Look beyond the on-page to keep up with the evolution of search marketing

Katherine says: “Look beyond on-page optimizations and traditional KPIs.”

Why is this important?

“Lately, the search engine results page has been crazy, which is likely in an attempt to tackle AI-generated content.

Google has made so many changes to the SERP in the past year. We are seeing a boost in user-generated and crowdsourced content, and many SEOs have complained about Reddit pages outranking blog pages and TikTok and YouTube videos appearing for certain keywords.

On the other hand, we have Google’s AI overviews (formerly SGE), which doesn’t show as often as it did before, but it’s still very much active.

Considering all of this, it’s not a great strategy to focus solely on optimizations within a website, or even traditional KPIs like ranking and CTRs alone. As SEOs, we should expand our focus to go beyond website optimizations and backlinking to try and understand how people now search for information.”

Will traditional search engines lose share moving forward?

“I wouldn’t say they are going to lose that, but there’s going to be a bit of a switch up. People search for things on TikTok, for example, but the TikTok platform itself is not the only way they find that information.

I had a recent case where a client was losing out on keywords and it turned out that, even though the keyword had decreased in Google search, it was picking up in TikTok searches. The blog pages and blog posts weren’t doing great, but you could see TikTok videos coming up. That made me think about the opportunities we had been losing out on.

It’s really important to collaborate with teams like the social media team to try and optimize content for that as well.”

Is optimizing content for discovery on other platforms an SEO job as well?

“Yes, because the way people search for things has changed and that means that the scope of search marketing has to change.

I’m not saying we have to create the content ourselves or tackle the social media interactions and look into that know-how. We can collaborate with other teams and point out the keywords we are losing out on in Google search where TikTok is being picked up, for example. There are tools that can help with this, such as Glimpse (MeetGlimpse.com).

You can use that to compare keywords across different platforms, which could be Google search compared with TikTok, Pinterest, or even Amazon. You can take that to the other team and point out the fact that the way people are searching for this information is changing and, while you are doing your part on the website, you also need to optimize for this as well.”

If you want to target something that doesn’t have much search volume yet, how do you convince clients to try that opportunity?

“There are different ways to do this. If they’re not convinced by the comparative data from a tool like Glimpse, you can look for competitors who are doing it well – because nobody likes to be left behind.

My favourite way to do this is to create a presentation of what your competitors are doing, how it’s going well for them, and how you can tap into it. Chances are they will want to tap into that because they are going to think about how much they’re going to lose.

If you use tools like Semrush, you can do a digital market share analysis of your brand versus your competitors. Then, once you have started this strategy, you can check how much your brand has grown. Digital market share includes your keywords, traffic, branded searches, etc. It takes a holistic view of all of that, and you can see how you’re growing versus your competitors.

If you can show them all this data, then they’ll definitely buy in because the data does not lie. That is just the fact.”

If there’s not much data available and you’re talking about something that’s going to be trending in the future, how do you decide what to focus on?

“In that case, it would be about team collaboration. On the SEO side of things, you might not have data on how something is doing right now, but you have an idea or a feeling that it’s going to do well in the future. Then, you can tap into data from other areas.

You can tap into questions people reach out with and how the industry is moving. You can check how people are responding to similar content. You can tap into the recurring questions that people have asked the social media team. What are those teams seeing? What type of content are they leveraging?

Maybe they have done a test that is not going well, but they’ve seen a competitor create some behind-the-scenes content on how their team packages products, or another trend that they think is going to go well.

Work with the social media team and check on your end. If that aligns with what content people are going to be looking for and what your brand stands for, then you can double down on that.”

Should you be looking for visits to the website or is it reasonable to focus on having your content consumed on another platform?

“The goal is to have a holistic view. Search marketing is evolving. We can’t continue to look at the website alone; it’s not sustainable.

I definitely recommend that SEOs look beyond the website. If you keep focusing on the website and blog posts alone, you’re going to lose out on very important things.

Take the fact that TikTok videos are surfacing where blog posts used to. If you create a blog post, don’t stop there. You can optimize that and repurpose it for other formats and other platforms. You could turn a blog post into video content rather than generic social media copy.

You can give the social media team advice on the places where you are being mentioned online. Search for your brand mentions and give that information to the appropriate team, and they can handle tapping into those conversations. You can also use that to find the frustrations and objections of potential clients, and do better.

