Search is not just about SERPs, It's about understanding your users: How "Search Everywhere" Impacts the User Journey.

By Ashley Liddell

'Search' has become an integral part of the user journey, from the initial discovery phase to post-purchase engagement and user retention. With the rise of social media and e-commerce platforms, the way users search for products and services, alongside the solutions to their wants, pains, needs, and desires, has evolved.

The concept of "Search Everywhere" has become increasingly important as it allows brands to reach their audience across multiple channels and touchpoints. In this blog post, we will discuss how the idea of "Search Everywhere" impacts the user journey and how brands can use it to improve their visibility and build trust with their audience.

Discovery and Brand Awareness

In the discovery phase, users use search to research products or services, compare options and make informed purchasing decisions. Traditionally, users spend a lot of time browsing the Google search engine results pages (SERPs) for inspiration, reviews, product recommendations and more. However, this behaviour has changed significantly over the past 10 years and even more rapidly in the past 2 years.

Now, your audience is more likely to become exposed to your brand across multiple channels, spanning social channels like Instagram and TikTok, to e-commerce platforms like Amazon, and back to traditional search platforms like Google. This makes the idea of 'Search Everywhere' vital for your user journey. If your brand is not creating content across multiple touch points, you are essentially giving your competitors the opportunity to increase their own visibility against your brand.

On TikTok for example, if a user is searching for inspiration for an outfit for their next bottomless brunch with their friends, they may use TikTok, searching for '#outfitinspo2023' or similar queries, as opposed to heading straight to traditional search. In this situation, if your brand has created content targeting that hashtag, your brand will gain exposure and visibility. It's essential to do this across the multiple channels users are utilising for search!

Build Trust and Improve Consideration

After creating discovery content and your brand is in front of mind, as the user moves on to enter the consideration stage of their journey towards making a purchase decision. Here, traditional search struggles to compete with the opportunities presented by other channels. Your user is looking for reassurance via clear trust signals that your brand is a safe bet to deliver the needs of their want, need, desire or to solve their pain. And while there are several tools you can leverage on your website within your user experience, it also makes sense to support these efforts by utilising search everywhere and providing these signals when your users leave your website.

Here, your 'differentiation through creativity' efforts can come into play.

Instead of simple reviews and testimonials, you turn your brand's attention to the collaboration on social platforms between your brand and influencers. By choosing the correct platform and influencer, dictated by your desired audience, your users will respond positively to your content, allowing you to develop trust and reassurance. From here, you can repurpose this content for your website and assist with your traditional search efforts, allowing you to meet Google's E-E-A-T guidelines and reassure users that your brand is the solution they need.

To further illustrate, the video game industry is an excellent example of how "Search Everywhere" has become an integral part of the customer journey. In this space, users don't take the website of a game as the "truth," often turning to YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, Instagram and more to learn more about a game, developing their trust and reassuring them that the game is something they'll enjoy. This has led to game review channels gaining significant traction on platforms like YouTube, even receiving free copies of a developer's title for review on their channel. Video Game Publishers then leverage these reviews on their websites and advertising material, knowing that this is the reassurance users demand in the video game space.

Video Games are one of the earliest examples of an industry where “Search Everywhere” became a prominent approach for brands, only now are we seeing different industries embrace the prospect of this approach.

Making Users click “Buy Now”

With the user having discovered your brand across multiple channels and established trust in your brand through various trust signals, it's now time to convert them into a customer.

Here, your 'search everywhere' approach remains vital in creating inspiration, but your commercial content pages and traditional search come to the forefront of the user journey. Ultimately, you should be optimizing content around the outcome of your brand.

For example, if you're a food brand, you should be sharing recipes on your social media efforts with a "Buy Now" style button or link. Utilize an optimized user experience on your website to guide users through a conversion funnel. They've seen awareness content, and built trust in your brand, and now it's time for your internal linking profile to shine. By having an optimized user experience with clear and distinct internal links, you can facilitate conversions.

It's important to note that the goal of 'search everywhere' is to provide convenient touchpoints where the user expects them, but not to push for conversion before the user has been nurtured through previous steps. As a brand, all of your 'search everywhere' efforts should ultimately lead to this stage of the journey. Neglecting this stage or not optimizing it will result in subpar conversions. This step should be seen as an ever-evolving process that requires multiple optimizations over the course of a year. By dedicating effort to the conversion stage of the user journey, you can ensure that traffic is turning into sales.

Retention, Loyalty, and Advocacy

‘Search Everywhere’ plays a key role in building a community, allowing your brand to develop user retention, loyalty, and eventually advocacy. Last week, I wrote a blog on the importance of User-Generated Content, one tool that can be used as part of a 'search everywhere' strategy, and this writer feels this is where that UGC really benefits brands!

Word of mouth is a powerful tool, and UGC allows brands to leverage it organically in a digital landscape. From users sharing their experiences with your brand, showing off the product they bought from you, and eventually reviewing, assessing, and shouting about your product/services, user-generated content is a vital tool in establishing your branded community and facilitating user retention. Whether we're talking creative content on TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram or traditional reviews on your product pages, landing pages, and SERP.

Besides user-generated content, 'search everywhere' has other key points of interest for brands looking to develop and nurture relationships with users, retaining them as customers, developing loyalty, and facilitating advocacy. When a customer has purchased from you and left the SERP or landing page, traditional search becomes a tool that struggles to develop these vital elements of the user journey. Instead, brands should leverage ‘search everywhere’ as social media excels at building advocacy.

By creating and promoting content that is relevant and valuable to customers, brands can keep them engaged and interested in the brand. This can be done through social media ads, organic posts, and even influencer partnerships. By consistently providing customers with valuable content, brands can increase the likelihood of retention and loyalty.

Additionally, 'search everywhere,' leveraging social executions, can also facilitate advocacy by encouraging users to be active as part of a brand community. Encouraging them to share their experiences with the brand and its products. For example, by making it easy for customers to leave reviews or post about their experience with a brand, brands can leverage the power of word-of-mouth marketing. This can be done through social media posts, influencer partnerships, or even through user-generated content campaigns. By providing customers with an easy and convenient way to share their experiences, brands can increase the chances of advocacy and word-of-mouth marketing.

Let’s Wrap This Up

"Search" plays a crucial role in the customer journey, and the idea of "Search Everywhere" has become increasingly important for brands to understand and leverage. By creating content across multiple touchpoints, and targeting users at various stages of the user journey, brands can increase their visibility, build trust, and nurture advocacy within their audience. By leveraging these channels alongside traditional search, brands can differentiate themselves from competitors who rely on traditional search alone. To implement this strategy, brands should focus on creating high-quality and engaging content, differentiate through creativity, and create unique, impactful content. It's clear that a "search everywhere" approach can influence and impact the user journey, and it's now your job to ensure that your brand is making that impact, not your competitors.