Surface Optimization

It’s been a while since I’ve checked in and written about the state of search.

Today, there are a bunch of new acronyms floating around that make it sound a bit like Old MacDonald’s Farm. Me? I’ve been taking the E out of SEO in something I call Surface Optimization, which goes well beyond the AI myopia suffocating the search industry.

Surface Optimization

The philosophy behind Surface Optimization is to look at all the places, or surfaces if you will, where a brand can appear.

It’s not just about how you appear on Google or generative search platforms like ChatGPT but having visibility on social networks, commerce platforms as well as major communication surfaces such as email and SMS.

And all of these surfaces drive traffic to yet another surface, a website, where user experience (UX) and conversion rate optimization (CRO) become vitally important to business growth.

Follow along as I show how Surface Optimization extends your reach and shifts your perspective.

SERP Features

First, we’ll start with Google search. Traditional search engine optimization (SEO) focused on ranking well in the ten blue links on a Google search engine result page (SERP).

More advanced SEO strategies evolved to appear in a handful of SERP features such as People Also Asked, Local Packs and Video Carousels among others.

Today, the sheer number of SERP features and the real estate they take up on a SERP has transformed how to optimize for traditional search.

In many instances, the ten blue links are now supplementary content on a SERP. This is obvious when looking at many transactional queries. Here’s a search for ‘rose gold aviator sunglasses’

There are a few more blue links further down the page but it’s clear they’re not going to get many clicks.

For years I’ve told clients that the click yield on SERPs is declining. Sure, I still want to rank for these queries but you’re going to get fewer clicks than you would have in the past.

To compete on this type of SERP you must optimize for the other dominant surfaces. That means a paid shopping campaign. Do I like that? No. Is that the reality of the situation? Yes.

Outside of transactional queries there are a myriad of queries that trigger results that require Surface Optimization.

A search for ‘crocodile stock photos’ reveals the need to optimize for both image search and image thumbnails.

Near me queries usually generate a local pack.

In this instance it’s a double-whammy with both an AI Overview (AIO) and a Local Pack. Thankfully, a good near me strategy helps Adopt-A-Pet secure AIO visibility and the best blue links available. (Local and near me tracking and strategies deserves a separate post.)

Often you get a stack of features that push blue links further down the page.

Here we see an AIO, Local Listings, Videos and a People Also Ask unit before we get to any blue links. Surface Optimization would seek to appear in the AIO, Videos and PAA units.

The click yield on PAA optimization has decreased as Google uses AIOs as answers. Yet Q&A strategies continue to drive material traffic, and saw gains through the last two core algorithm updates.

Even the first PAA result on an Instant Answer could generate up to a 5% clickthrough rate (CTR).

Many would avoid queries with instant answers but I found that optimizing for the PAA on these SERPs was actually quite effective.

There are other specialized integrations with a Knowledge Panel that are vital to search success.

If you’re not in the Read Now list you’re missing out because users gravitate to the Knowledge Panel.

In fact, most entities will trigger a Knowledge Panel with an important integration.

Sure some people will click on the blue link results, but the click yield will decline as more users click on the Knowledge Panel booking feature.

Here’s the wild thing, we’re just getting started!

If you’re targeting the news, well you’d better know how to optimize for the Top Stories surface.

And there’s an invasion of new surfaces as well and they’re overwhelmingly social and video in nature.

Want to do well on a search for ‘how to harvest sunflower seeds’?

Four out of the five AIO citations are from YouTube. And the first SERP feature is a Short Videos unit, which features 4 YouTube videos, 2 TikTok videos, 2 Facebook videos as well as 1 Instagram and 1 Reddit video.

That’s not the only unit that relies on this type of user generated content.

The What People Are Saying unit is filled with the same type of social content. In this instance, it’s Reddit, YouTube, X and Facebook.

And the first user generated content unit - Discussions and Forums - continues to take up SERP real estate in varying degrees of visibility.

What this also means is that changes to the prevalence and/or order of SERP features can have a material impact on traffic.

Surface Optimization seeks to minimize the impact of SERP feature changes by ensuring visibility on as many Google surfaces as possible.

