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ChatGPT - an introduction from Motoza Marketing

ChatGPT: Your Introduction

Introducing Anthropic and Claude AI

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AI Website Builders: Pros & Cons

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ChatGPT - an introduction from Motoza Marketing

ChatGPT: Your Introduction

The Most Famous AI?

Since its introduction in November 2022, ChatGPT has become synonymous with generative AI. This all-purpose platform is fast and user-friendly. If you only use this tool to generate images of your pet as a person, you’re missing out. ChatGPT offers multiple features that can speed up your marketing workflows and make your operations more effective. Learn more about ChatGPT, its features, and how you can use it as your marketing assistant.

About ChatGPT

ChatGPT is a generative AI chatbot that uses OpenAI’s large language models to create written content and images. It was developed by OpenAI using a combination of available internet data, third-party data, and information from researchers and customers. 

Like other large language learning models (LLMs), ChatGPT learns more each time you use it. The tool analyzes your prompts and responses, along with available data, to contextualize your prompt and generate an answer. 

Models

ChatGPT offers different models for people with various needs and budgets, including: 

  • Free: The free version runs on GPT 5.3. It performs everyday tasks, including image and content generation, but it’s slower and requires less in-depth research and memory. 
  • Go: This model also runs on GPT 5.3, but lets you generate more messages and upload more data. 
  • Plus: This version features advanced reasoning models, offers deeper research, and generates text and images faster than the other two models. 
  • Pro: The best model, Pro, runs on GPT 5.4 and offers pro reasoning. You can upload unlimited files and images, and access the deep research and agent mode. 

Helpful Features

ChatGPT offers multiple features to ease your daily business tasks, including: 

  • Agent: ChatGPT’s Agent feature can book appointments, create slideshows, and interact with websites on your behalf. 
  • App Integrations: Since ChatGPT integrates with apps such as Slack, Canva, Google Docs, and more, you can generate content without switching between windows. 
  • Group Chats: This feature makes it easy for your team to collaborate on a project in a single chat. 
  • ChatGPT Atlas: A ChatGPT-enabled web browser that learns from your search history to display more relevant results. 

OpenAI’s Future Plans

Since its launch, OpenAI has been refining ChatGPT based on user feedback and reviews. Notably, the app added safety features, such as content moderation that keeps people from seeing hate speech and explicit content. 

OpenAI recently introduced “ChatGPT Ads.” This feature will enable businesses like yours to advertise to users in the Free and Go tiers. The app will show sponsored content as a banner ad at the bottom of a related search. Along with AI-optimized SEO, this new feature has the potential to improve your AI SEO by connecting you with users without having to structure your content for AI search. 

Like other AI companies, OpenAI understands the potential economic impact AI poses, including potential job displacement. But the company is optimistic that AI can enhance your quality of life and that it will positively impact society in the future. 

The company also understands how AI could be regulated in the future to balance innovation with responsible use. 

How ChatGPT Is Different From Other AI Tools

You have multiple AI tools at your disposal for marketing and other business efforts, from Google’s Gemini to Claude Sonnet. You can use these tools for similar tasks, such as keyword research and content generation, but they are slightly different. 

ChatGPT is a great all-around tool for research and brainstorming. It includes voice-enabled language learning, and it creates images and videos. You don’t have to type in your prompts. Instead, enable your microphone and have a conversation with the app. 

ChatGPT’s image and video creation tools speed up the process of storyboarding and creating mock-ups. You can easily create and compare different versions of the same ad campaign for discussion. 

How Marketers Are Using ChatGPT

Many marketers use ChatGPT to create content. While high-quality, human-generated content is best for building relationships and connecting to customers, ChatGPT makes the process more efficient. You can use it to generate variations on headlines, product descriptions, and calls to action to optimize your ads. It helps you improve SEO efforts by generating lists of short and long-tail keywords based on your goals. 

ChatGPT is also good at creating outlines for articles and blog posts, so you’re not starting from a blank page.

ChatGPT’s Limitations

While ChatGPT offers a wide range of features, it does have its drawbacks. Its content tends to be generic and robotic. The app generates content quickly, but it lacks a human tone. If you’re using ChatGPT to write blogs and other long-form content, you’ll still need to revise them to match your brand tone and voice. 

