By Neil Patel

When you think about search, what comes to mind?

I bet you are thinking “Google”.

But there is more to search than Google. And even with Google, if you want to succeed you have to think beyond traditional SEO and PPC ads because everyone is using traditional tactics.

You must think outside the box. And that’s what I am going to help you do today.

So, let’s first go over the trends we are seeing, and then we can go over how you need to adapt.

Search trends

Although no one really talks about search like they used to, people still find it extremely valuable.

According to an MIT study, search engines were valued more than 2x as much as email, nearly 5x as much as online maps, and +50x more than social media.

As marketers, this is important to keep in mind because we tend to focus on shiny objects. You know, the channels everyone is talking about.

But a lot of the old channels out there like search engines and email are still very effective and people place more value on them.

And here is a fun fact that you probably didn’t know about search either… 15% of all searches that take place on Google each day have never been searched before.

That’s kind of crazy to think about knowing that Google has been around for a while and so has SEO.

And according to Google people go through a handful of emotions as they search that lead up to a purchase.

So, what are marketers doing? Well, they create tons of content to appeal to each of the above stages in hopes of landing a customer.

They know it’s effective too because Google even tells you… 85% of people will purchase from brands that provide trustworthy information.

But marketers forget is that 63% won’t buy from brands that provide irrelevant information.

So, if your content doesn’t help people or even worse is off, it’s going to hurt you over helping.

Now when I first started off in the digital marketing world 22 years ago marketers didn’t have this problem.

When you created content, you stood out for one simple reason… there was a lack of content. But these days that isn’t the case.

Just look at the term auto insurance. There are 165,000 searches in the United States each month, but over 1.1 billion results.

Do you think we really need anyone else to write content on that subject? Not really unless something drastically changes within that industry.

So when you create content on a keyword you want traffic from, what do you think is going to happen?

There may be a slim chance that you have something new to say that no one else has talked about… the reality is you are going to regurgitate what everyone else is already talking about.

It went from being where your website was “waldo” and you stood out from the crowd, but now everyone is …read more

Source:: Kiss Metrics Blog