Serial software entrepreneur. Current founder & CEO of Switchbird business messaging automation platform. On a mission to keep local weird.
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I was the founder of an online review management platform in 2013 before Google My Business (GMB) was even a thing. When we started, search engine optimization (SEO) was a tough sell to local business owners. Its methods were mysterious; its outcomes were slow. Many business owners hesitated to invest in things they couldn’t easily see or understand.
Online reviews were different. A business feels immediate, acute benefit (or pain) from a customer review. Now the most significant single factor used by Google to rank local businesses in search results, reviews present many business owners with a “gateway drug” to SEO.
But search is evolving. Companies need to think about where Google — not to mention potential customers — will look for better signals to tell them if a business is relevant, high-quality and trustworthy.
I see one factor, in particular, becoming paramount: customer experience.
The Expanding Meaning Of “Organic”
It’s always better if a potential customer encounters your product or service organically, whether that’s in search results, a shared piece of content on social media or by word-of-mouth. In our industry, we often use the term “organic” to mean simply “non-paid.” But consumers and technology are so sophisticated, the real meaning should expand with the agricultural metaphor (i.e., “without the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides or other artificial agents”).
What “artificial agents”? Imagine if a friend recommends you try the new float spa that opened in town because they found the experience to be “a revelation.” That’s a powerful organic referral. But now imagine they offer to go with you, sign you up for a 3-month plan and get you a great discount. Suddenly you’re looking askance at them and wondering what, exactly, their motivation is.
“Organic” and “trustworthy” go hand-in-hand. Google knows that. So, what does it mean for Google to filter out artificial agents from its local business rankings? It means that eventually, those rankings will ignore manipulable sources of information like websites, GMB content and even customer reviews.
SEO Is ■■■■
My prediction might scare marketers and SEOs. Manipulable sources of information are the primary arena in which many of us operate and create competitive advantage. But my prediction is not a wild one. I’m just following the long trendline of a single, repeating pattern:
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Google uses various sources (e.g., content, location, links, reviews) to rank local businesses for relevance to a given search.
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We learn how to manipulate those sources to rank higher and in more searches.
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Google revises its algorithm to privilege sources that can’t be manipulated while devaluing those that can.
In other words, Google is constantly filtering out artificial agents from organic search rankings to yield more trustworthy results. So just like the keyword-stuffing practices of yore, the clever tactics SEOs use today to rank will eventually lose their potency, too. What will replace them?
Long Live SEO
Ideally, a searcher wants to find the best, vetted options for their needs. In Google’s pursuit of that lofty ideal, they will increasingly rely on incorruptible sources of data. I believe that we’ll see Google capturing and using more data gleaned from private channels like messaging and phone calls to rank businesses.
There are strong signs that Google is already looking at these channels:
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In 2019, Google abruptly removed SMS features from its products and started aggressively investing in its own business messaging product.
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The design of Google Business Messages includes baked-in customer satisfaction (CSAT) and merchant response (MRR) metrics as outlined in their docs. That suggests that Google will encourage and reward better customer experiences, constantly measuring businesses against a benchmark — and each other.
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New products like GMB Call History give Google visibility into hard-to-manipulate data points such as whether consumers are completing their calls to your business, whether you’re answering them, how long they last and so on.
So what, if anything, does SEO look like in a world where businesses are ranked on how they perform in private customer relationships?
Customer Experience Is the New SEO
Marketers and SEOs are an adaptable bunch. In the last 10 years, many of us evolved from seeing customer reviews as a customer service problem to seeing them as a marketing problem. I expect even more of the customer experience to become our “problem” in the near future. As new channels and technologies grow in importance, marketers and agencies are best equipped to help their own organizations and clients not only cope with but capitalize on the changes.
That fact is particularly relevant to emerging messaging channels like GMB messaging, Facebook Messenger and, of course, text messaging, since these channels can be readily instrumented with automation and AI.
Companies need to think about where Google — not to mention potential customers — will look for better signals to tell them if a business is relevant, high-quality and trustworthy.
Consumers increasingly expect to be able to communicate with brands and businesses whenever and wherever they want. But that doesn’t mean companies need to make staff available 24/7 or operate on every communication channel. Instead, we can take a hybrid approach by using automation to handle the most common inquiries on any channel to maintain a presence and maintain responsiveness. Then, drive more involved conversations to the channels we prefer.
For example, by automating answers to frequently asked questions, we can provide the consumer some immediate gratification and engage them before they move on to a competitor. Then by driving any unfinished conversation from a synchronous channel (e.g., voice, webchat) to an asynchronous one (e.g., SMS, email), we set an expectation that our human colleagues can meet by responding when available.
Conclusion
A decade ago, marketers and SEOs started to see the bigger picture emerge around customer reviews. Because reviews are public, they quickly became a part of every business’s digital footprint.
Increasingly, marketers and SEOs will need to focus on the private arena of customer experience and equip themselves and their clients to perform well — in search and otherwise.
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