Discover

There’s one more Google-specific surface: Google Discover. This topic-based feed can deliver a mountain of traffic. The problem? It’s even more opaque than traditional search and is extremely volatile, creating boom and bust cycles.

But would you turn down 11M visits over the last 16 months?

And done right, Discover can drive as much traffic as traditional search.

While you can’t guarantee traffic via Discover, you can optimize to increase your chances of being presented on this surface. However, even when successful, it’s wise not to bank on this traffic. It can go away quickly for, seemingly, no reason at all.

GEO

I’m sure some of you are thinking that I’m sleeping on Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). That’s not the case. Clients do extremely well on generative platforms using the SEO strategies I’ve been preaching for the last decade.

There’s little reason to over-weight on GEO when it simply doesn’t deliver that much traffic. Here’s a client with a material amount of generative traffic.

But as you can see, this isn’t a high-growth source of traffic. Now, here’s the Bing traffic for the same client over the same time frame.

That’s right, Bing is essentially twice the size of all generative traffic combined. And guess what, I don’t really talk about optimizing for Bing.

I can hear some of you shouting that it’s all about visibility and building brand equity! And those are things I care a lot about. However, I haven’t seen a study that shows that generative citations have led to any material brand lift.

Anecdotally, I’d say there’s a reason for that. When someone tells you about something they learned from ChatGPT they don’t say “ChatGPT said X,Y and Z because of citations from brand 1 and brand 2”.

No, they simply say “ChatGPT said X, Y and Z”.

So what if we did a ChatGPT websearch for one of the above queries.

Now, tell me again how the cited sites and brands are gaining equity here. We know very few click on these citations so do you think they’re actually remembering Spice Alibaba?

The truth is not all generative citations are equal. A brand mention and link in the response is quite valuable while a citation only seen upon expansion is nearly worthless.

This is a great result for Hipcamp since it is a contextual linked brand citation.

So it’s not that GEO doesn’t present an opportunity. It does. It’s just not nearly as big as the hype. Attention to this surface is often contingent on the type of client. SaaS and B2B clients often see decent results and high conversion rates from generative platforms.

Even with the relatively small amount of traffic, the high LTV/conversion value of these sites make the surface worth paying extra attention to.

It may be easy to sell all types of clients on GEO hype, but there is an opportunity cost to dedicating resources to a surface with dismal click yield and middling brand value.

Email

One of the least ‘sexy’ but most effective surfaces is a user’s inbox. For instance, Gmail alone has over 1.8 billion monthly active users. That’s with a B.

Email is often overlooked as a viable source of traffic but done right it can be extremely valuable.

Here you can see that email is driving just a little bit more traffic than organic search.

I often talk with clients about extending the value of their organic search campaign by capturing an email address and continuing the user journey via email.

Because we know that the vast number of conversions come from multi-touch or multi-surface journeys.

SMS

Similarly, SMS is an underused surface, particularly for any client with a large Gen Z audience.

SMS can be used in a number of ways, from appointment reminders to shipping notifications to specials and price alerts.

The always on nature of phones means that nearly all messages are read and are read rather quickly.

A round up of SMS marketing statistics by SimpleTexting underscores the importance of this surface.

Again, the value of an SMS program will depend on the client. But ignoring this surface completely is no longer an option.

ASO

One of the forgotten acronyms is App Store Optimization (ASO). It’s not going to apply to every client, but if they have an app you’d better be monitoring where you appear when people do app store searches.

Not only should you be tracking where you appear but how you appear and which type of creative is going to get you more downloads.

Social

Perhaps the biggest change in the search landscape is the rise of social platforms. Too many clients still think of social media as a way to message and market their web based assets. That’s just not how social works now.

Instead you need native social content, which can be owned and operated (O&O) by the client or can show up via collabs or influencer partnerships.

The interesting thing about social is how many ways it can help a client succeed. Building a social following is a lot like building an email or SMS list. Users who follow a brand are going to see that content in their feed and are likely going to get notifications when new content is posted.

Done right, social media can also drive material traffic to your site.

But remember those new SERP features I was talking about earlier in this post? Yeah, when you do well on social, you show up in those features.

