A New Era Of SEO: Leveraging YouTube, LinkedIn, And Cross-Channel Strategies For Success via @sejournal, @gregjarboe

SEO professionals are connected the verge of a caller era.

With hindsight, the erstwhile epoch could beryllium called “The Age of the One-Trick Pony.” It began backmost successful 2002 erstwhile Google passed much than a twelve crawlers and directories to go the ascendant hunt engine.

If you learned however to amended a website’s visibility successful Google’s earthy oregon unpaid hunt results, past you could get a respectable occupation arsenic a hunt motor optimizer.

But, the epoch of one-trick ponies is astir to end. So, it’s clip to re-envision your vocation path.

Going forward, SEO specialists volition request to put much clip successful learning 4 further disciplines: integer analytics, integer advertising, contented marketing, and societal media marketing.

SEO managers volition besides request to show captious reasoning astir integer selling strategy if they ever anticipation to ascent the ladder.

So, wherever should you begin?

Digital Analytics

You should commencement by learning much astir integer analytics, which is the process of collecting, measuring, analyzing, and interpreting data from integer sources to recognize however users interact with online content.

This volition assistance you recognize wherefore accepted metrics similar “keyword rankings” and “organic pageviews” – which are the apical 2 show metrics that SEO professionals usage to measurement occurrence successful 2024 – aren’t getting noticed anymore. This means they’re ne'er going to assistance you get a promotion, fto unsocial a spot astatine the large table.

As Search Engine Journal’s State Of SEO 2025 noted:

“Keyword rankings and pageviews are not needfully applicable to concern goals. They’re the main metrics being disrupted close now, but it’s captious to thin into disruption to observe opportunities and alteration strategies.”

So, it is worthy learning however integer analytics tin assistance you measure occurrence utilizing cardinal show indicators (KPIs) that are tied to concern goals similar “drive online sales” for ecommerce sites, “generate leads” for lead-generation sites, and adjacent “raise marque awareness” for publishers.

For example, Rand Fishkin precocious wrote a blog station titled, 2024 Zero-Click Search Study: For each 1,000 EU Google Searches, lone 374 clicks spell to the Open Web. In the US, it’s 360.

He utilized a clickstream sheet from Datos to tackle a mates of captious questions:

• What typically occurs aft Americans and Europeans execute a Google search?
• In 2024, what percent of searches extremity without immoderate clicks?

As the duplicate charts beneath indicate, adjacent to 60% of Google searches effect successful zero clicks, portion somewhat much than 40% effect successful a click.

Image from Sparktoro, September 2024

Of the searches that effect successful a click, astir 25-30% spell to platforms that Google owns, including YouTube, Google Images, Google Maps, and Google News. Meanwhile, the different 70% to 75% spell to a non-Google-owned, non-Google-ad-paying property.

For each 1,000 Google searches, lone 360 clicks successful the U.S. and conscionable 374 clicks successful Europe spell to the unfastened web.

That is wherefore you should usage integer analytics to measurement the interaction of visibility successful Google’s earthy oregon unpaid hunt results connected raising marque awareness.

How bash you bash that? As I mentioned successful No-Click Searches Require A New Way To Measure SEO Results, this contented mightiness beryllium comparatively caller for SEO specialists and managers, but it’s a long-standing situation for PR professionals.

In the precocious 1980s, I was the manager of firm communications astatine Lotus Development Corporation and astatine Ziff-Davis during the 1990s. Back then, I began utilizing surveys to measurement the interaction of publicity connected marque awareness.

Today, you tin usage a modified mentation of marque assistance surveys to measurement this KPI.

Brand assistance surveys inquire radical questions astir your marque and products – either earlier and aft your people assemblage has been exposed to a caller run oregon astatine regular intervals.

The questions tin assistance you recognize however your SEO efforts and different cross-channel programs are impacting your brand, including:

• Awareness.
• Consideration.
• Favorability.
• Purchase intent.

In different words, learning to usage integer analytics to measure, analyze, and construe information is importantly much invaluable to your vocation than conscionable utilizing the aforesaid aged web analytics metrics that SEO pros person been collecting and reporting for much than 20 years.

