SEO

Introduction Search engine optimization (SEO) has long been associated with increasing website traffic. Companies research keywords, optimize pages, acquire links, publish articles, and analyze statistics to improve the quantity and quality of visitors to a particular web page. However, an emerging paradigm of SEO leaves aside the ultimate goal of attracting and focuses on other aspects such as conversion rates or engagement. The reason for this shift is that users may come across a company in different ways: a Google search result, a Google feature snippet, a YouTube video, a social media post, a review, and so on. It means that traffic is not the only metric that should be considered when evaluating the success of a company’s SEO efforts. In many cases, users interact with a firm’s link several times before they decide to make a purchase on its website. Therefore, it is possible to talk about the conversion funnel from acquisition to conversion: Discovery → Trust → Visit → Conversion A new perspective on SEO suggests that companies should focus on all stages of the funnel. Thus, apart from optimizing the website to get more traffic, firms should also work on their conversion rates.

Why Ranking #1 Is No Longer the Only SEO Goal Introduction For a very long time, a big question in the SEO world was “Are you ranking number 1 on Google?” The reason why it was so important was that the higher your website showed up in the search engine results pages (SERP), the more traffic you would get to your website. This was seen as desirable because it meant more eyeballs on your site and more potential customers. But people are becoming harder to please. More and more discover new products and services through other means than traditional Google searches. People can now discover you through google’s AI, snippets, maps, videos, social media, forums, reviews, and many other places. And some searches are even answered directly on the SERP, meaning they never have to click on a website. This doesn’t mean rankings aren’t important, they most definitely still are. But, they don’t tell you the whole story about your search visibility and presence. In this day and age, SEO is now about being able to influence the SERP at the right time to get eyes on your content, get people to trust you, and get them to convert in whatever way you want them to. Notice: JavaScript is required for this content.

Search Is No Longer Just Google Years ago, when people talked about search, they typically meant Google. However, nowadays there are multiple avenues for people to find information, products and brands. They can use Google, or turn to YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Reddit, maps, AI-assisted search platforms or any number of other resources to find exactly what they are looking for. This creates a new opportunity for brands to be found by people searching in any of these venues which is why Search Everywhere Optimization is important. Notice: JavaScript is required for this content.