If your business, brand, or income depends on TikTok in the U.S., you’ve probably seen the headlines or heard the rumors. ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, is preparing to roll out a separate app built specifically for American users: M2. And no, this isn’t a clone. It’s a complete restructuring of TikTok’s U.S. presence in response to growing regulatory pressure, forced divestment, and looming deadlines.

Let’s break down what we know about TikTok M2 so far—what it is, why it exists, and what it might mean for content creators, eCommerce brands, and users alike.

Why TikTok M2 Exists in the First Place

It all started with legislation signed by the Biden administration in April 2024 that forced TikTok to divest its U.S. operations, citing national security risks. The move came after years of tension surrounding how TikTok handles American user data. While the Trump administration initially set a January 2025 deadline, it has since been pushed back multiple times—the most recent being mid-September 2025.

To avoid a complete ban, ByteDance began building a standalone app for the U.S. market. That’s TikTok M2. According to Reuters, the platform operates with a separate algorithm, infrastructure, and data systems to ensure that U.S. user data stays within American servers, specifically those managed by Oracle.

After a short-lived shutdown in January, TikTok began transferring non-U.S. user data out of these servers, allowing only American data to remain. This technical split is the backbone of M2, effectively allowing the U.S. version of TikTok to function independently—and stay legally operational.

TikTok M2: A U.S.-Only Version with Its Own Brain

As Mugglehead reports, ByteDance restructured M2 by duplicating and transferring TikTok’s codebase, algorithms, and user data to a U.S.-specific ecosystem. The company has worked under tight deadlines to meet the divestment terms, and the app is rumored to launch around early September 2025—just before the latest compliance deadline.

A separate deal that would’ve allowed a U.S.-based investor group to take majority ownership of TikTok’s American operations had been in progress earlier this year. But those negotiations stalled when China pushed back, especially after Trump floated new tariffs on Chinese imports. As Reuters reports, without Chinese approval, a full sale remains unlikely, making M2 ByteDance’s best workaround for now.

What Happens to TikTok Creators and Advertisers?

Here’s where things get complicated: creators and brands that rely on the current version of TikTok will likely need to start over on M2.

While TikTok Pulse and monetization tools are expected to carry over, there’s no guarantee your entire audience will. A beauty influencer with 50,000 followers might see just 20,000 make the jump to the new platform. Your For You Page (FYP) reach could reset, your engagement might dip, and audience discovery will take a hit—at least initially.

That said, TikTok’s $4 billion ad revenue from 2021 is evidence that brands still see huge value in the platform’s ecosystem. M2 aims to keep that machine running, even if the engine is built differently.

We’ve already discussed this reality in detail on our blog, including what the TikTok ban means for eCommerce. Spoiler: it’s a wake-up call.

What Happens to Your Followers?

Let’s not sugarcoat it—there is no confirmation yet that TikTok M2 will allow a seamless follower transfer.

ByteDance has been quiet on the UX side of this rollout. Whether your current handle, content, or follower list will carry over to M2 is still up in the air. The platform will technically be a new app, which means users will likely need to manually download it. That hurdle alone could result in attrition, especially for casual users.

While retention is unpredictable, creators and brands should begin preparing contingency plans. In case you missed it, we mapped out a TikTok ban survival checklist to help brands brace for what’s ahead.

Who Will Own M2?

That’s still up in the air. A spring 2025 deal would’ve spun TikTok’s U.S. operations into a new firm majority-owned by American investors. However, Reuters reports this stalled after China withheld approval—a decision likely tied to growing trade tensions and recent tariff threats.

There’s speculation that Oracle or a U.S.-led tech consortium could still come in as the majority stakeholder. ByteDance may retain a minority stake depending on whether the U.S. government considers it compliant.

In the meantime, our guide for worried users lays out some practical steps to keep your brand visible.

What If You Do Nothing?

Waiting it out could leave you invisible. If the switch to M2 is clunky, brands that procrastinate risk losing audience share to more agile competitors. Especially with potential copycat platforms on standby and Meta, YouTube Shorts, and Pinterest poised to absorb user spillover.

Here’s what we recommend:

• Download and test M2 early: Familiarize yourself with the interface and any feature gaps.
• Start redirecting traffic: Use your bios, video captions, and lives to remind followers to make the switch.
• Diversify content: Push clips to Shorts, Reels, and even email.
• Revisit paid strategies: Understand where your ad dollars are going and reevaluate once M2 ad tools become available.

Will M2 Really Work?

ByteDance is still financially solid. Analysts estimate its 2024 revenue exceeded $145 billion, with the U.S. TikTok arm making up about 18%. According to Mugglehead, ByteDance even launched a $190/share employee buyback, indicating confidence in long-term viability.

But technical execution is another matter. M2’s algorithm must prove it can be just as sticky. And without Chinese engineers overseeing the codebase, performance might lag behind the original app, at least at first.

How to Prepare for the Switch

The best time to prepare for M2 was yesterday. The second-best time is now.

Creators, advertisers, and brands should begin directing followers to external platforms like email newsletters, SMS lists, and other social media handles. Don’t wait for M2 to go live to ask people to follow you again. Start priming that transition today.

We walk through a practical strategy in our post on how to prepare for the TikTok ban in 2025. Think of it as your insurance plan against digital whiplash.

So, Is M2 the Future or Just a Patch?

TikTok M2 is a compromise. It’s TikTok without the global baggage, built to comply with U.S. demands and preserve ByteDance’s American stake. It may look, feel, and behave like TikTok, but behind the scenes, it’s a different beast—and not just in terms of servers and code.

Whether M2 can retain TikTok’s cultural clout, creator economy, and discovery algorithm remains to be seen. But the direction is clear: the U.S. government is drawing hard lines, and ByteDance is rushing to stay inside them.

For brands and creators, the smartest move right now isn’t to panic—it’s to plan.

The post TikTok M2 and What We Know So Far appeared first on 1Digital® Agency.

It means that more than half of all times a user clicked “search” (or hit enter) in Google, they completed their journey without clicking through to a website. 

But what can it all mean? And do you need to dramatically overhaul your search engine marketing strategy? 

Potentially, but let’s not panic. Good decisions are never made in haste, even though they may be made quickly, so here are a few things you need to know. 

What Is Zero-Click Search?

Zero-click search, which you might have been able to glean from the intro here, is when a user searches for something in a search engine, reads the search results, finds the answer they were looking for, and then bounces. This occurs without a click-through to a website. 

Typically, zero-click searches are brought to fruition through one of the “answer engine” search features, like the AI overview, the featured snippets of the search results that used to dominate the tops of the SERPs before the AI overview before it was introduced, and the People Also Ask section, but these are not hard or fast rules. If you got what you were looking for through the search results and didn’t click through to anything, that’s a zero-click search whether you used an answer engine feature or not.

As you can imagine, this can have potentially serious implications for website administrators, not just eCommerce merchants but also those who run websites that rely on the value of their information. If Google is scraping web pages and serving up answers without requiring users to click through, that can tank user experience metrics, rob websites of conversions, and eliminate ad traffic to certain domains. 

So let’s take a closer look at how the rise of zero-click search stands to impact SEO and website performance in general. It’s not all bad. 

How Does Zero-Click Search Impact SEO? 

For any website that is impacted by zero-click search, there are numerous changes you can expect. 

For one, if your website has a lot of good copy, either in the blog, newsletter, or on category pages, expect to get a lot more impressions, and for longer tail search queries. This equates to higher visibility, but the tradeoff is that those pages will likely not see an increase in clicks; in fact, clicks may even decrease. 

It is also possible that with a rise in impressions and a decrease (or stagnation) in clicks, affected pages may see lower time on page, among other user engagement metrics which will be affected in an adverse way. 

You may also see pages coming into ranking for new keywords embedded in long-tail queries, for which the page was not indexed previously.

These are the most important changes you can expect to affect your web pages (or your entire site) although it is important to notice that there could be others as well. 