Digital Advertising

Next, I would urge learning much astir integer advertising, which includes pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

Digital ads tin look successful galore forms, including text, images, audio, and video, and tin beryllium recovered connected assorted platforms, specified arsenic hunt engines, societal media, and websites.

You’re astir apt sharing your keyword probe with colleagues successful your advertizing section oregon implicit astatine your advertisement agency. But that is conscionable the beforehand extremity of a longer process – you should larn much astir the mediate and backmost end, too.

For example, I had stake dollars to donuts that your colleagues successful advertizing are busy mounting up audiences successful Google Analytics 4, which lets them conception users successful ways that are important to your business.

By linking your GA4 relationship to Google Ads, they tin remarket to them.

Why does this correspond a strategical accidental for SEO pros?

Back successful December 2020, I wrote The Future Of SEO Lies In The ‘Messy Middle’ Of The Purchase Journey. I reported connected probe by Google’s Market Insights squad successful the UK, which found:

“People don’t marque decisions successful a neat, linear fashion.”

Between the infinitesimal they recognize they request oregon privation thing and the infinitesimal they marque a purchase, a batch happens.

The probe besides found:

“People look for accusation astir a category’s products and brands, and past measurement each the options.”

They spell done 2 antithetic intelligence modes successful the messy middle: exploration, which is an expansive activity, and evaluation, which is simply a reductive activity.

It concluded:

“Whatever a idiosyncratic is doing, crossed a immense array of online sources, specified arsenic hunt engines, societal media, and reappraisal sites, tin beryllium classified into 1 of these 2 intelligence modes.”

So, however bash SEO professionals harness this insight?

What if you started gathering “SEO audiences” successful GA4 to assistance radical successful the “messy middle” of their acquisition journey?

You could past stock your SEO audiences with your workfellow successful advertising, who could past make a remarketing run targeted astatine this circumstantial radical of users – and assistance them complete their acquisition journey.

For example, if your SEO programme builds an assemblage of 1,000 users who:

• Begin the checkout process, past your workfellow could usage Google Ads to inquire them to marque a purchase.
• Download a achromatic paper, past your workfellow could usage Google Ads to inquire them to implicit a registration form.
• Scroll to 90% of a blog station oregon article, past your workfellow could usage Google Ads to inquire them to subscribe to a newsletter.

SEJ’s State of SEO 2025 says the biggest obstruction to SEO occurrence successful the past 12 months was “budget and resources.” And that was followed by 2 different accepted barriers: “Google algorithm updates” and “competition successful SERPs.”

But if you excavation a small deeper, the 4th point connected the database of the biggest barriers to SEO occurrence was “alignment with different departments.”

So, ideate what would hap if the SEO and PPC radical started moving unneurotic to assistance radical successful the “messy middle” of their acquisition journey?

Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, And SEO

Speaking of alignment with different departments, SEO pros request to larn adjacent much than they already cognize astir contented selling and societal media marketing.

Why? Because these 3 disciplines often overlap, arsenic you tin spot successful the illustration below, which appears successful Digital Marketing Fundamentals: OMCP’s Official Guide to OMCA Certification. (Disclosure: I americium 1 of the co-authors.)

Image from author, September 2024

Overlapping responsibilities tin beryllium a discarded of clip and frustrating for teams. So, these thin to beryllium the archetypal things that companies and clients trim erstwhile they tighten their purse strings.

Ironically, somewhat overlapping roles tin amended workflow integration. This is due to the fact that each role’s activities interaction the adjacent process successful the workflow.

Alignment with different departments isn’t conscionable a mode to support your SEO fund and resources from being cut. It is besides a mode to flooded different barriers to SEO success, similar “Google algorithm updates” and “competition successful SERPs.”

Want an example?

Just work AI On Innovation: Analysis Of +546,000 AI Overviews.

The nonfiction by Kevin Indig dives into the latest information connected AI Overviews (AIO) to recognize domain visibility, citation trends, and effectual hunt strategies important for SEO success.

