Search Everywhere Optimization: How to Organize SEO in Your Strategies

You've probably experienced this: the team makes a good post, works on the keyword, adjusts the title, revises the goal, publishes... and yet the feeling is that "SEO doesn't deliver like it used to".

But often the problem isn't that the content is bad. It's that the mind map is out of date.

Today, organic discovery happens in more places than traditional Google. It happens on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, news portals, Reddit, Google Maps, your website's internal search, Bing, DuckDuckGo and, increasingly, AI-ready answers such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google's own experiences, such as AI-generated overview s and AI Mode.

This scenario calls for a simple but profound change: stop treating SEO as "a channel" and start treating it as a discipline of presence and discovery in multiple environments.

This is where multi-channel discovery SEO comes in, sometimes referred to in the market as Search Everywhere.

What you'll see in the post

Before getting into how to organize an SEO strategy that works today, it's worth clarifying what exactly you're going to learn here.

The aim is to be practical, because the most common pain for those who lead marketing and content isn't a lack of theory, it's a lack of clarity in deciding what to prioritize.

• What is multichannel discovery SEO and why does the market call it Search Everywhere?
• How to organize an SEO strategy in 3 parts: strategy, execution and channels
  • What's part of the strategy: defining the audience, positioning and funnel (TAM, branding, growth, audience and funnel)
  • What goes into execution: how to build authority with content and website (topical authority, clusters, on-page, off-page and performance)
  • How to choose channels and formats: where to distribute and how to adapt (Google, social, maps, portals and AI)
• SEO for AI/LLM (GEO/AEO) and concrete practices for "citable" content
• A step-by-step approach in 7 stages to apply this structure without holding up the team
• An applied example, in mini-case format, so you can see how it works in practice

With this roadmap in hand, it's easier to connect content marketing, educational marketing, inbound marketing, lead capture and the sales funnel within a modern strategy, without relying on loose initiatives.

Multi-channel discovery SEO (often described as Search Everywhere) is a practical way of organizing organic discovery into three parts: strategy, execution and channels, including an essential block of AI/LLM SEO.

In practice, you first define the strategy (audience, positioning and objectives), then create the disciplined execution (authority by themes, clusters, on-page and off-page) and finally distribute and measure in the environments where people actually search today, including social networks, maps and AI responses.

The goal is not to "hack" algorithms, but to increase the likelihood of being found, understood, summarized and recommended consistently.

What is multichannel discovery SEO

Multichannel discovery SEO, often described as Search Everywhere, is a more realistic way of describing what has always been true, but has become impossible to ignore: people don't start and end their journey on Google alone.

They discover brands in videos, recommendations, comparisons, comments, maps, newsletters and direct responses, and even in Google's own reading of young people's local search behavior, when it cites that some of them go straight to TikTok or Instagram instead of using Google Search or Maps.

For educational marketing, this has enormous weight. A prospective student can search for "best college near me" on Maps, watch a YouTube video about the career, ask questions on TikTok, ask an AI for a comparison and only then go to the website and use the internal search to find "scholarships" and "tuition".

The point is not to be everywhere all the time, but to understand that SEO, as a discipline, needs to guide organic presence in these places, with the same logic: intention, clarity, authority and experience.

This ties in directly with what Google calls useful and reliable content, created for people, not to manipulate rankings.

The basis continues to be producing information that really helps the user, as reinforced by the Search Essentials guidelines and the people-first content orientation.

The difference is that now the "user" is not just the one who clicks on the result. They're also the ones who receive a summary and decide whether it's worth delving into.

How can you organize your SEO strategy into 3 parts (strategy, execution and channels)?

To avoid becoming a theory, SEO can be organized into 3 parts:

• Part 1: Strategy (the basis of the plan).
• Part 2: Execution (how to make it happen with discipline).
• Part 3: Channels (where discovery happens and how to adapt formats).

This structure is useful because it cuts out a common problem: teams jumping into "the trendy channel" before tackling the basics. When this happens, there is movement, but no consistency.

To make this organization more applicable, the table below translates each part into questions, deliverables and indicators.

The aim is not to create bureaucracy, but to make decisions easier, especially when there is pressure to capture leads and meet inbound sales targets.

Table: Overview of the 3-part SEO framework with questions, deliverables and metrics to guide decisions and priorities.

What the table shows, in essence, is that SEO is no longer just about "optimizing pages". It has become a decision-making system: first you define what you want to be, then you build authority, and only then you maximize discovery in the right places.

Part 1: strategy (audience, funnel, branding, growth and TAM)

The strategy part is where many educational institutions get lost out of anxiety. It's normal to want to jump straight into "SEO strategies" or "SEO for social media", but without a strategy, you're only multiplying the effort.