You should also be aware of the fact that not all websites, and certainly not all web pages, will be impacted by the zero-click search trend. For instance, if a page ranks well but there’s not much copy on it, or many actions to take besides downloading a form or buying a product, there’s not much zero-click search can do to affect performance, since the user’s end goal in those cases is not to answer a question, but to download a form, or purchase a product, respectively. 

How to Optimize for Zero-Click Search? 

Because zero-click search is dependent on user searches for information, the only way to optimize for it, as a general trend under a subset of conditions within SEO, is to target long-tail keywords and search queries that take the form of a question. 

While you can optimize for short-tail keywords, the competition will be fierce and mostly unattainable, and you will lose out to larger information-based websites like Wikipedia for all but the most niche and non-competitive keywords and queries. 

So for instance, let’s say you wanted to capitalize on zero-click search trends for a short-tail keyword like “hiking boots.” 

Rather than optimizing your website, or a series of pages on it for that keyword, you would want to find the long-tail queries containing that keyword that people were searching. You can use paid search tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs for research, but you can also use Google’s Autofill, the People Also Ask section of the search results, and free resources like Answer the Public to find ideas to come up with copy. 

Then, what you need to do is draft long-form copy that answers these questions and publish it on your website. If you can publish it on the page you want to rank for the keyword in question, then publish it on a standalone page, on a CMS page, or in a blog, and embed an internal link to the intended target page. 

As usual, the basic answer to how to optimize for zero-click search is “write better copy that answers questions.” In that respect, even though zero-click searches as a share of the total is on the rise, this is really nothing new. It’s just that the nature and arrangement of the SERPs is making it easier for users to get their answers without clicking on anything. 

Do You Need to Adjust Your Keyword Strategy? 

Potentially, but that depends on your niche and how your website survives. If you blog for fun or clout, and you don’t necessarily need the clicks but just want the extra visibility and brand awareness, then not necessarily. 

If you need clicks, for instance, to drive ad revenue, then yes you will need to adjust your strategy. The best way is to become a trusted resource so that users will search for your website directly with navigational keywords rather than looking through the search results for answers to more vague queries. 

In these situations, the way to stay afloat is to find those long-tail keywords, and the questions associated with them, and to optimize your website in the manner described above. 

For some eCommerce merchants, a shift is not entirely necessary, although it could potentially be beneficial. This is because for most transactional and commercial keywords, the intent cannot be completed through the search results alone. Generally, for keywords with this search intent, the user journey is not complete until the user buys something. That requires a click. 

However, to earn that click, a website must still be found in the search results – if not searched for directly. With respect to this, getting a website or one of its pages found in the era of zero-click search does necessitate a content-forward approach to organic marketing. 

For these eCommerce merchants, to generate as much visibility as possible, it has become even more important to publish copy as a resource on your website that answers questions about your products, or about use or care of them. These CMS pages, which will answer long-tail user queries, will generate higher visibility and greater brand awareness. Done properly, they will drive clicks to your website that will result in conversions, and in an ideal scenario, increase direct searches to your website, which will also yield conversions. 

Is a Zero-Click Strategy Useful for eCommerce? 

Ultimately, zero-click search is going to prove a bigger strain on bloggers, news websites and other websites that rely entirely on content and readership, for reasons that should now be obvious. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be useful for eCommerce merchants. 

Notably, by adapting to this trend by devoting some of your marketing resources to develop materials intended to capitalize in zero-click search trends, your website will benefit from fuller, more informative copy and resources, which should positively impact your brand image while also positioning your website as a consultative authority, and not just an online store.

So, the bottom line is if you can spare the resources, you should devote some of your marketing budget to improving the copy on your website. 

Talk to One of Our Experts About the Changing Search Engine Marketing Landscape 

Hopefully you found this short post useful and informative, but if you still have questions lingering, don’t be afraid to get in touch with us. Get in touch with one of our AI SEO specialists or SEO experts and we’ll be more than happy to speak to you about the trend, myself included. 

The post SEO in the Era of Zero-Click Search appeared first on 1Digital® Agency.

This blog walks through budget-conscious Facebook marketing tips that are built to perform, not just spend. No guesswork. No fluff. Just clear strategy you can actually maintain.

Understanding Campaign Budget Optimization (Without the Headache)

If Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO) feels like some elusive math problem, you’re not alone. But CBO can work in your favor—when you let Facebook automatically allocate spend to the top-performing ad sets, it reduces manual juggling and helps stretch limited budgets.

That said, CBO needs the right structure to work. Segment your ad sets based on specific objectives or audiences (cold, warm, and hot) so the algorithm doesn’t default to what’s easiest to serve—it defaults to what’s most efficient.

How to Set Daily vs. Lifetime Budgets—And When to Use Each

Daily budgets offer control. Lifetime budgets offer flexibility. The trick is knowing when to use which.

Go with daily budgets if you’re testing creative or targeting and want to monitor closely. Opt for lifetime budgets if you have a set campaign duration (say, a 2-week promo) and want Facebook to optimize delivery over time. Just don’t forget to monitor frequency so you’re not pestering the same users on loop.

Cheap Clicks Don’t Always Mean Good Clicks

Chasing low CPCs might feel like a win, but without quality traffic, it’s just vanity. What you want is qualified traffic—people who actually browse, add to cart, or buy. Metrics like cost per result, landing page views, and ROAS offer more meaningful insight.

Don’t take our word for it. Social media metrics are your proof of ROI—especially when you’re trying to show results to your team or justify a bigger ad budget.

Running Ads Without Wasting Your Spend

Here’s a no-BS way to audit your Facebook ad account:

• Check your frequency. Is your audience exhausted?
• Look at CTR. If it’s under 1%, your creative probably isn’t working.
• Review placement data. Are certain placements eating budget but not converting?
• Analyze time of day delivery. You might be paying more during peak hours with no added benefit.

Use this audit monthly. It keeps performance honest and spending in check.

When to Kill an Ad (and When to Let It Breathe)

Ads don’t fail—they teach. But it’s on you to know when to pull the plug.

Give a new ad 3 to 5 days with a minimum spend threshold before judging it. If it’s still tanking, cut it. But if performance is holding steady or improving slowly, let it run—especially if you’re not seeing signs of ad fatigue or oversaturation.

How to Use Slideshow Ads Instead of Full Video

Video is powerful, but not everyone has the budget for slick production. Thankfully, slideshow ads can do the trick—animate 3 to 10 images with music, and you’ve got a video-like experience that costs next to nothing.

They load fast, work on slow connections, and still feel dynamic. Perfect for product highlights, tutorials, or seasonal promos.

The Low-Cost Power of Retargeting Warm Leads

Retargeting isn’t just a “nice to have”—it’s your budget’s best friend. Set up retargeting campaigns for:

• Website visitors who didn’t convert
• Add-to-cart users who bailed
• Social engagers who didn’t click

Use personalized messaging that acknowledges where they dropped off. And don’t underestimate the value of Facebook Messenger for retargeting—sending a quick follow-up message or exclusive offer can nudge users toward checkout.

Building a Facebook Ads Strategy You Can Actually Maintain

Let’s not pretend every eCommerce brand has a full ad team. The key to staying consistent is simplicity:

1. Plan out campaigns monthly, not weekly
2. Recycle top-performing creative quarterly
3. Automate basic retargeting flows
4. Test one variable at a time (don’t overwhelm yourself)

Long-term Facebook success comes from clarity and repeatability. And honestly, that’s true across the entire platform. Facebook marketing doesn’t need to be overwhelming—it just needs to be strategic.

Why Your Facebook Funnel Needs a Reality Check

Here’s the hard truth: most Facebook ad funnels look great on paper and fall apart in practice. One of the most common mistakes? Pouring your entire budget into cold audience targeting while completely ignoring the middle and bottom of the funnel. You’re not just trying to be seen—you’re trying to be remembered and chosen.

A healthy funnel starts with awareness, sure—but it also needs consistent nurturing. That means remarketing to engaged viewers, delivering tailored messages to people who’ve added to cart, and even re-engaging customers post-purchase to increase lifetime value. If your funnel isn’t structured to reflect how real people move through the buying process, it’s not a funnel—it’s a leaky pipe.

