Think about how user behaviour is changing

Becky says: “With the ramping up of AI, we need to start thinking about how behaviour is going to change.

We’re seeing a lot of search engines integrating it into how the algorithm works and the results that they’re showing, and we want to think about how behaviour will change.

Will people be turning to ChatGPT to ask things they used to ask Google? If so, how do we start to understand what that behaviour might look like? What is going to be most important for your audience, that they’ll be searching for on search engines and in our world rather than an AI?

Don’t be fearful of it, embrace it and try to understand how it’s going to change what consumers do.”

Are changes to user behaviour already happening?

“I’m definitely starting to see changes in our world. We think about things from the digital perspective, so we’re always a bit ahead of the curve. I am starting to see SEOs ask ChatGPT things that they probably would have Googled before, or Googling things and not getting the answer they are looking for.

In our digital world, we’re seeing that happen, but it will start to extend out – especially with the younger generation. If they want to be naughty with their homework, the younger generation is learning that they can turn to ChatGPT to get the answers that they’re looking for. It is eventually going to be something that people naturally lean towards, and some trailblazers are starting already.

We need to start thinking about what place Google and other search engines will still have in the customer journey, and what people will be asking a search engine that they might not ask an AI.

It’s a different way of prioritising our keywords and what we’re actually trying to rank for. Potentially, people will not be using Google as much as they have done previously because there will be certain things that they’re looking for in other ways.

If you’re looking for a restaurant, you’re probably still turning to Google and searching, ‘Where can I get a curry in town tonight in my local area?’ However, if you’re trying to plan a holiday somewhere completely new, you might turn to ChatGPT and say, ‘I’ve got 5 days in Cyprus. What could I do across those 5 days if I like doing X, Y, and Z?’, because it almost acts more like a personal assistant.

It might have taken quite a bit of time to search manually and find different activities for each day, so that is something that people could start to do with AI.

You want to try and get ahead of the curve from an audience research point of view and stay on the pulse. It will depend on the type of people that your business targets because this might change for different age demographics. My parents’ demographic definitely isn’t embracing AI in the same way that younger people are, for example. It depends on who you’re selling to and who your audience is.

Start to do that research, and build it into your constant research so you’re always getting feedback and putting your best foot forward. If you’re putting effort in, you want to put in the best effort that you can.”

Could later adopters not even realise they’re engaging with AI because it will become so seamless?

“We’re at the change point in the digital sphere where we don’t even know what products are going to be available, but it is clear that there are likely to be behaviour shifts in the norm that we’ve known with Google.

It’s been a really long time that people have been relying on Google, to the point where it’s a verb now. We are going to start to see some kind of change, so instead of being fearful of it and being down in the dumps because things are not how they used to be, you need to think about how you can embrace it. You need to start doing customer research, understanding what your audience is doing and what’s changing, and building that into your strategy.

I don’t think Google’s going anywhere for a long time. Who knows what the far future holds, but Google is embracing AI themselves. We need to be aware of the fact that there are different places we can turn to get answers that we haven’t had before.”

Where does organic search fit into a typical customer journey in 2025?

“That is the question that should constantly be being asked as part of your strategy. A big part of what I do when I’m working with clients is trying to understand where the users turn to.

When they’re looking for a holiday, a lot of that early research happens on social channels because they want to go and see pictures, they’re searching for local hashtags, they may have saved hotels that they’ve seen in their feeds, etc. They’re going visual, visual, visual. From there, they need to understand how much it would actually cost to go to these places, which is when they turn to the search engine.

There’s been a shift in behaviour because people use social to search and look for things more than they ever used to. You need to constantly be looking at what your customer journey is and not assuming. Once you understand that, you can play to your strengths of making sure you’re optimizing for the right types of phrases, and you’ve got the right type of content that they’re looking for on Google.

Potentially some of that other content might need to exist in other places. Maybe it goes into your social strategy.

It’s about having a total search and total digital marketing strategy, where SEO is talking to everybody else. If you’re not, and you’re in this little silo of just optimizing for some keywords, that might not be fit for what the user is trying to do.”

Is Google trying to adapt and change their offering to tailor to the visual nature of current consumer desires?

