Tuesday, February 17

🌟 Today’s Highlights:

• Meta launched its Manus AI integration in Ads Manager

• Cloudflare introduced a new Markdown for Agents feature

• You should add a human to your AI-generated content process

• 📊 Stat of the Day: 31% of Gen Z users turn to AI tools alongside traditional search engines. (Source: HubSpot)

• 💡 Today’s Insight: How to work with your SEO agency to drive better & faster results

✍️ What They Don’t Tell You About AI Content Creation

Ironically, content creation has become less about actually creating the content and more about planning it. Teams spend so much time in the AI briefing stage that when it comes time to draft, they need to cut corners with the output.

But if your content is subpar, all that planning was a waste of time. Proofed is a fully managed editorial service that proofreads, edits, and humanizes AI-generated content.

LLMs are a great start, but your copy always needs a human in the loop. Make your planning stage worth it →

⚡️ Today’s Headlines ⚡️

🔗 Meta launched a Manus AI Ads Manager integration. The new functionality allows all Meta advertisers to access Manus within the “Tools” listing in Ads Manager to analyze data, generate reports, and schedule recurring tasks.

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🤖 Cloudflare launched a Markdown for AI Agents feature. The new crawler auto-converts HTML to machine-friendly versions alongside traditional human-facing pages, cutting token usage by up to 80% compared to HTML.

🔎 My Go-To for AI SEO? The talented & cutting-edge folks over at Ranked! I personally use them to get all my projects ranked & showing up as answers to people's questions in ChatGPT. The best part? They handle everything, starting at just $99/mo. 👉🏼 Start your free trial here!

😬 LinkedIn provided an update on its efforts to combat engagement pods. The company is planning to take action against automated comments by removing them from the “Most Relevant” section of the post comments, stopping the comments from reaching beyond the commenter’s network, and potentially restricting accounts.

💡 Today’s Insight 💡

How to work with your SEO agency to drive better & faster results

🗞 TL;DR - It’s hard to do everything in-house, which is why SEO agencies can be a powerful tool. But outside tools are only as good as the partnership is. So, if you’re feeling like you’re not getting the most out of your SEO agency partnership, Search Engine Land has some tips on how to maximize the relationship.

💡 Insight - Here are Search Engine Land’s top tips for optimizing your relationship with your SEO agency:

Align SEO with what moves the business. Make sure to discuss how SEO can support your business goals before any campaign is launched. Even better, get cross-departmental stakeholders to weigh in to ensure other departments understand SEO’s function.

Set the agenda for a productive kickoff. Cover your pain points, the ins and outs of your business, the program’s scope, in-house capabilities, common roadblocks, and communication and reporting methods. Setting expectations early creates accountability.

Give your agency the visibility it needs to perform. Set up a protocol for agency access to reporting and analytics tools (Google Search Console, GA4, etc.), CRM data, past search context, and revenue or operational data as needed.

Create SEO content that’s powered by brand knowledge. Rather than relegating SEO content to the agency with minimal involvement, commit to being an active partner in the process. Align on voice and messaging early, transfer institutional knowledge, bring subject matter experts into the process, collaborate before content is written, and review drafts for relevance.

Remove the approval friction that slows SEO down. Approve all deliverables promptly and look into making the approval step more efficient by analyzing the workflow, eliminating unnecessary steps, and establishing clear guidelines upfront.

Prioritize implementation above all else. And if you don’t, don’t be surprised that you don’t get the results you initially expected. When internal teams stall on implementing SEO tasks, it can halt your agency’s momentum and waste your budget. Build in guardrails to fix any technical roadblocks.

Stay engaged after kickoff. SEO is a long game. Make sure to be present in reviews and check-ins, keep SEO connected to business changes, and use performance data to drive conversations and decisions.

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