Making the Most of Meta’s Advantage+ Placements Without Losing Control

Meta’s Advantage+ placements can be a blessing for eCommerce brands trying to stretch a limited budget. The algorithm automatically chooses where to show your ads—Facebook feed, Instagram Stories, Reels, and beyond—based on performance data. But letting go of too much control too fast can cost you.

The trick is to use Advantage+ placements as a tool, not a crutch. Start by running tests that compare automatic placements to manual ones (where you control the channel mix). Monitor where the most qualified conversions are coming from—not just the cheapest clicks—and set placement exclusions if certain platforms consistently underperform. It’s about finding the balance between algorithmic efficiency and brand-led strategy.

Why Budget-Smart Facebook Marketing Still Wins in 2025

It’s not just about Facebook ads—it’s about being visible and consistent. Whether it’s responding on Messenger, tweaking a slideshow ad, or retargeting someone who viewed your best seller, what you do matters. This matters even more as platforms evolve and new ones like Threads gain traction, pushing brands to show up authentically and engage meaningfully.

And while the flashy metrics often get the spotlight, local engagement still packs a punch. In fact, studies show that brands posting interactive content and updates consistently build stronger reputations in their communities.

So yes, budget-smart Facebook marketing is totally possible. It just takes a little planning, a lot of clarity—and the willingness to test, learn, and try again. And if you’re ready to scale smart? We know a thing or two about that. Let’s talk.

The post Smart Facebook Marketing Tips for Growing eCommerce Shops appeared first on 1Digital® Agency.

While it’s true that the traffic that Google gets in terms of sheer utilization utterly dwarfs ChatGPT’s, OpenAI has recently rolled out a new “search engine” feature that offers some promise to potential online shoppers, specifically to help put them in touch with products that meet their needs. 

This brings up the question of how to use ChatGPT’s search engine, not just as a consumer but also from the perspective of a beleaguered eCommerce entrepreneur whose ambition is to stay competitive. I may be able to shed some light on both. 

Is It Good? A Sneak Peek into How It Works 

First, let’s take a look at how ChatGPT’s search engine works, solely from the perspective of someone whose aim is to shop online. 

I’ll keep this in my wheelhouse and offer some visual cues of the experience, just so I can weigh on it from a professional perspective. 

To try things out, I searched for “What’s the best spinner for trout?” Below is a screenshot of some of the output: 

I can confirm, those are some good spinners for trout. Not sure I’d say either of them is “the best” but they are certainly both contenders for that title. I’ve used them; they catch fish. 

Just to experiment, I wanted to see what ChatGPT could do with a short-tail query based on the output it gave me, so I looked up “Mepp’s Aglia.” You can see the output below. 

Honestly, not bad results, but completely underwhelming. It’s little different from what I’d get in Google, in fact, I’d even say a little bit worse. Google has more and different types of search features that are more useful to someone like me in the position of a shopper. I, perhaps unlike some shoppers, don’t like to be spoon-fed, and it seems like that’s what ChatGPT’s doing here.

All the same, I asked it about a specific model of lure, so I can’t blame the search engine too much on the generality of what it gave me back. 

To drill down a little, I incorporated that keyword into a more targeted, longer-tail search query, “Where can I get a Mepp’s Aglia spinner?” and you can see the results below. 

Not too bad, but also not overwhelmingly great. You can see the results are formatted much like Google ads, with links to well-known retailers like Dicks, Tackle Warehouse, and Bass Pro. Again, can confirm these are legitimate sources. 

So far, so good. At least good enough. ChatGPT’s results are, even if lacking by Google’s standards, legitimate enough. It did give me serviceable answers to my queries, which means that for other shoppers, it will do the same – or at least, the potential is there. 

That about concludes my experimentation as a potential shopper – which brings me to the significance of all this from the perspective of an eCommerce merchant. 

What ranking signals or other criteria does ChatGPT use to assemble results, and how can I find out how to use ChatGPT’s search engine, as a business owner?

What ChatGPT Considers: How to Use ChatGPT’s Search Engine (What It Ranks) 

Naturally, what follows is how to optimize for ChatGPT’s search engine, right? At least, if you’re here because you want to know how to use ChatGPT’s search engine. 

Good news: straight from OpenAI, here are some of the things it uses as “ranking criteria” – what we would call ranking factors or ranking signals in the world of search engine optimization. 

Specifically some of the factors it uses with respect to eCommerce websites and products are:

• Product descriptions: As in the realm of “regular” eCommerce SEO, product descriptions should be informative, contain relevant queries and keywords, and provide useful details about the product specifications. Where possible, descriptions should provide succinct answers to common long-form queries, in keeping with AEO best practices. 
• Product reviews and ratings: This is an interesting aspect of ChatGPT SEO because it is something over which digital marketers and website administrators don’t have direct control, especially if ChatGPT is scraping product reviews from multiple sources. It does make reputation management that much more critical, as presumably ChatGPT will curate its results based on the frequency of positive reviews, or perhaps based on the ratio between positive and negative reviews. 
• Pricing: ChatGPT’s search functionality delivers outputs based on criteria that account for price. For instance, shoppers could search for the lowest price, in which case ChatGPT’s outputs would be delivered accordingly. 

Now that we’ve gotten the official word out of the way, here are some other things I would assume help with ChatGPT search engine optimization: 

• A website that has CMS pages dedicated to answering questions about the products it sells.

• A steady content stream that, even if it is not directly relevant to the products in terms of keywords associated with them, is useful to readers. 

• A strong domain authority with good user engagement metrics. 

• Basically anything else that helps SEO.

It all ultimately condenses down to the latter bullet point, since what ChatGPT is using is basically restricted to what shows up in the search results. Whether ChatGPT has access to web pages that are not indexed is not a question for which I have an answer, but if I had to bet one an answer, it would be no.

Which means, ultimately, that what ChatGPT search outputs is directly related to what ranks effectively in Google (and possibly through other search engines on the internet) along with websites that have the most organic visibility, overall. 

For More Information on Answer Engine Optimization 

To offer as simple an answer as possible to the question of how to use ChatGPT’s search engine, it would be this: if it’s good for SEO, it’s good for AEO, which is basically what the ChatGPT search engine is. 

For more information, get in touch with one of our digital marketing specialists or see my previous post, Answer Engine Optimization: A High-Level Guide.

The post How to Use ChatGPT’s Search Engine appeared first on 1Digital® Agency.

That starts with tracking the right metrics—and ignoring the fluff.

In this guide, we’re cutting through the noise. We’ll rename the common metric groups (conversion, engagement, awareness) into something a little less technical and a lot more useful for people who are new to the game. And if you want to know what actually matters in 2025, you’re in the right place.

Let’s break it down.

Why the Important Social Media Metrics to Track Can Save You Time (and Sanity)

Let’s be honest—social media comes with a lot of noise. One day it’s about likes, the next it’s shares, and before you know it, you’re knee-deep in dashboards wondering if any of it actually matters. Here’s the truth: not everything does. Some metrics only serve your ego. Others? They help you improve your strategy, grow your audience, or actually make money.

That’s why focusing on the important social media metrics to track can make the difference between aimlessly posting and building something intentional.

So which ones should you actually care about?

1. Metrics That Show “Are People Taking Action?”

This is what marketers used to call Conversion or ROI Metrics. But if you’re just starting out, the real question is: Are people doing something after seeing my content?

These numbers matter most to product sellers, service businesses, and anyone running paid ads. Here are the heavy hitters:

• Click-Through Rate (CTR) – Tells you how often people click on your link after seeing your post or ad. A strong CTR often means your content or CTA hits the mark.
• Conversion Rate –  Measures how many people took a defined action—like buying, signing up, or downloading—after visiting your site. This is the one metric CEOs care about.
• Cost-Per-Click (CPC) – Especially relevant for ad buyers. It’s how much you pay for one click. With Facebook ads cost rising, knowing your CPC helps you stay smart with your budget.
• Cost-Per-Mille (CPM) –  The cost for 1,000 impressions. Use this when assessing reach-based campaigns on platforms like Meta or YouTube.
• Social Media Referral Traffic – Are your social channels actually bringing traffic to your website? Tools like Google Analytics and Meta’s Business Help Center can show you.

