide consistent and accurate structured data.

This markup helps Google understand brands, products, offerings, and services completely and correctly.

Structured data will not remain static. Based on schema.org vocabulary, Google Search structured data constantly evolves. Google is routinely expanding available properties as it develops and enhances SERPs and displayed features.

Due to Google’s expanding approach to this markup, it’s important for brands to perform routine audits. This means ensuring their markup is comprehensive and accurate. Doing anything less could lead to missed opportunities being captured by competitors.

Generative Engine Optimization

AI-generated summaries, the same AI overviews covered in the last section, were introduced in early 2024. These results quickly monopolized high-value, above-the-fold real estate in SERPs.

AI overviews provide quick answers to the search questions users ask directly below the query. This results in a reduction in clicks, as users are now getting these answers directly on the SERP.

The silver lining for websites is that this also provides more visibility for the sites linked in the AI-generated results. But how do you gain visibility in AI overviews?

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) focuses on optimizing your site content to be more likely to be cited within AI-generated summaries.

Why should GEO be considered as part of your SEO strategy?

• Increased reach, as AI-powered results have strong visibility.
• Opportunity for higher click-through rates as users see your link directly in the answer.
• Strengthened brand positioning by being recognized by AI as a trusted source.

We’ve found gaining presence in GEO search results aligns closely with many long-standing best practices for content. This includes close adherence to Google’s own framework for how it rates content quality: E-E-A-T.

Accounting for E-E-A-T can help content rank higher. Experience, expertise, trust, and authority all contribute to SEO success.

E-E-A-T Content Framework

Google has continuously improved the framework it uses to evaluate web content quality and credibility. This framework is known as “E-E-A-T.”

What is E-E-A-T?

E-E-A-T stands for “Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.” In particular, it considers these facets as they pertain to the author’s relation to the topic.

• Experience: First-hand knowledge of the topic.
• Expertise: Knowledge and expertise in the topic.
• Authoritativeness: The author’s status as an expert in the field
• Trustworthiness: The author’s credibility and reliability

Demonstrating the E-E-A-T in 2025 will continue to be the cornerstone of high-quality content favored by Google.

While all sites should adhere to publishing content that meets E-E-A-T criteria, YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) organizations have the highest responsibility in doing so.

While E-E-A-T is not a direct ranking factor, it can signal to Google that your site and content are valuable and reliable. This can boost your SEO.

We’ve had great success with E-E-A-T content strategies in the past, so it’s easy to recommend as a focus.

How can you demonstrate E-E-A-T in 2025?

If you want to incorporate E-E-A-T in your 2025 content strategy, remember these key points.

• High-quality content continues to be the foundation of success.
• Focus on your users and what they find helpful or informative.
• Offer multiple perspectives on a topic for a balanced view.
• Provide transparency and accuracy in your content.
• Link to vetted sources to show your trustworthiness.
• Build a strong portfolio of reputable backlinks, third-party site acknowledgments, and a variety of brand entities.

As trends change, so should your SEO strategy.

The SEO landscape is changing, and your strategy should change with it. Quality and trust are more critical than ever when it comes to gaining and retaining search visibility. More importantly, these qualities are key to drawing new customers while keeping those you have already.

Without proper help, it can feel impossible to keep up with. That’s why many brands choose to partner with an SEO agency who will keep them ahead of these developments.

Our team keeps current with the latest industry trends. We’re well-versed in structured data, content development, and the latest AI search enhancements, so you can be, too.

The new state of search demands an advanced SEO strategy. Contact us today to learn how we can help grow your brand through SEO and digital marketing.

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Incrementality is key to understanding affiliate performance. Discover how incrementality can give you total confidence in your affiliate program.

One of the biggest questions brands ask their affiliate manager is if their program is bringing in a return.

Brands invest in affiliate publishers not just to capture transactions, but to enhance performance across key business metrics. As a result, the value of an affiliate program extends beyond the last-click sale.

