Multichannel SEO: Organic growth in the unified web

In this article, I'm going to give my view on the new search and organic growth landscape, which I like to call "the unified web" or "the unified web ecosystem".

I'll talk about the role of multichannel SEO in the unified web and provide actionable tips and practices that we, as SEOs or digital marketers can leverage to navigate the unified web and help brands grow organically.

Disclaimer 1: Opinions and tactics mentioned in this article, are purely based on how I perceive those things.

Disclaimer 2: This article was written in one take with a "free flow" approach and no proofreading (cause I hate proofreading lol). So, please, be aware that I may have grammatical and syntactical mistakes.

Let's roll!

What is multichannel SEO

Multichannel SEO refers to the practice of leveraging mutiple channels or platforms to increase clicks and conversions to a website or increase overall visibility for a specific brand, service or product. Multichannel SEO goes beyond Google and the standard way of publishing pages to capture blue link positions.

What is the unified web

The concept of the unified web, is how I like calling the user-centric (people and agents) web, regarding how connected platforms and mediums are with each other.

I strongly believe that embracing the unified web, is a must for brands, in order to keep on growing organically. Channels are not working in silos anymore, but, they feed each other, creating feedback loops between them.

To explain the concept of the unified web, let's take an example of a web searcher/user:

The user might start with a Google search or a prompt / LLM query. The user might then visit a sub-Reddit (or other forum) to expand or research more. The user might then also do some navigational searches to reach brands that the user found directly.

Or, the user might find content on social media, and then Google the brand to learn more, and then ask an LLM about the brand.

The combinations are infinite and thus, the different user patterns are infinite as well. This is why people who say a channel will die are wrong. Channels don't work in silos, they complement each other to the full searcher cycle.

Now, to give some more context about the concept of the unified web, I would like to mention a specific Google Patent, a Patent called: Site quality score.

In a big picture view:

The Patent's system tracks site-specific queries and queries that users click on associated with that site.

It then calculates a site quality by taking the ratio of site-specific queries to associated queries.

The Patent specifically mentions:"A site quality score for a particular site can be determined by computing a ratio of a numerator that represents user interest in the site as reflected in user queries directed to the site and a denominator that represents user interest in the resources found in the site"

Thus, users going directly to a website can enhance this website's performance.

And guess what can feed this system: Non-Google channels like social, LLMs etc.

Apart from direct queries and branded searches, mentions on other media are also good for gaining "visibility" in LLM outputs.

And, apart from that, in-platform search functionalities, like Reddit answers, will also surface brands that are present in the platform.

Imagine this:

Your brand appears on Reddit, which feed its AI search, which also feed branded searches, which also feed trust to Google, which can enhance your rankings and all these co-occurances can also make LLMs associate your brand with specific token sequences.

This is exactly what I call the unified web.

Each channel feed each other harmonically.

The question is:

How can we, as SEOs, optimize for the unified web.

Well, there are many things to be told here, but I want to focus on the most important one, which in my opinion is content repurposing.

SEO and content repurposing in the unified web

Content repurposing is when you recycle a specific content piece into different formats to distribute it through different platforms or, in the context of SEO, capture more SERP real estate or gain more visibility.

As we are talking about SEO, I believe content repurposing will be key, because it will help with the following:

Capture more SERP estate

The SERPs are not only about the top blue links as they used to.

New SERP elements and SERP sections have been surfaced, and thus, to maximize organic growth from Google search, we should take such sections into account.

For example, check the SERP section below:

You can see social media posts ranking in the "What people are saying" section.

Or, check this SERP:

As you see, Youtube videos are ranking on the SERP.

And of course, Reddit posts rank as well:

So, for example, if we repurpose a website page into a Youtube video, we can also rank both with the website page AND the youtube video on that SERP.

Increase brand mentions and co-occurances

Another reason why repurposing is so important, is because it creates more brand mentions and co-occurances all over the web.

