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The way people search for information online and navigate consumer journeys is changing. Google isn’t the homepage to every online experience anymore with people starting sessions on a wider variety of platforms: social, local search, eCommerce sites, booking apps, etc. Many marketers are calling this a new age of SEO, casually referred to as “search everywhere optimisation”. This “new SEO” recognises that search has expanded far beyond Google and traditional search engines, as people move between multiple channels, platforms, devices and content formats.
Despite losses in recent years, Google still has a 90+% share of the search market. So, we’re still talking about the biggest search engine, by far.
The thing is, these stats only compare Google Search vs other traditional search engines – like Bing and Yandex – which doesn’t tell the whole story. The real headline is that search is expanding beyond search engines.
When it comes to finding information, traditional search still leads the pack, but the gap is closing:
Source
More importantly, once you break sessions down into specific purposes and types of information, non-traditional search tools often take the lead.
Half of all product searches now take place on Amazon (vs 31.5% on Google). Meanwhile, younger audiences increasingly use social media apps as search tools and their primary source of news.
Social media is overtaking TV as the UK’s primary source of news – Ofcom
At the same time, people are using a wider variety of search tools for niche purposes: products, food deliveries, hotel rooms, places to live, music to listen to, etc.
Why search “best music from the 80s” when you can simply look for playlists on Spotify? And why search “apartments to rent in london” when you’re going to end up on Rightmove anyway?
Now, your average web user might turn to a dozen or more search tools for specific purposes:
Not only is everyone searching in different places, but they’re using a wider variety of search tools with specific purposes in mind. Now, more than ever, brands need to optimise for visibility outside of traditional search to reach audiences where and when it matters.
For example, a hotel chain needs visibility across Google (plus other search engines), Maps, social media and the major booking apps. And that’s just to cover the core essentials for inspiration, research and bookings.
To reach audiences throughout the customer cycle, hotels also need a presence on YouTube, Tripadvisor, travel magazines, travel forums, etc. As with any niche, you also want to build brand hype and citations to feature in news coverage, recommendation lists and AI tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews.
Older generations still have more spending power than Gen Z and Millennials in the UK, but times are changing. According to insights from Clearpay, Gen X and older groups were responsible for 75% of retail spend in the UK for 2020 vs 25% for Gen Z and Millennials combined. This is predicted to shift to 39% from Gen Z and Millennials by 2030 vs 61% for Gen X and older groups.
One of the biggest challenges for brands over the next decade will be implementing multigenerational marketing strategies that appeal to different consumer groups as spending power changes. This starts with reaching audiences on the channels they use – and this varies for different age demographics.
According to HubSpot’s 2024 Consumer Trends Report, social media is now the top channel – across age groups – for discovering new brands and products. Gen Z is leading the way in social search and discovery with 57% saying they’ve discovered new products through social media in the past three months. This is followed by YouTube ads (46%) and traditional search engines (42%).
Meanwhile, Millennials mostly discover new products through search (30%), TV ads (29%) and ads on social media (28%). Search is also the top discovery channel for Gen X (34%), followed by TV ads (33%) and word of mouth (30%).
Social isn’t only overtaking traditional news outlets, but also traditional advertising when it comes to brand and product discovery. At the same time, social is expanding beyond a discovery tool as Gen Z, in particular, increasingly uses platforms like TikTok and Instagram to search for local businesses.
Going back to HubSpot’s consumer insights, the top social platforms per generational demographic are:
Social isn’t only expanding as a search channel, either. Social commerce is driving a new era of discovery, search and purchasing on the top social platforms.
Unsurprisingly, younger generations are driving the rise of social commerce with 73% of global shoppers having bought a product via social media in 2023.
Google coined the term “the messy middle” in 2020 to describe the complex journey consumers navigate between inspiration and purchase.
“The way people make decisions is messy — and it’s only getting messier… There is a complicated web of touchpoints that differs from person to person.” – How people decide what to buy lies in the “messy middle” of the purchase journey
Three years later, Google published a follow-up explaining how the middle gets even messier as the consumer journey becomes increasingly complex.
Once a trigger sparks inspiration, consumers navigate cycles of exploration where they discover and seek out more options, followed by evaluation where they consider and narrow down potential options. Consumers can cycle through multiple phases of exploration and evaluation before they buy. Each cycle is an opportunity for brands to reach audiences and influence their purchase decisions.
The challenge is that the messy middle incorporates more channels and content types while demographic groups take increasingly different paths. As consumer journeys diversify, brands need to know their target audiences on a deeper level.
With your target audiences using more channels and searching for information across more platforms, you have to build visibility in the right places. Don’t simply follow generic insights or popularised trends. So what if Gen Z is ditching Google for TikTok (they’re not) if you’re a software company that gets most of its business from traditional search and affiliate marketing?
As consumer journeys become more complex, generalisations also become increasingly risky for brands. You need to know what your audience is doing, not make assumptions that could waste precious resources on ineffective channels.
In a recent article explaining how the way people search online is changing, we laid out five key steps for brands to navigate the evolution of search:
This starts with in-depth audience analysis to build visibility in the right places. At the same time, you need extensive reporting across each channel to pinpoint the interactions that matter and optimise campaigns to influence purchase decisions.
Finally, as consumer journeys grow longer, more complex and more multichannel, brands need attribution models that can credit the impact of campaigns throughout the customer cycle.
Lacking visibility on just one key channel or platform leaves gaps in your marketing funnel for valuable leads to leak and buy elsewhere. If you need help building visibility everywhere that matters, call our team on 023 9283 0281 or send us your details below and we’ll call you.
Chris is Managing Director at Vertical Leap and has over 25 years' experience in sales and marketing. He is a keynote speaker and frequent blogger, with a particular interest in intelligent automation and data analytics. In his spare time, he enjoys playing the guitar and is a stage manager at the Victorious Festival.
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Categories: SEO