ChatGPT also hallucinates, meaning it can add outdated information, misleading statistics, or completely made-up information into your blog posts. It’s important to fact-check any content you create in the app. 

Agency Support Matters for Your ChatGPT Marketing

It’s tempting to start writing ChatGPT prompts and letting the app take over your marketing efforts. Unless you understand the tool and its strengths and weaknesses, however, you could end up wasting a lot of time. 

Experienced agency professionals help guide clients through ChatGPT marketing. They know how to leverage its full potential, so it actually enhances marketing efforts rather than hindering growth. 

Agency professionals spend time learning the platform and staying on top of new developments, including ChatGPT Ads and ChatGPT Atlas. An agency account manager will pick the right features for your business to connect you with potential customers on the app. 

Get the Most Out of Your ChatGPT Subscription With Motoza

ChatGPT can be a powerful marketing tool if you know how to use it. Make your subscription fee work harder by partnering with Motoza. Whether you want to use the app for AI SEO research and strategy or take advantage of ads, we have the experience you need to meet your goals. 

Stop spending time typing prompts into the system and hoping ChatGPT will generate an impactful campaign. Contact us to turn ChatGPT insights into successful marketing strategies. 

Introducing Anthropic and Claude AI

As AI continues to evolve, new tools are constantly emerging. One such tool is Claude from Anthropic. This next-generation AI assistant is a popular data analysis and visualization tool that can help automate marketing and other tasks.

Claude marketing can automate presentations, speed up content production, and quickly analyze data to help you personalize ad campaigns. Let’s explore what makes Claude unique and how to use it effectively.

What Is Claude? 

Anthropic is a company founded in 2021 by former OpenAI employees. The company’s founders wanted to make helpful AI tools that produce reliable, trustworthy information. That’s how the platform Claude came to be.

Anthropic’s team trains Claude’s family of large language models using “constitutional AI.” This means that instead of training based on public feedback, Claude learns based on feedback within a set of principles. Constitutional AI helps Claude generate balanced answers with fewer biased outputs, making it generally safer than other AI chat tools. 

Claude Models

Claude offers three different large language learning models (LLMs) based on your needs: 

  • Claude Haiku: This is the fastest, most cost-efficient model. It can reason before responding and process images and text. The model can fill forms, generate content, and analyze large datasets. 
  • Claude Sonnet: This mid-tier model offers faster responses than the Opus model. It performs at a higher level than the Haiku model and can complete multi-step tasks and analyze data with more complexity. 
  • Claude Opus: This model is the most complex. Its results are more accurate, and it can perform in-depth analysis that requires context. Its performance makes it slower and more expensive than other models. 

Agentic AI Tools

Anthropic also offers a range of agentic AI tools for your workflows. Each tool offers various functions to automate workflows. 

  • Claude Cowork: Cowork is a desktop assistant that helps you organize and analyze files. This tool will also modify files based on your commands while you work elsewhere. For example, if you wanted to create a report comparing sales data from two different quarters, you could point Cowork toward the individual reports and generate a comparative analysis. 
  • Claude Code: Code automatically reads, writes, edits, and debugs code. It runs from a command line interface on your computer to browse files and complete tasks. You can use it to update your apps, add features to your website, and perform other tasks requiring coding. 
  • Claude Projects: Projects is a workspace within the app where you can organize your chat histories, uploads, and projects. For example, if you’re using Cowork to generate reports and create content, you could set up different workspaces using Projects to keep all related chats and background data in one location. 
  • Skills: This feature enables Claude to improve its performance. Each model has built-in skills, such as document creation. You can also create skills that teach the tool to generate content in your brand style. 

How Is Claude Different From Other AI Models? 

More companies are introducing their own AI models. You may already be using multiple tools such as ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, or Microsoft’s Copilot as you navigate your day. Although these apps seem similar at first glance, their differences make some more suited to your workflows.

Claude’s agentic coding features are more robust than those of other models, making this tool good for coding and analytics. Its writing style is more natural and mimics human tone better than other available tools. 

Since Claude marketing can perform deep research, it is less likely to hallucinate than other models, but you should still proofread and fact-check any generative AI text before you publish it. 

