Google Doesn't Own Search Anymore

Google Doesn't Own Search Anymore

I used to flip through the Argos catalogue as a kid, circling toys I wanted in thick marker.

The whole process took weeks. Browse the catalogue. Build desire. Wait for the trip to the store. Hope the item was in stock. Order it. Come back the following week to collect it.

That customer journey feels ancient now.

But here's what most marketers haven't realised: the Google-centric SEO playbook is becoming just as outdated as that catalogue.

The Discovery Explosion

Seventy-six per cent of customers now use social media at some point during their buying cycle.

Between 30% and 70% of people use LLMs depending on their search query. The range varies wildly based on what they're looking for and which niche they're exploring.

These two factors alone have completely fractured the user journey.

Traditional SEO thinking focuses on those blue links in Google. Rank higher. Get more clicks. Drive conversions.

That model is dying.

True search campaigns now need to think holistically. Social media matters. Brand presence matters. Multiple platforms matter.

We should almost ignore those blue links because while they're still useful, success now lives in cumulative traffic and total conversions across every touchpoint.

TikTok Is the New Google

Any brand thinking of search solely as a Google function is naive.

The data backs this up. TikTok search has exploded, with 64% of Gen Z now using the platform as their primary search engine for certain queries.

Think about what that means.

A generation of buyers isn't starting their journey on Google at all. They're watching short videos, reading comments, checking creator recommendations.

Daniel Priestley's book Oversubscribed reveals something staggering: customers need to consume seven hours of content across eleven separate touchpoints on four different platforms just to notice your brand.

Seven hours.

Most companies in the UK and America don't have anywhere close to seven hours of content online. They're leaving massive amounts of money on the table because they're not thinking about how customers actually want to be reached.

SEO as the Central Strategy

I believe SEO should become the glue that binds all marketing together.

Not SEO as "rank on Google." SEO as the central data-driven strategy that informs everything else.

SEO teams excel at gap analysis. They understand where opportunities exist in the market. They know what people are searching for and what language they're using.

That intelligence should flow to social teams, paid media teams, PR teams, brand teams, and developers.

At 21 Degrees, we're actively removing department silos. We're building centralised marketing teams with specialists who understand the nuances of each platform but work from shared strategic insights.

Developers build the pages. Social experts know the subtle differences between content that works on TikTok versus LinkedIn versus Instagram. AI helps us push out the volume needed to hit different target markets.

The human sets the strategy. AI handles the grunt work.

The AI Multiplication Effect

I judge all our AI usage by three criteria: Does it increase volume? Does it improve quality? Does it eliminate boring work that customers don't want to pay for?

The human element remains critical. I'm good at connecting dots between random data sets that don't seem related. Once I formulate a marketing strategy from those connections, AI creates the bridge to inform the rest of the team.

We used to talk about A/B testing in paid media.

Now we're running ABCDEFG testing. We're targeting small audience niches with subtle content variations to see what resonates best.

Brand teams use tools like Google Gemini with strict rules and brand guidelines to maintain consistency across all these variations. Social teams tweak content for each platform's unique audience.

You can't just create a TikTok video and push it to LinkedIn and Instagram. The audiences live differently on each platform.

The Metrics That Actually Matter

Conversion value and ROI have always been the most important metrics in SEO.

That hasn't changed. If anything, we should double down on revenue as the primary measure of success.

What has changed is how we track the path to that revenue.

Clicks and click-through rates matter less now. Google's AI Overviews have caused organic click-through rates to drop 61%, from 1.76% to just 0.61%.

Your customers might get their answers from an AI summary, go away for a week, then convert through direct traffic.

Or they discover you on TikTok, research you via ChatGPT, see social proof on Instagram, and buy a week later without ever clicking a traditional search result.

If you see a 10% to 50% increase in revenue from this holistic approach, but it's spread across social, direct traffic, and untrackable channels, that's a roaring success.

The tracking is harder. We're in a junior phase right now, measuring LLM traffic by how often you appear in query responses.

It's not robust enough yet.

I expect the big players like Adobe and Semrush will solve this. Once someone figures out how to make sophisticated attribution accessible to smaller brands, we'll all benefit.

The Next Twenty Years

I believe LLMs will almost entirely replace traditional Google search.

In twenty years, we'll look back at the current search results page and laugh, the same way we now look back at Ask Jeeves.

The ability to be recognized by an LLM will fall squarely into the SEO department's remit, even though the siloed approach to marketing will be dead by then.

Google Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT are rising fast. Advertising will evolve with them. New social platforms will emerge.

The question is how fast the marketing mix adapts.

I'm also fascinated by what happens to traditional media like TV and radio. Will they get baked into this new journey? Podcasts already let us reach incredibly niche audiences with granular content.

Where to Start

If you're a mid-sized company recognising you need to shift beyond Google-only SEO, here's your first step.

Analyse what your individual teams are already doing.

If different teams are creating content without a centrally aligned strategy, that's your first red flag. Getting those teams aligned to a unified strategy is critical.

Start with keyword research. It gives you centralised data and insights into what people are actually searching for.

Then quickly move to audience profiling. Who are your customers? What's your brand voice? Where do they consume content?

Remember: you need seven hours of content just to be noticed.

That content can be videos, face-to-face meetings, public speaking events, blogs, newspaper articles, or witty social media posts. How you apply your brand to different channels matters more than the format.

It all starts with knowing who your customers are.

The Overlooked Shift

Most companies are still thinking audience-first.

They're missing something more fundamental: the evolving role of website copy in a post-LLM world.

When social commerce shows 67% of U.S. consumers making purchases through social media monthly, and AI summaries answer questions without sending traffic to your site, what's your website actually for?

Communities will value different types of content. The web is changing faster than most realise.

Your website might not be the destination anymore.

It might just be one touchpoint among many, and possibly not even the most important one.

The brands that figure this out first will own the next decade of search.