Veronika says: “I think we should focus our SEO on Search Generative Experience.

What I find most important is to seize the rise of social media in the search, so I think we should focus on working more with other departments in digital marketing, like social media management and PPC.

I know there's tough competition between SEO and PPC, but I think we should focus on working together, because at this point, search has changed so much, especially the search we see in search generative experience.

With SGE, it's not like you type in a search query and then you get results from a website. Now, there are multimedia content pieces.

We must have one holistic strategy and all work together. It doesn't matter if you're an agency or freelancer or an in-house, it's important that we all work together for every company you work for, for every client you work for, that you have one holistic way that all the pieces show up.

It doesn't matter if it's from social media or PPC, it’s important that if they end on your website, they see this content on your website. So I think we should go more holistic.”

Which countries are we seeing SGE at the moment in?

“I've seen it in USA. This is the first really heavy country, I would say.

We also have a company in the USA which are falling in the rankings because we don't have so much multimedia content, and we never had the strategy to work with social media and with PPC together at this point.”

So, it's not just the fact that SGE results are pushing down the rest of the SERP. You're actually seeing a noticeable reduction decline in the organic search rankings for different terms?

“Yes. If you take a look, then you see it shows other multimedia content pieces, from competitor websites, so they have a holistic strategy. My favourite at this point is HubSpot. I think they have the perfect digital marketing strategy because they use all channels.

So the competition for us in the USA, for example, has started earlier to go this holistic way and now you see the multimedia pieces, videos, product info, product videos, and podcasts shown up. And our results going down this way because the multimedia content is much higher. So I think if it grows in other countries, we should start to focus on working closer with all the platforms we have.”

And this is for all industry sectors and all types of queries?

“It's for a lot of queries and I think it's important for all companies. So it doesn't matter what you are. So for online shops, maybe it's the other point because it’s displayed in another way. But they also show YouTube videos for products, for example.

So if your ranking goes down, because of the shown multimedia content, and if it's not from you, then you will not be seen in the new world of search. I think in a few months it will take over to all countries. I'm sure it's really important to see the potential to work with these platforms.”

So you're essentially saying for every type of query, even if it's perhaps a product landing page, think of ways that you can incorporate video as part of that page as well.

“Yes. We’ve started to include videos on our product pages, and we also have it on YouTube, on the website, and we’ll also use this for social media platforms, and we use it for PPC too.

When we make posts, we’ll try to use all this content we have created. So we have shorter videos for the short trend and a little bit longer on YouTube.”

I know it's not a YouTube optimization discussion but if you have a YouTube channel and you perhaps have a long-form content series that you publish on YouTube, should you consider having a separate channel for your product content? If you think as a YouTube subscriber, you're not necessarily going to want to see every one of your product videos, if you subscribe to that ongoing series.

“It makes total sense to separate it, for example, with webinars too. So you have the product and videos and channel to show your product.

So in Germany, our product is a healthcare product, it's software for healthcare. So they need to know how to work with the software, and the series is very long, 60 minutes, for example, for the webinar. Then we separated the webinar into short videos for the special software, the clients loved that. If they want to see short videos, they go to this part of the YouTube channel, if they want to see the webinars, they go to this part. And if they want to see a product video they go on this part.

From my point of view, it's also easier for the YouTube algorithm and this video is also shown in the SERPs. If you type in a search query, for example, then the video is displayed. It's a good strategy to make it clear and easy.”

You emphasized the importance of SEO and paid search working together in order to take better advantage of SGE. So why is that the case?

“What we have done in the past is often that we have seen these channels separately, so you have other goals or targets for PPC and for SEO. But if you use the synergy of both, you can have it easier with the budget, for example, if you have a good optimized landing page for PPC and SEO, then you're pushed into action on your SEO website, for example, the traffic from the PPC side.

We have focused only on making one landing page for both and not separate, and now we see the conversions going up. So positions are better because we have more interaction on the page, users stay longer, and they are willing to request the data.

If they see you have the same content in your ads and on the page, then their journey is a little bit easier to understand for that person. It doesn't matter from which way the user comes in, they should find our brand, our language, and our claims in every channel. Doing this PPC and SEO synergy means we have seen our conversion rate going up 35%.”

