Wall of love for Brainlabs Digital

Now this is a win we can all feel GREAT about. 💙 I'm beyond proud to welcome UNICEF USA as a client — one of the most globally respected and mission-driven organizations out there. Who says SEO is just a job? This partnership is more than performance marketing — it’s purpose-driven work that has the potential to make a real difference. I can’t wait to help amplify the impact of such an iconic nonprofit. Huge shoutout to the Brainlabs team who successfully showed UNICEF what partnering with Brainlabs means. 🙌 Let’s go. 💪🌍 #SEO lnkd.in/g5cS_EGq

Tariffs stifle growth through increased costs of goods from suppressed demand and, according to recent trade flow data, also suppressed supply. It also stifles innovation through competitive isolation (e.g., BYD vs. Tesla). This is the worst combination for an economic system built on growth and innovation. This has riddled the market and dinner table conversations with uncertainty. However, even in the face of heavy tariffs, US ecommerce sales are projected to keep growing through 2025. This EMARKETER forecast highlights three potential paths: 🔵 Limited tariffs: $1,287B by 2025: ⚪ Moderate tariffs: $1,254B by 2025 🔴 Heavy tariffs: $1,213B by 2025 While tariffs introduce uncertainty for businesses and consumers alike, this trajectory aligns with what we’ve seen historically in every economic event in the last two decades: ecommerce continues to expand, fueled by brand investment in better online experiences, loyalty programs, and VIP customer engagement. Tariffs will slow growth, but the digital momentum and consumer demand for exceptional online experiences show no signs of reversing. Brands that continue to prioritize customer-centric online experiences— investing in SEO, CRO, and streamlining their purchase journeys—will be best positioned to weather uncertainty. 🌐 #seo #marketing #tariffs

Marketing budgets spent wisely drive business growth, so there's a strong case for holding the line on spending. That said, budget cuts are sometimes unavoidable. If that happens, remember this: SEO and CRO remain two of the most cost-effective, high-ROI investments you can make. They not only deliver results but also build long-term brand value. Investing in them sooner rather than later can secure resources when you need them most. I'm not here to fearmonger, but having a strategy for how to pivot your budget smartly when needed is always a good idea.

Need proof that Google likes it when you use Google products? SearchPilot just showed that removing a Google Maps embedding on a local page dropped organic traffic 7%!! I'm no conspiracist, so I'll say this: it makes sense! Google is better able to understand information when it leans on the platforms that it has built (and trusts). So, when you're debating between Google Maps vs. Apple Maps or YouTube vs. Vimeo...you now know which to choose. ;) #seo #localseo #marketing #website

🚨 Big brands are winning the SEO game—but what about the small & mighty brands? I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be speaking at MozCon NYC this year! My talk: “SEO Privilege & Real-World Bias: How the Small & Mighty Can Still Win” In a digital world where authority and history often trump innovation and authenticity, small businesses and underdogs face real barriers to visibility. Just like in the real world, privilege shapes who gets heard and who gets overlooked. I'll unpack: 🔍 What "SEO privilege" is—and how it mirrors real-world bias 📉 Why algorithms favor the already-powerful 🚀 How scrappy, values-driven brands are breaking through using community, creativity & platforms like TikTok and AI search 🧠 The cognitive biases holding newcomers back—and how to overcome them 📢 Why SEOs must take a stand to amplify underrepresented voices If you believe in making SEO more equitable, more human, and more impactful, this one’s for you. Let’s rewrite the rules together! See you at #MozCon 💥 #seo #cro #websites #marketing

Most SEOs are solving only half the problem. They optimize for Google searches… but forget that demand often begins long before someone types anything into a search bar. Social discovery on TikTok. Product curiosity on Amazon. Brand inspiration on Instagram. Demand is omnichannel. Search intent is layered. And if you're only looking at GA4 or GSC, you're missing the full story. At Brainlabs, we call it Real Intelligence: ✅ Where did your user come from before the keyword you’re optimizing for? ✅ Where do they go after? ✅ What platforms are they spending time on that your SEO strategy completely ignores? To build SEO that actually drives business results, you need to: → Map the entire user journey → Tailor your strategy to each platform → Meet users where they are — not just where it’s easy to measure This isn’t about gaming algorithms. It’s about understanding people. This was included in my Majestic (Majestic.com) podcast with David Bain. Check it out below! Is your SEO team thinking this way yet? 👇 I'd love to hear how you’re rethinking SEO across search + discovery. lnkd.in/g4EChfY8 #SEO #DigitalMarketing #MarketingLeadership #SearchStrategy #AudienceResearch #CRO #AmazonSEO #TikTokSEO #DataDrivenMarketing #Brainlabs

