By Ola King
While search marketers can get bogged down worrying about high quality content, successful link building strategies, and technically sound sites, when it comes to SEO, we need to take a step back and look at the what and why in order to get results.
To that end, Moz’s own Ola King walks you through the three main pillars, or as he calls them, “bosses”, of SEO work. All of your SEO strategies feed into their demands, but they all need different things.

Video Transcription
Hi, Moz fans. I’m Ola King. I work at Moz, and I’m excited to join you today for this edition of Whiteboard Friday. I will be talking to you about the three bosses of SEO.
Creating high quality content, making sure that you have a solid link building strategy, making sure your site is technically sound, these are great things to do when it comes to SEO. However, none of them would be as effective if you’re not taking a look at things from a strategic, wider lens. Basically, it means you have to take a step back and look at what you’re doing and why you’re doing them in order for you to get the results that you need.
So for SEO, there are three main pillars really to consider. I call them the three bosses of SEO. So that’s really your business, your searchers, and your search engines. Each of these bosses have their own individual needs.
Boss #1: Your business

So let’s start with the business. So these are the needs of the business. This is by no means a comprehensive list. I’m sure there are things that I’m missing. So if there are things that you think should be here, please leave a comment and we can have a discussion on that so we can all learn from each other. But the whole idea of this is to get you thinking about things from a broader lens before you dive into tactics.
Key metrics and goals
So the first one is the key metrics and goals. Any activity that is done without a goal is essentially a hobby, which is fine. However, if you want to do serious SEO work, you need to have a goal. In order to know what your goals are, I guess you have to look at your business goals.
Then that determines your marketing goals, which then determines your SEO goals. So understand what your KPIs are, understand what your priorities are, and that will then let you know what your next steps are. So, for example, if your goal is to get more traffic, you need to focus more on the top of funnel types of content, so like an ultimate guide for example.
If your goal is to get more leads, you might start looking at maybe your product comparison pages. Then if your goal is to have more sales, then it might be time to start optimizing your product pages for example. So always look at your key metrics and goals and then work from there.
Competitors
So the competitors is also something you should really consider. A lot of people are very familiar with who their direct competitors are in terms of product or services.
But when it comes to SEO, there is also the informational competitors, so people that might not be doing the same thing as you, but they provide information to your ideal audience. So always keep an eye on those competitors as well.
Resources
The resources. So look at the resources that you have in terms of time, budget, and personnel. If you don’t have the time for SEO, you might be able to consider outsourcing it. Or if you don’t have the right talent for link building, maybe you might want to partner up with an agency that does that. So always take stock of your resources before you start thinking of what you should do.
Brand identity + recognition
The brand identity and recognition also determines the types of content that you go after. It doesn’t matter if the content has a lot of volume and it’s trendy. If it doesn’t align with your brand in the long run, it’s not really a very good use of your time.
Area of expertise
The area of expertise as well is very much related to this. So what are you an expert at? Try to lean on your expertise. If you don’t have the expertise but you want to provide that information to your audience, maybe you might want to collaborate with other people that are better suited to that so that you can still complete your goal for your business and audience.
Strengths
Strengths is very related to expertise, but this is in terms of what talents, what skills do you have. Are you better at doing research and creating long-form content, or are you better at creating things that go viral and are more like listicles? Lean into your strengths and collaborate as needed with people that can help you with your weakness.
Time in business
The time in business also the time is the approach you take for SEO. A brand-new website, what you would need would be completely different from a business that has been around for a long time, that has a great website, but they’re just trying to do a refresh, which is also different from a business that has been around for a very long time but doesn’t have a very good online presence.
All of this would affect the way you approach content, link building, and trying to rank for those tough content. So that’s your business. As I mentioned, I’m sure there are things I’m missing. So I’m very curious to know the other things that you might come up with as well.
Boss #2: Searchers