Why it matters: If you’re investing money or effort into content, these numbers show whether that investment is moving people to act. For marketers, it’s how you prove ROI. For influencers and creators, it’s what brands want to see.

2. Metrics That Show “Are People Actually Interested?”

This was previously called Engagement Metrics, but let’s be honest—you really want to know if your audience cares about what you’re putting out.

Interest metrics include:

• Engagement Rate –  This is the percentage of people who liked, commented, shared, or saved your content. High engagement means your content resonates.
• Comments –  Not just any comment—look for meaningful ones. This is a strong indicator of community-building.
• Saves & Shares –  These are the strongest signals to the algorithm that your content is valuable. Especially important on Instagram and Threads.
• Likes/Reactions – A good baseline, but don’t over-focus on these. They’re easy to give and don’t always mean much.

Why it matters: Engagement is the pulse of your audience. Want to know how to go viral in 2025? Focus less on vanity metrics, more on authentic interactions. Comment back. Create conversations. Platforms reward that.

3. Metrics That Show “Is This Reaching New People?”

Formerly known as Awareness Metrics, this group shows if you’re growing, getting noticed, and staying relevant.

• Reach: How many unique people saw your content. Useful for knowing how far your posts are spreading.
• Impressions: Total views, including multiple from the same person. Helpful when measuring ad saturation.
• Audience Growth Rate: Tracks how quickly your followers are growing. This metric is especially relevant if you’re a creator or influencer.
• Share of Voice: Out of all the content in your niche, how much is yours? This is more advanced but useful if you’re benchmarking against competitors.

Why it matters: You can’t convert people who don’t know you exist. If you’re trying to break into a niche—like creators jumping on Threads early—these metrics will tell you if you’re getting seen.

What These Metrics Tell You (And What They Don’t)

Here’s a truth many beginners miss: No single metric gives you the full picture.

• You might have a high CTR but no conversions. That could mean your landing page needs work.
• You might have growing reach but low engagement. That could mean your content isn’t sticky enough.
• You might have tons of likes but no comments. That could mean your audience is passive, not loyal.

Numbers don’t lie—but they don’t explain themselves either.

A Few 2025-Specific Realities to Keep in Mind

Facebook and Meta Ads are Getting Pricier. According to Shopify’s Facebook ads cost breakdown, competition is rising and so are CPC rates. If you’re running ads, track every dollar.

Threads is Changing the Vibe. More and more creators are joining Threads for authentic conversation over clout-chasing. It might not replace other platforms, but it’s influencing what performs. If you’re testing new platforms, start tracking engagement and reach early on.

Virality is Still Possible Without Selling Your Soul. There’s a smarter way to go viral in 2025. Use metrics to find what’s working and do more of that. Don’t just chase trends—build patterns.

Track What Moves the Needle

If you’re just starting out, remember this simple framework:

1. Are people seeing it? → Awareness
2. Are people caring about it? → Engagement
3. Are people acting on it? → Action

And don’t just track for the sake of tracking. Review your metrics regularly, set goals, and make content decisions based on what the numbers are telling you.

Whether you’re managing a brand, launching an eCommerce line, or trying to build an audience as a creator, understanding the important social media metrics to track is the first real step toward growth.

The post The Truth About Important Social Media Metrics to Track in 2025 appeared first on 1Digital® Agency.

In such a highly commoditized (and competitive market) A Specialty Box’s core competency lies almost entirely within their ability to customize their client’s orders. 

Unfortunately, their previous eCommerce platform was severely limiting, specifically with respect to capabilities regarding the visualization of their custom offerings and product options. 

Consequently, the company partnered with us for a migration to BigCommerce paired with custom site redesign and development. 

Shift4Shop to BigCommerce Migration

One of this client’s biggest concerns with their preexisting eCommerce platform, Shift4Shop, was that it was highly limiting with respect to the way product options were visualized. 

That puts it lightly. Their previous platform actually offered no visualization functionality for prospective clients. Even to get a quote for a custom box required prospective customers to actively reach out to them.

You can see this illustrated in the image below. Requesting a specific customization is not possible from the product page and worse, there is no visualization feature for the product requested.

This resulted in a poor customer experience and an ineffective, unpleasant journey, to say the least. 

We worked closely with A Specialty Box to migrate their data over to a newly designed BigCommerce website. This was not a standard migration and to execute it we needed to work hand-in-hand with them to make sure their data populated appropriately. 

Because of the non-typical nature of this eCommerce data migration, we had to perform a series of quality control checks to ensure that their data synched and populated properly during the course of the migration.

Fortunately, thanks to the native product options functionality of BigCommerce, no particularly heavy custom development lift was necessary in order to fix this shortcoming. The data migration and re-platforming initiative alone redressed most of the concerns here. 

It was also the case that on the old website, product options that were displayed as available (without requesting direct outreach and a custom quote) populated as entirely different products, not as options. This was confusing and made for a cumbersome user interface. We condensed the website hierarchy to minimize this conflict so that each product option would be nested under the product and not listed separately as a unique one.

The new BigCommerce storefront, that we redesigned for them, addressed these concerns. 

Custom Homepage Redesign and Optimizations 

For this project, we redesigned the company homepage and also redesigned the product page template to make it more user friendly. 

As for the homepage, we didn’t overhaul the design or rebrand anything; we just worked with what we had to modernize it. As you can see from the image below, the new interface of the homepage simply has a more modern look and feel. We also updated navigation by prominently featuring main and top categories on the homepage just below the banner. 

We also improved the dynamic slider banner which lives on the homepage just under the megamenu; on this banner their custom product options and capabilities are prominently displayed to drive engagement and conversions. 

In addition, we improved the categorization and visual aspect of the mega menu, including images to streamline the customer journey, while also making the overall interface afforded by the menu more succinct, more accessible, and less overwhelming.

The new website design, built on BigCommerce, also offered a much better mobile experience than their old storefront did, with visual elements and text that scale more appropriately and responsively to the screen used to view the website. 

This aspect of the migration and redesign strongly benefits the user experience, but it also benefits the domain’s overall SEO score, which is a big consideration since our digital marketing team is also undertaking an eCommerce SEO campaign for them, which was running concurrently with the design and development work. 

Otherwise, we kept the bones of the branding and store design fairly intact, at least on the homepage. 

Product Page Redesign and Doogma Integration

Our most extensive redesign efforts were to the product page template, which, as stated, previously had no visualization functionality to showcase the company’s product customizations and options. 

Doogma offers fairly robust product visualization functionality; we integrated this tool with their BigCommerce website, but otherwise, our designers and developers took the initiative to build the product page customization features for customers to utilize. 

This joint effort between our designers, developers and the basic functionality of Doogma enabled us to create a conversion-optimized product page template for A Specialty Box that offers a pleasant, streamlined user experience, as depicted below.

Altogether, these changes we made to the product page, on our end and through partnership with and integration of Doogma, significantly improved the customer experience and journey,  better positioning A Specialty Box to meet the changing needs of prospective customers, while also ensuring it occupies a more competitive position to address unseen future challenges. 

Explore Our Other eCommerce Case Studies 

This strategic initiative we undertook for A Specialty Box, though impactful, only represents a handful of our technical and digital marketing capabilities. To learn more about other client transformations we have authored in the past, please see our full collection of eCommerce case studies.

The post Improving Product Option Visualization and UX: A Case Study appeared first on 1Digital® Agency.

But now, with the advent of Google’s SGE, or Search Generative Experience, and AI-powered engines like ChatGPT, there’s a (relatively) new kid on the block. 

It’s called AEO, or answer engine optimization, and while fundamentally very similar to SEO, it still varies slightly. Here’s your primer, as well as some pointers for how to optimize a website or its contents for AEO. 