There are five pillars to this part of the strategy:

T.A.M. (Total Addressable Market)

TAM, in the context of educational marketing, helps answer whether you are targeting a large enough market and, above all, whether you are targeting the right one.

It's not just "how many people there are". It's "how many people with the profile, pain, capacity and timing to consider what I offer".

Branding strategy

Branding is what makes people recognize, trust and remember, directly affecting branded search.

If you want to be chosen, it's not enough to appear. You need to make sense.

Growth Strategy

Growth here is not synonymous with "hack". It's the engine of experimentation and prioritization. Which levers are most likely to impact enrollment, lead generation or retention? What is a quick win and what is long-term building?

Audience study (Persona)

To create and understand your audience is to better define your persona, so you can better imagine an intention, language, objections and real context.

The way a parent searches for "comprehensive school near me" is not the same as the way a professional searches for "recognized distance learning postgraduate course". The search changes, and the answer needs to change with it.

Sales funnel

Without a sales funnel, content marketing becomes a library with no direction. With a funnel, each piece of content has a role: discovery, consideration, decision and post-conversion.

This connects inbound marketing with the sales team and gives clarity to operate a marketing funnel and sales funnel in your educational institution without noise in the capture of leads.

If you only adjust this strategic base, you can already decide which topics to include, which formats make sense and which channels deserve energy.

Part 2: execution (topical authority, clusters, on-page, off-page and performance)

The execution part is the cog in the wheel. It's where you turn strategy into repeatable execution.

The main elements of this execution are:

• Topical Authority: your site stops being "a bunch of posts" and becomes a reference on a set of subjects.
• Topic Clusters: pillar + satellite content interconnected, with navigation logic and depth.
• On-page: structure, titles, headings, internal links, reading UX, scannability.
• Off-page: citations, PR, partnerships, link building, external reputation.
• Branded Search: strengthening brand demand with consistency and distribution.
• Content calendar: discipline and cadence to build repertoire.
• Experiments: testing formats, CTAs, angles, pages and updates.
• Performance management: measure, learn, adjust, cut what doesn't work.
• Market research: generate your own input to become a source and be quoted.
• Behavioral metrics: understanding what people do, not just what they click on.
• Semantic branding: consistency of terms, entities and narratives.
• Quick wins: high-impact improvements with little effort.
• Technical SEO and information architecture: the basis for crawling, indexing and experience.

Here, an important caution: tactics without management become a "to-do list". That's why it makes sense to anchor execution in simple routines, such as periodic cluster audits, updating content and reviewing performance by intention.

If you already publish and feel that "everything is in the air, but nothing is working", it's usually because you lack this tactical discipline: focus on themes, interconnection and continuous improvement.

Part 3: channels (where discovery happens)

The channels part is where organic multichannel discovery becomes visible. This is where you list the environments that generate organic discovery and define how to adapt formats for each one.

The list of channels in the briefing includes items such as:

Google Search, YouTube, AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Maps, Google Business Profile, marketplace, newsletter, Alexa/Siri, Bing, DuckDuckGo, internal site search, news portals, Facebook and referral.

This doesn't mean "doing it all". It means mapping out where discovery happens for your audience and adapting the form without losing the essence.

• On Google and Bing, structure and intent dominate.
• On YouTube, clarity and retention set the pace.
• On TikTok and Instagram, hooks and quick utility win.
• On Maps, trust, social proof and correct data win.
• In AI, those who respond well, with evidence and a "summarizable" structure win.

At this point, there's a delicate point: when the team realizes that the channel has changed, the tendency is to start again from scratch. This organization avoids this, because the logic of strategy and execution continues. You just change the way you distribute and package it.

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What AI changes in SEO (and where it plays into the strategy)

AI changes the way people consume content, which changes the emotional game for those who work with organic traffic. Many people feel they have lost control: fewer clicks, more ready-made answers, more automatic comparisons.

Google itself explains that fundamental SEO practices remain relevant for resources such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, and that there are no "special optimizations" required to appear in these environments.

Even so, it's worth reviewing the guidelines for AI features and your site and keeping the basics in order, with crawling, indexing and useful content.

At the same time, there is a practical reality: if the answer appears ready, the content that feeds that answer tends to be the clearest, most verifiable and well-structured content. It's not magic, it's readability for humans and machines.

It's also worth paying attention to a risk: using AI to scale worthless pages. Google's guidance is clear in saying that AI can help, but generating too many pages without adding utility can violate policies against content abuse at scale.