How Anthropic Is Shaping the Future

Anthorpic is currently the most popular in the United States, with users in this country accounting for more than 20% of its use. (source) Its Economic Futures program currently funds research and policy development to help shape the AI-powered economy. 

The organization is studying how AI impacts the labor market, including job displacements and new job opportunities in AI. It’s helping create policies for people to work in harmony with AI instead of being negatively impacted by it in the workplace. These policies aim to encourage entrepreneurship, expand job opportunities as people work alongside AI, and help reduce adoption barriers. 

How Claude Could Impact Your Marketing

Claude is not going to replace your content and marketing team. Although this tool creates more in-depth, human-sounding content than other models, it can’t replicate the nuance your human team brings to your content, particularly when you’re working on highly specialized content. 

Claude can help shape your AI SEO strategy by assisting with keyword research and competitive analysis. While this tool can help you generate content ideas and strategize personalized campaigns, it can’t replace a human’s ability to connect with your customers. 

Instead, AI marketing platforms, such as Claude, are more effective for analyzing data and generating the insights that help your human team create an impactful campaign. LLM marketing also offers detailed customer segmentation, which helps you create content that resonates with people based on their specific characteristics. 

Why Agency Expertise Still Matters

Unless your marketing team can stay updated on every LLM marketing tool available, you will need to adapt to shifting market conditions. An experienced agency can balance your AI marketing efforts with traditional ranking factors to keep you top of mind with all your customer segments. 

Account managers at reputable agencies have worked with Claude and other tools and understand its strengths and limitations. You don’t have to spend your time learning how to make Claude work for you. Instead, you can partner with a team that has worked with the tool and understands best practices. 

Trust Your AI Marketing to Motoza

Even as Claude and other AI tools become smarter, human-generated quality content still wins. Motoza has the experience necessary to turn Claude’s insights and content generation capabilities into resources that convert. We will refine your current AI marketing strategy and identify the best ways to make Claude work for you. 

Let Motoza help you make the most of Claude for marketing. Contact us today to get started. 

AI Website builder pros and cons

AI Website Builders: Pros & Cons

AI does more than just write content

Since ChatGPT launched in 2022, people across industries have flocked to AI tools to ease their workloads. What started out as just an easier way of writing content has quickly evolved into a Swiss Army Knife for all things digital.

Companies in a range of industries have started to rely on generative AI to automate tedious tasks and streamline operations. Among them? Web Development.

Tools like Wix AI, Squarespace AI, Durable, Canva, Figma, and GoDaddy AI are all gaining traction as marketers seek easier ways to optimize their websites. AI website builders like these make site creation fast and accessible for nearly anyone. If you know how to write a good AI prompt, you can make a website in just a few minutes. 

Before you jump right in and trust a robot to create your most valuable marketing tool, weigh these pros and cons. AI is pretty amazing, but it’s not perfect. 

Pros of Using AI Website Builders

AI website builders offer several advantages. 

Rapid Site Launch

An AI website builder can generate your entire custom site faster than a human could. Enter your prompts into a chatbot and get a ‘functional’ website in minutes. That said, it’s not wise to launch the first draft of your website without reviewing it. 

AI makes mistakes. The only way to know that all the copy on your website is accurate is to proofread each page. In order to really do that properly, you likely need to know a bit of website development yourself. While a site may look good from the outside, the key question is seeing how it’s built in the backend. How scalable is it? Is it easy to edit? Is it optimized for page speed and different devices?

Even with the proofing phase, though, there’s no denying you can still launch your site faster than if you built it yourself. It’s only a matter of whether you do it properly or not.

No Technical or Design Skills “Required”

Even without AI, many website builders are designed to be as user-friendly as possible, requiring minimal input from the creator. You don’t need to know the best design trends or what colors to use. Typically, AI builders will help you pick and design based on the best standards, trends, and more gathered by the AI LLM. 

Bottom line is you can use an AI website builder without understanding how to code. Wix AI and other platforms can build different pages and different designs based solely on your descriptions.

Cost-Effective to Launch

Instead of paying a designer thousands of dollars to build your website, you pay a monthly subscription fee. Some AI website builder platforms also bundle hosting and building features for extra savings. This can be great for smaller businesses looking for a refresh or a brand-new website when starting out.