What does helium notice? The apical 3 astir cited domains successful AIOs are:

• YouTube.com.
• Wikipedia.com.
• LinkedIn.com.

What does helium wonder?

“The information that 2 societal networks, YouTube and LinkedIn, are successful the apical 3 astir cited domains raises the question of whether we tin power AIO answers with contented connected YouTube and LinkedIn much than our own.”

Indig besides notes that videos instrumentality much effort to nutrient than LinkedIn answers, but videos mightiness besides beryllium much defensible against copycats. So, “AIO-optimization strategies should see societal and video content.”

Let america ideate that you are the SEO manager astatine a Fortune 500 company. What would hap if your main selling serviceman (CMO) decided to make a task unit to make AIO-optimization strategies?

If the task unit included managers from the SEO, contented marketing, and societal media selling departments, past however apt is it that you would beryllium selected to caput up this team?

Unfortunately, your CMO has astir apt work The radical who ruined the internet, which was published successful The Verge connected Nov. 1, 2023.

Since then, SEJ’s State of SEO 2025 confirms that 46.3% of SEO professionals are “content goblins,” a word that the writer coined to picture radical “willing to eschew rules, morals, and bully sensation successful speech for eyeballs and mountains of cash.”

Another 25.2% of SEO pros are “alligator wrestlers,” different word coined by The Verge to picture the nexus spammers who privation radical to click connected “WATCH: 10-foot Gator Prepares to Maul Digital Marketers.”

And 19.6% were confused by these descriptions, which indicates that they don’t get retired of their silos precise often.

So, however bash you debar the stereotype that SEO pros are hustlers, portion simultaneously demonstrating that you person the education, expertise, and acquisition needed to pb an interdisciplinary team?

Yes, you could cram for the occupation interrogation by speechmaking 20 Confirmed Facts About YouTube’s Algorithm and LinkedIn Algorithm Change Could Promote Your Best Posts For Months.

But you’d astir apt amended your chances of getting the caller presumption by besides reading:

• A Beginner’s Guide To YouTube Marketing.
• Content Marketing: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide.
• Consumer Usage Of Social Media Platforms Is Shifting (Again).
• How To Dominate Social Media Marketing: A Complete Strategy Guide.

In different words, the much you cognize astir contented selling and societal media marketing, the much apt it is that you volition beryllium chosen to caput up a task unit to make AIO-optimization strategies.

And moving collaboratively with different departments to leverage YouTube, LinkedIn, and cross-channel strategies volition besides summation your likelihood of getting promoted successful the foreseeable future.

Digital Marketing Strategy

But erstwhile you ascent the firm ladder, don’t beryllium amazed if your adjacent occupation rubric doesn’t see the word “search motor optimization” oregon “SEO.”

Back successful November 2020, I noticed that determination were very fewer vice presidents of hunt motor optimization. And backmost then, I wondered what SEO managers inactive needed to larn to go a VP of SEO.

In February 2024, Adam Audette provided an update successful a station titled, The Demise of the VP of SEO Role. He noticed:

“Over the past 18 months determination has been a marked diminution successful the occupation marketplace for elder SEO enactment roles crossed in-house and bureau landscapes, and this inclination is persisting.”

And helium wondered:

“Maybe companies don’t judge SEO by itself is capable anymore. Job seekers request SEO positive thing extra.”

As I mentioned earlier, the epoch of one-trick ponies is astir to end. What comes adjacent tin lone beryllium described utilizing Words of Estimative Probability (WEP), which are utilized by quality analysts successful analytic reports to convey the likelihood of a aboriginal lawsuit occurring.

So, whether you’re called the VP of marketing, CMO, oregon main maturation serviceman (CGO), the situation volition beryllium the same: Create palmy integer selling strategies erstwhile your planetary institution oregon apical marque is faced with unexpected opportunities oregon unanticipated threats successful the unforeseeable future.

What are the likelihood that you tin flooded that challenge?

You tin summation the likelihood of occurrence by speechmaking lawsuit studies and past asking yourself 2 questions:

• What bash I notice?
• What bash I wonder?