Think about the type of journey that might create. From a Google search to clicking on a TikTok video, which then might result in a social follow or website visit. Yes, it’s a circuitous route, but if you’re not optimizing for it, one of your competitors ultimately will.

And do you think that Google isn’t using social capital as an extension of link equity? We know that there’s been a shift from content on the web - and all the associated links that goes with that - to content on social platforms. When people think about producing something new, how often are they doing so in the written form versus filming a video?

Just look at a Google SERP or what is shown in Discover and it’s obvious that Google is pushing social content to ensure that users don’t continue to migrate to those social platforms.

More than that, I suspect that social capital ultimately helps sites perform better in traditional search.

One of the more interesting examples is HouseFresh. You might remember that they were vocal when they were impacted by the Helpful Content Update. They tried to recover but after a lot of work without much success they pivoted to YouTube, which quickly grew to be a powerful channel for them.

A funny thing happened though, soon after their success on YouTube they saw a surge in Google organic traffic. Sure Google might have finally dialed in some signals to help smaller sites like HouseFresh. But I’ve seen similar results for other sites who leaned into social.

This is an odd sort of Zen mentality that many have a hard time grasping. By not focusing on traditional search, and instead building your brand on social platforms, you actually do better in traditional search.

I’d also point to what Google is surfacing for social results.

They’re showing the number of views, comments, reactions and followers. It's not a smoking gun that Google is using this data, but I suspect that they are using some sort of social capital signal to inform the authority of both sites and content.

Want more proof? Google just announced that you’ll be able to track how your social platforms are performing in search via Search Console.

That still doesn’t fully address the impact of non-O&O social content, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction.

To be honest, most clients are way behind when it comes to social, with creators on those platforms behaving more like early era SEOs who outmaneuvered lumbering brands.

eCommerce

Google is pushing product features on transactional SERPs, in no small part due to the fact that many commerce searches don’t start on Google.

Amazon remains a large part of the eCommerce search ecosystem. For some clients, it makes sense to sell through Amazon to meet users who search there first.

On social, TikTok shop continues to grow and is attracting bigger brands to the platform.

Also, I know a fair amount of you have probably bought at least something through Facebook at some point.

And new platforms like WhatNot are moving the industry to a Live Selling model built on UGC video.

It’s important for eCommerce sites to diversify given the state of transactional SERPs on Google.

Website

Of course, one of the primary surfaces is the website. As a traditional SEO you might only have a small portion of the website to optimize. I’m constantly bumping heads with designers and UX teams who often focus more on aesthetics and user delight.

I’ve written before, the type of SEO I practice is akin to being a chef while many expect me to just be a burger flipper. I care not just about the food but how it is presented, not to mention the ambiance and service.

SEO is a user-facing discipline. We have to understand how people search (the syntax of their queries) and why they’re searching (the intent they’re trying to satisfy).

We understand that if we don’t satisfy users they’ll go elsewhere, which is all measured by Google via click data and used in powerful signals such as Navboost.

UX

How you structure your site and your content can have a very large impact on satisfaction, which in turn has an outsized impact on search rankings.

I’ve written extensively about SEO and Readability and SEO and UX. Both of those pieces are more than a decade old but are still a vital part of many of my engagements.

I have detailed many UX problems for clients and then had product teams implement changes that positively impacted numerous downstream metrics from monthly active users (MAUs) to bounce rate to time on site.

CRO

In addition, there are times when the actual conversion flow is sub-optimal.

Sometimes a client is asking for too much information before the conversion.

Sometimes they’re forcing users to repeat information the client should already know based on the page source.

Other times it’s simply not presenting the right options at the right time.

Other times it’s testing neuromarketing techniques to nudge people across the finish line.

Conversion rate optimization is important in a silo but becomes even more so when you think about how it can improve satisfaction and build email and SMS lists for future sales.

Translation

Not everyone speaks English. So translating and localizing your site can allow you to extend your reach to different audiences.

International expansion is the tactic most clients get wrong, severely underestimating the research and investment needed to achieve success.

For instance, you can’t simply translate a piece about design trends that was written for a US audience to other languages. Those design trends are likely different and even if they aren’t you certainly don’t want all of your design references to be based on US brands if you’re translating that into, say, French.