So next up let’s look at the searchers. So these are the people that you are serving as a business. The first thing, when it comes to the searchers, is look at your persona. So what are the types of people that you’re trying to attract into your website? There is no point in creating any piece of content if you don’t even know who you are trying to attract with that content. So start with the persona.
Search intent and relevance
Once you’ve identified the persona, you can then start looking at the search intent and relevance.
So what are they looking for? The good news is the answer is already right on your search engine results pages. Do a quick search for your ideal keyword and you’ll be able to see the results that the search engines have deemed as the most appropriate for what your audience is looking for, which matches the search intent. Once you’ve done that, then you’re going to want to create the right content to satisfy the searcher’s intent.
Topics, not keywords
When you’re creating content, focus on topics and not keywords. So gone are the days where you just want to create your page and stuff it with as many keywords as you can and you start ranking and print out dollars. Not so effective anymore. You basically want to look at each page on your site covering a topic that you have a focus.
While you’re doing that, then you want to make sure that you have the most comprehensive page that answers that searcher’s intent. Cyrus Shepard actually has a great
We write a lot of articles here at PCMag, from breaking technology news and commentary to in-depth features and service stories, but in close to 44 years of publishing, it’s our hands-on, lab-tested reviews that matter most. Our team of experts is dedicated to testing, rating, and smartly comparing a wide variety of products and services to help you find the right technology to fit your life. It’s at the heart of what we do. Since November 2024, we’ve put nearly 1,500 products and services through our rigorous hands-on lab testing. Only about 25% earned the coveted PCMag Editors’ Choice award—our highest honour, reserved exclusively for true top performers. From that elite group, our editorial team distilled the field even further to create this definitive list: 110 standout products across 18 key categories. Every item here, covered in the past 12 months, has earned four stars or higher, and eight have achieved a perfect five-star rating. These are the best of the best—products we recommend without hesitation, backed by decades of collective testing expertise. Read on to see what the best tech journalists in the business liked most this year. Did your favourites make our list? Let us—and your fellow PCMag readers—know in the comments below. The M4-powered Apple MacBook Air 13-inch is our top pick for the best ultraportable for most people, delivering exceptional value. The starting configuration of this 2025 model saw a price cut, and it features a major boost to 16GB of base memory and the faster M4 chip, showing significant performance margins over the M3 in all tests. The fanless design runs silent and maintains Apple’s thinnest chassis, while the improved Neural Engine provides best-in-class AI performance for on-device tasks. With superb performance in benchmark tests and an outstanding 20-hour battery life, this ultraportable is unbeatable for mainstream buyers, students, and mobile creative professionals. Dell’s streamlined PC rebrand did nothing to hinder this fantastic big-screen laptop, whose frequently discounted price should entice a wide range of home users. The appeal lies in its lengthy battery life for its size, a sharp and fast screen, and a sturdy aluminium frame that feels plush for the price. Everyone wants a taste of the good life without paying too much, and Dell’s midrange, big-screen 16 Plus laptop delivers on the dream. The 2025 14-inch MacBook Pro isn’t just the newest MacBook; it’s also the best Apple laptop of the year, transforming a minor refresh into a massive performance leap thanks to the new M5 chip. The monster CPU and GPU upgrade brings vastly enhanced AI muscle and new Neural Accelerators integrated into the GPU cores, while maintaining the same starting price. It retains the superb ProMotion XDR display, now with a brightness adjustment for improved performance in ambient light, and the highly portable 3.4-pound chassis resembles the previous year’s model, down to the port selection. Positioned as the floor-level pro-grade Mac, it’s the ideal choice for power users, creative professionals, and even gamers. The top budget model of the year is easily the Asus Chromebook Plus CX34, which offers an unmatched mix of features and power for its price. At around $499, the CX34 offers seriously competitive performance, featuring an upgraded Intel Core i5 processor that feels fast and smooth, and easily meets the high standards of the Chromebook Plus program. Its attractive, friendly design and comfortable keyboard and touchpad make it an excellent choice for students and budget-conscious shoppers. Asus Chromebook Plus CX34 (Intel Core i5 13th Gen, 128GB UFS, 8GB RAM) review The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus sets a new benchmark for top-shelf clamshell-style Chromebooks. It features a stunning 15.6-inch AMOLED screen that elevates the visual experience, housed in an equally dazzling, ultra-premium metal chassis that is both slim and lightweight. Its snappy performance is complemented by new productivity keys and class-leading battery life. (It lasts all day off the plug.) If you’ve never considered a Chromebook, this machine is worth looking at. It’s ideal for buyers of premium laptops, mobile professionals, and everyday shoppers who consume lots of visual content. Razer’s latest Blade 14 gaming laptop is tops among compact gaming laptops. It’s tough to beat Razer’s materials and design, and this test model houses sizzling AMD Ryzen AI 9 and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 silicon. (It’s not too hot, however, thanks to an updated cooling system.) The Blade line has always been pricey, but that’s to be expected with this level of craftsmanship and attention to detail. Larger laptops can drive more power for less, but no one does it at 14 inches like the Razer Blade. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition is the world’s best laptop for business professionals. At just 2.17 pounds and featuring exceptional build quality, it’s a remarkable feat of engineering, making it the best Windows-based travel companion. This laptop glows with a gorgeous 2.8K OLED display, complemented by the fine keyboard and connectivity that the ThinkPad line is renowned for. Plus, it’s competitively priced against lesser-equipped competitors, making it the definitive choice for executives and constant travellers. The HP ZBook Power 16 G11 A is the cream of the crop for laptop workstations, delivering core professional capabilities without the top-end price tag. It maintains the premium metal design and build quality of HP’s higher-end ZBooks on a spacious 16-inch display, perfect for creative and design work. Crucially for mobile professionals, it achieves best-in-class battery life for a workstation. This is the ideal solution for budget-conscious creators, designers, and startup workers who need solid performance and enterprise management features at a reasonable cost. If professional content creation is your jam, you know it’s tough finding a laptop that meets your needs and makes the IT department happy. The Asus ProArt PX13 2-in-1, one of our top 2025 picks among high-end convertibles, specifically targets demanding creative professionals. It’s screaming-fast for Adobe software and other demanding applications. The flip-and-fold design is convenient for presenters and is complemented by a superb OLED touch screen and the innovative, creator-specific DialPad touchpad. The PX13 is the best premium convertible for designers and power users who need outstanding raw speed and features that directly boost productivity. Slim, powerful, and astonishingly light, the LG Gram Pro 2-in-1 16 is our favourite big-screen 2-in-1 laptop. Why? First and foremost, the super-slim magnesium chassis makes this 16-inch convertible feel like an ultraportable. Plus, the laptop features a dazzling OLED touch screen, comes with a stylus, and achieved a stellar near-18-hour battery running time in testing. And its Intel Core H-class processor delivered superior raw CPU performance and high numbers in productivity benchmarks, making the Gram Pro the best choice for multitaskers who need maximum power and longevity in a giant, yet featherweight, convertible. The entry-level iPad managed a rare feat in 2025: It got a spec update without a price increase. The new version features an Apple A16 chip, representing a significant upgrade from its predecessor, which uses an A14. It’s powerful enough to run all apps, stream movies and TV shows, and browse online. The base iPad might lack Apple Intelligence, but it’s still the most versatile tablet available at such an affordable price. The Samsung Galaxy S11 Ultra provides everything you need to elevate your productivity to the next level. Huge 14.6-inch display? Check. Powerful MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ processor with at least 12GB of RAM? Yes. Included S-Pen for taking handwritten notes? You betcha. Combine this with Samsung’s One UI software, Galaxy AI capabilities, and its impressive DeX multitasking functions, and you have a workhorse tablet capable of knocking out even your most difficult tasks—provided you can handle the price. The iPhone 17 is the best entry-level iPhone that Apple has ever made. Its combination of refined hardware, performance, and value makes it easy to recommend. It features the same 6.3-inch ProMotion display as the more expensive iPhone 17 Pro, offering silky smooth animations and an always-on display for less money. The device is a leader in photography, featuring a new front-facing camera that allows for taking wide or tall photos without rotating the device. Plus, it’s powered by Apple’s new A19 processor, which makes short work of demanding apps while offering near-Pro-level power for complex tasks, such as generating AI images and video editing. The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, powered by premium hardware, delivers the most powerful and versatile Android experience available. Inside is the top Qualcomm mobile processor (customized for the platform), plenty of RAM, and ultra-capable cameras. Galaxy AI, Samsung’s suite of AI tools, features both utilitarian functions (organizing notes) and amusing capabilities (turning a doodle into a work of art). The S25 Ultra’s included S Pen also gives you greater control to sketch or write things out. 