What Is Answer Engine Optimization? (AEO)

AEO stands for answer engine optimization, and it refers to the process of optimizing a piece of content with the end result that it be highlighted by or featured in a generative model – such as a rich or featured snippet, Google’s AI overview or SGE, or end up as a regurgitated output through an AI model like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

For the most part, it refers to getting a website or a piece of content to end up as an output to an AI prompt, since AI models are sometimes referred to as “answer engines” hence the name “AEO.”

What’s the Difference Between AEO and SEO?

While AEO is not strictly speaking the same thing as SEO, there is a great deal of crossover, with most digital marketing experts either suspecting or outright recognizing that answer engines use the same ranking signals as search engines. 

The difference is, however, quite nuanced. 

To keep this all relatable, we’ll use a search engine as an example. SEO will get a website or a page to show up in the search results. AEO will get it to show up in the AI overview or, to a lesser degree, in the People Also Ask section of the search results, even though that isn’t strictly speaking an answer engine. 

So, in a nutshell, the chief difference between SEO and AEO is the length of the query. A single keyword is not, in the truest semantic sense of the word, a query. I mean, it is literally a search query but it is not linguistically a query because it is not a question. 

You could type “SEO” into Google and you will get search results. You may also get an AI overview, but to get a good one, you will need to embed that keyword into a broader search query – that is, a whole question. 

Therefore, the main difference between AEO and SEO has to do with the length and completeness of the search query. SEO deals with both short and long-tail queries, and AEO almost exclusively with long tail, very long tail queries. Most AEO relates to fully formed, grammatically complete interrogative statements. 

Therefore, while both SEO and AEO utilize the same ranking signals, the rankings signals that AEO uses are mostly with respect to keyword use and the structure of the content being crawled insomuch as it relates to the question being asked. For the most part, other conventional SEO ranking signals, like backlink profile and site speed, do not factor into AEO (though they do indirectly).

Also, because of the distinction I just drew, it is more accurate to consider AEO a subset of SEO than a completely distinct  marketing strategy or channel. If you do SEO the right way and make it all about content, you’re going to get AEO results. It’s ultimately as simple as that. 

How to Optimize for AEO

Good news: if you know how to optimize for SEO, at least on a functional level, then you already know what to do to optimize for AEO, with a few nuanced distinctions. 

You’ve heard SEO copywriters like myself talk about how you need to focus on quality content, and that is no different here. It’s just more important here. 

So here are the 6 main things you need to do to optimize for AEO.

• Understand search intent and target the right keywords (queries)

It all starts with what people are searching for, as well as why. While keywords are important, what you need to aim for in AEO is a fully-formed question (or an answer to one) that includes the keyword. Not just a keyword itself. 

Also critical is intent. If you want to show up in the generative results of an answer engine, you need to know the reason people are searching for and what the answer is they’re looking for as well. 

So, you can optimize for the keyword “SEO” and you might show up in the search results (good luck with that, through, last I checked that keyword had a difficulty score of 100%) or you can optimize for “How SEO services benefit small businesses” and aim to provide a succinct answer to that – which brings up the next vital element of AEO optimization. 

• Target specific questions 

I’ll just shoot straight. Getting a good AEO result is hard enough. You will never get there if you don’t target specific questions people are searching. And when I say specific – I mean literatim, word for word. 

If you have access to a tool like SEMRush, you can use their Keyword Overview tool to look at actual questions that people are searching for, along with volumes and difficulty scores. You don’t need to come up with the questions; just enter a keyword. 

Alternatively, you can just use what’s free – Google. Type a keyword in and see what shows up in the People Also Ask section. Google gets those questions from real queries people are searching for. These are the questions you should answer. Another good free tool is Answer the Public. 

• Provide clear, concise answers 

Once you have your questions all in a row, then you need to provide clear, concise answers that are accurate and insightful. Forget what you’ve read about keyword and length requirements. The shorter and more concise the better for AEO, especially if you can still provide a complete answer. 

Also, if you’re answering the question succinctly, you’re going to be including the keyword in your answer to the query anyway, so don’t worry about that. 

Using novel information is acceptable, as long as it is accurate. This is because as people find your information and circulate it (either by spending time on your page or linking to your website) both search engines and answer engines will see it as an authority and that will be all the backup they need to keep your answer showing up in their results. 

• Use structured data 

I’m including this only because as a technical ranking factor, it can slightly improve your odds of your copy being pulled for a featured snippet or displayed as a ChatGPT result. For instance, if you implement Schema Markup, you’ll have a slightly better chance of getting those AEO results. However, the first three portions of this how-to section are more important. You need to answer questions before you’ll show up, period. Structured data is an assist, not a solution. 

• Optimize for voice search 

Good news: optimizing for voice search really only means one thing (at least at this point). Structure your copy as conversational, full thoughts. Don’t write using fragments, type everything out as if it were for a formal paper submission, or at least as part of a conversation with another person. The more natural the language sounds, the better it will perform in the voice search results, and the better it will adapt to engines like ChatGPT, into which people enter intact, whole sentences and questions, rather than single keywords or short-tail phrases. 

• Use GSC

Google Search Console is a gold mine of good information that can help you improve the performance of existing web pages while also furnishing you with insights for new pages and copy that will perform independently. 

When you’re looking at the performance of a given web page, take a look at the impressions to see what long-tail queries that page showed up for. Some of these will likely be full questions that triggered an impression. Sometimes those questions will be relevant, and sometimes they won’t be. 

In those instances in which your web page shows up for a question that doesn’t seem that aligned with the page, it means there’s an opportunity for you to answer that question succinctly. Go back in and update that page so that it offers a more succinct answer to the query for which it generated an impression.

Here’s a real life example: 

That’s a snapshot of the company’s GSC for an article I wrote on how to show up in the AI overview. Shown above are a few of the queries for which the post generated impressions but no clicks. The one highlighted in red is a great example of an opportunity because, while I did indirectly answer that question in the article, I did not include the question or an answer for it word for word. 

Yet, as you can see, people are searching for it – it generated 152 impressions in just the last three months. There’s a disconnect between impressions and clicks, which I may be able to rectify by editing the article so that question, and a direct answer, show up in it.

This is a great trick for finding long-tail queries as well as opportunities for improving your existing copy, as well as new ideas for upcoming content. 

Additional AEO note: I would also like to take this point to note that AI models apparently can’t “see” Javascript, so one more pointer for AI optimization is that you need to have HTML code on your website. 

Using AEO and SEO Together 

As I clarified just above in this article, AEO and SEO are not entirely distinct, and AEO can in fact be categorized as a subset of SEO.

Therefore, all the best practices that benefit SEO will also in practice benefit AEO efforts, too. For instance, as all the SEO experts have been saying for years, you want a fast website with no glitches that offers a high-quality UX.

A website with plenty of optimized onsite copy and a healthy backlink profile is also going to be awarded overall higher organic rankings and probably a higher domain authority score than one that hasn’t been holistically optimized, and Google is more likely (taking all into consideration) to scrape a web page for a generative result if it’s been optimized heel to toe. 

The key takeaway is that all SEO best practices remain in force, with the added effect that to optimize for AEO you need to go a bit further. 

For instance, a category or product page is optimized for SEO if it is fast, secure, issue free, and if all the page level factors (image file size, alt text, page title text, meta data field, etc.) have been optimized.

However, it can only truly be said to be optimized for AEO if there are specific answers in the page copy (or other data fields) to equally specific queries. 

So, let’s say that this same web page is optimized for SEO but also contains a FAQs section with several long-tail queries along with accurate, complete, insightful answers – then it is also optimized for AEO.

How Does ChatGPT SEO Work?

ChataGPT SEO is the term that digital marketers and other savants have been throwing around, which refers to the process of optimizing a web page, or a listing, or a post, or some other piece of digitally published content for ChatGPT’s algorithm. 