Automatically Mobile Friendly

Search engine algorithms have shifted to mobile-first indexing, which means they assess your site’s mobile version first. If you’re using a standard website builder, you may need to use its mobile editor to adjust different site features. 

AI website builders automatically design with mobile in mind. The templates are mobile-specific and responsive on smartphones and tablets. 


Cons of Using AI Website Builders

Every digital marketing tool has its disadvantages, including AI website builders. Let’s dive into some of the cons, that are typically not addressed by many promoting the magic of AI. 

Generic Layouts and Limited Branding

Generative AI works by reading existing websites and learning common language and design patterns. So it’s not surprising that you end up with a website that looks and sounds like every other site on the internet. 

AI website builders use pre-made blocks and AI text generation to give you a website fast. If you’ve ever spent time writing stories with a generative AI tool, you’ve probably noticed that they start to sound the same. 

Generative AI for websites also creates layouts that look similar, and the text can be impersonal or dry. Even if you start a website with an AI tool, you’ll probably have to make manual adjustments to align your website with your unique brand voice and identity. 

That manual input is where these projects get very tricky. Prompting is a much more complex skill than people think. Once you have a basic site layout built, having the knowledge of web design and development, along with a precise and descriptive prompting strategy, is key to turning a site from a generic collection of layouts to something truly custom and personalized. 

Depending on your business, you may also need additional website features, such as e-commerce, subscription management, or search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing integrations. AI website builders don’t always offer them. 

Basic SEO

Your AI-generated website will touch on SEO, but it can’t incorporate a detailed SEO strategy.

Much like generalized site builders, these tools will suggest content for meta tags and offer SEO components, but they won’t delve into the specifics or ongoing work needed to succeed in SEO in 2026. You will still have to develop copy that captures localized keywords, optimize AI chatbots, build links, and implement other specific strategies to connect with your customers.

Low Visibility

AI website builders use generalized content that isn’t customized to Google’s Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) criteria. Unless you’re proofing and personalizing your content before you publish, algorithms may not see your site as a relevant match to user searches.

Use your marketing to inform your website copy, rather than relying on what the AI website builder generates. Have AI handle the technical items, and focus your personalized, human-made content on filling out the site and describing your brand.

Marketing expands your brand recognition and helps you build credibility with your audience for better online visibility.

Why Agencies Add Value to Website Building

As of January 2026, Motoza does not use AI website builders for our clients. We continue to work with vetted, skilled partners to build clients that are proven to deliver SEO and lead generation results.

That being said, SEO agencies like Motoza can make your AI-built website (or plan) more effective. We offer strategy and technical expertise that stretches beyond just SEO keywords or content length. 

SEO is about creating value and delivering a message that resonates with your target audience. Partnering with an experienced agency helps you refine your AI-generated content and websites, and optimize them to click with the right people.

AI website builders can provide a solid foundation, but an agency can audit your site and make improvements to boost loading speed and other user experience (UX) factors.


Optimize Your Website With Motoza

Working with skilled marketers and SEO experts can transform your website from generic and cookie-cutter to a strongly branded tool that speaks to motivated buyers. Motoza has implemented SEO strategies, digital advertising, and local SEO for more than 400 businesses since 2011.

Contact us today to learn more.

SEO isnt dead, just evolving with AI

SEO Isn’t Dead, Just Evolving

AI Search is here to stay

With internet users and search engines shifting to AI-based programs and algorithms for search, you may think SEO is dead. It’s true that AI overviews, answer engine optimization (AEO), and generative engine optimization (GEO) are changing how customers find you online, but SEO is still important in 2026. As SEO evolves, you need to adapt your strategy to thrive in the digital landscape as your competitors panic. Let’s explore this a bit.

AI Overviews Aren’t the End – They’re the Next Chapter

Modern search engines still show users a list of results for their query, but many Google searches now include an AI-generated overview. These AI-generated answers are front and center. Yes, they are changing the search landscape, but don’t be swayed by the doom-and-gloom headlines. 

AI overviews use LLMs (like Google Gemini or ChatGPT) to pull answers from websites with high-quality, relevant content. In theory, the keys to winning at AI optimization and zero-click searches are the same as traditional SEO – high-quality, relevant content will improve your visibility. The foundation remains the same; you just have to apply it to new formats. 