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It’s IP54-rated, meaning it can withstand dust and water splashes—a level of protection rare on devices at this price. To top it all off, Samsung backs the phone with six years of operating system upgrades and security updates. The Apple Watch Series 11 is the top smartwatch for most iPhone users. It offers all of Apple’s best wearable features, with the option of a stylish aluminium or titanium build. The display appears crisp, even at an angle, and both the physical controls and the touch screen offer pristine performance. Upgrades for this generation include a scratch-resistant cover, longer battery life, and optional 5G connectivity. Apple offers an unbeatable selection of wearable apps, and the new watchOS 26 software brings improvements like an AI-powered Workout Buddy, a holistic Sleep Score, hypertension notifications, and a useful wrist flick gesture. Combining Google’s Gemini with Samsung’s Galaxy AI, the Galaxy Watch 8 boasts the best AI capabilities of any wearable we’ve tested. Gemini is useful for day-to-day tasks; it can respond to voice commands and control your watch, and Galaxy AI offers detailed, personalized exercise and sleep coaching. While battery life isn’t one of its strengths, the Galaxy Watch 8 offers many other useful features, including the ability to measure your antioxidant levels, calculate your body fat percentage, and track your snoring when paired with a Samsung phone. If you want a personal workstation you can wear on your face, the XReal One Pro glasses are your best choice. These prism display smart glasses project a bright, colourful 1080p picture with a 57-degree field of view from any device that can output video over USB-C. Plus, they can work as an ultra-wide 3,840-by-1,080 screen when connected to a computer. Built-in motion tracking provides a more immersive experience than similar smart glasses. They even feature lenses that can darken, allowing you to block out distractions. The Samsung Galaxy Fit3 offers simple yet capable health tracking at an affordable price. Its color AMOLED touch screen looks sharp, its heart rate monitoring proved accurate in our tests, and it lets you take blood oxygen saturation readings on demand. While it doesn’t offer access to third-party apps or have many connectivity features, the Fit3 tracks exercise and sleep as well as devices that cost multiple times the price, and its weeklong battery life eclipses that of most smartwatches. If you’re looking to build muscle at home, the Tonal 2 offers the best and safest AI personal training experience. Upgrades for this generation include a 50-pound increase in maximum resistance (up to 250 pounds) and a built-in movement-tracking camera for helpful form feedback. Like the original, this version takes the guesswork out of lifting, setting the weight for you and increasing it as you become stronger, so you’re always challenged. The Tonal 2 gives you access to a wide range of classes, including heart-pumping Aero (aerobic) workouts that combine cardio and strength training, plus recovery modalities for your rest days. The SimpliSafe Home Security System makes it easy to safeguard your home without ongoing fees. SimpliSafe offers an ideal balance of performance, high-quality service, ease of use, and value, consistently ranking among the top home security brands in our Readers’ Choice surveys. The brand offers numerous preconfigured kits, while components can be purchased separately to create your own package or expand on one. You can opt for professional monitoring or use the system as a local alarm without incurring any monthly fees. Arlo’s Essential Pan Tilt Indoor builds on the foundation laid by the Essential Indoor Camera, adding several notable upgrades, including the company’s first mechanical pan-and-tilt system, a 2K-resolution sensor, and AI-driven features such as event captions, fire detection, and facial recognition. As is typical with Arlo products, a subscription is required for video recordings and certain advanced capabilities. Even so, at its low price point, the Essential Pan Tilt Indoor delivers an outstanding blend of value, performance, and functionality. The Aqara Camera Hub G5 Pro goes beyond the basics of smart home surveillance, offering 2K video, colour night vision, local storage for video clips, and AI-powered smart alerts. It can detect people, animals, packages, and even certain sounds, like a baby crying, and stands out from competing models by doubling as a smart home hub. With built-in Thread and Zigbee antennas, you can use it to connect compatible devices to the cloud. If you’re building an interoperable smart home, the G5 Pro can act as a cornerstone. The Eufy FamiLock S3 Max is a combination smart lock and video doorbell that excels at both roles. As a smart lock, it’s responsive and allows for flexible entry via a palm scanner, touch screen keypad, mobile app, voice control, or a physical key. As a doorbell, it shoots crisp 2K video and offers intelligent motion alerts, internal video storage, and a battery backup system. It also features a neat interior display that acts like a digital peephole, showing you who’s on your porch. A simple and affordable way to monitor your front porch, the TP-Link Tapo D225 Video Doorbell Camera offers the convenience of either battery or hardwired power, depending on your installation needs. It delivers sharp 2K video with a 180-degree, head-to-toe view and supports local or cloud storage for recorded footage. The Tapo D225 is compatible with several third-party smart home devices and supports Alexa, Google Assistant, and IFTTT. In testing, it consistently delivered quick and accurate notifications. The Lorex 2K Smart Wi-Fi Lightbulb Camera is a 2K outdoor surveillance camera that fits a standard E27/E26 screw-in base lighting fixture, making installation simple. The camera delivers sharp video, responsive motion detection, and colour night vision, plus it supports voice control via Alexa and Google Assistant. The dimmable LED lamp produces 400 lumens at a 6,500K white colour temperature, and the enclosure has an IP65 weatherproof rating, making this camera light perfect for porch fixtures. Thanks to mechanical pan and tilt, this device ensures your entryway doesn’t have any blind spots. Lorex 2K Wi-Fi Smart Lightbulb Camera (Cloud-Enabled) review The Ecobee Smart Thermostat Essential brings expandable smarts to your HVAC system for an affordable price. It installs quickly and offers helpful energy-saving options to improve the efficiency of your heating and cooling schedule. You can buy compatible room sensors separately to tailor your settings for each location and ensure consistent temperatures throughout your house. It may not offer all the features you get with more expensive smart thermostats, but it works with all major smart home platforms for seamless integration with third-party devices, offering tremendous value. Any screen can display photos, but few make them actually look like printed images. The 12-inch Aura Aspen’s anti-glare finish gives images the impression of being well-lit prints as opposed to LCD pixels. It’s simple to use, automatically adjusts the screen brightness based on the room’s ambient light, comes with unlimited cloud storage, and can be preloaded with photos—which is great if you’re giving it as a gift. The best robot vacuum that you can buy right now, the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni does it all. It vacuums thoroughly with good pickup scores across a variety of surfaces. It mops vigorously with a unique roller design that refreshes itself as it works to limit cross-contamination while increasing scrubbing power compared with traditional pads. An advanced AI-enabled navigation system helps the robot manoeuvre efficiently while deftly avoiding obstacles. Even better, its base station washes and dries the mop and empties the dustbin between runs. The TP-Link Tapo RV30 Max Plus offers the best value for your money of any robot vacuum we’ve tested. It has premium features like a self-emptying dustbin and LiDAR-powered navigation, both rarities for a budget-priced model. While its suction power doesn’t match that of more expensive vacuums, it performed admirably in our tests on both carpet and hardwood floors and did a fine job of mopping. The surprisingly versatile Tapo RV30 Max Plus will take care of your spot cleaning at an affordable price. Most window air conditioners have to be removed and stored for the winter, but not this one. The GE 11,000 BTU Heat/Cool Air Conditioner doubles as a heater, making it ideal for year-round use. It supports Alexa and Google Assistant, works with third-party devices through IFTTT integration, and even offers usage reports, making it easier to harness its automation abilities to reduce energy consumption. Perhaps most importantly, it heats and cools quickly, so you don’t need to leave it running constantly. However, if you need to turn it off (or on) remotely, you can do so from your phone. GE 11,000 BTU Smart Heat/Cool With Heat Pump Electronic Window Air Conditioner (AWGP12) review A smart ceiling fan is a convenient way to keep a room cool, and this model also functions as an adjustable, app-enabled light. It can emit not only cool and warm white hues, but also colors to help you set the mood. Its five 52-inch blades and 12-speed DC motor deliver maximum airflow of up to 6,040 cubic feet per minute. Meanwhile, built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth make it easy to connect to the Dreo mobile app or to control it with Alexa, Google voice commands, or Siri Shortcuts. There’s even a bedtime light feature that allows you to set a fade-out time for the white lamp. It’s reliable, feature-packed, and reasonably priced. The Dyson Hot+Cool Formaldehyde HP09 is more than a highly capable air purifier that delivers detailed pollution readings. It’s also a fan and a space heater with 350 degrees of oscillation. The HP09 is full of thoughtful design touches, like the built-in LED that dims at night and a small gold remote that magnetically attaches to the top of the purifier. It also works with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and supports Siri shortcuts. It’s feature-laden and versatile, setting the bar for smart air purifiers. Mowing the lawn can feel like a Sisyphean task, but it doesn’t have to with the Segway Navimow X390. This deluxe robot lawn mower can cover up to 2.5 acres in a day, thanks to its large battery and speedy navigation of up to 3.3 feet per second. It can also achieve incredible accuracy thanks to the inclusion of 4G cellular connectivity and a centimeter-level accurate RTK antenna for GPS. It self-docks when it’s time to recharge, it’s extremely quiet compared with traditional push mowers, and its software is as polished as its hardware, making it the best robot lawn mower for large yards. The Dreame Z1 Pro is a cordless robot cleaner that uses multiple sensors to precisely map and navigate your pool. It delivers outstanding cleaning performance and parks at the side of your pool for easy retrieval from the water when its basket needs to be emptied. Two pump motors provide 8,000 gallons per hour of suction, making it one of the most powerful cleaners we’ve come across. Additionally, it features a light-activated underwater remote control, a rare feature among cordless models that makes spot cleaning easy. Smart bird feeders transitioned from an emerging product category to a commodity item relatively quickly. There are dozens of cheap feeder cams on Amazon, all of which qualify as “meh” when it comes to picture quality. The Bird Buddy Smart Feeder Pro costs more, but justifies its price with a camera that snaps sharp 5MP photos and 1440p video, allowing you to capture the colourful plumage of your backyard flock with rich texture in a social-friendly vertical aspect. Its app is cool too; it identifies visitors by species and sends them to your phone as virtual postcards, saving your favourites in a digital bird book. Apple’s latest earphones are quite simply the best we’ve reviewed this year. The company redesigned the buds to better fit in your ears and added a new silicone-and-foam eartip to create a strong seal, ensuring they stay in place comfortably while blocking sound more effectively. Apple also improved the audio, enhanced noise cancellation, extended battery life, and added advanced features like heart rate detection and in-call language translation—all while maintaining the same $249 price as the previous model. With the Soundcore Liberty 5, Anker has brought solid active noise cancellation (ANC) to one of its most affordable true wireless earphones. These low-cost buds have crisp sound, long battery life, and surprisingly good ANC for the price. They are comfortable to wear, resistant to sweat and rain, include easy controls, and have a powerful companion app for managing the sound and features. All this, plus support for high-quality Bluetooth codecs, makes for a winning combination at a great price. Sony didn’t reinvent the wheel with its WH-1000XM6 noise-cancelling headphones, but it made nearly everything about them better. Most importantly, Sony beats Bose at reducing unwanted noise while offering a more natural sound profile with support for high-resolution audio. Battery life is slightly longer, the controls are intuitive, and the companion app features a 10-band EQ for fine-tuning. Sony also reintroduced several fan-requested features, including a folding design for improved portability, additional padding on the headband, and a more compact travel case. Simply put, these are the best noise-cancelling headphones on the market. The Marshall Middleton II takes a step forward by combining improved stereo audio, longer battery life, and additional features into a speaker that strikes a pleasing balance between presence and portability. It bears Marshall’s signature design language in a water-resistant package that’s small enough to toss in a bag but large enough to push great sound across your backyard. The speaker features simple and versatile joystick control, easy-to-use bass and treble knobs, and a 3.5mm aux input. Additionally, it works in conjunction with a powerful companion app to further refine your music. It’s on the pricey side, but totally worth it. The standard Amazon Echo is no longer available, but the Echo Dot Max