Sushil Kumar

The new fact is that Search is not what it used to be. five years ago, winning search meant ranking #1 for a handful of keywords and watching the traffic roll in. Today, search is a multi-headed beast: snippets, AI-overviews, video panels, maps, in-SERP experiences, and increasingly smart ad placements. If you still treat “SEO” and “Paid Search” as two separate practices, siloed chores, you’re leaving attention and revenue on the table.

I’ve been doing search marketing for 20+ years. I’ve seen how Google, Bing, and the whole search ecosystem shifted from a “10 blue search results” world to an ecosystem that answers more questions inside the results page itself. That change matters: in 2024 almost 60% of Google searches ended without a click to the open web because users either got answers in-SERP or changed queries. That forces search engine marketers to rethink objectives, metrics, and tactics across organic and paid channels.

In this blog post I am discussing practical, experience-driven facts you can use today. This post covering mindset shifts, organic tactics, paid tactics, measurement, and real examples you can copy. No fluff, just what works now?

1. Start with the right search objective: attention, not just clicks

Traditional KPIs i.e. rankings and raw organic clicks are still useful, but they’re incomplete.

The new primary objectives for organic search engine campaign:

• Answer-level ownership: being the source for people who read or screenshot an answer in the SERP (featured snippets, AI overviews, knowledge panels). That still builds trust and brand recognition even if clicks drop.
• Qualified conversions: leads, form submissions, purchases, calls—not just sessions.
• Cross-channel attribution: search that influences social, direct, and branded queries later.

Why this matters: Google’s dominance in search hasn’t disappeared; its market share remains dominant so playing for in-SERP visibility is vital whether or not clicks follow.

Action: Set leading and lagging KPIs. Leading: Featured snippet impressions, impressions in People Also Ask, brand query lift. Lagging: leads, revenue, LTV.

2. Organic search: answer-first content, structured for surfaces

Organic search today is a fight for surface presence (the way results are shown), not just for position.

Tactics that actually move the needle

1. Pick intent, then format
   • If the query is informational, create clear, scannable answers (TL;DR, step-by-step, FAQ). If it’s transactional, optimize landing pages for conversion.
   • Convert long blog posts into multiple surface-friendly assets: short FAQ snippets (for PAA), short videos (for video carousels), and an evergreen “summary” block that can be pulled into an AI overview.
2. Optimize for answer boxes and People Also Ask
   • Use the inverted-pyramid copy style: lead with a one-line answer, then expand. Use H2 questions that mirror user queries exactly.
   • Add schema: FAQ, HowTo, Product, Review schema—these still help surfaces understand your markup.
3. Create modular content for multi-surface use
   • Produce a long-form pillar and chop it into micro-assets: 60–90s videos, 300–500 word explainers, tweet-sized stats, and carousels. Platforms and Google love re-usable signals (your video thumbnail might become the video snippet in search).
4. Skyscraper + user value = repeatable wins
   • Improve on top-performing content by adding exclusive data, visuals, or tools. Case in point: when publishers use a research-backed upgrade (charts, downloads), organic traffic spikes dramatically. Practical SEO case studies show aggressive content upgrades can multiply traffic by several hundred percent when executed properly. Backlinko
5. Technical hygiene
   • Fast mobile-first pages, clear crawl paths, fewer blocking scripts, canonicalization, and server-side rendering (where appropriate).
   • Monitor Core Web Vitals and indexing errors weekly. Technical debt compounds and kills visibility faster than bad keywords.
6. Leverage video and short-form
   • Short-form video clips (under 60s) are now producing cross-platform search signals. Use transcripts and upload them with structured metadata. Create a short clip specifically answering a common question—these are often pulled into search video panels. Research shows short-form content characteristics have measurable impact on attention and conversions.

Quick content checklist

• One-line answer near the top
• H2s phrased as user questions
• FAQ schema + How to where applicable
• Transcripts and short videos
• Downloadable asset or tool to capture leads

3. Paid search: automation plus strategy, and not just “set and forget”

Paid search is more automated than ever (automation is powerful but only when it is observed and guided).

What’s changed
Google’s Performance Max and automation can drive massive growth—some advertisers have seen revenue increases of 50–75% after adopting PMAX but results vary and require data, structure, and signal feeding to work well. Performance Max is powerful for reach across Google properties but can cannibalize or underperform against well-tuned manual campaigns if not monitored carefully.