A well-executed affiliate strategy ensures brands reach and influence consumers in ways they otherwise wouldn’t. This can include partnerships that introduce the brand to new audiences, promotions that accelerate decision-making, or the creation of educational content.

This means the goal isn’t just to track whether a sale happened through an affiliate. Instead, we must understand how affiliates drive higher-value customers and contribute to overall business growth.

So how can brands be sure about the value of their affiliate program? The answer is incrementality.

What is incrementality?

Incrementality measures the true impact of a marketing channel by assessing how it influences key business outcomes beyond just conversions.

Instead of focusing solely on whether a sale would have happened anyway, incrementality helps brands understand how affiliates:

• Drive incremental revenue.
• Expand audience reach.
• Strengthen customer engagement.
• Improve conversion efficiency.

These measurements account for external factors to provide a clearer picture of the channel’s overall contribution.

Typically, a digital media strategy that includes affiliate marketing differs significantly from one without it. This extends beyond terms of revenue. We must also consider how it enhances customer acquisition, accelerates purchase decisions, and amplifies brand exposure.

With incrementality, we must do more than determine if an affiliate is bringing in new customers. We should identify how affiliates add value across the entire customer journey, influencing intent, loyalty, and long-term growth.

In short, incrementality determines whether the outcome would have been the same without introducing affiliate to the marketing funnel.

Why does incrementality matter in affiliate marketing?

Marketing experts generally consider affiliate a low-risk channel. The greatest risks are overpaying or giving discounts to acquire customers that would have converted without the program.

Naturally, brands don’t want to pay publishers or reduce prices to acquire customers who are already likely to convert.

Affiliate marketing agencies like Afflusion aim to isolate the affiliate program’s incremental performance to show its impact. This results in maximized program performance, enabling brands to make the most of their investment in the channel.

With this in mind, we recommend using directional data to correlate and understand consumer behavior.

What does the data say about affiliate incrementality?

When calculating incremental sales, it’s tempting overfocus on whether someone would have bought through a different channel.

This answer is seldom black and white. So many factors influence a purchasing decision. These factors often include dozens of brand touchpoints, the affiliate channel among them.

When brands measure incrementality, they often fixate on the “survey of one.”

It’s essential to stay realistic. We’ll never fully know if John Smith would have bought something without seeing this single affiliate placement. The modern customer journey usually presents buyers with an array of ads before they convert.

Few customers convert after just one or two touchpoints. When you examine the full marketing spectrum, you could be looking at as many as 50 touchpoints. This holds especially true when customers aren’t in dire need of a product.

This leads us to our next question.

Incrementality helps brands go beyond last-click attribution and understand real business growth.

How do you measure the true impact of your affiliate program?

We all want to understand how affiliate programs contribute to overall business growth.

While sales are a key metric, the true value of affiliates extends beyond just transactions. They help attract new audiences, shape purchasing decisions, and create additional touchpoints that move customers through the buying journey.

This is important when a brand is investing in multiple marketing channels. It becomes critical to assess how affiliates complement and enhance broader strategies rather than just attributing last-click conversions.

Fortunately, major case studies have already proven the value of affiliate channel partners.

A Commission Junction study surveyed 21 million retail consumers and 5.5 million transactions. The findings revealed that consumers who interacted with the affiliate channel had:

• 46% higher shopper to customer conversion.
• 29% higher spend per customer.
• 88% higher revenue per customer.

In other words, affiliate channels drive major value through incremental impact. They’re customer-centric, lending credibility to brands that might not be as well-known or trusted, and serve as an unbiased resource.

How do you measure affiliate channel sales incrementality?

Sales incrementality looks beyond whether individuals would have purchased without the affiliate channel influencing their decision.

Here are some things the affiliate experts at Afflusion look at to measure affiliate marketing campaign performance.

Understand how each publisher works.

In affiliate marketing, not all publishers are created equal. Some drive more sales than others. Some are more geared to a particular niche or audience than others. They might operate in different parts of the purchase funnel.

We suggest first understanding how each publisher works and how they fit into the bigger picture. Knowing their role in your larger affiliate ecosystem can help you better understand their impact.