is a worthy replacement for the role of the Goldilocks Alexa smart speaker. It’s much more powerful than the Echo Dot and less than half the price of the Echo Studio, with big, balanced sound for its small size. It’s also packed with smarts, including Wi-Fi 6E, three home hub standards (Matter, Thread, and Zigbee), and immediate access to the new AI-enhanced Alexa+ voice assistant, making it the best value in the Echo lineup. LG’s C-series has long been one of the best choices in OLED TVs, offering a fantastic picture at a great value. The C5 lives up to that legacy, boasting a bright panel that offers wide, accurate colours. It’s also thin, sleek, and loaded with features, including Apple AirPlay, Google Cast, and hands-free Amazon Alexa support. Don’t be intimidated by the official retail price, either; we’ve consistently seen the 65-inch C5 available for at least $1,000 less since July. When shopping for a budget-friendly TV, you should usually be prepared for a dimmer-than-ideal panel. But not with the Hisense U65QF. It’s the first TV in this price range we’ve seen that can output more than 1,000 nits of light, an important benchmark that does justice to high dynamic range content. Its colour performance is similarly excellent, and its 144Hz refresh rate and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro make it great for gaming. It also supports Apple AirPlay, which isn’t common on the Fire TV platform it uses. Although it doesn’t offer hands-free voice control, you can still interact with Alexa through the remote. Google left a big hole in the media hub market when it discontinued the Chromecast. Its replacement, the Google TV Streamer, is twice as expensive and offers little additional value. Fortunately, Walmart’s Onn brand has filled that niche nicely with the Onn 4K Pro. It’s by far the best-equipped $50 media hub we’ve tested, with 4K output supporting Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. Other features include Wi-Fi 6, an Ethernet port, a handy remote finder, and hands-free Google Assistant with Gemini AI support. The Hisense C2 Ultra is an excellent projector for all-around home entertainment, brimming with high-brightness output, top-tier image quality, and a Designed for Xbox certification. The C2 Ultra’s picture shines by supporting every current variation of HDR, as well as Filmmaker and IMAX Enhanced modes, and handling each one effectively. It’s our top pick for a high-end room-to-room portable projector, and it should please movie watchers just as well as it will thrill gamers. Pros and shutterbugs love full-frame cameras, which have image sensors as large as an old-school 35mm film frame, and the Z5II is just about the best value in this arena. It boasts an impressive spec list, highlighted by in-body stabilization, 24MP snapshots, and 4K N-RAW video, and is complemented by a robust set of lenses and accessories. If you want to get started with full-frame photography today, the Z5II is the way to go. The Nikon Z50II brings upmarket features like weather sealing, autofocus with intelligent subject tracking, and 10-bit 4K video to an entry-level APS-C sensor model. It’s surprisingly small and remains affordable at a time when costs are rising across the photo industry. We’re especially pleased with the Nikon Z lens library, which includes basic options like the DX 16-50mm F3.5-5.6 (available in a kit with the camera) and high-end glass like the recent DX 16-50mm F2.8 VR. The Z50II is a camera that will please both beginners and experienced photographers. The Camp Snap Digital is proof that you don’t have to spend a lot to get a fun digital camera. The $70 snapshot maker was initially marketed to summer camp kids who aren’t allowed to use devices with LCD screens (hence the name), but artistic photographers who appreciate lo-fi images should pick one up, too. It’s as simple as a digital camera gets—there’s just one button, an optical viewfinder, and a fixed focus lens. Picture quality isn’t professional, but it is enhanced by the option to create and load your own filters, adding a personal touch. This has been a great year for lenses, with a few standout contenders in the category. The Sigma 135mm F1.4 DG Art emerges as a sublime choice for photographers seeking to capture portraits with backgrounds that blur into the distance. You simply won’t find a better medium telephoto prime. Lightning-fast focus, sturdy construction, and excellent flare resistance seal the deal. The only problem? The 135mm F1.4 Art is only available for Sony and L-Mount cameras, so Canon and Nikon owners are out of luck. If you want to experience what it was like to take instant pictures in the ’70s and ’80s, then you’ll want a Polaroid camera. The Flip captures large 3.1-inch square photos on colour or black-and-white film, the same size as SX-70 and 600 cameras of yesteryear. Film is expensive ($2.50 per frame) and requires special handling, so Polaroid isn’t for the faint of heart (or tight of wallet). However, the Flip’s sonar autofocus system and four-zone lens help curb the number of bad photos you’ll take. Go with Fuji Instax models if ease of use is a priority, but photographers can create magic with Polaroid film on the Flip if they’re willing to accept a bit of a learning curve. The Insta360 X5 comes out on top of new 360-degree action cameras this year, boasting great video quality and durability. It surpasses the GoPro Max2 and DJI Osmo 360 as a camera for videographers and adventure seekers, as it makes it incredibly easy to creatively reframe its spherical video. The footage is crisp too, with 8K resolution and HDR colour. You can take the X5 anywhere—even underwater—and easily replace its lens guards if you destroy them in your pursuit of the perfect shot. DJI makes the best camera drones, and the Flip is the top entry-level model it’s ever made. Its 249g weight means you can fly it without having to register with the FAA, which is convenient. It can be purchased with either the RC-N3 remote, which works with your phone, or the RC-2, which features a built-in touch display. Built-in propeller guards and forward obstacle sensors help you avoid accidents, and the camera records smooth 4K60 video with HDR colour. This may be the last year we see a DJI drone in our winner’s list, as the China-based company skipped the US market for its last couple of drone releases; it faces a potential legislative ban by the end of the year. The best have-it-all desktop for most people this year is Lenovo’s premier all-in-one PC, one of its premium Yoga products with a sharp screen and a stand that incorporates wireless phone charging. Lenovo also includes a wireless keyboard and mouse in the box, making the Yoga AIO 27 a truly complete computing package. The speedy performance, simple port access, and sharp webcam round out this whole-home PC hub. It’s the mainstream desktop of the year. Geekom’s excellent, affordable mini desktop does a top-notch Mac mini impression for a little less cash, bringing more ports, memory, and storage (but a little less when it comes to top speed). Any computer with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD would be a steal at this price, but Geekom makes good on the deal with decently competitive performance from a midrange AMD mobile processor. The whole package amounts to a top-notch cheap computer and one of the best deals in desktop PCs today. Small PCs are generally expected to be short on power, but Falcon Northwest pushes and arguably breaks the limits of that concept with its FragBox line of built-to-order desktops. This year’s model manages to cram in a full Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 with a top-end AMD Ryzen X3D processor, producing some of the fastest frame rates we’ve seen this year in games testing. Naturally, this level of performance at this size requires extreme craftsmanship. In our minds, it’s well worth paying for. HP’s top-end all-in-one PC delivers a premium experience unlike any other AIO we’ve tested this year, and proved itself competitive in performance with Apple’s iMac. The desktop’s large and super-sharp 4K display, coupled with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 laptop GPU inside, makes for slick media editing, as well as workable mainstream PC gaming if you dial things down to 1080p. Topped off with conveniences like ports within the display stand and a hide-away webcam, the OmniStudio is the AIO to beat. Velocity Micro is a boutique system builder, but it somehow beats many big-box retail PC vendors on price for the same parts. The Raptor Z55a is what we like to call a “stealth” gaming PC: It looks like a buttoned-up office workstation, yet it hides a mega-powerful 4K-ready GPU paired with other top-end components. While some might enjoy the bombast of modern glass-enclosed gaming PCs with oodles of RGB lights, the Z55a delivers the best gaming performance for the price, all in a sleek custom case that saves space. Some offices require more out of their all-in-ones, and this ThinkCentre rises to the occasion with full desktop-grade processing inside. It’s a 24-inch system with a no-nonsense 1080p screen. This PC is an all-in-one work-crunching system for offices with moderate computing needs, potent enough for all general professional tasks and even some media production or other intense projects. The desktop can even function as a standalone monitor via the HDMI 1.4-in/HDMI 2.1-out combo port, allowing the AIO to live on when the PC portion is obsolete. The Mac Studio’s M4 Max processor offers ceiling-shattering performance in reverse proportion to this whisper-quiet desktop’s size. (Indeed, the Mac Studio’s testing results challenge what we’ve seen from many much larger desktops.) This edition of the Mac Studio introduces cutting-edge Thunderbolt 5 connectivity for ever-faster data transfers. For AI-assisted data crunching and multi-core graphics rendering in a small box, the Mac Studio simply can’t be beat this year. Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5080 is among the most powerful graphics cards available today, and the one we’d recommend most among the high-end options. Both the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 4090 offer better performance, but those are priced at $1,999 and $1,599, respectively. The RTX 5080 will be more than enough to satisfy gamers, anyway, as it’s easily able to run modern games at 4K with topped-out settings. Plus, you can always flip on DLSS 4 for an extra boost if needed. One of the most potent midrange graphics cards of this generation is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti. Featuring 16GB of GDDR7 memory, it delivers a substantial performance upgrade over its predecessor and dominates the graphics card market in its price range. While not ideal for gaming at 4K, the RTX 5060 Ti is highly capable of gaming at 1080p and 2K. A lesser model with 8GB of RAM is also available if you want to save a few bucks, but opt for the 16GB so you’re assured enough graphics memory. The Intel Arc B580 displays a truly impressive leap in performance over Intel’s previous generation of graphics cards. Though you can get more performance by opting for something like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 for a bit more cash, you won’t find anything quite as capable as the Arc B580 at this price. It remains the fastest graphics cardin its range. It’s arguably best suited for gaming at 1080p, but depending on the settings you use and the age of the game, playing at resolutions up to 4K is also possible. Just don’t expect that while running the latest titles. We’ve been critical of AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology in the past, but with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, it finally got the tech right. When it comes to gaming, this CPU offers a clear performance advantage over all other processors currently on the market. Meanwhile, it offers similar or slightly better performance than the Ryzen 9 9950X in terms of non-gaming tasks. Best of all, AMD doesn’t set a heavy premium on this technology. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D costs only slightly more than the 9950X, making it unquestionably the best high-end processor for gaming PCs in 2025. The ASRock Z890 Taichi motherboard is among the best we’ve reviewed to support Intel’s newest desktop processors, the “Arrow Lake” 200S family. The overclocking properties are excellent (anchored by a robust power-delivery system), and the ATX-format Z890 Taichi has top-tier connectivity bits that include built-in Wi-Fi 7, a 5GbE port, and two Thunderbolt 4/USB4 ports. A generous six M.2 slots and top-notch audio hardware complement this luxurious board. Corsair’s Air 5400 features an airflow design we’ve never seen before. PC cases are typically divided into two main compartments, with the power supply cordoned off from the motherboard and expansion cards. The Air 5400, in contrast, features a third compartment that’s specially designed to enhance the case’s thermal performance. This front-panel airflow chamber isolates the heat generated by the CPU’s liquid cooler, pushing it out of the system through a gap in the case’s right side and keeping that hot air from heating up other components. Beyond that, the Air 5400 is a well-crafted modern PC case featuring high-quality air intake fans, three USB-C ports on the top I/O panel, and hinged side panels that facilitate easy component access. With its WD Black SN8100, Sandisk shows that you can have great performance in a PCI Express 5 SSD. It blew away most of our benchmark records, including tallying the fastest raw (sequential read and write) speeds we’ve ever seen in an SSD—without requiring massive heat-dissipation gear. It ships barebones, but we do recommend a compact heatsink for it. Acronis True Image software and TCG/Opal serve to sweeten the deal when you purchase. Gaming routers are typically more expensive than general-purpose Wi-Fi routers and mesh systems, but in return, you’re rewarded with premium performance. With the TP-Link Archer GE650, you get outstanding Wi-Fi 7 connections and robust features without having to spend a bundle. The GE650 offers several gamer-centric options, including optimized acceleration settings, a dedicated game control panel, and an edgy design. It also offers six multi-gig networking ports. At a price under $300, it’s an excellent value. TP-Link Archer GE650 BE11000 Tri-Band Wi-Fi 7 Gaming Router review The eero 7 Pro is an excellent, reasonably priced Wi-Fi 7 mesh system that uses 5GbE jacks and 6GHz transmissions to deliver strong wireless performance to every corner of your home. The Pro 7 is also a solid performer, delivering a strong Wi-Fi signal to all corners of our test house. It’s easy to set up and offers robust home automation features, including support for Thread, Matter, and Zigbee. If you’re looking for a whole-home mesh solution that offers impressive Wi-Fi 7 performance, look no further than the eero Pro 7. Equipped with four multi-gig LAN ports, five high-speed USB ports, and a powerful AMD Ryzen CPU, the AS6804T delivers excellent performance. We appreciate that Asustor’s app store features more than 200 apps for backing up data, setting up the NAS as a cloud or media server, storing and organizing photos, and much more. At $1,299, it’s one of the most expensive four-bay NAS devices we’ve tested, but its performance and high-end, high-speed components make it easy to recommend if you need real NAS muscle. Available in capacities up to 8TB, Micron’s Crucial X10 matches the highest capacity available in external SSDs sold through consumer retailers—and at a surprisingly affordable price. Although the X10’s lack of hardware-based encryption limits its corporate use, this voluminous, mildly ruggedized SSD is ideal for storing a media or game library, or serving as a scratch disk for videographers or photographers. The Epson EcoTank ET-3950 stands out for its fast simplex (one-sided) printing and its automatic duplex scanning, making it the all-in-one inkjet printer to beat for micro or home offices. For scanning and copying, the printer offers both a letter-size flatbed and a 30-sheet page-reversing document feeder. It’s highly suitable for moderate to heavy-duty use by micro and home office standards. If you need to scan or copy double-sided, multipage documents, even just once in a while, this is the printer you need. The Brother MFC-L2900DW XL mono laser all-in-one printer delivers every feature a small office needs, including the convenience of single-pass duplexing for copying, scanning, and faxing. It’s expensive compared with some older, larger models that offer similar capabilities. However, the MFC-L2900DW’s standout feature is its ability to scan in duplex while remaining a relatively compact printer. It’s ideal for use in micro to small offices, or as a personal desktop printer. High-quality photo output, plus the ability to scan and copy, makes the Epson XP-8800 an excellent choice for home use. Built around a six-colour ink system that helps boost photo quality, it offers a flatbed for scanning and copying, supports mobile printing, and can even print directly on appropriately surfaced discs. We appreciate its well-thought-out convenience features, such as a 4.3-inch colour touch screen for commands and its ability to automatically extend the output tray from its closed position when you start a print job. Epson Expression Photo XP-8800 Wireless Colour All-in-One Printer review The Bambu Lab P2S delivers professional-level output in a desktop 3D printer that doesn’t require constant adjustments. For newcomers, the P2S offers a remarkably gentle learning curve thanks to automatic calibration, guided maintenance, and built-in error detection. For experienced users, the printer’s speed and reliability translate into faster iteration and less downtime. Plus, the P2S Combo we reviewed, which includes Bambu’s four-filament-spool material management system, is reasonably priced compared with similar 3D printing systems. Ricoh’s top-of-the-line ScanSnap iX2500, available in white or black, combines fast scan speeds with a large paper capacity (100 sheets), an effective skew-detection system, and a receipt-scanning attachment. Given its jam-packed lineup of features, the iX2500 is fully competitive with models that cost considerably more. It’s a superior desktop document scanner for homes and small offices at a very reasonable price, and it’s also a bit smaller than much of its direct competition. Logitech has done the impossible, improving on a near-perfect mouse (the MX Master 3) with the MX Master 4. The newest MX Master is packed with new features, including haptic feedback and an Action Ring digital overlay, which streamlines workflows with app-specific shortcuts. It updates the mouse’s design with smart revisions and enhancements, but it doesn’t lose what made the previous mouse such a star. It feels good in your hands; it’s quiet, fast, and responsive; and it’s packed with productivity features via the Logi Options software. Trust us: It won’t take you long to see why the Master MX 4 is a cut above all other computer mice. The SM3 Slim Mechanical Backlit Bluetooth Keyboard is not the flashiest keyboard in the world, but it doesn’t have to be. It more than lives up to Satechi’s reputation for stylish, top-notch Mac keyboards. (And it works on Windows, too!) Under its handsome façade, the keyboard is a dependable daily driver, with plenty of wireless connectivity options and a quiet, low-profile design that’s perfect for shared office spaces. It’s an easy recommendation, especially for Mac users who don’t want to pay a premium for Apple’s Magic Keyboard. Satechi SM3 Slim Mechanical Backlit Bluetooth Keyboard review HP’s ultrawide Series 7 Pro 34-inch WQHD Conferencing Monitor (734pm) packs a massive set of features, anchored by a super-sharp webcam for online meetings and a beautiful screen suitable for occasional creative visual work, such as photo or video editing. At a price that targets high-level employees, the 734pm is a good choice for managers whose schedules are packed with online meetings and who are involved in approving art concepts. Its relatively low pixel density makes it less than ideal as a dedicated creator-centric monitor, but it’s the best panel for relentless online collaborators we’ve seen all year. HP Series 7 Pro 34 inch WQHD Conferencing Monitor (734pm) review The Asus ROG Swift PG27UCDM is equipped with the latest premium features, including a 4K resolution OLED screen, a 240Hz peak refresh rate, and DisplayPort 2.1 technology to fully leverage the capabilities of the latest GPUs. The QD-OLED screen delivers an exceptionally vivid color range and high brightness. The high pixel density of 166 pixels per inch contributes to clear text and enhanced detail. Add low input lag to the equation, and the PG27UCDM proves to be a supremely capable high-end gaming monitor. The Razer Blackshark V3 Pro wireless gaming headset is $50 more than the already excellent Blackshark V2 Pro it replaces, but that higher price is justified by a big addition: active noise cancellation. The ANC can effectively block out any distractions while you’re playing, while providing clear and detailed sound with spatial audio for an immersive gaming experience. Its mic provides clear voice chat, and integrated Bluetooth means you can use the headset to listen to music on the go. You don’t have to spend a lot for a well-made gaming chair. The AndaSeat Novis is comfortable and sturdy, stuffed with dense foam where cheap gaming chairs often leave hollow spaces. It also has a better-than-average three-year warranty (which you can increase to five years if you share a picture of your chair on social media). It’s otherwise a no-frills chair, but that doesn’t detract from it being the best thing gamers can sit in this year. The original Nintendo Switch was an incredible gaming system that allowed you to play it at home on your TV or on the go in your hands. Nintendo simply made the Switch 2 even better. The new edition is significantly more powerful and can run games at 4K resolution on a TV. Its integrated 7.9-inch 1080p screen is larger and sharper, featuring a 120Hz refresh rate for smooth action. The new Joy-Con controllers feature a mouse mode, providing an additional control option for games that support it. Oh, and there’s a second USB-C port on the top, which is really useful. Simply put, we’ll be playing this console well into 2026 and beyond. The ROG Xbox Ally X is a significant partnership between Asus and Microsoft, and it largely succeeds. The Ally X reimagines the original Asus ROG Ally handheld’s design, now featuring controller grips that resemble those of an Xbox gamepad. (It’s easily one of the most comfortable handhelds we’ve reviewed to date.) The new Xbox full-screen experience is also a significant improvement, enabling you to download and play your games across multiple platforms. While we’d prefer that the Ally X not run the resource-intensive Windows 11, games nevertheless look good and perform extremely well on it. South of the Midnight is a testament to the power of specificity. As a game, it’s a pleasant throwback to an earlier era of action-adventure, with its blend of nimble platforming and straightforward combat. However, a stunning presentation and emotional storytelling elevate the experience, transporting us to a mythological version of the American Deep South that we rarely see in games. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll…fight a giant alligator. Although the Nintendo Switch 2 launched with Mario Kart, the flagship single-player adventure for the new system’s debut is Donkey Kong Bananza. In dropping the cheery cheery plumber for the wild gorilla, the game is far more action-packed than your typical first-party Nintendo title. Gameplay mostly involves much smashing of enemies and the environment around you, but even amidst the carnage, Bananza features creative abilities, brilliant crafted levels, and sophisticated interlocking systems that encourage player experimentation. And don’t forget the bananas—so many bananas. Last year’s Silent Hill 2 remake gave new life to the long-dormant series, but the release of Silent Hill f proved it doesn’t have to rely on nostalgia to stay relevant. This new, original entry shifts the setting from the US to 1960s Japan, introducing a young female protagonist and a new combat system. From its haunting soundtrack to its nerve-wracking story to its drop-dead gorgeous visuals, Silent Hill f reinvigorates the franchise into something fresh and original. We’ve been slaying demons in Doom games on every device imaginable since the early ’90s. So how do you keep this first-person franchise fresh? In Doom: The Dark Ages, the answer is to go back in time. This prequel sees the Doom Slayer in a vaguely medieval fantasy world where monsters still blast lasers, but you can bash them with a mace when not shooting them with guns. The setting inspires other novel mechanics, including piloting a giant mech, flying a dragon, and parrying with a shield. A more open, improvisational gameplay style makes this a terrific Doom for newcomers. When Netflix ditched mail-order DVDs for online video streaming, it kicked off a revolution in how we consume entertainment. Years later, Netflix is still a top choice for watching movies and TV shows. Its originals dominate the zeitgeist, with returning hits like Love Is Blind and Stranger Things making waves this year. It’s packed with innovative features, including a library of high-quality mobile games. Like its rivals, Netflix continues to raise prices, but at least the limited ad-based tier offers a more affordable way to get started. With traditional streaming services creeping up in price every year, maybe you should just take the plunge with a full-fledged live TV streaming service that mimics what you get from cable. If you’re ready to cut the cord, our top pick is YouTube TV. It features an excellent lineup of familiar TV channels from across all genres, accompanied by a modern interface that you’d expect from an online-focused company. Its add-ons, including YouTube’s exclusive NFL Sunday games, let you create your own perfect entertainment streaming package. Spotify’s strength lies in its impressive personalization and broad availability. Its algorithm delivers fantastic, tailored recommendations through features like Discover Weekly and Daylist, making new music discovery easy and intuitive. Spotify’s AI-powered DJ also provides a fresh, curated musical selection based on your listening preferences, which you can further customize via requests. Moreover, Spotify Connect enables seamless streaming across numerous compatible devices, including game consoles and smart TVs, providing a robust and accessible listening ecosystem that solidifies it as our top choice for streaming music. Apple’s macOS Tahoe isn’t just about a shiny new Liquid Glass transparent design. The desktop OS supercharges Spotlight search with options for actions (such as “create an email”), applications, your clipboard history, and files. Although Apple Intelligence is still not as full-fledged as Copilot on Windows, it benefits from improved image creation, live translation, and shortcut integration features. Meanwhile, the new Phone app in Tahoe offers voice calling and call screening, and Mac gamers get the new Apple Games app. Plus, you can finally change the folder colour from that ghastly blue we’ve suffered with for years. Apple’s iOS 26 is an outstanding mobile operating system that finally delivers some of that impressive AI tech teased over a year ago. Apple Intelligence powers compelling features like Live Translation and Hold Assist for phone calls. It also includes streamlined app designs, such as a more intuitive Photos app, and other intelligent additions, including call screening and depth-altering Spatial Scenes for photos, which provide an exceptional user experience. This dense OS update is gussied up with the sleek new Liquid Glass design, delivering a translucent and fluid interface that you can further customize on the Lock and Home screens. ChatGPT is the premier AI chatbot, thanks to its peerless accuracy and detail in responses, along with its best-in-class deep research and media generation capabilities. Sourcing across both web search and research reports is the clearest and easiest to understand among all mainstream chatbots. From creative writing to file processing and everything in between, the quality of ChatGPT’s underlying 5-series of large language models shines. Luxury additions, including an AI agent, the Atlas AI web browser, and an AI shopping component, among others, round out its generous package. Disclosure: Ziff Davis, PCMag’s parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems. You have plenty of options for designing marketing and social media graphics, but Canva is both the easiest to use and offers the most powerful creative possibilities. Like most modern software, the graphic design app is also now replete with AI tools, which you can use to generate voiceovers for your video projects, turn a text prompt into a full-fledged presentation, and generate both images and videos. Not a great writer? Canva can even create on-brand copy for your marketing campaign. And, of course, real-time collaboration is seamless. Yes, you have to pay a hefty monthly fee to Adobe for the privilege of using the best photo editing software in the world, but it boasts the deepest and most advanced set of image correction, creation, and enhancement tools of any software available. Despite already having a massive set of tools for photography, drawing, and typography, Adobe continues to make them increasingly usable. If you want to automatically select and mask multiple objects in your photo, Photoshop is your best bet. Although you can find other great options in the pro video editing software space, such as DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut Pro, Adobe’s Premiere Pro stands out for its continual adoption of whiz-bang AI features and focus on ease of use. We especially like its Generative Extend tool, which adds convincingly natural AI-generated frames to clips that are just a tad short for your project. With its Frame.io integration, Premiere Pro is also the best choice for teams of editors. DreamHost delivers excellent performance across a wide range of feature-rich plans, making it one of the best web hosting services around. Its intuitive control panel and robust cloud hosting packages are ideal for beginners and businesses. For WordPress users, DreamHost has one-click installations and specialized, managed WordPress services to ensure smooth operation. 24/7 live chat and email support, a comprehensive knowledge base, and a generous 97-day money-back guarantee for new shared hosting customers round out this excellent service. Wix reigns supreme among overall website builders. With hundreds of templates, you’re bound to find one perfect for your site’s theme. Wix’s robust yet intuitive editing tools, featuring powerful image editing and numerous widgets, allow you to customize your site even further. Thanks to its free tier, there’s no excuse not to at least check it out. And if you’re willing to invest, Wix’s commerce options can power your online business. If you are new to customer relationship management (CRM), Bigin by Zoho is a fine place to start. It makes onboarding simple and prioritizes ease of use with a straightforward interface. The service doesn’t offer any AI features, but it does support numerous integrations, allowing you to easily build CRM into your existing workflows with minimal effort. Decent reporting capabilities and VoIP functionality enhance the overall experience. Finally, we appreciate that individuals can use Bigin by Zoho for free, with no ongoing costs; meanwhile, the price rates for teams are extremely reasonable. Asana is our favourite work management app, but it’s versatile enough to also handle task and project management (depending on the complexity of the job at hand). With an elegant interface and an incredibly robust free version, Asana is a good fit for anyone who wants to be more organized, regardless of their budget or technical skills. However, it also allows you to delve deep, thanks to comprehensive progress tracking features, numerous automations and integrations, and extensive AI functionality. Asana is the best all-around solution for work management we’ve tested, with clear applications for both your personal and professional lives. Zoho Projects makes managing complex projects simple, and perhaps most importantly, affordable for SMBs. Thanks to its plethora of features, including an AI assistant and time-tracking tools, Zoho Projects is quite versatile and works effortlessly with other Zoho apps, such as Books and Meetings. Getting up and running won’t take too long, as many premade (and customizable) templates are available. For capabilities it doesn’t cover, such as billing and invoicing, you can connect third-party services. Whether you’re new to the scene or a seasoned project manager, Zoho Projects is a great first option. Webex by Cisco is more than ready to handle your team’s video conferencing needs with AI-based summarization, asynchronous video recording, flexible captioning, and rich collaboration tools (breakout rooms, chat, screen-sharing, and whiteboards). Other cool features include Reactions (give a thumbs up to your camera, and it appears as an emoji on-screen), sign language interpretation, and Step Away From Meeting (informs team members that you will be briefly unavailable). Webex’s free tier is fairly generous, and its premium tiers unlock extras, such as live polling. Zoom Phone is a smart VoIP solution that keeps costs low. To unlock unlimited calling for Canada and the US, you need to upgrade beyond the starter plan. However, a subscription also includes basic faxing, messaging, and video conferencing features. Zoom Phone’s user experience is quite intuitive, and we appreciate the powerful AI assistant that extracts key information from calls and summarizes message threads. The service performed reliably in testing as well. You can bundle Zoom Phone with Workplace Pro if you need advanced video conferencing capabilities. Norton’s antivirus technology routinely earns maximum scores from independent testing labs, and the standalone antivirus boasts many suite-level features, including a firewall, online backup, and a vulnerability scan. Norton 360 Deluxe builds on that impressive foundation and adds a full-powered VPN, dark web monitoring, a parental control system, and even a small-scale personal data removal service. With Norton 360 Deluxe, you get just about everything anyone could want in a security suite. There’s a reason for the Plus in this app’s name. Yes, it consistently achieves top scores in our tests and third-party antivirus tests, but it goes far beyond basic antivirus protection. Bitdefender adds multiple layers of protection against ransomware attacks, to start. Its Safepay system isolates the browser to protect financial transactions, it can find and apply missing security patches, it includes a secure deletion file shredder, and more. In Autopilot mode, it operates in the background with minimal interaction. However, if you want to take control, you can do so remotely through Bitdefender Central. Proton VPN is proof that privacy doesn’t need to be paywalled. Its free service is the best in the industry, offering unlimited data and connections to servers in five countries. Upgrading to the premium version unlocks access to a leading-class server network, advanced VPN features such as SecureCore, and a stellar ad blocker. Proton’s privacy-first focus, consistent year-over-year quality, and competitive pricing make it an easy pick for anyone looking to strengthen their online security. If you’re looking for customizable security settings, email aliases, emergency access, or the ability to quickly share files, passwords, photos, and more with family and friends, NordPass is our top recommendation. The app’s new storage options upgrade it from a mere password manager to an “everything manager” that you can access on any device. NordPass is reasonably priced at $2.99 per month, but be sure to take advantage of the 30-day NordPass Premium trial. Oxylabs can scale to fit any business need with pay-as-you-go pricing and an impressive suite of proxy options. They include dedicated and shared data centre proxies, ISP proxies, mobile proxies, and ethically sourced residential proxies. New users can get a one-time free trial for any of Oxylab’s proxies, making it easy to try the service out before you purchase a premium plan. With a transparent privacy policy and reliable spoofing capabilities, Oxylab’s proxies are an excellent option for businesses of all sizes. The fourth-generation Amazon Echo Show 8 has a fresh look, improved audio hardware, and—most importantly—a faster chip designed to take advantage of Alexa+. Amazon’s upgraded AI assistant comes built in and responds in a smooth, natural-sounding way. The display itself is bright, crisp, and responsive, while the speakers produce sufficient volume and depth to comfortably fill a room. For anyone purchasing their first smart display, the Echo Show 8 offers an ideal mix of cost, size, and performance. By Amanda Machado As prices rise faster than most paychecks, finding ways to increase your income has become more important than ever — especially… By Sarang Sheth Every week, Yanko Design’s podcast Design Mindset powered by KeyShot brings you conversations with design leaders who are shaping how products, brands, and experiences…Ultraportable Laptop