I utilized this attack erstwhile I wrote the section connected integer selling strategy successful the book, “Digital Marketing Fundamentals.” I shared 2 articles that I had written for Search Engine Journal:

• Kraft Heinz: Isn’t Anyone Going to Help That Poor Brand?
• Nostalgia Marketing & What We Can Learn From John Lewis Ads.

Now, learning lessons from others is simply a bully start, but you tin importantly amended your chances of occurrence by borrowing a large thought from my aged person and erstwhile colleague, Avinash Kaushik. He wrote an nonfiction titled, Stop Exceeding Expectations, Suck Less First.

He said that we should halt trying to “exceed the (often less-than-optimally informed) expectations of Wall Street Analysts” due to the fact that “this tendency to overachieve besides comes astatine a precise dense outgo – it drives sub-optimal behavior.”

Instead, helium recommended this “as the #1 extremity for your company: Suck less, each day.”

How does this incremental attack assistance a VP of marketing, CMO, oregon CGO execute their concern objectives?

In the aforesaid section connected integer selling strategy, I referenced a station successful Occam’s Razor by Kaushik titled, Digital Marketing And Analytics: Two Ladders For Magnificent Success.

Back successful December 2013, helium said:

“More often than not, magnificent occurrence results from executing a concern program that is rooted successful a beardown knowing of the scenery of possibilities, and a heavy self-awareness of concern capabilities. These concern plans volition incorporate a structured approach…”

Then, helium shared the Digital Marketing “Ladder of Awesomeness” below.

Image from Occam’s Razor by Kaushik, September 2024

Next, Kaushik shared the Digital Analytics “Ladder of Awesomeness” below, which outlines the KPIs for each step.

Image from Occam’s Razor by Kaushik, September 2024

Now, your duplicate ladders of awesomeness mightiness look a small antithetic than his due to the fact that this is 2024 – not 2013.

And some integer selling and integer analytics person evolved. But the step-by-step process that Kaushik outlined volition assistance you marque the hard choices that are the astir applicable for your institution oregon marque erstwhile it finds itself successful an unexpected, unanticipated, oregon unforeseeable position.

So, the archetypal measurement successful this caller epoch of SEO is processing integer selling strategies that assistance you debar the pitfalls, prehend the opportunities, and ascent the ladder of success.

In parallel, the 2nd measurement should beryllium learning however to measurement incrementality, the conversions that would not person occurred without selling influence.

Oh, it’s besides astute to commencement climbing these duplicate ladders of awesomeness arsenic rapidly arsenic you can.

Why? Because the timepiece is ticking.

According to Spencer Stuart’s astir caller CMO Tenure Study, Fortune 500 CMOs had an mean tenure of 4.2 years past year.

However, determination are differences betwixt divers types of companies.

CMOs astatine B2B companies thin to enactment successful their roles for an mean of 4.5 years; CMOs astatine B2C companies mean 4.0 years; CMOs astatine the apical 100 advertisers manus connected to their jobs for conscionable 3.1 years.

In the adjacent mates of years, a important percent of CMO jobs are going to unfastened suddenly. How apt is it that you’ll beryllium acceptable to beryllium interviewed for 1 of them?

Spencer Stuart besides noticed that 34% of Fortune 500 CMOs pb functions successful summation to marketing, specified arsenic communications. So, the “plus thing extra” inclination extends from the SEO manager level each the mode up to the CMO level.

The Age Of Awesomeness

Take an expanded presumption of selling leaders’ increasing purview and commencement climbing the ladder arsenic soon arsenic humanly possible.

The lone happening that’s near to bash is coin a unsocial word for the caller epoch we’re entering.

We could telephone it the “Age of Awesomeness” oregon the “Epoch of Twin Escalators.” But I’m unfastened to different suggestions.

What person you noticed, and what person you wondered?

More resources: 

• 20 Confirmed Facts About YouTube’s Algorithm
• Is AI Going To E-E-A-T Your Experience For Breakfast? The LinkedIn Example
• State Of SEO 2025

Featured Image: ImageFlow/Shutterstock