Posts

A two-part series from Dashboard Interactive Marketing

Welcome back to our two-part series on AI in content marketing. In Part 1, we shared the results of a study published in Search Engine Land that tested Google’s ranking of AI-generated content across multiple industries. In Part 2, we’ll explore what makes a good content-driven SEO strategy, and the place that AI content can have in that strategy for success.

Does Google Rank AI Content? The Study

We won’t recap the whole study. Be sure to read Part 1 of this series. You can read the original article on Search Engine Land, too. 

The Findings

The key findings:

• Google did index the AI-generated content
• Most of the content was indexed quickly
• 80% of the articles ranked well for one month
• Rankings dropped significantly over time
• SERP ranking did not recover with time but plateaued

Why Didn’t the AI-Generated Content Continue to Rank Well?

The study’s authors pointed out that many, many factors affect web page rankings. Google states that E-E-A-T—experience, expertise, authority, trustworthiness—are important to SEO. The fresh websites created for the study had none of these factors, nor did they include internal links, external links, or promotional activities that, together, can help web pages rank better.

We also believe the content produced for the study lacked the essential ingredient of good content marketing: strategy.

A content strategy is vital for the success of a content marketing program as part of SEO. Strategy takes into account the four P’s of marketing (product, price, place, promotion) with competitive intelligence, brand elements, and customer demographics to match content creation and promotion with audience needs.

Without a solid content strategy to guide content creation, you’re throwing the verbal equivalent of darts at a dartboard and hoping to hit the bullseye.

A good content strategy helps you hit the bullseye, aligning content such as articles, blog posts, ebooks, videos, and more, with audience interests and needs. It focuses not just on what you’ll say, but why and to whom.

The content generated for the study lacked strategy. It also lacked many elements of a solid SEO plan. As a result, while it was indexed by Google and ranked fairly quickly, it did not maintain its rankings.

AI Content Generation: Speed Without Strategy Is Just Speed

AI content generation without a strategy is like hitting the gas without knowing where you’re going. You’re moving fast, but there’s no map, no route, and no guarantee you’ll end up anywhere that matters. 

With strategy, you can generate content more quickly using AI. It will be better aligned with the audience, but will it be meaningful? Will it be new, fresh, and original? 

It’s the latter that AI cannot produce. AI can only say what’s been said before—albeit in fresh ways. But the thinking behind the content is missing because machines can’t think. 

AI writing tends to be mediocre. Yes, it reads well. However, there is nothing inherently interesting about it. The simplest explanation is that while it has been trained on some of the best writing in the world, it has been taught to aim for the middle of the road. In other words, it cannot come up with metaphors, similes, and real-life experiences to add color, flavor, and unique branding to a piece. The writing remains pleasant, factual, and ultimately, forgettable. 

Let’s aim for something memorable. Let’s infuse your brand, your voice, and your thought leadership into your content marketing. Search engine optimization is more than producing well-written, keyword-rich articles and publishing them as quickly as possible. It’s about leveraging your unique experience and customer knowledge, along with our digital marketing expertise, to encourage Google to rank your web pages well on search engines results pages. 

While AI platforms can speed up content creation, they only accelerate the production of mediocre content. AI content lands squarely in the middle, neither good nor bad. And it’s the outliers that we remember, not the mediocre ones. The blog posts that spoke about a significant day in our lives, an event that changed us. The web page that speaks from the heart about our service or a true customer story. This is what drives clicks and reactions, not plain-vanilla, mass-produced content. 

AI has its place in digital marketing. It can help with research, come up with a headline when we’re stuck trying to be clever, or provide feedback. 

However, it’s not going to replace a strategy and experience when it comes to building traffic for a website or writing the content that drives clicks, leads, and sales. 

We’d be happy to review your content strategy and provide honest feedback. And, if you don’t have one, we’re happy to help. Call Dashboard Interactive Marketing at 763-242-2454 for a consultation.

A two-part series from Dashboard Interactive Marketing

For over 20 years, Dashboard Interactive Marketing has focused on effective, data-driven marketing for small and mid-sized businesses. We have tracked the latest search engine optimization platforms, tools, and techniques to provide you with the best services we know how to deliver. We focus on lead generation, marketing return on investment, and quantifiable, measurable results.