It’s way more than the website. You have to really understand how people are searching for content now and try to collaborate with other teams to optimize content for discovery.”

Should SEOs become general digital marketers because they’re having to optimize on so many different platforms?

“Not really. If SEOs do other things, they’re going out of the scope of their work. It’s not about creating the assets themselves; my focus is optimizing for discovery.

That could be through keyword research and trying to find out what is trending. You don’t need to create the content, go and ask customers about what is happening, or get that user-generated content yourself. You can do the research part of things.

Find out how people are searching and the keywords they use. You don’t even need to go to TikTok itself and search for TikTok keywords, there are SEO tools that can help you find out how these things are performing across different platforms. Then, you can give those keywords to other teams to optimize for discovery.

The goal is to get your products and services in front of people organically, especially for content that appears on Google search results. On those Google search results, we are not just talking about blog posts; we are talking about anything that can rank on that page.

It could be YouTube videos, it could be Twitter/X, it could be Reddit, etc. This goes beyond your domain and the website itself. Any strategy you can give to other teams to optimize for all these channels and platforms is a win.”

What does the planning process for this look like?

“It depends on how the team is structured. Most teams work in silos, where they make a decision and then one or two people from that team collaborate with others.

Say you found out that most of your queries are being taken over by Reddit pages, so you’re trying to optimize for Reddit search. As an SEO, your role is to use SEO tools to search for the Reddit pages that are ranking well for these keywords. Once you locate those pages, you can make a list of the specific keywords and pages, and pass that over to the appropriate team.

You can give parameters for it, like if the content is more than 6 months old, then they shouldn’t comment on it. You can pass that off, with the keywords and the top-ranking Reddit pages, to the right team, and then they can tap into conversations there. They can provide answers, help users navigate things, and be as helpful as possible.

Alternatively, you can use Reddit as a social listening or brand listening tool. You can find these pages and find out whether your brand is being mentioned. Maybe your existing customers have frustrations, or your potential customers have objections. Then, you can pass that off to the content or social team and point out that they can create content around these user experiences, to build brand trust and help move your audience further down the channel.

That is the SEO side of things. You don’t have to create the content or go on these other platforms to optimize. You can do your best based on what is ranking on the Google search results that is not just your website.”

What metrics are important for tracking success in 2025?

“For this particular strategy, that is the tricky part. When it comes to TikTok or Reddit, it’s difficult to see a holistic view of the performance. You’re going to see partial performance.

SparkToro did a study on this last year, where they found that up to 100% of traffic coming from most social media platforms is actually attributed to direct traffic – and that includes links from Reddit posts. If you comment on a Reddit post and add a link, that link is probably going to be misattributed to direct traffic. Therefore, you might not have a direct way to measure this.

However, I would definitely recommend looking at KPIs such as an increase in branded search. If you’re working with other teams to push content out there, chances are people are getting to know you, and that is going to translate to an increase in branded search.

For video-based content, most of those platforms have analytics where you can see the percentage of people coming from search or other channels. You can work with that team, and they can give you this information, or you can check how social interactions are increasing over a particular time. Once they give you this information, you can check the direct traffic on your end and see if direct traffic increased within that specific timeline.

You can also look at other KPIs like market share. This gives you a broader view of things. You’re not only looking at keywords or traffic; you’re looking at brand searches, how well your domain has been growing, etc. When you can compare this and check the outcome over a particular timeline, you can put a number on it to say how you are performing.

Of course, on the SEO side of things, you can check in on leads and conversions for the blog posts you’ve already created. Don’t just focus on click-through rates, because so many factors are going to affect that in the coming years.”

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?

“Step back on pushing for more content. Most people have a set number of content pieces that they put out in a month, but I’d rather spend half of that time creating content and the other half trying to understand how people search, how people look for my content, how they find it, and how I can create content that builds trust.

Perhaps you can repurpose existing customer reviews or your existing content into digestible formats that people really want to see.

What ranks today can be in the dust tomorrow. Optimize for how people search for information and try to build your brand’s trust. If you can achieve that and people get to know your brand, even if the SERPs change tomorrow, you’re definitely going to maintain a significant portion of visibility.”

Katherine Nwanorue is an SEO Specialist, and you can find her over at TechSEOJournal.com.