Greg Jarboe's presentation of "The future of SEO in the UAE lies in the 'messy middle' of the purchase journey" to the New Media Academy on December 16, 2020.

1. The future of SEO in the UAE lies
in the ‘messy middle’ of the
purchase journey
Greg Jarboe
President and co-founder of SEO-PR
New Media Academy guest speaker
16 December 2020

2. I teach an 8-hour long virtual masterclass on SEO,
but here’s what you need to learn in under an hour
• Search reverses the classic model of
communication published in 1948.
• The old mass media model focused on:
“Who says what in which channel to
whom with what effect?”
• The new search engine model focuses on:
Who seeks what in which channel from
whom with what effect?”
• If you didn’t learn this at university,
then it’s not your fault.
• Most universities still don’t offer courses
on SEO, although they should.
• Here’s what you need to learn about
SEO that I can teach in under an hour.

3. In 1998, I realized that search engines reversed
Harold Lasswell’s classic model of communication
Harold Lasswell’s classic model of
communication via mass media (1948)
Greg Jarboe’s model of information
seeking via search engines (1998)
Source: Greg Jarboe, Search Engine Journal, “The future of SEO lies in the ‘messy middle’ of the purchase journey,” 16 December 2020

4. If you hire search engine optimizers, then here’s
what you need to know in order to manage them
• Who: Identify your target audiences.
• Seeks what: Use Google Trends to find
what they are searching for.
• In which channel: Focus on Google,
which is a verb as well as a noun.
• From whom: Google has more than
200 signals and many have over 50
variations within a single factor.
• With what effect: Use Google Surveys
or Google Forms as well as Google
Analytics to measure your results.
Source: Greg Jarboe, Search Engine Journal, “The future of SEO lies in the ‘messy middle’ of the purchase journey,” 16 December 2020

5. Your target audiences in the UAE and the rest of
the world (except China) are using Google.com
The UAE’s most-visited websites
(SimilarWeb) as of January 2020
The world’s most-visited websites
(SimilarWeb) as of October 2020
Sources: We Are Social and Hootsuite, Digital 2020, United Arab Emirates, January 2020, and Global October Snapshot Report, October 2020

6. To describe their target audiences, many marketers
create fictional characters that are called ‘personas’
• If you rely solely on demographics to
create your personas, then you can
miss 69% of your potential consumers.
• Demographics rarely tell the whole story.
• Search intent – what consumers are
looking for – is much more powerful.
• For example, consider video games.
• The data shows that only 31% of mobile
searchers for video games are young men
ages 18 to 34.
• Target demographically and you’d miss
69% of mobile users who are expressing
interest in buying the next big game.
Source: Think with Google, “How search enables people to create a unique path to purchase,” January 2019

7. And different intent-based personas have unique
consumer journeys across the video game category
Sita, 34, spent 68 days and 80+
touchpoints (19 searches and 3 videos)
Tom, 29, spent 28 days and 550+
touchpoints (14 searches and 4 videos)
Source: Think with Google, “How search enables people to create a unique path to purchase,” January 2019

8. For those willing to look beyond the demographic
stereotypes, the opportunities are immense
• Power of now: The longer you have to
wait for a product, the weaker the
proposition becomes.
• Social proof: Recommendations and
reviews from others can be very
persuasive.
• Authority bias: Being swayed by a
knowledgeable expert, authority on a
subject, or trusted information source.
• Power of free: A free gift with a
purchase, even if unrelated, can be a
powerful motivator.
Source: Alistair Rennie and Jonny Protheroe, Think with Google, “How people decide what to buy lies in the ‘messy middle’ of the purchase journey,” July 2020

9. Find what your target audiences in the UAE and
worldwide are searching for with Google Trends
• Consumer search behavior has
changed rapidly and unpredictably
during the coronavirus pandemic.
• That’s why conducting keyword research
is now more important than ever to
understand the latest shifts in consumer
search intent.
• I use several keyword research tools.
• But, the first tool that I want to teach you
how to use is Google Trends.
• Launched in May 2005, I use this tool
virtually every day to explain things that
go bump in the night.
Source: Google Trends, UAE, Search Interest in restaurants and COVID-19, 14 December 2020