Quality Content Still Wins

Search engine algorithms and providers are always changing. If not, we would still be asking Jeeves to search the internet (brownie points if you got that old school reference). 2026 marks 15 years since Motoza opened its doors. We’ve seen tons of changes throughout the years, many Google updates and ‘Google killers’ that cause clients to panic and SEOs to predict doom.  But regardless, the same theme runs through every change — high-quality content and real expertise rank higher. 

Yes, AI has made a huge impact on our business and everyday lives. AI overviews are likely one of the biggest ‘threats’ we’ve seen to traditional search. However, Google’s E-E-A-T criteria for evaluating and ranking websites isn’t going anywhere. If genuine, valuable content is already part of your SEO strategy, you’re not scrambling to adapt to AEO and GEO; you’re already positioned. AI overviews and generative platforms will always prioritize the sites with the best answers, so your strategy is still to be the best. 

What’s Actually Changing? 

Your SEO strategy once revolved solely around appearing first on search engine results pages (SERPs). This is still a good goal, but it’s slowly becoming a secondary KPI. AI overviews are listed before the top results, and being cited by an AI overview will enhance your visibility. Considering the information is right on the search result page, but not a ‘ranking’, you can still get the visibility without the traditional search ranking metric.

Our clients have slowly begun seeing this strange trend. Lower amount of clicks, less visits, yet somehow a lot more search impressions and leads. This is the effect of the new AI overviews. Their content is being seen, just as it used to be (via web visits and clicks). 

Writing valuable, authoritative content will improve your chances of landing in these overviews, but you can do more.

First, directly answer customer questions in your content. Think of AI like an office assistant. You ask a question, and Google’s AI will search the web for the ‘answer’. Hence, why It’s important to establish your topical authority to meet the trustworthiness part of E-E-A-T. 

Technical and Structural Changes

Your website’s layout and technical elements also play a large role, because they make your page stand out to AI. Adding structured data, such as schema markups, enables AI algorithms to categorize your website and match it to searches based on user intent. 

This is no different from what top SEO have been suggesting for years. Schema markup has been helpful for several years, and major AIs like Google have simply incorporated many of these valuable practices into their AI models. 

Using a clear, logical organizational structure is also crucial for online visibility. Make sure each page includes relevant headers and subheaders that follow the correct hierarchy (H1 > H2 > H3) and use clear, non ‘SEO-optimized’ language. 

In addition, continue to follow best practices for technical optimization. Clean up any technical issues affecting the user experience so that each page loads quickly on any device. 

These changes don’t limit your SEO efforts. They expand the ways you can win. Win with SEO means you can win with AI. 

Why Agency Expertise Matters More Now

Each new development in SEO and generative search requires adaptation, which means staying ahead of the curve. Trying to stay up to date on all the latest SEO developments while running your business can put you behind. Even if you have a dedicated marketing team, they have to consider your entire marketing strategy, not just SEO. 

An experienced agency understands the unchanging principles and the emerging tactics to keep you ahead of the curve. Agency account managers and project teams understand how to optimize for traditional rankings while improving your chances of being cited in an AI overview or popping up in a generative search. You don’t have to chase each new acronym; let an agency with experience in a variety of different client types, industries, and platforms apply its knowledge to your marketing strategy. Your agency will build a sustainable strategy that withstands new developments. 

Trust Your SEO to Motoza

SEO has adapted to algorithm updates, mobile-first indexing, voice searches, and now AI. Quality always wins. Motoza has the expertise to optimize your quality content for AEO, GEO, and SEO. Contact us to update your SEO strategy and stay on top. 

Motoza introduces Meta Ads for 2026

Meta Ads: Why Incorporate it into your 2026 Marketing Mix

Google Ads is great, but Meta Ads add a new Dimension

Local businesses and tradespeople have long trusted their digital marketing strategies to Google Ads, which has worked. But trends are shifting, and 2026 just may be the year to diversify. Meta’s (Facebook and Instagram) new Andromeda algorithm and flexible ad formats have changed how advertising works on their platform. It’s not just for big brands anymore. Meta connects you to future customers who are scrolling before they even know they need you.

Let’s learn why and how to take advantage of Meta ads in 2026. 

