Ramona says: “Well, I would say, with the rise of AI overviews, we should start focusing more on omnichannel SEO. This is a topic that I've been discussing in recent years with my clients.

I'm sure that many of us have observed how the first landing page changed in the last few years. In the past, we used to have the Ads section and the Google organic section, but now we have a section dedicated to images, a section for videos, and one for shorts, lately. We also have the knowledge panel, and we also have a box for the featured snippets or People Also Ask.

So, we have plenty of space that we need to cover with our SEO. I think that focusing exclusively on ranking for the number 1 position, it's not necessarily a waste of time, but a waste of potential because, as I said, we have many spaces that we need to fit in.

I think that we should start including all these spaces in our SEO strategies, and we should start thinking about them and how we can help our customers to be listed in all those sections like images, videos, knowledge panels, etc. This way, we can increase our chances of having a better brand awareness and attracting more traffic, which potentially could increase our leads.”

How would you define omnichannel SEO?

“Focusing on all these sections, not only on the number 1 position: focusing on YouTube SEO as well, and TikTok SEO as well. Not focusing only on the organic rankings.”

How do you measure the impact of SEO on other channels like TikTok and YouTube?

“Well, we have analytics. We have TikTok analytics, and we also have YouTube analytics where we can measure and we can see exactly how the reach for our videos increased, and how the average duration of sessions spent on that video increased.

All these channels have their own analytics that we can check and track the performance of our campaign and, of course, we can include these metrics in our SEO reports. For example, if we are using Looker Studio, we can create dashboards and include them in our report as well.”

Do you attempt to measure traffic back to your website as well?

“Yes, I would say we can measure that with GA4, the traffic coming from these websites. At the same time, we can have reports, and we can also look at the assisted conversion section and we can see exactly how the organic channel contributed not only to direct traffic but, at the same time, how these channels contributed to assisting conversions on the other channels.”

Should every SEO be doing this? I mean, is it not too much to try to understand the organic algorithms on multiple channels? Is it not better for an SEO just to focus on Google and really get confident and good at doing that?

“Well, I would say that, if you are not doing that, you are missing a lot of opportunities. The customer journey changed a lot in the last few years. It's not like the customer is entering your website and buying directly.

We have studies now, and we can measure. I think I've heard recently that it takes 7 times for a customer to see your brand until he or she decides to buy from you. In general, this happens on multiple platforms, not only on the organic channel. I would say that focusing on all of them and including all of them is important.

I'm sure that many of us have observed how the CTR for the number 1 position dropped. So, by covering all these areas like the featured snippets, covering the images section, the video section, etc., we are basically increasing our brand awareness and, at the same time, the exposure, so the chances of gathering traffic and leads to our traffic increase.

We need to become more strategic. We need to become more technical and more tactical because focusing only on content, I don't think will help us that much in the future – which is what most SEO agencies or specialists do nowadays.”

What impact is AI having on omnichannel SEO?

“Well, firstly, it will have an impact on the content. Now, the number of answers with AI overview is quite small. I think it's around 2 or 3% in the United States or the UK. But definitely, in time, it will increase.

The user will want to see the answer directly on Google without reading your website or even without clicking on it. This is a starting point. We will start losing traffic from the informational queries.

Having our websites listed in the image section or video section, we are basically trying to get a spot in there, which is more visual. From this point of view, I would say that it will impact more on content. We need to allocate resources to these channels like YouTube, or uncovering these areas that are important as well.”

You also touched upon the modern SERP where there are more opportunities, but also there are fewer clicks on the number 1 position organically.

So, how do you actually identify, for your brand, the additional opportunities that may be occurring on the SERP, and how do you optimize for them?

“Well, I would say that you can have a look, do an analysis in the SERP, and see what results Google displays for the keywords that we are targeting. If we are seeing boxes with images, for example. These things are quite simple to observe with various tools that are popular.

If we are seeing that Google displays images/shorts, we can also see now, in Google Trends, the volume for the keywords in YouTube. If we are noticing that the volume for certain keywords in YouTube is increasing, we can start targeting and creating more content (by content, I mean, in videos or images) and we can start optimizing them for the keywords that we are targeting.”

You mentioned images a couple of times there. You're talking about identifying whether or not images appear on the SERP, and then actively trying to incorporate images on the pages that you're trying to rank, I guess, which are a decent size and optimized well for the keyword phrases to appear on Google Image Search and directly on the SERP?

“Yes, exactly. So, optimizing them, optimizing the alt text, and optimizing the image description if possible. At the same time, ensuring that the image size is under, let's say, 250KB. Optimizing the image folder, and also specifying the image dimension. It's something that's quite important.

I've seen a couple of studies and also, here in my company, we've noticed how telling Google exactly what the image dimensions are has contributed to our articles being listed in Google Discovery or the product images being listed in Google Shopping or in Google Images.”

Interesting. Is there a particular image dimension that you tend to find to be the optimum size?

“I don't have it right now, but I can come back with additional resources on this matter.”

What about knowledge panels and areas on the right-hand side of the SERP? Is that something that you tend to be trying to optimize most keyword phrases for, or is that generally just for brand-type keyword phrases?

“I would say, for brand-type keyword phrases, it's important to have one, especially if you are a big brand. Having your company there is something that's important.

People can see you. It's a quality and a trust metric that contributes to people considering you as being legit and as a strong brand – and we know that Google likes strong brands. At the same time, people like to buy from brands that they trust.”

When you're working with large brands that you're talking about there, are there people internally that take responsibility for this and you're acting more as a consultancy just to try and keep things optimized, or are you doing everything on their behalf?

“I think it depends on the case. We are usually consulting. We help them because the process usually starts with creating a Wikipedia page and then adding schema to their company websites.

But, as I said, yes. In general, we are consulting, and we are telling them exactly what they can do in order to achieve that knowledge funnel from Google.”

When you're planning a content marketing strategy to try to take advantage of all the appropriate organic channels that you're identifying to be suitable for your brand, what should that strategy look like and how often should you revisit it?

How often do you actually sit down and determine what your content strategy is for the coming period and what's included in that strategy?

“Well, I would say that we can follow the same process that we usually follow for a content strategy on Google. Everything starts with keyword research.

As I said, we can now see exactly the volume of searches for the keywords and the interest for the keywords in YouTube. At the same time, we can look at the trends in TikTok, and we can create a content plan for 6 months or a year ahead considering the volume of searches, our brand products or services, and of course our buyer persona.

I would revisit that strategy once a year and the volume of searches because, in general, the changes are not major. The volume is pretty steady. It can be increased by a certain percentage, but we won't see major changes that will affect the strategy across a year.”

When a brand hasn't embraced other organic channels, how do you identify the most suitable additional organic channel for that brand to also incorporate into their content marketing activities?

“Well, a good example that I also like to share with my clients (and I think this can apply no matter the channel that we are talking about) is that SEO is like a marathon. Usually, everyone runs in that marathon. So, if the competition is already running on certain channels, definitely you also have to be there. This is a starting point.

At the same time, you can simply do a Google search and see exactly what Google displays for the keywords that you are targeting, for the products/services that you are selling. If you are noticing that there are shorts listed, videos, or certain questions that people ask, I think this should be a good starting point for you to consider investing in that channel.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2025?

“I would say that we should stop publishing tonnes of content, and we should start being more strategic, as I said at the beginning.

Identify opportunities, do your research, see what Google displays on the first Google page, see what people are searching for, look at the trends, and, as usual, deliver quality where users are spending time rather than quantity. I think this will also help in the long run, not only in the short term.”

Ramona Joita is head of SEO at DWF, and you can find her over at DWF.ro.