This should come as no secret to my candid audience, but ChatGPT’s primary source of information is the internet, and since it is able to scrape the internet, the main ranking signals that ChatGPT uses to generate outputs are therefore indirectly also what Google uses. 

Are there other sources on the internet besides Google? Of course, but since Google is the 500 pound gorilla in the room, invariably Google is going to be a big force to reckon with here. 

Now, I am not suggesting that the two algorithms are the same. ChatGPT’s large language model is inherently distinct from Google’s and I will not in any way play expert here. I will only admit that they are different and while I am familiar with what makes Google tick, ChatGPT is still a bit alien to me.

With that said, since ChatGPT is so heavily reliant on what’s already ranking in the search engines for information, regardless of the fact that its algorithm may be different from Google’s, what you need to do to optimize for ChatGPT is effectively the same as what you need to do for Google.

Does ChatGPT Generated Text Hurt Your SEO?

This is one of the most common questions out there relative to ChatGPT and ChatGPT SEO, so, rather than saying yes or no, let me provide an illustration. 

Let’s try something specific. 

Guys, this is so bad, like dangerously bad. These two cartridges are not the same, though they are similar. ChatGPT got that right. What it got wrong is that it said they can be used interchangeably. They cannot. I’m not getting into why. Do your own research if you don’t believe me. 

Now let’s try something else:

I read the pointers and they’re all pretty good. You can see some of them in that abbreviated screencapture. But here’s one potential issue. I ran the full output (273 words, at least Chat got the length request right) and here’s what ZeroGPT told me: 

Slight problem, for sure. Seriously, couldn’t it even give me 98% or something? 100% AI generated is not a good look, people. 

Besides, let’s just do a thought experiment. If you’re looking for how to optimize for AEO and use AI to do it, you’re just creating an echo chamber, with zero thought involved. It makes no sense and at a certain point will break down. 

More importantly, if Google and ChatGPT actually introduce AI-detection capabilities into their algorithms and flag content that they suspect is AI-generated, then that should be your answer: yes, ChatGPT generated text will hurt your SEO, and by extension, your AEO. 

There are two reasons for this. One is that it’s easy to flag the generated output as AI. The other (and more important of the two) is that there is a serious risk that the generated output will be patently false, and sometimes dangerously false, as illustrated pointedly in the first image above. 

By the way, the Google AI overview is not much better. In fact, in a lot of ways it’s worse. Not that you could use the AI overview output to generate text, but I would caution you against using it as a primary source for literally anything. 

For the purpose of illustration, I tried to find some bad AI overviews but ran into some trouble. I also just noticed that it was disabled for a few of my attempts to find some really bad answers. I’ll save you the trouble of looking yourself; here are a few of the worst ones that have been published since Google rolled out the AI overview. 

Is AEO Replacing SEO? 

Well, AEO is certainly changing SEO, that’s a fact. As more and more people enter long-tail queries expecting a single precise answer rather than a list of results, AEO will start to take center stage. But at the same time, since AEO is just a facet of SEO, it can’t really be said to be replacing it. 

Besides, we could also just look at the numbers. Apparently, as of March 2025, there are over 16 billion Google searches per day. That’s more than double the total global population. It’s also almost doubled (so far) since 2024. If SEO were truly being replaced, wouldn’t searches have to be decreasing? (Spoiler: Yes.)

I had a little more trouble finding figures for ChatGPT usage, but according to at least one source, it gets some pretty good traffic. Somewhere around 38 million outputs per day – a lot, but way, way lower what Google gets.

Alright, that paints a picture of the health of search engine use. What about interest in AEO as a topic? 

Well then, SEMRush, that’s somewhat less than a billion, let alone 16 billion, per day. 

Surely interest in ChatGPT SEO is much higher? 

Apparently not. Higher but not monumentally so. What about regular SEO? 

Plenty of interest there. How about ChatGPT in general? 

That’s a rosier picture. There’s a lot of interest in ChatGPT, but even with that kind of volume, it’s important to remember that ChatGPT’s usership is still dwarfed by Google’s (with ~38 million outputs per day to more than 16 billion searches per day, Google outputs outpace ChatGPT by a factor of over 400). 

As you can see, interest in SEO as a concept is still healthy. That’s apparent from search volume alone. What will happen in ten years or even next month is your guess as well as mine, but it doesn’t look like AEO is replacing SEO or even that ChatGPT is replacing Google. It could happen, but for now they’re both still driving a lot of traffic, though the nod definitely goes to search engines. 

What I can say is this. Continue doing what you’re doing with SEO and when it comes to content marketing, hammer home on those long-tail queries. If you have customers asking you questions about products, how to use them, how to care for them, or what the specifics are, answer those questions fully in your materials, on your product pages, in your newsletter and on your blog. 

By doing so, you will be optimizing for AEO, and will help drive visibility not only through search engines but also potentially in the long run through AI models. 

The post Answer Engine Optimization: A High-Level Guide appeared first on 1Digital® Agency.

Threads Has a Different Kind of User Energy

It’s hard to explain unless you’ve seen it yourself—but Threads users just feel different. The vibe? Less performative, more insightful. People seem to show up not to stir drama or chase clout, but to genuinely share ideas, ask questions, or comment with perspective.

Compared to X—where it often feels like you’re either yelling into the void or trying to dodge a digital fistfight—Threads feels like a thoughtful group chat that just happens to be public. Sure, you’ll still find trolls here and there, but in my experience, there’s a sharper level of discourse. Think of it like this: post something half-baked and you might not just get roasted, you might get fact-checked with sources and tone-checked with civility.

And that’s what makes the question—is Threads the next big social media platform?—feel less hypothetical and more like a shift we’re already watching happen in real time. It’s like intellectual accountability—and it’s refreshing.

My Accidental Viral Thread

Here’s where it got real for me. I had no intention of “going viral.”

I wasn’t optimizing for attention or trying to make a splash. I just posted a quick observation about a book I loved—a novel that had been turned into a film, only for the story to get overshadowed by all the behind-the-scenes drama surrounding the actors. I mentioned how disappointing it was to see such a great narrative buried under gossip—and almost as an afterthought, I added a hashtag with the book’s title.

Two seconds later, a comment popped up. Then another. Then another.

An hour in, it had spiraled into a full-on discussion with over 500 comments—some agreeing, some challenging, and others diving deep into the adaptation versus source material debate. But here’s the wild part: it was all civil, smart, and surprisingly engaging.

That’s when it clicked: Threads isn’t just a quieter X. It’s where people go to think out loud—and get thoughtful responses back.

Hashtags Matter More Than I Thought

I’ve never been big on hashtags. On Instagram, they always felt like bait. On X, like clutter. But Threads? Turns out, if you want to be part of a conversation, not just shouting next to it, hashtags matter.

That single tag—that book’s title—put my post in front of people who were already interested in that topic. Not followers. Not bots. Real users. And because Threads prioritizes shared interests and conversation depth over follower count or shock value, that one tag was like opening a door.

That moment changed how I use Threads completely.

Substance Over Noise

What makes Threads so promising is what it doesn’t do—at least not yet. There’s no trending tab that incentivizes outrage. No algorithm pushing conflict to the top of your feed. No DMs flooding you with spam. And because of its roots in Instagram’s ecosystem, it filters out a lot of the fake accounts and burner chaos we’ve gotten used to.

Instead, the platform feels designed to reward contribution. Not just commentary. Not just hot takes. But actual thought.

It’s also worth noting: there’s no pressure to have a polished aesthetic here. On Instagram, everything has to be curated. On TikTok, it has to entertain. But on Threads? It just has to mean something to someone.

That alone makes it a platform with real staying power.

Threads Isn’t Perfect—But That’s Why It Still Has a Chance

Let’s be real: Threads has its quirks. It still lacks some basic features people expect—like an easy way to search hashtags, a DM option, and robust analytics for creators. But what it does have is a strong foundation and a direction that feels right.

Meta is clearly playing the long game here. Rather than dumping every feature in at once, Threads is evolving gradually. And for users like me who are here for the substance, not the spectacle, that pace works.

