Connected Search Strategy
Search has changed forever. Those who focus solely on the standard organic rankings within Google will likely find that they are losing traffic.
A connected search strategy is about creating an ecosystem around ownable categories for a brand that ensures the brand is appearing wherever their audience might be searching.
It’s about tying together channel activity and laddering into the brand and traditional marketing strategies to create a less fragmented experience.
What this includes
✓ Opportunity Analysis
✓ Audience & Category Deep Dive
✓ Keyword Universe & Content Plan
✓ Ranking, Distribution & Amplification Strategy
The connected search ecosystem
Let’s break down how to win in search
01
What is the opportunity
Digging into the data
Work with brands to show them the search opportunity around their current website and understand which should be the focus category.
Understand what is currently there and what might be missing which can drive what needs to be produced in the rest of the strategy.
What can the brand own?
02
Who are the audience?
Once we understand the focus category/topic we need to understand who the audience is.
What audience data does the brand have? What audience data can we add to supplement this?
Once we define the audience and the category we can define the common search habits
Where do we need to appear and to who?
03
Competitor analysis
Who is winning in this category?
A look at who the conversion competitors are and the search competitors for this topic
What do they excel at? What do they have that the brand doesn’t?
Can we leverage other websites that rank to the brand’s benefit through partnership or Digital PR activity?
04
What are they searching for, and where are they searching?
Producing a keyword universe that can drive multi-platform performance
Extensive keyword research that covers easy-moving keywords, problem-based keywords driven by the brands solutions and keyword gaps.
This will feed into SERP feature planning and hashtag planning for social
05
What can the search journey look like?
What can the search journey look like from awareness to consideration to conversion?
What supporting content would benefit the category that we want to grow?
What information do users look at before converting?
What causes users to browse around?
What is the problem that the category/topic solves and what do we need to fill in the in between?
06
Platform-specific content plan
When we know what we have and we know what we need to create, we need to understand where that content should be created and how it should be optimised.
This usually involves working with channel teams to understand what can be done.
When producing a content plan, it should be built in to understand how that content can be repurposed for other platforms to ensure a less fragmented brand experience.
07
Amplification plan
What can we do to draw outside attention and trust to the brand’s category?
This will usually include working with digital PR teams and social creator teams to ensure that the brand are being talked about on other channels with regards to the category. Can include:
Product PR
Expert Commentary/Newsjacking
Creator Strategies
External content (interviews, podcasts etc)
Paid strategies
08
Impact reporting
When we know where the bulk of the improvement or additions are being made, we can create a list of impact-based metrics to report on to show the benefit of the work.
This can include:
Brand + Category search uplift
Direct traffic
Referral traffic
Ranking improvements
Conversions
Social engagement