Evaluate each placement in context.

When you have an array of publishers in your affiliate program, it’s important to account for both nuances and shared trends.

For example, when Slickdeals has a good day, Ebates/Rakuten Rewards tends to have a good day, too.

Diving deeper, we found this was because there’s a huge overlap in audiences. People who want to take advantage of a deal on Slickdeals also shop through Rakuten Rewards to get their cash back.

Context is crucial when evaluating the effectiveness of your affiliate partners. In the example scenario, users visiting Rakuten are pretty much ready to buy. They’re generally not going there to learn and research.

Evaluate the context of your placements based on where your customers are in the sales funnel. This can help you better understand the nature of your conversions.

Measure a wider spectrum of KPIs.

Looking beyond surface-level data is a major benefit of working with an affiliate agency like Afflusion. This provides a clearer picture of conversion performance.

It’s not just about looking at the number of sales coming through the channel itself. At the publisher level, you could look at lead costs, average order value, click-through rate, and conversion rate.

You can also look at:

• The number of new products bought.
• Total sales after the affiliate offer.
• New customer revenue.
• Whether you’re selling add-ons.
• Whether you’re seeing more activity from specific promotions.

When measuring incrementality, we must also consider the organic lift an affiliate could contribute. For instance, what might the platform have driven that day without the affiliate?

These are all things that your affiliate will drive beyond a particular sale and basic ROI calculations.

Incrementality is not just about sales—it’s about customer engagement, audience expansion, and long-term value.

Affiliate incrementality is key; the best agencies will provide it.

A complicated topic, marketing incrementality is critical to understanding the overall performance of your affiliate program. Proper analysis leads to better decision making. This can include how much to invest in the channel and how to make that investment pay off.

Naturally, this is an area where an expert partner like Afflusion Marketing can make an enormous impact. Our experts can analyze relevant data, leading to actionable insights that put you on the road to success.

Learn what we can do to maximize your affiliate program. Contact us to speak with an expert today.

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In affiliate marketing, a smarter approach can outperform even the biggest budgets. Consider these high-impact strategies for your program.

If you’re feeling like the affiliate marketing space is getting tighter and tighter, you’re not alone.

Affiliate marketing is a cost-effective, impactful means of getting your product or service in front of target audiences. In turn, it’s drawn a lot of attention, meaning the channel is more competitive than ever.

Getting in front of affiliates who will become your selling partners is a challenge. It requires up-front investments, attractive offers, and a commitment to lasting relationships. These aspects of program design can be the hardest part for many brands.

Things get even more complicated when competitors offer higher commissions or perks that your budget can’t match.

How do you win when you can’t keep up with competitor spending? Believe it or not, it’s possible. We do it for our clients all the time.

In this article, you’ll find ways to succeed against big-budget competitors even when you have a low or limited spend.

Establish your value proposition.

Money has little to do with the value your product or service brings to consumers.

Put budgets and investments aside for a minute.

Next, think carefully about your value proposition and what makes your product unique.

• What problem does it solve for the target consumer?
• Who is the ideal consumer for your product or service?
• What makes your product or service stand out from your competitors?
• How is your brand and offering perceived by potential buyers and influencers?

As with most things, price still matters, but it’s only one of many factors. Consumers know this, and so do affiliates.

Affiliates understand a hot-selling item backed by a brand with a good reputation can bring in more clicks and sales. They also know a lower commission on a great product beats a high commission on one nobody wants or trusts.

So, before you fret over pricing, take a few minutes to define what else you bring to the table. Hone your message in a vacuum so that it stands tall on its own.

In other words, find your value and cast yourself in a way that’s distinct from your competition.

Remember: You have your own story to tell.

This same logic holds true for how you engage affiliates. Design an affiliate strategy based on your own consumer value prop and where you sit in the competitive landscape.

Likewise, avoid impulses to copy the competition. They may face an entirely different set of challenges in trying to grow their businesses.

Identify any overlooked pockets of opportunity.

