In the world of searching, the consumer journey has gradually played a larger role. The users search for different reasons like to accomplish tasks, to solve problems, and to do things. Bill Gates gave a speech at a private dinner in 2009: “The future of search is verbs”. Gates didn’t mean about the words people typed into the search boxes, but instead about “why” people “search”.
Before you dive into understanding why search is important, you need to look back and understand why they search.
Why do people search
Way back before, people searched to look for documents with the words they typed in. Yet, this is no longer the case. These searchers have their different reasons why they search, but all these are actions. It is what Gates referred to them, which is verbs.
When the user starts a search, they are starting a journey. Marketers would love to talk about what they call the consumer journey. It is a fancy way to reference the user’s path from the beginning of the task to the completion. Most of the journey starts with the search. The consumer journey gradually played a larger role in search over the last years.
Originally described as a funnel where users move from awareness to consideration to buy, the old consumer journey becomes outdated.
Evolution of search and consumer journey
Search evolved from simple words on the page up to understanding the user intent at every journey’s phase. Indeed, search is no longer about keywords, but evolved into offering the right content to the right user at the right time to help accomplish the task. For the search marketers, it is all about helping users on their journey.
Search is unlimited. not only to phones or computers. Users can search from various devices, including smartwatches, kitchen appliances, and more. There are healthy debates as to whether it has always been the case, but today, it is an always-on and hyper-connected world that makes SEO morphed into real marketing.
The SEO today focuses on the following:
- Content strategy
- Data-driven insights
- Technical problem-solving
- Understanding personas
Three main tenets of a campaign or marketing strategy
Search touches three areas:
- Attract
- Convert
- Engage
However, a search concentrates more on the first phase, which is “attract”. You must attract customers through multiple outlets and channels.
Despite some claims, contrary to the design agencies or clients. Every webpage is an SEO page. If the webpage is concerned about the three areas in search, mentioned above, an important SEP component to that page must be applied.
Why is SEO important?
Users are important! Many users start with a search. But, the question is, why is SEO important?
There was a plugin for SEO
SEO comes a long way, from days of metadata. The websites today are more on application than a website. These applications come with fancy features that don’t play nicely with the search engines.
Today’s good SEO
Good SEO doesn’t only focus on content but helps:
Navigate several versions of the same page
Solve tech issues render content invisible to the search engines
Find ways to speed up a site
Integrate with social media and other features