Apple MacBook Air 13-Inch (2025, M4)
Desktop Replacement Laptop

Dell 16 Plus (DB16250)
Apple Laptop

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (2025, M5) Z1KK3LL/A
Budget Laptop

Asus Chromebook Plus CX34 (Intel Core i5 13th Gen, 128GB UFS, 8GB RAM)
Chromebook

Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus
Gaming Laptop

Razer Blade 14 (2025) [Review]
Business Laptop

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition
Workstation Laptop

HP ZBook Power 16 G11 A
Content Creation Laptop

Asus ProArt PX13 (HN7306)
2-in-1 Laptop

LG Gram Pro 2-in-1 16
Apple Tablet

Apple iPad (2025)
Android Tablet

Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra
iOS Phone

Apple iPhone 17
Android Phone

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
Midrange Phone
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Google Pixel 9a
Budget Phone

SAMSUNG Galaxy A16 5G A Series Cell Phone, Unlocked Android Smartphone, Large AMOLED Display, Durable Design, Super Fast
Apple Smartwatch

Apple Watch Series 11
Android Smartwatch

Samsung Galaxy Watch 8
Smart Glasses

XReal One Pro
Fitness Tracker

Samsung Galaxy Fit3
Smart Strength Training Machine

Tonal 2
Security System

SimpliSafe Home Security System
Indoor Security Camera

Arlo Essential Pan Tilt Indoor (2025)
Outdoor Security Camera

Aqara Camera Hub G5 Pro
Smart Lock

Eufy FamiLock S3 Max
Video Doorbell

Tapo D225 Video Doorbell
Smart Lighting

Lorex 2K Wi-Fi Smart Lightbulb Camera (Cloud-Enabled)
Smart Thermostat

Ecobee Smart Thermostat Essential
Digital Picture Frame

Aura Aspen
Robot Vacuum

Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni
Budget Robot Vacuum

TP-Link Tapo RV30 Max Plus
Smart Air Conditioner

GE 11,000 BTU Smart Heat/Cool With Heat Pump Electronic Window Air Conditioner (AWGP12)
Smart Ceiling Fan

Dreo CLF712S Ceiling Fan
Smart Air Purifier

Dyson Hot+Cool Formaldehyde HP09
Robot Lawn Mower

Segway Navimow X390
Robot Pool Cleaner

Dreame Z1 Pro Robotic Pool Cleaner
Smart Bird Feeder

Bird Buddy Smart Feeder Pro
Earphones

Apple AirPods Pro 3
Budget Earphones

Anker Soundcore Liberty 5
Headphones

Sony WH-1000XM6
Speaker

Marshall Middleton II
Smart Speaker

Amazon Echo Dot Max
TV

LG Evo C5 65-Inch OLED TV (OLED65C5PUA)
Budget TV

Hisense 65U65QF
Media Hub

onn 4K Pro 32GB Google TV Streaming Device
Projector

Hisense C2 Ultra
Full-Frame Camera

Nikon Z5II
Crop-Sensor Camera

Nikon Z50II
Compact Camera

Camp Snap Screen Free Digital Camera
Lens

Sigma 135mm F1.4 DG Art
Instant Camera

Polaroid Flip
Action Camera

Insta360 X5
Drone

DJI Flip
Mainstream Desktop

Lenovo Yoga AIO (27-Inch)
Budget Desktop

GEEKOM A6 Mini PC, AMD Ryzen 7 6800H(8C/16T, up to 4.7GHz), 32GB DDR5 1TB SSD, Radeon 680M, Compact Aluminium Design Win
Compact Desktop

Falcon Northwest FragBox (2025)
All-in-One Desktop

HP OmniStudio X 31.5 AIO
Gaming Desktop

Velocity Micro Raptor Z55a
Business Desktop

Lenovo ThinkCentre M90a Gen 5
Desktop Workstation

Apple Mac Studio (2025, M4 Max)
High-End Graphics Card

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition
Mainstream Graphics Card

PNY GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB Overclocked Dual Fan
Budget Graphics Card

Intel Arc B580 Limited Edition
CPU

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
Motherboard

ASRock Z890 Taichi
PC Case

Corsair Air 5400 RS-R
Internal SSD

WD Black SN8100
Router

TP-Link Archer GE650 BE11000 Tri-Band Wi-Fi 7 Gaming Router
Mesh Wi-Fi System

eero Pro 7
Network Attached Storage

Asustor AS6804T
External Hard Drive or SSD

Crucial X10
Inkjet Printer

Epson EcoTank ET-3950
Laser Printer

Brother MFC-L2900DW XL
Photo Printer

Epson Expression Photo XP-8800 Wireless Colour All-in-One Printer
3D Printer

Bambu Lab P2S
Scanner

Ricoh ScanSnap iX2500
Mouse

Logitech MX Master 4
Keyboard

Satechi SM3 Slim Mechanical Backlit Bluetooth Keyboard
Monitor

HP Series 7 Pro 34 inch WQHD Conferencing Monitor (734pm)
Gaming Monitor

Asus ROG Swift PG27UCDM
Gaming Headset

Razer Blackshark V3 Pro
Gaming Chair

AndaSeat Novis
Game Console

Nintendo Switch 2 Console [USA]
PC Gaming Handheld

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X
Microsoft Xbox Game

South of Midnight
Nintendo Switch Game

Donkey Kong Bananza – Nintendo Switch 2
Sony PlayStation Game

Silent Hill f PS5
PC Game

Doom: The Dark Ages (for PC)
Video Streaming Service (On Demand)