When you can’t compete with a bigger budget, you need to get creative. Start looking for other “pockets” of opportunity with affiliates that competitors have neglected or overlooked.

For example, consider how your budget applies to your approach. Are you spending evenly over time, or do you often find you’ve hit your spend halfway through the month?

There’s an opportunity there to rethink your program design and even your commission model.

Here are a few more questions to ask yourself when seeking unique opportunities:

• Do your affiliates have certain exclusions or terms that prevent competitors from working with them? Could you work around these exclusions or terms?
• Have you explored all publications and types, some of which your competitors may be shying away from?

Be scrappy and lean in on original or creative approaches. These small pockets of opportunity can yield big results, helping you seize more market share.

Know your true competitors.

On the surface, identifying competitors is easy. Usually, top competitors sell similar goods and services to the ones you do.

In digital marketing and the affiliate space, competitors take on a new dimension. You’re no longer just competing with lookalike products and services. Now, you’re competing with advertisers who partner with affiliates to market products and services in verticals outside your own.

We see this all the time. We’ll bring a new advertiser on board, and they’ll tell us their competitors are A, B, C, and D. Then, when we look at publisher sites (i.e., the key players driving sales in their space). We often uncover completely different competitors based on our data and experience.

As an affiliate marketing agency, when evaluating a brand’s competitors, we typically look at:

• Who has the most visibility?
• Who has the most coverage?
• Who provides incremental ad opportunities?

Incremental advertising opportunities include emails, newsletters, and other placements. This helps us identify who’s really making moves in a given category.

In the context of an affiliate program, this is critical intel. In the right hands, it can uncover opportunities you may have never otherwise known existed.

Strategic thinking, market insights, and innovation—key elements to success when affiliate marketing on a limited budget.

Build strong relationships with publishers.

When you can build better relationships with publishers, your budget becomes less of an issue. You need to know what the relationships look like between your competitors and publishers. Then, you can start finding ways to outmaneuver them.

Building a good relationship with publishers is much like any other type of networking. Communicate well, listen, find areas of alignment, and get to know their model and audience. All the above can help you collaborate on a strategy that serves both sides.

Remember: You and your publishers both want real sales success for your program.

Best of all, your deep-pocket rivals might not have this advantage. If they’re just throwing money at the relationship, they’re missing out on all the nuances that make up a real partnership valuable.

If you can showcase how you’re going to bring more value to your affiliates, you’ve already won while spending less.

Start smaller, dig deeper.

When you have a small budget, it’s often better to go deep in a niche area than try to do too much with too little. Spreading your efforts too thin makes it hard to dive beneath the surface of potential publishers and audiences.

Instead, start with a segmentation and personalization exercise. Figure out the unique subsets of customers you want to reach, then look for the publishers that can help you reach them.

Start building your brand in one channel and growing your relationships with publishers. Rooting yourself in a smaller space can be more effective than loosely connecting to a larger one.

Over time, you will prove that you’re not just dipping in your toe to test the water. It will be clear to your that you’re committed to the channel, the publishers, and the audiences they serve.

Remember, budget isn’t everything!

Money is still an important part of the conversation, but it’s not the only way to win over publishers. Taking the right approach can be just as effective when managing a successful affiliate marketing campaign.

The right agency partner will go to bat for you, honing your value proposition. They’ll apply audience and channel research to your campaign using actual data. Most of all, they’ll improve your chances of appealing to the right publishers for your program.

You don’t have to go it alone. Discover how Afflusion Marketing advocates for your affiliate brand. Our experts have the data, tools, and experience to refine the perfect affiliate solution for you. Contact us today!

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What are affiliate links? How do they work? Do they help or hurt SEO? Get answers to these questions and more in this comprehensive guide.

Affiliate links are a powerful tool for monetizing websites and driving revenue. However, they also intersect closely with SEO strategies.

With search engine rankings, improper use of affiliate links can raise red flags with Google and other search engines. This can harm a site’s visibility.

Understanding the relationship between affiliate links and SEO is essential. Both brands and content creators need to keep their sites compliant if they want to maintain organic search presence.

