Marketing Unzipped

From SEO to Search Everywhere: The New Frontier of Digital Visibility

Rob Curtis

What if I told you that traditional SEO is no longer enough? That your content could be top-notch, your keywords dialled in, and yet, still invisible where your audience actually spends their time? Welcome to the era of Search Everywhere.

Today, we’re unpacking one of the biggest shifts in digital marketing strategy: the transformation from search engine optimisation to what I like to call 'Search Everywhere Optimisation.'

It’s no longer just about ranking on Google. Discoverability today stretches across YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Amazon—even within the feeds and internal search bars of every major platform. And the rules of the game? They’re changing fast.

In this episode, we’re going deep. We’ll trace where SEO started, how it's evolved, and why marketers need to rethink their entire approach to visibility. By the end, you'll walk away with practical strategies to ensure your brand shows up where your audience is actually looking.

Back in the early days of the internet, SEO was pretty straightforward—almost crude, really. If you wanted to rank on a search engine, you stuffed your page with keywords, loaded up on backlinks, and hoped no one noticed your white text on a white background. It was the digital Wild West.

But then came the era of Google dominance. With it, a steady stream of algorithm updates—Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird—each one refining how search engines understood content. Suddenly, quality mattered. Relevance mattered. And so did user experience.

We saw mobile-first indexing become the norm. Page speed, site structure, and content depth started to influence rankings. Marketers shifted focus from just 'keywords' to intent. SEO matured into a discipline that required real strategy—grounded in empathy for how users search and what they expect to find.

But here’s the thing: while all eyes stayed fixed on Google’s SERPs, a quiet revolution was brewing elsewhere. People weren’t just searching on search engines anymore—they were discovering through social feeds, app stores, marketplaces, and more. The path to content was fragmenting.

That’s where we find ourselves today: at the edge of a new frontier. The old SEO rules? Still relevant—but only as part of a much bigger picture.

'Search Everywhere Optimisation' is a mindset shift. Instead of focusing solely on Google, we start thinking holistically about discoverability. It's about understanding that people are searching—actively or passively—on platforms far beyond a single search bar.

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