How to build a long-term, search-first marketing strategy

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“There are roughly three and a half billion Google searches made every day,” said Craig Dunham, CEO of enterprise SEO platform Deepcrawl, at our recent MarTech conference. “According to research from Moz, 84% of people use Google at least three times a day, and about half of all product searches start with Google. The way that consumers are engaging with brands is changing, and it’s doing so rapidly.”

He added, “Consumers begin their journey with the tool that many of us use hundreds of times a day. Thus, the connection to revenue becomes clear — it starts with search.”

The concept of digital transformation has been around for years, but it’s taken a whole new form in the wake of recent societal shifts. New technologies and the 2020 pandemic have led to a “greater focus on the need to drive optimal digital experiences for our customers,” says Dunham.

A brand’s website is often the first, and most lasting, impression customers will have of your organization. Here are some strategic actions he recommends marketers take to ensure their online properties are optimized for the search-first age.

Educate your team and higher-ups about the necessity of organic search

“The website is a shared responsibility and it requires proper strategic leadership,” Dunham said. “The first step is to take some time and educate yourself, your leadership, your board and your organization so they more broadly promote organic KPIs as business-wide objectives.”

“There’s great data out there on the impact of the efficiency of SEO as a low-cost acquisition channel,” he added.

Aside from sharing communication from Google on the importance of search from a business perspective, marketers can look for case studies from reputable organizations to encourage search prioritization. This can help higher-ups start seeing organic traffic as a key business metric.

“I was in a meeting recently and I had a digital leader say to me that you know website performance should not be an SEO metric — it has to be a business metric,” he said.