Fortunately, adhering to best practices can help you leverage affiliate marketing without compromising your search engine optimization efforts.Naturally, the concerns brands have with affiliate links will tend to differ from those had by affiliates. To make this distinction clearer, this article calls out which sections apply to brands, affiliates, or both.

• What’s an affiliate link?
• How do affiliate links work?
• Why do backlinks matter for SEO?
• Do affiliate links help SEO?
• Can inbound affiliate links hurt a brand’s SEO?
• Can outbound affiliate links affect publisher rankings?
• How many affiliate links can go on a single webpage?
• What are some affiliate link best practices?
• Do affiliate links need to be tagged “sponsored”?
• When might affiliate links hurt SEO?

What’s an affiliate link?

Applies to: Brands & Affiliates

Affiliate links are URLs used when promoting goods and services on a website. Unlike natural organic links, affiliate links typically include tracking parameters. This gives a commission to the affiliate if a specific action occurs. Possible actions include making a purchase, completing a download, or filling out a lead form.

These types of links typically include an affiliate ID to associate the affiliate with a program. This makes it easier to track and assign commissions based on the actions taken by consumers.

How do affiliate links work?

Applies to: Brands & Affiliates

When a user clicks on an affiliate link, they are redirected to the merchant’s website. This is when the affiliate’s unique identifier is recorded.

If the user completes a desired action, the affiliate then earns a commission based on the terms of the program.

These links use tracking mechanisms like cookies or unique identifiers to attribute conversions to the affiliate. Cookies store data about the user’s activity. Commonly tracked activities include when users click the link and how long the tracking lasts (i.e., cookie duration).

Affiliate links credit affiliates for their role in driving sales or leads. The result is a performance-based marketing system beneficial to both partners and merchants.

Why do backlinks matter for SEO?

Applies to: Brands & Affiliates

Backlinks are links from external, third-party websites that point back to your own website. Beyond sending referral traffic to your site, they also send trust signals to search engines.

In other words, when another site links to you, it suggests that your web content has merit. Search engines like Google consider some of this equity when indexing your site.

For a backlink to carry SEO value, it must meet certain criteria. Backlinks from trustworthy, relevant, and authoritative sites tend to carry more value.

For brands, affiliate links are a powerful tool to drive traffic and grow your business.

Do affiliate links help SEO?

Applies to: Brands

No, not directly. Affiliate links don’t pass value in the same way as organic backlinks. In fact, there is no direct SEO value from affiliate backlinks pointing to your website.

There is an indirect value to these links for brands, as they can help build awareness and drive referral traffic to your site. Similarly, positive chatter around your brand aligned with increased engagement can have positive effects on organic placements.

Additionally, a good affiliate marketing program will get your brand on websites that rank well for related terms. In turn, you’ll have greater visibility for queries relevant to your consumers through third-party placements. This is great for queries where you might struggle to rank organically (e.g., YMYL queries).

Of course, a bunch of affiliate links on trusted, third-party sites aren’t going to boost your own rankings. It can, however, have a positive impact on your program’s conversion rates.

Can inbound affiliate links hurt a brand’s SEO?

Applies to: Brands

No, not typically. Google and other search engines are aware of affiliate links. They understand them to be a common way to monetize website traffic.

As a result, there’s no issue including these links in web content. Likewise, they shouldn’t have a negative impact on the brand’s website, but it’s still important to tag them. This means qualifying them with a rel="sponsored" attribute (more about that later).

Regardless, it’s important to consider the quality of the affiliates linking to your site. Here’s why:

• Your brand reputation and credibility are on the line.
• Consumer trust is fragile; losing it can hurt your profits and even be costly.
• Quality websites with quality content tend to rank better. This means greater visibility.
• You’re reducing risks. Trusted publishers with quality websites are more likely to abide by ethical practices.

If too many publishers are using affiliate links without these qualifiers, then it could hurt your SEO. Always ensure your partners are tagging their affiliate links correctly.

Can outbound affiliate links affect publisher rankings?

