The digital landscape is changing faster than ever. The way customers find products online has moved beyond the traditional Google search. Social media, AI chatbots, and generative search engines are reshaping the customer experience. To stay ahead, retailers need to evolve their approach from Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to Search Experience Optimisation (SXO), where they consider the entire search experience landscape as one complete picture, as opposed to addressing them as individual silos. 

Following our recent webinar with Schuh, we’ve compiled the five key actions you can take as an e-Commerce business to ensure you’re keeping up with the changes and that your products remain in front of customers when they express a want or need. 

Understand how you perform across the entire Search Experience landscape. 

To thrive in this ever-evolving world of search, you must think beyond the traditional links of search engine results pages (SERPs). The customer journey continues to get more complex, and instead of heading to Google in a time of need, customers now discover products across various channels, including: 

• Social Media Platforms: TikTok and YouTube are powerful discovery tools, and different generations prefer different platforms. Do you know where your customers are?
• AI Chatbots: ChatGPT and similar AI chatbots are becoming a go-to source for research, information, and (increasingly) product recommendations.
• Generative Search Engines: Bing and other search engines leverage AI to provide direct answers and comprehensive overviews.

By mapping your entire search experience landscape, from the point your audience thinks about your product to the end point of purchase, you can quickly identify potential roadblocks and understand where customers may experience friction in their journey or even drop off. Furthermore, it allows you to ensure a unified customer experience, providing your buyers with a consistent and positive experience throughout. 

Use your brand to tell a coherent story about who you are and who you’re for.

Understanding how your brand authority sends broader signals to and from the wider web presents opportunities as these AI systems evolve. Brands prioritising storytelling will find the most opportunities in this new search landscape. Google has long emphasised ‘trustworthiness’, with it being a crucial factor in their E-E-A-T framework (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), and now large language models (LLMs) are looking beyond individual pages to assess a brands authority, and instead gathering an overall picture from a variety of platforms. 

Back in the day, we used NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) to ensure your brand was as visible as possible online. Now, you need to showcase more of who your brand is across every platform. When it comes to content, it’s crucial to create pieces that reflect your values and expertise – demonstrate the values you champion which resonate with your target audience, whether it’s commitment to ethical practices, sustainability, or knowledge on a niche area. But most importantly, go beyond talking the talk, walk the walk too. Genuine actions and commitment to your values are crucial for building trust with your customers and search engines. 

Answer the questions your audience seeks, and be direct and purposeful in your response.

As discussed in our previous blog, search engines are evolving into answer engines, prioritising direct and comprehensive responses to user queries. Optimising content for these new features, such as AI overviews, is worth understanding and deploying if you want to be featured. 

It’s crucial to answer questions in your content as clearly and directly as possible. Place essential information upfront in your content, preferably in the first paragraph, as this is often where the Answer Engines look for content that aligns with their recommendations. 

Don’t place big bets; experiment often and monitor outcomes. AI Overviews are still in the early stages of their evolution, so explore how they work best for your site and test strategies to optimise your chances of showing up. Continuous testing is essential to stay ahead of (or at least up to date with) the changing landscape. As newer products become available (like ChatGPT Search), look for ways to increase visibility in more places. 

Ensure your site provides the data (SCHEMA, GMC) you need to support your and your customers’ missions. 

The new AI systems are better than ever at understanding context and intent. They can recognise where your customers are in their purchase journeys and tailor the information they give to be more useful in every moment. This means that the number of different questions and variables they can consider starts to multiply exponentially. Optimising for every single one is a major challenge, but this is where your structured data can begin to play a much bigger role. 

You need to make sure the data encompasses your product variables, support services, upselling and cross-selling opportunities, and customer reviews in a standardised format. The easier it is for systems to use your information in their responses, the better your chance of visibility in relevant responses.

Know what your audience cares about and where they are; focus efforts and optimise accordingly.

Staying on top of emerging micro-trends is key to giving your products the best chance of being chosen. These tools can quickly identify what’s being spoken about on platforms like TikTok so that you can adapt your search strategy, purchasing experience, and even product design accordingly. 

Furthermore, social listening tools can enrich product information, providing relevant tags and attributes to implement via your Product Information Management (PIM) systems. This makes your products more discoverable by your customers.

Getting comfortable with the tools available and the data they provide can elevate your search strategy and user experience on your website, ensuring you appear in the right places with the right products and provide a seamless experience for customers when they’re ready to buy. 

In summary.

Ultimately, all your efforts should be directed towards creating a positive and seamless customer experience. You can build trust and loyalty and drive conversions by providing valuable content and answering questions.

Focus on: 

• Prioritising clear and concise communication, using language that resonates with your target audience and avoids jargon. 
• Personalising the experience using the data that is available to you to tailor content and product recommendations. 
• Making your products easy to find and the purchasing process seamless with a streamlined website navigation and a user-friendly checkout process.

The future of search is about understanding and meeting your customers’ needs. By embracing a holistic approach to SXO, leveraging AI, and continuously adapting to the evolving landscape, you can ensure your brand remains visible, relevant, and successful.