These not only help Google associate your brand with specific terms, it also helps LLMs associate your brand with specific token sequences.

Increased branded searches

If people see a brand more often on different channels, they will do more branded searches to learn more about this brand.

This, can feed on branded searches, which, as we said, makes the brand more legit in Google's eyes.

Multichannel SEO & content repurposing tactics

Now, let's see some tactics, on how you can approach multichannel SEO and content repurposing.

Video

Some SERPs are very hard to break into.

A "hack" to break into such SERPs, is to target the query with a video instead of a website page.

Let's see the heavily branded and competitive SERP for the query "semrush integrations":

Semrush's own pages rank super high here.

But, as you can see, videos crack the SERP.

Another example, "stripe api", a SERP where everything is a Stripe page, except for the Videos section:

These videos may rank low, but, they still cracked a heavily branded and heavily competitive SERP.

Plus, many of that queries are also Youtube queries:

So, you can rank both on Google AND Youtube. Double win!

You can also repurpose a blog post into a Youtube video targeting the same topic, even if it doesn't have "video intent".

Youtube users actually search for different things on the platform.

Also, since Youtube is a Google property, having a brand appear on Youtube, gives "legitimacy" signals.

Reddit

You want to be on Reddit for three reasons:

1) It ranks on Google.

2) You can appear on its "AI search engine", Reddit answers.

3) You increase brand mentions

So, how can you approach Reddit SEO?

Let's see some practices and tactics I believe are important:

The first one, is to repurpose "opinionated queries" into Reddit posts.

Based on personal research, Reddit seems to rank super high for queries that their answers are not black or white, but heavily opinionated.

For example:

There's no such thing as "best dinosaur". Different people might like different dinos better.

Another example:

Same as above, this is heavily opinionated. Some people like the movie, other don't.

You get my point, right?

So, make a list of important opinionated queries (these can be BoFu queries like "best X" or "X review") and repurpose them into Reddit posts.

You can also mention your brand in the post. But! be careful! Reddit posts must not be spammy! Respect the community and actually give value to the audience.

Another tactic, is to create a list of subreddits that match your audience and do Gap Analysis on them, to uncover queries you can target.

For example:

Let's take two sub-Reddits about calisthenic workout:

1) https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/

2) https://www.reddit.com/r/Calisthenic/

So, you can take the first one and do a gap analysis with the second one and then, target queries (with posts) by posting in the first one.

You should always post on thematically relevant sub-Reddits.

Another tactic, is to check for low hanging fruits on a sub-Reddit.

For example, here are some low hanging fruits (I picked positions 12-20) for the /SaaS subreddit:

So, for example, I can target the query "saas examples" on my website and then, repurpose it into a Reddit post in the /SaaS sub-Reddit.

Or, if you think you might not crack the SERP, just do the Reddit post.

Now, you might ask:

"What factors matter in ranking with a Reddit post?"

First of all:

Don't think of Reddit posts as a "blog post alternatives".

As I mentioned earlier, with Reddit answers, AI search will also happen inside the platform. So, you want to build those mentions.

Plus, having a brand co-occur with terms is key for Large Language Model Optimization (LLMO).

Now, to answer the question:

"I don't know exactly".

I can only assume based on my perception.

There's also a Google Patent (the most relevant Patent regarding ranking UGC content) that might provide hints on that.

The Patent is called: "Ranking user generated web content".

On a high level, the Patent does the following:

This patent describes a system that evaluates the credibility of users and their content. It uses social graphs and quality scores to filter out low-quality content and highlight trustworthy information. It also takes the user's content into account.

For example:

Let’s say a user searches “Best diving spots in Thailand”:

I personally don't think this Patent tells us exactly how Reddit ranking works on the SERPs.

Google had a deal with Reddit after all.

And, this Patent can give us hints of what MIGHT be taken into account.

So, now you might think:

"Ok, so I need a Reddit account with good Karma, a helpful post and some answers from users on the post."