I don’t want Threads to become just another noisy algorithm loop. I want it to stay focused on conversations that don’t make me feel like I need to brace myself every time I open the app.

Threads vs. X: Who’s Winning the Numbers Game?

Let’s talk stats for a second. According to recent data from Business Insider, Threads hit 130 million monthly active users in early 2024. While X still maintains a higher user base at around 250 million, it’s worth noting that Threads accomplished that growth in less than a year—without relying on news trends or political outrage to drive traffic.

Also worth considering: engagement per post on Threads has been reported to be steadier across smaller accounts, compared to X where a few big voices dominate timelines. That’s a huge deal for anyone who actually wants to be heard, not just followed.

In short: Threads may not have overtaken X in size—but it’s already won on vibe. And that’s often what predicts long-term success in social platforms.

Why This Matters for eCommerce and Online Creators

This shift in user behavior—more thoughtful posts, more curated discussions, and less viral chaos—means good news for eCommerce brands. Especially small to mid-size businesses looking at SEO services.

On Threads, you’re not just fighting for screen time. You’re joining real conversations.

If you’re a skincare brand, for example, you can hop into threads about ingredient transparency or routine building. If you sell books or journals, it’s a haven for literary commentary. Unlike other platforms that rely on polished visuals or trending sounds, Threads gives your words weight—and that’s gold for brands that want to connect through authenticity, not just ads.

It’s subtle, but powerful. It feels like old-school internet forums—but with far better UI.

How Brands Can Build Presence on Threads

Here’s the thing—Threads isn’t the place to show up with pre-scheduled posts and nothing else. It’s about presence, not just promotions.

Here’s how brands can show up smartly:

• Comment thoughtfully on relevant Threads. You’re building recognition, not just awareness.
• Find your category’s micro-communities—book lovers, wellness advocates, coffee snobs—and actually participate.
• Share insights, behind-the-scenes processes, or unpopular opinions that are worth responding to.

And yes, use hashtags—just not like you’re trying to game the system. Use the one or two that naturally connect to what you’re saying.

If your Thread is smart enough, it will do the rest.

So… Is Threads the Next Big Social Media Platform?

Honestly? I think it’s already well on its way.

No, it doesn’t have the chaos of X. No, it’s not as performative as Instagram or as addictive as TikTok. But that’s exactly what makes it feel new—not just in branding, but in function.

It’s a space where you can show up, say something real, and watch it spark dialogue. It rewards nuance. It punishes clout-chasing. And it gives the floor to people who’d rather share ideas than just post for shock value.

That’s rare. And that’s why I’m still here, still posting—and paying more attention to my hashtags.

The post Is Threads the Next Big Social Media Platform? Here’s What I Think appeared first on 1Digital® Agency.

It would go against everything you learned about writing in school, wouldn’t it? 

You learned about using a hook, literary devices that improved the flavor of the writing, and being creative with the structure of writing, to attract and engage readers. 

But if we practice these things consistently, even if we don’t always use the same devices or vocabulary, isn’t that a practice in scientific repeatability? 

The point is, there is a science to blogging. You can call it creative writing if you want, but there’s a method to this. 

Let’s break it down to the details. 

“Teach Me How to Blog”

To talk about the science of blogging, we need to cover a few basic principles that are necessary to build and then subsequently run a successful blog. Here are some of the most important maxims relevant to blogging. 

Know Thyself and Thy Subject 

Before you can decide on the type of blog you want to run, you need to know your own strengths. 

For instance, don’t plan on writing a killer blog teaching people how to play music if you can’t do so yourself. Don’t expect to pass as a proficient collector of military history if you lack experience and education in that sphere, either. 

The best approach is a natural approach. Don’t see dollar signs and let that drive your decision making. Many markets can be lucrative but that doesn’t mean you have the experience to capitalize on them. That’s just the cold hard truth. Blogging requires experience and demonstrable proficiency. 

So to keep this as basic as possible, pick something you know a lot about. Something you can write about, and lend opinions on, in such a manner that you feel comfortable doing so. 

Know Thine Audience 

The good thing about blogging is there are no hard rules. The bad thing about blogging is there are no hard rules. 

If you want to write about digital marketing one day and fashion trends the next, no one is going to stop you.

But you will confuse search engines, you will likely confuse readers, and you will most likely not cultivate a strong brand.

The thing is, you need not only to be aware of, but respectful of, what your audience wants to read. If you get started writing op-eds on current events and pivot to recipes, you’re going to lose readers. 

Therefore you need to be sensitive to the tastes, preferences and even prejudices of your readers and honor them accordingly. Rebranding may be possible but it will cost you. 

One other aspect of knowing your audience is being aware of opportunities for material.

Say you run a cooking blog.  Maybe for the most part your readers will want recipes, but every now and then there might be an opportunity for an informative piece on the history of a specific dish or ingredient. 

Or perhaps, you can exercise some flexibility and publish about cocktails every now and again. 

My point is there’s always opportunity. While you’ll want to be consistent with the material you cover, recognize that there are always different angles you can take, and one single idea or topic can yield countless actual blog posts.

Consistency Is Key 

If you launch a domain and start a blog website and after creating the website only publish once per month, don’t expect to get anywhere, at least not fast. 

Consistency is one of the most important aspects of blogging, and if you plan to grow through social media marketing or an email list (not through SEO) you really need to give readers something to work with. 

A good rule of thumb is to publish once per week at a bare minimum. It’s better to publish twice to three times per week, and some hardcore bloggers do so every single day. 

That’s a big ask, to be fair, but if you expect growth, you need to keep readers interested. 

Of course if your goal is slow growth through evergreen copy and SEO, you can disregard the urgency to publish frequency – with the caveat that it is still better to publish frequently than to be inconsistent about the whole affair.

Data and Reference 

While it is the case that original information performs well on the internet because it is an inherent authority unto itself (if what you’re writing original, you are the source; there’s nothing else for you to cite) in all other cases, making references and including links can be a good thing, not a bad thing. 

There are some SEO experts that would tell you to eschew external links but I am not one of them. Yes, it is true that outbound links transfer authority away from your website, but this only hurts your website if you’re linking away for information that is contained in your post. 

If your outbound link only corroborates a claim you make or a figure, then the link will actually validate your extrapolation or interpretation of that data. So, ultimately, if you can corroborate what you publish with data, links to, or references of other publications, that will increase your credibility rather than harming your efforts. 

The Science of SEO

For what it’s worth, there’s a little science to SEO, too. In this respect, what I’m referencing is how to format and structure the post for best results in the search engine, or, if your post is lucky, as a part of the search generative experience (SGE). 

I’ve posted about this numerous times and it’s information that’s also readily available on the internet, so I won’t burn too much space with it here. To be as brief as possible: 

• Include the main target keywords for which you want the post to rank in the title of the post. 

• Include main target keywords in your headers as necessary.

• Try to answer questions in the headers. 

• Write using concise, short, pointed sentences where possible. 

• Write your own meta descriptions.

• Enrich images with alt text and captions that answer queries and contain target keywords. 

• Compress images so they don’t slow the post down.

• Bullet digestible information as and where possible.

This is a very high level view of how to “do SEO.” For a more detailed breakdown, see my recent post, How to Structure a Blog Post for Best SEO Results. 

A Picture Tells a Thousand Words

High-quality imagery is also a must for successful blogs, and this couldn’t be about the science of blogging without addressing some aspect of the visual component of blogs. 

Here’s the deal. Your blog posts may derive the vast bulk of their value from your written word, but for better or worse, blogs are not just all about language. They are also about visuals. 

 My best advice for you is to take your own photography and make it relevant to the post. That ensures originality and you can optimize the images you like. Also, compress them before uploading to avoid slowing down your website. 

I’ve read (and heard it said) that stock photography can be used to run a successful blog, and that may be true, but my personal experience is that original images perform better, and also see a better chance of ranking independently in the “Google Image” search. 