Netflix
Video Streaming Service (Live TV)

YouTube TV
Music Streaming Service

Spotify
Desktop Operating System

macOS Tahoe
Mobile Operating System

Apple iOS 26
AI Chatbot

ChatGPT
Graphic Design Software

Canva
Photo Editing Software

Adobe Photoshop
Video Editing Software

Adobe Premiere Pro
Web Hosting Service

DreamHost Web Hosting
Website Builder

Wix
CRM

Bigin by Zoho CRM
Productivity App

Asana
Project Management App

Zoho Projects
Video Conferencing App

Webex by Cisco
VoIP

Zoom Phone
Security Suite

Norton 360 Deluxe
Antivirus

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus
VPN

Proton VPN (Windows)
Password Manager

NordPass
Proxy

Oxylabs
Smart Display

Amazon Echo Show 8 (2025)
Sourced from PC Mag
Psychological and socioeconomic factors
So when you’re creating your content or you’re trying to devise your content strategy, always look at the emotion, psychology, social, and economic factors that are affecting your audience. It’s easy to look at data on your site’s traffic and obsess about what could have gone wrong in terms of your competitors or other factors. But you might also want to take a step back and look at what’s happening in the lives of your audience, like what are they struggling with right now.
So in the past 18 months also, every one of us have been experiencing the pandemic. So that has changed the way people search for things. Searches for keywords like remote, things like delivery, those searches have gone up over the past few months, and that’s based on the social factors that are affecting people. It means they can no longer do things that they were able to do before, so now they’re having to adjust in different ways. So always look at what’s happening to your audience and then react accordingly.
Brand affinity and trust
The brand affinity and trust also affects the way people interact with your site. If people are familiar with a brand, they are more likely to trust them and interact with them more.
So if you’re a newer website or a brand, it might be a good idea to let the content speak for itself and not try to make your brand the front and centre of attention. Whereas for a bigger brand, it might be a good idea to do the opposite. So a site like Amazon would do good to have their brand name in the title tag for example because people know their brand and they can trust them and click on the site, whereas a brand-new website it might be a good idea to not necessarily make that the focus of attention.
Trends and seasonality
So other things to look at are trends and seasonality. As you’re looking at your SEO data, if you notice a dip, you might not be doing anything wrong. It could just mean that it’s the nature of the time of the year. So I’m sure certain keywords would trend upward around the holiday season, for example, for things like electronics, video games, etc.
Then towards like February or March, maybe those searches might reduce. It doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. It’s just the seasonality.
Search behaviour
So the search behaviour as well. People’s behaviour changes over time. Humans are not robots. They are very dynamic.
Things change, things that they search for. As I mentioned before, when their emotional, psychological, social, and political factors are affected, it also changes how they search for things as well. So always try to react to that or pay attention to what people are doing. Try to understand what’s changing in their search behavior and react to that accordingly.
Customer journey
The customer journey is very important. Always understand the touch points that your customers have with your business. Even outside of your business, look at their journey before they get to your business. This allows you to know the types of content you need to create to fill in the gap in their journey. This allows you to know who you might need to collaborate with, so other information sources that your audience has, where they hang out. You are able to understand those things and be able to create the perfect content for them and also promote it in the right places as well.
Struggles
The struggles. What are the things keeping your audience up at night? What are they struggling with? Understanding this allows you to create content that no other person would be able to create. It would almost be to them like you have like some magic wand where you’re able to predict what’s going on with them.
Try to understand what are their struggles. You can find out the struggles by looking at questions that your audience asks your help team, for example. That’s a good place to start and use SEO tools to do your keyword research to know what some of those questions that they’re asking, that indicate struggles. Go on forums like Quora and Reddit. Those types of places allow you to find those struggles.
Location and language
Location and language affects how people search for things. Different locations have their own slangs, have their own culture, behaviours, and ways of doing things. Try to understand the location that you’re targeting. Try to understand what the culture is like, what the language is, and try to create your content with that in mind. If you don’t have that expertise or knowledge, it’s a good idea to partner up with someone in those locations as well.
Also make sure that your site is internationalized as well if you’re targeting multiple countries. There are lots of resources that teach you how to do this. You can find that in the Moz [SEO Learning Center] as well.
Accessibility
Accessibility, different people search for things in different ways. People have different needs. So make sure that your site is universally accessible to everyone. So make sure it’s mobile friendly. Make sure you don’t have like annoying pop-ups everywhere. Make sure that you provide an alt tag for your images to make your content more accessible to all.
So these are the factors that are affecting the searchers. There’s a lot that I probably missed, so I would love to know what you think and also other ones that I forgot.
Boss #3: Search engines

So the last but not the least is the search engines. In order to win for SEO, you really need to understand that the search engines are businesses as well.
Business model
So in order for them to rank your site, you have to be a site that is in line with their business. For Google, if you want to understand what their business model is, there is a video on YouTube that you should watch.
It’s called “A Trillion Searches, No Easy Answers.” It’s a very interesting video that shows you the behind the scenes of how they think about things, what challenges they have, and the future of where they’re heading. This would then allow you to be able to know where they might go next so that you can react accordingly.
For Google, once again, I mean ultimately they are just trying to provide content to their searchers that is valuable, that is from sites that are indexable, that provides a good experience, and of course it has to be relevant content.
Natural language processing
They put a huge emphasis on relevant content. That leads us to the next one — NLP. So every additional change that Google has been making over the past few years is geared towards that goal of helping people get answers to things that they search for in a natural way, so making search basically more human.
That allows them to be able to help people find the relevant content to them by using more advancements in machine learning. So in order for you to do well for SEO, you need to understand what are they doing with these updates. Read the release notes. Try to understand what each update means and then try to cater your content to match that goal as well.
E-A-T
E-A-T, it means expertise, authoritativeness, and trust. Google is very strict on this when it comes to sites that are in the money or your life categories. So that’s health, finance, and fitness, things like that. So make sure that your site is displaying the signals that they need for this authority.
There are a lot of resources out there. I wish I could spend more time to explain this, but we have limited time. But make sure you look into this so you can follow the right guidelines for the E-A-T.
Links
The links, I don’t need to explain this too much. Everyone that works in SEO is pretty much familiar with this. But links are basically the digital word of mouth. A lot of people are familiar with getting backlinks.
But just as important to getting backlinks, you also want to make sure that you’re spreading internal links as well. So make sure that the pages on your site that are getting high traffic, you are also linking to pages on your site that might not be getting as much traffic, but they are just as important to you.
Core web vitals
This is a recent update, the Core Web Vitals. So it’s meant to basically build better websites in the world. A lot of people debate the effectiveness of this at this very moment. I would say you should do your best. Use tools like the Moz Performance Metrics Beta and try to improve your site as best as you can to at least be prepared when these changes do start affecting your ranking power.
Indexability
Indexability, of course make sure your site is indexable to the search engines. So the things like your robots.txt file is well set up. Make sure that there are no HTML or JavaScript errors. Make sure that you are reducing pages on your site that have no value so that you’re not taking away from that crawl budget for the most important pages. Look at your site’s architecture. Make sure things are set up correctly so it makes your site very indexable.
Schema markup
Take advantage of schemas. These help the search engines understand your website very clearly. Having schemas doesn’t mean you would always win the SERP features, but at least it gives you a fighting chance. So take advantage of them as well.
Query deserves freshness
QDF is “query deserves freshness”. So for certain queries, the search engines determine that more up-to-date information is more relevant than other types of content, so they refresh them more frequently. So if you notice that some of your content did not perform quite as well, it might just be because that they are outdated.
So a little quick refresh can help you take advantage of the opportunity to rank better.
Ongoing updates
Last but not least, ongoing updates. SEO is not stagnant. It’s continuously dynamic. It’s moving, and things are changing. All the search engines are pushing dozens of updates on a daily basis.
So keep an eye on, like I said, their business model, try to understand where they are headed, and try to be able to predict where they’re going. Keep on top of the updates and then adjust as you go. But yeah, so these are the three bosses of SEO, and these are all what they need.
As I mentioned, I probably missed a lot of things. But the whole idea is not for this to cover everything. The idea is just getting to think of SEO from a very holistic perspective. You might be wondering this is a lot. Where do I even start from? Well, the most important thing is your business. Try to make sure that you’re doing the right thing for your business.
Then make sure you do the right thing for your searchers and then start satisfying the search engines to get results. But yeah, so that’s all I have for you today. Leave your comments below. I would love to have a discussion with you and see what we can learn from each other as well. All right. See you next time.
Video transcription by Speechpad.com.