These can be factors, but, I've seen Posts from users with not so much Karma ranking high on the SERPs.

I've also seen Reddit posts with very few answers and user activity (upvotes) hitting position 1 or 2.

Another thing I was thinking about is that maybe, "user credibility" is applied to the whole Sub-Reddit.

I've seen that in most cases, the Reddit posts that rank are from big sub-Reddits with many users and high activity, which are also SUPER relevant to the query.

So, we can suppose all these things matter:

• Profile Karma
• Sub-Reddit
• Query intent
• Post content
• Answers and activity on the post

Personal note: I strongly believe, that, as I said before "opinionated queries" are queries you can easily rank high with Reddit posts. Cause this is what Reddit is about, people giving opinions.

And, don't think of Reddit posts as "blue links", as, they can take more SERP real estate by appearing on "Discussions and forums" sections:

Some things to consider when leveraging Reddit for multichannel SEO:

1) You can get banned if you seem too "SEO-rish" or "promotional".

2) Before start leveraging specific sub-Reddits, read their rules and see how their users post.

3) Pick only a few SUPER-relevant sub-Reddits to your queries, and repurpose there without sounding too promotional. You don't want to get banned, especially if you have a high karma profile.

I still experiment with Reddit to understand Reddit SEO better (I can talk for hours about this).

But, I don't want to make this article about "Reddit SEO", so I'll stop here.

Social search and social media

I will not say much about social search and social media, as it will need a huge dedicated article on it.

In general, I believe social media are very important for multichannel SEO in the unified web.

After all, people search on social platforms.

TikTok for example, acknowledges this, and have included fully functional "organic search" features inside the platform.

What I'd like to say regarding social search, is that content on the post's (caption/description), subtitles, text on Reels, Stories etc, matter.

After all, you can appear on social feeds without chasing any queries.

Query-led marketing can help us identify what social users want to learn though.

For example, here are some queries TikTok users search on the platform:

Yep! This is TikTok's search bar.

Thus, we can create content targeting these queries.

Another way to think about "social media and SEO" is taking specific SERP sections into account.

For example, social media posts can appear on the "What people are saying" section.

Let's see a simple multichannel SEO content repurposing flow based on the image above:

Find a query --> Blog post ---Repurposing--> 1) Youtube Video --> 2) Youtube short, 3) Social media post

One query, produced 4 different content types.

Let's see another SERP (for the query "how to build a gaming pc") where social media posts appear on it:

As you see, user interests can help us repurpose website content, even if we are not sure if users search for this query inside the social platform.

So, when it comes to social media, you can do the following:

1) Target queries users search on the platform (For example, using search autocomplete on that platform)

2) Repurpose blog content into social media content

3) Find SERPs where social media posts rank and use these queries to repurpose (or create) social media posts.

I also think that moving forward, SEO teams should work with social media teams to ensure a smooth and efficient repurposing or social search-focused process.

Let's continue...

Micro-blogging ("white hat" Parasite SEO)

I will call this "micro-blogging" as it sounds more "white hat" (I find the separation between the two a bit complicated, but for the sake of simplicity...)

Anyway, where I'm referring to, is using mediums like LinkedIn Pulse and Medium to post content.

There are many benefits here.

First of all, repurposing content on LinkedIn Pulse and Medium, can help you rank easier on specific SERPs.

As you might know already, LinkedIn Pulse is getting a lot of traffic from Google, as Google seems to like LinkedIn's authority.

For example here's a SERP where a LinkedIn Pulse article ranks on it:

There are also SERPs where Medium articles rank as well.

But, apart from ranking on a SERP, LinkedIn Pulse and Medium content also appear on specific SERP sections, for example:

Plus, when a user visits a LinkedIn Pulse article from the SERP, this section appears on the article:

Which can send traffic to your LinkedIn Pulse article, even if you don't rank on the SERP.