With every marketing trend that has come and gone during the past 20 years, we have researched and tested before sharing the latest best practices with you. When it makes sense, we incorporate new approaches. In everything we do, we monitor and measure the results, always striving to do more of what works to drive leads and sales for your business.

That’s why we have been a bit cautious about jumping on the “AI everything” bandwagon. We’ve been following the research to see if—and when—it made sense to incorporate more AI tools and platforms into our workflow.

You’ve probably been AI-curious yourself, testing everything from Microsoft Copilot to ChatGPT, Claude, and the many other tools out there. Some of them have merit; all of them have flaws; none is the magic marketing approach that will cut costs while increasing leads.

One study recently caught our attention. It was published in March 2026 in Search Engine Land. Entitled, “How AI-Generated Content Performs in Google Search: a 16-Month Study,” it examined the results of using solely AI-crafted content online to generate organic website traffic. We’d like to share the study with you in this article. We’ll share with you our perspective on the results—why they are what they are. Then, in Part 2, we’ll talk about how the content marketing field is evolving and where we believe AI has its place.

Ready? Let’s take a look at the study.

Part 1: Examining the Data from a 16-Month AI Content Study

Title: How AI-Generated Content Performs in Google Search: a 16-Month Study
Author: Bogdan Babiak
Published: March 2026, Search Engine Land

Many companies wonder whether AI-generated content can enhance their marketing efforts. They’ve used Copilot or ChatGPT and marvel at the clean, grammatically correct output. 

However, as we shall see from the following study, just because an article is grammatically correct doesn’t mean it will generate traffic for a website. Good content relies not just on smooth writing, but on the creative spin that people add to a topic. Great content explores beyond the limits of what has already been said, adding value to the conversation, whether that conversation is about the right filters for a car or the high-stakes world of cybersecurity. 

A Carefully Crafted Study of AI-Generated Content

The study started with a “blank slate.” Twenty new domains were chosen that spanned 20 unique industry categories. None of the sites had published any content before. They did not have a social media presence. No advertising was used. Any traffic generated by the test content was generated purely from organic search. Google was the main search engine tested. 

The study team conducted keyword research and selected 100 long-tail “how-to” topics for each industry. They chose phrases with low competition. 

Each keyword phrase was run through an AI platform to generate an article and was published to the website. They then submitted the sites to Google Search Console and waited. Nothing further was done to promote the websites. The test had begun. 

Month 1: Early Results Show Promise
Early results were promising. In month 1, approximately 71% of AI-generated pages were indexed by Google. Approximately 80% of the sites ranked for at least 100 keywords. This includes both the chosen phrases used to generate the content and synonyms. 

Month 3: Measuring Cumulative Growth
At the three-month mark, the team measured the overall growth of the sites. They measured 526,000 impressions and 782 clicks. No internal links were added to the websites; Google’s crawlers had to find and index the sites solely through Search Console. 

Months 3 to 6: Ranking Collapse
Inexplicably, around the third month mark, the AI-generated content began losing its search engine ranking quickly. Approximately 28% of the AI content ranked in the top spots in search engine results page in month one, but by the fourth month, less than 3% maintained this coveted spot. 

The decline continued over the next several months. Some of this may be attributed to the websites’ newness. We know that Google uses many signals to rank content, including experience, expertise, trustworthiness, and authoritativeness. Because all 20 websites were brand-new, they lacked these elements, which may have effected Google’s perception of the content to some degree. 

However, the slide in rankings turned into an avalanche, leaving very little of the AI-generated content among the top citations on search engine results pages. They remained indexed but lost considerable visibility. 

Month 16: The Experiment Ends
Although the test sites’ numbers showed some improvement after various Google updates, they remained low, especially in Health and Finance. We’ll talk about why we think that happened in our analysis article to follow. 

The final numbers showed that the AI-generated content ended its 16-month test with poor numbers. The cumulative number of impressions across 20 sites totaled 1,092,079, with 1,381 clicks.

The Dashboard Take: Content Alone Isn’t Enough to Rank—You Need Quality Content

There are many insights to gain from this study. The study’s authors suggest that stand-alone content, published without the scaffolding of SEO strategy elements such as internal links, domain authority, and trust signals, may have suppressed some search traffic. In other words, if other SEO techniques had been added to the website, it may have helped the content rank better.

