Expand your horizons beyond Google

Sean says: “Think beyond Google. The search landscape has gone way further than Google now.”

What do you define as being beyond Google?

“It's two-fold. First, there’s the fact that users aren't just starting their search journey on Google. They're starting it on all different platforms and places. Also, it’s not just at the start of their journey; they're bouncing around. They're going to Google, then they may go to Reddit, Amazon, or large language models.

On the other side, AI models are coming into play a lot more now. They're also using different sources to gather the information they need about a certain query or brand.”

How do you know what to focus on beyond Google?

“It can become quite overwhelming because we're all very busy in our day-to-day jobs anyway, just doing the basics. However, the fundamental thing is knowing who your users are. That is the main purpose behind it.

You need to know where they're searching, where they're going before they come to your website, where they're going afterwards, what their intent is, and what they actually expect when they land on your site or when they search.

If you're in e-commerce, people are looking for pictures of the product and information about the product. However, if they're looking to resolve a problem, they may go directly to YouTube to find a video that explains how to resolve that problem.

You need to understand what your users actually want. There's no point writing a whole essay on what shoes are. If people are looking to buy shoes, they want to see the shoes and what they're all about.”

Is there any data you can use to help you make the decision regarding which platforms to focus on?

“First, you really need to understand what your business is all about, what your goals and objectives are, and who you are actually trying to reach. Funnily enough, a lot of businesses still haven’t sorted that out. You need to understand that, and everyone across the organisation has to know that as well.

Then, you need to go out and do your research in order to understand your users. Using different tools, like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and different legacy tools, you can understand what searches and queries people are using to find you or your competitors, what websites they're going to, where they're going afterwards, and where they're coming from. Compiling all of these things together will give you a better understanding of who your actual users are.

You can also interview them. Reach out to your users and talk to them directly – or talk to your customer service team, because they're going to have a lot more insights about who your users are, what they want, and where they go.”

What kind of platforms might you optimize beyond Google, and how do you go about doing that?

“These large language models and AI models are scraping all different platforms and data sets to understand who a brand is, what they do, and whether they can be trusted. Therefore, you now have to make sure you're consistent across the board.

For example, if your local listings aren't accurate and they're not consistent with what your website and your other listings are saying, like Google Maps and Apple Maps, that’s going to be a problem down the line. It’s a problem for AI models, and it’s not a very good trust signal for users either.

Additionally, if you’re lucky enough to have a Wikipedia page, is everything on there optimized? Is it truthful? Is it accurate? Is it up to date? Obviously, it all depends on the industry.

You could go to your Amazon, for example. YouTube is obviously the second biggest search engine in the world. Could you optimize your YouTube channel? Can you make better use of it? Could you do Shorts and stuff like that to reach different audiences? Those are some of the things you could look at.”

How do you measure the impact of this, if users have many different touchpoints along their journey before coming to you?

“This is getting difficult now, because of this new world we're living in. Google are doing some things that make it difficult to track, and everyone's experiences are very fragmented and personalised, which makes it very difficult for us SEOs to understand what is going on.

There are tools out there that are being developed where you can track your visibility and your share of voice in the sector that you're looking at, or within a certain topic that you want to be dominant for.

It's also about tracking the bottom line. If people are still landing on your website, there might be less traffic, but are they still converting? Are they getting through the journey? What does your bottom line look like: the revenue and the conversions? You're going to have to have a better understanding of those attribution models.

How are organic and all the other channels that you're trying to optimize playing a part in reaching those users throughout the funnel, and throughout their journey to convert in the end?”

With conversational interactions on AI and organic discovery opportunities that aren’t reliant on traditional keywords, is the keyword becoming a thing of the past?

“It's something I'm really looking into because it is fascinating. I don't think it's history.

Keywords are the fundamentals of creating content – and you still need to create content, whether that's on social media, on your website, on YouTube, or wherever. Therefore, you need to know what people are searching for.

Obviously, queries are going to get a lot longer and more conversational, and we're seeing that pattern, but you need the fundamentals to build this. You need to know your topic area back to front, and those keywords will help you understand that.

It's going to be interesting, especially with the changes Google made recently to search volumes, rankings, and stuff like that. It's going to be slightly different. However, if you cover a topic well enough, using the right sort of terminology, you'll do okay.”

How do you get to know your topic area back to front?

“You have to research using different sources. You've obviously got your Google Search Console data. That's a great resource for understanding how people are finding those different pages on your site. Then, you've got other tools that give you access to the kind of questions people are asking around a certain topic.

You can look at your competitors and see what gaps there are in terms of what isn’t being covered. Now, large language models and things like AI Mode can give you great direction in terms of how people are following up on certain topics and queries. The technical term is query fan-out, and that can give you a good understanding of where people are going on that journey.

If you can cover that with unique and fresh content, which provides something that your competitors don't, then you've got a much better chance. Gone are the days when, if you're selling washing machines, you can just describe what a machine is. AI knows what a washing machine is back to front. They want to know what your product does to resolve certain issues for a washing machine or what special USPs it has.”

When you're looking at query fan-out, how do you know that you're not missing out on any serious opportunities?

“It's never foolproof, but this is why you should be looking for information in multiple different places. For example, I'm not the biggest fan of Reddit, but it is a great place for research because people are talking about things they may not necessarily go to Google or LLMs for. It gives you that information.

If you're in e-commerce, you can go to places like Amazon, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, and they can all give you unique snippets of what people are talking about that your competitors may not be covering.”

How do you decide what style of content will appeal to a particular question or topic?

“This is important because you can't create a piece of content and then post that on Twitter/X, then Reddit, and then YouTube. You need to adapt it according to what works on that platform.

In this world of AI and AI bots, how they extract information from websites is slightly different to how users typically consume content. Some say it's also a better experience for users, but those AI bots want a very structured piece of content that's easy to understand and easy to extract the answer from. They want it to be well-structured in terms of structured data and be fresh and up to date.

If you're putting it onto YouTube, you need to create a video around it, and you may want to then extract Shorts from that video to gain additional reach. If you put that on social media, it has to be adapted to how those audiences prefer to consume content on those platforms. As we know, an Instagram audience is totally different from a TikTok audience.”

Do you tend to create content first and then decide which platform it’s best for, or do you consider the platform first and then create content to suit that platform?

“If you have done the research and a lot of your market is taken up by a certain platform, that's where you should put your focus, rather than the other way around.

In terms of content, it really depends on the industry. I work in the health sector, and we know that statistics and data-driven content do really well for these new AI models, as does fresh content and content that gets straight to the point. However, it also needs that EEAT element to it, and that trust factor, so we show how the content has been medically peer-reviewed and that kind of thing.

Depending on the sector, that will have to be taken into account. You have to know your audience first, before you start creating the content.”

Sean, what's the key takeaway from the tip you shared today?

“It's important to know your audience and what intent they have.

Also, you need to show up where they are. You need to be at every stage of the funnel and every stage of the journey. Make sure that your brand is visible there, and you're known as a trustworthy source.”

Sean Barber is SEO Manager at Macmillan Cancer Support and host of Search With Sean. Find out more over at SearchWithSean.com.