10. Google Trends uses an anonymized sample of the
billions of searches that Google handles per day
• Google Trends provides access to a
largely unfiltered sample of actual
search requests made to Google.
• While only a sample of searches are used
in Google Trends, this is sufficient
because Google handles billions of
searches per day.
• It’s anonymized (no one is personally
identified), categorized (determining
the topic for a search query), and
aggregated (grouped together).
• This allows Google to display interest in a
particular topic from around the globe or
down to city-level geography.
Source: Google Trends, UAE, Search interest in Dubai Mall and Abu Dhabi Mall, 14 December 2020

11. Google Trends lets you compare search interest as
far back as 2004 and up to 36 hours before it’s used
Source: Google Trends, Worldwide, Search Interest in flights to Dubai and hotels in Dubai, 14 December 2020

12. Scroll down and you’ll see the interest by region
and the top related queries for your search term
Source: Google Trends, Worldwide, Search Interest in flights to Dubai and hotels in Dubai, 14 December 2020

13. Marketers often think of search as a lower-funnel
channel, but consumer journeys are more complex
• Marketers often think of search as a
lower-funnel channel, but consumer
journeys have become ever messier,
resembling a chaotic scavenger hunt.
• Elmo Lewis’ theoretical customer journey
from Awareness and Interest to Desire
and Action (AIDA) was created in 1898.
• William Townsend introduced the funnel
concept in 1924.
• But, these late 19th Century and early
20th Century models don’t adequately
explain 21st century behavior, which
features switchbacks, hairpin bends, and
dead ends.
Source: Alistair Rennie and Jonny Protheroe, Think with Google, “How people decide what to buy lies in the ‘messy middle’ of the purchase journey,” July 2020

14. Between the purchase trigger at the top and the
purchase itself at the bottom is the ‘messy middle’
• Google’s consumer insights team
observed several hundred hours of
shopping tasks, covering 310 different
journeys across 31 categories.
• In these tasks, shoppers were asked to
research a product for which they were
currently in-market.
• Journeys were recorded using screen
capture audio and video, while shoppers
explained what they were doing.
• Google’s consumer insights team
made an initial attempt at describing
what they’d seen on a Post-It Note.
Source: Alistair Rennie and Jonny Protheroe, Think with Google, “How people decide what to buy lies in the ‘messy middle’ of the purchase journey,” July 2020

15. Through the research, an updated decision-making
model began to take shape of the ‘messy middle’
• People look for information about a
category’s products and brands, and
then weigh all the options.
• This equates to two different mental
modes in the messy middle:
exploration, an expansive activity, and
evaluation, a reductive activity.
• Whatever a person is doing, across a
huge array of online sources, such as
search engines, social media, and
review sites, can be classified into one
of these two mental modes.
Source: Alistair Rennie and Jonny Protheroe, Think with Google, “How people decide what to buy lies in the ‘messy middle’ of the purchase journey,” July 2020

16. The consumer insights team used Google Trends
data to find real-world evidence of their model
• People use search to look for
information about a particular thing.
• But, because the amount of available
information is so vast, searches are often
modified with an additional word or
phrase that describes what the searcher
wants to know about the thing.
• Google’s consumer insights team looked
at seven main search modifiers: “ideas”,
“best”, “difference between”, “cheap”,
“deals”, “reviews”, and “discount codes”.
• They found some have a more expansive,
information-gathering intention, and
others are more reductive and clarifying.
Source: Alistair Rennie and Jonny Protheroe, Think with Google, “How people decide what to buy lies in the ‘messy middle’ of the purchase journey,” July 2020

17. Marketers can succeed in the messy middle by
providing the content that consumers are seeking
• Although the messy middle might seem a complicated place, it’s important to
remember that to consumers it just feels like normal shopping.
• So, the goal isn’t to force people to exit the loop shown in the model, but to provide them
with the information and reassurance they need to make a decision.
• Whether you’re a category giant or a challenger brand, the approach is the same:
• Ensure brand presence so your product or service is strategically front of mind while your
customers explore.
• Employ behavioral science principles intelligently and responsibly to make your proposition
compelling as consumers evaluate their options.
• Close the gap between trigger and purchase so your existing and potential customers spend
less time exposed to competitor brands.
• Build flexible, empowered teams who can work cross-functionally to avoid traditional
branding and performance silos that are likely to leave gaps in the messy middle.
Source: Alistair Rennie and Jonny Protheroe, Think with Google, “How people decide what to buy lies in the ‘messy middle’ of the purchase journey,” July 2020