We agree, but have a slightly different take. What’s missing from the study’s approach, and from many other individual attempts at using AI to generate content at scale and with speed, is the strategy.

Content alone isn’t enough to get better search engine rankings from Google. Twenty years ago, website owners rushed to fill their sites with articles. Some paid people to write these articles, while others used software to “spin” the content, replacing words with synonyms. Article spinners were all the rage for a while, churning out poor-quality content that, because it was worded differently from other articles, thanks to the synonyms, still counted as a new article. It helped sites rank quickly. However, like many other ‘get rich quick schemes,’ it collapsed around 2011 with successive Google updates. Google got wise to poorly written, meaningless content created to game the system. They deindexed it or dropped it in their index.

We are seeing something similar now with AI-generated content. It reads well, to be sure. Words flow smoothly. It makes sense. However, it lacks originality. It says nothing new. It regurgitates what has already been said. Like the article spinners of 20 years ago, it uses different words and word patterns but adds nothing to the topic. Google considers this low-value content and de-ranks it.

We believe in the power of data-driven marketing. While the data from one study isn’t conclusive, it does point to the need for a comprehensive content and SEO strategy that relies on human-centered content creation. AI platforms can help speed the creation process, but they shouldn’t replace it.

In Part 2 of our series, we’ll explore what a good content marketing strategy looks like, and the place AI tools have within it. See you there.

One of the most frequently asked questions we get at Dashboard Interactive Marketing is, “How much should we spend on our marketing?” We understand that small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have a finite budget and that marketing is an investment for you. 

The question “How much should I spend on marketing?” differs greatly from one business to another. Below, we break down the basics of marketing budgeting, with the goal of helping our customers understand the basics of budgeting for their digital campaigns. 

Why Budget Your Digital Marketing?

I’m sure that you run your household on a budget. How much that budget is and what you spend your monthly income on, whether it’s groceries, rent, electricity, insurance, gasoline, or various forms of entertainment, varies greatly depending on who lives in the household and where your priorities are. 

The same may be said for a digital marketing budget. Like your household budget, a defined budget keeps spending aligned with business goals and prevents overspending. It also helps you track ROI. You can then adjust the strategy as the returns become evident, putting more money behind winning tactics and slowing or stopping those that aren’t working well for you. 

What’s Normal? Industry Benchmarks for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses

Now let’s take a closer look at digital marketing budgets for SMBs. Just as the economic forecasters can benchmark the “normal” or “average” rent or grocery bill most people pay each month, we can provide benchmarks for “normal” digital marketing budgets, too.

According to the Small Business Administration, the average small to mid-sized business spends 1-5% of its revenue on marketing. Retailers and companies in highly competitive markets spend more, often up to 10%. Companies in startup mode also tend to spend more to build brand awareness and a customer base. A good rule of thumb is that companies selling to consumers (business-to-consumer, or B2C marketing) typically spend much more than business-to-business (B2B) firms.

Lastly, companies must consider their goals and needs when determining marketing budgets. One company may need to generate more leads and sales, and be willing to invest heavily in marketing costs to accomplish this goal, even if the cost is more than 5% of their annual revenues. A rule of thumb is an average, which should be adjusted based on expectations, goals, and market realities.

How to Determine Your Ideal Budget

We recommend meeting with us to discuss your digital marketing budget. During this call, we learn all we can about your business, what you are selling, and to whom you are selling it. We want to know and understand your goals. Are you trying to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or scale aggressively? Your goals determine the digital marketing budget. Lead-generation and e-commerce typically require higher investment than brand-only campaigns. 

Consider Your Growth Stage

Another very important factor when determining marketing budgets is the growth stage. New businesses need added marketing activities to build brand visibility quickly. Marketing at this stage is like fertilizer for a plant; it helps your business put down strong roots, grow, and flourish.

Established businesses can maintain or optimize existing channels with a moderate budget. If established businesses want to enter new markets or launch new products or services, that increases marketing spend. New means more effort must be put into building customer awareness, which means an increased expense.