I can certainly see the importance of learning copywriting skills, other sales skills and conversion rate skills from paid search. But I can also see paid search pushing back from incorporating more ‘lengthy text’ on a landing page and not wanting to incorporate everything that an SEO might want to incorporate. So is there a debate between the teams as to what that page should look like?

“Yes, you have this, but I think a PPC Manager is really good at writing ads, claims and Call to Actions, and the SEO knows exactly what the landing page has to look like, so it's really important that you communicate.

For us, I decide what the landing page looks like and they create the ads and claims, and if I see really good claims, then I put them on the website too. It's a compromise which means you have to talk and find the middle. This means you’ll see the conversion goes up, and users stay so much longer on the website.

For example, we had paid ads, and users landed on the website before and they jumped directly. So it was a bounce rate of about 85%. The traffic came from the paid ads. I said: ‘No, I don't want it anymore’. Then since trying this synergy, we try to give a little bit from the ad on the site and the text from the site in the ad and the look and the feel and the bounce rate has dropped to around 35%.”

That's a big selling point for SEOs to discuss with the paid search team because if the user can stay on their site if they're not ready to buy then the next best thing is staying on the site exploring more about your brand.

“We have seen the conversion rate going higher with this good effect, we also try to get a little bit of social media feeling on our websites, too, because sometimes the first contact was on social media, or sometimes the third step is they come over through paid search.

Sometimes this can be four or five weeks between a visit and the user jumping between each channel before they close up a conversion, like ‘book a demo’, for example.

It's really interesting, because before if they bounced, then we couldn't see if they came back or not. But now we see even if they switch between the channels. So I think they do their research and then at the end, they close up the conversion.”

The focus on SGE is mainly in the States, but it doesn't seem quite as relevant in other countries that don't offer that at the moment. What kind of timescale are we looking at for a full international rollout?

“I think we should start to focus on it right now because I'm sure it will come up really soon. In the States, it runs well and they have a really good experience with Search Generative Experience, so I think Google will roll it out in Europe, or maybe in a few more countries soon.

It's a lot of work to find a compromise with all the stages with all the digital channels you have, and, if I’m honest, it takes a really, really long time. There are a lot of vanities and team discussions to have to find a holistic strategy. So if you start right now, and maybe they start to roll out SGE later in the year, then you will be finished until they start.

What we see in the US is they show so much multimedia content, less text, and fewer websites. There are other rich snippets such as videos, podcasts, the shopping results on the site, and so your website goes down. It's so, so important to work in stages, and create together this multimedia content for all platforms, and then it's easier for the user to select and visit your website.“

So even if it takes a year to happen in other countries, then unless you prepare now, when it does happen, you'll immediately start to suffer in terms of rankings, and you'll have to try and catch up in the meantime, your competitors will be ahead of you in the rankings?

“Yes, and I've seen so much competition starting right now. If you type in a search query, you also find social media results, for example. This was the starting point and it will be much more in the future with multimedia content, because people don't like to read text anymore. So it's easier to watch a little video, it's easier to see it right in the SERPs. I think it's really important to prepare for this as soon as possible.”

SEOs love to talk about Google, but it's not necessarily just about Google, there are other search engines and other organic content discovery platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and other podcasts as well. So what kind of focus do we need to have on other platforms?

“We need all those platforms and all these platforms could be optimized for SEO. They each have their own algorithm which can be optimized for your needs.

I think we have to break out of our SEO silo to be keyword focused and to have only good content, and instead we need to think a little bit outside the box.

In these times where Gen Z is rising, and Generation Alpha is growing, it doesn't have to be perfect.

Behind-the-scenes content can be really funny on social media, but it's also funny on the website, and can be a way to show my personality and more emotions. We need to put more emotion on the website, more interaction and show more of our faces on the website.

My companies are really cold companies, really old, and this is what we need. We need more personality, to show faces, and to show the fun side, for example, it's okay if you have a video shooting and there are a lot of outtakes. Show the outtakes. You don't have to only show the perfect face. I think this is relevant also for the branding, so that they see your face and not only the brand name

Search has changed so much in these 16 years that I’ve been working in SEO, and it's gotten more interactive and more personal, so I believe we have to take more social media on our website.”

What’s something that SEOs shouldn't be doing in 2024?

“You don't have to spend so much time on your meta description as you have done for years, and please, please don't buy backlinks.”

Veronica Höller is a Global SEO Leader at CompuGroup Medical, and you can find her over at veronica-hoeller.de.