Actionable paid playbook

1. Structure by intent and funnel
   • Separate campaigns for Brand, Branded Competitors, Generic Search, Shopping, and Remarketing. Keep control over brand terms (they’re cheap and convert).
   • Use PMax for prospecting/catalog reach—but keep a search-only campaign for high-intent queries.
2. Feed the machine
   • Automation eats data. Provide high-quality assets: headlines, images, video, audience signals, conversion goals, and offline conversion imports.
   • Use first-party data: CRM lists, hashed emails, offline conversions. This improves signal matching in automated campaigns.
3. Control spend with smart bidding and guardrails
   • Use ROAS targets where possible, but set realistic floors and monitor week-to-week. Test Target CPA vs. Maximize Conversions in short A/B tests.
   • Use negative keywords and placement exclusions to prevent waste.
4. Use experiments and incrementality tests
   • Don’t assume a lift—run holdout tests, geo-splits, or dark-launch experiments to measure true incremental impact. PMax or automation often reallocates spend in ways that obscure cannibalization.
5. Cross-channel synergy
   • Use paid to feed organic: high-performing headlines, successful ad copy, or landing pages become organic content and vice versa.
   • Use search ads to capture early-stage intent and drive users into owned channels (email/CRM) for long-term LTV.
6. Benchmark and watch real metrics
   • Industry averages help orient strategy (CTR and CPC vary widely). Use your own historical performance, but keep an eye on CTR, conversion rate, Cost per Click (CPC), Cost per Acquisition (CPA), and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). Benchmarks shift—so compare quarter-to-quarter.

4. Measurement: move beyond last-click

If zero-click searches are rising and in-SERP answers are common, attribution must evolve.

What to measure

• Assisted conversions and view-through conversions across paid and organic.
• Lift in branded search (a surge in brand queries after content/ads is a strong success signal).
• SERP ownership metrics: featured snippet share, People Also Ask share, Knowledge Panel presence.
• Customer journey length: how many touch points before conversion? Understand long funnels.

Practical setups

• Import offline conversions to ad platforms and tie CRM events back to search campaigns.
• Use GA4 to model data-driven attribution and compare with last-click report both.
• Apply hold-out tests: run ads to a region and compare conversions against a matched control region to measure incrementality.

5. Experimentation & rapid learning cycles

What worked last year might not work this year. The winning teams run disciplined experiments.

Experiment cadence

• Weekly: small A/B tests on ad copy, headlines, or CTAs.
• Monthly: landing page variants or distinct audience segments.
• Quarterly: channel mix tests and incrementality experiments.

How to run a fast test

1. Define a single hypothesis.
2. Set a minimal but sufficient sample size and time window.
3. Pre-register the metric to avoid result-cherry picking.
4. Run, learn, and either scale or kill quickly.

6. People, process, and tools

Automation and AI are tools, not replacements.

Key roles/process

• T-shaped teams: analyst (measurement + tagging), content lead (creative + SEO), paid specialist (campaign + experiment), and product/ops stakeholder (to feed first-party data).
• Weekly standups that review top 3 metrics and experiments.
• Asset library: store high-performing headlines, images, scripts, and case notes.

Tools I use (examples)

• Google Search Console + Bing Webmaster for organic signals.
• GA4 + server-side tagging for accurate capture.
• Google Ads + clean first-party uploads for paid matching.
• A/B testing tool (Optimizely/VWO or simple redirects) for landing experiments.

7. A few real-world lessons

• Content upgrade + outreach: A B2B client repurposed a 3,000-word pillar into an interactive checklist + promoted it via niche newsletters and LinkedIn. Organic rankings rose inside 90 days and contact form conversions increased 3x. The lift came from focused intent matching and an asset people actually wanted to download.
• PMax with controls: An ecommerce brand saw revenue jump 76% after shifting to PMax—but only after they cleaned product feeds, added high-quality creative assets, and ran parallel search-only campaigns to protect high-intent terms. Without those guardrails, PMax can over-index low-value placements. InflowPureCars
• Skyscraper-style refresh: Updating existing high-traffic posts with new research, better visuals, and an improved CTA produced compounding gains in organic traffic (case studies in the field show many-times uplifts when the update is substantial). Backlinko

8. Tactical checklist you can implement this week

Organic

• Identify top 10 queries that send impressions but low clicks. Rewrite the intro to provide a one-line answer.
• Add FAQ schema to 3 high-value pages.
• Create 2 short videos (30–60s) answering the top two FAQ queries.

You might be interested in this blog post – Soft Skills That Are Critical for SEOs in 2025 and Beyond

Paid

• Audit campaigns: ensure brand terms are in a separate, high-priority campaign.
• Start a 4-week PMax test with strong assets and a conservative ROAS target; run a parallel search-only campaign for direct comparison.
• Upload 90 days of first-party conversions to Google Ads for better attribution.

Measurement

• Set up an incremental test (geo-split) for your highest-spend campaign.
• Enable enhanced conversions or server-side tagging to capture more accurate signals.

9. Final note on AI and the future of search

AI answers and in-SERP summaries will continue to grow. That doesn’t mean search is dead, it means your role expands: become the brand users trust when they see an answer, and make sure your content funnels that trust into owned channels (email, app engagement, product). Monitor changes but double down on fundamentals: intent-first content, speed, good UX, and data-driven paid testing. If you own the answer, you own the relationship and that survives formats.

More references to check –

• SparkToro Zero-Click Search Study (2024). SparkToro
• StatCounter search engine market share (2024–2025). StatCounter Global Stats
• Performance Max case studies & analysis (Inflow, Optmyzr). InflowOptmyzr Google Ads Optimization
• Google Ads benchmarks and CTR studies. WordStreamadvancedwebranking.com
• Backlinko skyscraper/SEO case study. Backlinko