Evaluate the Competition

Who are you up against? Highly competitive sectors (legal, healthcare, retail, tech) often require above-average investment to stand out. We sometimes find that the cost per click for digital ads in these fields is above average, which requires a higher ad budget. Additionally, specialized expertise may be needed to create content for tech or healthcare clients, or we may need to build or acquire customer lists that cost more for these markets. All of these factor into the budget conversation (which is why we like to meet with you and ask a lot of questions at the outset). 

Are We Spending Enough or Too Much?

Many companies wonder if they are spending too much. We often feel like companies aren’t spending enough. How can you tell when things are just right, and the marketing budget suits the action plan?

If you aren’t achieving your goals or getting leads and sales, it’s often a sign that your marketing budget isn’t enough. If your current marketing budget is achieving your goals, it’s probably just right. To increase sales, increase the marketing budget. But increase it in the right way: focus on activities that generate positive results. Working with a digital marketing partner like Dashboard helps you keep track of the metrics since we are very focused on analyzing the performance of all marketing plans for our clients. 

Ready to Achieve Your Digital Marketing Goals?

Dashboard Interactive is a digital marketing agency focused on its clients’ long-term success. We are a certified Google Advertising Partner with a strong track record of helping local businesses achieve their lead-generation and sales goals. We would be happy to discuss your marketing plans and budget and see if we’re a fit. Contact us at 763-242-2454.

Did you know we have the attention span of a goldfish?

Ten years ago, Microsoft conducted an experiment. Researchers studied the brains of 2,000 humans using EEGs, a test that measures electrical impulses in the brain. They found that since 2000 (when everyone started shifting to “smart” phones), the average attention span has dropped from 12 seconds to 8 seconds. Among people with heavier-than-normal screen time, the attention span dropped even further.

By comparison, a goldfish’s attention span is 9 seconds.

We aren’t going back to pre-2000 when mobile devices were rarely used. We have to deal with the reality of the fact that our customers have the attention spans of goldfish.

That’s why short-form video has become so popular. Reels, TikToks, YouTube shorts, and similar quick videos continue to perform well for many small businesses. While the definition of short video varies from goldfish-length to minutes, there’s a definite trend among businesses to use short-form video for engagement, interactions, and leads.

Let’s take a closer look at how short-form video can be used for your small business.

Why Short-Form Video Works

Short-form video platforms are designed for quick consumption. This allows businesses to reach new audiences organically and with high engagement. 

Unlike polished long-form videos or formal digital ads, short-form videos thrive on relatability, giving customers the chance to see the real people behind the brand and foster authentic connections. 

They also offer a cost-effective solution for small-business owners who want to harness the power of video without breaking their marketing budgets. Creating a 30-second clip requires far less budget than traditional advertising while still delivering impressive results. 

Content That Builds Trust

A great way for small businesses to start using short-form marketing videos is to lean into personal content. What is personal content? It’s when the business owner (or another spokesperson) takes the time to make a quick, personal video.

You can:

• Demo Products: Show how your product works in real life. A quick demo can answer customer questions instantly.
• Provide Behind-The-Scenes Clips: Give viewers a peek into your process, your team, or even your workspace. Transparency builds credibility.
• Share Customer Testimonials: Nothing beats word-of-mouth. Short clips of happy customers sharing their experiences can make a big impact.

Those three types of videos build trust. Customers have to know, like, and trust you before they choose to do business with you. It can be hard to engender trust online; there are so many things competing for your customers’ attention (remember the attention span of a goldfish).

Product demos help customers know about you and your products. Behind-the-scenes clips build likability and trust. Customer testimonials are the gold standard of trust builders, helping new customers feel more at ease with their decision to go with your product or services.

How to Get Started

Your first step is a consultation with Dashboard Interactive Marketing. Just whipping out a few short-form videos won’t do a lot to support your digital marketing efforts. They need to be part of an integrated digital strategy to be the most effective. 

We recommend creating the strategy first, then choosing one platform to get started. Don’t spread yourself too thin. Choose the platform where your audience spends the most time. 

You don’t need fancy equipment; a simple camera setup with good lighting and sound quality is ideal. Focus on clear visuals and authentic storytelling. 