The Case for Meta in 2026

Google search ads are great for making your site visible to people who already need you. Anyone Googling your business is probably ready to buy, or at least considering it. You wouldn’t search for “hair salons in Austin” unless you were thinking about cutting or changing your hair. 

Meta, on the other hand, works like old-school advertising, helping create the need. Service businesses can build recognition through impactful visual ads and stay at the top of mind when the need arises. 

For example, if you run a roofing company, you can use Facebook and Instagram to post helpful content about your industry and services, and share before/after photos of your projects with positive testimonials. This can help you reach people unfamiliar with your brand and turn them into followers. When a person does need a roofer, they will think of your brand. 

Why It Works for Local Businesses

Local search auctions on Google and other platforms are becoming more competitive. Meta ads let you build a relationship with local users directly instead of competing for local keywords on search engines. You can also use a range of targeting options to reach your ideal customer. Hyperlocal targeting, for example, can put your brand in front of people right in your neighborhood (by zip code or radius). As more people in your community see your ads, you build local brand awareness. Your brand can become more familiar to people in your area and establish a trusted relationship through quality content. 

Meta allows you to leverage:

  • Flexible ad formats: Meta lets you create image ads, video ads, carousels, stories, and reels. Using multiple ad types helps you engage diverse audiences and boost conversion. Instead of relying on a local search listing, you can create a video that tells your brand story and sticks with potential customers.

  • Retargeting options: You can run ads to people who have already engaged with your brand online. You can also target similar users based on people who are engaging with your ads. These options broaden your reach and keep your brand in front of ideal customers in your service area. 

Why Agency Support Matters

Meta’s ad platform is powerful but complex. If you’ve never used this platform, you could spend a lot of time running ads that don’t hit your intended target. Experienced agency professionals understand how to execute various creative strategies aligned with your business goals. For example, you need different tactics for audience building and awareness than for capturing people who are ready to purchase. 

Agency professionals also know how to set up tracking tools that give you a full assessment of campaign performance. They can continually optimize your campaign based on results. 

Meta’s algorithm rewards those who feed it properly. Nailing the algorithm brings results, but there is a learning curve. Partnering with an agency saves you from wasting your budget on trial-and-error ads. Instead, you can see results faster. 

Partner With Motoza for Your Meta Ads

Stretch your marketing budget further by partnering with Motoza to develop your Meta ads in 2026. If you’re not using Meta as one of your marketing strategies for 2026, you’re leaving money on the table by ignoring half your marketing funnel. 

Don’t wait until people need you to build brand awareness. Let us help you tailor your Meta ad campaign for results. Contact us today to learn more. 

2025 Search Marketing Wrap: What happened

2025 Wrap Up: All the Things That Happened to Search This Year

AI has arrived, and it’s probably not going anywhere.

We’ve been bracing for AI’s impact on SEO and digital marketing for a few years, and 2025 was the year we finally saw its full impact. AI has gone from an emerging trend in the hi-tech industry to a central pillar of how people search the internet and how marketers reach potential customers online. 

SEO also saw significant shifts, such as Google’s change to search engine results pages (SERPs) that removed a user’s option to display 100 results on a single page. So let’s dive into the most significant changes in search and how they might impact SEO and SEM in 2026.

The AI Overviews Era

Google started experimenting with AI Overviews as “Search Generative Experience” back in 2023. In July 2025, during the peak of Google’s experimentation, these overviews appeared in roughly 15% to 25% of search queries. By November of 2025, AI Overviews only appeared in about 16% of searches. Considering the volume of searches done on Google each year, this is still a substantial amount of AI usage for search engines. 

As AI Overviews gained traction mid-year, click-through rates across industries declined by an average of 7.31 points. AI Overviews and other zero-click searches don’t mean you won’t be visible online. Still, it just means you have to switch up your 2026 SEO strategy and KPI metrics by adding tactics to be cited in AI Overviews to maintain visibility with potential customers. 

Google also launched AI Mode in 2025, which shifts the algorithm’s focus from keywords to relevance based on user intent. Going into 2026, we highly recommend adapting your SEO strategy to focus on topical authority (i.e., thought leadership) and matching high-quality content to user intent. 

Core Updates and Algorithm Shifts

Google is constantly making minor, core updates to its search algorithm. However, Google rolled out three named updates in March, June, and December. The big three included: 

  • March 2025: This update changed the core ranking system to prioritize relevant, helpful search results. 

