{"id":3478,"date":"2023-10-05T10:01:41","date_gmt":"2023-10-05T14:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beomniscient.com\/?p=3478"},"modified":"2024-05-08T14:38:28","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T18:38:28","slug":"surround-sound-seo-amp-sge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beomniscient.com\/blog\/surround-sound-seo-amp-sge\/","title":{"rendered":"Field Notes #64: Surround Sound SEO & SGE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The ultimate aspiration of a mature marketing program is categorical ubiquity\u2014to become the obvious option, a synecdoche<\/a> representing all other options.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before reaching this peak, however, a brand must first enter the conversation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In SEO, we typically aim to rank our own pages for high-value keywords. This brings qualified traffic, and once visitors click through to our websites, we hope to convert them into an owned audience member or a product user.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is Surround Sound SEO? Background and Explanation <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While working on user acquisition growth at HubSpot, I stumbled upon an interesting iteration of traditional SEO. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, I noticed that certain content formats converted an order of magnitude higher than the rest (think \u201cbest [keyword] software\u201d). Next, I noticed that HubSpot received a lot of traffic that also converted very well from other websites that included us on their \u201cbest X\u201d lists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coupling that with common advertising wisdom, including the mere-exposure effect<\/a>, we came up with the Surround Sound SEO strategy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surround Sound SEO<\/a> seeks to monopolize the search engine results page for a high intent query. Instead of ranking one page, the goal is to be favorably mentioned on every single page, creating a surround sound effect.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take, for example, the keyword \u201cbest content marketing podcasts.\u201d This very likely represents an exploratory search, someone looking for a bunch of recommendations for new podcasts to try out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s like someone asking for a recommendation from a group of trusted friends at a proverbial cocktail party. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image Source<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If one person mentions a given product, you might check it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image Source<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what if everyone recommends a product?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image Source<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The likelihood you check out that product goes up immensely, especially if truly trusted sources recommend it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image Source<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the gist of the Surround Sound Strategy. It\u2019s a complex intertwining of SEO, content marketing, product marketing, brand marketing, and digital PR. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even ignoring keyword difficulty, search volume, etc. you can see from a common sense perspective that having trusted sources recommend you, everywhere, is a good thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, let\u2019s consider how this plays into a world increasingly influenced by generative AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surround Sound SEO, Generative AI, and Next Moves<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Much of this section involves conjecture, but just to get this out of the way: Surround Sound SEO already influences your inclusion in Google\u2019s featured snippets:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The inclusion here seems to be fairly straightforward: scraping top results for the search query, finding commonalities, and surfacing these commonalities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Google SGE is experimental (as they clearly state):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We don\u2019t know, necessarily, what data points they\u2019re using to form AI summaries and answers, nor how these data points are weighted or communicated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the data has to come from somewhere, and it\u2019s very likely that inclusion in the AI-powered overview will also depend on ubiquity on search results related to the query as well as the weighted importance of the source (note, again, this is conjecture on my part). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can assume, also, that AI-powered overviews will become better and more accurate over time, an increasingly common starting point of the search journey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, unlike the Surround Sound SEO we ran at HubSpot, which one could \u201chack\u201d somewhat easily using tactics like parasite SEO<\/a>, high velocity link building, and content partnerships, I\u2019m betting that AI-powered answers will have a higher barrier to entry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Essentially, SEO in and of itself will be necessary but no longer sufficient. How your brand is spoken about in the news (PR and Digital PR), how you\u2019re categorized on review sites<\/a> and the quantity and quality of your reviews (customer marketing), how you\u2019re spoken about naturally on social media and forums like Reddit (social media, community), and even your owned entities like the messaging on your website (product marketing and brand) will likely play a factor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, all of this is speculative, but it\u2019s based on my past efforts scaling Surround Sound SEO at HubSpot (as well as with a handful of clients) and also reflects early experiments we\u2019re working on at Omniscient optimizing for AI-powered answers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But this should be good news to many: all of the above is hard to fake. It means the future of SEO is less likely to lean on \u201ccheck the box\u201d activities like stuffing a certain density of \u201cLSI keywords\u201d into a blog post or building 12 links per month, and it will lean more on meaningful business activities like: <\/p>\n\n\n\n