No matter which platform you choose, be consistent and post regularly. Search algorithms reward regular posting. Even one or two videos per week can build momentum. 

Lastly, if you receive comments on your videos, be sure to thank the person who posted and respond. Make your audience feel appreciated! 

Let’s Talk About Short-Form Video

Short-form video can lead to more leads and sales. It helps newcomers to your company’s website better understand your products or services and know, like, and trust your brand. Best of all, it’s effective while being cost-effective, a win-win for small businesses.

Interested in adding short-form video to your digital marketing strategy? Call Dashboard Interactive at 763-242-2454 and let’s discuss how to get started.

As the year draws to a close, many companies are conducting year-end recaps and planning for the new year. They’re examining budgets and determining how much to invest in every area of their business, including marketing.

There’s an old adage that you have to spend money to make money, and that is very true for marketing. But good marketing is measurable marketing. Digital marketing offers excellent opportunities to test, measure, and improve marketing ROI. It is data-driven marketing that can help small-business owners generate more leads and sales from every dollar invested in marketing.

Every business is unique, and every digital marketing plan is unique. It should begin with an examination of the current market landscape, customer wants and needs, and sales goals. From there, a strategy can be created that encompasses many of the following marketing channels.

Small businesses focused on growth can look to the following marketing tactics to help them get started on their new year marketing budget. Each is highly measurable and effective if handled correctly.

Email Marketing

Email marketing continues to deliver the highest ROI among digital channels. Because email is inexpensive and easy to measure, it is ideal for testing different subject lines, offers, and audience segments. Personalized campaigns consistently outperform generic ones, underscoring the importance of segmentation and automation for maximizing returns. 

How do you get started? By building a permission-based email list. It is vitally important to market only to those who grant permission to receive your emails. Dashboard can help you strategize and enact a campaign to develop your email list and market to it effectively. 

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising provides immediate, measurable results. According to Google, businesses can expect $2 in revenue for every $1 spent. PPC works best for targeting customers who are ready to buy, making it an ideal option for small businesses seeking quick leads. Testing ad copy, keywords, and targeting options allows owners to refine campaigns and maximize ROI. 

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) offers exceptional long-term ROI. Positive ROI typically appears within 6-12 months, but the compounding effect of organic traffic makes SEO one of the most sustainable investments. Testing different keyword strategies and content formats helps identify which efforts generate the most visibility and conversions. 

AI search optimization is an important component of SEO and should not be overlooked. Investing in revisions to your existing content can help breathe new life into existing resources so that it appeals to ChatGPT snippets and other AI-enabled search platforms. 

Social Media Marketing

Social media has evolved into a vital channel for small business marketing. While the reach of organic social media posts has declined, paid social advertising continues to offer a solid return on investment. More than 70% of businesses invest in social media advertising, with 83% saying Facebook is the best channel for their business. (What works for you may vary.) Consider including social media advertising that supports your overall marketing strategy and is tailored to your customers—in other words, advertise on the platforms that your customers prefer to visit. 

Short-Form Video Content

Short-form video is popular and continues to dominate social media. It’s fairly easy to get started and offers the opportunity to help customers get to know your business quickly through stories. Testimonials, product demonstrations, behind-the-scenes at the business, and similar shorts tend to do well on many platforms. 

Local Listings and Reputation Management

Do you provide service only to local customers? If so, investing more in local search marketing makes sense. Ensuring your Google Business Profile, Google Maps information, and other local directories feature your company prominently goes a long way to supporting local sales. Positive reviews often serve as the deciding factor for new customers. Testing different approaches to review requests and monitoring feedback strengthens reputation and attracts new business. 

A Focus on Your Business’ Marketing Strategy

It may feel overwhelming to consider the many possible marketing channels and their costs. Dashboard Interactive Marketing can help you refine your digital marketing strategy and prioritize your small-business marketing based on your unique strengths, goals, and our 20+ years of experience. Together, we can creat and implement a marketing plan, test and measure it, and continue improving it to get the most value for your marketing dollar. Call us at 763-242-2454 to get started. 

Have you ever bought a donut—and looked forward to eating it all day—only to bite into it and find out it’s stale?