And sometimes the opportunity is far smaller than you realize once you understand the context of that product or service in other countries.

A site selling antiques might be more successful in the US versus Europe, where you can often find antiques at the local flea market.

A site offering study guides might be more successful in the US versus Europe, where they don’t rely much on multiple-choice tests.

Translation and localization can be powerful but must be approached carefully and balanced against other opportunities.

Your Brain

Here I’ll stretch the analogy a bit. The last surface we can optimize is the brain. We can do this for both the user and the client.

Brand

For users we can build brand equity. My background in advertising makes me keenly aware of measuring brand equity through aided and unaided awareness.

We can employ social listening tools to measure brand sentiment and develop net promoter surveys to understand whether we’re likely to gain word-of-mouth traffic. And at times I might push a client to embark on a brand redesign.

Brand can be developed through social channels, paid search, public relations, sponsorships, TV, radio and even direct mail.

Why does this matter for search? You’ve probably heard the complaint that Google has a brand bias. And they do. But only because users have a brand bias.

Users are far more willing to click on the brands they recognize and trust, resulting in improved rankings over-time.

And Surface Optimization ensures your brand continues to build equity by meeting the user wherever they engage.

Analytics

For clients, we need to deliver real insights that allow them to understand the value of all these efforts. The truth is that most clients are extremely bad at measuring multi-touch attribution.

It’s frustrating to have stakeholders push back on the production of top of funnel content because they can’t see enough value in last touch attribution.

In one instance, a client was very close to shuttering their blog. I urged them to perform a simple first-touch analysis with varying look back windows.

It turned out that the blog was driving over a million dollars in revenue if you used a first touch attribution model with a 6 month look back window. It was a long sales cycle, but the blog was a key part of that process.

Today analytics is increasingly difficult since too many still rely on Google Analytics 4, which is frequently off by a wide margin, whether by implementation errors, sampling or bad estimation due to cookie consent. It is increasingly rare that I work with a site that has GA4 set up properly.

For any large site it’s imperative to use Google Search Console’s Bulk Export Data, which provides all of the data without any sampling and allows you to easily measure anonymized traffic.

Data

I know some of you want data to back up many of these claims. Oddly, some of the best data comes from a guy who is no longer an SEO: Rand Fishkin.

What this shows (though not to scale) is that search is happening in far more places than you might expect.

And I’d argue that the reach for many of these social platforms are under-represented if you think about search being passive in a scrolling environment. I might not have been searching for that Land of the Lost Trucker Hat but suddenly there it is in my feed.

And there are reports that younger generations are no longer using ‘Google’ as a verb. Anecdotally, for many Googling also seems to be a super-set experience of looking something up on the Internet. That might include Google but could also mean visiting Claude, Reddit and YouTube.

There are also a myriad of statistics that underscore the many ways brands can connect with users.

Infinite Visibility Group

Search is evolving and brands need a partner who truly understands the value of multi-surface journeys.

That’s why I’m here, on a new site, launching Infinite Visibility Group (IVG), a different type of agency that will deliver world class expertise to clients across all surface areas.

My partners in this new venture are Matthew Brown, a seasoned SEO with deep product roots and Matthew Kay, a growth consultant and high-performing beast who also puts on Tech SEO Connect.

IVG is an expansion of the philosophy I’ve practiced at Blind Five Year Old for decades. Clients are best served by hiring a chef instead of a revolving series of line cooks.

Too often I’ve had to play ‘bad cop’ with vendors working on other surfaces. It’s the paid search agency hiding poor non-branded campaigns behind massive brand spend or the UX consultants who fail to recognize that the user journey often starts on a search result and not on the home page.

Our vision is to become the one-stop solution for brands that are looking to build a future-proof business, by allowing them to tap into expertise across surface areas without the pain of managing multiple vendors.

Need a new website, paid search and SEO? We’ll have you covered. Suddenly need help with CRO? No problem. Having issues with analytics? We’ll get you sorted. Looking for a local map pack strategy? Look no further.

We’re still a couple months away from a hard launch. Until then, drop us a line if you’re a brand interested in learning more about Surface Optimization or IVG.