For as long as digital marketing has been a thing, we’ve all understood that SEO is one of the most important ways that we can bring people to our website, and ultimately sell products, services, etc.

While that is still generally true, the way that Google has changed its search engine results pages should be causing us all to reconsider how we’re thinking about SEO.

Most importantly, Google has been slowly building ways for searchers to get their answers without ever leaving Google-owned properties, which of course is good for them, but doesn’t work with our traditional SEO strategies.

This week, Rand Fishkin from SparkToro analyzed search engine traffic to see how exactly traffic patterns have changed, here’s what he found:

Note: When it comes to paid search, remember that most searches don’t have any ads because they’re for things like “Canada Olympic team schedule”. The percentage of traffic that goes to paid search when there is an ad present is roughly 4-5%.

So What?

Here are three ways that we should be reconsidering our search strategies:

  1. Whether we like it or not, we need to be taking advantage of Google’s tools. In many cases, people are getting what they need from Google Shopping or local listings, so those may be just as important as our websites.
  2. The types of search terms that we’re targeting need to change. Anything that is easier to get on the search results page is now a waste of time. Branded search, and high purchase intent keywords are still important, but things like event times, or historical information is probably not going to require a click anymore.
  3. We need to be thinking more broadly about search. As many as 40% of Gen Z and Millennials prefer to search on social media, so our search strategies should meet them where they are, making sure that we can be found on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.