Nobody likes stale things. Stale bread. Stale donuts. Stale websites—yuck! Google dislikes stale websites. A stale website is a site that’s been sitting idle for a period of time. Nobody really knows exactly what period of time creates a ‘stale website,’ but a general rule of thumb is to update your site weekly or biweekly. 

These updates not only tell your customers you care, they also send important signals to Google. One of Google’s many ranking factors, or the numbers they crunch to decide where your website appears in the search engine results, is the frequency of updates. The more updates you make, the better. 

Here’s how to keep your site fresh to please search engines and to engage your customers. 

Site Updates: What and When to Update

There are certain rules of thumb about what to update and when to update it.

• Home Page: You should refresh your home page every two to three years, or more frequently if your services or offerings have changed significantly. It may be helpful to have a heat map analysis done to measure the places on your home page with the greatest engagement. This can help you tweak them to generate more leads or sales.
• About Page: Update it as soon as a change happens, such as staff joining or leaving the company. Be sure to add any awards or recognition your company has received, too.
• Blogs: Blogs should be updated weekly with fresh content. You can also pop back into older blog posts and update them with fresh insights. Google counts that as an udpate, too.
• Product or Service Pages: Tweak these quarterly to ensure everything is up to date.
• Plugins: Plugins running in the background of WordPress sites should be checked and updated weekly to ensure security features are enabled and up to date.
• Copyright: Yup, don’t forget to update the little @ in the footer of your site. Nothing says “stale” like a copyright date from several years ago…

Website Design

What about your overall website design? If the appearance of the design doesn’t look outdated, you can use the same design for several years. However, tastes—and best practices—do change. You may wish to discuss the site design with us to see if we can make incremental changes or tweaks, or if we recommend a complete refresh. 

Website Structure and Host

Changing your website structure such as moving from Wix to WordPress or changing hosts is a big move. It should not be undertaken lightly or frequently. Most business owners would benefit by working with professional web designers and SEO experts to ensure that every aspect of the site is addressed during the move, such as properly coding the redirect links and installing the right framework to meet your needs. 

Considerations such as connecting point of sale systems, ensuring contact forms and newsletter sign up boxes are working, and selecting a secure and stable framework are vital for website health. 

Time for a Fresh Look?

If it’s time for a change, or you know you want to update your website but you just can’t seem to get to it, let us know. We can help. Whether it’s refreshing the text on the home page, adding a blog entry, or ensuring site maintenance is done properly, call Dashboard Interactive Marketing at 763-242-2454. 

Remember when getting found online meant using plenty of keywords like “best pizza Minneapolis near me?” Those days are long gone. AI has stepped into the local search game, and it’s changing everything, but here’s the good news: it might actually make things better for your business. 

What’s All This AI Search Buzz About?

Picture this: instead of typing “Thai food” and scrolling through endless results, your customers can now ask Google something like “Where can I get really good pad thai that’s not too spicy for my kids?” And guess what? AI actually understands what they’re really looking for. 

We’re talking about tools like Google’s AI Overviews and Microsoft Copilot that act more like helpful assistants than old-school search engines. They’re getting very good at reading between the lines of what people actually want, not just what they type into a search engine. And other factors, such as recent updates and a solid, error-free website, also help you reach the top of the search engine ranks with AI-enabled search. 

What’s Changed with AI Search

Here’s something that might make you nervous: people are clicking less. AI is getting so good at summarizing information that customers might never visit your website at all. But before you panic, think of it this way—AI is talking about your business in those summary answers, you’re basically getting a personal recommendation from Google itself. 

Your Online Reputation is Everything (And It’s Everywhere)

AI isn’t just looking at your website anymore; it’s checking out your Instagram posts, reading your Yelp reviews, and seeing what people are saying about you on Facebook. Your entire online presence has become your storefront. That’s why it’s important to look beyond your website at improving a business’s reputation, and why having a strong social media presence, good reviews on Google or Yelp, and even forum discussions is important for local businesses seeking to dominate organic search in the age of AI. 

Your Action Plan: Making AI Work for You

Don’t worry. You don’t need a computer science or marketing degree to win at this. And, you have a powerful ally in your corner: the team at Dashboard Interactive. 

Here’s what actually matters to today’s AI-powered search engines.