  • June 2025: This update focused on displaying more useful search results and gave some websites a chance to recover traffic lost during previous updates. It also included an announcement about the MUVERA algorithm, which enhances search speed and generates higher-quality results for complex search queries. 

  • December 2025: This update continued Google’s focus on quality content and E-E-A-T (check out our article on strengthening EEAT in 2025).

These updates aim to improve the user experience by connecting searchers with helpful, relevant results and clean AI-generated spam from search results. Although these updates are well-intentioned and necessary, they can wreak havoc on your search engine rankings. As we’ve experienced firsthand, many websites are still recovering from the September 2023 “Helpful Content Update,” which was integrated into core ranking in March 2024. However, let’s move on from that tricky period in the world of search and keep focusing on the AI world ahead of us. 

Google Ads Gets More Automated

On a positive note, Google made changes to different Google Ads features to benefit customers and advertisers. The company made major updates to Performance Max (Pmax) to give users more control and transparency. PMax now features more reporting tools and in-depth machine-learning powered metrics that help you understand what is driving performance. You can see search partner network data and age/gender exclusions, for example. 

Google also launched AI Max for search campaigns. It features multiple targeting and creative features that match your ads to the right audience. It helps you expand your keywords to reach a larger network. In 2025, Google also made it possible to integrate ads into AI Overviews. Look for an article in 2026 that dives deeper into the new features of AI Max and how they can apply to your PPC campaigns. 

AI features in Google Ads make it easier to measure digital ads across the marketing funnel with automation and machine-learning tools. As we’ve seen over the years, Google is requiring less manual input and analysis to help Google Ads experts make informed decisions and do less grunt work.  With a broader reach, smaller companies and advertisers have started experimenting with diverse formats, including video, to appeal to a broader range of audiences. 

New Tools and Features Worth Noting

Your 2025 toolkit includes new Google Search Console features, including: 

  • Query Groups: This feature automatically groups similar queries into a group to show you the total number of clicks. You can also see your performance in different query groups. Think of these as keyword groups, or keyword ‘clouds’, nicely bundled together to get an idea of what topics bring you traffic, rather than specific keywords.

  • Branded Queries: This feature shows how you performed in searches for your brand name and its variants, including misspellings and queries for related brands. As part of Google’s use of advanced AI and machine learning, branded queries have been updated and improved in accuracy.

  • Social Performance Data: This feature presents a single view of your performance across social media platforms. We expect this feature to improve and expand throughout 2026.

  • Future Dated Annotations: Use this feature to add notes to your performance report for future reference. It’s helpful for tracking how site changes and updates impact your performance. 

The new “Preferred Sources” feature lets users choose their favorite news sources to filter out irrelevant results. Users can also take advantage of agentic search in AI mode. This feature can book restaurants, events, and appointments. 

A Glimpse at What’s Coming

AI continues to gain traction across digital marketing, and we’ll see it become increasingly embedded in both media buying and SEO strategies. Features like AI Mode will likely expand, while ad platforms introduce more automated campaign management tools. While these automations help users find what they need faster, they could put additional pressure on your traditional click-through rates as AI-generated answers satisfy queries without requiring clicks.

The rise of alternative search options: Anthropic’s Claude, Perplexity, and others, means your SEO strategy can no longer focus solely on Google. Looking ahead to 2026, we expect the focus will shift from simply ranking in search engines to optimizing for visibility across all AI-generated answers, regardless of the platform serving them.

Closing Thoughts

The most important lesson of 2025 was that change is constant, and you need to stay adaptable. The ‘future’ many of us envisioned with automation, robots, and technology helping our everyday lives is coming quicker than most thought. However, it’s not a complete shift in what has worked.

Keep the fundamental components of SEO: high-quality, authoritative, and relevant content, and build on them. Continue to work on the best practices of PPC, using effective targeting, customer personas, personalized messaging, and all other tried and true marketing strategies. 

Understanding how to adapt your existing building blocks for the future will keep you on top of the competition. We stay on top of trends and developments in SEO and SEM to help you adapt your strategy to new developments. Looking for someone to partner with? Contact us today to learn more. 

 

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