In other words: AI changes distribution, but it doesn't eliminate the basics. It rewards good content even more: specific, organized, honest and consistent.

Image: Illustration symbolizing search and content optimization (Search Everywhere Optimization).

SEO for AI/LLM (GEO/AEO): how to increase the chance of being cited

SEO for AI/LLM (also called SEO for LLM) is the set of practices that increase the chance of content being selected, summarized and cited by response mechanisms (AI) and generative experiences, in addition to traditional ranking.

Here's an important warning, because this is where many people slip up: you can't promise to "appear on ChatGPT" or "be cited by AI" as a guarantee.

What you can do is increase the probability, just as traditional SEO has never been a guarantee of first place, but rather an ongoing process.

Here's what changes in practice, as requested in the briefing.

• Responsive content: definitions, steps, lists, comparison, pros and cons.
• Scannable structure: clear H2 and H3, bullets, "what it is", "how it works", "when to use it" sections.
• Evidence and verifiability: data, examples, references and method where applicable.
• Authority by topic + consistency of entities: well-defined terms, consistent names, context.
• Canonical pages: pillar content that becomes a reference source and is updated periodically.
• Multichannel distribution: AI "pulls" from many sources; the brand needs to exist in the ecosystem.

Now let's translate this into concrete practices, the way a manager can put it into a calendar.

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How to structure content to be "citable"

Think of "citable" as "easy to understand and easy to summarize". It's not shallow writing, it's clear writing.

A format that tends to work well, especially at the top and middle of the funnel, is:

1. Start with a direct answer in the first paragraph.
2. Define terms in 1 to 2 sentences, without frills.
3. Break the reasoning into sections with H2 and H3 that sound like real questions.
4. Use lists and tables when the decision depends on comparison.
5. Include examples that take the reader away from the theory.
6. Finish with FAQs to anticipate objections and capture search variations.

This format speaks to human scannability logic and also to search and AI systems that identify answer blocks.

If you want to take an additional technical step, you can mark up questions and answers with structured data, and Google even has official documentation for FAQPage in structured data.

But there's an important point: FAQ rich results have been limited and, in practice, appear almost only on government sites and health sites, as detailed in the post on changes to FAQ rich results.

Even so, FAQ is still useful for organization, intent and readability, even when it doesn't become a rich result. When you link internally in these blocks, it's worth following good linking practices, especially with descriptive anchor text (no "click here").

How to turn clusters into answers and resources

Clusters are the meeting point between traditional SEO and LLM SEO. For the search engine, a cluster is depth. For AI, clusters are about context and consistency.

A practical way of thinking about it is:

• Pillar content answers the big question. E.g. "how the sales funnel works in educational marketing".
• Satellite content answers specific questions. E.g. "lead capture at the top", "lead qualification", "SEO for social networks", "link building for education", "editorial calendar".
• Internal links connect like a map, which helps tracking and aids understanding.
• Consistent entities avoid confusion: the same course, the same modality, the same name, the same concept.
• Regular updates keep the canonical page alive, preventing the pillar from becoming a museum piece.

Here it's worth reinforcing: creating canonical pages is not about "making definitive content forever". It's assuming that your site will have some hubs that you look after as a strategic asset, in the same way that you look after an important landing page.

And, in the context of AI, there's an extra theme that's starting to appear in more advanced organizations: crawler tracking and access control.

For example, OpenAI documents how bots like OAI-SearchBot and GPTBot work and how this can be managed in robots.txt.

This is not a "performance tactic", it's governance: deciding how your content can be accessed by different agents.

How to put together a practical SEO checklist for AI and multichannel discovery?

So that the checklist doesn't just become a pretty list, think of it as a routine. The aim is to create a light cycle of production, revision and distribution, without relying on "big projects" to get off the ground.

• Review and update pillar content at a set cadence (weekly or monthly, depending on volume).
• Add real question blocks to every strategic publication (FAQ at the end or questions throughout).
• Monitor where content appears: brand searches, long-tail queries, pages that already have impressions and can become quick wins.
• Validate external links and only reinforce solid sources.
• Review the cluster's internal links whenever a new satellite goes live.
• Check the technical basics: indexing, traceability, status and critical problems.

The checklist doesn't replace strategy, but it does support consistency. And consistency is what makes topical authority happen in practice.

How to apply multichannel discovery SEO in practice (7 steps)?

Below is a straightforward roadmap, designed for those who are at a beginner or intermediate level but need to operate efficiently. It also serves as a framework for aligning content, growth, paid media support and the sales team.

1. Map current discovery
   List where visits, leads and conversations come from: Google, social, maps, referral, newsletter, internal search. Even when attribution is imperfect, the map already reveals priorities.
   