“Sometimes, but you don’t tend to get many images in the search results. You sometimes do, at the top, but it’s different.

When they go to a social channel, people are often looking to see what influencers have said, who has been there, and what the Instagrammable shot looks like. I’m not a TikTok person myself but, if you’re into that, people are spending a huge amount of time digesting content there to see what it’s really like because we almost don’t trust that kind of information on Google.

We know that it’s more likely to be what the brand themselves have said, and they’re not going to put photos of the room that doesn’t have a window front and centre. What you’re going to see on social is more of a true story, and people really want that authentic view from a social perspective.

We’ve got a lot of B2B clients, and they will still start on Google. There’s probably a LinkedIn influence in there for some people, but not for everybody. You need to be mindful of the fact that we’ve got so much choice now, in our journey. I don’t think that SEO is dead in any way, shape, or form (as we’ve seen the headlines for years), it’s just a case of truly understanding what it means for your customer.”

If consumers are more likely to start with visual searches on social media, is it essential to focus on branded optimization for Google?

“Potentially, but there’s more to it. You might find that consumers will look at some of the influencer content that they see and think that it’s amazing, but they can’t afford it. It’s at a different level, so they might need to refine their search on Google.

They might have decided that they love the look of the Ibiza sunsets, but they can’t go and stay in the expensive places that keep coming up on social media, so they need to look somewhere different. They have been inspired about where they want to go, then they’re back on the search engine to try and find what might fit their price range.

Social doesn’t allow you to do that so well, unless you’re really into your influencers and you know their budgets and the types of places they’re staying. You still need to understand for yourself what is going to tick your boxes.”

Do these changes in consumer behaviour mean that SEOs should be optimizing for other platforms, or should an SEO’s job be focused on search engines?

“It comes down to the individual. A lot of SEOs are starting to look at SEO on Instagram and getting their posts to show up more because that’s their thing. It’s about playing to your strengths.

If you’re a search engine SEO person through and through, who loves it and knows it and that’s where you play, then you just need to make sure you’ve surrounded yourself with people who do the other channels really well. If you’ve got that wider view and you want to learn more and be able to look at other channels, then that’s absolutely fine as well.

However, there does come a point where you start to dilute your skill sets, if you’re across too many channels. The ideal situation for a marketing team, whether it’s an agency or you’re working with multiple freelancers, is that you’ve got people with the right skill sets for the channels that are important to your customers.

If that is the same person and they want to have diversified, good – just make sure that you’re the best you can be at your craft, and you enjoy what you’re doing.”

Is it still possible to track consumers and what they do across different places and know what the consumer journey actually is?

“It is possible, but it is definitely more challenging. You need to think about how you can get people to opt in with data at the right points to help you track their journey.

Earlier this year, we did a campaign around gamification. We created a fun interaction that they were likely to want to do early in their journey, and would be useful and helpful as well. Then, you’ve data captured them because they want to put their name in for the prize draw at the end of it, or whatever it might be.

That helps because you’re slightly more in control of the journey if they’ve opted in. You’ve got email marketing at your disposal, and you can look at different ways to interact with them.

From a GA4 perspective, our team recently started extrapolating the data from there and getting it into more useful formats, whether that’s in Looker Studio or taking it out further. We’ve started to devise some really good reports that help us see which channels are in the journey, at what point, in what order, and what influence that has. The data is there to be had, and you can get to it, providing you have cookie consent, etc.

It is really hard when people are switching devices as well, because that messes it up even further; they start on their phone and then move to their laptop, etc. We see that a lot with social. That’s where, if you can get them to sign in for some reason or otherwise identify themselves, it is very useful.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2025?

“Stop being fearful of the future of AI. Stop worrying about what your job is going to be in the future and how this is going to work, and instead invest the time in talking to your audience.

Some SEOs spend their time just doing SEO and not realising that, if you personally did some research, even if that’s not your job – get your own context and talk to potential customers and the audience you’re trying to target – inputting what you would learn into your strategy would help push your strategy into 2025 and beyond.”

Becky Simms is Founder and CEO at Reflect Digital. You can find her over at ReflectDigital.co.uk.