Some tips when repurposing content for Medium and LinkedIn Pulse, or when targeting queries with these platforms.

1) SERPs that already have a LinkedIn Pulse article, will probably won't have a second one. So, avoid going after queries that their SERP already has a Pulse link on it.

2) If you see the "What people are saying" SERP section, but you don't see a LinkedIn Pulse article on it, don't get discouraged, as content on these sections seems to be changing.

3) If you repurpose blog content to Pulse or Medium, don't copy paste your whole article. You don't want this. LinkedIn ranks because of Authority anyway, so, you can lighten the content a bit, so it won't be the same as the one on your website.

AI search and LLMs

Oh man! So many things to say about AI and LLMs.

So, I'll try to stay composed!

First of all, LLMs do send traffic to website.

For example, here's how much traffic per month ChatGPT sends to one of our clients at Minuttia:

Plus, other platforms, like Perplexity for example, can send additional traffic.

You can get traffic from LLMs in two ways:

1) Get a citation on the LLM output (referral traffic)

2) Get a brand mention on the LLM output (direct traffic if the user later visits your website)

Both are good!

Plus, a brand that appears on LLM outputs can increase its branded search traffic, which as a result, it can overtime help with its search engine rankings as well (See why I call this the unified web).

So, the big question here is:

"How do we appear on LLM outputs?"

There are some awesome article's on LLMO, two of my favourite are:

1) Decoding LLMs: How to be visible in generative AI search results

2) LLMO: 10 Ways to Work Your Brand Into AI Answers

Now, based on my own research on LLMO, I believe the following things are the most important:

1) Branded mentions: Getting brand mentions on relevant sites, training data sources is very important.

2) Appearing alongside relevant terms (co-occurances): This will help AI associate a brand with specific token sequences. For example, "{Brand name} is a remote conferencing software...."

3) Fluff-free and NLP-friendly content chunks: Content must have zero fluff and be super focused on what it covers and answers to help crawlers "be sure" about the info they "see".

4) Matching user needs with relevant information: As users will prompt personalised queries like: "I need a budget friendly X software between X and Y price that will help me do X, Y....etc". Thus, it's important to map specific user needs and traits to specific products, services and solutions.

I don't want to focus so much on LLMO in this article though, as this is mostly about multichannel SEO and the unified web.

So, how we can approach LLMs regarding the unified web?

Everything we mentioned before, can feed in data to LLMs and help them create associations between brands, themes and concepts.

For example:

A digital PR campaign, can land mentions to respected publications.

Which in turn can create co-occurances and branded searches. Which in turn can boost SERP rankings, which can also help in AI search ranking as in many cases, AI search engines surface info and citations from the top ranking results.

Everything interconnects in the unified web.

Getting started with multichannel SEO

You don't have to spampurpose (spamming and repurposing) content all over the web to do multichannel SEO.

Content should be good and well-structured based on each platform/channel anyway.

So, pick the most important channels for your brand and connect them with your SEO processes.

For example, I've made an AI automation workflow using AirOps, that recommends content formats for repurposing based on the SERP:

Then, it's up to us in collaboration with our clients to pick the best channels for our "multichannel SEO" approach.

Use the following to guide your multichannel SEO initiatives:

1) SERP features and sections for your important queries: What SERP sections and features are there? Are there forums? Social posts? Videos?

2) Channels your audience is in: Is your audience on TikTok? What about Reddit?

3) Brand resources: Maybe the brand cannot invest on Video, but what about more social posting?

4) Internal teams: Can your team collaborate with other teams to scale your multichannel SEO?

I believe we, as SEOs, have much to learn about the unified web and about leveraging other channels for SEO.

But, I'm very positive and I believe SEO will only get more interesting moving forward.

Thank you for reading this article (even if I had some mistakes, cause, proofreading is boring to me and I also felt bored to prompt ChatGPT for editing this lol)

Cheers!