   
2. Define the strategic base
   Write down, in a few lines: audience, main promise, differentiator, growth objective and funnel cut-off. Here, "digital marketing strategy" stops being generic and becomes a decision.
   
   
3. Choose 3 to 5 themes for authority
   These are the clusters that sustain the business. In educational marketing, common examples are: attracting students, sales funnel, content marketing, modalities, career, financing, quality and differentials.
   
   
4. Create canonical (pillar) and satellite pages
   For each topic, publish a pillar and a sequence of interlinked satellites. Think cadence, not perfection.
   
   
5. Apply the on-page layer with a focus on response
   Clear H2 and H3, definitions, steps, comparisons, examples, FAQ. The aim is to make it easy to read and easy to summarize.
   
   
6. Build distribution and off-page with intent
   This is where PR, partnerships, presence in communities, citations and link building come in. Not to "link hunt", but to be a real reference in places where your audience decides.
   
   
7. Do performance management and experiment
   Look at behavior, not just clicks: time, scrolling, conversion, lead quality, brand searches, cluster growth. Adjust title, structure, FAQ, internal links and formats.

This step-by-step approach gives predictability because it reduces the anxiety of "I need to be on every channel". You start with the base, build the engine and expand your presence.

How to apply multichannel discovery SEO? A practical example

Imagine an institution that wants to increase demand for a postgraduate course in School Management, with a focus on professionals who already work in the area and need to move up. The team already makes content, but lead capture fluctuates and traffic seems "unstable".

Strategy

The audience study showed two pain points: lack of time and fear of making the wrong investment. The funnel defines: top with doubts about career and management, middle with comparisons of modalities and workload, bottom with proof of credibility and criteria for choice.

Execution

The main cluster becomes "school management" with sub-themes: pedagogical leadership, basic legislation, people management, indicators, the coordinator's routine. The pillar answers "what is school management and how to progress in your career".

The satellites answer specific questions and interconnect with consistency. The routine includes updating the pillar and a monthly review of the cluster.

Channels

The pillar content is transformed into a post, a video script for YouTube, a carousel for LinkedIn and short cuts for Instagram and TikTok, respecting the language of each channel.

On Maps and Google Business Profile, the institution reviews information, encourages evaluations and maintains data consistency. In the newsletter, it creates a sequence of 4 emails with common questions.

SEO block for AI/LLM

Each piece of content starts with a direct answer, includes lists and mini comparisons and ends with real FAQs. The team avoids promises and reinforces verifiability with official sources when it makes sense.

The aim is to increase the chance of being chosen as a reference when someone asks an AI "which postgraduate course helps you become a pedagogical coordinator".

Notice what has changed: nobody "invented a new channel". The team organized the operation with a simple logic that connects intention, authority and distribution.

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What are the most common questions about Search Everywhere and SEO for AI?

What is Search Everywhere in SEO?

It's a market label for the logic of multichannel discovery, i.e. appearing with purpose where the public actually searches, compares and decides, not just on Google, as the Search Everywhere vision explains.

Is traditional SEO dead because of AI?

No. The basis remains useful, traceable and reliable content. What changes is how the content is consumed and how you need to structure it.

What is SEO for AI/LLM (GEO/AEO)?

It's a set of practices to increase the chance of your content being selected, summarized and cited by response mechanisms and generative experiments.

Can I guarantee that my brand will appear on ChatGPT?

No. What you can do is increase the likelihood with clarity, structure, evidence, consistency of themes and presence in the ecosystem.

Does a FAQ still help, even with Google's changes?

Yes, as an organizational format and intention. Even when it doesn't become a rich result, it helps reading, covering doubts and answering questions.

What comes first: technical SEO or content?

The two complement each other, but the strategic basis comes first: audience, funnel and strategy. Technical SEO ensures that the content can perform.

How do you choose channels in the operational layer?

By the behavior of your audience and the role of each channel in the funnel. It's not about being on all of them, it's about being where it makes sense.

What is topical authority and why does it matter?

It's the perception that you've mastered a topic through depth and consistency. It helps search engines and AIs understand that you are a reference.

What's the next step in applying multichannel discovery SEO?

Multichannel discovery SEO is less about "optimizing for Google" and more about building organic discovery in any environment where your audience searches, compares and decides.

This three-part organization helps because it brings order to chaos: first strategy, then consistent tactical execution, and only then operational expansion across channels, including AI.

If you want to turn this into editorial routine and inbound marketing operation more clearly, the most direct route is to organize content marketing as a system, not as isolated posts.