Applies to: Affiliates

Yes. If not qualified, affiliate links can hurt the rankings of an affiliate’s website. This means using a rel="sponsored" attribute on all outbound affiliate links sitewide.

If sites fail to use these attributes, Google and other search engines may issue manual actions. These penalties reduce search visibility.

You never want your website pulled from search results over a manual action. If you’re an affiliate, adhere to compliance best practices. This can help prevent search engines from devaluing or omitting your website from search results.

If you’re qualifying your links as an affiliate, you have nothing to worry about. Affiliate links alone won’t harm (or help) your rankings.

It’s important to follow best practices when adding affiliate links to web content.

How many affiliate links can go on a single webpage?

Applies to: Affiliates

There is no limit to the number of affiliate links you can have on a single webpage.

Google’s John Mueller says the number of outbound affiliate links on your pages doesn’t matter. What matters is that your content is useful to users. You won’t be at risk of penalties or lower rankings, as a result.

“There is no limit… we’re not saying that affiliate links are bad or problematic… you actually need to have some useful content on your page as well. The amount of affiliate links that you have on a site is totally irrelevant. The ratio of links to article length is also totally irrelevant.”

This primarily applies to publishers and affiliate partners who post links on their own sites. The takeaway is to focus on the end user. Consider what your content adds to the conversation.

• Are you helping users, or are you wasting their time?
• Is your content original, or are you simply copying descriptions from the retailer’s website?

In our experience, “less is more” when it comes to hyperlinks. Depending on the content and presentation, too many hyperlinks can be overwhelming. This can also come off as untrustworthy or spammy to users.

Try keeping it to what’s essential. Focus on what will be most valuable to your site’s visitors to really improve your organic search performance.

What are some affiliate link best practices?

Applies to: Brands & Affiliates

The best practices for using affiliate links are fairly straightforward but require effort to execute properly.

For brands, focus your program on relevant sites with high-quality content. Avoid lazy, spammy sites that aren’t offering any value to users.

You’re looking for publishers who integrate links with high-quality, original content. This is the kind of content that will perform well in search results and will be more likely to engage users. Better content tends to be more trustworthy, as well, leading to greater conversions.

For publishers, target people, not keywords. Think about the needs of the people who will be buying these products or services. Likewise, use descriptive anchor text. Users should already have a strong idea of where a link will take them based on this language.

Here’s an example:

• “Get this product here,” with “here” as the affiliate link is vague.
• Instead, be descriptive and say something like “Get Brand’s product name on example.com,” linking “Brand’s product name” with your affiliate link.

It is essential to always consider the balance between monetization and user experience. As a content creator, it’s important that affiliate links do not take away from the value of the content.

Do affiliate links need to be tagged “sponsored”?

Applies to: Brands & Affiliates

Yes, affiliate links must include the rel="sponsored" attribute.

Here is an example of what a properly tagged affiliate link might look like:

<a href="https://www.example.com/affiliate-link?q=tracking-parameters" rel="sponsored">

Of course, there is one exception.

The rel="sponsored" tag wasn’t always the preferred way to qualify affiliate links. Affiliates used to use rel="nofollow" to indicate affiliate links to search engines.

Both rel="sponsored" and rel="nofollow" attributes instruct search engines to refrain from passing equity through these links. Therefore, both are acceptable, and you won’t encounter problems or penalties if using “nofollow.” However, when creating new links, you should make a point to use the “sponsored” qualifier to send the clearest possible signals to search engines.

On the other hand, if links are tagged incorrectly (or not at all), you’re asking for trouble. Your site may violate Google’s spam policies for link spam—a serious concern if you’re an affiliate.

If you’re a brand and too many of your affiliate partners fail to follow affiliate link best practices, search engines may view it as an attempt to manipulate rankings. You could see penalties, too.

Proper implementation of affiliate links ensures you stay compliant without harming your SEO efforts.

When might affiliate links negatively impact SEO?

Applies to: Brands & Affiliates

If implemented properly, affiliate links should never cause a problem for your website’s SEO.