Is AI a disruptive threat—or your biggest SEO advantage? I had the chance to join the Voices of Search podcast to dig into this exact question. In this episode, we unpack how AI is fundamentally transforming search—and what smart marketers can do to stay ahead. We talked about: 🔎 Why AI isn’t just a tech shift—it’s a behavioral shift. Yes, AI has brought a wave of innovation, but the real transformation lies in how people interact with the web. We’re seeing early excitement, but the long-term impact depends on how seamlessly AI tools integrate into people’s daily habits. Will users change their search behaviors? Will trust shift to new platforms? These are the questions that matter. SEOs and marketers need to stay grounded in understanding human behavior—not just the latest tools. 💰SEOs need to think about visibility beyond traditional rankings. With AI shaping new discovery experiences (think AI Overviews, TikTok, Amazon, and AI search engines), the definition of “ranking” is evolving. What matters now is holistic visibility and being present where your audience is (in the formats and channels they trust). And always indexing on business impact. Visibility means nothing if it doesn’t convert or move the needle. 🧪The real risk? Doing nothing. We’re in a period of deep experimentation. Sitting still while the industry shifts around you is the fastest way to fall behind. Now’s the time to test, to play in the gray areas, and to deeply understand how your users are navigating the web. Where are they searching? How are they interacting with your site? What questions are they asking AI tools that you’re not answering? You don’t need to chase every shiny object, but you do need to be curious and active. Big thanks to Tyson Stockton with the Voices of Search Podcast for having me on! Give it a listen here: lnkd.in/gqe_dyTn Would love to hear what you think, and how you’re adapting your SEO strategy in the age of AI. #SEO #AI #SearchMarketing #DigitalStrategy #VoicesOfSearch

Google isn't an SEO strategy. Here’s the hard truth: Most SEO strategies are designed for the bottom of the funnel. Easy keywords. Transactional intent. Measurable ROI. But that approach no longer wins. It caps your growth. It ignores how consumers actually explore across the web. And it limits your brand when demand is building elsewhere, which is only found months/years later when others have captured market share. Top SEOs today are doing something radically different: 🧠 They optimize for the entire search journey. From the first spark of curiosity to brand loyalty. Across platforms. Across intents. Across media types (text, image, video, you name it). Why? Because topical authority has never been about cramming in keywords—it's about owning the conversation wherever it starts through where it ends. *Please note: Google is still part of the user journey, certainly, but it's not the *only* part of the user journey. SEOs must think bigger! #SEO #MarketingStrategy #SearchJourney #DigitalMarketing #ContentStrategy #GrowthMarketing #Brainlabs

Your job is to become obsolete. Yes, really. Most people hear that and panic. Last year, I stood on the MozCon stage and asserted: “Becoming obsolete means you’ve built systems, upskilled your team, and created processes that don’t need you anymore.” And that’s progress. 🔁 Automate the manual. 📚 Document the knowledge. 📈 Shift from doing SEO to scaling business impact. Your goal isn’t job security. Your goal is career reinvention—over and over again. In the world of AI, SEOs need to hear this far and wide. I know fear is at an all-time high among many folks (in many industries) as we see more news about AI, agents, robots, and other technological advances. By adopting this mentality, anyone can transition to a growth mindset that ensures long-term career resilience. 💡 What’s one thing you used to do that your team or tech now handles? #SEO #CareerDevelopment #MarketingOps #Automation #AIinMarketing #TravisTallent #Brainlabs

The best SEOs are problem solvers. The biggest problem to solve is the demand puzzle. SEO isn’t just about clicks. It’s about behavior, patterns, and motivation. Yet too many SEO teams are locked in dashboards, tweaking reports, transcribing metrics from GA4 into PowerPoints, and chasing marginal wins. Here’s how elite SEOs stand out: ✅ Automate dashboarding. ✅ Analyze cross-channel behavior. ✅ Layer data from Amazon, TikTok, Instagram, and AI search to map real journeys. ✅ Get closer to the audience than anyone else. ✅ Optimize the entire customer journey, not just one slice of it. Your value isn’t a report or audit (a lot of tools can do that). It’s your insight. It's your experience. It's your strategy. And, most importantly, it's your ability to move and communicate business KPIs. It’s easy to get tunnel vision when you're deep in SEO. But I always make time to pause and ask: How well do my team's efforts connect to the core business goals? #SEO #DemandGeneration #MarketingOps #DataDrivenMarketing #AudienceStrategy #MarketingLeadership #Brainlabs