Now, if you can’t take your own pictures, and aren’t willing to use stock photography, consider using an image generator. There are plenty of AI models out there that will do so and can make (somewhat) serviceable images for your blogs. That route is likely better than using stock photography.

The Proverbial Hook 

There’s one thing that pretty much all successful posts share in common. They attract, and then ensnare, attention.

In school, you may have learned this as a “hook” that writers use to attract attention and hold onto it. It could be an enticing opening line or a bit of bait in the first paragraph of a post that makes readers want to continue. 

It doesn’t have to be your first line, but it does need to be initial. In fact, it could be your title. You’ve heard titles called “clickbait.” Well, a good title won’t just command a click, it will deliver on the bait that it used to attract attention in the first place. 

But my point is this: good writing uses flavor and intrigue to keep readers engaged, and it starts with the strong opening salvo, whether it’s the opening line or the title. You can’t expect readers to stick around if you can’t even get their attention from the start. 

The Seasoning of Science Blogging

Now, once you’re into the meat and potatoes of your post, as we are here, it is important to remember that good writing is less often than not, formulaic. 

There is a time and place for technical writing and it is not usually blogging. Blogging can be scientific but the self-defeating realization of that is that “the science of blogging” often entails very precisely honed artistic acumen. 

My point? Use literary devices to add sweetness and savor to your diction. Personify your words till they loom larger than life. Don’t be afraid to let loose with the metaphors (similes?) till your writing seethes with motion like a boiling sea. Practice prideful pronunciation, proliferation, promulgation and proponency of your consonance. Let the liquor of language wet your lust for knowledge like the sweet nectar of revelation. Engage metonym and allusion and hyperbole and synecdoche and euphemism and juxtaposition and…polysyndeton. 

Have fun with it. There may be a “science of blogging” but it doesn’t have to be boring. 

Maybe Science Blogging Is More Art Than Science 

All in all, these are the rules according to the “science of blogging.” Know your audience, know your subject, know your own strengths as a writer, follow a few SEO best practices, and have fun writing. That’s basically what it boils down to – and remember, sometimes, science is more art than science. 

The post The Science of Blogging appeared first on 1Digital® Agency.

That’s where SEO, or search engine optimization, comes in.

SEO is one of the most powerful tools in your marketing toolbox. Done correctly, Shopify SEO can help your store rank higher on search engines like Google, drive more organic traffic, and ultimately increase sales without constantly paying for ads. Whether you’re just launching or still in the planning phase, here’s what you need to know about SEO as a new Shopify store owner.

1. Understand What SEO Actually Is

SEO is the process of optimizing your website so that it ranks better in search engine results pages (SERPs). This includes optimizing:

• Keywords (the terms people search for)
• On-page elements (title tags, meta descriptions, image alt text)
• Site structure (navigation, internal linking, mobile-friendliness)
• Site speed
• Backlinks from other websites 

The goal is to make your site more relevant and trustworthy in the eyes of search engines like Google.

2. Start With Keyword Research

Before you can optimize your site, you need to understand what your potential customers are searching for. Keyword research is the foundation of SEO.

How to do it:

• Use free tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest, or Answer the Public
• Identify keywords related to your niche, products, and target audience
• Look for long-tail keywords (e.g., “handmade vegan leather wallet” instead of just “wallet”) that have lower competition and more specific intent 

Pro Tip: Start by optimizing for informational keywords with blogs and product-specific keywords for your product pages.

3. Optimize Product Pages for SEO

Your product pages are your bread and butter. They need to do double duty: convert visitors into customers and help search engines understand what the page is about.

Key areas to optimize:

• Product Titles: Use clear, keyword-rich titles that describe exactly what the item is.
• Meta Descriptions: These show up in search results, so write a compelling, keyword-friendly summary of the product.
• Product Descriptions: Write unique, in-depth descriptions. Don’t copy and paste manufacturer text, Google can penalize duplicate content.
• Alt Text for Images: Use descriptive, keyword-infused alt text to help with image SEO and accessibility.
  URLs: Shopify automatically creates URLs, but you can edit them to be shorter and keyword-rich (e.g., /vegan-leather-wallet instead of /product-23423).

4. Structure Your Store With SEO in Mind

Shopify makes it easy to build an online store, but structure matters for SEO.

Tips:

• Use clean, simple navigation: Make sure your site is easy to browse. Categories and subcategories should be logically grouped.
• Create an XML sitemap: Shopify automatically generates this at yourstore.com/sitemap.xml, but submit it to Google Search Console.
• Create a robots.txt file: Shopify does this too, but you can customize it if needed.
• Use internal linking: Link from one page to another to help users (and Google) navigate your store. For example, link from a blog post to related products.

5. Set Up Google Search Console and Google Analytics

These free tools are essential.

• Google Search Console helps you monitor your site’s presence in Google search results, track keyword rankings, fix errors, and submit your sitemap.
• Google Analytics helps you track how visitors are interacting with your store, which pages they visit, how long they stay, and where they’re coming from. 

Install these tools as soon as you launch your store, they’ll give you invaluable insights.

6. Focus on Site Speed and Mobile Optimization

Speed and mobile-friendliness are ranking factors for Google.

What to do:

• Use a fast, lightweight Shopify theme
• Compress images without sacrificing quality (use tools like TinyPNG or Shopify apps like Crush Pics)
• Avoid too many apps or scripts that slow down the site
• Use lazy loading for images
• Ensure your site is mobile-responsive, as most users will visit on their phones

Shopify’s built-in mobile optimization helps, but always test your site using Google PageSpeed Insights and Mobile-Friendly Test.

7. Write SEO-Friendly Blog Content

Blogging is one of the most effective ways to drive traffic through SEO. Shopify includes a built-in blogging platform, so use it!

Blogging Tips:

• Answer common customer questions (e.g., “How to Choose the Right Yoga Mat” if you sell fitness gear)
• Target long-tail keywords
• Use clear headings (H1, H2, H3), short paragraphs, and include internal links to products
• Keep it useful, engaging, and focused on your niche 

A regularly updated blog keeps your site fresh and signals to Google that your store is active and relevant.

8. Build Backlinks Over Time

Backlinks, links from other websites to yours, are a strong signal to search engines that your site is trustworthy.

How to earn backlinks:

• Reach out to bloggers and influencers for product reviews
• Write guest posts for other sites in your niche
• List your store in online directories
• Share helpful content on social media and forums (Reddit, Quora)
• Get featured in roundups, gift guides, or local news stories

Avoid shady backlink-building schemes. Focus on quality, not quantity.

9. Avoid Common Shopify SEO Mistakes

Many new store owners make the same SEO errors. Avoid these pitfalls:

• Duplicate content: Using the same descriptions across products or copying from manufacturers
• Ignoring meta tags: Leaving title tags and meta descriptions auto-generated
• Too many apps: Each app can add code that slows down your site
• No keyword strategy: Optimizing randomly instead of strategically
• Not optimizing images: Large files slow down your site and lack of alt text means lost SEO opportunities 

Fixing these early on can set your store up for long-term success.

10. Be Patient, SEO Takes Time

One of the hardest truths for new Shopify store owners to accept is that SEO is not instant.

You won’t see dramatic results overnight. It can take weeks or even months for Google to crawl and rank your pages, especially if your site is new. But SEO is a long game that builds momentum.

When done correctly, it creates a sustainable source of free traffic that compounds over time, saving you money and increasing profitability. Don’t treat Shopify SEO as a one-time setup. Revisit your keyword strategy, blog regularly, and monitor your rankings over time. SEO is ongoing, but the results are well worth it.

Shopify is a powerful platform that gives new store owners the tools they need to succeed, but it’s up to you to make sure your site is optimized for search engines. SEO may feel overwhelming at first, but by taking a structured, step-by-step approach, you’ll position your store for long-term growth.

From conducting keyword research and optimizing your product pages to blogging and building backlinks, the key is consistency and patience. Invest the time now, and your Shopify store will reap the rewards in organic traffic, customer trust, and steady sales.

The post What New Store Owners Need to Know About Shopify SEO appeared first on 1Digital® Agency.