Become Your Customers’ Go-To Resource

Think about the questions people ask you every day in your store or over the phone. Now put those answers on your website! AI loves businesses that actually help people. Write about customers looking for the perfect lawnmower blade or the unusual part for an older model car. Write about how you helped a customer measure windows for Venetian blinds, or found the perfect tablecloth to match their grandmother’s antique dishes. It’s all part of crafting a unique online presence aligned with your business that tells AI “this company understands its customers.”

Make It Easy for AI to Understand You

This sounds technical, but it’s really not. Use clear headings on your website, write descriptive page titles, and don’t be cryptic. Instead of “Our Services,” try “Complete Auto Repair Services in Downtown Springfield.” AI rewards clarity over creativity here.

Build Your Local Street Cred

Remember how word-of-mouth used to be everything? It still is. It’s just happening online now. Encourage happy customers to leave reviews, team up with other local businesses, and get involved in community events. AI notices when other people vouch for you.

Keep Your Story Straight Everywhere

Make sure your business hours, phone number, and address are identical on Google, Facebook, Yelp, and everywhere else you exist online. Inconsistent information confuses AI (and your customers), and nobody wins when that happens.

Keep an Eye on How You’re Showing Up

Just like you might drive by to see how your storefront looks, you should check how you appear in AI search results. Try searching for your business and see what comes up. Ask friends in other neighborhoods to do the same—you might be surprised by what you find.

Why AI Search Means Opportunities

Change can feel overwhelming, especially when it involves technology. AI search is actually making the playing field more fair, not less. 

Your customers aren’t just looking for the cheapest or biggest option anymore. They want businesses that understand them, help them, and feel authentic. Sound familiar? That’s exactly what small businesses have always been great at. 

The beauty of AI is that it’s getting better at recognizing quality over quantity, genuine helpfulness over marketing fluff, and real community connection over corporate speak. 

The Bottom Line

Your customers are having more natural, conversational searches, and they expect smarter, more helpful answers. The businesses that will thrive are the ones that embrace this shift and use it to showcase what they’ve always done best—taking care of their community.

You’ve built your business on personal relationships and knowing your customers inside and out. AI search doesn’t change that—it just gives you new ways to let those strengths shine online. And honestly? That’s pretty exciting.

So take a deep breath, update that Google Business Profile, and start thinking about how you can be even more helpful to the people in your community. The AI revolution isn’t coming—it’s here, and it’s ready to help great local businesses like yours get found by exactly the right customers.

The team at Dashboard Interactive Marketing can help you with AI search, search engine optimization, and creating a strong marketing strategy and plan for your local business. Call us at 763-242-2454 for more information.

Whether it’s back-to-school shopping, seasonal surges, or just plain old increased demand, every e-commerce store owner knows when to expect an uptick in business. Just like brick-and-mortar store owners spiff up their front window displays and rotate their stock in preparation for their busy season, so too should e-commerce store owners prep their online stores. Here’s what to focus on to attract both search engine and customer attention to your online storefront. 

Spruce Up Your Current SEO

Search engine optimization best practices remain the same despite changing Google algorithms, AI search, and seasonal patterns. But when was the last time you checked on the basics or asked Dashboard to provide an SEO audit to ensure everything is shipshape?

The time to fix both on-page and technical SEO is now. Don’t wait, as small problems can quickly add up, prevent Google from indexing and ranking your pages, and keep customers from finding you.

Consider checking the following basics:

• Keywords – are you ranking for different keywords now than in the past? Should you update older blog posts, landing pages, or web pages with new content that reflects updated keywords?
• Pictures – are all of your pictures sized properly, and do they load quickly? Large files can slow down a website’s speed and negatively impact search rankings.
• Links – do you have a good internal linking structure on your site that leads customers and search engine crawlers to more pages on your site? Are there any ‘dead ends’ you can fix by adding more links?
• Fix Orphans – “Orphans” are pages that aren’t linked from other pages. They can be invisible to search engines because nothing links directly to them. Add links to the orphan page from a keyword related to the orphan page topic to help it get ranked by search engines.
• Navigation – are your menus organized logically? Are they easy to use on both desktop and mobile devices?