But let’s take a moment and assume the worst. What would someone need to do to cause problems for their rankings through affiliate links? Here are a few possibilities.

Replacing naturally gained organic backlinks with affiliate links.

This is unlikely to happen. Not to say it’s impossible, but brands should avoid replacing any naturally occurring organic backlinks with affiliate links.

When you replace natural, organic backlinks with affiliate links, you’re stepping on the toes of your own performance. The only exception would be if someone originally meant for the link to be an affiliate link. In this case, it should then be qualified with rel="sponsored".

Be mindful of this when executing any aspect of your affiliate program. You don’t want to undo those hard-to-earn organic links just to push out one you’re paying for.

Not using “sponsored” (or “nofollow”) tags.

I’ve already mentioned this a few times, but it bears repeating. Transparency is essential to the success of any compliant affiliate program. If you’re not including “sponsored” attributes that qualify your affiliate links, go and add those ASAP.

Again, this primarily applies to affiliates and is a practice quality publishers should already have in place.

Getting lazy with your content (aka, “thin affiliation”).

Google defines “thin affiliation” as:

“The practice of publishing content with product affiliate links where the product descriptions and reviews are copied directly from the original merchant without any original content or added value.”

If you don’t include meaningful content and features on the pages with affiliate links, you’ll have a hard time getting that content to rank.

It takes more than a copy/paste from the brand’s website for your content to succeed. You need to put in some legwork.

Consider what consumers might want to know about that product or service. Some possibilities include:

• Price Information
• Original Reviews
• First-Party Testing & Ratings
• Product Comparisons

Neglecting to include required disclosures.

Okay, so this pertains more to the legality of your affiliate links and isn’t necessarily a ranking factor. Even still, it’s critical that you include proper disclosures in your content. Otherwise, this can lead to trouble with affiliate networks or government entities.

The FTC, for example, urges publishers to be “clear and conspicuous” in disclosures regarding affiliate relationships. Failing to disclose these links could result in legal investigations, warnings, fines, or lawsuits.

Fortunately, this is super easy. It can be as simple as saying “We make a commission on purchases made through the links in this article” at the top of your content piece. This applies to links on a landing page, blog post, social media platform, YouTube video, and more.

Laws may vary from country to country, and brands have other compliance concerns to keep in mind when it comes to their program. This is why It’s best to partner with a global affiliate marketing agency who understands the nuances of affiliate compliance.

Stay aligned with affiliate and SEO best practices.

The best way to ensure you’re following best practices in your affiliate and SEO efforts is to partner with an experienced agency. The right agency partner can help you avoid legal action or search engine penalties.

At Afflusion Marketing, we can show you the way. Our affiliate marketing team will execute powerful strategies to ensure your affiliate program is operating at its absolute best. Meanwhile, our SEO experts will work to position your website for optimal organic search performance.

The best digital marketing solutions start with a free audit. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help your brand grow online.

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Discover performance marketing and all the ways it can help you grow both your brand and your bottom line.

In today’s digital world, every marketing dollar must work harder. Performance marketing makes that possible by ensuring every campaign is driven by measurable results.

What is performance marketing?

Performance marketing is an all-encompassing strategy that focuses on achieving specific, measurable actions. As a result, advertising expenses are typically tied to direct results, be it sales, leads, or other KPIs.

Unlike brand marketing, where the effectiveness of efforts can sometimes be difficult to measure, performance marketing thrives on incrementality. This makes it an effective means to invest in digital marketing for those looking to reduce risks.

By utilizing analytics, precise targeting, and real-time optimization, brands can maximize their return on investment (ROI) and build sustainable growth over time.

What are the most popular performance marketing channels?

As a digital agency, Afflusion Marketing is well-known in the performance marketing space.

Our approach integrates seamlessly with the broader digital media landscape. This includes earned, owned, and paid media strategies.

Each of these digital media types plays a critical role in the overall marketing mix. We help our clients identify the right balance to boost ROAS (return on ad spend) and make the most of their campaigns.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the cornerstone of our performance marketing capabilities. Afflusion specializes in building and managing affiliate programs that generate meaningful engagement and growth.