18. But, Google has over 200 signals and many of them
have more than 50 variations within a single factor
• SEO may seem like alchemy to the
uninitiated, but there is a science to it.
• Search Engine Land’s “Periodic Table of
SEO Factors” arranges the 29 success
factors that are foundational elements
for creating a successful SEO strategy into
6 groups: Content, Architecture, HTML,
Trust, Links, and Users.
• On the upper right, you’ll also find 6
Toxins, which represent practices that
can harm your SEO efforts and even get
you penalized by the search engines.
• Below that, you’ll see 4 Emerging
Verticals that are growing in importance.
Source: Search Engine Land, “Periodic Table Of SEO Factors 2019”

19. Use Google’s new Grow My Store tool to evaluate
retail websites in our ever-changing environment
• It doesn’t conduct a comprehensive
SEO audit, but it does let you explore
rising industry trends and compare
your business to other retailers.
• For example, I entered the URL for the
Google Merchandise Store and saw
that the website’s score was 69%,
while industry’s score was 58%.
• My report added, “Your website is ticking
a lot of boxes when it comes to delivering
a great customer experience, but we do
have a few suggestions to bump it up to
‘Best in Class’.”
Source: Google, Grow My Store

20. Grow My Store analyzes your retail website and
offers tips to improve your customer experience
• Grow My Store assesses your
website’s customer experience and
gives you tips on how to improve.
• It generates personalized reports by
looking for keywords related to customer
experience topics within your website.
• If the tool can find these keywords within
10 pages of the URL you provide, then
you pass the relevant section.
• The tool currently supports Dutch,
English, French, German, Italian,
Spanish, Swedish and Turkish sites.
• More languages are in the pipeline.
Source: Google, Grow My Store, 15 December 2020

21. Use Google Surveys/Google Forms and Google
Analytics/Search Console to measure SEO results
Brand lift
Traffic Leads
Keyword research
My counter-intuitive model of
information seeking via search
engines enables you to measure
each step of the purchase journey.

22. I’ve used this counter-intuitive approach to SEO to
generate results for a wide variety of organizations
• $2.5 million in ticket sales over 14
months for Southwest Airlines.
• 450,000 unique visitors in 24 hours to
The Christian Science Monitor’s site.
• 36% increase in brand searches for
the Better Homes and Gardens site.
• 129,155 entries to the annual cover
photo contest for Parents magazine.
• Increase in brand lift, traffic, and leads
for a new online Master’s program
offered by Rutgers University.
Source: SEO-PR’s Digital Marketing Case Studies

23. For example, I used Google Surveys before and
after a campaign for Rutgers University last year
• I found that the percentage of
respondents who said they were
“familiar with” Rutgers had increased
from 13.8% pre-launch to 18.5% post-
launch.
• I also found that the percentage of
respondents who said they were “very
likely” to recommend Rutgers to a
friend or colleague who was
interested in getting an online
Master’s degree from Rutgers had
increased from 16.7% pre-launch to
19.0% post-launch.
Source: Greg Jarboe, Search Engine Journal, “The future of SEO lies in the ‘messy middle’ of the purchase journey,” 16 December 2020

24. I also used Google’s Campaign URL Builder tool to
track SEO and PR campaigns in Google Analytics
• Using Google’s Campaign URL Builder
tool, I found that:
• Website SEO generated 3% of the new
users, but 19% of the leads.
• Press release SEO generated 1% of the
new users, but 8% of the leads.
• LinkedIn ads generated 81% of the new
users, but 37% of the leads.
• Google Ads generated 11% of the new
users, but 18% of the leads.
• So, I used the same metrics for SEO,
Digital PR, and Digital Advertising –
including pay-per-click ads.
Source: Greg Jarboe, Search Engine Journal, “The future of SEO lies in the ‘messy middle’ of the purchase journey,” 16 December 2020

25. So, you now know what you need to know about
SEO in order to manage search engine optimizers
• Who: Identify your target audiences.
• Seeks what: Use Google Trends to find
what they are searching for.
• In which channel: Focus on Google,
which is a verb as well as a noun.
• From whom: Google has more than
200 signals and many have over 50
variations within a single factor.
• With what effect: Use Google Surveys
or Google Forms as well as Google
Analytics to measure your results.
Source: Greg Jarboe, Search Engine Journal, “The future of SEO lies in the ‘messy middle’ of the purchase journey,” 16 December 2020