AI for Search Engine Optimization

AI is transforming the search landscape in ways that are still evolving. What we know as of today is that search engines are becoming much more sophisticated at understanding not just what we’re looking for, but the intent behind our questions. Instead of the traditional keyword-based approach, we’re moving toward more natural, conversational website copy that includes multiple, related keyword phrases, rather than a script focused on one particular phrase. 

For seasonal shopping surges, consider these changes and create new web pages and content accordingly. The emphasis is moving from keyword density to providing original, relevant information. Think about your website copy like a conversation with your customers. What do they want to know? That’s a great starting point for writing natural, contextual content. 

Update Your Site For Seasonal Surges

If a specific holiday or season brings the lion’s share of business to your website, it makes sense to spend time customizing pages for that season.

Does it make sense to:

• Add seasonal tags to website headlines, such as “Great Gifts for Mom” or “Fall Favorites?”
• Update product pages with similar text, such as pitching a product as the answer to a seasonal problem, a perfect gift for that special someone, or another holiday use?
• Add internal links to provide search engines with more routes to follow to index and archive your pages?

Update Images to Enhance the Shopping Experience

Another way to get your website ready for seasonal shopping surges is to update the images or pictures on your website. A great way to tell if you need to update product pictures is to look at the questions customers are asking about your products.

• Would better pictures answer some of those questions? For example, a company selling lawn mower tires might include a ruler next to the tire to reinforce the list of sizes available, such as 15″, 18″, etc. 
• How about showing the product in use? Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, especially if you sell parts or components. It may be difficult for customers to tell if they’ve chosen the right valve, filter, or hose unless they actually see a picture of it attached to the unit it works with. Consider adding more pictures that show the product in action to help boost sales. 
• Do customers share pictures with you? Happy customers often share pictures on social media of themselves enjoying new products. Reach out to them and ask for permission to use their pictures on your website. Always take the extra step of asking for permission, rather than assuming permission, and get it in writing. 

Publish Seasonal Sales Weeks in Advance

It can take weeks for search engines to find and rank new product pages. Even submitting pages to Google and Bing’s indexing system manually doesn’t guarantee the search engines index them quickly. Therefore, be sure to have any new pages needed for seasonal or holiday sales published at least 6-8 weeks before the date you anticipate a surge in shopping activity. 

Add New Digital Marketing to the Mix

Want to spice it up even more? Consider adding new digital marketing channels to your online promotions. While not specifically improvements to your website, these ideas can help drive traffic to your site, and in return, provide leads and sales. 

• Build an automated email sequence to showcase holiday promotions and gift items. Leverage your existing customer email list and work with us to ensure it is used properly and effectively. 
• Add holiday-themed social media promotions. We can create short reels and graphics to add a lighthearted touch to seasonal and holiday promotions or other types of social media content suited to your brand. 
• How about a free holiday giveaway, like an e-book or other downloadable goody? Customers love them, and they can be lead magnets, attracting customers to your website and securing their permission to contact them via email. A home goods store might create a special holiday party recipe book; a hardware store might provide a downloadable tool checklist to ensure that a workbench is properly stocked. We can help develop ideas and create an effective lead magnet for your business. 
• Google Shopping enables customers to discover, compare, and purchase products from a wide range of online and local retailers. It serves as a digital storefront that can dramatically increase visibility, drive traffic to your website and immediately generate sales. By listing products on Google Shopping, you can tap into the vast reach of Google’s search ecosystem, appearing in front of shoppers who are actively searching for items they’re ready to buy. 

One of the key advantages of Google Shopping is its ability to showcase products with rich visuals, pricing, reviews, and availability. Maintaining accurate and up-to-date listings is essential. Shoppers rely on this information to make purchasing decisions, and outdated or incorrect data can lead to missed opportunities or lost trust. Retailers who update their Google Shopping listings to reflect seasonal inventory, promotional pricing, and timely availability are far more likely to capture this demand. 

Let Us Be Your Elves

Like Santa’s elves, the team at Dashboard Interactive Marketing can be your helpers behind the scenes, sprucing up your SEO, enacting advanced digital marketing tactics, and helping to generate leads and sales. Please contact us now for help with holiday ecommerce preparations. Call us at 763-242-2454.