For all the mature brands out there, I have a hard truth: You might not like what your topical authority looks like. ➡️ Maybe you’re still ranking for an outdated product line. ➡️ Maybe Google sees you as an expert in something you pivoted away from. ➡️ Maybe you’re getting the wrong traffic. This is all hurting your brand and SEO success, especially for brand safety/alignment in an AI world. Don't leave it to search engines to summarize wrong information...instead, control the inputs! Fixing that is not easy. But it is absolutely necessary. My approach: ❌ Ruthlessly remove irrelevant content (even if it’s driving vanity traffic). 🔗 Stop 301-redirecting every page — some content should vanish. 📈 Build new authority methodically with "right to rank" tests: (Test -> Analyze -> Expand if early signals are strong.) 🤝 Focus on a holistic SEO strategy—including on-site and off-site content strategy. Generally speaking, topical authority isn't given easily anymore (although, I see some are trying to game AI systems with some success 🙃 ). It's earned through clarity, consistency, and work on your website and off your website. #SEO #BrandStrategy #DigitalBranding #ContentStrategy #AudienceAlignment #Brianlabs

We’re in the middle of click detox. AI-powered search and social platforms are doing everything they can to keep users on-platform. Fewer clicks. Less traffic. More gatekeeping. So what’s the antidote? ✨ A brand-forward, omnichannel strategy paired with unbeatable UX. ✨ What that really means: 1. More organic content distributed across the platforms your audience spends time on. 2. More distinct brand voice in every piece of content. 3. More multimedia personality to drive shareability and connection. 4. More UX research and CRO testing to turn attention into loyalty. This shift isn’t new, however. It’s just louder. The best brands have been using this strategy for years. And the playbook is still rooted in timeless marketing principles: 🎯 Know your audience 👀 Earn their attention 🧱 Have something worth buying ⏳ Don’t waste their time Let the platforms hoard clicks—it’s a better experience for the vast majority of searches anyway. We’ll build loyalty and brand trust. #seo #marketing #digital

Here is my unsolicited public #FeedbackFriday about product / operation opportunities for common companies. Spotify should have a mode to turn on/off Christmas / seasonal music from your shuffle. Jiffy Lube should stop overcharging to change a cabin filter and instead teach people how to do the 2-minute task. Costco should upgrade their online order & pick up process. Better yet, if they have door checkers, why not have app scan/checkout so I can avoid the lines? IKEA should have more obvious restrooms throughout the showroom. What else would you add to this list?

On the Hero Conf stage last year, I said, "Google has a runway longer than any other search company out there, giving it time to maintain its competitive position." Eli Schwartz summarized how and why Google's strategic moat, integrated approach, and inertia will allow it to maintain a primary position in consumer search. That said, we do see Google's market share declining to Bing, ChatGPT, TikTok, and more, as more people turn to specific platforms for specific searches—ultimately from increasing screen time. I've linked the article in the comments, but my favorite quotes include: ⛓️‍💥 "Leaving Google doesn't just mean changing a default setting. It means untangling a decade of your digital life from a seamlessly integrated system. It means actively boycotting the dozens of products everyone around you uses. This ecosystem creates a tough gravitational pull that ensures user retention even if a competitor momentarily offers a marginally better feature in one particular category." 📍 "New AI answer engines are impressive but often operate as a conversational layer over a less sophisticated and much less robust search index. Google, by contrast, is integrating its generative AI directly with its core search index. This index is a library of the web that has been crawled, indexed, and improved for over two decades. Integrating a mature index with their proprietary AI layer is a technical advantage that will be difficult to replicate." 💔 "For a competitor, this means they not only have to build a better product but also find a way to break both a user's habit and Google’s lucrative hold on the primary distribution channels." 🧒 / 👴 "Google’s enduring dominance isn't magic: it's a strategic fortress with moats, secret backdoors, and most importantly, loyalty from its user base. While search will fragment into more devices and mediums, most will still be powered by Google search. SEO will always exist as long as users are searching, but its practices will change." #seo #digitalmarketing #aisearch #ai

Your org doesn’t need another SEO. It needs a maestro. Most SEO leaders think in pages or keywords. The best ones think in systems. My advice for orchestrating high-impact SEO work: 🎯 Build a strategic flywheel that yields organizational advocacy. 🔁 Discover → Align → Execute → Measure → Repeat. 📖 Create an SEO Partnership Playbook that outlives reorgs and turnover. Because when SEO becomes a shared language across dev, content, PR, and product, it becomes one of the most influential marketing channels. Want to de-risk your team (or maybe even your role)? Don’t just build deliverables. Build advocates. This was an entire section of my presentation at #brightonSEO. The SOAR framework is your way to lead your role and team in an AI world. Watch the video below. 👇 #SEO #Leadership #CrossFunctionalStrategy #MarketingPlaybooks #GrowthOps