We ensure your affiliate partnerships deliver results while aligning with your brand’s larger goals. With Afflusion, you’ll get the partnerships, scale, and wealth of data necessary to maximize the performance of your affiliate campaign.

Whether you’re targeting niche audiences or scaling globally, we help you find the most effective affiliate partners for your brand.

Learn more about why hiring an affiliate agency is the right choice for most brands.

Performance PR

With performance PR, we blend public relations with performance marketing principles to create measurable outcomes. Our award-winning performance PR team focuses on generating tangible impact, such as increased traffic and sales, through earned media placements.

We leverage a robust network of high-value, well-known media partners to amplify your brand’s presence while ensuring every effort directly contributes to your business objectives.

Performance PR differs from traditional public relations by measuring tangible outcomes like conversions, engagement, and direct sales.

This shift allows businesses to understand the return on their PR efforts and refine their strategies accordingly. It also integrates with other channels, such as influencer marketing and paid media, to provide a cohesive and comprehensive performance marketing strategy.

Performance marketing is data-driven and focused on results.

Paid Media

Paid media is an essential component of performance marketing, providing brands with control over where and how content is displayed.

Afflusion develops and manages paid media campaigns across various channels, such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. Our goal is to ensure your investment generates the highest possible ROI by targeting the right audience at the right time.

Paid media offers brands flexibility and precision. Through effective audience segmentation and dynamic bidding strategies, businesses can reach highly specific customer segments and maximize ad spend efficiency.

We work closely with our clients to refine targeting strategies, ensuring that paid media efforts align with broader business goals and contribute to both short-term and long-term growth.

Amazon Affiliate

Amazon’s affiliate network offers significant opportunities for brands to expand their reach. Afflusion’s Amazon affiliate marketing services help brands increase visibility and drive sales on the world’s largest online marketplace.

Amazon’s massive customer base and trusted reputation make it a powerful tool for reaching a vast audience, while the platform’s robust analytics give brands insights into customer behavior, helping to optimize campaigns.

At Afflusion, we specialize in managing Amazon affiliate programs that go beyond traditional marketing. We help 3P Sellers properly leverage Amazon’s Brand Referral Bonus structure to subsidize an incremental response channel, increasing reach with upper-funnel creator partnerships that drive conversions at scale.

For 1P Sellers, we develop strategies to complement your Amazon Associates program with creator partnerships that you own, ensuring long-term success and growth on the platform.

From strategy to measurable outcomes, it’s important to take the right steps to ensure performance marketing success.

What does the future hold for performance marketing?

As digital marketing continues to evolve, performance marketing is poised to play an even greater role in driving business success.

Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are making it possible to refine targeting, automate optimization, and predict outcomes with greater accuracy.

At Afflusion Marketing, we stay ahead of industry trends to ensure our clients benefit from the latest advancements in performance marketing. We also offer capabilities that extend beyond performance marketing channels, such as SEO services and influencer marketing, to round out your online marketing strategy.

Whether you’re looking to grow your affiliate program, launch a paid media campaign, or explore the possibilities of performance PR, we’re here to help.

Why Choose Afflusion Marketing for performance marketing?

At Afflusion Marketing, we bring years of expertise and a proven track record in performance marketing.

Our team is dedicated to helping businesses of all sizes achieve measurable success through tailored strategies that align with their unique goals.

• Strategic Planning: We work closely with clients to define clear objectives and develop strategies that align with their business goals.
• Data-Driven Execution: Every campaign is built on a foundation of data, ensuring maximum efficiency and effectiveness.
• Continuous Optimization: We monitor and analyze campaign performance in real time, adjusting as needed to maximize results.
• Transparency and Reporting: Clients receive detailed reports that provide insights into campaign performance, ensuring complete transparency.

Ready to take your marketing efforts to the next level? Afflusion Marketing specializes in performance-driven strategies that deliver real, measurable results.

Contact us today to learn more about how we can help your business succeed in the competitive digital landscape.

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